I think it's every parent's desire to protect their children and to keep them safe from the pitfalls of life— the addictions and the choices that will lead them into dark places. And really, those concerns, they can make you crazy.

Some of the hardest things that I've experienced as a father is watching children make choices that I know will not bring them happiness. It’s humbling and incredibly difficult,

but love is really the only answer.

When our children were still preteens, we undertook a major remodel of our home. As a potter and a tile maker, I wanted to bring in some of the things into our home that are meaningful to my wife and I. Some of those are just kind of wacky, silly things but meaningful as well for us.

I love that a piece of ourselves is in the house. The sayings, the thoughts, the quotes, the words that are on the tiles, they’re all ones that were meaningful to both of us.

We knew that at some point that they would stop listening to us as parents, but we hope that they would read the writing on the wall.

Watching our kids struggle is really, really hard. And I think part of the trick in parenting is realizing that you’re not trying to change who they are.

When we stepped back and figured out ways to just love our kids for who they are now, everything changed.

So as I thought about loving my own children and how I can be better at this,

I need to make a piece of art that tells the story that gives me hope.

This piece, as I have kind of conceived it, it's a mosaic made out of tiles, and all of these tiles have color and texture and meaning and and purpose and symbolism— lots and lots of color. And this will be in the shape of a heart, which is a kind of a universal symbol of love.

I'm making several hundred tiles. The process is pretty exciting actually. So I usually start with a slab of clay. I have some very precise cookie cutters. All of those have to be made and then dried. They'll all be sanded.

They will be glazed and put back into the kiln and fired to 2400 degrees.

Yeah, this is an exciting time. So it's about 24 hours after the firing. We fired to 2,400 degrees last night. I know it's still too hot to touch, at least on the top shelf, so it'll probably still be a couple a couple hundred degrees. Oh, cool.

These are great. A lot of the words that I incorporate in this like “hope” and “dream” and, you know, little single words like “patience” and and then phrases like, “Have I done any good in the world today?” I want people to take a look at these things and

and consider how they relate to their relationships and how they relate to the love that they've felt or the love that they've given.

Yeah, this is exciting.

The individual pieces are so fun,

but to see how this is all going to come together is—

it's going to be exciting. This is a lot like Tetris.

We can be an instrument of grace in the lives of others in extending forgiveness, in extending love, in extending hope. And nobody probably needs that more than our own children, the people that live in our own home. We know that our children need our love more than they need our judgment.

Okay, I'm really happy. Yeah,

I'm excited for people to see it and connect with it and feel a piece of themselves in it and feel maybe a little bit of an understanding of how they might be able to be better at loving and thinking about what love is,

and how each part of their life can be better by embracing each one of these little truths that are part of it.

This was one that I did specifically for this heart.

It says, “Heaven’s recipe for joy: one, love Jesus; two, love others; three, love yourself. Note: for truly joyful results, all ingredients must be added daily and in proper order.” No matter where we are in life, no matter the choices that we've made or that our children make, we can start where we are and change the future. Faith and grace are for the future. We can't look back. We can only change what's ahead of us. And so let's start today. And the same is true of grace and love and all relationships.

We can start today and make tomorrow better.