Entries by Jenna

Our Kids are Reading Less and Scrolling More

Plus, Why It Matters   Getting lost in a good book played a crucial role in my childhood. I was a highly sensitive child who got in a lot of trouble at home. When I was sent to my room, reading de-escalated my anger. By immersing myself in the world of a fictional character for […]

Inside Out 2 and Our Identity in Christ

Disney’s Masterful Exposé of Riley’s Brain on Puberty Reminds Me that Emotional Regulation Can Be Hard for Adults, Too   by Jenna Kruse   It would be easy to chalk up Disney’s newest Pixar hit, Inside Out 2, as cinema therapy for those whose hormone siren just went off—it certainly normalizes teeth that haven’t yet […]

Motherhood and Car Rides: The Traveling Ministry

I recently shared in my monthly newsletter that parenting teens and parenting toddlers may not be as different as we think. When your kids were little and struggled to fall asleep, you grabbed the keys and drove around town to lure them into dreamland.   Recently, when one of my older kids was struggling with […]

How to Talk to Your Kids about End Times

You don’t have to have it all figured out to have a rich conversation with your kids   We’ve all seen what is happening in Israel and Gaza on the news. It’s heart-wrenching and brings up some big questions in our own adult minds. Anytime Israel is involved, we wonder about its greater significance in […]

Spiritual Takeaways: Disney’s Live Action The Little Mermaid

Like the “gadgets and gizmos” adorning Ariel’s underwater grotto, the moral and spiritual implications of Disney’s The Little Mermaid are equally plentiful.   Whenever Disney remakes a classic, we wonder if the entertainment giant will be able to do it justice. Will 2023’s The Little Mermaid have us falling in love with the story all […]

, ,

Foster Care: The Courage to Stay

How Investing in Others Creates Family   *This foster care journey was originally published in Becky Bereford’s Brave Women Series. You can access the full story on her website at beckyberesford.com.   Stay. That’s the word I got from God after receiving the publishing company acceptance letter—my first potential job in my field of study. […]

R2-D2 is My Superhero

The Quirky Star Wars Robot Teaches Us to Keep the Faith   My neighbor knows I love to find the gospel in a good movie. When she invited me to speak at her student ministry’s winter retreat, it wasn’t long before a text came through, “Hey do you think you could incorporate R2-D2 into one […]

How to Not Dread the Holidays

If you’re like me, you’ve already begun to sense that creeping-in feeling of those bittersweet holidays. Like an eight-legged arachnid that crawls its way onto the leg of your new fall jeans while you’re trying to enjoy a moment in nature, the holidays creep in, threatening to steal your joy, sanity, and what little you […]

Top 20 Gospel-Paralleling Disney Movie Quotes

20 Things Disney Characters Have Said that Parallel Biblical Principles   Who doesn’t love a good Disney movie? The animation is out of this world, the storytellers are the world’s greatest, and there is usually a moment toward the movie’s end that makes you work to choke back tears. Don’t worry—your secret’s safe with me. […]

Keeping the Faith in Big Decisions

One of the hardest things in the life of our faith is making big decisions. How do we keep the faith when the impact of our decision could be consequential? My friend and fellow writer, Sharla Hallett wrote the following guest post for Something Like Scales as an alternative takeaway of Paul’s Acts 9 “something […]