We Are FAMILY...

A Few thoughts on FAMILY... make sure to look closely at little Mrs Ava's expressions in the photos at the end :) 

“If strangers and strange sights can shake the world of children, it takes the people they know and love best to pull it out from under them like a chair”  - Buechner

“You don't choose your family.  They are God's gift to you, as you are to them.”  ~Desmond Tutu

“Families are like fudge - mostly sweet with a few nuts.”  ~Author Unknown

“If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.” 

George Bernard Shaw

“The greatest thing in family life is to take a hint when a hint is intended-and not to take a hint when a hint isn't intended.” 

Robert Frost

“You set standards that no family activity can live up to.”

Ellen Griswold-Christmas Vacation

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.  Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates.” Deuteronomy 6:4- 9

1 Timothy 5:8
But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever

"Family" Lyrics by TobyMac 2012

Arrows flying, into silence

Broken pieces, lying around where it went down

Waters risin, back to silence

Quietly crying, wondering how

And look at us now

We thought our love would take the world by storm

CHORUS :

Are we too far apart?

Two worlds among the stars

You’re gonna take a piece of my heart if you leave

So its two separate ways

Or am I too late to say “I wanna fight for what we got

Cause I believe in family”

In family

So are we still trying, or simply surviving

Facing these giants, the bigger they are the harder they fall

But I still believe in the dreams we’ve been dreamin

The hope that we built on

Its never too far, never too far

If we choose to turn and let these walls fall down

I still believe…

I still believe…

That we're not too far apart?

Two worlds among the stars

Don’t take a piece of my heart please don’t leave

It’s not too late to say: “Father show us the way

To fight for what we got

Cause You believe in family, in family”

"Making This Up As I Go" Part 3

So, what about our reciprocation back towards God? 

In his comments on the exact RAIDERS scene mentioned in part 1 of this blog and in the book “Wild At Heart”, John Eldredge notes that “God is an immensely creative Person and he wants his sons to live that way too”. 

Really? I mean do we really believe that this is the way God wants to relate to us? This I believe is the other missing ingredient in how we are able to “come boldly to the throne of our gracious God (Hebrews 4:16)”.

As a son, Carson was able to extend to me his own creative gracious choice of picking the restaurant where we would go after the movie. 5 GUYS was the final choice and he was uncertain as a first-time customer. But he did know that it was conveniently located near a Barnes & Nobles that he definitely wanted to go to after the meal. I was glad to be led by him to do both wearing quite a smile.

On a final note, Charles Spurgeon once said that “It is when we are in His work that we may reckon upon His smile”.

Or to put it in an Indiana Jones style: I’m going after this Jesus... How?... I don’t know. I’m Making this Up as I Go.