When we committed to Safe Families, my in-laws quietly expressed concern. Not so much that we were opening our home to a child in crisis, but that my wife might trigger an Amber Alert when it was time to give him back.

Mandy has always been a rescuer. Birds with broken wings. Baby rabbits that wandered from their burrows. There’s even a rumor she helped a skunk that had been clipped by a passing automobile (OK, I just started that one).

How in the world will she handle a beautiful, little three year old boy?

Our temporary miniature house guest has been a handful (a 24-7 handful for my wife). Having a toddler back in the mix after a few years of offspring self-sufficiency has messed with our normal. But the thought of dropping him off tomorrow has given us pause.

We’ve gotten attached.

As I think about sending this little guy back into the terrifying unknown, I’m challenged to look honestly at my core motive. Over the past two weeks, we’ve been able to provide new shoes, new clothes, new experiences, and a bed of his own. But his greatest need isn’t to become saved into the middle class (our access to tangible resources can deceive us).

It’s to be loved. Cherished. Filled with hope for the future, and the knowledge there’s a Savior who knows his name, regardless of his circumstances. Our greatest asset isn’t our way of life, it’s our Source of it.

Above all else, I pray that’s what he takes from his short encounter with us.

And what we remember is most important from our short encounter with him.

Our morning family ritual reminds me of a Survivor immunity challenge. Two appointed co-captains (that’s my wife and me) frantically bark orders at a chaotic tribe of half-dressed children, who mix their sluggish energies between stuffing books in their backpacks and breakfast in their faces, all while not so subtly trying to keep their rival siblings from doing the same. (I can actually hear Jeff Probst doing the play by play).

I’m not sure God ever intended three children to live under the same roof simultaneously (I’m looking for Scriptural backup). Most days, I’m ready to vote at least one of them off the island.

We keep it real here.

This morning, team leader alpha (that’s me) apparently barked a little too loud at his 9 year old offspring, reducing her to a sobbing mess of tears. Now even though my Anna is destined for an emmy-winning role in a CBS daytime drama, this isn’t the way a dad wants to start his Monday.

But alas, the van door closed and mom whisked her away before frustration gave way to clarity. And I’ve spent the morning full of regret. (Guilt is a parental right of passage).

But as I slowly rise from the dad-of-the-day doldrums, I find I’m singing the immortal words of the 70′s metal band Nazareth: Love Hurts (go on and thrust those iPhone lighters in the air).

Love doesn’t always manifest as smiles and roses. Sometimes it’s flat painful. Sometimes it has to be. Let’s ask the Creator Himself.

God’s love accepts us right where we’re at, but it’s never content to leave us there. Because He loves us, He’s not afraid to throw it down. To call out our error. To step in the road as we’re careening blindly toward a cliff. God’s love corrects.

“But don’t, dear friend, resent God’s discipline; don’t sulk under his loving correction. It’s the child he loves that God corrects; a father’s delight is behind all this.” -Proverbs 3:11-12

God’s not afraid to break us. In fact, sometimes His immense love may leave us sobbing in the backseat of a mini-van on the way to school.

Back to my morning.

Where God and I differ (amongst the whole holy, omniscient, Creator of the universe thing) is that sometimes I break my daughter with my love, and sometimes I break her with my own brokenness.

And therein lies the challenge. To know the difference.

This morning, Princess Anna needed a square kick to the posterior of her fairytale gown. But her daddy probably did, too (this is where the whole Cinderella dress analogy breaks down). This daddy loves his baby girl enough to both call out her error, and to know when it’s humbly time to say he’s sorry.

I’m glad our Heavenly Father loves us both enough to break us, too. With a perfect love never content to leave us as we are.

There are some things I hesitate to share, especially before they happen. I feel like a politician espousing tax cuts, or Charlie Sheen vowing a future in television (Have the Charlie Sheen jokes run out yet?).

This story could have a Justin Bieber meteoric rise, or it may end up going all Taylor Hicks on us. As my daughter says, risk means it may not work out. She’s wise for her age.

Today at 4:15, my wife and I are picking up a 3 year old boy.

No, we’re not adopting. We’re not even fostering. We’ve connected with an imaginative organization called Safe Families that seeks to fill the gap between families in crisis and the need for government intervention. Today it moves from theory and paperwork, to flesh and blood reality.

(And we’re a little scary-nervous about it, like the bubbly stomach you get on the ascent up the first hill of a roller coaster).

This little guy (who’s name or picture I can’t share) is newly homeless. Without help, he, his mom, and his siblings would be sleeping outside on the streets tonight. Safe Families became a voluntary option for this single mother, temporarily placing her children in secure homes for a few weeks while they work with her to stabilize the crisis.

Together, we become the extended family and relational network she doesn’t have.

For the last two years, my wife and I have been wrestling with our God-given responsibility to care for the fatherless. This creative organization really spoke to us. There are plenty of things we don’t have to offer, but we swim in oceans of a cherished and unearned gift: layers of love, family, and community that have become our safety net in times of crisis. We can’t hoard that for ourselves.

So consider this post the before photo. I don’t know how this turns out. I honestly don’t know if we have what it takes to cut it here. But I’ll try to find the courage to share the journey with you. The times we rise to the challenge, and the times we cower in fear.

Maybe this speaks to some of you. Feel free to check out Safe Families for yourself (maybe you have already). Let us be the guinea pig. The process couldn’t be simpler, but as I’ve learned over the years, simple doesn’t always mean easy.

More to come.

My daughter Emma turned 12 last month. I no longer mark the years by the recession of my hairline, I just count the number of Googles it takes for me to help her with her homework.

My baby is growing up.

This Saturday we marked the official beginning of a year long adventure leading up to her 13th birthday. A year of new ideas, new experiences, and new challenges that I desperately hope will prepare her for adulthood as a follower of Jesus. But amidst all the books, trips, and important conversations, this week I’ve issued her biggest challenge.

My dear friend Dr. Mike Elmore introduced this simple concept to a small group of CityCom men last year, but this little exercise has more cross-gender benefit than a Shake-Weight infomercial.

7 Minutes a Day.

Here’s the gist. For seven minutes each day (come on, who can honestly play the “too busy” card for that?), commit to the following:

• Select a passage from the Bible to read (She and I will do this together each week)
• Think deeply and meditate on the words (What does it really say? How does it pertain to your life?)
• Pray and ask God, “What do you want to say to me?” (Listen to what He has to say)
• Write it down (Everyone knows a mole-skin journal is a pre-requisite of Christianity)
• Download the outcome with me or mom at the end of each week.

The most important thing any of us can learn to do is interact with the Creator of the Universe. To talk to Him. To listen to Him. Most of us reserve this experience for a Sunday church service or manic moments of chaotic desperation, or we’ve simply turned God into a checklist of guilt-ridden tasks to be endured.

I want to know Him. I want my daughter to know Him, too.

Not in overzealous periods of fabricated effort. In the steady, consistent reality of the everyday. Maybe that can start with seven simple minutes. We’ll see.

How about you? How have you learned to connect with God in the everyday of life?

It’s Valentine’s Day. The Taylor Swift lyric of holidays. Sweet. Sappy. Romantic. I think I got a cavity just writing that sentence.

Watching all the Twitter @ mention and Facebook wall post love flying around this morning (you know, those online digital expressions that have officially replaced the paper Hallmark cards and handwritten notes that are so 2003) got me thinking.

I’m a ridiculously lucky man.

Today, I woke up next to my beautiful Valentine of 15 years. We’re light years from perfect (and we know it), but our undying commitment to one another has led us on quite a journey. An adventure that now includes three little valentines and more undeserved love than we know what to do with most days. Valentine’s Day reminds me to celebrate this.

But I’m not ignorant. I also know this day threatens to swallow some of you. To remind you of what you don’t have. What you fear you may never have. Or maybe something you’ve lost.

An unexpected divorce.

Your annual tax filing status (once again) checked single.

A bouquet of flowers laid on a gravestone instead displayed in a vase on the kitchen counter.

Brokenness. Pain. Whether by poor choice or no choice of your own. Either way, it doesn’t matter. Today, as everyone else celebrates with balloons, candygrams, and romantic dinners for two, you quietly mourn.

I wish I had neat, easy answers. That Rosetta Stone Scripture that could clean it all up, snap it into focus, force it to all make sense.

But I can offer hope. Our God understands our sorrow.

“He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.”
-Isaiah 53:3

So if you find Valentine’s Day more bitter than sweet, just know you’re not alone in feeling alone. Pain is far too often a real place. God didn’t design you to live there. He doesn’t want you to stay there. But if you are there today, just know that He will be right there with you.

My God is close to the brokenhearted.