Egg On Face

For the record, I just want to say that I think kids should learn how to eat first.

Then you can give them eggs. Otherwise, it takes so long to clean up. And get it out of their nose (which is quite small at their young age). Whilst they cry and squirm. It is so not delightful.

However, for those who want to allow the munchkins to donate their eggs to the floor, my tip of the week is: let it dry for a few hours before you try to clean it up. Otherwise it just spreads like a bad rash ... from a chicken ... yeah, like bird flu.

Can You Use That in a Sentence Please?

Just so you know, Kayla is speaking in full sentences now. Exactly when that change took place, I don't know. One or two words out of the entire sentence maybe a little mumbled, but it's pretty much full sentences.

She's even singing in the car with the music (CD of choice is Misty Edwards' Always On His Mind). She even throws out a fifty-cent word ... "abandoned," as in, "How far will You let me go, how abandoned will You let me be?"

Yeah, she's pretty much a star.

Accessible and Profound

This promises to be long.

Lately I've been looking at the theology of the Arm of the Lord, also known as Jesus. It's a fascinating study. When you switch out the phrase "arm of the Lord" with "Jesus" you begin to see some cool specifics on what God was thinking and feeling as He put His plans in motion. It's also cool to see the combining of a paradox: judgment and mercy are both given specifically by the Arm of the Lord, Jesus.

Isaiah 53:1, 2 -- "Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up like a tender shoot ... He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him ..."

Isaiah 52:10 -- "The Lord will lay bare His holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God."

God laid bare His Son for the nations to mock and scorn, and the salvation of the world is only offered through Jesus Christ. But so many have not believed what has been revealed. Sure, it's hard to believe something that seems so ... normal, so small and boring, like a baby in a cow trough. No fireworks, no trumpets and no national parades ... not the majesty we assumed would accompany the King of the universe, so we weren't attracted to Him. He came as a person, He was so much like us that we weren't drawn to Him. We didn't see His true beauty.

What actually happened was that God reached within the infiniteness of His own being and gave to us the most profound and accessible thing in existence--Jesus Christ. It's one thing to be accessible; most of us are ... through cell phones, email, and other various mediums. And it's one thing to be profound; we are drawn to people and things which have inherent depth and a weight that is otherworldly. Lots of us even try to wax eloquent. Few succeed.

But it is an altogether distinct thing to be both eternally profound and eternally accessible. Jesus is the core of the Godhead. Colossians 2:9-10 tells us that the fullness of Deity lives in Jesus in bodily form. God became Man. This is part of the beauty of being in the human race. In Jesus, God now calls us fellow brothers and sisters. He's completely accessible to us forever. He is ours and we are His.

God has bared His holy Arm in the sight of all the nations. We have been given access to God. It's amazing to me the difference between various religions. Jesus came near to us while all the others crossed the road and passed us by, looking the other way or busying themselves with "more important" things. Jesus is different--He decided you were His "important thing".

And He doesn't ask you to take over nations, cleanse your aura or be nice to creepy-crawlies. He simply asks you to believe His message of accessiblilty, see His beauty, and worship His majesty as your eyes become opened to His salvation.

Free Bird

We put Kayla in a toddler bed last night. We also bought a "princess potty" that looks like a throne and plays magical music every time she makes a royal contribution.

She's not sure about either one yet.

This morning we found that she had given her sister a few books for morning reading ... only, Maddie is more interested in eating the books than reading them. She may be part gerbil.

Kayla can crawl in and out of her bed at will, but this morning she kept the habit of saying, "Out ... please," which we really appreciate. I wonder how long it will take her to figure that she has graduated from cooped-chicken boot camp to the free-bird sorority.

Oh, what joy (and discipline) awaits. With great freedom comes great responsibility: when you get out of bed in the mornings, please don't feed books to the gerb... um, sister.

All Hail the Power

I am part of a "small group" of guys who are studying the End-Times. One of the gents is an engineer, meaning he is good with numbers, thinks analytically, and is a lot smarter than most everyone.

While looking at the hailstorm in Revelation, he calculated (actual math, not the guesstimate that most of us default to) that the hail is about 18 inches ... the size of a beach ball, or twice the diameter of a basketball. Did I mention that it is solid ice? And that things--people--are getting hit with it?

Oh yeah, and it is traveling 200 miles an hour (322 kilometers an hour). We don't even drive that fast. Legally. That's gonna leave a mark.

Birthdays

The first three months of the year are always filled with a ton of family events. If you want to count all the way back to Christmas, we had the holidays, Amy's birthday, our four year anniversary, Kayla's birthday, Maddie's birthday, and then mine at the end of March. Kayla is now two, Madeline is one, and I'll be 28 in a few weeks. By the time we get to me, I'm lucky (fortunate and ecstatic) if we can buy me a pair of socks for my wild and crazy celebration.

Better

We're better now. Not sick ... and enjoying it. Though these thoughts put a definite spin on the negative parts of life. Thanks Jenny!

Maddie is pulling herself up on everything lately. She has gotten very good at it. The only hard part is that she hasn't figured out how to sit back down. She just stands there and cries until we either help her down, or until she flops down on her butt. [Can I say "butt" on my blog?]

Just Sick

For the past three weeks our family has passed around various sicknesses. I had Strep. Kayla had stomach flu (accompanied by a hefty dose of the hershey-squirts and ye olde vomitous mass). Maddie had major sinus congestion, a hacking cough and teary eyes. Amy had stomach flu (minus the hefty dose, but with the ye olde).

Not fun.

I should have taken stock in, oh let's say, a stain removal company. We bled that bottle dry.

New Job

For all thirteen of you who listened to me whine when I lost my old security job, there's good news. I started a new job two weeks ago at the International House of Prayer (ihop.org).

I am the Content Editor for the website. I take what you read online and make it flow, give it style, format each page, correct discrepencies, fill in the details, write new things ... stuff like that. Developing a website is not easy, but it's a heck of a lot of fun, and all that stuff is part of my "power alley". It is definitely a work in progress--I edit nonstop every day and take urgent requests as they come, so it will take me a while to go through the entire site. Hopefully the site gets better and better, easier to use, and more impressive as the years go on. The web team I am with is incredibly talented and we all play off each other's strengths. They are a great group and I enjoy being with them.

Thanks for all the prayers and support during this "tossed overboard like Jonah, sold out like Joseph" time in our lives. We were richly blessed to receive such graciousness. Thank you.

Bibbity-bobbity-boo

That's a song from Cinderella. It says to take this and that, "put it together and what do you got"? Magic--a jolt to the system. I've got something that will hopefully jolt your system.

There was a man named Paul Cain involved in the Kansas City area for quite some time. He is a Prophet. Not a fly-by-night spooky cook, but a gen-u-ine, Old Testament meets New Covenant, buckle up tight, Prophet with a capital P. These are the kind that don't give words to be seen as spiritual, but because they feel God pressing them to do so. It's comets and earthquakes and weather and things they can't control. That's one of the tip-offs that they may be pretty accurate.

Anywho, about twenty years ago (before President Reagan and while the Wall separating Germany was still up) he gave three specific prophecies. One: Communism was going to fall and the Cold War would end. Two: Bush would look for Quayle but Quayle would hide behind Bush. Three: A new form of Communism would rise again that would be a combination of Communism and Islam.

Well, Communism fell.

And Bush found Quayle as a runningmate, and, yes, Quayle hid behind Bush's record.

Now, I'm not saying this is it, but in reference to the third prophecy, this article is interesting.



Put it together and what do you got? A jolt to the system.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye

According to my sister-in-law, Elisabeth Cooper, cheese is a binder.