Mark's Views, Perhaps — from behind my eyeballs
June 27 tweet by Secretary of the Interior
So yesterday (apparently) the President decreed that national parks no longer honor the single-gender bathroom concept. (Gender-specific restrooms — what an antiquated concept in this great society. 😯 )
Apparently whatever the sign may say is no guarantee what you will find inside. So beware of using multiple-capacity restrooms. The spectators therein may be more “sexually varied” than you bargained for. Read it all
For our main Christmas Day meal here — my parents, my sister and husband, my niece and husband, my aunt, and my first brother-in-law (whom I hereby designate an honorary Roth).
And nine of my little flock.
And one candidate. 
But seven missing. 🙁 Read it all
Are you a child born out of wedlock?
Or a child clearly not planned for by your parents?
Your presence on this planet may well be the result of your parents petitioning God for a gift. Then all I have to say to you here is this: Get on with fulfilling the vision of your parents and the purposes of God!
On the other hand, my dear reader, your presence here may not have been requested by your parents. For all that I know, you may be a so-called “illegitimate child…” Take heart! Not only are you just as legitimate a child as anyone else, you are on this planet by special divine appointment. God chose to put you here! Get on with fulfilling His vision and purposes!
Be faithful to your mission here on planet Earth! Read it all
This is my Happy Father’s Day! tip to all of us fathers:
This morning, that’s my number one tip for being a successful father. If we don’t walk humbly with the Father, He will resist us instead of helping us.
“But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: ‘God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble'” (James 4:6, NKJV).
And now for links and/or excerpts from five fatherhood posts from the archives… Read it all
As it has been doing for many decades, Hopewell Mennonite Church is having Summer Bible School again.
This year’s edition is next week, June 17-21.
Our sign went up last night:
Maybe you call it Vacation Bible SchoolOur children need and prosper by our prayers for them.
Be they unborn or married with grandchildren, our offspring benefit from our prayerful watchfulness over them.
So here are five ways I pray for my family: Read it all
Christian parents abandoning their children seems so contrary to logic. At least.
Contrary to God. At most.
Oh, I don’t mean abandoning them in the sense of leaving them derelict and alone to fend for themselves somewhere. Or even abandoning them to the care of someone else.
I mean abandoning them in their own home.
A friend of mine on Facebook (yeah; I know) linked to this article by Rachel Jankovic. Read it to learn what I’m driving at above.
Have you given your life to your children resentfully? Do you tally every thing you do for them like a loan shark tallies debts? Or do you give them life the way God gave it to us—freely?
It isn’t enough to pretend. You might fool a few people. That person in line at the store might believe you when you plaster on a fake smile, but your children won’t. They know exactly where they stand with you. They know the things that you rate above them. They know everything you resent and hold against them. They know that you faked a cheerful answer to that lady, only to whisper threats or bark at them in the car.
[…]
Sacrifice for your children in places that only they will know about. Put their value ahead of yours. Grow them up in the clean air of gospel living. Your testimony to the gospel in the little details of your life is more valuable to them than you can imagine. If you tell them the gospel, but live to yourself, they will never believe it. Give your life for theirs every day, joyfully. Lay down pettiness. Lay down fussiness. Lay down resentment about the dishes, about the laundry, about how no one knows how hard you work.
Stop clinging to yourself and cling to the cross.
I don’t know much of anything about the author. Nor do I know much of anything about John Piper. But I do think it worth your while (be you mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, or none of the above) to read the entire piece: Motherhood Is a Calling (And Where Your Children Rank).