I have THREE, 3, dripping faucets at once. Two of them are showers so I'll have to turn the water off to the whole house to replace the stems. The grass needs mowing...again. (Stupid grass). A van to fix. Trees that need to come down and be cut up. I have to get a TV out of the attic to sell in the church yard sale this weekend. (Stupid TV!) All of this and more is on my Honey-Do list. That's on top of all the other responsibilities on my plate. Had to vent. What do you need to vent about?....
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This final week before Easter is a great time to remember the true reason for this Holiday. I was introduced to this cube by a great friend and pastor. I have used it and it's hard for people to take their eyes off of it. It helps us remember the reason for this special day. Below is a video of how it shares the Easter story. I hope it is helpful to you and gets you into the Easter spirit. There is so much to celebrate this week and so much for which we need to be thankful. God loves us more than we know, but not everyone experiences that love. The cube is an interesting way of explaining how we can begin to experience that love. For other ideas to get into the Easter spirit, check out this post from last year. This is a response to a provocative blog post by Serena DeGarmo on her A Wordy Woman's blog. The post definitely hits on an exceedingly important issue for our daughters and our parenting in the current culture. She has also written about the boy version of this issue. The approach Serena takes is controversial as seen in the comments. It is a quick, direct post. Single blog posts cannot adequately unpack the issue. With that stated, here are some possible places I would expand the discussion and get us as parents thinking intentionally about preparing our children for their sexual choices as teens and adults. The 1991 movie City Slickers with Billy Crystal is particularly funny for me this year. I will get to go on a cattle drive later in the year with my parents and siblings. Our various personalities and experience on horseback will make this vacation a comedy! ...or maybe a tragedy! In the movie, Mitch (Billy Crystal) and his two best friends go on a similar trip in an attempt to deal with their midlife crisis. (That is NOT my motivation for going!) They meet the rugged trail boss, Curly. He challenges Mitch to find that "one thing" he can center his life around. Curly, however, dies before revealing the "one thing!" There happens to be a guy going through midlife crisis in the Bible. He also wondered what the "one thing" was for him... What is a T.P.R.? It is a Termination of Parental Rights. It is what happens when a parent is unfit to care for a child and it becomes apparent their parental rights must cease so the child can find a new home. This allows the child to be adopted. If we believe parents who abandon their children are criminal, what does it say that our churches abandon newborn babes in Christ? They are often neglected to fend for themselves, to find their own spiritual food, and raise themselves. This is an eternal crime!... I am a father of four. The three still with us make me question if Jesus was wrong. He said, "Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." (Mt. 18:3) HE MUST HAVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT FOUR YEARS OLD OR YOUNGER! The three I live with are the most legalistic Pharisees I have ever known!! Was Jesus wrong?! He loves her. She is the woman of his dreams. They had been dating for a while and he felt it was time to pop the big question. He planned that special moment. He got everything in place, the restaurant, the romantic walk afterward along the river front; and in the very spot he planned with the perfect setting, he got down on one knee and asked her to be his wife. She said,.... If people even connect Christmas with Christ, it is often focused on the baby. The baby gives us the warm and fuzzies. We imagine a cute and most of all, clean mother and child. Perhaps we should sing more Justin Bieber, "Baby, baby, baby, Oh!" No! We should never sing more Bieber! But what if baby Jesus is not the actual focus of Scripture, not even in the birth narratives? Like the picture here, do we often apply our own cultural values to the biblical story instead of seeing the cultural values already at play in the biblical narrative. Art often shows this tendency throughout the centuries. But what if the birth narratives have a greater purpose than a baby? One of the struggles in adoption is connecting to your new children. As I have written before, the adoption process is easy compared to the living-together process. How do we connect? How do we build a healthy relationship? Honestly, many times our adopted children have felt like "neighborhood kids" who don't go home. The reason is that we don't have the history of experiences to have a strong relationship. Interestingly, I found insight recently where I least expected it... It is awesome to say that our son, Michael, asked Jesus to be his Lord and Savior this weekend! Like with Savanna, he is adopted again, this time into God's forever family! He told me on his own that he wanted to ask God into his life. When I asked him why he wanted this, he responded, "I remember all those stories of miracles Jesus did and how it helped people. But it also changed people's lives." I asked him what that meant for him. He responded, "Maybe it will change my life too." I asked him what it meant for God to be in his life. He responded, "I have to ask Him to be on the throne of my heart." .... |
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