Daily Sheet: Day 125: Mercy
Family Books: “My Favorite Food”, “Mrs. Katz and Tush”
Travel: Slovakia
Video: “I Will Sing” – Rich Mullins
Video: “Different Child” – Roo Panes
Daily Sheet: Day 125: Mercy
Family Books: “My Favorite Food”, “Mrs. Katz and Tush”
Travel: Slovakia
Video: “I Will Sing” – Rich Mullins
Video: “Different Child” – Roo Panes
Daily Sheet: Day 111: Organization
Family Book: “Aunt Minnie McGranahan”
Travel: Hungary; Croatia; Bosnia; Serbia; Bulgaria
Video: “I Am Not a Mistake” – Indiana Feek
Video: “The Color Green” – Rich Mullins (official music video, with introduction by Rich)
Daily Sheet: Day 104: Optimism
Family Book: “Four Feet, Two Sandals”
Travel: Afghanistan
Video: Sara Groves introduces “Floodplain” and talks about the role of positive thinking in our lives
Song: “Floodplain” – Sara Groves
Some hearts are built on a floodplain, keeping one eye on the sky for rain. You work for the ground that gets washed away when you live closer…
Closer to the life and the ebb and flow, closer to the edge of I don’t know, closer to that’s the way it goes… Some hearts are built on a floodplain.
And it’s easy to sigh on a high bluff, look down and ask when you’ve had enough. Will you have the sense to come on up or will you stay closer?
Closer to the danger and the rolling deep, closer to the run and the losing streak and what brings us to our knees… Some hearts live here.
Oh the river it rushes to madness and the water it spreads like sadness and there’s no high ground. Closer to the danger and the rolling deep, closer to the run and the losing streak and what brings us to our knees…
Closer to the life and the ebb and flow, closer to the edge of I don’t know, closer to Lord please send a boat… Some hearts are built here.
Video: “Brighter Day” – Gungor (drum cover)
Love came down and hope was found; Now we’re waking up to a brighter day.
Questions:
Daily Sheet: Day 99: Freedom
Family Book: “Ben and the Emancipation Proclamation”
Family Book: “You Are Special”
Travel: Nebraska; Kansas
Video: “Set You Free” – Nomos
If you did, if you did, even if you did… Been where you shouldn’t have been, Seen what you shouldn’t have seen, Dreamed what you shouldn’t have dreamed, that doesn’t mean you have to be locked up here forever. I’m going to set you free.—And if you did, if you did, even if you did… Done what you shouldn’t have done, Run when you shouldn’t have run, Lost when you shouldn’t have won, that doesn’t mean you have to be paying the price forever. I’m going to set you free.—And if you did, if you did, only if you did… Strayed from the beaten track, Maybe you never got back, Went in off the black, that doesn’t mean you have to be lying around here forever. I’m going to set you free.—Ah if you did, if you did, even if you did… Suffered from a broken heart, Got off to a poor start, Maybe you fell apart, that doesn’t mean you have to be paying the price forever. I’m going to set you free.—And if you did, if you did, even if you did… Known what you shouldn’t have known, Shown what you shouldn’t have shown, Thrown what you shouldn’t have thrown, that doesn’t mean you have to be lying around here forever. I’m going to set you free.—Ah if you did, if you did, even if you did… Been where you shouldn’t have been, Seen what you shouldn’t have seen, Dreamed what you shouldn’t have dreamed, that doesn’t mean you have to be locked up here forever. I’m going to set you free.
Video: “Deliverer” – Audrey Assad
You are not possessive, You respect all things
You are not invasive, You have no envy
You are not insistent, You do not force me
You are not controlling, You make me free indeedYou’re my deliverer, You’re my deliverer. You won’t pass me by.
Your law is freedom and mercy is Your rule
Though You dwell within me, I can’t contain YouIn the ruins of my heart, You preach to the poor
Turning over stones to show me there is more
More than all I ask, more than I’m looking for
In the ruins of my heart
Video: “Land of the Living” – Roo Panes
Where they go
That we shall cherish and that I wrestle
Don’t want to be like the dust that settles
This empire of nothing
I find that I’m king of all these empty homes
That are ruled by my own flaws
But you can’t be an old fire
If you are burning with a new flameSo remember that, you are never a forgotten name
Cause I know a land called the land of the living
It’s the world beyond those curtains where we learned to play
I hear the voices of my childhood singing it’s the world beyond those doorways
Where we use to playCause every moment
Is a chance to define what you want to become
You’re not a slave to things you’ve done
Be brave and be bold
Be childish and old it’s the same old story
Every life needs a hope of glory
But you can’t be an old fire
If you’re burning with a new flameI was born to be free, you were born to free me
Cause I know a land called the land of the living
It’s the world beyond those curtains where we learned to play
I hear the voices of my childhood singing it’s the world beyond those doorways
Where we use to play
I know a land called the land of the living
It’s the world beyond those curtains where we learned to play
Oh we’ll go back, we’ll go back to the beginning
And we’ll pick up on the trails of forgotten ways
Song: “Finally” – Gungor
Call me back into the silence, into the sunlight.
Every breath a standing defiance of death and of clamor; Let darkness be scattered now.
I’ll be here waiting in silence, waiting for sunlight to make all the world shine bright.
All the stars fall in line and the seas bow their heads. We remember our dead and we sing another day.
As the silence, it grows and the worlds fade away; All the sons empty their graves.
We will sing another day.
Questions:
Daily Sheet: Day 93: Kindness
Family Book: “The Watcher”
Travel: Zimbabwe
Video: “All the Ways You Wander” – John Spillane
…And if you take the long way, if you take the long way home, down where the magicians and the dreamers roam, through the mountains of morning, through the valleys of night, searching for the island of your heart’s delight,
I’ll wait for you, like a true friend. I’ll wait for you, ’til the very end.
Video: “Kindness”
Video: “12 Year Old Boy Helps Homeless People in Los Angeles”
“I might only have one match, but I can make an explosion.”
Video: “12 Year Old Boy Helping More Homeless People in L.A.”
Video: “14 Year Old Boy Helping More Homeless People in L.A.”
Elliot Katz, the boy in the last three videos above, was inspired in part to form his charity organization, ReachingOutCalifornia, by the following verse:
“And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.” – Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:9; Yerushalmi Talmud.
Put in context, the passage reads as follows:
…We find in regard to Cain, who killed his brother, “The bloods of your brother scream out!” (Genesis 4:10) – the verse does not say blood of your brother, but bloods of your brother, because it was his blood and also the blood of his future offspring [screaming out]! [The judges’ speech continues] “It was for this reason that man was first created as one person [Adam], to teach you that anyone who destroys a life is considered by Scripture to have destroyed an entire world; and anyone who saves a life is as if he saved an entire world.”
Questions:
If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. (New Living Translation – NLT)
Daily Sheet: Day 73: Tenacity
Family Book: “The Arrival”
Travel: Germany; Belgium; Netherlands
Song: “Immigrant’s Daughter” – Margaret Becker
Video: Boy learning to walk
Video: “How Can I Keep From Singing” – Audrey Assad
Video: “Zeke Gets Dressed”