Jason Albertson

When my oldest two brothers were very young — the second was still an infant , I think— the oldest loved to run a stick along the rungs of his brother’s crib. It sounded cool, kind of like a dull, toneless xylophone. The sleeping brother usually didn’t sleep through this instrumental performance, and after a while, my parents were exasperated, so my dad told my oldest brother a story. It was pretty simple. Once upon a time, there was a boy who woke up his little brother by running a stick along the rungs of his crib. This was bad, because the little brother needed to sleep! With tears in his eyes, my oldest brother interrupted the story. “The boy in the story is me! I did that to Timmy’s crib and woke him up. I’m so sorry!” Stories carry meaning. The meaning can be as specific as the contents of the story itself (“Aunt Mavis finally sold her house this Thursday to the man with the droopy mustache”), but it can also include more general assertions about right and wrong or how th...

This time of year always brings feelings of disappointment for me. I’m a student right now, so the end of summer feels a little like the end of freedom. I go into every summer with lighter duties and loftier dreams than I carry during the school year, but when the sun sets on summer, I always seem to find that my dreams have been disappointed. “Wait, I wasn’t done with this summer yet!” On a larger scale, when the sun sets on my life, I think I’ll still feel disappointed by how many unfulfilled dreams I carry. I believe in life after death—real, purposeful life in which we will get to work with God in His kingdom—but the brevity of this life still matters. I am and will be limited in my ability to help, shape, cultivate, contribute to, and love the people who are around me right now. I feel sad about that, and I think that points to a few ideas. God made me to work with Him in His kingdom, both now and eternally. I should want my actions to matter—in fact, they do matter, tho...