We spent the weekend in Fort Worth last week. Hurricane Harbor. Fort Woth Zoo. Fossil Rim wildlife park. Dinosaur Valley State Park. It was action packed for only a day and a half. We had to be back Sunday morning to teach Sunday School. As is mandatory at any wildlife park, we got attacked by a killer ostrich. It was all fun, but I think the highlight was swimming in the Paluxy River and checking out the fossilized dinosaur footprints.
Click below to read…
I’m sure most of you have seen this already, but it’s worth bringing up again.
So, I already have an iPhone. Now there’s a new iPhone. I really want one, but I don’t need one. Tammy has not been any help at all. One day she says, “Go ahead”, and the next day she says, “Be content with what you have”. So then I convince myself that it isn’t about materialism because I can sell me current one of ebay for more that the new one would cost. I’m getting an upgrade and making money on the deal. But it boils down to the whole production being about a “thing”. And “things” aren’t supposed to matter, right?
Please join me in praying for my friend Mark Presley and his family. Mark’s dad collapsed with a brain hemorrhage on Sunday. You can follow Mark’s posts about it at sonofwhale.com.
If you haven’t heard about Josh Hamilton, he lost in the Home Run Derby last night in spite of hitting 28 homers in the first round. They kept talking about his previous addiction, and what a great comeback story it is, but didn’t really give the whole picture. Here’s a link to “the rest of the story”…
Having grown up in a very bland church that helped me to cultivate little more than a sense of “fire insurance”, it was quite a shock after I was married to begin attending a much more “Pentecostal” church with my wife.
After years of resisting, I finally gave in and decided to open myself to the possibility that maybe there was something to this whole “spiritual gifts” thing beyond just, “Hey I’m good at helping people”, or “I make lots of money, so I’m good at giving.” I asked God to show me what it was he wanted me to learn, and tried to look on with different eyes. Instead of the freak show I had seen before, God showed me that these people with their hands raised or speaking in tongues or running around the church were not only there to KNOW Him, but to also EXPERIENCE Him. In fact, I never even saw a single snake!
Buying and selling a house is extremely stressful. Anybody that has done it before knows that. But isn’t if funny how easy it is to get distracted by circumstance. Tammy and I had these great reasons for the move. We were prayerful about the decision and felt like we were trying to act in accordance with God’s will. During the ordeal we had lots of different prayers, “Can this please be over?”, “We don’t need a lot of money, just enough to get in the new house.”, “I know God will send the right person in the right situation where this will be a real blessing to them”, “Can this please be over?”.
Driving back and forth to Melissa to take the girls to school everyday got to be really old. Making offer after offer on houses only to have them rejected got really old. Keeping the house in ship shape everyday got really old(We had over 50 showings in our 85 days on the market). Though there was peace on most days about it, sometimes there wasn’t.
It’s funny how when it was all over and we look back on it, everyone of those little prayers regarding the move was answered. When the time was right. We got as much money as we needed. A lady in the middle of a divorce who needed a house in the same school zone as her elementary kids came along, a house in Melissa came available at a serious discount, and others. It was definitely one of those times of faith building where it seems like God just seems to be shaking his head and asking you, “When are you going to realize once and for all that I’ve got this covered?”
Tammy and I both grew up in the country, so we know about living in the country. Though we live in a neighborhood in Melissa just a few exits from our old house in McKinney, it’s still pretty “country” here. We find ourselves making lots of Jeff Foxworthy type comments about our new surroundings. Our current list of signs you live in the country…
1. The speed limit where you enter your neighborhood is 65.
2. You have seen someone drive their tractor to the local Sonic.
3. There are cows 50 yards from your front door.
4. You can actually see the stars at night.
We are loving our new house. It’s still a work in progress, and I can’t walk through the garage yet, but it’s coming along.
We all knew it would happen. Lack of time, committment, interest, call it what you will. There’s been a TON going on since the last Sea World post. I could just never bring myself to blog about it. Maybe a few updates will spring up over the next few days.
Our small group is going to the Zone tonight to play laser tag, and I’m just hoping that David B. doesn’t double my score.
