Thanksgiving traditions for your family

Thanksgiving Traditions

Thanksgiving is very special time in most families. Traditions and teachable moments with your family or friends can make it even more precious.

Each year, we make a small box, and the kids decorate it. It is simply known as the “Blessing box.” In it, throughout Thanksgiving until Christmas, each of us will put small slips of paper inscribed with something or someone we are thankful for. We also put prayers and concerns in it.

As Christmas approaches, we gather them into a special envelope. We create this beautiful “Blessing envelope” and we hang it as a Christmas ornament on our tree. We have these envelopes going back to the year we married.

Each Christmas Eve, the kids select one of the envelopes and we read it out loud. They hear how we had been praying for them years before they were born. They read how we were struggling through paying off student loan years ago. We are able to share memories and blessings of relative long since in eternity.

No tradition starts until one person decides they will. I encourage you to be that person this year, if your family does not share a sacred tradition. In just two years, it will feel like you have “always” done it.

Another tradition that we do not currently do, but sounds meaningful enough to share, is the “passing of the kernels.” Barbara Rainey of Family Life ministry shared this one.

A family passes a basket around the table. Each person’s plate has five kernels of corn on it, and each take turns putting the kernels into the basket. For each kernel, you say one thing for which you are thankful. (These can be written so that you can reread them in future years.)

There’s a story behind the five kernels. After the very first Thanksgiving, more settlers from England landed at Plymouth, but they didn’t bring any provisions. As winter began, the food supply was quickly exhausted, so the governor instituted a daily ration of five kernels of corn per member of the colony per day.

If you have not, I encourage your family to adopt a meaningful ritual that will be passed down far beyond our generation. We have much to be thankful for.

Creation vs. Evolution Part 1

Creation vs. Evolution (Part 1 of 12)

As a former atheist, who once believed in evolution, I have been very interested in the science of Intelligent Design and Creationism. Many faithful Christians just do not see the point of worrying about whether Genesis is literally true or just symbolic. I think it is actually critical, especially to younger generations.

Why it matters:

Genesis 1-3 explains how we were made and how we fell, by choosing sin in the Garden of Eden. This choice ushered in pain, suffering, toil, sorrow and death. It also broke fellowship with God. This is the “bad news.” The New Testament contains the “Gospel” (literally the “good news”) that explains how a virgin-born, sinless Jesus came to restore that broken fellowship with God through His atoning death on the cross. It is vital to know the bad news first, in order to understand the good news.

Many faithful and sincere Christians hold positions about Genesis that just fall apart upon examination. I think you will find that all non-literal positions fail in light of Scripture. I will address the most popular arguments and address at least one reason why each they violate the Bible’s plain language.

“I think that the days in Genesis mean eras or ages, not regular days.” This is known as the “Day Age Theory.” It is very popular in the church these days. It is a compromise to allow for the millions of years that many scientists claim to have existed in Earth’s history. Why are millions of years needed? Vast amounts of time are required for evolution to occur. Thus, it effectively alleges that God created evolution.

The Hebrew could not be any clearer in proclaiming that the word “days” in Genesis 1-2 are intended to mean literal, 24-hour solar days. Even many Rabbis who do not accept the literal meaning of the passage will agree that the author is trying to communicate a week of seven 24-hour days (see e.g., Gen. 1:4-5). There are three ways that a “day” (Hebrew “yom”) can be listed, any of which make it mean a solar day: If they are 1) numbered; if they have 2) morning and evening; and if they are 3) identified with the cycle of light and dark. And--you guessed it--all three are there for each of these seven days.

“I think God started Evolution millions of years ago.” This is known as “Theistic Evolution.” A first glance, this seems to be a reasonable compromise between secular “science” and the Bible. It acknowledges a powerful, creative God and seems to question only the method He used.

However, this would mean that God accomplished His creation by millions of years of death, disease, suffering, mutations and extinction. This violates the repeated statements that the creation was “very good,” and that all animals were initially vegetarian. It argues that there was death before sin, and this stands in stark contradiction to Genesis 2:17 and Romans 5:12.

“I think God created the universe in Genesis 1:1, and there is a Gap afterwards.” This is called the “Gap Theory” and is simply another compromise that honors God to a degree, but tries to explain the alleged millions of years some see in the fossil-strewn rock layers. Many versions claim that in Genesis 1:2, a flood covered the original creation, creating fossils, and that Genesis 1:3 picks up again with the current creation. But, it fails for the same reasons as Theistic Evolution.

Notice also, Exodus 20:11, “For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” Again, there is no room for millions of years.

“I think that the fossils were put there by God at creation.” Again, a creative God is at work in this idea, and I call it the “Fake Fossil Theory.” It is undeniable that Adam, the plants, the soil, the sun and the stars were created in a mature, functioning state. At Creation, Adam may well have appeared to have been 25 years old surrounded by 40 year old fruit trees.

However, this apparent maturity is far from placing fake fossils of things that never actually lived in rock layers to be discovered later. Those who hold to this view have no evidence as to why God would deceive, in opposition to Numbers 23:19. They are also at a loss as to explain why the clearly described Biblical flood did not produce these fossils.

Indeed, all these theories violate the clear reading of Scripture. Nothing in the text suggests, or even allows, for millions of years.

I think it is illogical to limit what an all-powerful God could do. He split the Red Sea, sent fire from Heaven, healed the blind and raised the dead. If He said He made everything in seven literal days, about 6000 years ago, why is that too far-fetched to believe? Some folks think that dating methods, star distance and fossil evidence rule out a young earth. In fact, they support a young earth much more than they weigh against it. In this series, I intend to deal with the most popular objections, arguments and questions. I will cover dinosaurs, dating methods, Noah’s Ark and other questions you submit.

For now, I close with the words of Christ, who appears to be a young earth creationist as well. Notice, He allows no room for millions of years either. He stated, in Mark 10:6, “But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’”

a tribute to a friend

A Tribute to a Friend

With a heavy heart, I said goodbye to a friend,

Who passed from us far too soon.

Maybe it is not for us to understand

Why things happen as they do.

This world that we slog through,

With its toil, losses, thorns and pain,

Is only our home for a little while,

Until with our forefathers we are lain.

Still, though we are saddened,

Disillusioned, shocked and numbed,

I know what happened to my friend,

Seconds after his life succumbed.

He stands now, in a place with no pain,

No fears, no losses and not one tear,

Serving the One who loves past us,

And He will, to us, draw near.

Amidst golden roads and crystal seas,

The brightness is as the sun,

There is no evening or darkness there,

As the battle is already won.

It is up to our community to love well,

As a family carries on through the loss,

And I know that he would want all of us,

To simply cling to the Old Rugged Cross.

It is now to us, the living he left,

To carry on against the waves of strife,

Let this question resonate through your soul:

Is your name, like his, in the Lamb’s Book of Life?

Are nanny cams your children in day care?? why not??

USE of NANNY CAMs in Day Care Centers

Cameras are popping up everywhere these days. Some of those lenses may be pointed at your children, if they are in day care.

There are several benefits of this use of technology, especially when the cameras can be remotely accessed through a computer at anytime by the parents.

The most important area is that you can monitor how your children are doing and if they are being well cared for.

You are likely to feel more involved, or even connected to your children, as you see first hand what they are doing throughout the day. 


Live video provides a sense of confidence to parents that the caregivers are responsibly caring for their children, and are not hiding anything. 


Accounts can even be provided to grandparents and aunts and uncles as well.

It varies from child to child whether they like their parents checking in on them throughout the day. Most will. But, it is likely that some good dinner table conversations, or even corrections, could result from what the parents see during day care. 


One of the only other ways to have this level of knowledge is to drop in and see the child during the day. But this almost always results in more tears and fits when the parent has to leave again. Cameras solve this problem.

In this day of predators, live video of your children at day care accessible on the Internet may seem scary at first. However, it is more private than when you walk the child in the front door and drop them off, as that can be viewed from anywhere. Also, sexual abuse at the day care itself would seem even less likely, and certainly easier to spot with cameras.

Working parents may choose to have these types of cameras at home, too.

They can be monitored from work, to keep an eye on older children who get off the school bus alone.

scary health care reform

received this as an email and had to share

They’re going to pass a health care plan written by a committee whose head says he doesn’t understand it, and it will be passed by a congress that hasn’t read it but exempts themselves from it.

It will be signed by a president who also hasn’t read it and who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes, overseen by a surgeon general who’s obese.

It will cost almost a trillion dollars and be financed by a country that is almost broke.

What could possibly go wrong?

Tort Reform is Not the solution!

I am one of the most conservative guys you will ever meet. But I am a lawyer for injured people.

I understand that medical costs are rising. But bargaining away the legal rights of patients will do nothing to cover the uninsured or lower health care costs.

In reality, medical negligence lawsuits are few and far between, hardly contributing to health care costs.

However, 98,000 patients are killed annually by preventable medical errors. That's like two 737s crashing every day for a whole year! Is it the 6th leading cause of death?

Really?

We need to be making strides in patient safety, not limiting the rights of patients who have been injured through no fault of their own. Insurance companies want the injured victims to bear the costs they do not want to pay. I'm sorry, haven't they already been hurt enough?

Tort law changes won't fix health care!

great monday morning email i received

I was so depressed last night thinking about the economy, the wars, alleged global warming, my savings, Social Security, my credit card debt.....

I called Lifeline Suicide prevention toll free...

Got a freakin' call center in Pakistan;

I told them I was suicidal.

They all got excited and asked if I could drive a truck...