Weekend Reading {vol. 110}

When I Can't Do Enough @ A Deeper Family

I prayed. I let my heart hurt for the fallen world where little ones get sick, and so much worse happens, and begged for healing for all of us. I listened to her breathing, alert for any change, relieved that it seemed fine again.

This morning she woke up, full of beans and bouncing around. I asked if she knew I was holding her during the night. “No, but I could feel you loving me.”

Why Confessing Our Sin to Our Children is So Important @ SortaCrunchy

This confessional script creates space for these things:

1) It acknowledges why my action was sin, and it gives my children a vocabulary for confessing their own sin. It translates sin from some big, bad word we only talk about at church into an everyday part of conversation as a family.

2) Humility, humility, humility. It reinforces my humble need for Jesus in every moment of my life.

3) It empowers my children in the process of repairing our relationship.

When I Ask Myself, "Why Do I Still Go To Church?" @ A Deeper Church

Sometimes I ask myself why I still go to church, why my wife and I still wake up on a Sunday morning and wrangle our four kids and one-on-the-way into the car and drive thirty-five minutes. Why, instead of sleeping in or getting things done around the house, do I spend these Sunday mornings teaching elementary school age kids about God or sitting in a chair in a building where nothing seems to be happening? All around me people are just showing up, and I’m not sure why.

Why do I still go to church? I ask myself. Why don’t I cut loose from this obligation? What am I waiting for?

Something amazing, I guess.

What is a Family? @ Practicing Mammal

Blessed Pope John Paul is so much pithier, but here's a re write on "an intimate community of life and love."

"A family is people in close, warm, personal relationship all sharing a common good, primarily the love of God and a desire to bring one another to holiness and ultimately heaven. The family produces life, through the love of the parents and their union, and life through the love they pour out to each other; life meaning the joy of shared love. Their familial affection drives them to selflessness. Love the ACT. The selflessness is God made manifest in our daily lives. Close communities that practice selfless love, tenderness and, because of this, become a reflection of God."

That's what a family is.