This morning as my 14-year-old scarfed down chicken-maple sausage links before school, I pulled Tim Keller’s devo (for adults) on Proverbs off the kitchen’s half-wall, where it sits by the fruit bowl. These pages have become to me a quietly cherished part of our routine.
There’s something about Proverbs’ concrete wisdom and word pictures for developing young brains that makes this book wonderfully tactile. (And bless the person who divided it neatly into 31 chapters, one per day of the month.)
A note from Janel:
This week, I’m welcoming guest authors Donna Kushner and Amy Schulte, a mother-daughter team who, in Amy’s childhood, served as missionaries in Palestine. Both currently work with refugees in professional and personal capacities. (I personally worked with Donna on a free resource to guide immigrant and refugee families into healing.)
My friend’s alienation crackled through the phone line. “I don’t know. I keep doing all the right things. But a lot of times I don’t feel close to God, you know?”
My friend described time in Scripture and prayer, their attempts to live in ways that pleased God. Yeah, I definitely believe there are things we can do to move closer to God. I also know what it’s like to feel like God is endlessly, silently away from you.
This week on a phone conversation with a friend, she asked what’s become our custom at the end of our calls: What’s one intimate prayer request I can pray for?
It was probably telling that I didn’t really know.
Once when my kids were younger, back in that season I was covered in toddlers and preschoolers, we met my husband at Chick-fil-A (always a win) after work one night.
When they’d slayed the nuggets and the playground and it was time to go home, I asked our four kids who’d like to ride with Dad, and who wanted to ride home with me.
So I don’t know what your kids’ morning routine is like at your house.
Maybe you picture me lovingly folding lunchbox notes and sandwiches built from the sprouts on my windowsill, sitting down to a full breakfast with devotional book in hand.
Confession: My heavenly intentions for Thanksgiving are often clobbered by my oh-so-real life.
I would love to be preparing our hearts all month for gratitude, but I find myself picking up someone else’s rank gym socks. I would love to be stuffing a jar with slips of paper declaring our thankfulness, but can tend to stave off a little more teenage complaining instead…?
Last week, I rubbed shoulders with an old friend:
Guilt.
My eleven-year-old put into words what likely more than one American has been thinking about the tragic and troubling events of January 6. “2021 was supposed to be better than 2020! We’re only six days in!”
And then there was my 16-year-old’s assessment. “If we were describing the U.S. in terms of health, I’d say we’re spiking a fever.”
Like so much of 2020, there are parts of Thanksgiving this year that are a bit sad. We’ve canceled our family trip for reasons you can probably guess (thank you, COVID).
But this year continues to fling doors wide open in raising resilient kids.
![Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language](https://www.janelbreitenstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/love-languages-text-1.jpg "Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language")
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