Tag Archives: Family

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Psalm 142

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The best Birthday present of all. Your people will form a circle around me and you'll bring me showers of blessing! Psalm 142:7b (MSG)

Last weekend we attended the birthday party for a young friend who was turning three years old. We sat with a veritable hoarde of family and friends to eat cake, drink punch, and watch him open his gifts. After opening each gift, his parents reminded him to go and hug each of the people who gave him the gift. Hugs for grand parents. Hugs for great-grandparents. Hugs for aunts. Hugs for uncles. Hugs for friends.

On the way home from the party, my wife, daughter and I commented on our young friend's large "circle of love." His three-year-old brain is just developing cognitive memory. It's likely he will forget 99 percent of the memories of that day. The presents he received, which were the highlight of his day, will soon be lost, broken, worn out, and grown out of. He doesn't yet realize that the greatest gift he received that day was the doting love of so many people. He will not grow out of it, and it will not be lost, broken or worn out.

I found it interesting how David's lyrics were all about how lonely he was, but the last verse finds him blessed within a "circle of love." It's easy to feel feel the isolation of our melancholy. Depression is often a blinding fog. In our fear we lose sight of, and keep ourselves out-of-touch with, the veritable hoarde who love us.

For Facebook readers: formatting issues are the result of the automatic import from the original blog post.

Creative Commons photo courtesy of Flickr and clevercupcakes

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Psalm 134

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The blessing of daisies. Lift your praising hands to the Holy Place, and bless God. Psalm 134:2 (MSG)

The other morning I walked into my home office. Other than a few pieces of artwork on the walls, my home office is a fairly stark room. Three desks, three computers, and books. This particular morning I walked in and found a gorgeous arrangement of beautiful daisies on my desk. Below it was a sticky-note on which was written "Praying for you!"

The flowers and note were not from my wife, but from my youngest daughter, Madison. What a blessing to her old man. The daisies are still there, beginning to wilt but I'm loathe to throw them away. The blessing from my daughter continues to bless, even as the leaves wither and flowers fade.

It's easy, in our gimme, gimme, gimme world to constantly ask for our Heavenly Father's blessing. "God bless me with…" is a pretty consistent cry from my lips. I'm reminded this morning that we have opportunity to actually bless our Heavenly Father.

How am I going to be a blessing to God today?

Creative Commons photo courtesy of Flickr and aesum

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Psalm 133

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Vwell_50th_four_kids4_LR How wonderful, how beautiful, when brothers and sisters get along! Psalm 133:1 (MSG)

Like most people raised in a house full of kids, I remember days of knock-down-drag-out fights with my siblings. My brothers were seven years older than me, five older than my sister. So, they generally couldn't get away with beating up on the "little ones" outright. Their attacks took a more sinister approach, such as asking me if I knew what a "Hertz Doughnut" was. When I responded "no" I was immediately punched by the offending brother who then asked "Hurt's, don't it?" as he cackled with glee. My sister was closer in age and the only girl. So, our fights were worse. One of her favorite things was to grab my wrists and dig her fingernails into my skin until they bled. It was not lost on me how much nicer she became immediately after she realized she was no longer large enough or strong enough to sit on me and hold me down! As for my sibling infractions, those records have been sealed 😉

How my mother made it through the madness, I'll never know. I know that I was responsible for many of those white hairs on her head. But, now we are grown and our parent's house is filled with laughter rather than the screams of rival children. It's a wonderful thing.

How sad that, for some families, the madness never ends.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Psalm 133

1 Comment

Vwell_50th_four_kids4_LR How wonderful, how beautiful, when brothers and sisters get along! Psalm 133:1 (MSG)

Like most people raised in a house full of kids, I remember days of knock-down-drag-out fights with my siblings. My brothers were seven years older than me, five older than my sister. So, they generally couldn't get away with beating up on the "little ones" outright. Their attacks took a more sinister approach, such as asking me if I knew what a "Hertz Doughnut" was. When I responded "no" I was immediately punched by the offending brother who then asked "Hurt's, don't it?" as he cackled with glee. My sister was closer in age and the only girl. So, our fights were worse. One of her favorite things was to grab my wrists and dig her fingernails into my skin until they bled. It was not lost on me how much nicer she became immediately after she realized she was no longer large enough or strong enough to sit on me and hold me down! As for my sibling infractions, those records have been sealed 😉

How my mother made it through the madness, I'll never know. I know that I was responsible for many of those white hairs on her head. But, now we are grown and our parent's house is filled with laughter rather than the screams of rival children. It's a wonderful thing.

How sad that, for some families, the madness never ends.