There are many times when we can clearly look at a situation, and if we are people of faith, declare the action a complete miracle (as opposed to a “coincidence”). This JAF story is definitely one of those. Read it to your family at dinner tonight! 🙂

Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails. –Proverbs 19:21




Our Wheels for the World team arrived in a small town in Poland to distribute 225 wheelchairs and Bibles. Before the day had hardly begun, however, their plans were in shreds. The assigned room was tiny and cramped. But before anyone could come up with a plan B, streams of families with disabled children began pouring through the doors. The place quickly became packed and noisy. Everything was thrown into confusion. “Lord Jesus,” the team prayed together, “may your purpose prevail here.” Then they went to work greeting families, assessing needs, locating pre-assigned wheelchairs, and sharing the Gospel of Jesus at every opportunity.


The afternoon wore on. A tired father, carrying his little five-year-old disabled boy on his back, finally reached the head of the line. But when he lifted his son into the pre-assigned chair, his shoulders slumped. It didn’t fit! “I am so sorry!” our seating specialist exclaimed, “this is the wrong chair.” But there were only a few chairs left. Pushing aside several adult chairs, she reached for a child-sized one. But it was highly customized, with side supports-including blue leather backing with “Jake” stitched across the middle. In the end, there was no other choice. It was that chair or nothing. When the father lifted his boy into the new chair, it fit perfectly! An interpreter exclaimed, “It’s like it was made for him!”


“By the way, what is your son’s name?” someone asked the boy’s mother. “Jakob,” she replied-and everyone gasped! When an interpreter explained to the boy’s mystified parents that “Jake” is the shortened version of Jakob-they, too, cried for joy. The whole family-along with almost sixty others-opened their hearts to receive Jesus that day. The Lord’s purpose had prevailed!

The post Joni and Friends Wheels for the World “Miracle Story” of JAKE appeared first on Character Ink.

We have all heard the analogy of managing life as juggling balls. We parents especially juggle and juggle, taking care not to drop the balls too often—and taking extra care not to drop the most important balls at all, if possible. Juggling balls is certainly an accurate picture of playing all of the roles that Christian moms and dads must play.


However, for many of us—and especially for fathers—our view of these juggling balls is not fully correct. You see, we have a tendency to see some of these spheres as less important than others: we often think of our kids/family as the rubber ball—the one that we can safely drop and it will quickly bounce right back up to us with no damage. At the same time, we often view the “work” ball as one that is made of glass—one that will shatter if it is dropped.


The Reishes know this all too well, for we have experienced this first hand. Like many other parents, twelve years ago, we were juggling furiously with no relief in sight. And while we were extra careful with the family ball and the work ball, we had an incorrect view of the work ball, too. It seemed so…fragile while the family ball, though we took extra care with it, seemed so resilient.


We had seven kids ages one through fourteen and an eighth little one on the way. Ray’s work was so demanding and had been our entire marriage. Up until that time, we had managed his sixty to seventy hour work weeks by my staying home most of the time and tending to the home and kids. When Ray was home, he was fully home—after all, we didn’t want to drop the family ball any more than necessary. Once our oldest became a teen and our second child was following close behind, we just didn’t see how we could keep juggling with such a demanding “work” ball that was in grave danger of shattering into a million pieces if not handled with kid gloves.


To make a long story short, our eighth child was stillborn and after my week in the hospital, a ruptured uterus, blood transfusions, and some extremely scary moments, we realized that the work ball was truly not as priceless and fragile as we had thought it to be. And we realized that the truly breakable, non-shatter-proof ball was the family one. Work was shown to be the bounce-able ball that it was—and our family was the priceless, non-replaceable one.


So we turned in the glassy, sparkling work ball for a rubber work ball. Yes, it cost more—everything truly good costs. But a forty percent pay cut, going from a 4500 square feet home to a 1400 square foot home, and the loss of a company car and other perks seemed like a small price to pay in order to keep the most important—non-rubber—family ball up in the air. It wasn’t an easy adjustment for any of us. I was used to a huge, newer house with a large schoolroom, three bathrooms, and more storage than I’ve ever seen in a home. Ray was used to being “somebody” in the company, a plant manager in an automotive plant (and prior to that, its controller). Moving into a forty-hour-per week job without all of the pressures (and accolades) of his former job was a difficult transition for him.


But we got better than ever at juggling! The career ball wasn’t so fragile anymore; the family ball was. If the work ball hit the floor, it bounced back. We became even more careful with the precious gem-like ball known as family.


Obviously, every Christian parent is not asked to give up his or her career to raise seven teens. But if you find yourself thinking of careers as the glass balls and family as the rubber one. Or you find yourself juggling furiously and continually chasing the work ball for fear that it will shatter while the family ball falls and bounces back then falls again and bounces back, you might need to examine those balls more carefully like we had to. You do get better at juggling with practice, but who wants to take a chance with such a precious juggling ball as our kids?

The post Your Family Is the Glass, Extremely-Breakable Ball–Not the Rubber Ball—Especially for Dads on Father’s Day 2011 appeared first on Character Ink.

If we, however, believe that man is born with a sin nature and is incapable of goodness outside of God, we will desire to seek God and help our children do the same. Scripture supports this belief, as evidenced in Romans 7:18—“For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.”

Taking this “man is basically sinful” thinking a step further, we must also believe, that as wonderful, sweet, soft, cuddly, and incredible that children are, they, too, are born sinful. Obviously, children have some other qualities that adults do not have that make it easier for them to learn spiritual truths otherwise Scripture would not say that adults should “become like little children.” However, child-like faith aside, we must, if we are to embrace the importance of character training in the lives of our children, believe that Romans 7:18 applies to them, as demonstrated in Proverbs 22:15, among other places: “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, the rod of correction will drive it far from him” (ASV).

Nobody wants to think or talk about original sin, and yet, in parenting, not embracing this truth can lead us to extremely faulty child training (or lack thereof). I have the most incredible children in the world. Ask me about them for a few minutes, and you will get way more than you bargained for! However, they, just like their mom and dad, need the Savior for eternal salvation and the Holy Spirit to help them live the Christian life on this earth. They (and we) will not automatically be filled with good character. Because of our sinful nature, we must, through the Lord, learn about, practice, and press on to the fruit of the spirit, the mind of Christ—and everything else that is good.

The post Paradigm #2: Our view of mankind in general and children specifically appeared first on Character Ink.

Having a family who is close to us spend their first Christmas without their mother reminds me daily that there are many out there who are hurting, some even despairingly sorrowful, this Christmas. I long to do something, anything, to lessen their pain…and yet I feel inadequate to do so.

Then came our reading in “Stories Behind the Songs of Christmas” about Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Christmas Bells” poem (today sung as “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day”). While it did not give me any specific insight into how to reach out to those I love who are hurting this Christmas, it did remind me once again, that God is there—always—and that some day they will hurt less than today…and then later less…though the hollowness will always be there to a certain degree. God will be there.

Christmas 1863 found Longfellow in despair. The Civil War was raging; his wife had died two years previously in a freak accident; and his son returned form the war with severe wounds.

That Christmas Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the poem, “Christmas Bells,” with its well-known words:

“I heard the bells on Christmas day,

Their old, familiar carols play.

And wild and sweet, the words repeat,

Of peace on earth, goodwill to men.”

In Wadsworth’s original poem, there are two verses about the Civil War, which we do not sing as part of “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” The following verse we do sing—and it shows us so clearly the pain that this man faced:

“And in despair, I bowed by head;

‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said;

‘For hate is strong and mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good will to men!’”

The next verse, however, is the one that gives us hope—and the one that I wish I could place within the soul of every hurting person I love (and the one that I needed within my soul just twelve Christmases ago when I could not leave the sofa on Christmas day following the stillbirth of our final baby just two months earlier):

“Then pealed the bells more loud and deep”:

‘God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,

With peace on earth, good will to men!’”

Somehow when you know a fellow traveler has walked the path of sorrow and grief before you—and has come out with words within his heart of the magnitude of this song—you feel the strength from his journey to carry on in your own.

That is what I love about this song—the honesty that yes, this journey felt impossible at times. But he made it to the other side with praise for God and a knowing that “God is not dead, nor doth he sleep!” And those I love will too.

Listen to Casting Crowns sing this incredible song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7670CXvPX0

The post day 357: christmas sorrow—“i heard the bells on christmas day” appeared first on Character Ink.

There will be times when our children are moving into adulthood when we can no longer control their environments. Times in which we do not have the options of bringing in the boundaries to help them gain control of themselves and their actions. At this point, many parents try to micromanage their children rather than releasing them to their own devices.

This is why we promote a gradual release of teens and young adults from under authority. The entire idea of a child turning eighteen and becoming an “adult” is simply inaccurate and damaging to young people. We have seen this over and over again when a child graduated from a protected home and was “released” without the proper guidance in his life. It was thought that “now he is an adult,” so now he is ready to make all of his own decisions. If the boundaries were not released gradually—at a rate appropriate for that child’s maturity, decision making level, and respect for authority—the results are often disastrous.


Yes, there will come a time when you will stop manipulating his environment to help him mature (stop bringing in the boundaries), and the child will flounder often. However, it should not be abrupt; it should be gradual. And it should not be without your constant input and guidance in his life even as a young adult. (We have found that when we followed other “positive parenting” advice given earlier in this blog, our older teens and young adults desire our input in their lives. We have raised them to respect us and loved them with total abandonment—and they know that we are so crazy about them that we would never want anything but God’s best for them.)

The post day 270: boundaries released too early—bringing them back in part ii of ii appeared first on Character Ink.

The post day 235: keeping motivated part v of v—trusting god appeared first on Character Ink.

The post day 233: keeping motivated part iii of v—motivated with your spouse appeared first on Character Ink.

The post day 233: keeping motivated part iii of v—motivated with your spouse appeared first on Character Ink.

The post day 232: keeping motivated part ii of v—see the long term and role models appeared first on Character Ink.

The post day 231: how do you keep motivation going strong, part i of v appeared first on Character Ink.