Awards

I just left the academic awards banquet at LCU, and needed to pop into my office for some "housekeeping" with colleagues before going home. While here, I wanted to record two quick observations:

1. There are inspiring students on our campus.

2. I pray that my own children are applauded in heaven someday for their integrity, humility, compassion, work ethic, passion, and mostly, for their love of Jesus. Awards recieved in this life are very nice--they motivate, they encourage, and they affirm. But, oh--to have Jesus himself extend his arms and say, "Well done, my child. Well done." That is what I want my children to hear.

Jana

Thought for this day

"The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and
not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the
reflection of ourselves we find in them."
-Thomas Merton

When Zachary Beaver Came to Town

I recently finished Kimberly Willis Holt's When Zachary Beaver Came to Town; it is a delight.

Set in the fictional tiny Texas town of Antler (somewhere between Amarillo and Wichita Falls), this coming-of-age story of 13 year old Toby Wilson's heart-breaking summer will make you pause. Faced with a mother who has left to pursue a singing career, the teenage beauty who doesn't know he exists, and "The World's Fattest Boy" who arrives in Antler as part of a traveling side-show, Toby is faced with choices and a change in his perspective. When he reaches out to Zachary, this boy trapped in his own skin, he discovers that the "best way to work through your own problems is to help someone with theirs." The baptism scene alone, near the end of the book, makes this story worth reading.

I loved it. Add it to your list!