45 Days Of Faithfulness

Some of the most popular TV shows from the 80s and 90s were about families. We used to sit down as a family and watch shows like Family Ties, Full House, Growing Pains, The Wonder Years, and even Alf and laugh with all their crazy TV antics.

Have you ever heard the expression, “You are what you eat?” Why do people say that? Maybe because what you eat affects how you feel, like have you ever eaten too much sugar and then felt like going crazy, until twenty minutes later when you want to crash?

Have you ever seen a clown car in the circus. It zooms around honking and spinning until it comes to a stop and the door flies open revealing a parade of clowns, one after the other, after the other. Sometimes fifteen clowns can come out of one little car.

Every Mother’s Day excited kids across the country attempt to serve their moms by doing something they never do on any other day of the year. I bet you know what I’m talking about; serving them breakfast in bed. Mother’s Day is the one day a year where kids find joy mothering their mothers.

Amy Carmichael is somewhat of a household name in Christian circles. If you don’t know her, you should take some time to learn more about her life. She was in Irish girl who was born in the 1800s. She was always weak and frail and prone to long bouts of illness, but her burning desire was to love God through loving His people in far away lands.

In 1865, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson wrote a book about a girl who is now a household name. Of course you won’t know her until I tell you what name he wrote her book under, Lewis Carroll. Now you know her? Alice’s Adventures are now classic works known by kids all over the globe.

I love history. It’s so interesting and teaches us a lot about the present and that’s why I like historical movies. My wife Hayley loves these types of movies too, but she loves historical books even more. In one such book she told me about, The Dragon of Lonely Island, author Rebecca Rupp takes readers on adventures into the past to help them learn about the lives of the people who came before us.

I have told this parable many times of a delivery driver who loaded up his delivery van for the day and then drove off to his neighborhood, up his driveway, and opened his garage to unload everything for his wife and children. Why does this seem so wrong to everyone who hears it?

When I was little I didn’t have a job, shocker I know. Not having an income makes it really hard to buy gifts for you family at Christmas. So my parents, not having a lot of money to give me to buy gifts for them, taught me to make things.

I once knew a woman who had a really great reason for wanting to be rich. She used to say, “I want to marry a rich man, so I can serve the Lord by having all kinds of fun parties!” You might laugh, like I did, but she really thought that serving God would be much more to her liking if she could do what she loved.

In the 19th century, French scientist Louis Pasteur discovered sickness was spread through microscopic organisms called germs. Of course, now we know all about germs, just ask any mom who faithfully douses her children with alcohol rub every time before they eat out.

Do you remember the Dr. Suess story about Horton sitting on an egg for Mazie and hatching it? Well, if you don't, I'm going to spoil the story for you; Mazie was devastated to see what came out of her egg.

Have you ever noticed how when you turn the porch light on in the dark, within a short time, the moths and other insects are drawn to it? You couldn’t keep them away if you tried. It’s as if the light yells out to them, “Hey you! Get over here!” They find themselves unable to resist it.

When I was little I once gave my mom a homemade coupon book for her birthday, many years. Have you ever done that? I put in things like one free back rub, cook a meal, breakfast in bed and doing a load of laundry. This gift was both the easiest and the hardest thing to give.

What’s your major? That’s a question that’s commonplace for anyone that attends college. It’s like a precursor for the full-on adulting question of “what do you do for a living?” In college, before I knew what I wanted to major in, I told people I was a “So-shh” major.

When I was little we had a 1969 Volkswagen van that we always took on road trips. I remember it being loud and hot and oh so much fun. We would drive for hours without so much as an iPad or cellphone. To pass the time we would count the different state license plates we would see, or hit each other in the shoulder every time we saw a VW bug (Slug Bug!)

When I was little, I wanted a dog really bad, any pet really, but my parents didn’t want any more mouths to feed in our big family, so they bought me a pet rock. Yeah, back in the 70s pets that couldn’t eat were all the rage. Gary Dahl, the rock’s inventor, became a millionaire by selling ordinary rocks in little doggie carrying cases.

If you’ve ever watched one of the more modern iterations of Star Trek then you know about an incredibly powerful enemy of Star Fleet called the Borg. Nerd Alert! The Borg are cybernetic organisms linked together with a hive mind. Which just means they are former humans who have been assimilated into a colony.

I can remember the joy of recess as a kid. It was my favorite thing about school! The games we would play, the bars we would climb, it was a world of adventure within the chainlink fence of my elementary school. One particular game I loved was Red Rover.

As a volleyball coach for many years, I know about coaching, and I know that if an athlete wants to get better at her sport she has to practice, she has to work hard at her game and build upon what she’s already good at. While a few of my athletes would complain about practice time, the majority realized that without practice they wouldn’t be able to win a single game.