Christmas is upon us once again. 2019 has been an interesting year. We’ve seen some ups and downs and everything in the middle. It seems like our new Christmas card tradition will be to have a new pose every year. When Zeke was 1, Angela captured a candid moment of Zeke, leaning on the couch arm, in awe of our Christmas tree. We decided that would be the pose for our picture every year, but that changed when we moved and the couch was no longer next to the tree. So last year, we got a new pose and thought that would be the one for years to come. This year we downsized our tree and the pose didn’t work because we couldn’t frame it without the buffet or cabinets in it. So with all our #firstworldproblems explained, we present our 2019 Christmas card.
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Fighting Over Words
A common trend in Christianity today is to argue and fight over what we believe. Recently, John MacArthur’s comments about Beth Moore incited many people fight and argue about what was said and the stances they hold about women in church leadership. His comments were clearly inappropriate, but so were many of the responses from both sides (although not from Beth Moore, who the comments were actually made about). It turned into a battle that was void of the love of Jesus over something that is not at the heart of what Jesus is about.
[Read more…] about Fighting Over WordsAlways Forgive
Forgiveness seems to be something of a lost art these days. Just go take a peak at Twitter and you are practically guaranteed to find someone condemning and judging someone else (most of the time someone they don’t personally know). We live in a cancel culture that is getting so bad that even Barack Obama is speaking out against it. We live in a culture where being outraged and angry is an acceptable norm, even within Christian circles.
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In the soccer league Zeke played in, they didn’t have goalies. If a kid could dribble the ball close enough to attempt a shot, it was considered a success. For some kids, if they could just kick the ball it was a success. But one team he played, every time the ball went on their side of the field, one of the players would immediately run straight to the goal and guard it. It wasn’t always the same player, so you could tell they had been coached to do this. Sometimes the players didn’t get the memo and three of them would run back to the goal (which would in turn cover the entire goal). They were going to guard the goal and not let the ball get in (but even with a goalie, they weren’t super successful at it).
[Read more…] about Guard the TreasureIn Over My Head
Normally when we think of the phrase “in over our head” it has a bad connotation. Typically that means we are at the place where we don’t have complete control and don’t know everything that is going on. I remember feeling like this when we brought Zeke home for the first time. At the hospital, we had everything we needed. We had people checking on us and making sure we were doing everything right. If we needed a break, we could pass Zeke off to someone else to give us a minute to breathe.
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I’ve been reading through the gospel of Matthew recently and one thing I noticed is that there were often people that surrounded Jesus that didn’t stick around for long. One instance of this is when Jesus feeds over 4,000 people (Matt 15:29-39). He went up on a mountain and people followed Him. He healed people and they listened to Him teach for 3 days without eating. Before Jesus sends them away, He feeds all of them from just a few loaves of bread and a few fish. After all of this, what happens to all these people?
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