The Orchid Journal

(online photo) Continuing from yesterday, here are a few more ideas of how a couple without children can uniquely spend their time and resources. This is not to prove a childless couple's worth based on what they can DO, or to grapple for any excuse to legitimize their life, but to stir ideas in case you need some. 11. Adopt a family- find a single parent family or poor family in your area to bring food and gifts to on the holidays or during hard times. Example: One couple without children that I know bought Christmas lights and a tree for a single mother with two autistic children and took the time to decorate the family's house. 12. Move to another country to teach English together 13. Collect donations or hold a fundraising party to support your favorite charity 14. If you have them, invite your nieces/nephews over for a weekend of super fun aunt-uncle time (and so their parents can go on a date!) 15. Join a Clean Stream crew to clean up local waterways 16....

( stock photo from online of Gustav Klimt's painting "The Kiss" ) Lately I am struggling with finding my writing voice. I lost it completely like a seemingly irrevocable case of laryngitis a month or two ago. A part of me still refuses to give up hope that my desire to write is gone forever and that I will again feel a sense of purpose with writing. (If you know the Lord, please pray for me.) In the meantime, I have been contemplating the alternative life of purpose that a Childfree couple can have. Often we assume that a couples' purpose is solely in having and rearing children, but the Bible says that a married couple's purpose is to represent the love that Christ has for His Church. Whether you have children or not, your marriage will hopefully demonstrate to the world this godly love and as all Christians are called to do regardless of marital status or age, we are to love to the point of making disciples of all nations. Every couple I have ever me...