Thanksgiving & Wal-Mart

Well, we had a great Thanksgiving except Allie got a 103 temperature fever and was not feeling well. She is doing better tonight, but just starting to. We were able to eat lots of food and sit back a little, so that is always good. We are getting over our Thanksgiving food coma I guess. We decided next year we are going to join the hard core shoppers and experience Black Friday at 12am or so. We don't really care about the shopping to much. Erin and I just want to experience madness and see what the craziness is all about, we figured it would be a good experience at least once in our life. So next year 2010 we are going for sure!!! Thanksgiving week is always a good week to rest since we don't have our mid week services. I cherish this time very dearly to have a normal week and not a 110 miles per hour week as usual. You have to know when to put your life in 5th gear and know when to put it in 1st. This weekend I am speaking at church for our Family Is series. I am excited and as always have a LOT to share. I find in putting together messages the hardest part is trying to figure out what doesn't need to be said. I start with about a million thoughts and ideas and have to shave it down to the most important things that flow well together and need to be said. I feel when I put together a message I have to shave 3 hours worth of talking to 30-45 minutes worth. That's not always easy to do, but must be done as a communicator. After all a communication is best when more can be said in a little amount of time rather than a little being said over a long period of time. A rather tough balance sometimes when you have a lot to say but only a little that truly needs to get through. I am always honored to get to speak to our church thought and am very excited about what God has put in my heart to share.

On a side note: Donnie and I were at Wal-Mart the other day getting some spray paint for a project we were doing at the church. Well, when he picked up a bottle the top was busted and it fell to the ground. The nozzle got stuck in and starting spraying everywhere. Donnie quickly grabbed it and stuck in a box until it drained all the paint, but not before it sprayed the floor, display unit and end cap. Then when the attendant came over after all this she picked it up to throw away the empty can and it started to spray everywhere again (revenge of the can I guess). Needless to say we decided it was time to leave. To this day weeks later we left our mark @ Wal-Mart, probably forever.

Family

So we started a new series Sunday morning called, "Family Is..." The service went great. Worship had a great presence of God, Pastor Chris had a great message and the whole service just went really smooth. Family is a big topic this time of year with the holidays. Sometimes we take family for granted and let it become familiar, but family is truly the best part of life. Family is like a business and the parents are the CEO, the kids the employees (funny thought) and so on. God is the founder, president, chief, head honcho. In a family God has to be first in order to operate a successful family. Then goes the marriage, because so goes the marriage so goes the kids. You can't let the kids run the business. So many times in marriages I think the kids become the focus and the marriage just falls apart. The marriage has to be the foundational rock in a family. Spouses stay kids leave. We train a child in the way they should go and then they go. The spouse stays forever. The marriage is the very heartbeat of a family. The stronger the marriage the stronger the family becomes. That's why it is so vital to have time as a couple to grow, enjoy, & romance each other. When those things go so goes the marriage out the window. So this series will be great talking about God's heart for family and how important it is. After all God uses the metaphor for the Kingdom of heaven, the church to be the family of God. The Bible talks about the family to be a mirror of the structure of God's kingdom and heart. We need to reiterate God's structure in our family, demonstrate God's love in our family, and communicate God's word in our family.

Speaking of family, my beautiful, amazing, talented, strong, genius, gorgeous, God-loving, honoring, sweet, gracious, compassionate, soft yet firm, purpose-driven, smokin' hot, great cooking, caring, home-school teaching, inquisitive, self learner, encouraging, supporting, understanding, super fun, best friend, loving, God-fearing, great leader, hard working, servant, thoughtful, humble, funny (laughs at her own jokes), piano learning, take charge, make it happen, giving, selfless, really great MOM, stunning wife is heading up VBS 2010 next year. She is CRAZY pumped about this. God has given her a HUGE vision to see not only our children at the church be impacted but salvation come to the children of our community. She is planning BIG for a BIG GOD. We made a video (well she basically told me everything to do for the video I just put the pieces together for her) for Sunday morning. Really though she planned this whole video out and I just carried out the notes she left me. We played this video Sunday morning as she pitched the vision for VBS 2010. My new slogan for this is, "VBS 2010, YOU BETTER BE IN"