I’m blessed. I have one of the best Moms. I had a pretty great Dad, too. I was one of those fortunate enough to be raised in a home with a Mom and a Dad who loved me and more importantly, loved each other. Above all, they loved God. And after reading all that, I have to add that they are both still around and they still love me, each other, and God. I don’t want to skip that part.

But if you were blessed enough to have a parent or both parents who cared for you, let them know. Call them on the phone. Go and visit them. Don’t assume that they know how much they mean to you. Tell them.

One day, we will look up from our devices and they won’t be there. Then it will be too late to visit, to call, to say the words, “Thank you” and “I love you.” I know some of you would give just about anything for the chance to tell a parent you love him or her one more time.

And if you are a parent, stay strong. You might feel like you’re totally screwing up your children, but the fact that you are still around and still trying says a lot. What your kids need to see is that you love them. What they need to see more is that you love your spouse more. And whether you’re married or a single parent, they need to see that you love God above everything and every one else. They need to see you living out your faith and not just talking about it. They need to see a faith that expresses itself in acts of love and obedience and not just church attendance.

So I want to wish all the mothers out there — whether you gave birth or adopted or fostered — a very happy and blessed Mother’s day.

Today, I went to a Renaissance Festival for the first time in at least a decade. It was great. It was so much better than the last time when I felt like I had wasted my money.

At first, I was a bit worried because I realized when I arrived that I had forgotten to get more cash. I thought I might run short. But as it turns out, I had exactly the right amount. I started out with $9 and left with no cash left.

I believe that is an example of God’s faithfulness in the little things. And for me, those are generally the hardest to entrust to God.

I can put the major stuff in God’s hands because I know there’s no way I can do otherwise. But when it comes to the little stuff, I’m more tempted to say, “Nah, God. I’m good. I got this” and miss an opportunity for God to show up and show out. Plus, I typically find out that I in fact am not good and don’t in fact have this.

If I can trust God in those million little daily things, then I can trust Him when the big stuff happens. I can trust Him when my world falls apart and nothing makes sense. God is faithful in the little and the big and all the in between because that is who He is.

Sometimes, you need to unwind after a long week. It doesn’t necessarily have to be bad or stressful, but sometimes when there’s a lot going on, those five days can be a bit taxing. So I have made a list of some ways to relax at the end of the week:

1. I always love to listen to a good vinyl album while lying in bed. There’s something calming about the familiar rhythms of watching the needle drop on a record.
2. I try to eat somewhere that has good chips and salsa. Or sometimes, the occasion calls for queso. If the week has been more wearying than normal, cheese helps.
3. Sometimes, sitting down in a comfortable chair and doing nothing. No devices, no books, no music. Just sit there and be. Close your eyes if it helps.
4. Sometimes, I will focus on my breathing, taking deep drafts of air and exhaling slowly. Usually, I can feel my blood pressure lowering and any anxiety lessening.
5. Having a nice cup of hot tea is a good way to unwind. I like black tea, but lately I gravitate toward herbal teas with no caffeine, especially if it’s later in the afternoon.

There are probably more ways I could name if I thought about it longer. And I can already hear you saying that you don’t have time to unwind. That’s right. You will never have time for anything unless you make time by making it a priority. And if you don’t make time for your health, your body will force you to make time for illness. So it’s best to practice relaxing and unwinding.

Also, naps are good. I just wish I’d learned that when I was younger. All those naps I missed. Such a shame.

FYI: Scratch out the 39 and write 50, since the picture still applies.

It’s hard to come up with creative stuff to write about when your brain has officially turned to jello. That’s usually where I am at thus point in the week. I even failed at Wordle, missing the word for the first time since February.

But here I am at the end of the day, talking about it all in past tense. Some days, your victory will be that you persevered and survived, even if you have nothing else to show for it. For me, I actually accomplished quite a lot. Still, I know what it’s like to be able to say, “My accomplishment for the day is that I’m still here.”

Plus, there’s coffee. As long as I have my well-doctored cup(s) of coffee, I will be fine. Whatever the day throws at me, caffeine will lie to me and tell me how easy it all will be. Plus, coffee does tend to help you keep your eyes open, which I believe is considered important if you want to do your job well.

I also believe that you need to celebrate the little victories and small accomplishments. So yay me for not falling down any stairs or punching myself in the face today. Well done.

Yep, and back in the day we had a thing called dial-up internet where you had to . . . wait for it . . . dial in to the internet. You had to sit there and wait for your 56K modem to connect to the internet. This is our generation’s version of walking to school in the snow uphill both ways.

And back when if you were downloading a large file, you suddenly developed a strong prayer life. You didn’t want to be that person who got to 99% downloaded only to have your internet connection mysteriously broken and have to start over from scratch. I guarantee that dial-up made lots of Baptists cuss back in the day.

I still can’t believe that I paid $24.95 for dial-up internet with America Online. Yes, it was nice hearing “You’ve got mail” when you finally got connected, but it was also a pain having one of your parents yell up the stairs, “Get off the internet! I need to use the phone!” But such was life back in my day.

Yes, the struggle was real.

“A car is made to run on gasoline, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. . . .There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way. . . God cannot give us happiness and peace apart from himself, because it is not there. There us no such thing” (CS Lewis).

More and more these days I hear about people who have dechurched and are in the process of deconstructing their faith. There’s a fundamentalist part of me that recoils and says, “How dare you? How dare you leave Jesus?” But most of the time it’s not about that.

Mostly it’s people who have been hurt by those who are in positions of leadership within the Church and who practice a Phariseeical form of Christianity that puts rules over people. Some people have been through hurt and trauma and are processing honest doubt and need answers to real questions.

I learned tonight at Kairos that the opposite of doubt isn’t facts. The opposite of doubt is trust. The way to interact with people who are deconstructing is not to argue theology or question their motives but to listen and to love well. It’s to walk with people through their journeys.

Ultimately, we need to be as patient with others as God has been with us. We need to remember that it was the kindness of God that led us to repentance and relationship in the first place. You and I need to learn a word that has become one of my favorite words — hesed. As I learned, hesed is when the person from whom you have the right to expect nothing gives you everything.

When you understand that you can’t outgive or outlove God, then you can be much more patient and understanding with people who have doubts and struggles. And that just might be what they need most.

I was browsing YouTube recently, and for some unknown reason, I gravitated toward a 30-minute interview clip with Jane Marczewski, better known as Nightbirde. It was probably before her cancer returned for the third and final time. It’s an amazing and insightful interview filled with some profound statements and honest admissions.

One statement that arrested my attention was about how she controls her thoughts. She described her thoughts as birds flying over in the sky. You can’t really control those kinds of thoughts any more than you can control birds in flight. But you don’t have to let the bird land on your head and build a nest in your hair.

The Apostle Paul says essentially the same thing in a slightly different way. He says that we take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ. In other words, you don’t let certain negative thoughts linger in your mind until they become habits or mindsets. You bring up every thought, holding it up to the light of the truth of God’s word.

In the same way you doubt your doubts by telling yourself a competing narrative based on God’s truth, you defeat destructive and demeaning thoughts by holding them up against God’s promises and against all the verses about God’s lovingkindness.

You don’t beat yourself up for having angry, fearful, lustful, hateful thoughts that fly above your head, but you don’t have to let those thoughts settle down on you. You can choose to think on better things — noble, pure, right, lovely, admirable things (as Paul says in another of his letters).

If you have 30 minutes to spare, I highly recommend watching the entire interview here:

It’s always annoying that the weekends always fly by while the weeks tend to creep. At least that’s the way it seems to me. It feels like it goes like Moooooooonday, Tuuuuuuuuuuuesday, Weeeeeeeendesday, Thuuuuuuuuuuursay, FridaySaturdaySunday.

Still, I’m thankful for the weekends. I’m thankful for my cat Peanut who likes to hang out with me, even if she does get annoyed when I wake her up to take her picture. After all, 20 hours a day is hardly enough sleep for a feline.

But I’ll take those weekends as long as I can get them. I’ll take all the days that I can get because there’s always something good in every day, even if it’s the fact that you woke up that morning and drew another breath.

Remember, in a few short weeks, we get one of those extended holiday weekends with Memorial Day. So there’s that to look forward to.

Ain’t that the truth. Living surrendered is the best way. God calls us to be living sacrifices, but the only issue is that those living sacrifices have a tendency to keep crawling off of the altar. In the same way, I keep surrendering all my stuff to God only to grab it back and try to handle it on my own. Typically, that hasn’t gone well for me.

I remember reading somewhere that anxiety is impatient. It says that everything you’re waiting for has to happen right now. If God doesn’t answer your prayer this instant, it won’t happen. If one of His promises doesn’t come to pass this very minute, that must mean that God lied to you. Anxiety is the opposite of patient waiting.

Patient waiting says that I can trust God. It says that I believe what God says, not what I feel or what I think or what I see or what I want. My own heart can deceive me, my thoughts can lie to me, and what I see is only a part of the whole picture, so the only one I can trust is the One who sees it all, knows it all, and has a 100% perfect track record.

If I truly leave everything in God’s hands, soon I really will see God’s hand in everything. If I spend time every day giving thanks for what God has already done for me and given to me, then I will see more and more of God’s goodness to me. I will see more of God in my world and in the world.

If you’re a glow worm, you’re all set. If not, then you’re probably glad that the week is over. I’ve yet to meet anyone who was sad that it was Friday. Mostly the sadness comes about three days from now, but Fridays usually mean smiles and relief.

My week wasn’t terrible, but it did seem to last quite a while. I read where a character in a book felt like he had his head opened and oatmeal poured in. I think I can relate. By 4 pm, my brains were mush. But tomorrow, I get to turn off the alarm and sleep in. Joy.

This is the part where I typically offer a meaningful insight, but not this time. I think my brains are still mushy and undercooked.