I don't want my kids safe and comfortable. I want them BRAVE. ... I don't want to be the reason my kids choose safety over courage. I hope I never hear them say, 'Mom will freak out,' or 'My parents will never agree to this.' May my fear not bind their purpose here. Scared moms raise scared kids. Brave moms raise brave kids. Real disciples raise real disciples.

I don't want my kids safe and comfortable. I want them BRAVE. ... I don't want to be the reason my kids choose safety over courage. I hope I never hear them say, 'Mom will freak out,' or 'My parents will never agree to this.' May my fear not bind their purpose here. Scared moms raise scared kids. Brave moms raise brave kids. Real disciples raise real disciples.

Our only hope to speak with kindness, to lead with patience, and to not threaten our children with homicide is to ensure our spiritual reserves are not bone-dry. Moms are the middle of the flow chart; the arrows of exertion flow constantly out from us, but when no arrows of strength, grace, and peace are flowing in, the whole mechanism is in danger. Goodness in equals goodness out.

For whatever reason I was born into privilege; I've never known hunger, poverty, or despair. I have been blessed, blessed, blessed--relationally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically.

We cannot carry the gospel to the poor and lowly while emulating the practices of the rich and powerful. We’ve been invited into a story that begins with humility and ends with glory; never the other way around.

It is immature and lazy to imagine we know everything there is to know about someone before we know that someone. We don't know their stories, their histories, their real live human feelings. We don't know their favorite movies and best memories and what makes them afraid. It is unfair to take one fact, one thing they've said or we heard they said, or one thing they wrote, or someone else's experience, or a group they identify with and make a character sketch. If people did that to us, the picture would be so woefully incomplete, we wouldn't even recognize our own description.

Maybe we don’t recognize satisfaction because it is disguised as radical generosity, a strange misnomer in a consumer culture.