crying in the library...

Okay, so I'm man enough to share this with you. I found myself crying in the library or at least holding back tears and choking on my adam's apple as I read a post by Pete Wilson.

Yesterday, he baptized his oldest son Jett and then wrote a letter to him through the blogosphere. You can read it here and see the video as well. What an amazing experience!

I can only hope for the day when I have the honor to baptize our two boys and invite them into an adventure of a lifetime like Pete did yesterday.

wonder woman versus batgirl

(posted by my wife Amy)

Our boys are obsessed with Superheroes. Most days they are several different incarnations – Mr. Incredible, Superman, Batman, and Luke Skywalker are perennial favorites. Recently, they received matching Wolverine costumes from their Nana and Gramps, which they are wild about, even though they have never seen X-Men (and won’t for a long time). We spend time discussing at length Syndrome, the bad guy from the Incredibles, who likes to create gadgets that make him seem like a Superhero, even though he is not. The main problem with Syndrome, of course, is that if gadgets make everyone super, no one really is.

As the only woman in our household, I always get to be the girl Super (as we call them) in our stories – Elastigirl, Wonder Woman, Batgirl, or even Princess Leia – and I love it. Last weekend, however, I had my eyes opened to a new perspective. I’ve been blessed to spend this weekend at the MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) Convention in Nashville with three friends from our church, along with 4,000 moms from around the country.

In a general session today, we had the great gift of hearing from Efrem Smith, a leader and speaker who can bring it like few others I’ve heard. After he shared with us from the gospel of Matthew about Tamar, a descendant of cursed people who was also in the bloodline of Jesus, he challenged the moms in the room to love the unlovable mom – to find them, love them, connect them, and show them Christ’s love.

How in the world can we – who are possibly very busy with crazy situations inside walls of our own homes – do that? Luckily we have Jesus living on the inside of those crazy situations with us, giving us special powers. But like Syndrome, Batgirl is not a real Superhero. She is simply mimicking a guy, Batman, who is also not a real Super. Batman is a very rich man who spends his life creating gadgets that make him seem like he has super powers, and even though he uses the powers for good and not evil – he is hiding behind the mask and gadgets. And instead of living into her own identity, Batgirl assumes a false mask.

On the other hand, Wonder Woman was born with real power – it is her true identity. If you get close to her, you know where her power comes from. She can go higher than the average human woman, and does not hide behind a mask. She lives in her true identity – and if we do this, live in our true identity in Christ, we also have real power from the one who created us in his image.

As you think about your life, is there a super that you relate to?

getting dirty

It is hard to imagine how yesterday, I was building a house with a group of people from our community of faith and Amor ministries for a family in need of a safe, dry place to lay their heads at night. It was an amazing experience as within two and a half days, we built relationships with each other and the family we were building for and put up a house that is significantly better than the structure that was on the property already.

One of the images that I can't get out of my head is of 2 boys playing outside in the sand with my tool belt. As I sat in the house we just put up for Josephina and her family and ate my delicious lunch, I watched Jesus (age 2) and Jorge (age 1) play in the sand, pull out my tape measure from my tool belt and pull it out a few feet, take my hammer out and swing it a few times, pull out my dirty, sweaty gloves and start boxing with each other. After they put a couple handfuls of sand back in my belt, they reluctantly returned the gloves to their pocket after their grandmother told them to stop messing around in spanish (I think that is what she said). This image left me thinking about 2 realities of my life.

First, this experience made me reflect that I did not travel outside of the western United States until I was 18 years old and a senior in high school. When I started to travel and see the world, nothing could hold me back. Travel around the world and mission gave me a new experience of what God was doing in the world and how I might join him in his mission. I long for a day when my 2 boys will experience the wideness and vastness of the world and God's creation. I hope they get to fully engage with our world before they are 18 years old.

Second, this experience made me reflect on my own two boys and how I thought they would love to cross the border and share in this type of play with 2 boys that speak a different language and live in a different culture...they just might discover that they have more in common than first assumed. Playing in a pile of sand with a tool belt is a beautiful image of how I would like to introduce them to a culture that is so different than the world they live in . I can see myself telling my boys to stop playing with the tool belt and to put the gloves back where they belong like Jesus' and Jorge's grandmother.