Not to sound like an old man, but this is what snow days are supposed to look like. Kids living their best care-free lives as they hurtle down hills, driveways, or neighborhood streets with no regard for their safety and no concern that they can’t feel their fingers. It’s great for them, and it’s great for adults who can let them run wild while they write newsletters (or whatever was on your to-do list today).
Unfortunately for them, and for me, our school system has turned three delightful snow days into NTI days. NTI stands for “non-traditional instruction,” and essentially means parents turn into teachers for a day. Not only do I have to worry about helping them avoid hypothermia and finding snowsuits, I also have to figure out “new math” and help my middle schooler with her robotics homework (a phrase straight from the Jetsons!).
All that to say, I don’t have a hard-hitting devo for you this week (are they ever hard hitting?). Enjoy some links while I google code for some sort of Lego robot my daughter’s never even seen for a google classroom assignment. See you next week!
Laying Down Era (Discipleship)
“‘It’s just three months,’ the logic in my left brain asserts. ‘But it’s quite severe!’ my right brain replies, my questions and anxieties and overactive, pessimistic imagination rising like the tide, threatening to pull me under and away.” While I don’t have a devo for you this week, Grace Leuenberger has a doozy for us all over at Mockingbird this week. She shares her story of a running injury and reckoning with her twenties winding down. My twenties are a distant memory, but her writing through her own discontent and fear helped me reflect on my own struggles and anxieties. She conjures up bold images, draws on God’s promises in Isaiah, and points us to hope in the face of seasons of uncertainty. Love this piece. Read it, and let Grace’s writing encourage you this week.
Memory Work (Discipleship)
“I can say without a doubt the countless hours I have spent working on hiding text after text of inerrant Scripture in my mind and heart has been infinitely and eternally worthwhile.” A commitment to read and memorize chunks of the Bible often show up on our list of New Year’s resolutions. Most of us know how to read, but maybe you’ve never actually been great at memorizing anything. Thankfully for us, Andrew Davis wrote a whole book about how to set off on the journey of memorizing passages of Scripture. He distills much of that wisdom into this article for Crossway, illustrating how (and how not) to memorize Bible passages. You’ll find a ton of practical advice to get you started, or to keep you going in this discipline. Check it out and get the ball rolling on your own memorization journey.
Pinch Hitting (Parenting)
“Still, more often than not, grace was a pinch hitter in our home – a closer, a player pulled up for big moments, an option accessed when we’d come to the end of ourselves. Which, it seemed on the outside, rarely happened.” You know when you need when your kids are climbing the walls on the third snow day of the week? That’s right, grace! Clarissa Moll has a great piece on the necessity of God’s grace in parenting. While we tend to hide grace behind those “in case of emergency break glass” barriers, God longs for us to depend on him in moments big and small. Give it a read, and see if you can find some playing time on your parenting squad this week.
Dad Jokes
Here’s your last bit of snow related content for today. Enjoy this delightful dad joke, and see if you can work it into your repertoire this winter. Stay warm this weekend friends!