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Dear Reader
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Summer, 2008 Dear Reader, I hope you have been enjoying your everyday, ordinary lives this summer. It can certainly be a challenge these days. There are lots of trials and tribulations in this world, for sure, but the Apostle Paul gives us another way to look at and to endeavor to live life. Remember? I've used this scripture in the epigraph of one of my books "Raise Up A Child" and it is -Romans:12:1-2 (The Message - bible in narrative form) This is how it goes: "So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary lives - your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around-life - and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you." Fun stories Matt and Franziska live in Rome with their two little boys Peterle - 5 and Sam -2 and they had a couples shower for a couple upstairs who are expecting their first baby (baby boy!). They were giving them, as part of their gift for the baby, my book "Raise Up A Child" (RUACH). Another gal, who had also received that book from Franziska, shouted out: "I love that book, we read it almost every day. It makes you feel so good about being a parent and it's so inspiring and encouraging!" Note: Franziska writes daily e-mails about their everyday lives in Roma and their travels - Father's Day is being spent in Stockholm, Sweden. Mother's Day was spent in Naples for the Roma Johnsons and she and Matt send photos with their e-mails. We do the same thing back to Roma. We all jump in with notes and photos back and forth - even the Colorado grandkids write e-mails telling about good things, saying: "I had so much of God's favor, today..." while also commenting on the news in the e-mail they just received. You will see photos of our family celebrating life both here and abroad along with examples of family e-mails later in this article. It's a good thing to practice, commenting on others challenges and accomplishments on their hard work as they attempt to live the life God prepared for them. You see, the world doesn't inspire or encourage us, doesn't share much, if anything, about a good family life. It shares the troubled/dark side of life, the one filled with problems and seemingly no real solutions to any of the problems. It seems to be getting worse out there. I also see goodness on the increase, too. It's quite prophetic, actually. Mary, my daughter-in-law, shared it with me last night after reading Joel Osteen’s daily message (a famous television evangelist and best selling author). Here's how it goes: “Whatever is true, whatever is honest, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is kind, if there is any virtue, if there is anything worthy of praise, think on these things” (Philippians 4:8). There is another way to practice thinking and speaking and it's all about "How God would like us to live the life, he's given us. I always say: "God's way is challenging, but not burdensome." When I read what Franziska's friend said about my book and how it inspires and encourages, I'm encouraged! Franziska's friend and what she shouted out, says IT ALL to me. And, speaking of choices, Franziska didn't have to share that story with us, and she certainly didn't have to give that book again. She had to choose to share it and her friend didn't have to praise the book in front of everyone, saying: "I love that book, we read it almost every day. It makes you feel so good about being a parent and it's so inspiring and encouraging!": Oh, I love what she said: When I love something, I often say: "It just tickles my heart", or "God's favor for sure!" It's just like that :-). |