@Brian_Sauve Praise God. My family and I look forward to listening during road trips, cleaning, or relaxing.
However, I feel like your signature could be easily forged.
Many of you know Austin Keeler through @theholy_nope, where he has spent years teaching, engaging culture, and contending for biblical truth with conviction and humor. Others know him personally through ministry, evangelism, and life together in the church.
What many may not know is that Austin and Rachel are now walking through an extremely difficult trial as a family.
Rachel has suffered a severe spinal cord injury that has brought sudden, life-altering changes to their daily life. Ordinary routines, mobility, transportation, and even the structure of their home are now affected in ways that will require significant adjustment and ongoing care.
Their family is doing everything they can, and our church is stepping in to help. But the needs ahead are substantial, and the expenses connected to Rachel’s care and these necessary changes continue to grow.
We wanted to provide an opportunity for those who know and love the Keelers, and for those who have been encouraged by Austin’s ministry, to help bear this burden with them.
If you would like to contribute, you can do so here:
https://t.co/lw24SaRU20
Please pray for Rachel, Austin, and their boys, asking the Lord to sustain them with grace, endurance, wisdom, provision, and steadfast faith in this trial.
@TheJollyBrawler@Brian_Sauve Brother, you don't know how often I'm overjoyed to tell the story of the simple voice note you sent. God bless you and yours as well.
Time moves fast. I know it’s cliché, and it’s cliché for a reason. It’s one of those clichés you should actually take to heart.
At the end of 2024, I took my family on a big vacation down to Fort Myers. Flew all 10 of us down there, got an incredible Airbnb, rented a boat to go fishing out on the Gulf. It was only five days, but we planned it smart. One-way flight. Airbnb only a few minutes from the airport. We were able to make the most of every day.
I think it was one of the best family vacations we ever had.
A lot of memories were made. I spent good time just hanging out, swimming in the pool or the ocean, talking with the kids, being present.
What I did not know at the time was that it would be the last family vacation with just me, my wife, and our eight kids.
Before we could take another one, my oldest son got engaged at 19 and married at the start of this year.
Now, I couldn’t be happier. I love him. I love my daughter-in-law. I’m eager for grandchildren. And I’m sure before long we’ll do another big trip, only this time two Foster families will go together.
But I didn’t know that was the last one.
And I’m very glad I went all out and don’t have regrets.
It makes me think: what “last thing” will I do this year? This summer? Even today?
So I pray…
God, keep me sober-minded. Help me make the most of what You’ve put in front of me.
An Ode to Mothers
Children need their father's strength, his steady hand and firm voice, and their mother's warmth, her quiet care and gentle nurture.
A mother's work shapes her children. Whatever they become, her faithful labor plays a central part.
That work often looks small. Simple moments, barely noticed, carry weight.
A mother teaches her children to be fair, to share their toys without grabbing what isn't theirs, to be generous but just. Those lessons grow into a backbone no bribe can bend.
How many crooked politicians had good mothers?
Maybe a few. If so, they dishonor her. But I'd bet most never learned those simple lessons, spoiled, unchecked, and left to drift.
Mothers build something deeper than lessons.
Men raise walls and roofs; women make them into a home.
A home is more than wood and stone. It's warmth, the place you come back to when you're tired and beaten, where memories are planted and traditions bloom, a shelter, an anchor, an oasis in a dry and weary world.
No other place is like home, because no other place was made by your father and mother for you alone.
Mothers are the heart of that work, shaping empty rooms into a place that nourishes and restores.
Paul told Titus to remind older women to teach the young: to love their husbands, their children, and their homes. He called them "keepers of the home," the ones who make a house a refuge.
Mothers hold us close. They kiss our bruises. They cook the meals we love. They sing us to sleep.
It's quiet work, and the world rarely praises it, but it is no small thing, and it is glorious.
Happy Mother's Day!
@OldHollowTree Brother, I didn't unbox it this time, and she loved it. I'm looking forward to our next order. Hopefully, you get some other orders from my neck of the woods.
This is my third time buying a gift from Humming Meadow (aka @OldHollowTree). The quality and care they put into these each time is evident from delivery. 12/10 recommend. Thank you all and God bless you guys.
@rob_avis_ramble “Not only replaced my wife’s income, but far exceeded it”. I think of how the Lord did that in our own lives. Are there days I come home late? Yeah, but it’s to a wonderfully loving home and not both of us getting home at the same time wondering picked up dinner.
To replace everything a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom does for her family, you'd need $180,000 a year.
Instead we told her to get a job.
Handed her empire to strangers.
And called it progress.
The fact this needs said is such a shame to modern Christians and churches. The entire Bible gloriously displays God's goodness in that he never expects his children to pick themselves up by their bootstraps, and there are no "self-made" men in the Scriptures.
If you’re a dad with young kids and you’re healthy and fit.
And you’ve got a steady job/career and a roof over your head.
And a great wife.
Please recognize this: you are living the dream life. The “good old days” are literally happening to you right now.