Something Different

Here are some random thoughts about my last 48 hours in which Lydia was at Grandma and Grandpas and Jenny was out of town and I took full care of Toby and Blythe.

• My wife is a saint and I could be done but I’ll include some more.
• My kids would not survive 48 more hours of my cooking.
• Does three packs of fruit snacks qualify as a healthy lunch?
• Car troubles aren’t mindful of my situation.
• Your child really will gag when you force their medicine into them.
• Dishes can wait.
• Laundry can wait.
• Picking up can wait.
• Sleeping did wait.
• Neighbors are great! One loaned a car and the other babysat for a couple hours.
• Mommy’s voice on the phone can do more harm than good.
• Is it wrong to praise God for DVR?

I think my three big learnings are this.

I completely undervalue my wife! This is a great thing to learn a week prior to our anniversary. I’m not sure I’ll muster anything super amazing up but my heart has grown for her in leaps and bounds in just two days. Didn’t even know that was possible.

My second learning is that I love watching my kids. Not babysit watching but just observing them. They are a delight!

My last learning has to do with time. Your time is not your own if you try to parent intentionally. I’m sure others are way better at structure and game plans for the day and I gladly cheer you folks on. In our home everyday is an adventure to be lived and an activity to self discover. The result is that for Jenny and I the interruptions are constant and the ability to have “our own time” is limited to non-existant.

It is hard to believe thebridge is approaching three years since our first preview service. One of the things that has been huge for me personally during this journey has been the little learnings that others have shared with me that are actually a very big deal.

One of those learnings is when you are going to take one week off of teaching make sure you take two. I trusted the advice but didn’t really understand the wisdom in it. I have since learned that this has saved me a ton of fatigue. When you take one week off your mind never really has a chance to shut down from its teaching rhythm until the first monday after you should have taught at which time if you only took one week off you would be forced to turn it back on again never allowing you to fully take a break. With two weeks off this changes. You slowly fade out like a one week break but now you actually get a break.

Recently thebridge got recognized for doing something cool. It was sort of like a pat on the back for doing a good job. It meant a little bit more to me than that but it also led me to think good thoughts about those who congratulated us on how we are doing ministry. I became a bigger fan of them.

Isn’t this true for all of us? We appreciate those who appreciate us.

Which makes me wonder why we don’t cheer on more people. Why are we not becoming bigger fans of others for being who they are? Wouldn’t it make sense that this is in our best interest?

There is definitely a danger in the above thought process and that is faking being a fan of people for the purpose of trying to get something from them. The last thing we need is hypocrisy in this.

So may I cheer you on in being an authentic fan of others.

Here are a few links to click for those of you who are trying to make it through your Friday.

My friend Lon put this link up yesterday on Twitter. I probably wouldn’t have clicked it but I’m a fan of Jewel. I know -- now you’re really curious so you will click it.

I was asked to write a few mens devotionals for Vital Ministries in the month of July. My posts go up on Tuesdays and you can view the first two here and here.

I love Sam’s thoughts on the WIBO conference found here. Although I would argue it was 3 of 7 not 4 of 7.

We have come close to having a service like this. Which is a church service that people brought their dogs and purchased beer. I said close in that we have had a gathering at the same time as a dog show and on another Sunday a gun show at which they sell beer. Which brings me to my next link where the state of Tennessee has allowed for people to bring guns into bars. We won’t let people drink and drive but we don’t see any negative side effects to this?

I really enjoy Ragamuffin Soul who became famous with the youtube post below but I’m guessing he is getting a lot of hits with the title of this post.

Finally -- last week we did a promo for a bridge community event of Tennis. Here is the Youtube we showed last Sunday. We might have showed too much!

In the past few weeks Toby has crossed the line with his words towards his mother and we have introduced him to the soap in mouth. We don’t have any bar soap so we have used the soft soap.

This morning Lydia busted out a rant on mommy to which daddy said, “Lydia you can’t say that to mommy. You might get soap put in your mouth for that.”

Toby responded, “We are all out of soap.”

Daddy, “We will buy more.”

Toby, “Can we get good tasting soap?”