Around the Web:

Beauty and Loss in Child of Light

Amy Knepper reminds us of the beauty of truth and art that we can discover when we open our eyes. She tells the story of what she discovered when she began playing an RPG called “Child of Light.”

• Over the course of my time in Lumeria, the village where Aurora has gone after her death, I began to understand how the ability to share beauty is a powerful tool for lessening the sting of death and loss.It wasn’t the message I expected. When I started playing Child of Light, I was expecting nothing more than a pretty princess story. Perhaps my days spent watching Disney movies with my 8-year old daughter have left me jaded.

Read more over at Gamechurch.

How to Enjoy Every Moment When Not Every Moment is Enjoyable

Life is a series of stages. For young parents, those stages are not always enjoyable. Sarah Wallace writes at Gospel-Centered Mom about learning to appreciate every stage.

• Once in awhile a well-meaning woman smiles at me and says, “Enjoy every moment! It goes by so fast.” It’s easy for us young moms to cringe at that statement because not every moment is enjoyable. Sometimes we feel guilty that we can’t enjoy every second of it. Some stages are great and others are genuine trials. They are painful, messy, inconvenient, exhausting – but each one is God-given. In those difficult moments we catch glimpses of God’s grace and then turn around and give that grace to our children. 

Sarah challenges us to take the lessons we learn as parents and examine how they cross into all of life. Read more.

My sad, and slightly grumpy, toddler-style day

My friend Natalie and her husband are pursuing international adoption. It’s a long, slow process, and Natalie has been documenting their story on her blog, …becoming a family of three. Some days, she admits, the waiting is easier than others.

• Yesterday was a struggle for me. Nothing happened to make it a struggle, no “bad news”, nothing marked the day that would make me sad…it was just a normal day, but I was struggling. I missed our child. I wanted to just be able to hold them, and to hear their little giggle, and see the things in life that they enjoy. I wanted to know what they would want to be for Halloween. I wanted to be living life with that precious and most wanted child.

But even in her slightly grumpy, toddler-style day, Natalie realized, God was gracious and comforting. Read more.

Slow

Dave Bruno writes over at The Rabbit Room about things that go slow in our high-speed, fast-paced world. While fast is appealing, he writes, slow is beautiful.

• Of course, by comparison, my toddler was moving at breakneck speed. When I think about how long it will take her to reach her sweet sixteen (she’s nine-years-old now), her airport sprint happened as quickly as a text message. Her older sister is about to turn sixteen. Perhaps it is just me, but as cute as it was to see my toddler race across the airport, it is far more lovely to see a sixteen-year-old who has grown up well. And I suspect when our next daughter reaches sixteen, it will be more lovely to have seen two children make it that far. And when that little wobbler finally makes it to sixteen, it will be more lovely still. Because the most beautiful and lovely things happen slowly. 

Some things will always take time, no matter how speedy technology makes the rest of our lives. Read more.

Around the Warren:

I Can Imagine

James Witmer writes about all the things he can imagine—even though that’s sometimes more work than he’d like to put in.

• Everyone knows that kids say – and do – the darnedest things. To have children is to be a connoisseur of shenanigans. And while sometimes hilarious, these childish hijinks are not always wise, or constructive, or even kind.Faced with the fallout of some of my children’s unregulated creativity, I’ve often said something like, “I just can’t imagine what he (or she) was thinking!”But that’s not really true.

Read more.

“Earth’s crammed with heaven…”

An Elizabeth Barrett Browning poem. A Paul Boekell graphic.

Junkyard Wonders

Helena Sorenson looks at Patricia  Polacco’s book Junkyard Wonders, the story of a group of students inspired by their teacher to look beyond the labels they’d been given.

• The students, discouraged by the taunts, tell Mrs. Peterson that she’s just trying to make them feel better. Gibbie speaks up, voicing his classmates’ feelings. “We’re throwaways, junk, and everyone knows it.”“Oh, my dear, that’s where you are wrong,” Mrs. Peterson replies. “Every one of you is my wonder. Don’t you realize what a junkyard really is? It is a place of wonderful possibilities! What some see as bent and broken throwaways are actually amazing things waiting to be made into something new. Something unexpected. Something surprising.”

Read more.

A Big Old Rainstorm

An original from James Witmer this week! Read on.

Something to Do with Your Kids:

Words. Kids. Games. I mean, awesomeness, right? Find some word play kids love at Imagination Soup.

And Something to Watch

Someone had the brilliant idea to recreate the Duck Tales theme song with real, live ducks. Because…the internet.

Thank you for reading. We’re on your side.