Posts Tagged: "kindness"

Dear Chase, Brave Is A Decision

I recently had a little extra time to do some reading. I finished a number of books, and my favorite by far is Carry On, Warrior – the Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life by Glennon Doyle Melton. No doubt, this is a mommy book – a book written for moms raising kids.

I’m not even embarrassed it’s my favorite. Because it’s THAT good.

Below is a little sample – it’s a letter she wrote to her son…

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Dear Chase,

Tomorrow is a big day. Third Grade – wow.

Chase – When I was in third grade, there was a little boy in my class named Adam. Adam looked a little different and he wore funny clothes and sometimes he even smelled a little bit. Adam didn’t smile. He hung his head low and he never looked at anyone at all. Adam never did his homework. I don’t think his parents reminded him like yours do. The other kids teased Adam a lot. Whenever they did, his head hung lower and lower and lower. I never teased him, but I never told the other kids to stop, either.

And I never talked to Adam, not once. I never invited him to sit next to me at lunch, or to play with me at recess. Instead, he sat and played by himself. He must have been very lonely.

I still think about Adam every day. I wonder if… Read More

The Attraction Of Small Graces & Specific Kindnesses

- - Life With God, Uncategorized

In Phil Needham’s book When God Becomes Small, he shares the following…

I love the story Kathleen Norris tells about her three-year old niece. The girl’s father would drive her to day care in the morning on the way to work, and her mother would pick her up on the way home.

Often the mother would peel an orange and bring it to her daughter when she picked her up.

One day Norris came across her niece playing “Mommy’s office” on the front porch of their home. She asked her niece what… Read More

Didn’t Have To Run

Yesterday, my wife was asking me about my younger years of rebellion—my “prodigal son” days. She wondered how far away from God I felt like I was back then…

Did you believe you had run away from God? Did you see yourself as truly on the outside, no longer part of the family of God?

It didn’t take me long to answer. Yes, I did.

Back then, I didn’t have such a generous view of the family of God.

What I understood from the teaching of the church at that time was clear: Do those things, and you are not part of us. More specifically, do those things, and you are not part of Him… Read More