my office

I can't really pull my head out of my earlier post which if you haven't taken a look at then you're simply missing out on a huge part of the life around you and how we are all connected and meant for connection! Anyways I wanted to show everyone a bit of what my life has looked like for the past few weeks and really what it just about always looks like! So here you go...

Here is where I stand for hours on end... :)

And now my lovely slow old faithful...

Of course you have to have the refreshing VW!

Just some ole techy stuff...

backwards and cool at the same time...Black Thought in the house

No title will do this justice

I have been on the road now for some time and miss my family desperately. None of that feels very important because I need you to take a look at another blog and read all of it. This is one of the most incredible journeys I have ever heard about and my heart is broken for their struggle right now. The link is here. I could go on and try to summarize a little of what is going on but I would not bring any justice to the story so please please please go read this and be moved!

Tender Moments...

Yesterday I had probably the most tender moments I have ever experienced with my kids. My son Riley has been really sick lately, causing many sleepless nights and exhausting afternoons. He is scheduled to receive tubes in his ears this next week due to having so many ear infections this year and on top of that he has about 5 teeth coming in all at the same time so you can only imagine how miserable he feels most of the time. Most of the time he never lets me really hold him, he justs wants to play or be held by his mom, but yesterday afternoon Mary was out running some errands and I was at home watching him. He was being pretty fussy and then all of the sudden he just crawled up onto my lap and layed down and fell asleep on my chest. It was wonderful! He just layed there for about an hour while I held him and comforted him a bit. It was great to just experience his receiving comfort from me enough to fall asleep and trust that I would take care of him. That was the first tender moment! In order for you to understand the next tender moment you have understand a little of how things have been in my house lately. My wife and I have been having an extremely difficult time as of lately. I could go into much more detail there and usually I try to be as honest as I can be on this blog but lets just say that things have been really tough and anyone who has been married for some time can acknowledge how hard things can get sometimes! So on top of us having such a hard time we also aren't sleeping very well because of my son so you can just imagine how that adds to the tension on our house. I had gone out late last night to get some fresh air to and just escape out of the house for a time, meeting up with a friend to smoke my pipe and talk a bit about how things were going between Mary and I. I came back home shortly after midnight and found my wife still up watching over Riley who sounded horrible and was obviously in a lot of discomfort. I was immediately worried because we have already been through so much with him having RSV last Christmas and spending much of the holidays in the hospital. Mary suggested that she should hold him in the rocking chair and that might help him breathe a little better and possibly the both of them could get some rest that way. So I helped them get comfortable in my daughter's room, where the rocking chair is, and of course she woke up to the noise of us entering her room. I was able though to lay with her in her bed for some time explaining to her how her little brother is really sick and mommy is trying to make him feel better. She seemed concerned and reached out for my hand and layed there next to me holding my hand while she fell back asleep. I was just in awe at how beautiful she is how amazing it is to be a part of her life! I am so blessed to have such beautiful kids and am continueally amazed at how Christ reveals himself through them. That was the greatest tender moment I have ever experienced with my daughter! In the climax of stress and difficult times, God decided to allow me to see him in a different light and it was beautiful!

Bowden Bowl 07

I was watching the end of Florida State vs. Clemson last night formally referred to the Bowden Bowl since it entails father versus son as coaches of the respective teams. Clemson pulled off an upset basically but what caught me by surprise was what Tommy Bowden had to say in an interview immediately following the game. The reporter asked him how it felt to have his dad tell him he did a good job and his mood seemed to shift a bit and he said " It felt good because it doesn't happen very often!" I immediately was taken back by his response and just thought to myself how incredible it is that even between two superstars of coaches like the Bowdens, the same struggle exists that exists within so many of us! Just amazing... Here is a video I found on you tube that might give you a little insight into this fierce rivalry if you're not familiar with it.

More of my little superstar!

Communicating Sucks Sometimes!

I just recently picked this book up and have begun reading it and while I have not finished it yet I'm pretty confident in saying that anyone that actually cares about their marriage, especially improving their marriage should read this! It has put me down a path of trying to understand myself more and why I choose to communicate the way I do sometimes. I would like to say that I am a good communicator and probably to most people I would, but things get tricky with the person that knows me more intimately than anyone else on the planet. Its easy for me to sometimes think back about arguments or fights with my wife and put all the blame on her and say to myself that if only she knew how to communicate better than everything would be ok, but again that gets tricky because there is very little truth being sought through those thoughts and usually they just lead me to darker places. One of the things this book mentions early on is to dive into understanding where your tendencies come from and why different levels of communication happen. I have really begun to understand more clearly why Mary gets so frustrated with me sometimes when I don't respond to her effectively or simple respond with a lack of attention and a one word answer! Its actually funny sometimes because I don't even know that I am doing it but sure enough if I think hard enough, I have to agree and can understand where her frustration comes from. Gary Chapman proposes that much of our communication techniques are learned from our parents and the environment in which we grew up in. That really got my wheels spinning and suddenly it hit me when I began to think about my family and our tendencies with how we communicate. I can't even begin to count the number of times I will call my mom, sometimes with important issues on my mind and sometimes just wanting to say hey, and she will do to me the very same thing that I do to Mary! Funny how that seems to happen over and over again! I love my family to death and they pride themselves on how close they are but I have to be honest and say that we really do not know how to effectively communicate and if we could just simply learn or maybe unlearn some things, I have a feeling that that pride could be justified. Nevertheless I am really encouraged to think that my habits and tendencies can be redeemed no matter how hard it is sometimes to communicate with love and respect! Does that make any sense?