The Melting Pot – Preparing to live as a blended family

By Teresa Lusk –

Before adding your loved ones into the melting pot of a blended family, consider the following suggestions: Boundaries and expectations of how your blended family will work should be established. Even biological families struggle to get along, so don’t expect a new step-parent/child relationship to be successful immediately.

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Praying For My Son

The news hit me like a punch in the stomach.

“Dad, I’m deploying to Iraq next month.”

From the day my son enlisted in the Army, I knew this day might come, but still I wasn’t prepared for it. Not only was Chris headed to Iraq, but he was going to be stationed in one of the few remaining “hot spots” in the country. If that weren’t enough, he was the gunner on an assault vehicle—one of the most vulnerable jobs.

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Beauty

By Janet Morris Grimes –

Beauty. Magazine covers scream its requirements from shallow pages, taunting us with the latest version of retouched perfection. The images offer a million different ways to chase the unattainable, oversimplifying the five simple steps to longer, fuller, lighter, whiter, and smoother.

Thankfully, I never belonged in that world. Disappointed with the lack of any true freckle remover as I grew up, my naked face and overweight eyebrows approached life as-is, with occasional tweaking for special occasions. If true beauty required hours of prep work, we were less than interested.

For this reason, I doubt I will ever be what the world considers “beautiful.”

Sigh.

I gladly relinquish that title, and the responsibility that goes with it.
For what I do know is that the moments I have felt the most beautiful are those where mirrors do not exist.

Sitting in silence on a beach as the sun whispers “good night,” offering one last wink and a kiss before bedtime, I feel beautiful.

Sleeping upright on the couch with my infant son asleep on my chest and running my fingers through his curly hair, I feel beautiful. To him at least.

Covered in a moving cloud of flour from head to toe while preparing a meal for those I love the most, I feel beautiful.

Taking communion while kneeling at the cross, as if Jesus and I are the only ones in the room, I feel beautiful.

Walking hand in hand with my daughters as they reveal their concerns about life in a maddening pace of words, I feel beautiful, and pray that they do the same.

Hearing my sister’s far away voice say before she hangs up the phone,
“Hurry home. I’m not me without you.” I feel beautiful.

Finding a way to give a surprise gift to others, especially when they do not realize it is from me, I feel beautiful.

Splashing and dancing in the rain with my husband, I feel beautiful.
Digging deep enough to write words that make others cry, I feel beautiful.
I guess true beauty, for me, has much more to do with what boils over on the inside than what you see on the outside.

And if I had to choose between the two?

Feeling beautiful is much more rewarding than chasing down fleeting images through a distorted hall of mirrors, for mirrors never reveal what truly matters most.

Mirror, Mirror, on the wall?

Stay right where you are.

My search for beauty leads elsewhere.

I Peter 3:3 Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes.

How to Overcome Your Workout Excuses

By Don Otis –

I frantically dug through my workout bag in the locker room. Where was my workout shirt? (Have you ever kept looking for something in the same place even after you knew it wasn’t there?) Now, I had a decision to make that took some internal debate. Should I risk the humiliation of wearing a button-down shirt in the gym or use my shirt as an excuse to give up on my workout?

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Busy As Ants

“As boring as watching ants,” the saying goes. I believe the person who created this saying has never watched ants. Have you? They are fascinating.

I was weeding the other day and came across an ant bed. As I paused to watch them I was struck by how busy they were, each one doing their own thing, not caring what the other ants were up to. They seemed to be driven by a natural instinct to forge ahead no matter what obstacles were laid before them. To test this theory, I created a large log barrier in their path, and without missing a step they discovered ways around the obstacle. They continued in their pursuit of food and other things, which they dutifully carried into their home. God wants us to be more like ants, dutifully carrying out our jobs in spite of the obstacles that may come our way.

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