Your intrinsic, immutable value

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As part of our foster care certification process, we’ve been asked to read three books and write book reports on them. I know! Book reports?!

It’s not really that bad. They basically want to find out what we’ve learned from said books. As simple as it may be, or as complex as it may be.

In the book I’m trying to finish up now, “Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew,” the author shares some of the special needs adopted children may have.

  • I need to be taught that my life narrative began before I was born and that my life is not a mistake
  • I need to be taught that in this broken, hurting world, loving families are formed through adoption as well as birth
  • I need to be taught that I have intrinsic, immutable value as a human being
  • I need to accept the fact that some of my adoption questions will never be answered in this life

As I read this list, I thought — how true to life this is for everyone else as well.

Imagine if we each understood and realized these needs as our needs as well.

What would that do to your psyche?

How would it change you today if you realized that your life narrative began before you were born and that your life is not a mistake?

What would that do to your spirit and soul to realize that YOU have intrinsic, immutable value as a human being?

I hope it excites you like it excites me!

And then take it one step further….

How would it change your attitude today if you believed that about everyone else around you?

Songs of Christmas

Sun sets on the temple

Over the years my favorite Christmas songs have changed from year to year.

I remember singing a number of songs growing up, including Come on Ring those Bells, Silent Night, Rudolph, etc. etc. But over the last few years, I think I’ve settled in on my all time favorite.

O Holy Night.
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Add an author’s bio to WordPress posts

bio

For one of my clients, they’ve requested author level permissions for all the members in their organization. This could become a huge headache — very quickly — or if managed correctly, a highly effective communication tool.

With every member writing and commenting, it can become hard to know who’s writing what, or what context they’re coming from, so I wanted to add a brief author’s bio to the end of each post.

I wanted something that was easy for everyone to use and update without having to hard code the information somewhere. And after a quick Google search I realized you can pull a user’s/author’s information straight off of their User Profile page in WordPress.
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The Bible in Five Statements

rapture by Marcn

A fun meme has been floating around the interwebs as of late — Summarize the Bible in Five Statements.

I haven’t tracked down the originator yet, but I picked up on it from Michael Morrell’s post and it’s been fun following along as it’s spread from there.

And now I’ve been tagged too by the legendary podcaster himself, Chad Crawford.
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Join the Insurgency of Love

19/365

After getting blocked from GMail for a few hours last week (after my once in a blue moon spam offering) I decided it might be time to put together a different option for future notifications.

As I thought through the idea of a newsletter, mailing list, etc. etc. I decided I wanted more than just a typical mailing list.
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Texas foster care statistics

As of 2008, there were 31,058 children in foster care in the state of Texas.

(Texas Department of Family and Protective Services – DFPS)

Of those numbers, there are approximately 6,000 children in Region 3 (North Texas)

In FY 2007, the average number of children removed per month was 1,327. For fiscal year 2008, the average was 1,191 per month.
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