April 13 is a day with a lot of history. Here are a few things that happened on this day: In 1796, the first known elephant arrived in the United States from Bengal, India. In 1808, William “Juda” Henry Lane perfected the tap dance. And for the baseball fans, in 1954, Hank Aaron debuted with the Milwaukee Braves, and in 1963, Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds got his first hit in the major leagues.

Making Lampshades And Flowers With Used Coffee Filters – Mixing creativity and coffee can only result in incredibleness. I really want one of the lampshades. Those are beautiful!

Civil War Photography – The Library of Congress has a massive collection of Civil War era photographs. These are extremely interesting to browse through and take in the time period though the eyes of people who lived it.

A View Of Our Sun – NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory has been in operation for five years now, and has captured some incredible footage of our Sun. This video is simply stunning in the creative beauty of our God.

10 Pointers For Young Preachers – Though I no longer consider myself young, this article has some good reminders. Number eight is especially poignant for me. And many of the points are valid whether you are a “preacher” or not.

The Rules (For Social Media) – Our kids look forward to the time when they can have a Facebook account. But there are certain restrictions we have placed upon them when they reach that age and enter that world. This article provides a good summary of parental responsibility for kids who are too young to know what could happen.

When The Obsession With Self-Esteem Creates Unlikable (And Spiritually Deficient) Kids – The title is long, but sums up nicely what our culture has created by focusing too heavily on building self-esteem, and the “nobody ever loses” mindset. “Self-esteem and humility are not mutually exclusive.”

Only God is capable of telling us what our rights and needs are. You have to surrender that right to Him. – Joni Eareckson Tada