Somehow I think Michael Scofield is involved...

My favorite part is "an exhausted pigeon wearing a small backpack".

Lunar Landing

An interesting article about landing on the moon: Man on the Moon

30 Years Ago...

...far, far away in Africa, a darling little boy was born. Today, he turns 30 years old.

Here are the top 30 reasons, in no particular order, that I love him:

1. He loves to watch TV almost as much as I do and is the perfect companion for watching all of our favorite shows, and even the ones he hates, like America's Next Top Model.
2. He is so enthusiastic about what he loves, like a kid.
3. He's a tender, adoring father, and has been since the first moment.
4. He is a hot bald man.
   
5. He is still slightly foreign in the expressions that he uses, which often strike me as funny.
6. He is very loyal and loving towards his parents.
7. He's a hard worker, but more than that, he takes pride in doing a great job.
8. He's got great genes, which is evident in our exceptionally beautiful daughter.
9. He buys me beautiful jewelry, but gives me gift cards for shoes.
10. He's exceptionally silly, which is great in hard times. He can always make me laugh.
11. He is a loyal friend.
12. He loves me fiercely, and tells me often.
13. He's a good cook, and an awesome griller.
14. He is very skilled at what he does. And he's never been to school for it!
15. While I was pregnant and feeling poorly, and now when I have a little girl monopolizing my time, he willingly cooks dinner almost every night.
16. He changes poopie diapers.
17. He cares about our home and makes an effort to make sure we are comfortable.
18. It doesn't bother him when I go on and on about typos on signs or stupid things on TV.
19. He lets me have the window seat.
20. I can trust him, completely.
21. He likes my friends.
22. He's good at any sport he tries, the first time.
23. He does his own laundry without complaint when I fall behind and he runs out of underwear.
24. He tells me I'm beautiful, when I'm a mess!
25. He has a lousy sense of direction.
26. He's in love with our daughter.
27. I never have to worry if we're going to be able to pay the bills, because he takes any and every job and pursues any work lead to make sure we're taken care of.
28. He enjoys spending time with my family.
    
29. He plays with our dogs like a kid.
30. He chose to spend the rest of his life with me! And as his youth slips away, I am grateful for that. :)

I Found This Funny...

Door to Door as Missionaries, Then as Salesmen

And the baby's crying... that's all the blogging we'll have for today. Hopefully I'll update before the end of the month. :)

If you don't visit the baby blog...

...then you're missing this:

For Obvious Reasons...

... I will probably not be updating this blog very frequently for a while. Not that it's been really active recently!

If you're not on Facebook, get on it. If you are, be my friend and Martin's! That's where we usually update, and Martin's posting all sorts of photos of us and the baby.

Encouragement for these times...

My friend Amy posted this article on her blog. It was so good I had to steal it.

What is Happening in Our World?

by Barbara Rainey
March 5, 2009

I’ve written a couple of posts on the economy since it started its slide south back in the fall. The emotions in watching this downturn have moved from interesting to perplexing, and if it keeps falling the prevailing emotions could inch nearer to frightening.

For now, the word perplexing accurately describes my vantage point. It’s not as if we are unaffected. My husband is working harder than he ever has, putting in fifty-hour weeks trying to find ways to cut expenses and increase revenue. I just talked to one of our sons who said they are living hand to mouth, barely making ends meet. And I know it’s true. Their pantry was literally bare when we visited last month. Another son and our son-in-law are both doing the same, working harder than ever trying to keep their families fed and their payments made. These are not business-as-usual days. What our country is experiencing clearly isn’t a brief downturn where things will return to “normal” in a few months.

Added to our national situation is the complicating factor of this being a global issue which leads to the question, “What is God up to in these international complexities?” While I do NOT have the answers, I think it’s good and healthy that we ask this. We who claim to belong to God must be measuring our experience against the truth. We know that God is not passive. He is not sitting idly by just watching. That is not His character. Instead, God is intricately and intimately involved in the rise and fall of nations and in the comings and goings of all people.

Yesterday in my Bible study class I heard a verse that I do not think I’ve ever heard before. It was as if it had flashing lights around it dramatically grabbing my attention. This one short phrase fits this season of our American life perfectly.

“And He shall be the stability of your times” (Isaiah 33:6).

That’s the bottom line. No matter what God is up to in the world today, no matter what course the current economic crisis takes, no matter what the political leaders in Washington do, God is the stability of our times.

It reminds me of an old hymn whose first line reads, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.” ¹ Our hope cannot be in money, a job, our house, our friends or family, and certainly our hope cannot be in Washington. All of those will disappoint. Our hope must be in Christ alone, for only there will we find true stability.

I remain perplexed at our current state. And at the same time I am cautiously optimistic and even hesitantly excited at what God might be doing. Could this be part of the end times? It’s possible. Will our businesses and families be better for this pruning and winnowing God is working? If we cooperate with Him in this, there is no question we will be better having been pruned. The apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians that he was “perplexed but not despairing.” I have found great comfort in recent seasons of suffering in that short phrase, knowing it is okay to be perplexed, confused, baffled, and even mystified at the circumstances of my life. I can be perplexed and still be found having faith. It’s when I move to despair which means hopelessness that I am not living in faith. We cannot know what tomorrow will bring, but we know the One who will bring it, and that alone can keep us from despair as He brings the stability to our times.

¹The Solid Rock by Edward Mote (1797-1874)

Get Real

We're currently in a small group led by Wes & Tonya, and it's been really great. In addition to having a lot of fun with great people and great snacks (thanks, Melissa!), we've been exploring the topic of God's love and our right standing.

Last night, Erik shared how it felt to attend a church where people genuinely care about how you're doing and get in your business. He said that he'd attended churches before where you could sneak in, get your sermon and sneak out without anyone finding out how you where really doing.

I have so been there. It's one of the drawbacks of a larger church. Not that I'm always so excited about the fact that we usually have less than 75 people in our services each weekend, especially when sometimes there are 5 people in the seats when we start, but it truly is incredible to be in such an intimate group each week. I have been a part of a church where you could be invisible if you wanted to, and we all know that it's sometimes easier to just blend in when things in our lives aren't going so great.

We've been in an incredible series, if you can call it that, called Yes. Brad's been exploring what it means to say yes to God, whether it's opening yourself up to authentic relationships, making a conscious effort to bless others with our words, or trusting God with childlike faith. It's been challenging and encouraging and people are really taking steps to say yes.

It's not easy to be real in church, especially when it involves admitting that we're not always our best possible selves. This blog from Jon Acuff so nailed how easy it is to be "real" without being real in a small group context. I'm so glad that people are opening up in our group to share their real selves, because that's the only way that we can get a safe environment for all of us to grow and experience freedom in the areas where we struggle.

But what happens when people start confessing safe sins is that everyone else in the room starts concealing their real junk. I mean if I was surrounded by confessions like that in the eighth grade I would have instantly known I couldn’t follow the “not reading my Bible enough” guy with my own story:

“Soooo, this weekend when it was snowing I told my parents I was going to the dump to sled but instead I was really just digging through a 200 foot mountain of warm trash looking for pornography.” And the same principle would have applied to me in my late 20s. I wouldn’t have been honest sharing my struggles with Internet porn if everyone else confessed their “safe enough for small group” sins.

And that sucks. It sucks that as broken as we all are, as desperate as we all are for a Savior, we feel compelled to clean ourselves up when we get around each other.

But this blog has taught me something unbelievable. If I stop writing tomorrow, this will be the lesson I cling to the most.

When you go first, you give everyone in your church or your community or your small group or your blog, the gift of going second.

It’s so much harder to be first. No one knows what’s off limits yet and you’re setting the boundaries with your words. You’re throwing yourself on the honesty grenade and taking whatever fall out that comes with it. Going second is so much easier. And the ease only grows exponentially as people continue to share. But it has to be started somewhere. Someone has to go first and I think it has to be us.

We’re called to give the gift of second to the people in our lives. To live the truth, to share the truth, to be the truth.

Let’s give the gift of going second.

Check it out: Stuff Christians Like

An Interesting Perspective

Sorry that I haven't been blogging lately. Life seems to have filled up and I know it's only going to get busier!



I saw this video on holycow and thought it really was a great perspective on WHY and HOW we should share our faith.

Swimsuit Season

I'm starting to get ads in my Inbox from stores selling swimsuits, and I'm starting to realize... it's going to be a LONG time before I want to get back into one of those.

On the bright side, I can now get rid of the string bikinis I bought for my honeymoon that I haven't worn in a few years.

Is anyone looking forward to swimsuit season this year?