Parental Support

  As a child, I attended Camp Lylewood every year for church camp.  It was a glorious time of adventure and excitement as every church camp should be.  The boys’ cabins were on one side of the property, so as to separate boys from girls.  (Though this measure never stopped the boys from using a massive slingshot to launch water balloons at the girls).  Inside the cabins were rows of bunkbeds.  Inevitably, the underside of each upper bunk bore the name of some boy who had been there before.  Carved, etched, or drawn in the wood comprising the bedframe were names of boys who had enjoyed camp and who desired to let others know that they had been there and that they had left their mark on this place.  So, they proudly scrawled Tom, Danny, or John "was here." Genesis 2 is one of my favorite passages of Scripture.  In it we read how God "formed man out of the dust of the earth" (2:7).  The imagery here is that of God rolling up His sleeves a...

  Perhaps there are no two letters that change the relationship between parent and child more than those that form the word,  NO .  Up until a toddler learns this word, he or she appears to be such an angel.  Then, one day, that dreaded word touches his lips and the battle of wills between parent and child begins.  Yet, somewhere during our transition from childhood to adulthood we lose our ability to say, "NO."  We would all do well to embrace our inner toddler and utilize this word more.   This year has been a challenge for many, myself included.  Faced with the challenge of working from home while also attempting to maintain some semblance of a "normal" home life, I found that often the lines between family, work, and self-care were regularly blurred.  My responsibilities to my job, to my wife, to my son, and to myself all made demands upon my time and I felt myself being pulled in all directions.  My solution was simple: multi...

Aesop's fable The Fox and the Lion  portrays a fox who, over the course of several encounters, loses his fear of a lion.  The message of the fable is simple: familiarity breeds contempt.  The struggle to not take things for granted is one to which every person is subject.  At times this struggle may even spill over into the arena of the created world around us.  As we go through the hustle and bustle of our everyday lives, it is easy for the majesty of the world around us to fade into the background, but as the beauty around us blurs I wonder if our understanding of God suffers as well. Recently, my family and I took a road trip out west.  As we drove over the majestic Rockies, through colorful canyons, and around rich, red sandstone, I was overcome at the beauty of the world our God has created for us. As we drove, mountains standing majestically in the distance, I was reminded of the writings of the prophet Nahum, "The mountains quake before ...

The theme song for the year of 2020 should be Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive .  For all of you who just started singing it in your head, here's the link:  I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor .  Seriously though, 2020 has seen a pandemic, social unrest, a near collision with an asteroid, zombie fires (those are a thing??), murder hornets, re-emergence of cicadas, a Sahara dust cloud, tornadoes, earthquakes, broken dams, and skyrocketing unemployment and it's only July.  This will be a year to tell the grand kids as they sit wide-eyed listening to the struggles of the past.  Unfortunately, 2020 has also been a year for disappointment.  Seniors have lost out on graduations and senior proms, families have been forced to cancel long-awaited vacations, and kids have had their summer plans turned on their heads.  To say that 2020 has been hard to take in and process would be a huge understatement.  If ever there was a year to point to as proof of the need ...

Today I am burdened by the pain and hurt I see on display all around me.  Scrolling through my news feed, I see stories about people protesting, crying out against the pain and hurt they have experienced.  I read articles about those who are reeling at the loss of a loved one or the loss of a business.  There are stories about those who fear being infected by a deadly virus or who are grieving at a loss suffered because of it.  I see headlines about those who feel so alone that they chose to end their own lives to escape it.  My news feed is filled with the faces of people who are hurting, who are in pain, and who long for relief. The pain, featured so prominently on my the screen of my iphone, is the result of a single, pervasive disease that affects everyone and spares no one.  This disease is that of sin.  Ever since Adam and Eve took that fateful bite of fruit, the world has been writhing in pain (Rom. 8:22).  Sin has corrupted the earth and...

This quarantine has offered an extended period of self-reflection for me.  As such, I have found myself thinking a lot about my thought process and motivations.  During the course of this quarantine process, I have been confronted with the amount of value I glean from work and "doing."  I have struggled to sit still, relax, and be present in the moment.  I find myself anxiously thinking about what I could be doing and have had to work to intentionally push these thoughts out of my head and focus on enjoying and being present in the moment.  If I'm honest, I have a tendency to equate the amount of things I get done with the amount of value I have as an individual.  Thanks to my wife, my church family, and God I am learning this is not the case.  Nevertheless, it remains one of my continual struggles. As I have been contemplating my struggle between work and value, I found myself thinking about all the ways in which we as human beings garner value....

Tonight sleep eludes me.  I am tired, yet I cannot find the peaceful bliss of rest.  Mentally I calculate that if I go to sleep now I won't be too tired tomorrow, yet I am unable to fully relax.  I seem incapable of turning off my brain, despite my drowsiness.  A thousand questions loom on the edges of my consciousness; all beginning with the words, "What if..." "What if..."  Those two little words hold so much pent up emotion and anxiety.  They convey the very essence of uncertainty and concern.  Together, those words can cast doubt on every area of life and usher in sleepless nights and cold sweats.  Most of the time I ignore these two words shrugging them off while stating that, "It will all work out.  One step at a time."  Certainly, this is true.  Yet, there are times when the number of "What if's" become overwhelming.  It is during these times when sleeplessness emerges and restlessness sets in.  A few times in my ...