I shared last week that my daughter started a blog, Divinesixght.
Her latest post is about the empathetic heart of Christ.
One of the greatest things about life is that you get to do it with other people. I love people and I love reading about how much Jesus loved people. When it comes to loving on anyone and everyone, Jesus lead the way. Lately, I have felt God putting the word empathy on my heart.
Read the entire post here: I feel ya – the empathetic heart of Christ
Cheryl’s second post went live a couple of days ago on the Dayton Moms Blog just in time for Valentine’s Day. She writes about 8 ideas for your kids on Valentine’s Day.
And it’s true! Each year she does something for the kids on Valentine’s Day. It’s a simple way to show love to your kids on a day when everyone is thinking about love.
Read the post or check out the ideas below.
For almost 10 years I was a single mom of two little boys. Instead of feeling sad or lonely on Valentine’s Day, I decided it was a great opportunity to show my boys how much I loved them and teach them how to show love to others. t became a tradition that I looked forward to. I thought that someday (many years away) when they had a special someone, they would benefit from this “training”. We started each Valentine’s Day off with a box of chocolates, and a card and then after school or our events for the day, ended our evening off with a delicious Italian dinner, equal to that of scene from Lady and the Tramp. Each year the boys looked forward to this and I was always on the lookout for another way to show them how much I love THEM. Here are a few ideas to add to your own list. Valentine’s Day may be silly to some, a greeting card holiday to others, however I always love the opportunity to tell my kids how much I love them.
What do you do to make Valentine’s Day fun for your kiddos?
When I was looking around the Book Look Bloggers website for a book to read, I came across For the Love. I recognized the name Jen Hatmaker, but don’t remember reading anything by her in the past or hearing her speak. As I trolled around the social media world, I saw a lot of people posting and tweeting about the release of her new book. Some of them were authors I had read before or speakers I enjoyed, so I was drawn to it by their recommendations.
I had hesitated at first because it was a female author and thought it might be geared for the female population. Then I remembered my same hesitation in reading Michele Cushatt’s book Undone. I ended up reading it and enjoying it, so I thought I would check out For the Love.
I got through the introduction and right away I noticed Hatmaker’s sense of humor, so I thought it was a good pick. Then, as I’m reading through the first chapter, I come upon this phrase: “Here is part of the problem, girls: we’ve been sold a bill of goods.” So, at that point, I made the brilliant observation that this particular book was directed toward women.
That being said, I think the message is helpful for any reader. The tag line of the book says “fighting for grace in a world of impossible standards.” I’m pretty sure that all followers of Jesus have experienced that and Hatmaker spells out how that struggle plays out in how we see ourselves, as well as in our home, our neighborhood and even in the church.
Right before I realized this book was geared for ladies, I read Hatmaker’s observation that because we don’t accept God’s grace for ourselves, we have a hard time showing that grace to others. The self-critical become others-critical. If we don’t see ourselves as good enough, we won’t see others that way either.
So, for any females, who might read this post, you should check out For the Love. Hatmaker points to that fact that Jesus came to set us free. We all could benefit by living out of that freedom.
Last night my wife saw this video in a post on Facebook. Since we have become involved with adoption, we feel like we are a part of a growing adoption community. This video is such a great description of what adoption is. The kids couldn’t be any cuter and their delivery is certainly on point.
As Father’s Day approaches, it is a great reminder of how God wants to be our “really” Dad. Enjoy and share!
I had the opportunity to read Jesus Is ____________ about a year ago. Judah Smith’s follow-up Life Is _____________ was a good continuation of what he shared in his previous offering.
Smith uses solid insights, personal stories and doses of humor to reveal from various passages of scripture that Jesus is life. In one chapter he writes these words: “Jesus is always more. More than what? I’ll let you fill in the blank . . . He’s more than bankruptcy. More than sickness. More than sin. More than murder. More than divorce. More than tragedies, tsunamis, wars or famines . . . What are you facing? He’s more.”
Most of the Biblical accounts that Smith uses are probably not new to those who have grown up in church. He brings a new perspective that is refreshing for those who have familiarity with the passages, but writes in a way that communicates with a reader who might be new to these verses. Smith also writes with a practicality that is helpful to the reader. He brings the person of Jesus into our current culture and context.
As an example, he writes about one of the most well-known verses in scripture – John 3:16. Then he asks this question that puts that verse in a new light: “God loves the whole world? This doesn’t make sense. This is crazy. What about bad people? What about indifferent people? What about those who mock him to his face, who flaunt evil and flout his commands?” It gives a new filter through which to think about God’s love.
Probably one of the most powerful moments of the book for me was what Smith shared about his daughter’s birth. He writes about his dad’s battle with cancer and how one day God told him that Smith and his wife would have a third child, a girl, who they were to name Grace. When she was just a day old, they took Grace to church. Smith felt a strong urge to go hold his newborn daughter and took her to a room off stage. That moment, as he looked at his little girl, it was a reminder to him that even though life doesn’t always go the way we want (his dad lost his battle with cancer), God is good and loving and sustains us. He gives us grace to sustain us.
Life Is __________ is an encouraging book that points people to the love of God and how it has the power to change our lives. This book would be a good resource for personal reading and for small group discussion.
A couple of weeks ago I posted after reading the book Scary Close written by Donald Miller. After enjoying Scary Close, I picked up the paperback copy of Blue Like Jazz I had sitting on my dresser.
Some characterize Miller’s writing as “a stream of consciousness,” where he writes a book like a journal entry or simply carrying on a conversation. There are times where he will finish one thought in a chapter and jump to another. It makes for a very readable style.
One thing that I appreciated in both books is his dry sense of humor. For example, near the end of the book he makes this statement: Television drives me crazy sometimes because everybody is so good-looking, and yet you walk through the aisles of the grocery stores, and nobody looks like that. I’ve had that same thought as I’ve watched TV. Who looks like that all the time? Doesn’t seem like reality.
There were two parts of the book that lodged themselves in my memory. One was a cartoon illustration of an astronaut who wore a suit that kept him alive without food or oxygen. The space station the astronaut was on exploded and it sent the astronaut into orbit around the earth. He could see the planet yet couldn’t get to it. No one came to rescue him. His space suit kept him alive and he simple orbited the earth day after day after day. Miller shared how he would lie in bed and think about what life would be like to be cut off from all relationships, to simply be in orbit totally alone. As Miller thought about it, it scared him to think of life like that. It is a disturbing thought. Seriously, imagine it for just a bit. Disconnected from every relationship. Frightening.
The second was a realization Miller came to while listening to a speaker. As he looked at Christian culture, he said we treat love as a commodity. When people act like we want and do what we want, they receive our love and acceptance. If someone is acting opposite of what we like or even rubs us the wrong way, we withhold love from them. Miller admitted that he used love like money. He would give it out or withhold it based on the response and actions of other people.
I realized, at times, I do that, too. While I know that God wants me to love all people, some people get a greater share of my love and affirmation. As I read that chapter (#18), it challenged me to look at how I treat those around me.
Blue Like Jazz was a good read, filled with humor, interesting stories and challenging thoughts. I’m glad that Scary Close moved me to pick it up.
Yesterday – April 22, 2014 – was a pretty big day for our family. It will be known as Max’s Gotcha Day. Gotcha Day is the day we celebrate Max’s official entrance into our family. We know several adoptive families that celebrate their children’s Gotcha Day.
Max was born September 27 and was placed in our home October 1, but yesterday was the day the judge finalized his adoption. While we can’t imagine our family without him, yesterday was the day he legally became a Brackemyre.
It was great to celebrate the day with his four siblings, three of his grandparents, an uncle and several friends who were able to sit in the courtroom. We also had a friend who is a photographer attend to capture some pictures of the day. The photo of Max and his brothers and sister on this page was taken by her. Only a few of the other pictures have a been posted, but more are to come. You can check them out (along with other photos by the photographer) on her Facebook page – Susan Marie Photography
When Max was just weeks old, Cheryl and I gave a quick recap of how Max became part of our family. It was originally used in the worship services at CrossView Christian Church and then was shown at the Wilmington Church of Christ. It just gives the backdrop to how we got to meet and pursue the adoption of Max.
We are so grateful to have Max as part of our family and look forward to helping him grow to be a man of God.
I’ve seen this speech mentioned a few times on social media, but happened to watch this week. Love the humor and love that comes from this father. For dads with daughters, it brings to light the powerful act of giving your daughter’s hand in marriage.
This article from Relevant magazine has been shared and tweeted by several of my friends and people I follow in the world of social media. At last check on the Relevant website, it has been shared on Facebook a total 51,823 times and tweeted 801 times. I’m sure those numbers will grow.
The author makes some pretty honest statements, such as this one: “I get annoyed at my wife.” He also writes this: “When we return marriage to its rightful place in our priorities, it can quickly turn into the greatest asset to every other layer of our lives.”
You can read the original article on the Relevant Magazine website and offer your thoughts and comments on it. Below is the pasted version of the article.
I used to think I had my stuff together. Then I got married.
Marriage is great—but it rocked everything I knew. I quickly realized my basic goal in life, prior to getting married, was to simply remain undisturbed.
This “disruption” came suddenly and was disguised as a 5-foot-nothing Swedish-Filipino woman. When I decided I’d rather not live without her, I proceeded to ask her to marry me—that is, to officially invite someone who wasn’t me to be in my personal space for the rest of my life.
This decision introduced my most significant experiences and most challenging experiences—none of which I would trade for the world.
However, I wish I’d had a bit more insight on the front end of our marriage to help me navigate it all.
According to most research, more than 50 percent of people who say “I do” will not be sleeping in the same bed eight years from now. And though Scripture alludes to the fact that adultery and abuse may be reasons individuals might end a marriage, I’d be willing to bet that most challenges experienced in marriage are the result of unawareness. Most people—myself included—jump into marriage with suitcases full of misconceptions and bad theology, entirely unaware of the unique beauty and paradoxical intentions of marriage.
The following are three thoughts on marriage that friends and mentors have shared with me. I remind myself of them often in hopes of keeping this anomaly called marriage both enjoyable and healthy.
1. Marriage is not about living happily ever after.
Here’s the truth: I get annoyed at my wife. But this is more a reflection of me than her.
I’m intensely certain that nothing in life has ever made me more angry, frustrated or annoyed than my wife. Inevitably, just when I think I’ve given all I can possibly give, she somehow finds a way to ask for more.
The worst part of it all is that her demands aren’t unreasonable. One day she expects me to stay emotionally engaged. The next, she’s looking for me to validate the way that she feels. The list goes on—but never ventures far from things she perfectly well deserves as a wife.
Unfortunately for her, deserving or not, her needs often compete with my self-focus. I know it shouldn’t be this way, but I am selfish and stubborn and, overall, human.
I once read a book that alluded to the idea that marriage is the fire of life—that somehow it’s designed to refine all our dysfunction and spur us into progressive wholeness. In this light, contrary to popular opinion, the goal of marriage is not happiness. And although happiness is often a very real byproduct of a healthy relationship, marriage has a far more significant purpose in sight. It is designed to pull dysfunction to the surface of our lives, set it on fire and help us grow.
When we’re willing to see it this way, then the points of friction in our marriages quickly become gifts that consistently invite us into a more whole and fulfilling experience of life.
2. The more you give to marriage, the more it gives back.
Over the past year, a few friends and I have had an open conversation about the highs and lows of marriage—specifically how to make the most of the high times and avoid the low ones. Along the way, we happened upon a derailing hypothesis that goes something like this: If one makes their husband or wife priority number one, all other areas of life benefit.
It’s a disorienting claim. Disorienting, because it protests my deeper persuasion that success as an entrepreneur, or any professional, requires that career takes the throne of my priorities and remain there for, at the very least, a couple of years.
However, seeing that my recent pattern of caring about work over marriage had produced little more than paying bills and a miserable wife, I figured giving the philosophy a test drive couldn’t hurt.
For 31 days, I intentionally put my wife first over everything else, and then I tracked how it worked. I created a metric for these purposes, to mark our relationship as priority, and then my effectiveness in all other areas of my life on the same scale, including career productivity and general quality of life.
To my surprise, a month later, I had a chart of data and a handful of ironic experiences to prove that the more you give to marriage, the more it gives back.
Notably, on the days my wife genuinely felt valued, I observed her advocating for me to invest deeply in to my work. She no longer saw our relationship and my career pursuits as competitors for my attention, and as she partnered with me in my career, I have experienced the benefits of having the closest person in my life champion me.
Of course, marriage requires sacrifice. And sometimes it will feel as if it takes and takes. However, when we return marriage to its rightful place in our priorities, it can quickly turn from something we have to maintain and sacrifice for into the greatest asset to every other layer of our lives.
3. Marriage can change the world.
John Medina, the author of Brain Rules and a Christian biologist, is often approached by men looking for the silver bullet of fathering. In one way or another, they all come around to asking, “What’s the most important thing I can do as a father?”
Medina’s answer alludes to a surprising truth.
In my previously mentioned experiment, I measured the effect that making my marriage priority number one had on different areas of my life. One of those areas was my 16-month-old son’s behavior.
What I found in simply charting my observations was that the majority of the time, my child’s behavior was directly affected by the level of intention I invested in my marriage.
Re-enter John Medina, the Christian biologist. After years of biological research and several books on parenting conclusions, what is his answer to the question, “What’s the most important thing I can do as a father”?
“Go home and love your wife.”
Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam, the authors of Babywise, say it this way: “A healthy marriage creates an infused stability within the family and a haven of security for a child in their development process.” They go on to sum up their years of research by saying, “In the end, great marriages produce great parents.”
The point is that marriage has a higher goal than to make two people happy or even whole. Yes, the investment we make into our marriage pays dividends for us. But, concluded by Medina and his colleagues, the same investment also has significant implications for our family, our community and eventually our culture.
So men, women, the next time you find yourself dreaming about living significantly or succeeding in your career or being a better parent than yours were to you, do the world a favor: Go home and love your wife. Go home and love your husband.
Over the weekend I was listening to a podcast from Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, KY. They recently hosted a guest speaker from Kenya and the podcast included both an interview with him along with his sermon from that Sunday.
In his message he shared three things that everyone needs. One of the focuses he has in his church in Kenya is calling the men of his church and country to be better fathers. Many of the problems they face are due to the lack of involvement of fathers in the lives of their children (sound familiar?).
The three things he focused on were these:
Acceptance – Affection – Affirmation
He made the point that each person needs to be accepted for who he/she is, each person needs affection expressed through words and actions that communicate love and each person needs affirmation through being celebrated. God has placed that in each person’s heart.
What happens so many times is that people don’t have those needs met. Either through absent parents or disconnected fathers, children don’t receive the acceptance, affection and affirmation they need. There is a void in a person’s life when those things are given. And those unmet needs can impact how a person looks at God.
The good news is that we have a heavenly Father who is able to meet those needs in our lives. Whether he had awesome parents or absent parents, God wants to love us as a Father.
The speaker also shared these keen insights about our Father’s love. When we look at our Father, we see that . . .
His message was a great reminder that we all have the same basic needs. Whether from the United States, Kenya or anywhere else, God has wired us to need and search for those three things. And all of those things can be found in Him – a Father who gives acceptance, affection and affirmation to His children.
Thoughts from a Hoosier Fan in the Buckeye Land 