Rick Nier...Woo!

I am more than halfway through the last year of dropping one of my children off at school. It's my eighth grade daughter, for anyone keeping track of my family.  See, next year she will be at the high school, and her brother will drive her. He says that it's not cool for seniors to drive their freshman sister to school, but I bet it's cooler than being dropped off by your mom in a minivan.  So rather than groan about this daily responsibility, I've been reminiscing about what the drop-off line used to look like, way back in elementary school. Once our children were about halfway through their elementary years, the drop-off line became a test of patience.  Do you know which group you do not want to get caught behind in the parent drop-off line at an elementary school? The kindergartners. These little ones are barely able to walk, but now we put them in the high-pressure situation of trying to unbuckle their seat-belt, grab their backpack (which might be as tall as they a...

It's Monday morning and I'm reading early in the morning when my son, in third grade, comes out and asks if there is a 2-hour delay for school. I look outside. Though it's early morning, the sky could not be bluer. Oh yeah, it's only the second week of school. So not only is the likelihood of a school delay slimmer than every 8-foot basketball star I've ever seen, but my kids probably shouldn't be tired of school this early in the year. At this rate, he might get senioritis by the time he hits sixth grade. That's probably something we want to avoid, right? Here's something else we want to avoid. Fairness. You read that right! Fairness. We cry foul an awful lot. We should stop that. I wrote awhile back about how my kids cry foul. You can read that and smirk since I am sure you have been there. But here's what I've been thinking. Had my kids cried fair to my parents, they would have told them stories of an Earth shaped so oddly tha...

Have you ever felt like life was treating you poorly? Maybe you've been in class when the teacher decides to punish the whole class for the wrong doing of one student. My kids have cried foul this year as teachers would not release a class to recess until everybody was quiet. (Where are these kids who talk more than my own?) Life can get that way. It beats you up and then goes on its merry way. The righteous suffer while the unrighteous seem to continue on without a care. That's nothing new. People have been crying 'no fair' for a long time. (Check out Job 35:9-16). If someone could understand, then I believe it was Paul. This guy had been on both ends of this situation. When he was doing wrong, he seemed to succeed. Now that he was giving his life for Jesus, bad things seemed to follow him like stink follows a county fair. Paul was arrested because a bunch of people were beating him up. (Acts 21:31-36) How does that seem fair? Did the Romans feel Paul had it coming...