Our student band led worship on Sunday morning again this week. Here's a clip of one of the songs, led by Caitlyn.
Blessed Be Your Name
Also, I'm currently in the process of making a DVD of Ashlynn's early years. It's so she can see what it's like to have a baby around, before the actual baby is here. Here are two clips that I find humorous.
Attacking Ashlynn
I woke up this morning with a pimple on my chin. Disgusting I know. I just pray that it's from stress, instead of perpetual adolescents.
One thing that stresses me out more than anything is dirt and clutter. I like things to be clean, neat, organized and uncluttered (notice how that's in alphabetical order?). All of which are very important. I would even say I enjoy cleaning. On my days off, I usually spend them cleaning.
Yesterday, for example, I cleaned the car. I got it washed at the car wash and then spent an hour and a half cleaning the inside. I cleaned in every nook and cranny. I picked up cheerios from Ashlynn's side, and empty beer cans from Rachel's side. And now it's shiny!
Ashlynn doesn't enjoy it as much as I do. She spends a lot of time playing in her room. Like all kids, when she's done playing with a certain toy she drops it and moves on to another. Each night before she goes to bed, I make her clean her room. She's becoming very good at organizing all of her toys, but she just hates it! She does everything she can to avoid having to clean. Her best move is what I call, "The Clarifier".
She tries to clarify the question to make it less general, in hopes of having to do less work. However, I'm smarter than her.
I think I like cleanliness because, like a lot of people in my generation, I'm a visual person. When something is visually unappealing, I avoid it. If an advertising is visually unappealing, I ignore it. If a room is dirty I stay out of it. For me, clutter equals stress. And stress equals pimples.
Which leads me to my main point. Whilst cleaning the car yesterday, I realized that when the baby is born there will be one more person to make things dirty and unorganized. The car will have twice the food in it. The house will have twice the toys laying around. Rachel will have twice the beer hidden under the seats.And me?
I will have twice the pimples.
___________________________________
OK. Rachel doesn't drink. But it's a funny thought. Yeah?
One thing that stresses me out more than anything is dirt and clutter. I like things to be clean, neat, organized and uncluttered (notice how that's in alphabetical order?). All of which are very important. I would even say I enjoy cleaning. On my days off, I usually spend them cleaning.
Yesterday, for example, I cleaned the car. I got it washed at the car wash and then spent an hour and a half cleaning the inside. I cleaned in every nook and cranny. I picked up cheerios from Ashlynn's side, and empty beer cans from Rachel's side. And now it's shiny!
Ashlynn doesn't enjoy it as much as I do. She spends a lot of time playing in her room. Like all kids, when she's done playing with a certain toy she drops it and moves on to another. Each night before she goes to bed, I make her clean her room. She's becoming very good at organizing all of her toys, but she just hates it! She does everything she can to avoid having to clean. Her best move is what I call, "The Clarifier".
I say, "Ashlynn. It's time to pick up your toys."
"How many daddy?"
"All of them!"
"In which room?"
"All of them"
She tries to clarify the question to make it less general, in hopes of having to do less work. However, I'm smarter than her.
I think I like cleanliness because, like a lot of people in my generation, I'm a visual person. When something is visually unappealing, I avoid it. If an advertising is visually unappealing, I ignore it. If a room is dirty I stay out of it. For me, clutter equals stress. And stress equals pimples.
Which leads me to my main point. Whilst cleaning the car yesterday, I realized that when the baby is born there will be one more person to make things dirty and unorganized. The car will have twice the food in it. The house will have twice the toys laying around. Rachel will have twice the beer hidden under the seats.And me?
I will have twice the pimples.
___________________________________
OK. Rachel doesn't drink. But it's a funny thought. Yeah?
While in High School I participated in two sports; Football and Track. I played football because it was fun. I ran track because I was good at it. But to be honest, it wasn't much fun. The competition was but running wasn't.
The most peculiar events in track are the ones that involve hurdles. Just like all of the other running events, you have to run the race as fast as you can. But for some reason they put wooden obstacles in the way. I have no clue why someone would this. My best guess is that they serve as a sort of speed-bump. Humans are evolving and becoming too fast for their own good and this is the only way to slow Darwin down. Either that or a devious, fast-paced, experienced runner didn't want rookies to run the race as fast as he could.
I was a mile runner. That event was hard. I can't imagine someone deciding that along with running the race I would also have to jump over hurdles! I would die! Have you seen the length of my legs? I can barely hop over the painted lines, let alone a wooden fences
Hurdles.
I think some Christians are devious, fast-paced, experienced runners who drop hurdles for rookies. We are running the race. We met Jesus and we've worked hard at working out our faith, jumping over certain hurdles. And then when a non-runner comes along, we tell them they have to jump hurdles too. But sadly, we try to make them jump the hurdles before they've even started the race!
"Oh! You're an evolutionist. You can't be a Christian until you believe God created the world in 6 days."
Hurdle.
"Oh! You're an agnostic. You can't be a Christian until you believe in absolute truth."
Hurdle. Hurdle.
Don't get me wrong. I think these things and others are important to the faith. But they're not as important as Jesus.
One of the things I like about races with hurdles is that it's not against the rules to knock them down. I've seen many runners run through the hurdles instead of over. And there's no penalty! The only time you get penalized is if you completely skip a hurdle.
That's how the Christian faith should be. We should first and foremost convince people to join the race. Introduce them to Jesus, and the race. Then they can worry about the hurdles. And when they stumble over one of the hurdles, or knock it down, they still get to run! No penalty. Just keep running.
A few weeks ago I had the wonderful opportunity of taking my daughter to a Father-Daughter Dance at our church. I can already tell that Ashlynn is going to love going to dances when she's older. She definitely doesn't get that from me. I hated them.
The first dance I ever went to was in the 8th grade. I had never been to a dance before, but my best friend Bryan Enyart convinced me to go. I had no clue what to do. Was I supposed to ask someone? I had a crush on a girl named Stacia, but she was way out of my league. Was I supposed to dress up? The only nice clothes I owned was a black t-shirt with an ironed-on eagle and some tight blue jeans. They made my butt look sexy. I still don't remember what I wore that night. I'm pretty sure I had clothes on...I think.
When we got to the dance they made all of the men write their names on a piece of paper and put it into a coffee can. When I got inside I realized I had made a big mistake. There was nothing to do inside, except dance. I didn't know how to dance, nor did I have any desire to learn. So, I decided to sit on a chair and watch everyone else dance. I realized that this could make me look like a loser, so I developed a game plan. Every 3 minutes I would go to the food table, grab some munchies and refill my drink.
Halfway through the night, one of the teachers stopped the music and stepped up to the microphone with a familiar looking coffee can. He held the can high and started shaking it. Then said, "Girls line up! You're each going to pick one guy for the Lottery Dance."
The Lottery what?!
At that moment I realized that my name was in that can somewhere. And at any second a girl would be picking my name, and expecting me to dance with her. Each time a girl drew a name from the coffee can, the teacher would read it aloud for everyone to hear. "John! Bryan! !" I had been a Christian for a year at that point and had learned the art of prayer. "God. Kill me now. Kill me now!!"
In mid prayer, I heard, "Nikomas!" To my disappointment it wasn't God. It was my name being read from a slip of paper. I opened my eyes to see who it was. It was Stacia. I about died. I frantically started looking at other couples dancing to try to figure out how to dance. It was a slow song, and everyone was just rocking back and forth. I could do that!
She came over, put her hands on my shoulders and I began rocking back and forth. My eyes looked straight to the ground between us, and my hands stayed in my pocket. I was mortified. About 30 seconds into the song, she had to use the restroom with her friends. I don't blame her for leaving. Dancing with me was probably like dancing with drift-wood.
Thirteen years later, I'm sitting at a church by the food table, watching my little girl wiggle her hips with all of her little friends. It was a beautiful sight. This time, I wasn't just going to sit on the side and watch though. With the first slow song they played, I walked up to her and asked, "May I have this dance." I picked her up, and she put her hands on my shoulders. And I put mine around hers. This time, I looked my partner right in the eyes and we began to rock back and forth. It was magical.
Thirty seconds later, she says, "Can I dance with my friends now?" So, I put her down and she ran off. Like a piece of drift-wood I slowly drifted back to the river of punch.
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