The Bible Story Family

WRITING YOUR FAMILY HISTORY One of the greatest gifts my father gave me was a little mimeographed booklet called “Still Climbing.”   In that book he recorded family history which I would never have heard in any other way.   He was delivered by a blind doctor in rural Iowa.   Apparently, the doctor forgot his name when he got back to his office and filled out the birth certificate with the name John.   Years later, after being called Arthur all of his life, Dad applied for his first passport and found out that the birth certificate said he was John. I want to encourage you to bless your family with a similar gift.   You don’t need to write a book.   I am going to suggest several possible ways to package such a gift.    You choose the one which fits you best.      ROUND ROBIN LETTERS It may be too late for some of us to use this idea, not because of age, but because of the disappearance of letter writing as an art form and the appearance of Facebook—which is not an art form.

Everyone needs something to do during isolation.  Here’s a creative challenge. Watch one of those beautiful nature films and rewrite the dialogue from the viewpoint of the God of creation.  Instead of those insipid stories about a lonely salmon who wandered back home to spawn and became the survivor of the fittest hero, tell the truth. “The bears would be hungry when they awoke from hibernation.  So God gave them salmon.  Thousands of salmon swimming upstream through bear country.  The bears could eat their fill and still the salmon would come.  Hungry bears would be satisfied and a new generation of salmon would not just survive, they would thrive.” Never apologize for creation, exult in an endlessly creative God.  “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1).  “He gives to the beast his food” (Psalm 147:9).  “All things were created by Him and for Him” (Col. 1:16). There’s the challenge.  Go for it.