Daughter of The King

(Pictures by: Bobby Halliday)

A huge part of growing up for children is to have their father's blessing, his approval, his affection, his guidance and love.
For several weeks over the summer Maddie, with Alyssa's help, met every Sunday with a group of girls at Bethel Worship Center led by Lori Johnson.
They did all kinds of "girl" stuff and talked about really important issues.
At the end of the summer we had a "blessing" ceremony.
The ceremony is to publicly allow the daddy figure in their lives to speak a blessing over her.
He speaks of all the things he loves about her, tells her why he loves her and that he will always be there and support her.
Each girls is presented with flowers, a crown, hugs and kisses.
For now, it was an awkward and embarrassing moment in time for Maddie.
She was very nervous and embarrassed.
But in the years to come, she look back on it having the confidence in knowing that she is always loved and affirmed by her father, setting the course for her life to be built on security and trust.
It was a powerful and symbolic ceremony and spoke of the way our heavenly Father feels about her and each of us.
Not everyone gets a Father's blessings from their earthly father.
Not all of us find it from our heavenly father.
Many of us don't have a good relationship with our father and so our perspective of God isn't based on the goodness of God.
It is said, that we run from the goodness of God.
Here is what I do know, when we finally grasp the goodness of God and can see him as a loving father, everything within us changes.
Everything!

Dali

If you ever get a chance to visit the Dali museum in St. Pete/Tampa, I highly recommend you take the time to see his work.
Many are not fans, think he was crazy, a narcissist and twisted.
Maybe.
Having been an art major, I love all kinds of art and feel it is important to expose my children to as much of it as I can.
I can still remember the day my mother took me to the Georgia O'Keeffe exhibit, it was an amazing experience.
Some art I love, some I don't, but we always have the greatest conversations.
My question at the end of the exhibit is always, "what was your favorite piece and whyy".
I love to hear what they see and what they liked and didn't like.
So, when the new Dali exhibit came to Atlanta we had to go and see it to experience the later years of his work.
It was a great time.
Some of his work hasn't been seen here in the States since the early 50's.
Some of it we loved, some of it is sad, some we didn't get, but all of it tells a story.

Almost Beaned

This is a new season of baseball in the life of Parker Lynch.
It means we are at the ball park three nights a week.
We have gone from T-ball, coach pitch, machine pitch to player pitch.
This last week Parker proved he was ready for anything including a pitch to the head.
Yep, there was a lot of drama.
I told him I liked the idea of Grandpa Jerry teaching him golf way more than I like the idea of him getting beaned in the head.
To this he said, he wanted to play football.
This is not good news for me.
I am sure the name Parker Hughes Lynch sounds like the name of a famous golfer.