Month: April 2019
-
About being special
Humility was bred into me. It was the status-quo. But what I can vividly remember it that it was freeing! Hardy and common. Like the general low expectations. It was often declared with decisiveness from the school pedestal, that we are not special! I was born during communism after all. Yet. Telling our kids that…
-
Hike in the hills
“Let’s pray together!” She says with a childish enthusiasm. It’s her birthday today. She turns 47. But there is a pleasant serenity about her. A youthfulness of heart and mind. A mother of four adolescents. A puzzle with such appealing kindness. I did not anticipate these new exuberant friendships. A few years ago I felt…
-
Taking control
There is no exact recipe to parenting. If anyone claims otherwise, is already missing the mark. Even the drive to get it right, to be the perfect parent, can and most likely will mess things up royally. Parenting is messy. Parenting is fluid. Kids change and evolve. And that is good. God planted in us…
-
A pillar of prayer
Ask and it shall be given to you. You do not have because you don’t ask. Ask without a selfish heart. I tell Jackie the story of her name. The week we met her we stumbled upon the significance of Jaclyn, rooted in the Hebrew Jacob, meaning “May God protect you”. That was our constant…
-
Independence
At age five, jackie stubbornly practices her independence. She has a lot of freedom, though at times I consciously keep pulling back, as I hear myself nagging about this and that. A while ago she started taking our dog for the morning walk through the neighborhood. There she was, at 7 am, skipping on the…
-
Next stop: Fall
I wrote of faith, and as I got worried and impatient I wondered if my talk is empty. What of this tension between belief and action oriented trait. There is no exact recipe for a faithful walk. We adapt, we grow and we utter like David: “search my heart, Lord and straighten my steps.” I…