I recently received this journal entry from Peggy. If you recall her and her husband (Pat) are both fighting stage four cancer. I don't think we should ever underestimate the power of the words we speak to each other. Often times I notice I say some pretty mean things, even when I don't intend to hurt it is hard to see the damage, Peggy has some wisdom for us all....
I spend a lot of time wondering if I’ve made the right choice. I worry about this especially in this season of transition and change in my life. I don’t often question the big things, but I spend a ton of time wondering if I made the right choice on the little things. Should I have changed this, should I have gone to that, should I…. fill in the blank.
Everyone loves my Aunt Peggy and Uncle Pat. In a lot of ways, they have been the glue that holds the family together. They are exuberant, mischievous, fun, and they love unconditionally....
One year ago today I started out on a journey to be a consistent blogger. When I started this journey, I could have told you what I thought that meant. Now the definition feels much more ambiguous. Either way, starting this blog has been one of the most enjoyable and painstaking experiences of my young life....
One of the things I often wrestle with is my desire to fix and control things. I am someone who values being in the driver’s seat. Often times I like to push the limits of what I think I can do, or the situation that I am in. In a lot of situations that works out well: when I’m casting vision for the church, when I’m leading in the Army Reserve, or even when I am coaching my son’s baseball team....
This past weekend I preached my final sermon at Next Step. In preparation for it I was as focused as I’ve ever been. I even put off writing this blog so I could focus on the message. It was a hard message to write, I couldn’t find myself in it, I couldn’t get it down on paper....
Did you know that you have the same number of hours today that you had yesterday? No matter how you cut it the number of hours in a day is still the same, you only get 24.
In high school, one of our sports teams put that on the back of their warm-up shirts. I can still remember what it looked like and how often I debated in my head what that statement really meant. I would often wrestle with the thought of what a perfect practice would be, and how would someone know if it really was perfect....
I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be on the same team -- about how in my marriage one of the most important things I can do is to partner with my wife and make sure that we are both in this together. In the Bible, they talk about meeting together and spurring one another on towards good deeds.
This week I was humbled and overwhelmed with the incredible amount of birthday love. It was a great week spent with family and friends. I also spent some time reflecting on what a year it had been. In retrospect, this has been one of those defining years in my life, the type of year that I will never forget. Here are the top ten things I learned (or remembered), in no particular order: