He is My Child for Only a Second

I am proud to introduce to you my good friend Chad Miller with this guest post. Chad is a wonderful husband and father, and has written extensively about leadership and parenthood. Please share your thoughts about his article in the comments section below.

His thin seven-year-old body flopped onto the blue sheets dotted with baseballs, basketballs, and footballs, and he buried his head in his pillow as he mustered the energy for a tired groan, “I’m so tiiiiired!”

As I grab his Bible from the desk across the room, he protests, “Do we have to read the Bible tonight?” and again with more emphasis, “I’m soooo tiiiiired!”

Fountain of Youth

Ashley's Adopted Grannies

Photo © Paul O’Rear

From the time Ashley and Justin were young, they always had lots of adopted grandparents. The picture above is one of my many favorites of Ashley. It was taken at a Valentine Banquet that the young people at church hosted for the “Golden Agers” each year. The three ladies surrounding Ashley are some of her adopted grannies, whom she absolutely adored.

The Serendipity of Suffering

For the past 15 years or so, I have suffered from a condition called peripheral neuropathy, apparently resulting from a one-time vitamin B12 deficiency that caused deterioration of the nerve sheathings in my feet, which caused the nerves in my feet to die. So basically, I have no feeling in my feet.

Besides just being weird, this has created a series of other problems with my feet.