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Family Ministry myThoughts

Father’s Day Thoughts

Today we celebrate fathers – I think. I’m not sure I would call it celebrating. On Mother’s Day, the church is full with standing room only in the back. On Mother’s Day, pastors across America talk about treating our mothers with respect, and even give alter calls to unsaved children. On Mother’s Day, we wake Mom up with breakfast in bed, or nicely wrapped presents. On Mother’s Day.

But on Father’s Day – its a different story. Lunch at a BBQ restaurant and a tie are among the highlights. Then there is the church service. This morning at church, we had a guest speaker. His message was from Matthew chapter 5. Actually it was only verse 7 – “Blessed are the merciful…” His point – Fathers need to be merciful. The real kicker for the sermon was the illustration at the end – he told a story about a man that had his only daughter late in life. She was killed by a neighbors dog in a vicious attack right in front of her father. This was not a story that I wanted to hear about on Father’s Day. The point of the story was the mercy this now childless father showed the owner of the dog.

Another preacher I know preached “12 things fathers should do, IF they want their children to be delinquents.” I don’t think we could get away with that on Mother’s Day. Could you imagine a sermon titled, “Why it’s your fault that your children aren’t saved, Mom!” Don’t get me wrong – I’m sure those sermons – as well as the many others like them have value and purpose. I just don’t see them as celebrating Fathers.

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Family

Lexi’s Smile!

D-Tour is over, vacation is over, traveling is done.  I’m back at work, and life is returning to normal, however today (unexpectedly due to scheduling conflicts) we were able to get our 3-D ultrasound!  Here is my baby girls first smile caught on tape:

Lexi’s Smile

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Family

Better than any MP3

Yesterday I worked from home so that I could get some things done around that house that needed to be done before I left for the trip (in two days!!!). Well, without my bike ride to work, I felt like I was cheating my training time, so after work I decided I would go on the bike for a little while. Stephanie had been working with Zander all day with the extra task of keeping him quite while I was on the phone for work so to give her a break, I took Zander with me.

Zander was very excited to go on a bike ride with daddy. We went outside and he waited patiently while I put the bike stroller on my bike. He climbed in, carrying his Thomas book and we headed out. At first he asked the common questions you expect from a three year old –

“Are you on your bike, daddy?” — Yes son
“What are you doing?” — Riding my bike, Zander
“Where is mommy?” — At the house, son

After that wore off, he settled in and started ‘reading’ his book. My legs were finally starting to warm up and get used to the extra weight of the stroller and Zander in tow. That’s when he started singing. Zander likes to sing when he is happy and he makes up the songs as he goes along. Often times the song will mimic whatever is going on at the time – “The red light, daddy has to stop, we are driving”. But yesterday he was singing something like this:

Bible, Jesus, I eat my bananas and strawberries, we went on a boat

He went on for a couple of miles. He was finally distracted by the kids playing at the park we past by. Those few miles were the highlight of the ten mile trip. My son singing happily last night sounded better than any MP3 I’ve ever heard.