Number 1 is coming home today. I talk to him almost everyday but I am excited to see him. It will be interesting to see how his trip back to the mountains goes with the snow moving in. I guess if he gets stuck here for a couple of extra days, I won’t be too sad about it! Since I have been working on a home project upstairs in our house, I walk by his empty room everyday, its bed neatly made. I can’t wait for the room to be filled and to see the bed unmade again.
As a reminder, Lunch Box Quotes are notes I include in the kids’ lunches every day. Number 1 gets a text, but 2-4 get a handwritten napkin. And we are in 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting. I am intermittent fasting with 1 meal per day, no alcohol, and no social media/news after 6 p.m. When aspiration meets reality, this part is not going well.
Visual credits to: Featured image – @fraveris Quotes: @CowboyGospeler @RealCynicalFox @GeniusGTX @GigaBasedDad
Quotes:
1. “I don’t know where the West begins, but I know it ends where men quit being free.” – Badger Clark (1910)
2. “In times of war and not before, God and the soldier we adore. But in times of peace and all things righted, God is forgotten, and the soldier slighted.” – Rudyard Kipling
3. “Concentrate every minute like a Roman… on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness.” – Marcus Aurelius
4. “There’s a place in the soul where you’ve never been wounded.” – Meister Eckhart
Bonus Quote: “Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work.” – C. S. Lewis
21 Days of Prayer and Fasting – Day 19
1 Corinthians 3:5-23
Note: (These notes are a combination of the notes from my Bible, the study guide, and my thoughts. Mostly, though, they are the work of others, just rearranged.) We can become useful members of God’s team by setting aside our desires to receive glory for what we do. Don’t seek the praise that comes from people – it is contemporary and worthless. Instead, seek approval from God. The foundation for our life is Jesus Christ. Are we building on that, or other earthy materials? Then do we help build others…are we watering or planting other seeds? Do not glory in the wisdom of the age. (Hubris of the now.)
Fasting: I feel like I need to start drinking the raw milk again. The place I bought it is closed for the season…
Prayer: Dear Lord, thank you for my parents who planted the seed and provided the materials for my foundation in You. Thank you for the church I grew up in and our current church and small group who build upon that foundation. Protect and guide them and they continue to water the seeds of others. Give them a the heart of a farmer that tirelessly tends the fields. In Your name I pray,
-Amen
Sources:
I don’t know where the West begins, but I know it ends where men quit being free.
⏤ Badger Clark (1910) pic.twitter.com/p6pKDecYzA— Cowboy Gospeler (@CowboyGospeler) January 21, 2026
I was just reminded how brutally insightful Rudyard Kipling’s work could be: pic.twitter.com/5WXQvuMinx
— Patrick Fox (@RealCynicalFox) January 21, 2026
7. On Focus
“Concentrate every minute like a Roman… on doing what’s in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness.”
Anxiety lives in the future. Regret lives in the past. Peace is found in the work right in front of you.
Do the work. Do it well.
— GeniusThinking (@GeniusGTX) January 19, 2026
“There’s a place in the soul where you’ve never been wounded.”
― Meister Eckhart pic.twitter.com/rBPkZf9X4V
— Francisco Ribeiro (@fraveris) January 14, 2026
CS Lewis understood pic.twitter.com/ehNe4OqKSy
— Giga Based Dad (@GigaBasedDad) January 22, 2026