If you are like me you try to read as many articles, blogs and books as possible but just cannot catch all of them.  “In Case You Missed It” is my way of pointing out a few “reads” that I think are too good to miss.

Asking Why After a Child’s Accidental Death – Amy Julia Becker

Every night in the summertime, I fall asleep with fears of cars and water. I’m not a particularly anxious mother. I don’t worry about germs. I’m pretty relaxed about the possibility of injury on a playground. But it takes every spiritual and emotional resource I have to avoid playing out my most terrifying scenarios—of Marilee, 18 months old, running away from me into the road just as a truck pulling a boat turns the same corner . . . of Penny, 6, thinking she really can swim all the way to the raft even though Mom said to wait . . . of William, 4, chasing the ball into the street and forgetting, just once forgetting, to look both ways.

I try to avoid reading or listening to news about the accidental deaths of children, and yet these tragedies sear themselves upon my memory. I can’t forget the story of a friend of a friend whose youngest son wandered upstairs, turned on the bath water, and drowned. Or the woman at church whose brother backed the car out of the driveway and killed his toddler daughter. Or the recent news of a yacht that capsized near Long Island this Fourth of July, leaving three children trapped inside. In a terrible irony, Victoria, David, and Harlie were in the yacht’s cabin “because we felt it was the safest place,” said Victoria’s mother, fighting back tears on the Today show.

Read entire article here.

9 Things Every Leader Struggles with (and How to Overcome Them) – Perry Noble

I threw out a tweet last week asking leaders what was the top thing that they struggled with…and received lots and lots of answers; however, we took them and basically categorized them into nine things.

Before I list them and how to overcome them, let me share a reality that God has been DRIVING into me over the past three months…

GOD’S WORD > HOW I FEEL!

If you are a leader (especially a church leader) then one of the things we are most guilty of is believing God’s Word for other people but not for our own lives.

I can personally relate to EVERY SINGLE ONE of these things listed…and the way I fight/do battle with them is God’s Word!  I believe that by believing God’s Word, we can overcome these things…so with that in mind, here we go…

1. Feeling Adequate 

Every single church leader I have ever spoken to wrestles with this; the one thing that I always come back to is II Corinthians 4:1, God’s mercy = my ministry!  I am adequate not because of anything I have done but rather because God had mercy on me and called me to Himself.  You are adequate because God called you…period!!!

Read entire article here.

Two words you better say when you chase a dream. – Jon Acuff

For four years I’ve been playing around with an idea. With each book I wrote or blog I started, the need for this got more and more obvious. But, something was holding me back, something was preventing me from moving forward. What was it?

My ego.

I have a hard time admitting when I need help.

I’d rather be self succient, have it all figured out, be all strength, no weakness.

But the truth is, the idea I had was something I did not have the ability to execute. Try as I might, the skills needed to pull it off where not in my wheelhouse or toolbox or other metaphor people end sentences like this with.

And so I learned two really important words you need to say a lot when you chase a big dream. They’re not that fancy. They probably won’t brighten your teeth when you read them. You might not retweet them. Here they are:

Read entire article here.