There are so many cool things happening, but I just haven't had a chance to get online and get it out. Here's a rundown.
There's a MUST READ book that my parents and several other friends are reading. So Jessica and I have picked it up and I already recommend that anyone who is an all out in follower of Jesus get this book. It's an expanded and updated version of Money, Possessions, and Eternity by Randy Alcorn. This is the book that I'll be posting about more often than not, I think.
Anyway, my Dad did a funeral last week and received an honorarium. With the renewed and challenged vision of how he is a steward of God's money, he was looking for an opportunity to give this honorarium to, and was looking for something that would be the approximate figure that he was given. He was originally handed the usual envelope and card by the funeral director, but afterwards he was given another wad of twenties by a family member. He asked God what he wanted him to do with this money.
He received an e-mail from a lady in Brazil and thought that maybe he should give towards this lady's mom who had some huge hospital bills. But he didn't feel any real tugs and plus there was no specific amount of need mentioned. The next day, I was trying to arrange for a moving truck, so I was calling all the different companies for price comaprisons. The first place I called was Penske (my favorite moving truck rental company), and I started writing down all the info. My Dad was watching as I made these calls and Penske, of course, turned out to be the best deal. The number I had written down was $269.00. The amount my Dad had been given was $270.00. I guess it hit him like a ton of bricks. Evidently, God wanted to take care of our moving expenses by having my Dad do a funeral. He didn't fill Jess and I in until later at lunch. I love it when God works little things like that so specifically!
Sunday was good... lots of stuff going on. But our favorite of the day, by far, was going up on a plane ride with my brother, Spencer and Carter. Mark just recently renewed his flight license after letting it expire 10 years ago. My boys loved it. I got a little bit of footage, but then the battery ran out. I hate when I do that. My brother wasn't sure whether to be insulted or impressed by Spencer's spirituality. In the car ride home, Spencer informed us that he was a little scared, especially when we turned (we did a couple of hard banks so they could see out the window) but that he just prayed and he knew that God was with us. That was hilarious. Mark said that he'd expect that kind of answer from a pastor's kid. But he's not quite five, yet!
We're supposed to move into our house tomorrow, but I just found out today that our moving truck might not be in yet. (My first disappointment with Penske to date.) Hopefully someone will be dropping it off tonight, though, so I can pick it up tomorrow morning. But today I was going to go over and clean carpets and stuff. Instead, we got together with Tim and Julie Zeller (Drew and Sammy too) and they thought that would be stupid to make a daytrip over there just to do that, so they took care of cleaning the carpets for me today. That's was huge!! Plus, the Striegles from Watermark organized a little work crew, I guess, to get in and clean cupboards, kitchen, bathroom, etc. so that we can just move all our stuff right in without having to do all the cleaning first. That was SOOOO awesome of them. It's cool to feel so welcome. Plus, Mike Takas has got a group of guys lined up to help us unload the truck tomorrow. All this, and the Deurs are on vacation. That's just the caliber of people we're going to be a part of in BEING the church together. We're pretty excited.
There's tons more stuff happening and general commentary that I'd like to get off my chest, but I don't want this to be a mile long. I don't know when I'll be on-line once we get over there. I'll have to decide whether we're getting DSL or cable internet. Dial up is not an option.
The next time I blog, we'll be living on the other side of the state.
posted by Steve 9:54 PM
Future Sites
I hate not having time to become good at this, but I think all of my time to waste doing these kinds of things is gone for a long time. At any rate, this page will be a Zoe page when I get all the photos off of miniDV and onto my hard drive.
It's all under construction, but if you want to create a page for me or just give me suggestions, that would be great.
posted by Steve 9:26 PM
Friday, July 25, 2003
We closed on our house today!! We are officially home owners. That's just so crazy. So we signed 103 papers and then we went with our friend and realtor Jennifer to celebrate at a restaurant down on the water front. I forgot the name of it, but it was a cool little restaurant. Grand Haven's just a beautiful little town. And our little girl brought us a ton of attention. Zoe's been out and about a lot lately and she reacts to all of it by sleeping. That's cool. I'll take this stage for as long as she wants to stay in it.
So tomorrow I'm hoping to wrap up and send out our first newsletters. These things have been such a hassle! I designed one that would work for the web, but it wouldn't print out right for a print version to mail out. So I had to design a completely new one for a hard copy. The problem is, I don't really want just a regular old, lame, cheezy, boring, predictable, ho hum newsletter. This first one is ok, but it's not what I really want it to be. But for some strange reason I enjoy doing stuff like this and I enjoy writing, so I guarantee it'll just keep getting better and better. We went out and bought a new printer since this will be a regular thing for the next year or two. I bought a 4 in 1 (printer, scanner, copier, fax) originally, but took it back for a 3 in 1 (printer, scanner, copier). I decided we don't need the fax since we're probably going to just get cell phones instead of a phone line.
We met with the Carlsons for lunch yesterday who had just returned from California, dealing with the death of their daughter. It was an awesome lunch. These people are absolutely incredible. They are hurting and really struggling with some obvious things that I talked about last week. But they were still so excited about what God was doing in people out there. They got a chance to share about their journey with Jesus with just about everyone they came in contact with out there. They also said that God has been more real and more tangible than they have ever experienced -- that's a direct response to our prayers for them, and they went on to tell us about more direct answers to prayers that we prayed for them on Sunday, almost two weeks ago. I'm not going to go into detail, but they told story after story of things God was doing and how he was orchestrating things that are just too coincidental.
Well, it's time to feed Zoe girl.
posted by Steve 11:12 PM
Monday, July 21, 2003
Watermark had another preview gathering yesterday that I got out to. Don't worry, my wife told me too. It was good to be there and be a part of things, start meeting more people and just getting a feel for everything. It was great. I got to got out to lunch with the Deur family for lunch... I am now a Deur. And so is Brian Fry, who married into the family. They were visiting from Oklahoma for a while, so I get to get caught up on Brian's life. His nickname name given him by the Deur family is Biff. It works.
I've been coming down with this head cold for the past couple of days -- I'm really hoping Zoe doesn't catch this -- so when I got home I was pretty tired and had used up half the Kleenex box in my parents car that I borrowed. Then I took an antihistamine, not realizing it was not the "non-drowsy" kind. So I gave the boys a bath and crashed at 8:00.
Cool news, we might get to close on our house this Friday! We'll find out for sure tomorrow. Plus I've got to work in a round of golf with Mark Knuth.
I don't have time to get into anything deep right now, but I'm reading some good stuff and I need to have time to react to it here. I will soon. I also have to write a newsletter and get it out.
posted by Steve 4:03 PM
Saturday, July 19, 2003
MY L'IL GIRL!
Well, here's the first of many. I'll work on making them smaller file sizes, but this is the best I could do for now. She's a sweety with a pitiful little cry... that I'm hearing right now... demanding to be fed.
posted by Steve 10:53 PM
Friday, July 18, 2003
Thanks everyone for the e-mails, your love, your prayers and best wishes!! It's an awesome thing having a baby. We had tons of visitors yesterday, including our boys who were great with Zoe... loving on her, counting fingers and toes, commenting on how tiny everything is, and just being good big brothers.
There'll be pictures coming. I tried to get some up yesterday, but for whatever reason I couldn't get this computer to recognize the USB port that our digital camera is hooked up to. That was a frustrating waste of time. Any recommendations?
Speaking of recommendations... anyone know a good urologist in the Oakland or Ottawa County areas?
I'm missing conference right now! This is a good thing. They managed to winnow all this church business down to a day and a half and I'm genuinely curious to find out what took place at General Conference in Seattle this year. But other than that, I'm not terribly disappointed to not be there. I'd much rather be spending time with our new addition!
I'm still probably going to try and make it over to Grand Haven for Watermark's second "preview gathering." I need to get over there and give some direction to the groups. It's hard to do that from 3 hours away. I might be bringing the boys with me, so that'll make the trip more interesting. Plus, I found out that Chip Dykema is going to be speaking at Central Wesleyan in Holland on Sunday night. I haven't seen him since seminary.
I was just reminiscing the other day about how we'd go into Lexington, give plasma, and then take the money we made and hang out at Trump's sports bar to watch the Lions game all Sunday afternoon. We'd go to early service, and then had our young marrieds Sunday school class and make it in plenty of time to get a good table in front of the Lions' game big screen with a view to all the other screens/games going on. Those were the days. We were usually the only two pitiful Lions fans in the Commonwealth (it's still not a state), and it was all the usual highs and lows of a mediocre team with the stellar Barry Sanders always doing awe inspiring things. Chip and I also got our ears pierced around the same time. My Mom never knew about that. Well... now she does. But don't ask about the tatoo! Ahhhh... seminary days.
posted by Steve 10:38 AM
Thursday, July 17, 2003
Zoe Grace was born at 2:16am, on Thursday, July 17, 2003. She weighs 7 lbs. 2.6 oz. She’s 19 inches long. She’s now just over an hour old. She’s beautiful!
We went into the Doc for Jess’ OB appointment and since she’d been losing fluid all week, she recommended packing a bag and heading to the hospital to be induced. That’s what we did. Around 8 hours later, we got our Zoe.
Birth is an amazing thing. It's a horrifying, painful, messy, bloody, traumatic thing. But I'm already in love with my little Zoe. And again I am amazed with my wife. There's absolutely no other situation that I can imagine her screaming and working like that. This has got to be some kind of coming of age, never be the same, badge of honor ordeal... becoming a mom. Incredible.
I played a song on CD last Sunday called Be Near, by Shane and Shane. (I haven't heard of this group before either, but you can hear the song at their site.) The first time I had heard it was Saturday off from a worship cd sampler (Song DISCovery). And it was just very appropriate as a prayer for what was going on Sunday morning. Great song -- great piano ballad. I listened to it several more times in the car today, so it's running through my head.
I packed up 13 boxes of books from my office today. I'll probably have about four more boxes to get tomorrow. I'm keeping 5 of the boxes. The vast majority of these books are my Dad's, so I'm returning a lot. But I've held on to some of the classics and the well known authors and some of the books that he's marked up well -- that means it must have been good. I don't need commentaries and study tools anymore because I can do it all on-line or from a cdrom. I don't break my back carrying those around.
I heard a great story on NPR on Saturday that I just remembered. Tate Donovan -- an actor who's had steady work so you've seen him on the big and small screen -- talked about how he's not recognized most of the time. But there was this particular day when several people kept coming up to him and would quote lines of his, or would say "hey, I loved your character on Friends." So he was trying to be a totally cool and friendly guy... trying to create a positive image. One kid was obviously dressed for a prom or something and had his girlfriend there and came up nervously to ask for a picture. So Tate goes over to this kid's date and puts his arms around her and gives her a big old kiss on the cheek waiting for the kid to snap the shot. The kid just kind of stood there looking a little puzzled and finally took the picture after this really long awkward scene. Then he walks up to Tate, hands him the camera and said, "actually mister, I wanted you to take a picture of me and her." He didn't have a clue who Donovan was. Very nice!
posted by Steve 11:51 PM
Deion Sanders and Jesus have been spending a lot of time in conversation lately... evidently. Who knew? If you're thinking you've been getting ripped off a lot lately on your bills, the dealership, the government, etc., maybe Jesus thinks you are too. But the "good news" is, Jesus is offering a discount. Let's see what Jesus' coupons are available!
I had prepared a nice farewell sermon/service for Sunday. We were going to sing some of my favorite worship songs, have a great time of praying and sharing, and I was going to deliver a sermon using exerpts from my first sermon at Gateway five years ago entitled "God Is Doing a New Thing" from Isaiah 43. Then I'd wrap everything up with the priestly blessing from Numbers. It would have been poetic and provided nice closure to our "tenure" there.
But life got in the way.... or more appropriately, death. The Carlsons have been long time members, raised their family here, and been parents and grandparents to every new person who would stick around for any length of time. They're awesome people. Their daughter, Lori, died Saturday afternoon in a Jacuzzi. Evidently she had a seizure and drowned. Her signifcant other, Kristi, had only been in the house for 15 minutes and came out to find her. I found out about all of these things around 9:00 Sunday morning. I knew my neatly planned service was now out the window... and that was fine. Life got in the way. And when that happens, things are out of our control and all of the sudden God is free to work and move in ways that he couldn't before because we don't let him.
So Sunday morning and afternoon the church actually got to BE the church. We didn't have a service per se. We just got together and mourned together... we just sat in silence and cried for quite a while. (Jesus said something about that.) We sang songs together. We prayed together. We ended up praying over people and annointing them with oil... including us, being sent off to a "mission field" by our brothers and sisters in The Family. I did end up giving some closing remarks, and closing by pronouncing a blessing. But then we all went out to lunch together at the Chinese buffet and just kept each other company. It was much more the way I envision first century gatherings of the church getting together, but obviously in a 21st century setting.
But I hurt. It was good and fitting that our final Sunday here was not all about us. But I hurt for Lori. I hurt for the Carlsons. And I was amazed at the response of this mature congregation. You see, Lori walked away from her relationship with Jesus, denied God's existence altogether, and therefore walked away from the church and even her family, in a lot of ways. But this is a part of the body that has dealt with homosexuality... inordinately frequently. But they're more mature having done so. They have the heart of Jesus now. But, you see, we followers of Jesus are stuck with an incredibly difficult problem. Jesus made such exclusive claims that as far as we know, unless a person is in right relationship with our Heavenly Father through Jesus, then their eternity is one without God. It's in fact, eternal punishment. That's fine for people who are really really evil... mass murders, rapists, etc. But what about a daughter, a sister like Lori who was a good person? If one of my sons died and they were older and not following Jesus, I guarantee anger, questions, shaking my fists at God. I guarantee it! If for no other reason than God didn't give them enough time to come around. This is where I figure that God hasn't revealed absolutely everything. This is where I HAVE to trust in the character that he has revealed of himself... ALL just, ALL merciful, ALL loving, ALL powerful. I don't know how those character qualities balance each other out, but I know they do... and perfectly. I also know that we being created in God's image feel only a portion of what God feels. So when our sense of justice is offended, we can only assume that we cannont fathom how much our Father has been offended. And when we feel mercy, how much more mercy is being poured out from the source. These are the things I believe and trust in... because the Bible tells me so. And every one who said anything on Sunday was also willing to release Lori into the hands of God... knowing that we don't know everything. Knowing that we can trust God with these kinds of decisions. I know that sounds silly, but there's a LOT of things that we don't REALLY trust God with. And sometimes I don't think we trust him to be able to make the right decision when it comes to people and their eternal destiny. If he is who he said he is, than I trust him. If he's ANYTHING less than that -- anything -- than I despise him... he is no God at all... not even a god, and I've wasted my life.
From everything I witnessed yesterday, the Carlsons are rock solid in that same kind of trust. And I just keep reiterating the same prayer, Father. Draw near to them -- so close that they tangibly know your presence! And somehow, someway draw others to complete and total trust in you. Somehow, someway, may they too come to trust you, even with their lives.
[Deep sigh.] Sorry, that's heavy stuff in my heart. But life is heavy sometimes.
posted by Steve 11:54 AM
Friday, July 11, 2003
We have a ton of stuff!!! I have no idea how we're going to fit all of this stuff into a moving van. We got a pretty big one when we moved up from KY... just Jess and I out of a small two bedroom apartment. We only filled the truck halfway. Now we've added two kids (with another about to jump out any day) and all the stuff that goes along with child ownership. We've lived in a four bedroom ranch with at least 1500 square feet and a full basement for the past 5 years and I'm ashamed to say we filled it. Even getting rid of 5 couches, two chairs, a kitchen dinette and the washer and dryer I'm not sure how this is going to work. Simplicity's a good thing... we need to do more of it.
Anyway, all our stuff is down in the basement. Tomorrow I mop the floors, clean the carpet, get everything ready for Sunday and call it a day.
posted by Steve 11:04 PM
Thursday, July 10, 2003
Housing Update: (this might be lengthy)
OK, so we're innocently eating lunch after moving a majority of our belongings to the basement where they will be stored for God only knows how long. We get a phone call saying that the appraisal on our house came in... at less than their asking price. The problem is, the mortgage company would only finance us for the appraised price, not their asking price plus closing costs. The short story is that we were going to end up paying another 3gr out of pocket to keep the house. We tried throwing around some concessions and some compromises, but the sellers were unwilling and unable (evidently) to budge because of the financing they already have established for the house that they're buying. So by 5:00, we're moving up to my parents thinking that we're going to back out of this deal and start house hunting again on Monday. This is not a pleasant turn of events. Jen, our real estate agent, calls and asks what we'd like to do because the sellers need to know in pretty short order so that they can reverse their financing without penalty. I told her we're going to sleep on it and do a lot of praying. But unless something changed between then and morning we were walking.
Just after dinner, Jen calls back and says that Woodside Realty had stepped into this deal to make it work. They were actually putting up company money to sell us the house at the appraised value, cover the closing costs and allow the sellers to not give up any money. That's impressive!! I don't think I've ever heard of that happening. I guess God just wanted us to have the house... AT A CHEAPER RATE!
So that was an emotional roller coaster ride for most of the day. I also picked up Jack from PetSmart. He'd gotten somewhat sprayed by a skunk or something and Jess hadn't let him in the house for days. I tried to scrub him down with a wet towel, degreaser, basic H (thank you Shaklee), and his regular shampoo, but Jessica with her super duper pregnancy enhanced olfactory senses was still bothered. After my experience with trying to give Jack a pill once, there wasn't a chance I was going to try to plunge him into water. I would rather put him down. But instead we paid PetSmart to take care of the smell. I got there and asked how he did. They both stared at me with fear and amazment in their eyes and proceeded to tell me that Jack was EXTREMELY angry. I laughed to myself and gladly shelled out the $30. Anyone want a cat? He smells good.
