“I sat up late last week, long after I hugged and kissed the last kid goodnight(in my case, it would be my girl cats 🐈), (well, since Victoria crossed the Rainbow 🌈 Bridge 🌁 last Autumn 🍂 and went to be with Abba 💛it would be my girl cat 🐈 Lil Bit) and I whispered it again in a dark house where we’ve spent more than the last 25 years raising a tribe of kids(in our case, we’ve been in our new house 🏡 three years now, but I’ve had the privilege and honour of being Kitty Mum to Lil’s for 13 years and Vic for 12 years 💛) :

What matters to (Abba) God isn’t seemingly perfect families — but deeply cruciform ones.

Because it’s true, I will fail, they will fail, this is a world that does not fail to ache. And all I know is this:
You may be busted up and bent — but what matters is that your bent is always toward love.

The pressure in parenting — and, really, the pressure in life — is to bend to the pressure of optics, bend to the pressure of appearances, bend to the pressure of accolades, whatever the cost.

But the bend of cruciform parenting isn’t toward optics; the bend of cruciform parenting is outward, pointing to the love of the Cross.

The goal of a Christian family isn’t to be a picture-perfect family — but to be a family that is a picture of the gospel.

No one’s called to be a Billboard Family for Jesus, as that’s a way to be driven by wild control — but rather, the call is to be a Sign Post Family for Jesus, pointing to His perfection, driven by wild grace.