As we discuss ways that prosperity gospel sneaks into the family, we decided to start off by looking at the book of Proverbs, as these are often the verses that are cherry picked and often used to take prosperity gospel ideas in regard to the family.

We need a God who can heal us of true guilt and false guilt. We need a Christ who not only removes the shame we feel for what we’ve done, but who washes away the shame that others have smeared upon us.

Being a run-of-the-mill, mediocre parent is a gift to your children. It models for them what life is all about: the little things, the overlooked things, the minuscule elements of daily life that—in various ways—are God’s gifts to us.

In divorce God married me to the cross. I didn’t want it; indeed, I hated it. But upon my shoulders God laid it. The ring of nails. The veil of darkness. The kiss of death. When we are stripped of all the good we think we are and have, we come face to face with the evil within. We fight and wrestle and gasp and die and become nothing.

My daughter’s honest, pointed question of “Why?” not only desired an answer; it deserved and demanded the “dreadful beauty” of an honest response.

Every year, when this day rolls around, I turn over the stones of remembrance that litter my mind, to see what lurks beneath.

But what does it mean to love someone or something more than we love Jesus? It means that they who were formed as a gift we transform into a god.

How will they reach this magical moment, this milestone on the journey of life? Perhaps by chasing their dreams, pursuing their passions with a heart wholly devoted to the attainment of whatever goals they set for themselves in life?

Perhaps a phone number seems an odd thing to get sentimental about, but I can’t help myself. You see, if that number, and the phone connected to it, could speak, they would tell my life’s story.

It all started when out of the nothingness of Mary’s womb, the Word who makes all things, made for Himself a body, human through and through. From the virgin soil of Eden the first man came and from the virgin womb the last man came—came to re-genesis you.

When the angel told Mary she had become a mother, she replied simply, ''Let it be to me according to your word.'' Therein is a grateful acknowledgment that the Creator had formed life in her womb.