The Hobbit

You didn't think I would leave out sci-fi/fantasy did you?

This was my third time through this Tolkien classic and each time I think I love it more. I'll spare you the plot. What I seemed to mull over this time was something about Bilbo that seemed to resonate with me as well.

Bilbo is half Took and half Baggins. The Tookish side of him has the adventurous spirit (obviously because Took's are quite known amongst hobbits as a bit queer), while the Baggins side loves nothing more than the quiet and comfort of home. Often in his journey with the dwarves Bilbo would think of his hobbit-hole longingly. He was continually torn. "Why did I come on this dratted quest!"

I related to this split quite well. Parts of me want nothing more than to grab some hiking gear and just trek across the globe with my family. I'll hunt our food, we'll camp wherever we feel like stopping, and we'll share the gospel with anyone we meet. Even as I think about this I get excited. Yet I love the comfort and confines of home as well. I love coming home after a long, hard day and debriefing with Melissa. I love waking up in our pajamas and throwing some eggs in a skillet.

The adventurous/homely split made me think about lots of other things as well. I'm afraid in to many aspects of my life I allow the Baggins side of me to lead me toward inaction. That part of me fears being exposed, so I'll just remain apathetic. Anyone relate?

Fun times!

So I know this is technically Bart's blog, but I just wanted to post a couple of fun things. I've been feeling the baby move and kick the last couple of weeks. Well, last night, Bart actually felt the baby move a few times also! It was fun for me for him to be able to experience a little of what I experience. And it's crazy how it doesn't even matter that it's our second child, the feeling is still pretty amazing. To think that God designed this whole process is just mind-blowing. So cool. And our little dialogue after he felt the baby move went a little like this:
Me: Cool huh?
Bart: Uh, it's a little scary actually.
Me: Scary, like, you're going to have another child and you're not really ready for it?
Bart: Yeah.
Me: Or scary, like you're going to have another child and you're not really ready for the first one? :)
Bart: Yeah, that too.

It's such a funny process trying to figure out how we're going to be parents of 2 kids. Life just changes so much but it's good that we're honest about where we're at. Then shortly thereafter, the following dialogue happened after I turned over in bed and moved the covers:
Bart: Hey, stop stealing all the covers.
Me: Sorry, my fat butt just needs more blanket now.
Bart: Well, we both know it's not your butt that's fat.
Me: Yeah, I know.
Bart: It's your ears.
Giggling ensued. He loves to mess with me. And sometimes I let him.

Also, one other fun thing.....Bart will be giving his first talk at Real Life on Feb. 25th (we think that's the date). He's pretty excited about it. Giving a talk/sermon in front of potentially 700 people would be a little unnerving for me, but he's pretty pumped. So if you're in the Columbus area that evening, you should come hear him speak. I'm sure he'll do an amazing job. Let us know if you need more details.

Noah has been pretty sick lately. His temp was 101 yesterday but he's recovering nicely today. And it seemed as though he got behind in his talking in one day and just started busting out new words today. It's fun to try to translate what he's saying. But he now says somewhat coherently, shower, eyes, mouth, nose (this however sounds like no) just to name a few. And he says please in sign language all the time cause he wants something. What a fun age! We're excited to see how he responds to the baby.

The Sacred Romance

Another great book I just finished is "The Sacred Romance" by John Eldredge and Brent Curtis.

One of my new year's resolutions was to read 26 books this year equaling one every two weeks. I'm way ahead of the game at this point and will probably discuss the others I've finished. Reading for me is a pretty addicting thing, but I feel I've been fairly balanced in my priorities.

This book was dear to my heart. The gist is that throughout history God has been in a massive pursuit of our hearts because of His great love for us. Just as He pursued Israel despite her continual betrayal, He pursues us. But we are wounded. We are hurt by the realities of living in a fallen world. People forsake us and deep down we begin to accept that we're just not all that unique, we're not at all lovable. How could God love a person like me if He knows the things I've done or the thoughts I've had?

The authors go to great lengths to woo the reader's heart by giving a true picture of the awesomeness of God's love for us. It surpasses our pain and doubt. It is true. They point out this love in the telling of the world's story. All of creation and everything throughout history has been about God radiating His love to a fallen, rebellious world.

They get the meta-narrative and it grabbed my heart. Thanks Lord for being the author of all things. Thanks for writing yourself into the story to redeem a fallen world and restore this man.

Sacred Parenting

This was a great read. The main thrust is laid out in the first chapter, that the goal of Godly parenting is to raise Godly parents.

Yep, you read that correctly. Just as marriage is more about making us holy than it is making us happy, parenting is the same way. God uses the reality of kids in our lives to make us holy.

Our culture tells us something quite different. It tells us that having kids and getting married is the key to happiness, or at least a piece of the happiness puzzle. The Bible tells us that the key to everlasting joy is found in the person and beauty of Jesus. God uses our kids to raise and sanctify (grow) us into the kind of people he wants us to be.

The rest of the book then talks about the reality that true joy is found in Christ and different aspects of parenting that can help us find our joy in him. This is a great read. I've not read many (perhaps not any?) other parenting books, but I'll guess this would be my favorite regardless. So many parenting books are to-do lists that only burden us with guilt at not being the perfect parents. This book is not like that and that puts it at the top of the list for me.

All over

MLK day of service is tomorrow. Should be fun. I'm hoping to reconnect with Ray at the Habitat restore. I blogged about him a little while ago.

Big week for me and my guys. I'm planning on hitting the dorms hard and sharing boldly and repeatedly. Pray Jesus would give us the words to say.

We're sitting Noah on his potty. Trying to get him used to it with his clothes on before we start getting more intense. I'm scared.

We're also trying to draw a line in the sand about his meals. No more catering to his wims, we'd like for him to actually eat what we offer!

I made a few New Year's resolutoins and actually am holding to them for the most part. Now if we could just stop eating out...

Snow!

We've had some snow the past few days so we decided to have some fun with it. Noah gets pretty upset when we try to bundle him up in his snow suit, but after a few minutes of wrestling and tears, we're ready to go out. Once we get outside, he's totally content, even if he just stands there. Melissa's mom found a sled for us so he enjoys being pulled around in that. Unfortunately I have a tendency to kick some snow in his face on occassion, but he handles it well. He's such a cool little dude.

Speaking of cool little dudes, he has at least 1 of his molars in, 1 half in and 2 working their way in and he's been a trooper. Sometimes he gets extra cranky, but for the most part, he handles it like a champ. He apparently has a pretty high pain tolerance or something. We're ok with that.

My mom got us a potty for him for Christmas, so we've been having him sit on that every once in a while. Ideally he'd be potty trained before the baby comes so we're going to be working on that. No real training yet, though. Just sitting on it to get comfortable with his throne.

At the Grover's

We're having a good time on our break. A little bit of relaxing and a little bit of time with family. Hopefully we're being refreshed. It's often a tension for both Melissa and I. If we're not being productive we often just feel uneasy, as though we've wasted our day, or our Holiday break.

Part of the problem I think is that we're not very good at rest. See, to my understanding, biblical rest is time in the care and attention of the Father. It's supposed to be time we take our hearts, hurts, concerns, joys and everything else and just be with God. Believe me, this is what our hearts desire. But we always seem to find time for other stuff, be they movies or trips or books or games or whatever. We tend to view rest much in the same way we did before we became believers, before Jesus became the supreme desire and draw of our hearts.

Do you struggle with this? Have you found anything to work?

God, take control of our break. Let it be dedicated and about you. Let our hearts be molded such that you are the apple of our eye, that our hearts leap at the thought of our communion.

Our newest addition...

Nope, we're not getting a dog. Although, that would probably be a good investment with Noah deciding that half of his food belongs on the floor. Oh, well.



Yup, we're going to have another little one! On July 12th, or there abouts, we'll be adding another child to our family. The ultrasound confirmed that there's only one in there, which is a relief. We would probably have to move for sure out of our apartment if we had twins! We're super excited! Noah will enjoy having someone else to show books to and throw balls at. We'll maybe have to watch that though. :) Noah was pretty cute at the doctor's appointment too. He was looking at the screen of the baby and saying "ball." Yup, sure. Something like that, I guess. Life will definitely change this summer.

The nice thing is that we'll probably be placed in Columbus this summer to coach interns and stinters who are raising support. We were originally supposed to go to Venezuela for the summer but we had no intentions of having a baby in Valencia, Venezuela! It will be pretty fun to coach people because we've been through what they're going through and we'll know a lot of them. There are quite a few graduating seniors at OSU who are applying for stint or an intern position so it will be a blast to stay connected with them while they're trucking through the support raising process. The other nice thing is that having a baby in July shouldn't really interfere with the beginning of school.

So we're slowly getting used to the idea of added chaos. Luckily we already have the stuff for a baby and lots of clothes to go along with it. Hopefully we'll be a little more prepared this time. :) Please pray with us for a healthy baby and healthy mom and that we would be able to take the next 6 months to prepare well for this new transition in our lives. We really appreciate it!

Parenting thoughts

I'm currently reading "Sacred Parenting" by Gary Thomas. It's been a great read thus far, I'm only two chapters in. It's quite similar to his book "Sacred Marriage." The latter essentially says that the reason we get married, as believers, is for our holiness more than our happiness. This is totally true, and the reason that Dr Phil's philosophy will ultimately fail us.

Dr Phil, and our culture, would subtlely have us believe that if we could just figure out a healthy and mutually beneficial compromise in our marriage and family, then we will be ultimately happy. Just figure out a system in which you're both giving 50% and both taking 50% and you will gain marital bliss. I find this system quite wanting. For starters, people's felt needs differ greatly. Melissa, for example, has virtually no need to be affirmed. I could tell her she is great all day long and it does virtually nothing for her. But if she tells me how awesome I am, I will climb mountains and slay dragons for her.

So, let's assume that Dr. Phil's philosophy grants that each marriage partner has different needs and 50/50 won't always work (and it may, I really don't know all that much about what he thinks). Then, if I'm a single man, my goal is to find the most unneedy person I can; someone who has no emotional or physical needs at all is ideal because then I get what I want all the more frequently! If I only have to serve 20% of the time, then I get served 80% and that sounds better than the alternative!

Here's my main problem though, with our current culture's view of marriage. The entire premise is that marriage is about our happiness. Let's figure out a way to maximize our happiness so that we will be fulfilled. We seem addicted to happiness but I would suggest we seek it in the wrong places. What if, instead of using marriage as a drug to make us happy, we saw it as an avenue to grow our character and make us holy? What is parenting and marriage were more about refining us as people in the image of God than they are about us feeling happy?

Don't get me wrong, I think as we pursue holiness and character growth in marriage and parenting we will be happier, but the end goal will be our holiness, not our happiness. What if rather than helping Noah avoid uncomfortable and scary situations, I encouraged him to perservere through them, growing him as an individual? What if, rather than using Melissa to make me happier, I deny my happiness, and seek only hers?

I guess the main point is that believers and unbelievers have different ultimate goals. For unbelievers, and our current culture falls here, this life is all we have; thus, we should just try to maximize our enjoyments in the small time frame we have. They have no hope, no ultimate goal for which to strive. After death we return to dust, so let's eat drink and be merry! The believer, on the contrary, has a purpose in becoming more like Christ in this life and the next. Our lives are not about how to maximize our enjoyment in our stay here, but rather how to become more like God for eternity. Our scope is longer, do you see? Marriage and parenting are not for this temporary earth, but are relationships to help equip us for the joys to come.

See, Christianity is about joy and happiness also. But for the Christian his joy is found in Jesus. His joy is in growing in Jesus' character, in experiencing Jesus' pain, in loving the way Jesus loved. The Christian's joy is found in enjoying God. The alternative is to enjoy the creation of God rather than the creator. The unbeliever enjoys the pot while neglecting the potter.

I fear that was perhaps all over the place but there you are!

Update on family life

We're on break now, which is much needed. Fall quarter essentially consists of running yourself into the ground physically, emotionally, spiritually and any other "ly" you could think of! We're off till around the 27th when we head to Indianapolis for Christmas conference.

Our Christmas present to each other was a family zoo pass. We get to take all three of us and two guests whenever we so desire for the next two years. It's already been put to great use. Noah is playing in the play area above; He really seems to like the tunnels :) Really, he is more interested in the other kids than he is the animals, but we'll take it!

We're heading to Waynesfield for about a week before heading to Canton for a few days, then back to Waynesfield, and then off to Indy. The traveling is one thing we could do without over the holidays, but it seems it's unavoidable. It's great to see family and let Noah play with the grandparents and aunts, uncles and cousins though.

Our own manna

We've had an enormous amount of food given to us for free lately. On Monday we ordered an XL pizza and a L pizza from Papa John's (We like leftovers and had a free L pizza code). When I got there it turns out they messed up the XL and made a pepperoni and cheese pizza instead. We got to keep it. I walked out with two XL pizzas and a large. Needless to say, we've been eating pizza all week.

Yesterday we decided to get one of those family pasta deals from Bob Evans and they made the wrong pasta. We got to keep that extra as well! We walked out of there with two family pasta's (feed 4!) and half a dozen dinner rolls. I can only guess we'll be eating these leftovers for the foreseeable future.

I was thinking about these events and the God we serve. See, we don't really live in a culture, nor do we have needs in which God needs to provide water from a rock or manna from Heaven, but God does still provide. Many would see these events as happenstance or luck or coincidence. I believe that God cares for the needs of His people and will provide. God can use messed up orders to provide for the material needs of His children. He cares and provides for the sparrow, how much more for us?

PS Sorry for the lack of blogging lately. I'm planning on 9 or 10 more entries in December.

Our Vet's day

We spent Veteran’s day in service to different people and areas of our city in need of help. Over 150 campus crusade students gave up their vacation day to help the hurting areas and people in our midst. Many of us spent time in Franklinton, one of the poorest areas of town, rebuilding gardens necessary for food for the folks in that area. Others worked in food pantries, while others helped in homeless shelters. Bart and the guys in the Bible study he leads went to volunteer at Habitat for Humanity for the day. What a joy! Bart spent a couple hours of the day with a guy he met named Ray. They were picking up appliances for people to take back to the Habitat restore. Ray opened up quickly about how he had lost his wife and 2 of his kids in a house-fire, the pain it caused, and the difficulties in trusting God following that tragedy. Bart had the joy of talking to him of the trustworthiness of God and empathizing was Ray about the horrors of being in a world fallen and tainted by sin. Bart also got to help Ray’s understanding of faith, which he had a few questions about. More than a couple times upon the trip, Ray said, “God meant for us to ride together, Bart. Thank you for everything.”

Monday morning thoughts...

Another week, and I'm pretty excited about it. Which has been rare for me the last couple weeks.

I was finding myself just really really tired. Emotionally, physically, spiritually, you name it, and I seemed to be drained. I was feeling a heaviness just about every day and in just about everything. I think, in very subtle ways, I began to abandon the Gospel the grace, even while simultaneously I taught it! I had made ministry and my life about my tasks and my work. I had been making leading and building students a job done out of myself alone. It's no reason I've been so tired.

Bunyan says, in The Pilgrim's Progress:

"Run John, run, the law commands
but gives neither feet nor hands.
But better news the Gospel brings,
it bids me fly and gives me wings."

I had made life about the law. I was about my tasks and responsibilities. I'm choosing repentance. I want to be about the Gospel. I want to be about the God that gives life. I'll find my joy and heart renewed in the person of Jesus. Join me. Leave the rat race and rest on the Lord.

"Come all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

Fall!

It's been a while. Things have been busy. We're about 5 weeks into fall quarter at OSU and it's been a roller coaster so far. We're feeling like we're getting used to our schedules. This past weekend we didn't have anything scheduled so we decided to have some fun. Two sweet gals said they would baby-sit on Friday night so we went to dinner and went shopping. It was pretty awful going shopping because I needed some dress shirts and I hate shopping in general, let alone trying to find shirts that fit and I like. But I did enjoy spending time with Melissa.

Then on Saturday, we went to a farm. They had pumpkins, rides, slides and animals. Noah had a blast. He really enjoyed the animals and some of the rides. Really, I think he enjoyed playing in the corn the most. And I, of course, enjoyed throwing Melissa's mom in it too! We have a video of that but I'll need to download it.

Taylor, Seth, Melissa & Noah on the banana bus

Going down the slide, he wasn't very impressed.

Taylor, Noah & Seth

Playing in the corn!

There were goats and pigs and cows and bunnies and donkeys.

Then Saturday evening we had two other sweet gals baby-sit and we went to a coffee shop for a few hours. It was so amazing to get to have two date nights in a row. We were pretty pumped. It was a pretty sweet weekend. Oh, yeah, and Noah is officially walking. We have a few videos but they're pretty long and I don't really want to torture anyone. We'll try to get a short one. He's pretty awesome!

Chaos

Yes, we've entered the world of chaos. For the last few weeks we've been meeting with our staff team and preparing for ministry. This is the week. Classes start tomorrow. We had one of our student gatherings on Sunday to get students geared up for the week. Then we did freshmen surveys bright and early Monday morning and stood in the occassional pouring down rain for the involvement fair most of the afternoon. Today was small group leader training where we had around 100 students who are leading Bible studies around campus. After that was the dorm blitz, where we all went out to follow up the surveys and talk to students. Even tomorrow, we will be trying to get more students to fill out surveys and have spiritual conversations while doing that.

This first week is so important because it's when students really start making decisions of what direction their college life is headed. We want to share the Gospel with them and get them plugged in to the body of believers right away. Please pray for us, that we would be having awesome conversations these first few weeks and that students' hearts would be soft. Please pray for our leaders, that they would be excited about where God has them and what he's doing through them. Please pray for us during this transition time for our family. Please continue to pray for the last bit of our support to come in. We only have $210 monthly to go! God has done amazing things to allow us to get this far in such a hard time in our economy. And it will be much more difficult to finish our support now that we're on campus and meeting with students.

I had my first Action Group last night. It was awesome! The first week is always so much fun because we always go longer (since they haven't started classes yet) and we really get to dive into each other's lives and hear how everyone's summers went. I'm working with such a great group of guys. There were 11 of them and most of them I already know pretty well and am pumped to get to know them even more. Melissa made dinner for us, no small feat for 12 hungry guys. They were all excited and decided that they want dinner every week! Imagine that, college guys wanting a home cooked meal! Melissa left us to fend for ourselves so she could go to her own Action Group. She's partnering with Elisabeth (who's leading the group full-time) so that she can meet some of the girls and be involved in their lives.

Ministry is definitely different now that we have Noah. It was especially hard to leave him today, knowing that I wouldn't see him for 10 hours. Melissa and some of the other moms are trying to figure out a schedule for watching each others' kids and finding volunteer baby-sitters. We're really hoping that will work out well so that the moms can have more opportunities to get involved. Please pray for that, baby-sitters and that schedules would allow moms to be on campus.

Tonight was our first OCF/Valor planning meeting. This is the name of the ROTC group that meets every week. We're really praying that this will take off this year and that we'll have huge avenues of meeting cadets and midshipmen to have spiritual conversations. One of the Navy chaplains is actually associate staff with Crusade so he's totally on board with helping out in whatever capacity he can. We're praying for huge things for this ministry because these students will be key leaders in our armed forces, and there's such a need for the Gospel in these places where daily soldiers are sacrificing their lives. We want them to know that they don't need to fear death, especially when so many of them face it on a daily basis.

If you want to see Noah's 1 year pictures, the website is http://gretchenphotography.smugmug.com/. Just click on Noah. We'll be getting a cd to print pictures from, so we're (mostly Melissa, cause she's into that kind of stuff) excited to get some pictures hung of him now that he's one!

Birthday Boy!

Well, it has been an eventful year. Noah weighs 23 pounds, has 5 teeth, crawls everywhere, takes steps here and there, loves to say "ball" and has mastered real food. We had some 1 year pictures taken of him and we're waiting to see how they all turned out. Here's one that Melissa took that day.
We had a party for his birthday, and it actually happened on his birthday! He wasn't very excited about the cupcake, but he enjoyed it nontheless. We decided that this was the only real party we're going to have for him, so we figured we should make it fun. I think everyone enjoyed it. We had it at our church so we could fit all of the families, so it was nice to have everyone play ping pong, pool, play station and more and still have plenty of room to sit and eat. It was a lot of work, but it turned out great!

It's so hard to believe that he's 1 already. For the past year of raising support, I think he hasn't really known at times where he lives. We're closing in though and only need about $200 in monthly support left to go. Now life will change as we're both on campus and we try to figure out a schedule of baby-sitters and other moms to watch him. One of the great things about working with Campus Crusade is that we get to work with awesome college students! So we're hoping that we'll be able to figure out a schedule for some students to watch the staff kids so that the moms can participate in more stuff. It should be interesting either way. I'm sure he'll enjoy the late nights, loud bands and all the college chicks checking him out!

Please continue to pray for us. I imagine it will be a challenging transition from support raising full-time to being on campus and doing ministry full-time. We're excited to be done with support and ready to be on campus. Will you pray that our last bit of support comes in quickly? And that our transition as a family will go smoothly with all of the schedule changes and baby-sitters and whatnot? We're excited!!! Thank you for caring about our lives!

Practice of the Presence...

I'm currently reading "The Practice of the Presence of God," written by Brother Lawrence in the 15th century. It's crushing me.

It is just so hard to practically be aware of God's presence throughout the entire day. Seriously, try it; especially in our culture, I dare you. It seems we've gotten very good, and I the chief of all, at compartmentalizing God. We have "quiet times" and "prayer times" and then we go on throughout our day with little recognition of the reality of MT 28:20 that says "...I am with you whereever you go."

I do this so much that in thinking on it now I almost literally sick to my stomach. My thought is "ok, I've finished my time with Jesus, and I've finished my faithful acts (supporting raising stuff) today, so now I can enjoy myself! What's on tv?! What football games are on, or are coming up? How is my fantasy football team?" God takes the sidelines and Bart's pleasures take the forefront. It breaks my heart. Oh wretched man than I am, who can save me!? Where can I find hope?

I give my life to lesser things; sports, movies and the like. These things are not bad, but they are undoubtedly lesser. The presence of and intimacy with God in all things is a much more noble pursuit. I think you can enjoy God in the midst of sport, and I think you can enjoy God in the midst of games or movies or just about anything; but I just haven't figured out a healthy way to do it. I don't watch football, for example, and enjoy it with the Lord; I watch football and movies because they entertain, because I can shut off my mind and watch. I enjoy the neurological and emotional impulses those things bring. Really, to be completely honest, is it any different that simple self-gratification? Can entertainment of this sort be any different than a drug addict getting his "fix?" Help please, if you have wisdom on the topic. Share with me some insight into how you enjoy Christ in and during sport or television or video games or movies. I could use it.

And how do you not feel as though you are compartmentalizing God? When is entertainment "healthy" for you, and not just self-pleasure bringing?

My problem is we've gotten very good at justifying things. "I enjoy God's creation when I golf" or "I enjoy redemptive stories in movies because it makes me think of Jesus" or "I love reading because it sharpens my mind/imagination/knowledge/whatever which allows me to more fully grasp and love God." Those are very real things and I admittedly feel the same about all of them. But is it very different from "I just love golf" and "I love movies" and "I love books?" Do we just do whatever we like and then twist God into it? Is that really death to self? Is that denying all and embracing our cross to follow Jesus? I find this tension difficult.

Can you help? Do you have any advice or wisdom to offer?

Our update

Good when He gives, supremely good;
Nor less when He denies:
Affliction, from His sovereign hand,
Are blessings in disguise.

I can think of no better way to sum up the whole of our hearts than that saying penned by Brother Lawrence in the 15th century. God is good; His grace and mercy overflows our hearts and besieges our souls. God is good, though support be difficult. God is good, though we’ve lost $225 in monthly support in the last two weeks. This time, from His sovereign hand, is a blessing in disguise. He is working and reshaping our character to His good and perfect will. To thee, oh Lord, we bow in reverence.

Oh how we wish we could rejoice with you regarding the finality of our support raising process! God has not willed it so thus far, so we humbly await that grace from Him. To be sure, it has been a very up and down last few months. We have rejoiced at God allowing us to meet new ministry partners, but we’ve simultaneously grieved a few of our bigger partners that have decided to no longer partner with us.
On the whole, we have been raising support for about 13 months, and to be completely honest, we grow tiresome. The passion of our hearts is to engage students with the reality of the historical person of Jesus Christ, to see their lives change, and to watch the world be transformed by these students. From OSU we pray to send laborers the world over, in every occupational field imaginable to shake the world with the humble, love-led Kingdom of God. Since our support has not come in as of yet, we await our entry into this field. We rally partners to this cause and await God’s perfect timing; that we may embark on the quest He has laid before us.
But the school year is upon us! Surely you can imagine the tension we feel! On one hand we are drawn to embrace students returning from the summer, while on the other we are in need of support. This will be a difficult balance over the next few months; but, we trust that this is to God’s good pleasure. We have learned through this process that God’s business is to redeem and grow the character of His people. He is building in us a joy in Him above all else, that we may be patient and discerning. He is helping us to trust in the Holy Spirit’s leading in our lives to become wise regarding our time, our emotions and our hearts. James 1:2-4 says:

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

Noah is walking

Look out world! This was pretty exciting for us last night. Check it out.

God is good.

All the time. Romans 8:28 says, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to his purpose."

We're clinging to that currently. We got news a few days ago that a foundation that has supported our ministry in a huge way has chosen not to this year. They may in the future but they cannot this year. The news was pretty bad for both of us, and we took it pretty bad. Lots of questions: Why would you do this God? Why can't we just be done with support raising? When can we move on? God, don't you care?

We know that God is more interested in growing our character than he is in doing what we want. Oh, praise Him that that is true. I could think of a hundred things that I/we have wanted but have been better off either waiting for or not getting at all. God is truly in control and we're especially grateful for that.

It's been a while but I'm still planning on finishing up my post on the Gospel (see a few posts ago). I have more thoughts I'd like to get down on paper...err... page. Whatever. In the meantime here's a couple pictures: Melissa thought the first one was hilarious.