Wayne Jacobsen's Blog, page 95

Missing Father (Part 2)

As I've thought about my previous post over the last couple of days, I have come to conclude that the opposite problem also exists, perhaps more frequently than the first.

This is the child who grows up genuinely loved by her father. He takes great delight in her and treats her with great affection. But as she grows she begins to ask things of him that he knows will only hurt her. When he expresses his...

Oops! Wrong Father!

I heard an incredible story today and I think it is as true for many of us as it is for the person who sent it to me in an email. I quote:

I feel like I'm meeting my Dad for the first time!

My wife's best friend is a real-life Jerry Springer show. She hadn't been talking to her dad for a few years, bad situation. He's a pretty terrible guy. Anyway, she found out a month ago that he isn't her actual dad, and that her real dad has been trying to find her for 22 years, ever since the...

Gentleness

As I start my vacation, I'll leave you with this:

"Nothing is so strong as gentleness and nothing is so gentle as real strength."

Ralph W. Sockman

I saw that go by by eyes a few days ago and was really touched by it. Ralph W. Sockman was a Methodist minister in New York City and had an NBC radio program. He died in 1970.

Blessings all! Live gently in the world! There's enough pain as it is without our adding to it.

Finding Your Way to Love

First, an announcement: Our offices will be closed August 5-16 as Sara and I will be on vacation and have no one to cover the office. We will not be able to fill orders during this time, so please order before that date if you need any of our things before we return. Or, you'll have to wait until after, with our apologies for any inconvenience that causes. Now to some good stuff:

John Lynch is one of the author's of Bo's Cafe, one of the best books I've read about sorting through...

Lessons From the Garden

I told this story on last week's podcast, and a friend of mine typed it up for his Facebook page. I reprint it here (with some gentle edits), because the story is growing in our family to understand something about God's nature and our own. When we try to defend what God isn't defending, we only end up hurting people and spoil the very thing God is using to engage them in a relationship that will in time transform them naturally, without having to enforce a lot of rules.

The grandkids...

And Now You Know…

And now you know why Jenny's book, Rainbows In My Eyes has been such an encouragement for me at this stage of the journey. Her pain is far different from mine, and in many ways far more brutal, but her poems (and I'm not a poem guy!) have encouraged me to lean in more deeply into the heart of Jesus and know that he is at work in ways I can't see.

If you missed my blog on that and some samples from her book, you can read it here. The line between tragedy and triumph is not a wide one in...

A Sad Chapter in a Continuing Story

I'm getting an increasing number of emails asking whether or not Brad and I are engaged in a lawsuit with Paul Young over the collaboration we experienced in putting THE SHACK together and making it available to the world. Regretfully, we are though not by our choice. The great sadness I've been sucked into through this is the unfortunate and unexpected result of simply helping a friend. For those who love the message of this book I'm sure this comes as a huge disappointment, as it has...

2010 National House Church Conference

As many of you know I'm not a card-carrying, banner-waver for the house church movement. There are lots of reasons for that. It's not that I don't love relational expressions of church life, especially those that are house-sized. I love that. But I think something more foundational has to shape our hearts before any expression of the church will be life-giving with others. Until people come together to share a real, relational love of the Father we're just going to end up holding...

Openhandedness

Sara and I are reading together the book I recommended last month, As Is: Unearthing Common Place Glory is a new book by a first-time author, Krista Finch. We are enjoying it and the conversations that follow.

We were really touched by the one we read a few days ago. In the chapter called, "Garage Sale Giving", Krista tells the story of an eight-year-old boy who came up to her at her garage sale and wanted to buy a set of dishes. He gave her $10.00 and lifted the heavy stoneware plates....

Words of Life in a World of Pain

Have I got a book of hope for you, especially if you're going through some very deep waters. It is a collection of poems by a young poet in England dealing with a tragedy in her own life and sorting it out with God in her poetry. Her words are brutally honest, at times playful even in her disappointments, but they are full of life and encouragement. Going through a deep place myself these days I found this book a wonderful encouragement to finding God's love in the midst of excruciating...