This month I had the amazing opportunity to embark on my first ever trip to the Smoky Mountains with my family– all planned within the week prior. It was one of those “It’s time to get away, let’s go do this,” moments. Plus it checked off a box on my bucket list to visit all…
While navigating the catacombs of our garage to kick off our house move in 2018, I found a letter I had written to my high school teacher regarding my final English paper – which I turned in a couple of weeks past its deadline. I found it amusing enough to be worth a share: “Dear…
“Elek!” Abdiel whispered, shaking the dozing shepherd’s shoulder violently. Elek responded by snoring louder, a stream of drool pooling in his scraggly beard. “Elek!” Abdiel hissed louder, smacking Elek across the back of the head. “..mhama….what?” Elek sputtered. He sprung forwards, away from the oak tree he had been using as a backrest. His hand…
Emmet Brickowski is just a regular guy. In fact, he’s so regular, that coworkers and neighbors struggle to piece together any distinguishing features to describe him: “Yeah, he’s kind of your average, normal, kind of guy. But you know, he’s not…he’s not like normal like us. No, he…he’s not that special.” (Barry, The Lego Movie)…
This Thanksgiving, I can’t help but reflect on one of my favorite home videos – in which my son is jumping on the trampoline with his baby sister. The dialogue goes as follows: Sawyer: “Mommy, tank you for getting me a baby.” Caroline: “Where do you think we got her?” Sawyer (without a moment’s hesitation):…
Special thanks and credit to my friend and mentor, Paul, for the insights on Job, the umbrella, and Isaiah 30. If trouble were raindrops, we'd live in a stormy world. Flick the channel to the news station and it doesn’t take but a minute to see that the world is steeped in suffering. Of course,…
With another tropical disturbance barreling towards the Gulf of Mexico this past weekend, we packed up and headed out… to the beach. That probably seems like a strange choice, but we had the vacation planned and to be fair, at the time of the decision all the projections for the storm were aimed at the…
“Dad, wook come see what I made!” My son’s face lit up with enthusiasm as his little hand pulled me towards the refrigerator. “Show me!” I replied, his excitement transferring instantaneously in a bold denial of the laws of physics. “Wook!” He turned to me, grinning from ear-to-ear, tiny finger outstretched towards the scribbled mess…
The statistics are sobering. On any given day, there are over 400,000 children in the foster care system in the United States.[1] What is far more sobering, is the realization that those statistics aren’t just numbers. Each one represents a human being that was subjected to such severe neglect and/or abuse that the state deemed…
Nicolas C. Day 