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David had heard of the famed pink sandy beaches and we desperately needed a quiet family get-away (translation— no cell service) so we booked a beachfront home in secluded Windermere for what will be forever etched in my memory as a slice of perfection in life. By contrast, the home we stayed in was on cement pilings that went deep into the island’s surface, the home was cement block with a cement foundation and a poured cement roof. Faith-testing challenges and life-altering traumas are a guarantee…but the time-tested truth of faith in Jesus Christ ALONE will be the pillars that your life can be built on, remain intact, and withstand even the fiercest of hurricanes. As I sang tonight at a church gathering, praising and worshipping, crying tears of joy and thanksgiving, heartbreak and hope, I remembered that parable— that living personification that the Lord gave our family so many years ago on the pink sandy beaches of Eleuthera.

When the jaded and harsh reality of a cold and cruel world threaten, a tent fort made from the dining room table with blankets, a pile of pillows, a stack of books and a flashlight keep the evils at bay. When I look at my oldest daughter, now 23 years old, and see my youngest son Vaughn who is two, I’m blown away at the blessing and joy that each of these children has been in our lives and in the lives of so many who know them. But I bet we’d have lots of funny stories to share about crazy things our sons have done or the way raising a daughter can be so challenging in today’s world. Maybe we’d roll our eyes at the latest fashion trends or  we’d reminisce about how WE were when WE were teens and how tough it is to deal with social media as a parent.

So when little baby Vaughn does an Olympic judicial salute after finishing his pb&j, or stands on the back of the couch in a perfect figure skating finishing pose, you can bet we’ve been watching just a little bit of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics. Bruises and broken bones, torn ligaments and fractured spines, hit after hit, failure after failure. They will likely stink at a sport for quite some time before they ever look like they know what they are doing and they may struggle in school for years before they ever finally learn the perfect combination of learning style, study skills and dogged determination. Let’s use the lessons that the Olympics can teach our kids by instilling them the possibilities that can exist for them if they will be willing to risk failure and overcome odds.

And whether you and I agree on guns and what guns should be legal or what we should do to stop any further gun violence like what happened last week– is really irrelevant. Because I refuse to let another gunman, another violent act that rips families apart continue to rip our nation apart on issues that, likely, we all agree on more than we disagree. You think parents need support, need to engage, need to commit to raising kids who won’t result to violence? Find a way to raise awareness, encourage kids/families to participate in other activities.