Last week, I spent some time cleaning out my daughter’s room, getting ready for the school year. It was great to sort through her things and find many items we could bag up and give away. I love how getting rid of stuff can leave you feeling free and light.
And that’s especially true if that stuff is the baggage inside our own hearts.
How many of us walk around with “bags†full of anger? Or how about guilt and shame? Or regret and resentment?
That’s the kind of load that can leave us feeling discouraged. It can hold us back and cause us to miss out on opportunities, and joys, and life.
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“What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?
You made him a little lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honor
and put everything under his feet.” Hebrews 2:7-8
In my finite mind, I cannot imagine what makes God love the human race so much. We’re a bunch of bumbling, fallen, baboons, yet he loves us anyway. We sin over and over and over again, yet he forgives us each time. We’re a stubborn and prideful race, yet he is patient and waits for us.
What made Him offer a fallen people forgiveness and redemption through the sacrifice of His own son, someone a little lower than the angels?
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A friend and I were shopping on an extremely wet day at an outlet centre where the rows of shops were separated by mostly uncovered paths. It was pouring with rain and we were dreading trying to make the break between the rows. After counting to 3 we braced ourselves to be drenched and ran to the other side. We were extremely embarassed however, when we reached the other side dry because we had run across under one of the few covered walkways! About halfway across I realised our silly mistake, but my friend exclaimed how amazed she was that we didnt get wet until I pointed out the covering way above our heads.
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Lately, my daughter has been having fun with clip art on the computer. She loves to browse through the pictures and copy them into MS Word to make her own creations.
The other day, when I went upstairs to our office, I found one of her pieces of “artwork†on the desk—a collage of beautiful outdoor scenes…cherry blossoms, daisies, and dandelions.
At the bottom of the paper, she’d titled her work: “Peaceful Placesâ€
I smiled at the thought of her hunting through images to find ones that bring a feeling of peace. And I loved the ones she chose. Looking at them really did make me feel calm.
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During a recent play-date at Chick-Fil-A, my 16-month-old son climbed to the top of the playscape to explore the overhead tunnel. This was his first attempt at tackling the Godzilla of toys.
It was not an easy climb for a little guy. His big sister stood near as his spotter, but resisted the urge to hoist him upward. In addition to reaching his goal, my son did something else I wasn’t expecting from him. Each time he reached the next level, he screamed with terror; yet instead of reaching toward me for rescue, he garnered composure and stretched his 24-pound body toward the next step.
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Don’t be selfish; don’t live to make a good impression on others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourself. Don’t think only about your own affairs, but be interested in others, too, and what they are doing. Phil. 2:3-4 NLT
Country singer Toby Keith sings a song that we jokingly sang to our oldest daughter when she was too demanding of our time. Meghan, our sixteen year old, will always remember her father and I singing I Wanna Talk About Me off tune and much too loudly, while we were driving on a family vacation. After what felt like hours of our oldest child talking on and on about herself, her life, her thoughts, her, her, her, we just couldn’t take it anymore.
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Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.” John 14:21 (NIV)
My family attended a two-week training camp to learn to work with our new seizure response dog. The dogs were already trained and knew ninety commands. We were the ones who needed the training. Instructors worked with each family showing them how to make the dogs respond to verbal commands given.
One of the most important commands is “leave it.” Many hazards dogs encounter can cause harm if they do not obey this critical command.
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A few days ago, as my kids and I were out driving, I took the opportunity to review some safety rules with them. It had been a while since we’d done this, and it’s always a good way for us to talk about what to do in different situations. I usually ask them questions like, “What would you do if a stranger tried to get you to go with them?â€, and then they answer and we talk about it.
This time, we were talking about the importance of sticking together in crowded places like the movie theater or the mall, when my daughter chimed in from the back seat…
“Yeah, because if we’re just one, we can really break, but if we’re together, it’s not that easy.â€
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