Tag: parenting

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“You are part of an imperfect family with imperfect parents…and where the foundation is God’s grace.”

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Dear Son: Happy Birthday to you, J!

Today, you turn the big ten. 10 years old! Double digits. Goodness gracious.

Mom and Dad love you so much. It’s difficult and perhaps impossible to fully articulate the depths of our love for you and your sisters.  We are so blessed to be your parents and I am so proud and blessed to your father. I am so proud of who you are and who you are growing to be. While I am proud of your accomplishments and how you seek to honor your parents, I am simply proud of you: The person that you are and not just what you do. Your love for God and your desire to serve Him with your life – even at such a young age –  brings so much joy. Your sisters love you. Your grandparents love you. And of course, God loves you. His love for you is vast and deep.

My hope is that through our love for you, we can give you a glimpse of God’s love for you.

Yet, you are part of an imperfect family with imperfect parents – including and especially your father. You know this very well. Continue reading ““You are part of an imperfect family with imperfect parents…and where the foundation is God’s grace.””

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Imagine a singular decision of courage and faith that will bless the generations to come.

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It’s been a very long time since I’ve blogged.  For various reasons, I’ve chosen to take a little sabbatical from blogging. It was meant to be life giving but somehow, it grew to become a chore, a job, a metric, a regular statistics checking habit…and to be honest, it was attracting more than its share of angry folks that were going out of their way to contact me. Just leave your comments and let it be. Please. I appreciate the dialogue and the comments but we don’t have to be best friends and you don’t have to save me. Fo realz.

But…I’m back.

Life has also been full. Beyond full.

And as much as I want life to be neatly packed, organized, and compartmentalized…it just doesn’t seem to work that way.

It’s been full but it’s not chaotic. Does this make sense?

You see, we live in a busy world but there’s a difference between empty fatigue and gratifying tiredness.

My hope is to invest in the things that I deeply care about. And this…takes prioritizing or in other words, a life audit. So, why the silence on the blog? Because it was time for a life audit… Continue reading “Imagine a singular decision of courage and faith that will bless the generations to come.”

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Dear parents: Our children are not ours to keep for eternity. Our purpose is to eventually release them.

And so it begins or rather, continues…

Life never stops. It just keeps going. It doesn’t even slow. In fact, it feels like it just ramps up.

When Minhee and I welcomed our first child, J, about 14 years ago, the one most consistent advice or comment we received from those who were older and wiser were these following words:

“Enjoy. Time really flies.”

We respectfully nodded. Again and again. Every time someone said that, we responded precociously:

“Yes, we know.” (Nod. Nod. And on to the next conversation)

But the truth is you never really know how fast time flies until you actually go through the seasons of time and life. You feelin’ me?

Now? Continue reading “Dear parents: Our children are not ours to keep for eternity. Our purpose is to eventually release them.”

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best parenting advice

This is the most hilarious and visual parenting advice for you new parents.

For the first year of our new church, the only children were our two daughters [then 2-years-old and 1 month].  We’ve since been privileged with another kid [son] but the early years were difficult for our children because they really didn’t have anyone to hang out with at church.  I still remember preaching with my baby daughter on my back during the early months.

The children’s ministry has since grown immensely as we average about 70 infants and children spread between the 9.15am and 11am services [no children’s ministry at the 5pm].  Since the beginning of the year, we’ve had numerous births with more babies coming.  So, I thought it would be pastorally wise to give these new and expectant parents [and blog visitors] some heartfelt parenting advice.

View these visual instructions carefully: Continue reading “best parenting advice”

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one of the greatest days of my life

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This past Sunday was one of the greatest days of my life.  Minhee and I, along with our other two younger children, and the larger Quest family, witnessed the baptism of my oldest daughter, JC, who after much prayer, chose to make this public profession of her love and devotion to Jesus.  Minhee and the kids came on stage along with others in JC’s class and I had the great joy as her father to baptize her.

It is really hard to put into words  the emotions that Minhee and I experienced but in two words: Continue reading “one of the greatest days of my life”