Gracebased Home Journal: Play Issue

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Features 8–11

JANUARY CHRISTMAS, ITALIAN ROAD TRIPS, & THE ART OF PLAYFULNESS: CHAD DEMIGUEL Follow this couple from their winsome beginning through hardship and loss, where they discover joy and grief coexisting. Even in the midst of life’s trials, we see how play helped their hearts stay open to God and to each other.

14–33

MONKEY CITY: C.C. KIMMEL

A live oak tree in Texas offers adventures far beyond its branches’ reach. So much more than a treehouse, read how Monkey City became a beacon of joy, imagination, and connection for the Kaspar family children and beyond.

60–69

PLAY AS A METAPHOR FOR THE KINGDOM: ROSEANN DENNERY

With so much in modern life vying for our attention, this family is willing to make big moves to stay grounded. Their stories remind us of a deeper meaning to be found when we embrace discovery and wonder.

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Contents 12–13

8 WAYS TO PLAY: CHAD DEMIGUEL Some tips for adding more flexibility and fun into our days.

34–35

SINCERELY TIM, FAILURE TO HAVE FUN: TIM KIMMEL

A playful letter from the founder of Gracebased.

36–59

FOUR FAMILIES AT PLAY: PHOTO JOURNAL

Every family is beautifully unique; see how these families like to spend time together.

70–71

A PRAYER FOR PLAYING WITH LITTLES: ALLI R. DAHLGREN

A prayer of remembering what matters on busy days.

72–73

BOOKS WE LOVE: LOVED NO MATTER WHAT! AN INTERVIEW: SHEALYN VISSER

Hear about a new book conveying God’s unconditional grace in a way kids can understand.

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SHOW NOTES: BLUEPRINTS

A podcast connecting God’s big plan for families with the big job of raising kids.

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Letter FROM THE Editor O

ne of my favorite memories of this last year happened in an A-frame cabin outside of Bend, Oregon. My wife and I decided to pack our four kids, giant dog, and 4 month old kitten into our van to get away for New Years.

It was a hard reset. We needed it. After a tough year, we set out to leave it behind and just be. Just abide. Play. We woke up when we wanted to, ate scattered meals, huddled over board games and puzzles, explored, and stayed up late lounging on the couch with popcorn and movies. We had no agenda and no plan for productivity.

One morning, we woke to dime-sized snowflakes floating down in steady succession outside the window. I went on a run, Lauren went to a tennis lesson, the kids read and played cards. Then we all decided to get in the hot tub as the snow fell around us.

My kids ran through the cold and snow and then back to the steam rising and sat in the Jacuzzi with their tongues out, catching the flakes before they melted. It was pure delight.

In the midst of work and the daily grind, play can seem as pointless as snow in a hot tub. The two seem to cancel each other out and there is very little to show for it after.

But that’s why God insists on it. Through play, God does serious work in our lives.

The pointlessness is the point. Play brings us back to the journey–the connections

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and relationships that surround us as we delight in God’s beautiful world.

I hope this issue reminds you of the serious work of play in our lives. Whether it’s finding joy through the midst of pain in the Italian countryside, building a fort in a giant live oak, or watching the kids play with bug huts in the backyard, play is an antidote to our endless striving.

I recommend reading and rereading these honest stories of families at play. If the opportunity arises, read them in a hot tub in the snow with your tongue out.

Cody Kimmel Editor in Chief

Contributors C.C. Kimmel

Editor in Chief C.C. Kimmel is the executive director of Gracebased. He is a writer, musician, former pastor, and host of Lightcatchers Podcast. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife, four kids, and a big dog named Wendell and a kitten named Ruby.

Chad DeMiguel

Contributing Writer Chad DeMiguel is a writer, girl dad, and director of marketing for Gracebased. He lives in Gilbert, Arizona, with his wife, Melissa, and daughter, Mia.

Dr. Tim Kimmel

Founder/Columnist Dr. Tim Kimmel is the founder of Grace Based Families and author of 14 books including Grace Based Parenting and Grace at Work. He lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, with his wife of more than 50 years.

Melissa Balkon Design

Melissa Balkon is a designer and artist with a pesky habit of turning her hobbies into businesses. She is a native of Michigan but now calls Tempe, Arizona, home.

Alli R. Dahlgren

Managing Editor Alli R. Dahlgren is a singer/songwriter based out of Portland, Oregon, where she lives with her husband and two kids. She leads writing workshops for teens and adults and is the managing editor for Gracebased Home Journal.

Shealyn Visser

Contributing Writer Shealyn Visser is an elementary school teacher who lives in Ottawa, Canada, with her husband and two boys. She is passionate about early childhood learning and has volunteered as a children’s ministry leader for over 20 years.

Roseann Dennery

Contributing Writer and Copyeditor Roseann Dennery is a freelance writer and creative consultant to nonprofits. Her work has been featured in Relevant Magazine, the BBC, Christianity Today and Bend Magazine, among others. She lives with her family of five in the charming mountain town of Bend, Oregon.

Jacob Cowdin

Design Director Jacob is a designer and creative director from Portland Oregon. His roots are steeped in coffee, skateboarding, motorcycles, and a love for the outdoors.

Ash LaMattino-Perlberg Issue Photographer

Ash lives in Portland, Oregon with her kids. She runs her business, weenophotography, and is the girl behind the camera.

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never really got into Christmas. I mean, definitely, as a kid, when I’d design my present wish lists and then hatch schemes to catch Santa in the gift-giving act. But as an adult, not so much.

“Christmas is too commercialized,” I’d proudly tell myself and others. “Thanksgiving is where it’s at. Loads of good food and less opportunity for drama.”

That is until I met the woman who would become my wife.

She did love Christmas: the seven-fish dinner with her Italian family-visiting neighborhood light displays, a cup of cocoa in hand-Christmas movies-Christmas cookies, Christmas music–all of it, really. While falling in love with her, I found myself falling in love with the holiday, too.

The existential questions ensued — Was my heart a few inches too small? Was my life becoming a Hallmark movie?

And…was I actually enjoying it?

So, when January came around, and she was feeling the postholiday blues, I did what every normal suitor would.

I dressed as Santa Claus, slung a velvety bag of presents over my shoulder, and declared on her doorstep, “It’s January Christmas!”

What can I say? I was a man in love. She was elated.

Ironically, it was during the speeches at our wedding when one of her bridesmaids said, “January Christmas was the moment I knew he was the right guy for my best friend.”

My life is a Hallmark movie. I’ll take it.

In all seriousness though, I spent a lot of my adult life being a serious person pursuing serious things. Because, after all, isn’t the work of a Christian to go about his Father’s work …seriously? Certainly, there’s truth to this.

God is not to be taken lightly. But He’s also no killjoy. Far from it.

As I reflect on those first chapters of our love story, I realize that something essential was missing, or rather dormant, from my day-to-day life.

And it was my lovely wife who helped me rediscover and recover — A lightness of being.

An ease with laughing at myself.

That reflex that refuses to let you take yourself too seriously.

A wise impulse that says running barefoot through the sprinklers or waking up early on vacation to admire a sunrise or dancing with your beloved in the kitchen are often your best ideas and the ones you most definitely should act on. In a word, joy. The brightest and most brilliant kind, shouting loudly from the rooftops of our created world: “God is very good. This life, though very hard, is very good. So-practice holy reveling in all this goodness, because every square inch is his.”

My wife helped me find this because she is playful.

Meaning filled with play. Meaning safe to be your silliest self, which is usually your most authentic self. Meaning recognizing and embracing the very good unfolding before your eyes.

Yes, there has been fun, much laughter and joy. But there’s been something else—an expression of what it means to be more fully human and, therefore, more fully alive.

Her playfulness repeatedly shows me what it means to be truly present: to a person, a conversation, a moment.

Without guile, without pretense, she embraces all the delightful and surprising moments God lavishly gifts us every day.

Many of us think of play as kid’s stuff. We grow up and start to take ourselves a little too seriously. We’ve got 401(k)s and political opinions and résumés and remodel projects and tax receipts and systematic theology and, and, and….

Somewhere along the way, we tend to forget. Through the hard business of being human in this oh-so-broken world, we suffer from a kind of amnesia.

We start to believe life is just about making a name for ourselves or hoping our kids turn out okay or just getting things done. We’re like Robin Williams in the movie Hook, who becomes a soulless man, forgetting the weird and wonderful story he’s a key player in.

Play helps us find our way back. To each other, our humanity, our callings, and ultimately, to God. To the weird and wonderful story God is writing for the world and each of our lives.

But my, how easy it is to forget.

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A year into our marriage, we were ready to start growing our family. We assumed having children would be relatively easy. But then a year turned into another and then another. We did blood tests and fertility tests. We visited doctors, sat in waiting rooms, listened to doctors, counted the ceiling tiles in waiting rooms, and visited more doctors. We met with pastors and counselors as we went to baby showers that weren’t our own. We prayed to God and we fought with God. We held out for hope, then stored it away. We flirted with hopelessness and befriended bitterness. We looked for life in a world that seemed barren.

Is this it?

You travel to Italy to get a break from the pile of horse manure that circumstances keeps shoveling on you and get this?

You finally get married only to not be able to have children?

Is life just a series of cruel ironies?

After four years of trying, after the testing and waiting rooms, after the loss of my father to brain cancer, and after one too many afters, we were starting to forget.

Yet, in one of our darkest chapters, God invited us to play.

Desperate to recover our hearts, we packed our bags and returned to Italy, a place that’s long held great meaning for us.

I envisioned an experience that would be like stepping into some kind of ’90s Olive Garden commercial: blue skies, ambling along dusty roads, cyprus trees on my left, rolling Tuscan hills on my right. After all we’d been through, we needed ease—a climate-controlled, picture-perfect version of Italy. My life is a Hallmark movie, after all.

God had other plans.

We arrived in Florence to a storm Europe hadn’t seen in a hundred years. Drenched by unforgiving rain, we lugged oversized suitcases through streets not made for rolling bags, cursing our bad luck. The rain followed us into the Tuscan countryside, perpetually gathering storm clouds on my left, endless showers on my right.

As we sat under an awning, protecting ourselves from the rain that was ruining my Olive Garden fantasy, we wondered, rather bellyached, aloud,

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Over the next few days, the sun began to break through.

We got stretches of time without the showers. The Olive Garden fantasy was back on. That is until our GPS routed us away from our idyllic sunset drive and off-roaded us through some backwoods trail. We cursed the moment again, assessing if we really should drive a rented vehicle through a creek bed, our only way home. I hit the gas. We gritted our teeth, howled, splashed, made it through, and laughed hysterically.

We continued on. A soft sunset glimmered tangerine through blurring leaves and swaying branches. Our eyes caught something else. As we slowed the vehicle, a fox meandered playfully through the forest like he was on his way back to Narnia.

We were able to finally enter in, to embrace the very good unfolding before us.

That very good was not the fantasy I had hoped for, but something better.

An embrace of the delightful and surprising moments God was lavishly gifting us in His way and His good timing. An awareness of what it means to be fully alive. In a word, grace.

And play led the way.

Play dared us to drive through the insanity of lateafternoon Naples traffic—all in the name of tasting heavenly pizza that was surely made by the archangel Michael himself.

Play serendipitously guided us to a scruffy bungalow on the shores of Italy’s southern boot, where I had imagined the two of us enjoying glasses of red wine near a roaring fire on the beach. Instead, we met and befriended a group of people just like us, beat up by the brokenness of life and searching for solace. A fellow traveler in particular caught our hearts as he struggled to hold out for hope in the midst of his own painful circumstances.

One afternoon, my wife playfully embraced the Mediterranean, floating, laughing, offering her grief, tears, and future to God. In a conversation not long after, she was able to share her story with our new friend, offering him hope in the name of Jesus and rekindling some of our own hope in the process.

Play inspired a search of the ancestral home of my wife’s grandmother, a significant figure in her story. In a mad dash before our departing flight, she found the little village and town square and home of her beloved nonna.

I took so many pictures of that moment: my wife beaming, overjoyed by this discovery, the weight of the world off her shoulders, the sheer goodness of it all. We marveled at moments like these, evidence of God’s signature kindness and, dare I say, playfulness in our lives.

After we returned home, life did not get easier or better.

We got more crushing news. Things were hard for a while, and we battled under the shadow of grief. But over the following months, light began to break through.

During a virtual call in early October, my wife pounded on my home office door, interrupting a meeting in a way she’d never done before. There were tears on her face. The kind you want to see. The kind you never thought you would.

We playfully declared we needed to go out for pancakes to celebrate and dream up names for our baby.

Our daughter just turned eight months old. She’s doing all the wonderful things an annoyingly proud dad like myself would tell you: babbling, crawling, and shoving every blasted thing into her mouth. And she’s started to play.

She claps her pudgy hands together, tosses a plastic turtle, and kicks a tiny red ball across her playmat. She hits a child’s keyboard so the lullaby will play and at bedtime, stares at the illustrations with wonder as her mom reads to her. As I sit with her cross-legged on the playmat, immersed in her world, I can’t help but notice how captivated she is by everything, fully attuned to every unfolding moment.

My daughter, my daughter is teaching me what it means to be truly present again, to the delightful and surprising moments God lavishly gifts us every day.

She is her mama’s girl, after all.

Chad DeMiguel is a writer, girl dad, and director of marketing for Gracebased. He lives in Gilbert, Arizona, with his wife, Melissa, and daughter, Mia.

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8 (Pretty Fantastic) Ways to Bring Play into Your Life Life is an amazing gift. Kids get this, but serious adults can sometimes forget. Here are eight ways to make play part of your life and recapture some much-needed joy.

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Go barefoot. Walk on grass, dance in the kitchen with your toddler, or simply kick your feet up. Sans shoe moments make life more casual and fun.

Open the windows. On drives, while sleeping at night, and in the house. There’s something about wind in your hair or soft, gentle breezes that invigorate the soul.

Analog over digital. Sure, we all need to be digitally connected. But journaling with a pen, doing crafts with paper, or reading a hardbound novel lights up our brains in good ways.

Laugh at yourself. Taking ourselves too seriously is the curse of adulting. Tap into your inner child, remember that you’re not perfect, and laugh at the mistakes.

Embrace silly. Read a story in a goofy voice, throw a costume party for your family, or chuckle at the antics of cats. A spoonful of silly is always needed medicine.

Say, “Wow!” When’s the last time you were, to quote Mr. C.S. Lewis, surprised by joy? Stare in awe at God’s sunsets, marvel at hummingbird wings, or be thankful for the simple miracle of being able to breathe.

Sabbath well. Enjoy this sweet gift from God and do something that makes your soul come alive.

Embrace the cake fail. Dreaming of something that might embarrass you in the process? Good!

Whether learning to bake, trying out the guitar, or wheezing through a half marathon, it’s okay knowing there’s a bit of failure in every first attempt.

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MONKEY CITY

By C.C. Kimmel

Photography by Christopher Kaspar

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The story of Monkey City began long before plans were drawn and its name determined. Before the first nail went into the wood-beamed ladder leading to the main deck. Before Doug and Laura Kaspar built the Colonial Williamsburg replica home on their 95 acres of Central Texas rolling fields. Before Christopher and Kyle advanced through the thicket with paintball guns in hand. Before the cows broke through the fence into the garden.

Before the Kaspars ever walked the Indian paintbrush-dotted hills leading to the towering live oak.

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t all started, like most good stories, before anyone knew it would be a story. It started with a storm. No one was there to see it. Just the quiet witness of the youpan thicket surrounding the towering tree and the animals hiding within.

Amid the wind and thunder and rain, a lightning streamer crawled up the roots, through the branches and crown, shooting to connect with the stepped leader descending from the clouds looming above.

The oak tree, already over a hundred years old, felt its first shock of age as its youthful core began to crack and start its slow but steady journey to decay.

Once a sapling in the same fields Sam Houston rode through on the way to Gonzalez, the tree that would ultimately be home to Monkey City began its end.

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Doug Kaspar didn’t know this the day he surveyed his land from his back deck. On that particular day, as he studied the tree’s silhouette looming over that thicket, all he saw was an opportunity for magic.

Doug was no stranger to the area. The Kaspars had lived in Shiner, Texas, since it was settled in the late 1800s. Always industrious and curious, Doug’s great-great-grandfather founded Kaspar Wireworks to make corn shuck baskets and horse muzzles. Now, five generations later, Doug led the team in the engineering department, which–at that time–was dedicated to manufacturing the metal case racks that were being used all over the country for selling newspapers.

That ancient live oak stood in the thicket less than a hundred yards behind their house. After chewing on his new idea for a while, Doug invited Laura to walk with him through the mist of the early morning dew until they were in the shadow of that magnificent tree. Once there, he told her of his plans. What they imagined together that day would become their two sons’ home base for many years to come. It was to be a core memory of laughter, scraped knees, love, and youth. A kingdom of secrets and dreams.

A town mainstay and a sacred hiding place.

Christopher and Kyle, 6 and 3, respectively, were given two options: Ewok Village or Monkey City. After a quick huddle, the brothers decided. Doug began construction on Monkey City the next day.

The gnarled, sprawling tree was tailor-made for an elaborate play structure. After climbing the ladder to the landing, Monkey City opened up to the main deck built around the tree’s central trunk. Thick extensions of the trunk rose in each direction above the deck and would later become the anchor for the upper landing and lookout. Perched on a lower limb, a smaller platform sat connected by a bridge from the main deck.

Doug hung plastic water bottles filled with sand from the outer branches for BB gun target practice. Laura supplied

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a steady stream of snacks. Christopher and Kyle climbed up the ladder wide-eyed. Monkey City was a pirate ship and a frontier fortress, an ancient castle and a Normandy bunker. It was anything and everything their minds could dream–-a sanctuary of imagination. The creation of Monkey City became an era-defining moment. Their time was tracked now by B.M.C. (Before Monkey City) and A.M.C. (After Monkey City).

The boys played on it and in it like it was their job.

When God placed Adam in the garden, he said it was very good. Or literally translated, “good good.” A kingdom of wonder laid out for his new creation. Adam’s first job was to name the animals. The same way a kid names rocks and hills and streams, Adam played his way through the garden naming his discoveries. Elephant, fox, wallaby, tiger. Caterpillar, kingfisher, swallow, lemming. Everything new.

There was no curse attached to work yet, so no distinction between work and play. No burden or weariness. No fear or exhaustion. Just a man delighting in the never-ending newness of the first garden. A delight only made better

That’s not to say there weren’t tears. Laura patched many wounds and removed many barbs, as well as fed cranky mouths, mediated brotherly spats, and provided pitchers of water and lemonade during the sweltering summer months. True play usually involves some tears, but they never lasted long. Within moments of the final sniffle, the boys would head back out to Monkey City, lost in their own personal Eden.

Doug, a man who never fully shed his boyish curiosity, often joined them in their play. He helped them line up their BB gun shots from the lower landing.

Collected rocks to be stacked and stowed. Brought in sticks and branches for supplemental shelter. Became king or villain, whichever his boys required. His play followed him into his work, his home, his marriage, and his friendships. There was a good mischief behind his smile as he grew in age and wisdom, watching his family grow in delight.

The boys grew, and as they grew, Monkey City matured with them. It was about the same time cows broke through the back fence, prompting Doug and Laura to get rid of them and shift their acreage industry to growing hay. “All cows are essentially grass, so we just cut out the middleman and went straight to the source,” Doug said. “Besides, grass won’t eat my wife’s roses.”

They all knew there was a risk to adding a fourth and fifth level to Monkey City. You never know what’s happening inside a tree until it falls. But Christopher and Kyle convinced their dad the risk was worth it.

That’s because they had a new obsession–paintball –and needed a better lookout. Doug was eager to oblige.

The two new levels gave Monkey City five distinct platforms. The tallest (aka the lookout) gave them a perfect vantage point to see beyond the thicket into the field, where freshly made bunkers hid friends with paintball guns waiting to attack.

it like it was their job.

Christopher and Kyle played like Adam before the fall, before fleeing east of Eden to the dry land beyond paradise.

The boys played on it and in

when his helper and companion joined him as he walked with his Creator, naming creation.

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Doug camped with the boys the night of the grand opening of Monkey City 2.0. The smell of freshly cut two–by– fours hung in the air as he watched his boys fall asleep beneath the Texas stars. He thanked God for the stars and wondered if God smiled when he hid the bear and scorpion among the firmament. He thanked God that in a world so filled with pain, he could still find a quiet sanctuary with his two sons in a hundred-year-old tree, suspended above an earth longing for newness and a sky declaring his majesty.

The season of paintball lasted years and was a golden age for Monkey City. Boys from all over Shiner joined Christopher and Kyle after school and on weekends to suit up and wage war. There were nicknames, code words, battle plans. Teams shifted, allegiances formed, all with the same end game—take the tower.

Doug often suited up with them and, though not as fast on the charge, maintained his family honor with valor on the battlefield. Laura giggled at his welts and sore legs. She knew Monkey City was just as much his as it was his son’s, so she just smiled as he limped down the stairs the day after a paintball battle.

By then, Doug was doing less engineering and more managing others while they engineered. He, along with his brothers, now ran the family company. Kaspar Companies employed over 550 men and women and had shifted its focus from newsstands to truck beds, high-end grill guards, and an assortment of other metal goods. In many ways, it was a different Monkey City. The Kaspars were a family driven by curiosity, ingenuity, and grit. They adapted as life changed. They tried things, failed, tried again, and carved out success through a commitment to “figuring it out.”

They knew that failure to adapt was the death sentence of an old company, so they built it into their DNA. They invested in innovation (a grown-up word for play) and continued to expand their offerings.

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Almost intuitively, the Kaspars felt the tide again changing with Monkey City and knew it was time for another era.

Christopher moved a grill onto the main deck while Kyle, who was almost as tall as Doug now, lugged a card table up the ladder. Doug helped them run power from the back deck to the lights strung through the branches.

Laura found the card table and twinkle lights more inviting than a paintball mask and joined her boys for meals from time to time.

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Christopher and Kyle hosted their friends for grilling and Texas Hold‘em. They played guitar and camped, dreamed of a big, beautiful world, and slept with youthful restlessness beneath the stars. Kyle became a local legend when he hosted his first date on Monkey City’s main deck.

Laura taught him well, and news of his romantic chivalry spread like fire through the small local high school.

as it had been for his boys, so the visits were maintained with the kind of regularity expected from an engineer.

Most of the changes to Monkey City happened with intention over time. Slow interest or disinterest. Beta testing different ideas. Conversations. Plans. Dreams.

But the next major era of Monkey City came without any warning, testing, or intention.

Doug still joined in, often a quiet smiling observer as his two almost men waxed on about the wild world they wanted to conquer.

Big storms are a part of life in Texas. Clouds seen for miles spring open in seconds. Winds and rain and thunder and lightning engulf the land like dirt on a grave. That night, the storm was big but not unusual. Doug and Laura slept through the clambering downpour as they had hundreds of other storms.

When Kyle, their youngest, went to college, Monkey City fell quiet for the first time since its creation. Both Christopher and Kyle went about 100 miles north of Shiner to Texas A&M, another Kaspar family tradition.

Apart from the occasional weekend laundry trip and the breaks spent at home, Monkey City stood unoccupied.

Doug continued to check on it, replacing loose steps and making sure it was ready for the boys’ next visit. Over the years, Monkey City became as much an anchor for his play

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In the same way the first storm acted without witness, the storm that night found its way to Monkey City unnoticed.

Doug wasn’t sure if it was lightning, wind, or both, but at some point that night, the upper extension of the trunk, holding the top two levels, split, sending a good portion of the top of the tree along with the tower and lookout

beside the base of the tree. Doug had already determined what he thought was salvageable. Some of the fallen structures would later become parts of docks and bridges at the family lake house, but for now they all lay in quiet repose in the thicket.

The fallen branch left an opening above them, allowing more sunshine into the leaf-covered floor than usual. The light helped the cleanup. Doug and the boys organized the irreparably broken pieces into a pile, used hatchets and clippers to clean the fallen branch, and inventoried the full scope of the damage.

They worked in focused silence, grieving the loss. It was the first real trace of brokenness seen in their Eden. The first hint of the serpent and all his consequence. Any hope for future generations of Kaspars peering above the tree line to the paintball fields was dashed into piles of limbs and leaves. There was no more tower to storm.

This storm finished what the first storm started. crashing to the ground. The fall damaged some bridges and landings and left a sea of leaves, twisted nails, and broken beams in its wake.

Over a century before, the sudden strike began to kill the interior of the tree. Decades of decay hollowed the live oak supporting Monkey City to the point where it just required enough weight, movement, and pressure to crack apart and fall.

The calls to Christopher and Kyle were brief and matterof-fact. This wasn’t the first tree to lose limbs or fall on their property. Most of the structure was salvageable.

Nobody got hurt.

When the boys drove home that weekend, they took their time surveying the damage. The once–mighty extension of the trunk that had towered so high now lay in a U-shape

What happened next varies depending on who tells the story. Doug, Christopher, and Kyle each claim it was their idea. Some stories cite the smell of chimney smoke from the main house; others attribute the idea to the pile of useless debris and the need for its disposal. Regardless of who said it or why, the next era of Monkey City struck the Kaspars like the lightning that set the stage for it.

From its beginning, there was always one glaring omission to the entire experience. Because of the thickness of the live oak’s crown and the youpan bushes surrounding it, the Kaspars could never build a fire pit within the Monkey City compound. Fires were relegated to the open field beside it.

With the clearing complete, the U-shaped fallen trunk created a perfect sectional sitting area beneath the newly created opening above them. It’s unlikely they could have planned a better fire pit if they tried.

Without conversation, they all went to work clearing the brush, gathering stones for the fire circle, and chopping the debris into 12-inch logs. When the transformation was finally complete, Laura brought food out for her hungry men. The Kaspars sat around the glowing embers enjoying their first meal together in the newest chapter of Monkey City. It was a taste of the morning joy following a mournful night. The smoke billowed through the canopy toward the stars, the debris pile diminished to traces of ash and ember, and the spark of hope lit their faces.

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Over the years, Monkey City became as much an anchor for his play as it had been for his boys...

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Monkey City still stands, tucked away within the graceful acres of a land well-loved. Kyle and his wife, Jennifer, travel down from Dallas to pay homage as often as they can. Each visit includes at least one night around the Monkey City fire pit.

A life committed to wonder and play never sees suffering and struggle as an end. Just a change of scenery.

Somehow, the brokenness brought a wholeness only the God of storms could engineer.

Christopher and his wife, Sierra, moved into their greatgrandfather’s home in Shiner, where they are raising six children–four girls and the younger two boys. Three of the kids were born in the same room where the greatgrandfather died decades before.

Doug and Laura, to no one’s surprise, are natural grandparents and often host the grandkids. The two oldest girls are around the same age as Christopher and Kyle when Doug built Monkey City.

When the two girls first discovered the wood-rung ladder hiding in the thicket, Doug felt a new version of the story was starting. He knew this wasn’t the last chapter in the Monkey City epic, just the next one. Now, the platform that once housed BB guns, rocks, and paintball remnants is home to fairy godmothers, unicorn cities, and a prairie home. Grandfather Doug climbs the ladder with them and delights in the difference in play.

On a clear evening last September, Doug hosted the two oldest granddaughters’ first campout in Monkey City. The sleeping bags lay naturally upon the landing as he regaled them with stories of their father and uncle. He told them about the trees and the creatures. When the stories were finished, he watched them as their wonder-filled eyes looked toward the stars and then finally closed in sleep.

Doug thanked God. He thanked him for the generations that brought him to this moment. He thanked him for the roots and the soil. The stars and the moon.

Doug thanked God that even in a broken Eden, he could still find a paradise.

C.C. Kimmel is the executive director of Gracebased. He is a writer, musician, former pastor, and host of Lightcatchers Podcast. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife, four kids, and a big dog named Wendell and a kitten named Ruby.

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Sincerely, Tim

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The Eighth Deadly Sin

Play is one of God’s great ideas.

Add it into the mix, and the emotional stock value of a family typically goes up. Minimize it or lock it out completely, and a family has a hard time keeping a smile on its face. But all that said, I’ve got two problems with it. One is because of a flaw in me. The other is because of a flaw in some people’s way of viewing it.

M

y personal struggle is that when I make a deliberate choice to just play–you know, do something fun but in the long run is meaningless–I often feel guilty. I don’t think I’m alone on this. Sometimes this comes from how we were raised.

This is where most of my guilt comes from. Sometimes it’s a result of swallowing the hook of the success fantasy –that’s that cultural lie that drives us to limit any sense of significance to “meaningful” accomplishments. Sometimes it’s because of a difficult season we’re going through that makes us think fun and play are inappropriate. Whatever the reason, one of the great dimensions God built into the human experience is often neglected or lost because of misguided guilt.

The other issue is when play is prioritized to a level of primary focus. This moves it out of the “fun” category and into the “entertainment for entertainment’s sake” category. Entertainment can be fun, and fun can be entertaining, but when it’s turned into a person’s singular pursuit it’s an emotional drug that can’t ultimately satisfy. Part of raising kids in balance is teaching them to accept the reality that some things that go with living life are simply not fun and probably never will be. Living responsibly and making moral choices sometimes have discomfort attached. The other reality is that periods of boredom within a responsible life are part of the deal.

But in between these two extremes is something rich that God built into his plan for living full lives. As wise King

Solomon reminded us, “There is a time for everything. . . a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance” (Ecclesiastes 3:1, 4 NIV). Play is crucial to well-rounded living. Whether it’s children or adults, it’s a gift God gave us to help us learn about our world, develop cognitive and social skills, build relationships, foster creativity, contribute to our overall well-being, and reduce stress. Other things can help in these dimensions, but few as effectively as play.

Maybe the thing that can help us stay balanced isn’t so much wrapped up in our commitment to play but more in the goal we’re seeking when we play. We have two options: play to gain happiness or play to experience joy. Happiness is an emotional condition that’s typically at the mercy of circumstances we don’t control. Case in point, a lot of play is wrapped up in competition.

Sometimes we lose. Joy, on the other hand, is a state of being. Different from happiness, joy is not dependent upon our circumstances. It’s best experienced when it’s an extension of a bigger choice we’ve made to put our faith in the God who created us with–among other things–a built-in need to play.

My suggestion is you keep both happiness and joy as your goals when you play. You may not be able to guarantee you’ll be happy when you’re done, but because play so often involves people (and most of the time it’s people we know), play gives us a chance to treat them the way God treats us. Graciously. And when you do that on a regular basis, whether you win or lose, it brings a lot of joy.

It’s only logical, then, that grace-filled play has a way of making us better people. We’ve been told for centuries that there are Seven Deadly Sins. They should have added one more: the failure to have fun. Maybe if they had, the other seven wouldn’t be such a challenge and the people in our family pictures would have more natural smiles on their faces.

Sincerely, Tim Dr. Tim Kimmel is the founder of Gracebased and author of 14 books including Grace Based Parenting and Grace at Work. He lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, with his wife of more than 50 years.

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FAMILIES AT PLAY

The Frey Family FAVORITE WAYS TO PLAY:

FAMILY MOTTO:

We love playing music together.

I am for you, not against you.

FAVORITE TIME OF DAY AS A FAMILY: We love our wind down time right after dinner and spending time together as a family before bed.

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FAMILIES AT PLAY

The Love Family FAVORITE WAYS TO PLAY:

FAMILY MOTTO:

My daughter and I love to spend time at the barn with the horses. When we’re not doing that, you can find us swimming, hiking, and going on road trips to new destinations.

Being bored is good! It’s an opportunity to be creative.

FAVORITE WAY TO SPEND A DAY: Horse camping

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FAMILIES AT PLAY

The Morris Family FAVORITE WAYS TO PLAY:

FAMILY MOTTO:

We love hiking, biking, Nerf battles, and board games (in no particular order).

Be bold. Be brave. Be you. And… It’s easy to be kind.

FAVORITE TIME OF DAY: According to Easton: “When Dad gets off of work, that’s when we are all together and get to play games.”

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FAMILIES AT PLAY

The Forenza Family FAVORITE WAYS TO PLAY:

FAMILY MOTTO:

We love getting outside and kicking the soccer ball around.

Treat others how you would like to be treated.

FAVORITE WAY TO SPEND A DAY: After day care when everyone gets home.

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PLAY METAPHOR KINGDOM AS A

FOR THE

By Roseann Dennery

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e docked our paddleboards on the quiet western shore of Sparks Lake after navigating its milky, turquoise waters for almost an hour. My youngest, three at the time, sat squarely in his dad’s stance, hands gripping the slippery bungee that was precariously holding a backpacking tent-our only shelter for the next three days. My two daughters, seven and nine, glided in effortlessly on their pint-sized kayaks next to us.

They were soaked and exhausted, yet giddy and delighted.

We were “paddle-in” camping for the weekend, and had found our way into one of the serene wooded inlets used for primitive campsites. A prior wanderer had thoughtfully hung a tire swing by a nylon rope over the waters of a nearby alcove. We set up camp together and assembled a makeshift hearth of volcanic rock and juniper branches.

A towering, snow-spotted Mt. Bachelor served as our backdrop while we worked, casting a wide shadow across the still alpine lake.

Part of the fun (I use the term lightly) was that we were limited to only what we could carry in. A deck of Uno cards in a ziplock bag, a half-filled book of Mad Libs, a bucket of well-loved sand toys, and an adult snorkel had made my children’s discriminating list. During the days, we paddled the labyrinth of tranquil channels through mossy marshes and docked to picnic off the lake’s rock islands. We were Pirates of the Caribbean in some moments, the Swiss Family Robinson in others.

In the early evenings, we’d bask in the warm glow

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of the golden hour and watch the sun make its lazy, summertime descent. We swung off that fraying yellow rope swing until our bellies were red and our backs cried uncle. We made more s’mores than I care to admit and filled out ridiculous Mad Libs on Disney villains (“What’s an adverb again, Mom?”). At first light we woke up in a slanted heap inside our tent, eyes bleary but hearts full.

The only thing on our short agenda that weekend was one, uncomplicated goal. Play.

It was the summer of 2022. We had recently traded the saguaro-silhouetted horizons of the Sonoran Desert for the alpenglow sunsets of Oregon’s Three Sisters Wilderness. Our move was both heavy with contemplation and pregnant with possibility. Leading up to the pivotal moment when our house grew small in that Penske moving truck’s rearview was weeks filled with prayer, counsel, and discernment. When it was decision time, we had laid all of our metaphorical cards on the table– anticipation, cautious excitement, fear of the unknown –and landed on an overwhelming sentiment: No regrets.

The real exercise of our faith and staying true to our values, we reasoned, was in the going. Not in the staying.

So we left in the pursuit of slower rhythms, quieter souls, more time to relish in God’s natural playground and each other. I suppose now that I have the clarity of vision that only hindsight can bring, the common denominator of these desires was distinctively more play, together.

Our smallish-town lifestyle in Central Oregon and the proximity to its glacier-carved peaks and high lake meadows have certainly offered us ample opportunities to play.

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Play provides an expression of a deep, God-given inclination that is knitted into the folds of our being.

It begs to be unraveled; to delight in the mundane simply for the sake of delighting.

Yet I know that even though it feels easier here, play is not dependent on our geographical location. Wherever we find ourselves currently planted, play provides an expression of a deep, God-given inclination that is knitted into the folds of our being. It begs to be unraveled; to delight in the mundane simply for the sake of delighting.

At its core, play cultivates opportunities to express our thankfulness for God’s good gifts to us–togetherness, connection, curiosity, and joy. These are never more evident in my life than when we play together as a family.

That rustic camping weekend was just one of many play-filled adventures we have been fortunate to enjoy since our move. Perhaps it sticks out to me because it allowed for the kind of family play that leads to frivolity and wonder. And wonder encourages us to be curious about the Source of that wonder. Creation is God at play, and when we freely delight in the work of His hands, we capture glimpses of His glory.

I believe the deep attentiveness that play encourages is a reflection of God’s intimacy with humankind. In his book, The God Who Plays, Brian Edgar suggests that the practice of play is an essential part of our friendship with God. “A life of Christian ministry, service, sacrifice and worship that does not embody, as part of it, the joy and delight of a playful relationship with God will become a duty-bound and moralistic life that will have difficulty in developing a close, intimate relationship with the one who is our chief and best Friend. This is because a playful attitude lies at the heart of all close relationships.”

To consider play in this often-frenetic season not just in connection to my family, but in regards to its place at the heart of my relationship with my Creator was a paradigm shift. He wants me to revel in the knowledge that He loves me just as I am without the necessity of performing.

This is precisely the beauty of play–that it is practically unpractical, pushing against my innate tendencies toward producing, generating, and delivering. If I am honest, much of my worth is based on these falsely noble virtues.

Yet a posture of play invites me to explore the depths of His grace for me. It requires no justification or expectation other than delighting. “Play is the most perfect expression of the life of the one completely reliant upon the grace of God. In playing there is no thought of the production of any ‘thing’ for the common good, no sense of the need to ‘do something’ that will justify one’s existence,” Edgar continues. “God calls us to this childish way of life, a way of living that is characterized by play, and although it is childish it is by no means trivial.”

This should not be a surprise to me, as I see this routinely at work through my own children. One evening at dusk this past summer, I am sitting on our deck. Our new house is a pistachio-green-colored home that invites endless hours of imaginative play: colossal lava rock outcrops with secret nooks for exploring, a seasonal creek with bullfrogs that perform throaty evening serenades, and a canopy of aspen and juniper trees with branches like welcoming arms.

Whew. This was a mic drop concept for me on

My son is haphazardly swinging a bug hut with a roly-poly and a grasshopper that have accepted their unfortunate fate until they are freed. Tucked in his pocket is a rolledup treasure map we bought in Chinatown on a trip to Vancouver Island this summer.

embody the many titles I was bestowed when I crossed over the parenting threshold: house cleaner, accountant, referee, Uber driver, activity coordinator, counselor, chef and scheduling assistant, among many others. But play-er?

Not high on that list.

He’s squealing, trying not to drop his loot as he is chased over the massive boulders barefoot by a Pokémon ninja (the boy next door). My daughters are subsequently huddled in a cobwebbed corner underneath our deck, using code words into their walkie-talkies to protect their location in an all out hide-and-seek game.

my faith journey after becoming a mother. A free-spirited attitude was easier to access in my earlier years when I lived in the moment and for the moment. My days are now regularly cluttered with “duty of the moment” tasks that

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If play is the vehicle that preserves wonder, then technology is a black horse, galloping in to steal it like a thief.

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It is childhood play, the discovery of simple wonders, at its finest.

I fight the urge to ask my son to put shoes on his mucky feet for, quite literally, the hundredth time. As I lean back and listen to their joy, I recognize something welling up in me. It is the welcoming, comforting feeling of peace.

It turns out my mothering heart is most at rest when my children are discovering wonder through play. And because God is the author and perfecter of all things, I know this feeling is not by mistake. It is embedded in me, just as it is ingrained in the Scriptures. This is because imagination leads us to spiritual understanding; it is in play that we create the space to know the character of God and His goodness to us.

I am grateful to the prophets who gave us a vibrant glimpse of play in the coming kingdom of God. In his vision, Zechariah speaks of the joy we will witness in the New Jerusalem. “The streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets,” (Zechariah 8:5 ESV). I am charmed by the thought that my children’s uninhibited summer evenings will look similar to the merriment found on the cul-de-sacs of heaven. This supernatural understanding of what is to come is captured best by Bonhoeffer: “In a world of pain, it is only the Christian who can truly play.”

When we consider the importance of play’s role in our faith, we should also pay close attention to the fact that Jesus showed his playful nature toward the kids who tried to interrupt his teaching. He valued their dispositions so much so that he gave the simple yet profound instruction to his disciples to enter the kingdom like a child. This type of childlike dependence and faith leads us to play, laugh, and rejoice even as we long for God’s covenant promises

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to be fulfilled in our broken-hearted world. Our move accomplished bringing us into a season to enjoy more wild spaces for play together, but the worldly distractions that threaten to rob us of the rhythms we have worked hard to cultivate over the years certainly followed. If play is the vehicle that preserves wonder, then technology is a black horse, galloping in to steal it like a thief. I’ve sensed this more acutely as I turned the looming developmental corner toward middle school.

I’m not the only one concerned about my children’s loss of play. The research of the great rewiring of childhood and the alarming shift from a play-based childhood to a phonebased one is arguably one of the most pressing concerns among parents across the developed world. In Jonathan Haidt’s book, The Anxious Generation, he suggests we are observing a mass migration of childhood from a playfilled world into the virtual world, contributing to a rise in anxiety and mental illness.

Parents are being swept up in the rise of smartphones and the social pressures that come along with access to them at early ages, causing a complete transformation of childhood. Haidt states, “The loss of free play and the rise of continual adult supervision deprive children of what they need most to overcome the normal fears and anxieties of childhood: the chance to explore, test, and expand their limits, build close friendships through shared adventure, and learn how to judge risks for themselves.”

His research has also unearthed how the elimination of unstructured play robs children of the skills essential for a healthy transition into adulthood. None of this feels particularly shocking at face value; yet when we unpack the systematic and almost apathetic way in which we have enabled this rewiring as a culture, it is deeply disturbing.

It turns out my mothering heart is most at rest when my children are discovering wonder through play.

And because God is the author and perfecter of all things, I know this feeling is not by mistake.

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One silver lining is that it is still possible to “right the ship” through delaying smartphone usage and incorporating opportunities for unsupervised play that promotes discovery and self-efficacy. “A healthy human childhood with a lot of autonomy,” Haidt writes, “sets children’s brains to operate mostly in discover mode, with a welldeveloped attachment system and an ability to handle the risks of daily life.”

to err on the precious side of feeling the loss of relational connection more acutely than the allure of a screen’s false security. I carry the burden of not knowing how much longer it will last. Like many parents of Gen Z’ers, I do not have this all figured out. There is a delicate balance we are seeking as our children grow toward engaging in a shifting social landscape while making choices that honor our family values.

Isn’t this what we all desire for our children? I do. I hope mine will continually discover a confidence and acceptance of themselves and others through how they play. Even more so, I want them to feel a sense of belonging to something much bigger than themselves through their wonder and imagination. I pray in the process they will develop their own relationship with a loving Father whom they can trust will watch over and guide them.

I’m glad parents of this generation are talking about it.

But I also know that the call to connect through play goes deeper than social psychology. It is a call rooted in creation, reflective of our Creator, and relevant far beyond childhood. What I want for my children is also what I want for myself: a life guided by God’s heart of play.

At 12, my oldest is included in what some term as the “most under-protected protected generation” in history.

Recently, she is getting ready for her middle school dance with a handful of friends. Ironically, it is ’80s themed, the decade of my youth, when the apex of social pressure to get “likes” was accepting a dare to prank call Domino’s and have ten pizzas delivered to the class crush. All the parents are sharing flashbacks from our glory decade as we tease bangs and costume our daughters with neon fanny packs and slouchy leg warmers. Those were the days, we mused.

I drop her off and squeeze her tightly, telling her to enjoy this milestone. Lord knows I am not ready for it, but here we are. When I come to get her, she shares with a disappointed tone that several of her friends were on their phones, snapping selfies throughout the night and documenting everything, including the Twinkies on the snack table. Since our family is delaying smartphone usage until high school, she was among the minority. “It just wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be. They were so caught up in taking photos that we barely had time to have fun together,” she states, as she runs upstairs.

The pressures of documenting a moment, instead of purely being in it, have already become commonplace in her early adolescence. It breaks my heart that this is the new normal and something she, like us, will contend with long into adulthood.

I know I am fortunate that my daughter is still choosing

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The weekend after that dance, my daughter and I hiked a butte near our house. It was nearing sunset, and the golden glow of the city lights below began to flicker and come alive. We held hands as we talked about the challenges of this new, unchartered season for us both.

I asked her to be patient with me; I am learning as I go, too.

She turned to me and said with simple conviction, “Mom, it’s okay. I know you do the things you do because you love us. And I trust you.” She dropped my hand and smiled.

“Race you up??” I smiled back as I took off to catch her, reminded that play and wonder will always be at the core of who she is–ultimately, who we all are.

I have come to believe that play is a metaphor for the Kingdom. To play is to trust. This rhythm is God-given, as He regularly invites us to experience Him in the safety of play’s carefree moments. Regardless of the life season we are in, I will determinedly seek to preserve this for my family–the place where the mundane and the magnificent collide. Because it is here, in the midst of play, that His grace and glory are most freely found.

Roseann Dennery is a freelance writer and creative consultant to nonprofits. Her work has been featured in Relevant Magazine, the BBC, Christianity Today, and Bend Magazine, among others.

When she isn’t wordsmithing, she can be found sparking joy on all kinds of outdoor adventures with her family of five in the charming mountain town of Bend, Oregon.

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I have come to believe that play is a metaphor for the Kingdom.

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to play is to trust.

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A Prayer for Playing with Littles These days are long and short, exhausting and joyful, mundane and yet miraculous.

Help me, Lord, through the paradox of it all, be here in this moment, truly seeing this child of yours, who will never again be this little.

May I resist the pull to productivity, choosing eternal investments over immediate results, sparkling eyes full of wonder over the skepticism of this current age.

May the dishes stay dirty, the shopping list pinned to the fridge.

For I am invited to a tea party, where animals talk and laughter is currency, storing up treasures moth and rust can never destroy.

“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.

(MARK 10:14B-16 NIV)

Alli R. Dahlgren is a singer/songwriter based out of Portland, Oregon, where she lives with her husband and twoKids. She leads writing workshops for teens and adults and is the managing editor for Gracebased Home Journal.

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BOOKS WE LOVE

Loved No Matter What!

An Interview with Shealyn Visser Shealyn Visser is a mom, elementary school teacher, and children’s ministry leader who calls Ottawa, Canada home.

For several years, Shealyn has been developing a book that would simply and artfully communicate grace to young children. This labor of love became Loved No Matter What!, a book that Gracebased is excited to publish and share with the world.

We talked with Shealyn about her journey in creating this book and the role Gracebased has had in her own story.

CAN YOU START BY GIVING AN OVERVIEW OF LOVED NO MATTER WHAT!? WHAT IS THE BOOK ABOUT? Grace can be such an abstract concept for anyone, especially young children. This book presents grace in a simple and accessible way for kids. It will also help parents reinforce these truths and bring the whole family on a journey of growing in grace.

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The book centers around one little girl thinking through all the ways that God loves us. She’s imagining different scenarios of how she might feel or things she might do. Each page has affirmations that line up with the Gracebased house model.

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO WRITE THIS BOOK? It’s been a long journey that began at 16 when I noticed a copy of Grace Based Parenting on my parent’s bookshelf.

I felt too young to read it at the time, but couldn’t resist picking it up two years later when I began my university studies to become a teacher here in Canada.

I was immediately drawn to the message of grace: So much of what I was reading resonated with me. It actually led me to base my entire philosophy of education on the principles found in the book. As a public school teacher, I’ve watched as children’s lives have been impacted by this approach. Now, I have children of my own, and it has been so powerful to grow in God’s grace together.

ARE THERE ANY STORIES FROM THE CLASSROOM THAT YOU’D LIKE TO SHARE? Teaching in a public school setting has its challenges, but God has called me to be a light in this space, to show God’s love to my students.

In my first year of teaching, there was a boy who was very down on himself. He didn’t think he was smart or good enough and was behind in his studies. Throughout that year, I just tried covering him with encouragement to help make grace real in his life.

HOW HAVE YOU BEEN PERSONALLY IMPACTED BY THE GRACEBASED MESSAGE? My entire family has been transformed by the grace of God. Through all the different Grace Based books and materials, my husband and I have been able to make grace real in the lives of our children in fun and engaging ways.

Photo of the book somewhere up here...

I’ve also used the Gracebased message to develop curriculum for the children’s ministry programs at our church. I’ve seen children experiencing the grace of God for themselves while their parents were also participating in the Gracebased Parenting book study. It’s been such a great journey of seeing whole families transformed by this message.

It’s so ingrained in who I am, from my approach to parenting, teaching, and children’s ministry; any time I’m feeling at the end of myself, I’m reminded to let God’s grace flow through me. It’s that ability to take a breath, pause and think, and approach each situation with great intentionality–to respond in grace, as God does for us.

Readers can buy Loved No Matter What! and learn more about Shealyn Visser at shealynvisser.com

At the end of the year, his mom came in crying at the change she saw in her son. She was hopeful. The boy wanted to come to school, and he was proud of the work he was doing. That’s what teaching is all about, to see kids see themselves and their future full of hope and potential.

WHEN DID THE WRITING JOURNEY BEGIN FOR YOU? I’m passionate about translating God’s message of grace to children, and it’s always been in my heart to write stories for them. The journey of this particular book started two years before my oldest child was born. During a church conference, I received a prophetic word from God that confirmed this passion. That stuck with me for sure.

When my son was three months old, we were driving to see our family for the holidays and I just started writing.

Once the pandemic hit, I felt a nudge from God that this needed to be in families’ hands and not just sitting on my hard drive! I spoke with a friend who is an amazing illustrator and she partnered with me to illustrate this book. I know it was a real joy for her to work on it as well.

Shealyn Visser lives in Ottawa, Canada, with her husband and their two boys. She has been passionate about early childhood learning her whole life, volunteering as a children’s ministry leader at her local church for over 20 years, writing grace-based curriculum and running summer camps and Sunday programs for children of all ages. She attended the University of Ottawa to earn her Bachelor of Education and Bachelor of Arts specializing in Second Language Teaching, and has been a public school teacher for the past 12 years. She is very excited to partner with Gracebased for the upcoming release of her children’s book, Loved No Matter What!

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Show Notes I remember when I became a dad 11 years ago.

The first night we were home from the hospital, I was ecstatic. For so long, I had dreamed of becoming a father.

GOD BLESSED ABRAHAM AND CALLED HIM TO BLESS THE WORLD THROUGH HIS FAMILY AND THE GENERATIONS THAT FOLLOWED.

But I was also scared. Really scared.

I had no idea what I was doing.

Every parent’s first year can feel like a never-ending battle to figure things out. Not to mention the sleepless nights, stress, and sheer exhaustion.

In this first episode, we ask the question, “What’s the big picture for parenting?” If there’s an endgame in mind, what should that be?

We all know that parenting is consequential.

During that challenging season, I was so focused on the demands of parenting that I never considered what a vision of parenting should entail, like:

It’s more than just figuring things out, techniques, and life hacks. It has to do with something significant, recognizing that our influence shapes who our kids become.

What does God want for me as a dad? What are his purposes as I raise my son?

Ultimately, it’s about participating in a larger story, one rooted in God’s redemptive work to restore all things.

We explore these fundamental questions on Blueprints, a podcast we’ve created to help parents discover God’s vision for parenting.

This big picture for parenting began with a single family.

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Like any man of his day, Abraham wanted a son and longed to grow his family. God honored this desire but also invited

Abraham to take part in something bigger.

God blessed Abraham and called him to bless the world through his family and the generations that followed.

Abraham’s family would serve as a key to God’s plan to bring salvation to the world. Ultimately, Jesus would come through this family line to rescue humanity.

We carry this distinct spiritual legacy as Abraham’s spiritual sons and daughters. It’s a powerful reminder to have an eternal focus as we parent.

Parenting is a journey filled with joy on the mountaintops, heartache in the valleys, and monotony in the routine. But we can be sure that God is walking alongside us, leading us in an incredible story that unfolds with each stage.

Stream episode 1 of Blueprints

We’re also here to support you on that journey with resources like Blueprints. Check out this first episode and first season of Blueprints, wherever you listen to podcasts.

On the journey together,

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Helping ordinary parents raise extraordinary kids.

Find our online resources at: www.gracebased.com

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TO PLAY IS TO TRUST