What I'm Reading and Loving

Click on the links below for some good reading!

When Kid Meets Nativity | Heather Hendrick

Children know how to approach the manger.  They have a way of taking all the frill, the fake, and the phony reverence out of the Christmas story... They see Jesus as approachable, someone who would want to jump on the trampoline with them, someone who would welcome the Darth Vader Lego guy to the get-together.

The truth is, the story of a King born a baby in a barn is not something we need our best clothes on to hear, or something we need to place on the highest, unreachable shelf.

It Is Not Enough | Missy

The reports from the agency had told me that she is extremely attached to her nanny. This is good. The fact that she has chosen one person and not every person means that she will probably be able to transfer those feelings of attachment over to me, to us. It's best that she's not "shopping for a new mommy" as a friend put it. It's good. Great. Yea.

But today? Today it stunk.

The Trouble With TOMS | Thiat Makinwa

...the TOMS brand has established itself as a way for conscious “good Samaritans  to believe purchasing a pair of TOMS is somehow contributing to the global fight against poverty – except it isn't.

Transracial Adoption Isn't a Big Deal. Until It Is. | Kristen Howerton

This is what I know to be true about raising black boys: it will be imperative for me to teach them that some will look at them with suspicion or stereotype based on their skin color.  I HATE THIS.  I hate that it’s true and I hate that I have to burst their innocence and I hate that it may shift their view of the world.  But it’s a part of our role as their parents, and we can’t do it alone.

Free Jesse Tree Advent Devotional | Ann Voskamp 

...this Jesus Advent Devotional, this story that begins in the beginning, in Genesis, and sweeps across His Word and His-Story, that winds through some of the highlights the Old Testament, stories that keep murmuring it — He’s coming, He’s coming.

And we’ll feel the divine breaking into here and we see the light shattering dark and we’ll find what we’ve looked hard for, everything we’ve ever yearned for -- Christ...