Feb 1, 2018 | The Good Words
“And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.” {Ephesians 4:32, NKJV}
Those are the words for this month. And they might be a little more challenging than they seem on the surface. Sometimes being kind is not the nice, fun, or easy thing to do — and will we rise to the challenge?
In her recent hit novel-turned-movie Wonder, R.J. Palacio tells the story of a young boy with very significant facial deformities and health challenges. From the perspective of several characters and the boy himself, you experience both the kindness and the harshness of the world we live in, and you walk away inspired to be on the team that wants to make kindness a way of life. (I haven’t seen the movie yet, but loved the book and highly recommend it!)
Palacio quotes J.M. Barrie (or one of her characters does) in a speech he makes to the class completing their fifth grade year, and asks this simple question:
“Shall we make a new rule of life… always to try to be a little kinder than necessary?”
I had to put the book down and write those words down immediately. And then I had to sit quietly and soak in that thought for a moment: What would our world look like if we tried to always be a little kinder than necessary?
What would it look like to always go the extra mile?
To turn the other cheek metaphorically – and physically when necessary – on a regular basis?
Could simple acts, the tenderhearted, forgiving ones, be the difference someone else needs? The thing that stops the guy from walking into the store to buy the gun?
Could the smile you offer in the grocery store give a stranger the boost of hope they needed to believe they could keep going?
The challenge I’d love to invite you to rise to this February is a simple one: Look for ways to be kinder than necessary.
Look for ways to go above and beyond. To keep that one precious heart of yours tender towards the people around you — the ones you know and the ones you don’t. If you aren’t already a journal-keeper, why not take this opportunity to write down those moments where you’ve reached toward kinder-than-necessary? Think about how you felt on the other side of the experience — and if you know what it meant to the person receiving the kindness, write that down, too!
Need some ideas to get you started? How about paying for the coffee of the person behind you? Or doing something especially kind for the person at work that frustrates the heck out of you and everybody else? Be generous. Be a listener. Be the one who washes the dishes this time, the one who takes out the trash.
Mother Teresa said, “Don’t look for big things, just do small things with great love….The smaller the thing, the greater must be our love.”
Now get out there and do the small things with the big love, friends! Think Ephesians 4:32. Think Kinder than necessary. Think Kindness.
I’m completely sure you will find the more you give, the more you feel fulfilled… and I can’t wait to hear how it goes!
xCC
“And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.” {Ephesians 4:32, NKJV}
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I would love to hear how Kindness changes the world around you! Share on social media — #thegoodwordswithlove and tag @carolinecollie
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Jan 31, 2018 | The Good Words
Hello dear friends with love!
This is a quick hello with a heads up for what’s happening in February… The Good Words challenge will kick off, tomorrow! Our word for the month of February will be Kindness.
If you haven’t heard about The Good Words yet, here is a quick rundown. We’ll be focusing on one word, and one passage of Scripture for a month. I’ll write at the beginning of the month with some encouragement on beginning to internalize that word and “fleshing it out in real life” on the first day a month, and then once a week for the rest of the month. {Please feel free to sign up here so you’ll never miss a post!}
We’ll start tomorrow, jumping in with the word kindness! If you’d like to join me (and hopefully my little people!) in memorizing a passage of Scripture to help us consider this one Good Word — this is it:
“And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.” {Ephesians 4:32, NKJV}
I’m using the New King James Version here, perhaps most especially because I love to encourage my children (and myself) to be tenderhearted … but feel free to pick a different version if it is a better fit for you!
Below are simple Dropbox links that will allow you to view and download the beautiful prints a beautiful friend of mine created to go along with this month’s theme! This is the first time I’ve tried this method of content delivery before — I am trying to keep it simple — so I welcome your feedback!
Here’s the link to the word “Kindness” which I think would be beautiful gracing the fridge or a wall where you eat, or somewhere where you’ll see it often and think on it and make it yours.
Here’s the link to Ephesians 4:32 NKJV. I am planning to have this one up near our dinner table so that we can read it together or take turns reciting it at meal times … and maybe by the end of this short month, that short verse will be hidden in our hearts!
I’d love for you to share pictures, thoughts and so on — and if you’re sharing on Instagram please hashtag #goodwordswithlove so that I can find you! {Yes that is a different hashtag but I think it works better!}
Feel free to forward it to a friend and ask them to join you on the adventure! They can Subscribe Here so they don’t miss a post!
Alright friends, we will start unpacking the concept of Kindness of February 1st and I am stoked!
With Heaps of Love,
xCC
Jan 25, 2018 | The Good Words
About nine years ago, a “mild interest” for photography turned into something more. It started with wanting to capture images of this precious little baby boy that joined our family, our sweet firstborn Bear. It grew with my desire to share about our ministry in South Africa in a way that would communicate the beauty and hope and great needs we were encountering. And when we arrived back in the States and it turned into a vocation — wielding a camera to shoot alongside the Hero Hubs on a regular basis — well it was time for that slight affinity to become a genuine area where I could grow and learn and make progress.
One of the most important things I discovered over time was that I often make the same mistake with a camera that I (quite possibly often) make with words: simply put, I aim for too much.
Big surprise for the girl who consistently had “talks excessively” on her school report cards, right?
With the camera (and often with words) I find myself wanting to show the whole picture, wanting the viewer to be able to see the bride and her Mom and the windows with the boats in the distance and the mirror that is reflecting all this gorgeousness and gosh aren’t those pillows on the bed really pretty, too?
But guess what? If you try to take a picture of everything, you sometimes end up taking a picture of nothing.
As we came home from wedding after wedding and talked and I asked questions and furrowed eyebrows and thought and listened to the Hubs, who is a very patient and good teacher, I began to make an important observation.
The Hubs’ photos are often breathtakingly beautiful to me because you know exactly what to look at. You see enough to tell the story — but not so much that you’re overwhelmed and don’t have any idea where to look. Even if there are trees in the foreground and river in the background, still the focus of an image created by a great photographer will tell you exactly where to look, that beautiful sweet spot in between those gently blurred trees and that softly flowing distant river, where the adorable couple are strolling along, or the dog’s tongue hangs from his mouth while the guy smiles at the girl and holds her hand with one hand, the leash with the other.
And focus is a part of what tells the story. But not just the kind of focus the camera does when it decides which part of the picture will be “in focus” and which will be “out of focus” and perhaps look a little blurred. It is also choosing the framing, choosing to take those extra few steps closer to the subject, so that you’re looking at the flower that’s right there, or just the baby’s face, or just that one sliver of light coming through that one part in the branches of that tree.
Trying to show too much, just like trying to say too much, often means less of what you really want to communicate comes through.
Like Coco Chanel’s advice, to take off a piece of jewelry before leaving the house, or an interior decorator suggesting you limit the number of tchotchkes on the table at the front door, it seems like more of the story seems to come through when you edit, and just focus on trying to tell one part of it really well.
I’ve wondered several times recently, after remembering and then being reminded what John wrote: that if all the things Jesus said and did were recorded, the world could not contain all the books that would be written.
I asked myself in my own head: “Why aren’t there more books? Why didn’t God decide to tell more of the story? Why is it edited down to those four Gospel accounts — which even have different ways of telling some of the same stories?”
Maybe the truth is we wouldn’t understand the story better just because we had more words to read. We will understand more by reading what we already have, focusing in on the themes and lessons contained therein. There is enough truth contained in those four Gospels to foster a lifetime of learning, right?
Could that apply to life? What if instead of trying to do everything we focused in, and focused on one thing? And truly, gave that one thing focus for more than one day, or even one week?
All of this, as you may have guessed, led to the birth of The Good Words. Every month, I’m going to share an idea with you. One word. One theme. And one Scripture verse to go along with it. I’ll share some ideas for how to wrestle with that word. How to internalize it. Perhaps even how to memorize that one Scripture on your own or with friends or family.
Each week I’ll share one post that will dig a little deeper into the one word we’re focusing on together. I hope you’ll read, and that it will encourage you to think even more, ask yourself more questions, ask God more questions. {I’d love for you to share Good Word stories with the hashtag #thegoodwordcc so that we can find each other and enjoy the stories and encourage each other on the journey.} Maybe it will help you see some of the extraneous parts of the picture of your life — things that are the less important things, things that belong on the edges — so that you can take a few steps closer and focus in on the main things, the deep things. The things that matter most.
I’m very excited about diving in on February 1st! I’m also VERY excited that I have a friend along for the journey, who’ll be creating some beautiful prints that I hope will find their way to your mirror or fridge or dining room wall or all of the above.
Before we jump into February, I’ll post to share the Good Word, the corresponding verse, and a link to the prints in case you’d like to use them. That way you’ll have a chance to have everything ready to get started on day one! But I highly recommend subscribing via email so that you never miss a post!
I’ve gotten just a sneak peek of one of the beautiful prints my friend has created for you all — I can’t wait to share them with you and get started!
If you are jumping in, I’d love to encourage you to find a friend to join you on the journey! Share this post and ask a friend to join by subscribing to With Love, From Here so they’ll never miss a post, either. They can sign up right here!
I’m praying these words will truly change your world, and the world around you, for the better this year!
Stay tuned…
xCC
Dec 31, 2017 | The Good Word, The Parenthood
Are you where I am in the midst of the eerie fog that seems to exist between December 26th and December 31st? This odd sort of holiday-esque space where some people have to go back to work and others are still on a break and people are traveling and some are still doing the Christmas stuff — and maybe you’re somewhere in between, and thinking “Hmm…. almost 365 days have passed and another whole year is almost over… What did I do?”
And if you are like me and you sit still a minute and ponder that question, you probably arrive at a place where you think “Well, that happened, which I had planned, but this didn’t. And I didn’t really do that, but at least I can say I made progress.” And perhaps on and on you go, evaluating and thinking and wondering what you might need to do differently so that 365 days from now you don’t feel like you’re still exactly where you are right now.
I didn’t write half as much as I wanted to, perhaps should have, in 2017. And I have some thoughts to think about how to change that in the year ahead — where I hear the Lord whispering the word “Choice” (as in “everything is a choice”) and I sense myself being challenged to make some life-giving choices in the year to come.
However, I excelled at another area I was aiming for: I read an awful lot this year compared to previous years, which I’m pretty delighted about. So while I might not be able to tell you how to crush all your goals (I do think this Michael Hyatt book I mentioned a while back could help with that) I do have some suggestions about reading that, if you’re in the market to make it happen, can make turn those pages more of a reality for you than any year before.
First I want to give half a second to encouraging you to think about why — why reading more *real books* should be one of your goals for 2018. I don’t think a dozen blog posts could fully speak to this question, but let’s start with a few simple thoughts. As a society, we are doing a heckuvalotta consuming and not a whole lot of producing. Most people agree that we are moving in a direction, as one generation passes the baton to the next, and that the direction we’re headed in is not a good one. But do you realize that a lot of the problems we’re facing are as old as the hills? Ideas that have been discussed by philosophers and average joes for generations past? We are really born into a world that was having a conversation for millennia — yes, millennia — before we arrived, and the best way to join that conversation? Is to read what the great thinkers of the past said, and what other great thinkers said in response, thereby joining the conversation.
Did you know Teddy Roosevelt typically read a book before breakfast every day? And then some? Don’t you love his oft-quoted thoughts — that it’s not the critic who counts? Not the one who points out how the strong man stumbles or the doer of deeds could’ve done them better? The credit belongs to the man in the arena, right? But when we spend 99% of our time reading whatever whoever he said she said on the internet, guess what we’re getting? The noise of the critics, right?
Did you know children in Shakespeare’s day had a better vocabulary than the average American adult? Suffice it to say: Reading is good for you. Very good. A man who reads lives a thousand lives, a man who does not lives one, as they say.
Truly — I ought to give another blog post to the why so let’s move on to the how.
Five Tips for Reading More This Year
- Always have the next book on the docket, waiting in the wings. Whenever you’re reading something, go ahead and figure out what’s going to be next. Start searching for book lists online — like the “100 Books To Read Before You Die” lists. Or think about books you’ve read in the past that you enjoyed, and ask for recommendations of similar ones. Ask friends who have similar tastes in books… and if you can…
- Find a friend to join you on the journey. They don’t have to read every book you read. You don’t have to read at the same pace. Being able to text a friend (like I did this year) and say “I finished Emily of New Moon. Couldn’t put it down. I love her so much. My favorite part was when the preacher sat on the cat and was too deaf to hear it and Cousin Jimmy walked in and said, ‘Lord, man, if you’re a Christian, get off that poor animal.’ Or something like that. I could not stop laughing.” A like-minded friend who’ll make and take recommendations can be a gift. Even if you decide to read different things!
- Consider a Kindle (or similar device). When I knew I needed to start reading more a few years ago, the Hubs quickly and kindly invested in a Kindle for me. Not one that had apps and games and tra la la — just a plain black and white (Paperwhite so that I can read at night without disturbing him) Kindle that would not tempt me to check email or Facebook or anything else — just read. Now here’s why the Kindle was a game changer:
- Get a Library Card and Use It. Often. I do visit the local library on a regular basis, but here’s some great news for you. Once you’ve got the card, you don’t actually have to visit ever again. (Although I loooooove the library and I think you should.) There are tons of free books to read on Amazon, AND, there are tons of books that you can check out from the library – online – and have delivered — you guessed it — to that shiny Kindle of yours. This was a GAME CHANGER for me. I don’t have tons of cash to buy every book I want to read. And my library does not own many of the books I want to read. But between a Kindle Unlimited Subscription and the Library Card (and please look for the Libby app — I’ll explain in a moment) you truly have SO many options at your fingertips.
- You Can Take it With You. (And You Should.) Here’s the number one tip — even though it’s listed fifth. You cannot read a book that you do not have with you. But you can take it with you in more ways than you think. Those thirty minutes in the pickup line can fly by with a good book in your lap. And those twenty minutes waiting for the kid at guitar practice will put another chapter under your belt. And GUESS WHAT? Audiobooks totally count. And are wonderful. So do what I told you in step four, and download the Libby App for iPhone, and be amazed at how many great Audiobooks there are, read by great readers. I read To Kill a Mockingbird earlier this year, and then enjoyed listening to the Audiobook on a long trip with the Hero Hubs — narrated by Sissy Spacek. Such a treat! That thirty minute drive to work. The earbuds in your ears while you’re working out. Fifteen minutes folding laundry. Moments made for an audiobook. Audiobooks totally count y’all!!
Now, here’s a bonus for you to encourage you to get started. I truly feel like a richer and fuller human being this year because I spent less time staring at a TV screen and more time joining the great conversations our world has been having for millennia. And I’d love to share some of my favorite reads from this year with you, in hopes that you’ll get bitten by the bug and decide to push that lovely “OFF” button on the remote, or close the tab that’s open to Facebook, and read something that will inspire you to breathe, to be, and to live more fully.
Here are my favorites in several different categories:
For Putting First Things First
Did you know if you read about 4 chapters a day, you can read the entire Old Testament once, and the New Testament and Psalms and Proverbs TWICE… in one year? Think ten minutes a morning and ten minutes before bed could get you there? Ten minutes less Facebook, maybe? I hope you’ll include the Good Word in your word count this year!
Robert Murray M’Cheyne (incredible 19th Century Scottish pastor) created the Bible Reading plan that will get you through the Bible in one year as described above.
This link will take you to a website that has it organized by months and then days, and you can click over to the day’s reading on Bible Gateway.
This link will take you to a website that has printable versions in several different formats based on your preferences and eyesight (very thoughtful, hey?) and paper sizes.
For Parents
Ben Sasse’s The Vanishing American Adult. This isn’t specifically a parenting book, but it truly had a huge impact on some of the ideas and strategies the Hubs and I have for helping the little people in our care become full-fledged adults ready to contribute to society when they leave our home. This book is definitely not just for parents. Anyone who is in any capacity concerned about the state of the United States, and wonders what they can do to help forge a brave new way forward will be inspired by this book. Inspiring non-spoiler alert: Sasse does not believe political decisions, parties and directions are the solutions to the problems we are facing. Thus, while it is written by an (impressively intelligent) Senator from Nebraska, it is not a “political book.”
Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp was by far the most help and informative book especially for parents that I read this year. It has this illustration about “The Circle of Safety” that we have used since we first read this book years ago, (this was a re-read this year!) and that one practical illustration speaks volumes to our kids and makes reading this book so worth it. I will probably continue to read this one every year or two — not because it’s entertaining and a fun read, but truly because it has so much practical wisdom that I want to continue to remind myself as a parent!
For Inspiration
Mother Teresa, Come Be My Light. I mentioned this one when I first read it in January, and it still echoes in my head 12 months later. I do not think you can read this story and not marvel at this amazing human being, and feel inspired to also “Accept whatever He gives and give whatever He takes with a big smile.” If you live in my town I know for sure this is at the Brown Library!
Corrie Ten Boom, The Hiding Place. Wowzers, I could not put this book down. While her story is in itself incredibly gripping, it is impossible not to be challenged and encouraged by the faith Corrie and her family exhibited in the midst of unspeakable conditions. You can’t put a price tag on perspective — but purchase and read this book, and I think you’ve made an investment on gaining that invaluable perspective that helps you see your circumstances with less discontentment and more gratitude.
Classics
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë was my favorite classic this year. I am often amazed by how much faith can be portrayed in a book that isn’t necessarily written for the purpose of “faith inspiration.” This year I’ve also been more amazed than ever before at how much truth you can learn in the pages of a fiction book. There are several paperback and hardcover options available on Amazon… and it is free for Kindle! If anybody forgot to get me a Christmas present and wants to send this gorgeous hardcover Brontë Sisters Box Set to my house, y’all just feel free. But seriously that would make an amazing gift for a reader in your life!
To Read-Aloud with the Kids
The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry. If you’d like to listen to the Audiobook, oh my goodness, Arte Johnson read this one — we found it as an audiobook through the Libby App! — and OHMIGOODNESS it was pricelessly funny. Please enjoy and thank me later.
Our kids also fell in love with the Mercy Watson Series this year and the cousins received this box set for Christmas because if you have not met this delightful pig with an insatiable love for hot buttered toast? Well ya really need to. (She is also at the Brown Library if you live here in Washington!) Mercy truly is a porcine wonder.
Grown-Up Fiction
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr might be the book I had the hardest time putting down this year. This might be the best “Book for the Beach Trip” recommendation here. Doerr’s prose is so engaging it’s almost poetry. The chapters are short and the pace is quick, it seems like so much is happening and you feel quite literally transported to see the story unfold before your eyes in Europe decades and decades ago. His writing style is incredibly unique and I found it absolutely delightful.
Juvenile Fiction
Sarah Mackenzie over at Read-Aloud Revival recommended in a podcast episode not too long ago that you can feel so very fully engaged and satisfied as a reader by reading juvenile fiction. If you’re hoping to get more reading in, you really aren’t selling yourself short on storyline, plot, complexity or overall entertainment value just because you choose books that may also be considered appropriate for middle to high school aged students. The more manageable lengths of the books is part of what makes it so satisfying, and helps you want to keep reading more. Think of the richness of the Chronicles of Narnia or Bridge to Terabithia before you disagree!
With Sarah’s advice in mind, I definitely jumped into more Juvenile Fiction this year, pre-reading some things that will be on a list for my kids later on and reading other books that I just thought I’d enjoy.
Emily of New Moon might’ve been the character I most fell in love with this year. She has so much spunk and personality. L.M. Montgomery (a la Anne of Green Gables fame) wrote Emily of New Moon as well as Emily Climbs and Emily’s Quest. I found all three for Kindle by checking them out from the library. The first was definitely my favorite.
I also enjoyed The Witch of Blackbird Pond (E.G. Speare) and The Watsons Go to Birmingham–1963 (Christopher Paul Curtis, grab some tissues) immensely.
And last but not least….
For Homeschoolers
If you’re a homeschooling parent and you haven’t read Teaching From Rest by Sarah Mackenzie yet, I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is not a long or arduous read (as some homeschooling guides can be) but full of practical, easily “actionable” ideas and plans to help you find your own personal style and rhythm (and hopefully arrive at the end of this year with more hair still attached to your head.) Easily worth the $13 price tag — I plan to read this one again and again, too!
So friends, Happy New Year! I hope your year gets off to a great start, that you remember to put first things first, and you find yourself learning, growing and thriving more and more in 2018!
More to come from this little corner of the web soon. But in the meantime, if you were a reader this year I’d love to know how many books you read, and what your favorite was!
xCC
I almost forgot::
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Oct 19, 2017 | The Good Word, The Parenthood
“What was your teacher’s favorite color?” he asked. Sitting on a bar stool at the counter, he was about to select a color for the leaf printed on the page in front of him from a tray of oil pastels.
“What was your teacher’s favorite color?”
I tried to refocus my distracted mind, tilted my head to one side and urged myself to listen.
“I’ve had lots of teachers, Blake. I’m not sure. What do you mean?”
“Your teacher….” he emphasized the word, “at the nursing home.”
I barely remembered. The hubs didn’t remember at all. But somehow, after visiting a nursing home as a family about 350 days ago, my six year old son remembers that one of the people we visited was one of my teachers in grade school.
And this leaf is for our next visit. So he’s asking for a suggestion about the color.
Duh.
_________
A little over a year ago, the Hubs and I sat down for a long series of heart-to-heart conversations about our plans for October 31st.
It’s a day that many Christians have probably spent a lot of time arguing about. I’m thankful to say we didn’t argue. We just talked, and we talked and we talked. Lots.
For the first few years of parenthood we were outside of the US and Halloween wasn’t really a question we had to encounter. When we returned and the kids were still young, at first we avoided, but when it eventually came time to figure out what we would do, we were blessed to have invitations from neighbors for get-togethers, and decided to participate.
But somehow, it just didn’t ever exactly “sit right” in our souls. As a resident alien hailing from far corners of the Earth, the Hero Hubs was perplexed by the holiday, its origin and purpose, and even more perplexed about participating in it.
After a couple of years of costumes and trick-or-treating, we started asking questions like…
Are we just going with the grain because this is what ‘everybody’s doing?’
Does celebrating this holiday really line up with what we believe and want to pass on to our kids? Does it matter?
Should we be trying to swim upstream like we’ve always said we wanted to?
Is it possible to somehow redeem this day, the way historians think the day chosen to celebrate the birth of Christ was redeemed? There was a spark.
____
Fast forward dozens of deep conversations.
A week or so before the 31st of October last year, I was on the phone with someone at a local nursing home wondering if we could bring artwork the children had created to the residents and wish them a Happy Fall.
With the baby in the little push bike she’d just received for her birthday, and dozens and dozens of leaves we’d printed and colored and decorated for the residents, we strolled into the nursing home on the afternoon of the 31st.
At first our kids were a little reticent — we joked about a nursing home being a really scary place to bring your kids at Halloween — and then something shifted.
They caught on to the fact that every. single. person whose room they walked into was happier and more cheerful when we left. They discovered a wealth of people who were overjoyed, over-the-moon delighted to see them, simply because they are children.
They brought the gift of a smile, a kind word, a piece of art, and left with so much more — a feeling that they’d given some really great gift, that they mattered, that they had something to give.
Our eldest, who at first was perhaps the most reticent of all, eventually became the one who wanted to walk in first and present the art work, who didn’t want to skip a single door.
Funny enough, some residents, very aware of the day, hurried to a cupboard and pulled out a bag of stowed-away candy, delighted to have children to give it to.
It was a sweet reward that warmed my heart.
On the way to a restaurant for a special dinner out, we talked for a bit in the car afterwards about the experience, and the kids were delighted and hoped we would go back again soon.
I resolved to do so in my mind, and knowing that so often the Christmas season is a busy time for the nursing home with visitors coming to sing, I thought perhaps we’d wait until January, when the winter blues set in and try to bring some light again.
The new school semester started, life scurried on, and here we are nearly a year later having not visited once since then.
But these big doughy eyes look across the kitchen counter at me, willing me to remember a favorite color for a teacher.
Maybe it meant more than we realized for the kids.
Maybe we’re on to something. And maybe we aren’t.
But here are some things I feel sure about, after pondering it long and hard for ages.
Often in life there are a dozen different paths to take. And the path that might be right for one person might not be right for another.
While I am fully confident that Jesus is the path — the Way, the Truth and the Life — I am also confident that He has plans and purposes for His children, and they are not all carbon copies of each other.
Your race is in your lane, and my race is in mine.
I don’t expect anyone to try to swim my race, and I don’t want to try to swim anyone else’s, so I have to go to Jesus and ask — what does faithfulness look like, here, for me, to follow You?
And when I hear His still small voice saying This is the way, walk in it, well then, that is what I must do.
If your puzzler has been puzzling for a different path for October 31st, I wholeheartedly welcome you to join us in our hope to make it a day for us to give and love and be Light.
But first, be still — listen and wait.
As Paul wrote to the Romans, “One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind.” {Rom. 14:5}
Your race is in your lane, dear friends. Whatever that looks like for you.
So what should Christians do on October 31st? There’s not one right answer.
Just keep swimming toward Jesus.
xCC
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