Canoe Race with a bad taste.*

 Canoe Race with a bad taste. The tweenage years were those of adventure for me. Oh there was plenty of angst and pre-teen trauma, but one of my favorite quests was competing in the Powell River Canoe race with my Boy Scout Troop. We practiced for a few months in lakes, ponds, even the scout master’s pool tied to the diving board. We learned how to paddle a canoe and not turn upside down. And we even learned what to do if we turned upside down. I don’t know who thought it would be a good idea to let a bunch of middle school boys race a few miles down the river after only practicing in calm water a few times, but I’m glad they did. With the exception of a few bumps, scrapes, and sore muscles it was a pretty smooth operation. Scout troops from all over the area had an assigned camping spot and each canoe had a slated start time. They put us in order fastest to slowest and started each canoe a couple of minutes apart. We were in the youngest/slowest group near the end. My canoe mate said he wanted to be the spotter in the front and I was in the back to steer. We navigated the river remembering to avoid the V’s pointing upstream in the current, made by water going around a rock.  And we pointed our canoes toward V’s in the current pointing down stream made by two rocks on either side. There were only a couple of places where the river moves somewhat fast and most of the canoers avoided ending up on the rocks or in the water. In my 12 year old mind, it may have looked like the falls from the movie, “A River Runs Through It,” not to be confused with another Brad Pitt classic, “Legends of the Fall,” that, contrary to the name, had no falls at all.  The Powell River was nowhere near that kind of rapids and yet it was an adventure I still remember with fond memories. I don’t think our troop won anything, but made the top 10 (out of 10). Oh and there was that unfortunate incident after the race where my scout troop raided the canoe filled with soft drinks and ice and absconded back to our campsite with all the cokes meant for the participants in the race. Though we were the troop that met at a fancy church in a relatively fancy part of town we were all easily swayed by one of our suburban hoodlums from an upscale neighborhood. We quickly became known as “that troop” (and may not have been invited back to the next year’s race).  I don’t know why we all shamelessly followed suit when this young man started grabbing more drinks than he could possibly drink and tossing them in his backpack and tent. He began downing them one after another. Then in his out of control sugar rush, he was shaking and wasting the diet drinks spraying them in the faces of the other scouts, even the adults who came to politely ask for us to put them back so that all could share them. The Bible says, “‘Stolen water is sweet; food eaten in secret is delicious!’, unfortunately it is a quote from the woman Solomon called “Folly,” who says these words to lure in “fools.”  I don’t know what lured us into this kind of folly that would leave a bad taste in people’s mouths during such a life giving and memorable outdoor adventure. Many leaders had invested so much of their time, energy and effort to give us a wonderful experience and life-long memories.   Maybe we were jealous of those who had practiced hard and won the races and in our prepubescent, yet-to-be-fully formed minds, this was our “rational” answer to make us not feel so embarrassed by our loss. Our total lack of gratitude, couth,  and grace actually embarrassed us more. 

Back in Jesus day, a marvelous life giving thing had happened. Jesus healed a man who was born blind. It was glorious, but quickly some men, jealous of Jesus, tried to take away the victory when they spoke against Him for healing on the Sabbath. They even said bad things about the man who was healed because he embarrassed them by continuing to give glory to Jesus for healing him.  Jesus reminds us that we can be life givers or we can be takers.  He says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”(John 10:10 NIV) When we bring life to others, we are acting like we belong to Jesus, but when we are taking from others, we are acting like the Evil One.  We needta remember, if we belong to Him, we act like Him and bring life to people even when we are embarrassed or feeling “less than.” 

Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all!

Are You a Spiritual Somnambulist?*

 Are you a spiritual somnambulist? When I was a boy, I would sometimes wake up in a different place than where I fell asleep. I usually ended up on a couch in the basement. My parents were still awake one night when I began to sleepwalk, so they decided not to wake me, but see what I would do. I walked right out the front door, climbed into the back seat of the car, locked all the doors (as was my habit before there were automatic locks) and rode to whatever dream destination I was going to. After a few minutes I unlocked my door, walked back into the house and went back to bed. My parents said I would often come ask them for a drink of water, while walking back and forth at the foot of their bed. I would not hold the glass, but would apparently drink it if they held it for me. I never recall waking up while sleepwalking, but often wondered how I woke up on the couch after being “tucked in” my own bed. Thank goodness I outgrew my somnambulism by high school. One lady from Massachusetts told Reader’s Digest she’s had many sleepwalking incidents as an adult. Apparently “she’s left the house and visited neighbors, kicked holes through doors, punched out windows, initiated arguments with her husband, and reported fictitious emergencies to the police—all while having utterly no idea of what she was doing or why, and no recollection upon waking.”

Apparently, the church at Ephesus had somehow become like somniloquists. They were walking around acting as if they were asleep with no recollection they had connected their lives with Christ. They were living like they were not His people. Paul reminds them, “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said: ‘Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.’ Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.” (Ephesians 5:8–17 NIV) Those in the early church in Ephesus, like us, used to belong to the world and the evil one, we were “darkness,” but now we belong to Jesus, we are “children of the light.” When Paul wrote this letter to the early church he knew that we would sometimes need to be reminded of how to act like our Jesus’ selves, living good, right, and truthful, God honoring lives… loving God and others well.

Hang in there people. God is glad to be with us. I’m praying for us all.

We Mayor or May Not Have Tried to Borrow a McDonaldland Playground Character.*

 We Mayor or may not have tried to borrow a McDonaldland playground character. In college, in my rebellion years, a group of friends and I decided we would give Mayor McCheese a new temporary home until his newly redesigned playground was completed at the Mickey Dee’s near campus. He was obviously bored in the parking lot while he waited for his playground to be rebuilt. So, a plan was hatched to relieve his ennui while his place at McCityhall was revamped. A friend, who happened to be a PK (Preacher’s Kid), was driving his dad’s car that night. We grabbed an old quilt and threw it on top of the shiny two door caprice classic that had a like new wax job, so it was slick as glass. The four of us carefully lifted the most McHonorable sir to the roof. He obviously liked the idea, he was smiling… kind of. When I asked about tie down straps, we had obviously not thought this thing through. One said, “you guys just hang out the window on each side and hold it, just like those people do with mattresses.” So, silly us, we did. We had made it out of the parking lot and turned onto the road with a giant downhill beside campus. About one third of the way down the hill, police lights and sirens came on. My PK friend, the driver, panicked for a moment and accelerated. With the increasing speed, the newly emancipated Mayor began to slide on the “hard shell finish” of the recently Turtle Waxed roof and was about to be ousted from his motorcade. I and my passenger side human-tie-down-strap began to be pulled out our windows by the less than aerodynamic, bulged eyed, top hatted, metallic beef, bun and cheese head. The metal bolts that would normally hold his Honor in place on the ground had found their way off the quilt and onto the paint job of the pastor’s car, leaving squiggled gashes of exposed metal on the top as we attempted to keep the McCityofficial from flying off onto the campus police cruiser quickly approaching behind us. Our driver finally came to his senses, deciding that we couldn’t outrun the police, especially with our statue on top and so he found a safe place beside the road to pull over. We climbed out of our windows expecting the worst. We were all “getting our story straight” in our minds… that we were only “borrowing” it to put behind our campus apartment for a few days. I was already rehearsing what I would say to my parents, who would have to drive 3 hours to come get me out of jail. The campus police officer climbed out of his cruiser and couldn’t talk because he was laughing so hard… saying something about the look on Mr. McCheese’s face as we sped down that hill. He walked up and laugh-slapped one of my friends on the shoulder so hard he almost fell into the ditch with the words, “you boys!” We didn’t know if this was a good sign or not. He had called the other campus police to come see what “these knuckleheads” had done. Fortunately, the PK knew this particular officer and shared that we were just bored and planned to bring this impeached McPublic official back in a day or two. The officer who continued to chuckle as he talked, said, “you boys take him right back up there now, and everybody can go back to campus…and y’all find something else to do with your time tonight.” He went back to his car chuckling and shaking his head. So, we took our McDonaldland friend back to his boring spot in the parking lot. My friend had “some ‘splainin’' to do to his dad about those four divots in his roof, but we were all relieved to sleep in our own beds rather than being in the lockup for kidnapping the Mayor. We noticed our next time through the drive thru that Mayor McCheese, Ronald, the Hamburgler, and Officer Big Mac were all incarcerated, securely chained and padlocked with a temporary fence around them until the playground was completed. But Mayor McCheese never felt so liberated as that night he took a ride on the wildside. Thankfully this was back before security cameras and cell phone cameras, so there is no record of these misguided shenanigans, and I would probably deny they ever happened.

Everyone in that car that night we took Mayor McCheese, had grown up in the church and claimed to be a Christian. There were lots of these times during my rebellion that I needed to be reminded that we don’t do those kinds of things.That "boredom" is not a free pass to act like a jerk. We were God’s kids, not kids of the Evil One, but we weren’t acting like it. The truth is I wasn’t listening, even if someone tried to remind me… sad, I know. God’s grace awaited me if I would just turn back to Him and quit acting like I didn’t belong to Him. Fortunately, I eventually repented. The apostle Paul had to keep reminding the early church Whose they were, the things they no longer did, but also who they now are. He says, “Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God. Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”(1 Corinthians 6:9–11) I still need to be reminded that I have been “made right” with God and that I am now in Christ and the way I honor His boundaries and treat His people are expected to be in keeping with Who belong to now. Let's keep acting like His people.

Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all!

Go Ahead And Jump! *

 On a recent trip back to my hometown of Knoxville, my mind returned to the day a highschool friend said,'' let's go cliff jumping.” We hopped in my ‘67 convertible Mustang and he gave directions as we wound around country roads to the jumping place. As I walked toward the edge and looked over, I was filled with simultaneous fear and exhilaration. The fear came from both the height and a traumatic experience in a diving class as a child, in which I did a painful back flop. Finally, it was time to take the leap. I had watched the old movies of people who were escaping their enemies jumping with reckless abandon from a cliff into a river in order to survive. But there were no enemies here, just the opportunity to experience an instant of Earth’s gravity’s tremendous 9.8 meters per second squared accelerational pull on my body until hitting water. Hitting water at that speed feels like concrete on impact if you hit flat footed, which, by the way, I did on the first jump. However, something in me wanted to do it again. So I did, but made sure I pointed my toes on entry! Twice more from 40 feet up! The adrenaline rush was addicting. Then we rode home, wet hair drying quickly in the summer heat, in my top down mustang, still tingling all over from the experience. I would like to say that was the last time I jumped from a high place into water, but it wasn’t. In spite of my father’s warnings I did not turn down other opportunities to feel the whoosh of air from the exhilarating speed and the sudden splash into the water. As a physician who had seen the unfortunate accidents that can occur, my father continued to warn me. As a boy, when I would do something silly because “everyone else was doing it,” my mother used to ask, “if everyone jumps off a bridge, are you going to do it too?” I guess the answer was “yes,” because in college, my cheerleader friends asked me to go jump off the Keowee Toxaway Bridge in South Carolina. So, I did. It was just as exhilarating.

I took a similar leap when I finally, after almost a decade of running from God, answered His call to ministry. I had many fears: fear of a boring life (it has been anything but boring), fear of disappointing God with my failure (I have failed many times and He has never abandoned me, though thankfully, He often corrects me), fear of perhaps not being able to provide for my family (He has always provided), fear of rejection by people (some have, but God has never rejected me) and the list of fears go on. However, the exhilaration of belonging to God and joining Him in what He is doing in the lives of His people is a blessed addiction. Jesus says in the sermon on the mount: “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.”(Luke 6:22–23 ESV) If you see God at work, jump in and join Him. Take that joyful leap. The thrill of belonging to and being of service to the God who spoke everything into existence is overwhelming. Being a part of His work in people’s lives is a great privilege. So, go ahead and jump!

Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all!

Words Flying Like Projectiles *

I spent part of my early teen years in Boy Scouts, camping, canoeing, scout meetings, tying knots, trying to learn the Scout law and oath… all the fun stuff. I wasn’t very good at getting merit badges. Our troop, on the whole, at that time, was not one that produced a lot of Eagle Scouts, but we sure had fun… It was as if we said, “we don’t need no stinkin’ badges,”  we just want to do what’s fun. (Kudos to all those who are diligent and dedicated enough to earn the honor of Eagle Scout) One particular campout, we of course hadn’t slept, we just played in the fire all night. The next day on the drive home, the troop stopped at a park to have lunch. There happened to be a large creek running through the park. So, after lunch we were all playing in the creek… it wasn’t long before someone threw a rock in and splashed water on another scout. AND then it was on! Rocks were flying into the water splashing the scouts on each side… teams were arbitrarily selected by whatever side of the creek you were on. This thing escalated quickly from harmless fun to an all out splash war. Sleep deprived teenaged boys first excitedly, then angrily retaliating, throwing harder and harder, grabbing bigger and bigger rocks. It was an all out frenetic fracus! Arm launched river rock projectiles were flying wildly everywhere! Adult leaders were trying to get a hold of the out of control donnybrook after they had initially passed it off as harmless fun. My friend bent down to grab another rock in front of me. I was focused on the scout target on the other side of the creek and the exact spot to throw the stone to splash him, so I didn’t notice where my friend was. Just as I released the rock, he stood up from grabbing his rock and WHAM, it hit him in the back of the head.  It really hurt him. I felt really bad. (I was also a little scared, I had heard the whole David and Goliath thing, I hoped I hadn’t killed him.) All the way home, he was hurting. Even worse, though he was exhausted, he couldn’t go to sleep, because the adult leaders didn’t want him to go to sleep with a concussion. He was angry too, he thought I had intentionally hit him with the rock. I felt bad enough that it was my rock in “the mountain creek melee” that had hit him, but I felt even worse that he thought I had hit him on purpose. His head and our friendship was injured. 

I have noticed in my own relationships that when fun, teasing words escalate into a full-fledged squabble, words can really do damage to healthy connection. I learned from a counselor friend that nothing good comes when word wars escalate verbally.  All helpful communication ends when we go into fight, flight or freeze mode.  Our brain chemicals shut down the thinking part of the brain and we become focused solely on winning. It becomes about instinctual survival of the fittest, which, by the way, leads to nothing good in relationships. Only hurt feelings, misunderstandings and destruction of connection happens. 

A seminary professor once told our class that words in early Hebrew society were like projectiles. Blessings that were said to you were received like blessed oil poured on your head running down to cover you. But curses, if they landed on you stuck like glue and did you harm.  He said people would physically try to dodge the curse words hurled at them from a rival, because the words had power to hurt you.  I still remember him quickly dropping to the floor to make the point, as if the curse was like a dodgeball covered in flypaper and he was dodging that curse by getting out of its path and letting the words fly above him, missing their target.  

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus wants his followers to know that conflict escalation is antithetical to His Way. He tells us to respond with blessings to those who throw curses at us.  He says, ““But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ lend to ‘sinners,’ expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” (Luke 6:27–36 NIV) Wow! … “children of the Most High.” We’re most like Jesus when we return blessing for cursing, rather than what comes natural to us - picking up the next bigger verbal rock and throwing it harder.  How many relationships could I have protected, even nurtured,  if I had not escalated a conflict with increasingly hurtful words? 

Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all! 

Pixie Sticks and Schadenfreude!*

 Hot Summer days spent by the pool with 50 other kids in embarrassingly small swimsuits… miles of Pixie Stix consumed six inches at a time from a paper straw, unless you had the supreme sugar rush inducing 21 inch Giant Pixie Stick from a plastic tube, or the cheapskate version of sweetened Koolade powder eaten right from the sleeve… giant dill pickles from a giant pickle jar… sunburn, sunscreen, and near sun stroke… semi-soaked, then sun dried towels that smelled of chlorine, sweat, pickle juice, and Pixie Stix… hair bleached by the Sun with a tint of green from the pool chemicals… the excitement of cheering on a team member in a close race, the thrill of victory and agony of defeat… of course, I’m describing Summer Swim Team. For many Summers of elementary school and pre-teen years my sister and I swam with neighborhood friends for the University of Tennessee Faculty Club, The Senator's Club, and for the Fountain City Lions Club swim teams. Every morning we headed to the pool to practice, grow stronger, and learn more about fast starts, flip turns and best ways to breath between strokes…if we were listening. Our parents worked the ribbon tables, stopwatches, and served as water-cat herders to get kids to the blocks for their events. They tirelessly spent hours and hours at the pool for practice and meets to watch us swim events that were typically less than 1 minute long. Many of us were mediocre athletes, but it kept us active, gave us a group to belong to, and friends to cheer on. I still have glad memories of time spent with friends around the pool. Swim is one of those team sports that is mostly competed individually, but scored as a team. We had to figure out how to compete against a clock, to get a faster time than our last swim, rather than considering others that we raced against as our “enemy.” Schadenfreude can come easy when we are competing… we may be glad when someone else has a bad race, so that we do better. We may even begin to hope for someone else to have a bad race so we can defeat them, and blue ribbons can become more important than good friendships.

The church can sometimes become a place where Schadenfreude can come easy too. We may think of our faith walk as a competition as opposed to a team sport. We can begin to think that because we may have more Bible knowledge, think we are morally better, or think we are outserving others, that we are superior to other people, and we can get a little feeling of satisfaction when others don’t know as much, or they mess up, or they don’t do as much as we do “for Jesus.” Apparently the early church was struggling with some of these things too and Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, had to remind them that belonging to Christ and each other is more important than being the best. He says, “ For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” (Romans 12:3–5) I am challenged to remember that Christ came for our victory in relationships. First, he came so we can have relationship with God the Father for all eternity. He also came to connect us in healthy ways with all those people He loves (everyone). Jesus didn’t come to make us a better version of ourselves or even better than others, He came to make us a new creation that acts like Him, connects with Him and loves people well. If we have been gifted in certain things, we hafta remember that our gifting is a tool to build up other people, not put them down, or humiliate them when they fail. Our world places value on the being the best, the fastest, and the strongest, because the world’s economy is based on the predatory model of “survival of the fittest,” exploiting the weaknesses of others for our own benefit. God’s self-sacrificial plan is a plan to rescue people, change their lives, protect them in their weakness, build them up, and love them forever and teach us to do the same.

Hang in there people! God is Glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all!

Does It Have Any Value?*

 When my kids were young, we tried to have a family adventure each week, like trips to a local attraction, the YMCA pool, fishing in the pond, or a family bike ride. We had our plates full: Anita had 4 preschoolers all day and I had the shepherding responsibilities of a mostly aging flock: 3 sermons a week, hospital visits several times a week, and a funeral or two every month. We had finally bought, collected and repaired enough bikes, and bike-baby seats for all 6 of us to ride on the Shelby Bottoms trails in East Nashville, including one bike that we had to recover from the creek after being stolen off the back porch of the parsonage. (East Nashville has since returned to its former glory, but at the time in the early 2000’s, it was still kind of the “hood,” with gang activity, a 90% high school dropout rate, and nefarious characters sometimes roaming the streets at night. When I first arrived as pastor, I wondered why there were bars on the parsonage windows, then a young man in the church told me my family needed to be aware of our surroundings, he had been shot in the church parking lot a few years before). After an hour of pumping tires and tightening chains, sliding handles back on handlebars, I was ready to load all the bikes on the bike hitch and put the bike trailer that would carry our picnic basket and cooler into the Minivan. Anita piled the helmets and kids inside, buckled car seats and we were ready to go. Once at the parking lot, which was less than a mile from the parsonage (there were no sidewalks to ride from the house), we were quite the spectacle apparently. People stared as the kids seemed to keep piling out of the van like a VW Bug stuffed with clowns at the circus. We sunscreened, sunglassed, and helmeted all the kids, put two on bikes and two in bike-baby seats, attached the trailer to my bike with our picnic basket inside and we were ready to roll. Our son, the oldest child, was eager to go fast and explore, so we had to signal for him to come back closer to us with a loud curled-lip-whistle when he was about to get out of sight, which, to this day he recalls, was frustrating to his budding adventurous spirit. He did seem to understand we needed to stick together as a family and not everyone could pedal as fast as him. We finally made it to our picnic spot with a picnic table, swingsets and monkey bars. The kids ate their pb and j’s and deli sandwiches, whale-crackers (which were the cheaper, Aldi knock-off version of GoldFish), sliced apples, cheese sticks, sectioned oranges and juice boxes. Then they played for a while. The youngest seemed to be enthralled with the idea that there was a cinder block bathroom painted white, right in the middle of the park with one side for boys and the other for girls. We knew that we had to save some energy for the ride back, so after several minutes it was time to head back. With only a couple of minor injuries, tears, and tantrums (a few of them being my own) we made it back to the van. We were covered in a thin layer of the mud cake that forms with the mixture of sunscreen, sweat, and Nashville pollution, which consisted of traffic grime, wind blown Steiner Lift scrap-metal yard, rust-dust, glitter particles, and then add some playground dirt. This mixture is then dried onto our skin in the bike breeze like a janky mud beauty treatment. We reloaded everything for the short van ride back, and in spite of the short ride, our youngest was asleep (my daughter-in-law now calls this “carcolepsy,” like narcolepsy, but involves falling asleep anytime you ride in a car). We get them home, splash and wipe them down with a washcloth, which, by the wipedown of the fourth child looks like it was washed in a mud puddle. Even after the cloth is rinsed and wrung out, the last kid’s dirt just gets smeared around a little and it makes them look like they just got a bad spray tan on their lily white Euro descended skin. Exhausted, we put them down for a nap and offload the bikes and gear, clean out the van, cooler and picnic basket. Then we take a short nap, wake up and order pizza for dinner. Sometimes I wondered did this have any value? Was it worth all the effort to get us all together for a family activity? Was it worth the sweat, mud-cake baths, and tears to try to make some family memories that would help define our family, and remind us that we belong to each other, look out for each other, and that it’s important for us to have fun together. I have since learned that healthy growth and maturity emotionally and spiritually requires having the joys of belonging and having fun together, not just the “thou shalt nots.”

The early church was struggling to know whether it made a difference to keep acting like Jesus and keep doing good. The society around them didn’t always seem to care that they treated people differently than most, nor did they seem to care that because they identified as those who belong to Jesus, that they were kinder, did good deeds and loved people like no one else. The apostle Paul reminded them that it does matter that we keep on doing good, that even if we don’t see any noticeable results right now, it will have an impact in the long run. He says, “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:9 ESVi) As people who belong to Jesus, it is what we do, it is how we act, it is in our character to keep doing good for our family, for our community, even for those with whom we don’t always agree. I am glad that now our adult children want to “be there” for each other, do good for others, and have fun together whenever they can. I screwed parenting up more than I got it right. I was especially bad at it when I was exhausted… which was most of the time, but God always sent His people from church at just the right moment to help my kids keep growing. They also encouraged me: to keep acting like Jesus, keep on loving, keep on having family adventures, keep on parenting, keep on doing good, that it will all make a difference in the long run. Just don’t give up!

Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all!