We found treasure in the sand (and celebrated like angels)

This week my family and I vacationed at the beach under the blazing sun, playing in the sand, jumping over the waves of the ocean, building sandcastles, and making sure to apply plenty of sunscreen. It was a challenge for my 11-year-old daughter, Giselle, for whom eyeglasses are a necessity. They’re essential for her to see clearly but the beach is the last place she needs to bring them. It’s too easy to lose them in the endless acres of sand or while playing in the crashing waves at high tide. When we got back to the parking lot yesterday,…

The Girl Who Got Pulled Around by Her Ponytail

One time I was at the bus stop and I saw a woman take her daughter by the ponytail, pull up, and force her to move down the sidewalk. As the girl walked forward, she tried to reach up and pull her mother’s hand away, to no avail. As the little girl cried and begged her mother to stop, a man standing nearby laughed about it, and the mother began laughing, too.

Jesus Hated Shame, You Can Too

The other night, I was putting my little daughters to bed, and I sensed that I needed to talk to them about shame. I figured we could discuss it the next day since it was already late, but I didn’t realize the Holy Spirit was prompting me for a reason. Before I left the room, one of my daughters said, “Daddy, a girl at school called me a mean name.” “What was it?” I asked. She covered her face with her hands and said, “I don’t want to say.”

What a Third Baby is Teaching Me About the Father Love of God

Right now, I’m looking across the room at my son, a newborn baby boy curled against my wife’s chest. She’s nursing him, which takes a lot more effort than you would imagine. And speaking of effort, there are a host of other little tasks that somehow manage to take up nearly the whole day. We don’t mind it, but we’ve come a long way since our first two children were infants.

Thank God for that Awful Lady in the Lexus

The other day, I was just minding my own business, trying to get to work, when a woman in a black Lexus brought out the worst in me. I was trying to park in a garage in downtown Washington, D.C., which is a challenge. I have little time to get to the garage after dropping off my daughter at school, and if I’m a minute late, the price goes up from $14 to $21. Time is of the essence.

How to Offer Jesus the Ugliest Parts of Your Life

I spent a lot of my early Christian walk hiding the areas of brokenness of which I was most ashamed. It was like I believed the worst stuff would go away if I simply didn’t acknowledge it. All it did, however, was cover up the symptoms until my issues bubbled to the surface, causing me to sink into shame. But over the years, the Lord spoke a lot of comfort to me with this Bible story about a man who was seen as unapproachable.