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We’re doing a new fund-raiser to bring home Phoebe from Africa, and it’s a Children’s book!  The story takes place in “A Land Full Of Stuff”, and this one involves a young girl who lives a more “simple” life on purpose….which leads to some pretty cool things happening.  I had written this story, and 2 more that go with it a while back, thinking maybe someday I’d get Dave Ramsey or Max Lucado to help me publish it.  But I figure if that happens eventually on accident – cool…until then, this is a great way to let my daughters be involved, and maintain total control/profits!

I simply gave my daughters a list of what each page was about, and they produced and colored all of the pictures for the book!  I’m proud of them, and now they’re addicted to bringing me everything they color saying, “Here dad, we can sell this to help bring Phoebe home!”

Here’s a picture of what they look like:

The first page of the story reads:

“In a Land Full of Stuff,

there was a girl who had little.

While they had tall cakes,

she had cakes off the griddle.”

It’s a great story to discuss with your children and grand-children, why we might make choices to live with less on purpose – both in the moment, and on a grandeur scale.  It doesn’t come out and say anything about Jesus – which you may love, or hate…but I felt like it definitely would be a book He’d smile on.  Just click here to get your copy today!!!

We were driving home from their cousins house, and the chatter was like a hundred geese trapped in a minivan.  Finally I decided to bring a little order to the chaotic excitement by asking what they did all night at the sleepover.  Silence.  One of them speaks up, “Well, we watched a movie.”  Good, I can use that to continue a conversation.  What movie was it?  What was your favorite part?

“Ehhh, I can’t remember.”  I was momentarily discouraged, until they picked up the ball and ran with it themselves.   “Hey dad, do you know what my hobby is?”  I smiled, and said I’d love to know.  “Ballet!”, she said with a huge grin.  Her younger sister felt left out, and joined in, “Guess what mine is dad?”  She’s 5 years old, going on 16 sometimes.  I smiled at her in the rearview mirror, asking what hers was.  I was pretty sure hers would be ballet too.

“Worshiping God.”

I was too excited to know how to respond.  My words were probably something blended between telling her how excited I was to hear what she just said, and talking to her sister about how dancing ballet IS worshiping God also.  We started making a list of all the ways we can worship God.  It was one of those van rides home that make you want to take the long way.

Every once in a while, I wonder what they will do when they’re older.   Will they become teachers, like their mommy?  Will they be missionaries, or pastors?  Will they be professional ballet dancers?   Will they pursue mommy-hood above career?  Will they open a bakery, become a painter, or work at a zoo?

A while back, we asked our oldest daughter what she thought she might wanna do when she was a “grown up”.  Her answer didn’t require a whole lot of deliberation.  “I’m going to be an animal doctor, and I’m going to adopt a girl from China.”  Whoa.  Now I’m not sure what I would’ve said as a 6 year old, (although 1987 is when the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles came out….so possibly “Michelangelo”) but I don’t think I had the perspective and “world-view” our daughter has already grown.

So will she end up being a veterinarian, and adopting from China?  Who knows.   But the fact that God’s heart for the fatherless is already becoming a part of her heart – makes a dad proud.  Conversations like these make me feel like, whatever God has in store for them, these girls are definitely precious to the Kingdom.  I look forward to a life of helping them discover how God has uniquely sculpted their hearts and minds….

Here’s a book review I was not asked to write.

I’ve recently finished reading Wayne Muller’s book, “a life of being, having, and doing enough“.  Now, I’ll preface this review by saying – I love books.  Seriously.  The way a few pages of written word can tug on my heart, I have no difficulty imagining how the Word of God can transform a life.  So often when I finish a really good book, I’ll spend a while wishing I had the resources to put that book in the hands of everyone I love.  So that they might experience just a bit of what my heart has just been washed in.

It’s happened often in scripture.  In “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau.  In the words of NT Wright (pick a book).  In Howard Snyder’s “Salvation Means Creation Healed“. And now…in the words of Wayne Muller.  I know you may not immediately run out and purchase a copy.  Heck, my own wife spent months telling me about an amazing book that touched her heart, before I gave it a look.  (I’ve since apologized.)

So I’ll just give you a quick review that might whet your appetite for what Muller’s words touch on.

We live in a world of “more”.  Even writing this review is a tad ironic, because what I’m offering you is the advice that you should read “just one more” book.  But we can easily agree that so often our lives become pursuits of “more”, sometimes with selfish motives – but so often justified by purely genuine desires to be “faithful” with all that we’ve been given.  We want to accomplish _____ faster.   We want to provide more ______ for our kids.  We just want to make these changes to our environment.  We fill our days, our schedules, our closets, our toyboxes, and our minutes with really really good things to pursue.

Being content is often pushed to the side, and labeled as laziness.  (of course, sometimes it is laziness)  Any good and faithful person will naturally be involved in any given moment – in the activity of growing, moving, creating, improving, acquiring, giving, producing, raising, teaching, etc…  You get the picture.  Especially with the growing offerings of technology, we’re reminded on an hourly basis – what else is out there that we “need” or “need to experience/change”.

To this “brain-paced” life, Muller’s words point us powerfully to the words of scripture – “give us this day, our daily bread.”  The amazing experience of being content with a single day’s provision – especially in the midst of a people living a wandering existence (as Israel depended on manna) – can be a transformational experience for each of us.  The hearts we’ve been given, and the preciousness of “small things”, require a purposeful slowing of pace.  A “letting go” of things.   A pursuit of being content that doesn’t look to acquire/achieve, but seeks to breathe deeply this moment of what “is”.

Early in the book, he asks “When we envision our most beautifully perfect day, what do we dream we are doing?  Who is with us, what are the feelings or experiences we yearn for, how would we fill our day?”  The book continues from that point to be a literary “deep breath of fresh air”.  Not one that makes you sit back, thankful for what you’ve read – but one that makes you want to go out into life and experience the same exact things you’ve been doing all week – differently. 🙂

Toward the end, he quotes Meister Eckhart, a Christian mystic as saying, “If the only prayer you ever say in your life is ‘thank you’, that would be enough.”  I pray that even if you don’t run out and grab this book…you’ve been reminded today, and urged toward knowing the precious and Holy peace of “enough”…