The Jones Family Chronicles

Somebody Else's Day

It is a short engagement and a small wedding, and there is a great deal to do. Allison has the binder open to somebody else's day, and this time she asks before she

The Binder

After a year of being told to wait, Brother Thompson asks Dad and Pastor Garrett one more time — and this time the answer is yes. Allison Jones, eleven years old and the

One Verse

Sister Johnson puts a bare paper tree on the classroom wall, and every verse a child learns by heart earns a leaf. Ana is fast — gloriously, effortlessly fast — and by th

The Prettiest Thing

Addison Jones knows that the detail is where the meaning lives. On art day in Sister Suarez's classroom she builds a paper street so lovely the whole class gathers t

Houston, We Have a Problem

Every Sunday the Pastor's family sits in the pew right in front of the Joneses — Pastor Garrett, Sister Garrett, and their littlest, Houston, who is just about Andy&

Enough

It is an ordinary week at the Jones house, which is to say it is a full one — and this time the story belongs to the one who holds it all together. The dishwasher quits o

The First Day

Summer is over, and the Jones children head into a new school year at Glendale Christian Academy — where, this year, the halls are full of family. Their aunts, aunt Jessi

Say It Soft

Of all the Jones children, Ava Grace speaks the least — and somehow says the most. For six years her family has treasured the way she can put the truest thing into the fe

The Seed and the Second Chair

Sister Beverly gives Ana a paper envelope of sunflower seeds, and Ana plants them along the fence with plans for blooms taller than Dad. Then she discovers there is nothi

Not in That Armor

Addison has to say her memory verse in front of the whole church on Sunday evening, and she has spent two weeks planning exactly what she will wear. The verse is not the

Born of the Water and Spirit

The welcome the Jones girls gave a lonely camper up in the pines has borne fruit: Abigale comes to church. She keeps coming back, too, drawn by something she cannot yet n

A Light in the Pines

School is out, and Dad, Allison, and Ana head up into the pines for Junior Camp — a week of cabins and campfires, of cold mornings and the smell of pancakes on the wind.

Be Still

It is summer, and Ana — the fastest, loudest, most perpetually-in-motion of the Jones children — cannot imagine a day worth slowing down for. But one ordinary evening, wo

The Best Seat in the Back

For the first time, the story turns to Dad. As the church prepares for a Homecoming Sunday—a visiting preacher, a packed service, and dinner on the grounds—it is Dad, the

Beautiful in Its Time

On a long summer evening, the Jones family welcomes Brother Thompson and Sister Beverly into their home for the first time as a courting couple. For Ana—who lives at full

What Andy Knows

On Monday morning, Papa had emergency eye surgery. By Thursday, the doctors say he is doing well — but the word emergency has been sitting in the Jones household all week

The Better Feeling

School is out, the days are long, and Mom has enrolled all four sisters in a summer art workshop at the community center — three mornings a week, brushes and color and so

The Long Middle

Allison Jones is eleven years old, which means she is old enough to know exactly where she doesn’t belong and not quite old enough to know where she does. When the church

For Such a Time as This

Addison Jones has an eye for beauty, a mind for detail, and a heart that takes things seriously — which may be exactly why, on the night after Sunday school taught the st

She Carries It Too

The Jones household runs because Rebecca runs it — quietly, faithfully, with warm meals and folded laundry and a steady hand on everything that needs one. But this week,