My 10-year-old son does not like church. While my worship leader husband stands before the congregation singing and drawing hearts into focus, I stand by a boy who doesn’t even move his lips. In the past this frustrated me immensely. I wanted everyone to see my kids following the rules and singing with smiles on their faces. I wanted them to see that the Harms family had it all together. But, as I struggled through my frustrations, I became aware of the sinfulness in my attitude. Like the cup Jesus speaks of in Luke 11:39, I was trying to look squeaky…
“While we had developed an extraordinary relationship, we had never been extraordinary people. We were just two flawed humans, who eventually discovered what it was to put the other first.” – Mary Potter Kenyon, Chemo-Therapist, How Cancer Saved a Marriage. Isn’t that what it’s all about? Discovering how to put the other first? Two flawed people committing their lives to each other and then hopping into life full-force, sometimes completely missing the planks in our own eyes while trying to dig the sawdust out of our mate’s. Anyone can have an ordinary-survival-mode type of marriage. It is only when we…
Books & Book Reviews Is Sunday School Destroying Our Kids? How Moralism Suffocates Grace: A Brief Review
I happened upon Samuel Williamson’s blog, Beliefs of the Heart several months ago. I don’t read every entry, but I can say the ones I have read have been well-written, thought-provoking and Biblically-sound. Williamson recently published a book. I generally stick to reading books published by traditional publishers, because I figure if a reputable publishing house is willing to put their name and some of their money behind it, chances are it’s an okay book. But because Williamson had proven himself to me through his website, I knew Is Sunday School Destroying Our Kids? would be worth a read. Though the title…
I had the opportunity to write a guest post titled A Story About Obedience and A Boy yesterday for Alphonsine Imaniraguha over at A Soothing Voice. The story is one some of you have heard, but it is one of those amazing “only God could do this” kind of things. Something I still can’t think about without tears. If you have a few minutes, hop on over to her blog to check it out. And take a look at her ministry, Rising Above the Storms, while you are there. I’ve known Alphonsine for a couple years and if you have spent a little time…
I have been away from the blogosphere for a few weeks because life has been a little wacky. We sold our house, packed up our house, went on vacation to a tropical paradise, came back home to the frozen tundra and then moved across town about 12 hours after our plane landed. Subsequently, we’ve been settling in and trying to find things like shoes and spatulas. I believe the human members of our family have found “the groove” again, but our poor little reptile has not. Traumatized Tyson the turtle shoots off his basking platform like a bullet smashing into…