Frustrated people

A lot of people who end up calling us are totally frustrated. If we stop for a couple of minutes, listen to their story, you quickly understand why they are so frustrated. You realize, that they are not being mean to you. They are not trying to be rude. They are just so frustrated. Once you realize that, life becomes so much easier. Someone calls you and get rude, it is OK, they are frustrated. I had a guy call me every 15 minutes starting at 6:30. Yes that is 6:30 in the morning. So when I talked to him, he was apologizing for calling so often. I realized he was just nervous, frustrated, excited. I was not annoyed or anything like that. I felt bad for the guy. It just changes your perspective when you realize, they are just frustrated.

How do I measure success

Investing your heart into people's lives is tough to say the least. Fortunately, I do work with a dedicated staff that is willing to invest their hearts. So I often wonder if we are successful. You look at some of the poeple who we have invested our hearts into, and they are still making bad choices. Man that is frustrating.
Here is the thing that I have to remind myself of often: Our job is to invest our hearts and give them God's love and tell them about God's plan for their lives. If we do that, we are successful. Our success is determined by the input, not the outcome.
I will continue to be hurt and frustrated by people's choices. But I will continue to invest my heart.

Rest is good

This past several weeks have been jammed pack. I am not complaining or anything like that. I have been having a blast, getting thing accomplished, and having a bunch of great opportunities. With all of that being said, I was one tired boy. This weekend is just what I needed. Relaxing. I got to play with my kids, take a nap, slept in to 8:00 this morning (yes that is sleeping in), mowed the grass...just simple stuff like that. Boy do I feel much better. I feel rested and ready to go. Amazing, we could look for all these great medical treatments. We could try some major new diet. We could try some other methods. Or we could just rest for a weekend. Life is good!

Trying to discipline your kid

A conversation from tonight:

Heather to Sam: Was that a smart choice?
Sam to Heather: No
Heather to Sam: Why don't you use your brain?
Sam to Heather: I don't have a brain

Seriously? I am not suppose to laugh at that? How do you correct you kid at that point? How do you keep a straight face.

Well needless to say, I laughed!

The support we get

After the news broke about the break in at Wheel of Work, I am amazed at the support of the community. I can not tell you that number of "I am so sorry" or "That is a shame" or "We are praying for you" I have received in the last couple of days have been great. Now back in 2008 when the Blanchard House caught on fire, it was much the same response. I almost think that it is God reminding me that we have the full support of the community. It is pretty nice to wake up, get a shower, drive to work and realize you have that many people praying for you. In the midst of this hardship, I feel energized!

The friends that I have met

The other day I realized something. I have some amazing friends. Honestly, I was thinking about all the great people that I have go to know in my life. It is incredible. These are people who are serving God with all their heart all around the world. Now, I will admit, I do not always get to talk to all my friends. But when we do catch up, we just pick up on our previous conversation. I feel honored to have all of these friends. By the way if you know me and are reading this, you are one of those friends I am talking about.

Try and then try harder

I was on a nice run the other day with a couple of friends. These are the type of guys that think a lot like I do. So it is really fun to hang out with them. Plus they love running as much if not more as I do. Anyways, as we are running along, one of them was quoting the other one:

"Try as hard as you can to help the person. When they don't listen, try harder"

Love it. For some reason in my messed up mind that makes so much sense to me. I really do not like the attitude "well I tried, thier fault." I know that is true. I know you tried. But thankfully God does not give us that attitude. God does not quit on us. When you think about the number of times God has tried to help you, but you failed to listen. But what did God do? He kept trying.

Seeing my son achieve something great

This past weekend, when we were in Ohio, we were at a house with a pond. In the pond was a bunch of fish. Now there were a couple of people fishing. Isaiah decided that it looks like fun. So somehow he asked the one guy if he could try. Fortunately the guy was real patient and taught Isaiah how to cast his line. I was watching Isaiah cast his line. Every time he did, I thought for sure that someone was going to get a hook in themselves. I was about 50 yards away and I looked over at Isaiah and his line was really tight. I am thinking to myself, "could he have caught a fish?" So I go running down to the water and sure enough he did! Wow!

Now the catching the fish is cool and everything. But the part that I loved was the look on his face. He was so proud and so excited. Seeing that in my son's eye was great. Knowing his determination just to cast the line out and then being able to catch that fish. He was darn near speechless. But then after that speechless part wore off, he was telling everyone. I loved seeing that look of accomplishment on his face!

Getting there

I have been devoting large quantities of time to a project lately. This week has been one of those weeks where you get good news followed by bad news. Good news, then bad news. I wish everything would just fall in place. I wish that it would just be a simple process. But I will not quit. I will not give up. I will not stop until I am certain that all door is not just shut, but gone. I think that there are unfortunately a lot of people who give up at the first moment of difficulty. Man, everything in my life that I am proud of, took a lot of work and lot of obstacles to go over. I am sure I am not the only one who would say that. With that being said, I am writing all of this for you. I am writing all of this to encourage you to keep going. Not to give up. Not to quit. But to see whatever it is that you are going through to the finish. Keep going. You will get there.

People are praying for us

Today I was at a church picking up a van seat for a van they recently donated to us. Well I was there I had to go the bathroom. I passed a room labeled "prayer room." Now that always catches my attention. So I go in this room and there is a white board with a bunch of prayer request on it. I looked at it real quick and saw "The Lighthouse" on the board. Wow! I was touched. My friends at Hampton Presbyterian are praying for us!
Now I know there are people and churches praying for us. I really feel like the most bless person in the world sometimes. But seeing it in writing; it just makes me thankful. What an incredible feeling to know that people are praying for us!