MY DAUGHTER CAUGHT ME LAUGHING AT HER SON THIS WEEK.
She walked in the front door when her son and I were in the breakfast nook in the back of the house. I sat at the table with my back to the front door. My grandson, a little over a year old, sat in a highchair in front of me.
We were laughing at each other.
He started it.
He’s got this intoxicating laugh—and a Charlie Brown round face that makes the music of his laughter all the more adorable.
I tossed a rolling laugh back at him.
He squealed laughter in reply.
So I laughed loud and hard in another short burst.
He did the same.
We had been doing that for a minute or two when my daughter walked in, smiling. How could she not?
I thought, as I turned and saw her, “This is much better than her walking in on us after her boy face-planted on the carpet.”
I’ve got stuff to do
Here’s the problem. I’ve got a bunch of stuff I’m trying to get done.
- Paraphrase the Casual English Bible, for one.
- Create leaders’ guides and atlases with 3D maps, for another.
- And then there are videos I’m doing about the Bible, to educate folks and to help promote sales of my books.
Walk Buddy the dog?
Babysit the grandkids?
Laugh, play, and make funny faces?
Who has time for any of that?
We force ourselves to do these things because we know we should, or maybe because we’re guilted into it.
Then somewhere in the middle of doing it, we realize again what we have known before but had forgotten.
These are the moments that will live on.
I won’t remember that I was in the middle of paraphrasing 1 Timothy when I took a few minutes off work to snap the pictures of my grandkids laughing. But, for heaven’s sake, look at the picture of them. How is it not going to outlive me?
Family and friends who have already seen the picture on social media sites have told me what I already know. God has blessed us with joy in our home.
“Our mouths were suddenly filled with laughter;
our tongues were filled with joyful shouts.
It was even said, at that time…
“The Lord has done great things for them!”
Psalm 126:2 (CEB)
Yes, he has.
Blog subscribers who win books this week
- Troy Jacobs
- Karen Russell
I give away free books every week to randomly selected subscribers to my free blog or my quarterly newsletter.
Winners now get to choose from a stack of titles, including my two most recent: A Visual Walk Through Genesis and The One-Stop History of the Bible.
Note to the two winners: send me an email and I’ll give you the full list of books from which you can choose.
The deal’s good for a month, or for as long as I have giveaway books available.
A challenge for proofreaders
I have a few giveaway copies of the newest expanded edition of Who’s Who & Where’s Where in the Bible, releasing March 1. I’ll give them away to people who can find mistakes on my Casual English Bible website.
Look for typos. Or footnotes with Bible references that are incorrect. Or Bible verses and footnotes that are missing (I have to upload each Bible verse and footnote individually).
Trust me, there are mistakes in this beta edition of the Bible paraphrase. Far more mistakes than I have giveaway books. So work fast.
Tip: skip Luke and Acts. A lot of readers helped me proof those books. But so far, I’ve gotten no help for the other books. But it’s because I haven’t asked. Yet.
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