The On-Fire Marriage Blog

Thoughtful conversations and practical wisdom on life, leadership, marriage, family, faith and purpose. Written to help you lead well, love deeply and live intentionally in every season.

Nathaniel Parsons 8/24/26 Nathaniel Parsons 8/24/26

The Formed and Forming Self

Part Three — Family, Work, and the Build That Outlasts You

Last week, the first domain: Love — the self that is loved before it loves anything in return. This week, two more. Family, where the build is handed forward. And Work, where the build meets the world.

Nathaniel Parsons 8/18/26 Nathaniel Parsons 8/18/26

The Beloved Self

Part Two — Love and the First Domain of the Relational Three

Last week, a ten-year-old opened an Apache helicopter kit and a father stood very quietly at the edge of a workbench. We landed on this: you were known before you were built. Now we look at where the build actually happens.

Nathaniel Parsons 8/10/26 Nathaniel Parsons 8/10/26

Birth of a Model Builder

Part One — The Apache, the Workbench, and a Father Who Watched

There is something almost mythological about turning ten years old when you are ten years old.

It is not merely a birthday. It is a threshold — a crossing over. You are no longer a single-digit child subject to the indignities of being called little. You are, by the irrefutable mathematics of the calendar, officially a double-digit human being. A grown-up. A force to be reckoned with.

At least, that is what I told myself on the morning of my tenth birthday. And I was completely certain of it.

Nathaniel Parsons 8/3/26 Nathaniel Parsons 8/3/26

Three Lessons from the Mound

Part Four: Three Lessons from the Mound

So let me bring us back to the diamond, and to the three lessons that were planted in me that week — lessons I did not fully understand until I became the father and the coach, the teacher and the mentor, that I was apparently destined to be.

Nathaniel Parsons 7/27/26 Nathaniel Parsons 7/27/26

The Story You Tell Yourself

Part Three: The Narrated Self and the Embodied Self

Last week we sat with the first domain — the self that God declared beloved before it had done a single thing worth loving.

This week, two more: the self you narrate, and the self you live in.

Nathaniel Parsons 7/6/26 Nathaniel Parsons 7/6/26

From the Mound to the Mirror

Part Two: The First Domain of Identity

Last week, an eight-year-old threw his first strike and felt like he was flying. Welcome back.

Now comes the part of the story that took me decades to understand.

Nathaniel Parsons 6/29/26 Nathaniel Parsons 6/29/26

Triumph of a Little Leaguer

Part One: The Assignment That Made My Stomach Drop

Last time, I promised you stories. I told you we would begin where I began — on a Little League pitcher’s mound, eight years old, about to learn something about who I was that would take me decades to understand. So pull up the chair.

Here is where it starts.