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!

Mud Sliding

No, I do not have any pictures of me mud sliding. Sorry to ruin your opportunity to laugh at me. On Friday it was raining pretty hard at Edinboro. For some reason when this happens the water just sits on top of the grass. When this happens there is only one thing to do. That is to go mud sliding. It was fun. I have not got to do that in about 10 years or so. So while I was doing thing, I was remembering back to "when I was a kid." It was so much fun. Three days later, I am still a little sore. But man it was fun!

Edinboro 2010

Yesterday I got home from Edinboro Camp. I love that place. This year I had the privilege to direct the 12 and 13 year olds. I know this is going to sound like a typical parent, but I could see these kids grow up in the span of one week. For me, I just do not get sick of seeing 50 kids getting to know God for the first time or getting to know God better. It is just so much fun to be able to spend a week with some great kids. Yes it was hot! Very hot! But this is the great thing, these kids didn't care. They kept on playing and running around. The only thing we had to do is to make sure they had enough water, not a big deal at all. Just so much fun! Honestly, I do think that everyone should give up a week and serve at Edinboro, or any other camp. Yes I am physically tired, but I am recharged and ready to go!

Edinboro Time

Once again I get to make my annual pilgrimage to Edinboro Camp. I really wish I could be there for more then just this one week. But, it is just not possible. Edinboro Camp has had a huge impact on my life for years. I know for the past 50 some years there has been people who have gone there to get closer to Christ. I know for the past 50 years that has happened. It is an honor and a privilege to be able to serve there yet again. I look forward to seeing God working in these 12 and 13 years old kids. It will be amazing. Hopefully I am smart enough to get to bed at night. Sleep is essential. So I probably wont blog that much next week. But please be praying for me. Thank You!

Error on grace

There is great tension between law and grace. Now I believe rules are good. I believe they keep us straight. But if we are going to have to make a choice, choose grace. Choose to error on the side of grace. I think about what Christ did for us. He certainly choose grace. We did not do anything to deserve it. Therefore, we should choose grace. It is just so much more enjoyable. And it always reminds me of what Christ did for me. I like that little reminder!

Vacation

Last week you might have noticed that I did not blog. That is because I was on vacation! It was great. We barely had cell phone reception. Had no TV. Had no Internet access. It was great! Yes, I mean great.
Someone asked me today if my vacation was relaxing. Yes it was relaxing. But, it was not restful. There is no way you can have a restful vacation with a 2.5 and a 5 year old boy. They just have so much energy and you have the whole week to play with them.
It was great to get away. Someday, I am going to figure out how to take a whole month straight. But until then...any vacation is a good vacation!

Am I still dreaming?

Am I still dreaming? That is a question I often ask myself. I ask myself that question a couple of times a day. It is one of the questions that keep me going. It is one of the questions that is an instant gut check. Fortunately, lately, the answer has been a resounding yes! I have a lot of dreams lately! Good God dreams! So that has got me excited! I have a lot of plans that get me excited. It is so good to be able to work at a place that allows me to dream. Allows me the freedom to explore different avenues. So right now, yeah it is exciting. Now with that being said, next week is vacation week! Well I have been dreaming, I am looking forward to a little rest. That makes me even dream more!

A new design

It was time for a new look for my blog. I was just bored of the old one. So I realize that blogger has made their layout options so much better then they used to be. So I thought I would give it a try. Wow is it fun. And then they added the "reaction" thing at the bottom of the post. Hopefully you will all now respond more, it is only one click :) Hope you all enjoy!

My shower addiction

One of those things that I don't mention that often, is that I take a lot of showers. When it is hot outside, I get all sweaty. The only thing you can do then is get a shower. Now I know some people are worse then me. The last three days I think I have taken 7 showers. I just feel so much better after a shower.
It was one of those hidden secrets, I thought I should share.

Excited about tommorow

This will sound weird, but tomorrow I get to work on filling out a bunch of paper work and I am looking forward to it! Hopefully, tomorrow will be the beginning of the filling out the new paper work in order to get a long over due project going. Honestly, it is not the paperwork, it is the fact that we are moving forward. It is not just to get the project done, it is to be able to help more people. I will admit it, I am excited about the process!

My laptop lives again

Now I think I might have blog about this before. But it happened to me again. The other day my boys were goofing off and trip over my cord for my laptop causing it to break. Argh. So I went on Amazon and ordered another one. For some reason once again, I did not look that closely at the description. It turns out that some of the Toshiba a135 have one type of plug and the others have another type of plug. So I had to order yet another one. This time I made double sure that it was the right one. Plugged it in and it work! Boy, does it feel nice to have my laptop back!