This past weekend, my wife had to be away for two days, which meant I was in charge of managing Daddy Daycare for a three and four-year-old. I figured that two days might be a challenge, but I was up for it. I was not.
The Reason We Scroll Through Facebook Likes
A few years ago when I got on Facebook, there was no such thing as a “like” button (can you imagine it?). You just posted status updates, photos, or links to articles, and the only way you knew whether people approved was if they commented on it. Then the like button came along at some point and changed everything. Now there was an instant measure of success for every insecure human being on Facebook.
Your Insecurities are Making You Weird
I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I’ve got this funky habit that has created more awkward moments than I care to admit.
The Reason I Don’t Want to Pray for People Who Get on My Nerves
The other day, my wife and I were driving down a two-lane road in the country when we got stuck behind a big ol’ Mack truck that was stuck behind a slowly-moving tractor. We figured we would be in for a long wait – we did not anticipate, however, that we were about to watch a truck driver nearly kill somebody.
Father God, Grace, and Messy Potty Breaks
Today, my family and I were out in public when my youngest daughter suddenly said, “I need to go potty, I need to go potty, I need to go potty.” After a brief negotiation between my wife and me over who would take responsibility for hunting down a bathroom, I took my daughter by the hand and walked a couple of blocks until I found a potty – but it was too late.
To My Elderly Christian Siblings
Dear Elderly Christian, I know you don’t like being called elderly, so let’s start with me begging your pardon for not coming up with a better word to describe your current phase of life (it’s better than “old,” right?). Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I need to ask you a favor: please get off the sidelines and get back into the game.
Family Members Are Kind of Like Messy Salad Bar Customers
The other day, I was at this salad bar where they had one of my favorite salad ingredients: chopped, boiled eggs. They had a small teaspoon that made it really difficult to get out as much egg as I wanted, so I decided to pick up the whole container and turn it slightly sideways to make it go faster. Let me tell you something: it worked. About three quarters of the eggs dumped onto the floor, right in the middle of the busiest hour for the little restaurant, which only had two employees working. And when I got the attention of the cashier…
The Glorious Frustration of Being Married
Before I got married, I drove however fast I wanted and took whatever route I wanted. Granted, on my way to wherever I was going, I also had a knack for running late because of my propensity to get lost. And although I hate to admit it, even now my inner compass doesn’t function like the other people out there who have an unexplainable good sense of direction. One of those other people is my wife, and it wasn’t long into our relationship before she figured out that when it came to finding our way around unfamiliar areas, she and…
We Think We’re Going to Live Forever – Because We Are
Tonight, I was on my way upstairs to go to bed when I noticed a little army of ponies, dollhouse family members, and plastic toy accessories lined along the bottom step. One of my little girls had placed them there very deliberately, so I decided to leave them, rather than clean them up.
A Letter to My Future Teenage Daughters
Dear girls, The two of you have reached the ages of four and three, which is about the age your Uncle Caleb and I were the night of the Brown’s Chapel Baptist Church Christmas program. Stick with me, girls, this is going somewhere.
Parallel Parking Debacle Reveals My Resistance to the Holy Spirit
The other day, I asked my wife to bring my daughters to downtown DC for lunch because it was my youngest child’s birthday, and I wanted us to celebrate as a family. It was probably a bad idea.
Seven Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Leave a Church
In 2007, my fiancé and I almost left the church I had been a part of for two years. I was happy there, but we had just gotten engaged, and we figured we might be better off if we just started over at a new church. In retrospect, we weren’t very thoughtful about the whole thing at all – actually, we were pretty much just feeling our way through the decision, which is what I think a lot of people do when they leave churches, and naturally so. Emotions are oftentimes the clearest things in our minds when we’re making these decisions.
One Way to Stop an Argument with Your Spouse
The other night, I was on my way out the door to go to a church men’s group, and I told my wife I didn’t know how to get there. She gave me directions to the house, which was located in another part of D.C. I repeated the directions back to her, and then I got in the car and drove away. But then one block later, I realized I didn’t have my cell phone with me.
You Never Know What Will Happen When You Say Thanks
Four and a half years ago, someone gave my newborn daughter a paperback book called Let it Snow. I’ve probably read it several hundred times since then, in part because we had another child who loved the book as much as my oldest daughter.
What My Daughter Said When I Asked How She Felt
My youngest daughter, who is three, is affectionate, smart, and perceptive – but at the same time, she’s a major handful sometimes. She’s getting better, but over the course of her three years of life, she has been known to do things like . . .
Joshua Rogers 