Part of Me

The year is flying by. I suddenly realized the other day that May is fast approaching. That means May 22 is coming. That was the day Macayla was born and that was the day Macayla went Home. Nine years. In some ways it feels like a dream that we have woken from but the residual of its emotions remain. Other times it is all too fresh and real. There are times, more often now than before, that the memories are sweet and bring a smile to our hearts. But May 22 is such a mixture of dread, pain, love and hope.

I dread that we will have to walk through that day. Less than a month away and it brings pain already. But there is such love that stirs there too. Love for our girl who smiled when we couldn't and laughed in the midst of a hard road. Love for our girl who drew us and others closer to Christ. Love for our girl and her dry wit, a love for her brother, a love for music, a love for dogs, horses and cats. But there is hope also. As of May 22, we will have made it a year. We will have traveled this trail of grief for a year and survived. Hope because our girl is no longer in pain, but quite to the contrary, she is whole and full. She is in the presence of our Lord and if we could see what she sees and fully know what she knows now, we would be throwing a party.

Part of me wants to skip May 22. Part of me wants to hide on May 22. Part of me wants to celebrate on May 22. Part of me rejoices and part of me aches.

The Whirlwind of...Everything

My son asked if I had ever thought of living in an early time of history, like the first century and if it would have been better. It made me think about how full of distractions our lives are. We live in a whirlwind of digital and graphic information constantly bombarding us with noise, words, and ideas. So, I thought, why not add a little post about overcoming this problem. My phone just rang and pulled me away from writing this. While in that conversation, I realized I had not eaten breakfast and so I pulled out a bowl and milk for some cereal. However, the conversation went longer than expected and I never actually poured the cereal in the bowl. After hanging up, I came back to the laptop to finish this post, realizing as I sifted through images to add to it that I left the milk sitting out on the counter and I had not eaten anything. I also have to hurry up and finish so I can run to the paint store and get the stain to finish the second coat on our deck. Looks like a few more tweets, emails and facebook responses just came in too.

Being Heavenly Minded Makes us the MOST earthly Good

Special Offer on a Special Story

Here is the latest offer to save money on the book The Lord Struck the Child! If you already have a copy, buy one (or 2, 3, 4, 5 or so) for someone you know. Remember, every dime made above printing cost goes to a different charity each quarter. None of the money goes to me. Right now, we are supporting Camp New Hope in North Carolina. We are about 1/3 of the way to supporting a family for a week at the camp.

Reading the book will bless you, buying the book will bless others.

Resume of Rubbish

It seems my American upbringing has tainted my idea of success. Our culture promotes a go-get-em attitude and positive pragmatism. If something works, it is valuable and if it doesn't work, well it should be abandoned. Unfortunately, our patience to see weather something works or not tends to be short. No doubt our can-do attitude has helped us accomplish much, but so often it tends to be the Achilles heal of my spiritual growth and ministry. When I don't see results quick enough, I wonder if I am using the right methods or if I'm on the right path.