I've thinking a lot about what it is that our family values.  There are many things, really, and here they are.
First and foremost, a dynamic relationship with our living God. Faith. We value scripture and worship and praise, adoration, prayer, submission, obedience, and a whole lot more God-loving radicalness. We value Jesus Christ, the perfect picture of the unseen God.
Family. We love our family, near and far. Even as the years pass, and disagreements ensue, and life changes, the one constant is family. Steiner; Biddle; Ballinger; Badman; Stutzman; Riegel; Blue (Seth's birth family); and one sweet mama on the other side of the world, who gave me the greatest blessing of her daughter, my Leah Grace; {so far} If you're family, we adore you.  We will fight for you, pray for you and love you. Forever.
Roots. Both where we're from and where we're going -- after all, the roots of a tree remind us both where it has been and where it is going. If you think roots don't matter, take a look at this: [Image] Last week, I got out the one and only picture I have of Leah as a baby under 15 months old.  I thought I had showed it to her before, but obviously not. She squealed with delight. She jumped and shouted, "Baby!  Leah is a baby!!" But the funny thing is, days later, this hasn't stopped.  I think she's equally if not more excited today than the day I showed her the picture! So I took that little picture off to Walgreens, made copies, and blew it up for a frame. {after all, there are baby pics of Seth in frames all over the house....} Today (when my phone captured this moment) she was feeding her baby picture and combed her picture hair and, at one point, told me her picture was crying. Sigh. I could hardly hold back the tears. At church, she gave Grandma and Papa a copy and jumped, squealed and shouted some more. It matters. Ask any person who was adopted. Roots matter. And I will find a way for them to continue to matter.
Peace. I grew up in a pacifist family and attended a pacifist protestant denomination. Those lessons have not left me. Yes, there are wars and violence in scripture, but it is clear to me that in the New Testament, Jesus came to bring a new way. He said, "You have heard that it was said, "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth;" but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Jesus did just that. Yes, in one incident, he became violent and turned over the tables of the church to express his displeasure. But the overwhelming picture scripture paints of Jesus is of a kind, loving, gentle, patient (endless), graceful God.  Slow to anger and abounding in love. Jesus could have met ridicule, opposition and defiance with angry words -- or even war. But He didn't. He asked hard questions; gave hard answers; and always walked in truth and love. I want that for my babies.
Last night, I was coming home from a quick errand and turned the corner onto my street.  There was a pick-up truck parked outside our house with two boys in the back.  They were probably 9 years old. Each of them had a "toy" rifle and they were leaning out of the truck shooting passers-by (me). Oh my. If they were my kids, I would not allow it. Yes, Seth is allll boy. And he has swords and hooks and mean pirate noises these days. But there is a limit to this madness and "shooting" people eclipses mine. We value peace and I will not have my children shooting people -- pretend or otherwise. I just won't.
Diversity. Part of the beauty of our creation is that God made us all unique and yet all in His image. Amazing, right? Our family values God's diversity. As Seth recently told my mom, "Our family song is 'Diverse City' [by Toby Mac]" Yep.  True!
"They call us Diverse City, we're colorful good, we're like a freak show, in your neighborhood.  So if you wanna PRAISE you can come on down 'cuz this freak show is leaving the ground..... Now come to the city where you can praise If you're black, if you're white, if you're yellow or grey In the morning, in the night, anytime of day What's that place - Diverse City!"
I pray that I can teach my children -- the way my parents somehow taught me -- that diversity is beautiful and adds to life a richness that can't come from anywhere else. Because there's room.
Friendships. We value our friends.  The Bible tells us that two strands are better than one. They are tough together -- an unbreakable bond. David and Jonathan.  Best friends. We pray our friendships will be fun, authentic, challenging, supportive, forgiving, filled with love, and forever.
Mercy, Equality, Justice, and Grace all covered by Respect We love and value people. All people. As "our song" (giggle) sings, "Stirring, we'll lure you in and we'll make room for the shade of skin
Short ones, tall ones, skinny ones, bigger, love is the gun and we pullin' that trigger...." But in loving them, we don't only say we love them, we love with action. We fight for people who are powerless and have no voice. As I wrote just days ago, "Jesus is the God of the outcast, the underdog, the powerless and the powerful.  And He loves them all.  But {since} we are the powerful, that does not give us license to marginalize others." In fact, to who much is given, much is required.  Our love looks like this:
We value mercy and (attempt to) engage in merciful acts.  Often. We value people and places that prioritize mercy because we do and there is so much need for mercy....   We value equality.  No matter your race, gender, affiliations or other dividing categorizations that we have now or will have in the future.  We believe God created us equally and so we all ought to be treated (and valued) equally.  Full stop.
We value justice. Lord knows this lawyer mama's heart was built with an extra dose of the justice portion. Like equality, we value doing the right thing, fighting for justice for the weak or down-trodden and working to make wrongs right.
We value grace. Grace is God's unmerited favor. We are going to mess up.  Heck, half the time I mess up before I even get out of bed in the morning. Thankfully, God extends grace to me. But even as God has (unending) grace for me, I must show grace (have room) for others. Forgiveness and grace for the mistakes we will all make. We can become just a little more like Jesus as we extend grace to one another. Grace.
Last, Love. The crescendo on the stanza.  Love is the banner over everything else we value. It is the essence -- sweet fragrance -- of our faith; our God. It is our family; our relationships; our mantra. It is the first and the last. It begins with love and it ends there too.  You before me. It is selfless. What if we all decided to live that way?  You before me.... What a world this would be!!! We value love -- the action of it.  The choice of it.  The sacrifice of it. Because He first loved us.
This is what we believe. [Image]