’m minding my own business last week, when an article comes across my desk instructing me (and all evangelical Christians) how to show love to all of these people we supposedly hate.  The conclusion?  Stop being Christians and agree with everything the world says…then they’ll know you really love them.  (my paraphrase)

The unloving Christians.  The media has been telling us for years that Christians are unfeeling and unloving.  But the evidence doesn’t show that.  It’s a deception and it is not true.

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Do you ever feel helpless when a friend is struggling?  You’ve hugged, visited, shared a meal, and encouraged.  But you can’t be there every minute.

The ladies class I’m a part of on Wednesday nights has been trying to actively encourage a friend who is in the hospital.  One of the things we decided to do was to flood her room with the truths of God’s word.  I created these Scripture printables.  We each wrote an encouraging note around the edges, to remind her of our love, and hung them all around her room.

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Summers are the greatest, aren’t they?

It’s all relaxing and eating bon-bons and sipping iced tea. …Yeah, not around here either.  But that doesn’t mean that summer’s not fantastic.

Our summers are filled with fun, but they’re also filled with lots of service opportunities.  If we’re not heading to a camp, we are hosting a team of people.

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I heard a story recently about a young man who was out in his father’s watermelon field working, with strict instructions not to eat any of the fruit.  Giving in to temptation, he attempted to hide the evidence by burying the remains off in another part of the field.  He was sure he’d gotten away with it until his father noticed watermelons growing where they didn’t belong.  The evidence was irrefutable.  Undeniable.  Once the fruit appeared, the son could not hide that he had buried the seeds in just that place.

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You’re reading Scripture but it just feels like empty words.  You can’t see God anywhere you look.  Abandoned.  Defeated.  Alone.  Those are the words going through your head.

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I find words fascinating.  We just watched Dead Poets Society tonight with the boys.  There’s a scene in the movie in which Mr. Keating says, “Avoid using the word ‘very’ because it’s lazy.  A man is not very tired, he is exhausted.”  Say what you really mean.

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If your child’s textbook taught that bloodletting, heroin, and mercury were effective medical treatments, I imagine you’d take issue with that.  After all, those practices were proven falselong ago.  Well, did you know that science textbooks from elementary school through college continue to print “facts” that were patently proven false (by mainstream science) decades ago.

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No one has ever, or will ever, love me as much as my dog.  This is not to demean my husband’s love for me … he totally agrees with this assessment.

Even a word like ‘unconditional’ doesn’t do justice to the complete, every inch of his soul adoration that a dog truly smitten offers.  I’m pretty sure if he could speak, what Scout would say to me is, “My whole life is in you…all I am and do are wrapped up in you…my sun rises and sets on your existence.”

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Are you the kind of person who

1. Loves ice breaker activities?

2. Is looking for a creative way to get to know a group of people?

3. Has a Sunday School class that could use a fun prayer time activity?

4. Is often negligent and forgets to plan lessons, thus requiring you to come up with activities on the spur of the moment?

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When I was in college, I was part of a youth ministry team.  We taught classes, led activities, and were tasked with mentoring the young people in our community.  Part of the training we received in mentoring encouraged us to spend time with the teens outside of class.  Real discipling happens in the day to day.  The “Hey, I’m going to the mall, would you like to join m?” and, “Let’s cook dinner together” moments.

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When I was in college, my roommate and I had a giant sign on our closet door that said, “ALL Things”.  And when we needed a little pick-me-up, we would play The Donut Man song and sing along with him, “I can do all things, all things, all things…I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, Philippians 4:13” while marching around our apartment.

I still like to have encouraging words hung up around the house. 

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I don’t know a single mother that would let her child play near a street without supervising him.  We make sure that our whole family is buckled in before we leave the driveway.  I could make a list of 100 things we all do to protect our families every day.

Why in the world do we let our computers, cell phones and other devices go un-monitored?

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I have never taught material that so resonated with people.  After the first lesson, numerous people order the book for themselves.  It hits home.  It’s real.

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or the past 9 years, every June, my family spends a week in Indiana at Midwest Family Camp, held at lovely Camp Mack on Lake Waubee.  Last week was that week!

During our first worship service, I prayed that God would direct my conversations for the week.  I’m a talker, and I so look forward each year to good conversation with Godly individuals.  I prayed that God would lead who I talked to and what we talked about, that I would hear and receive what I needed to and that I would share with others what He wanted me to.

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