I did some yard work this evening.  As is the case with most activities, it ended up being a family affair, because that's how we like it.  I got to watch my kids playing in the yard, and the boys even wanted to ride with me when I had to go get more gas.  We rode with the windows down, listening to our favorite songs, just being cool together.  We had to get a new gas can to put the gas in. (My old gas can was stolen and replaced with a broken one...seriously.  I'm still trying to make sense of it all.)  Once we got cleaned up and ready for bed, I got to sit around our table and read the Bible with my family.  It's just one of those surreal things that Daddies get to do with their families, for no other reason than because the Lord is good. While watching my kids play tonight, I wondered, as parents often do, what was going through their minds.  I watched how they ran and laughed without the least concern for any of the cares of the world.  They're not worried about anything while their mother and I are there.  They trust us.  They know our love.  They know the boundaries that we have set.  They know our voices, and how it feels and smells to nestle their faces into our t-shirts when it's time to head to bed.

God wants the same for us.  The comforts and the familiar security that we can give to our kids are a shadow of the security that we have in being called "My child" by the Lord of heaven and earth.  Psalm 112:7 says of the man who fears the Lord:  "He will not fear evil tidings; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord."  Whatever troubles have come and may still come, the man who fears God does not have to fear, because His Father has said "Let not your heart be troubled."  We can live in a world that is not our home, loving people because we know the love of the Lord.