Do It Again?

I was asked to speak again in our community. We are going to be going through the book of Titus in the upcoming weeks. I'm going to be going over Titus chapter 3. I thought I did really good when speaking on Transformers, but could have used some work with Shrek. Now I am being asked to speak on the the bible. This will be my first time talking twice in the same day. We moved to 2 gatherings in one day at the start of the fall and my friend said that it takes some getting use to. I'm excited.

I have been needing to get back into reading the bible on a more regular basis and so this is a great opportunity. My life has been turned upside down in the past month, and so I have been escaping through movies and video games. Not that movies and video games don't have there entertainment place, but the amount that I have been using them in, is excessive.

Well I'm off to go resonate in the word of my father. If you want, please read through Titus with us/me and give me some feed back. I love feedback.

Good Eats

I don't like to just post a depressing Blog and that is what it seems like I've been doing for the past month. So I wanted to say that I have discovered Cinnamon LIFE cereal. This is some good eats. What are your favorite cereals?

WOW

The rain continues to poor here at the Hart house hold. My bride successfully made it out of surgery Friday. She had a disk removed from her spine. She was was crazy scared, for good reason. She was putting up an EZ-UP at one of our son's swim meet last summer and heard a pop and her arm went limp. She thought that she hurry her shoulder, but in reality she cracked a disk and sent it into her spinal cord.

She lived with the pain for about a year until this last summer when she started loosing feeling in her hand then her arm. At this time she started to take this seriously. The MRI showed a piece of the disk jabbing into the cord.

The surgery went great and she was only in the hospital for 24 hours and now is at the house resting well. I am excited to have my lovely bride healthy again.

Tough Decisions

My friend Josh was speaking at a conference this past Friday. He personally invited me to this conference, but I was unable to attend. Josh just currently did a blog post on a book that he read about choosing to cheat. Josh describes this book as at first it seemed to be "very far fetched." The concept I got from the book review is that in our lives we have only 24 hours in a day. 8 is usually taken up by sleeping. Some people less some people more, but for ease we'll say 8 hours. Now the other 16 are yours to do with it what you want. Most people do 8 at work and 8 with family. But that does not leave travel time to and from work, shopping time, hobbies time,etc... You are in charge of what you fill those other 16 hours with.

If you are married, I feel that you are obligated to share as much of those 8 family/not at work hours to your wife and children if you have them. This is what I was face with this past week. I know that Josh has confidence in me, and I am honored to know and feel that, but at the same time, the death of my father-in-law is a higher priority. When I look back at it, it is a no brainer, but when you are making the decision it is tough.

When It Rains It Pours

I was talking to one my friends the other day about what is going in my life and he said," Wow you are really getting rained on!" My assumption is that he meant I was under attack. My wife's father, Gary Hawksworth, died on Thursday, September 13. He was not only my wife's father, but he was a father to me as well. I have not been in contact with my father for about 5 years now. I digress. We knew it was coming, just not so sudden. Before my son was born, 9 1/2 years ago, the doctors said that he had 3 more years and if he quit smoking they would give him 5. I think we kicked those doctors butt, personally. Gary was able to see 3 more grandchildren born and make a great impact in his community. It's kinda funny how your priorities shift when you know you are on a time table.

Along with the poor health of my father-in-law, my wife is struggling with some health issues. To make matters worse, and yes they can get worse, my wife can't talk about her health problems with her family b/c her father is diagnosed with cancer and is dying before there eyes. Now my wife's emotions are everywhere, and we currently have 8 children that still need a tremendous amount of our time and a father that has days to live.

During that same conversation with that friend I stated that I preferred that the storms would roll in hard, hit hard, then move on. I don't think I could handle the Seattle type of rain where it is not hard, but it is long and drawn out.

The Big Show

I was brought up from the minors last week. My friend Josh is our senior pastor and he just had a baby son. Gavin was right on time. So, to make sure that he had some time off around the due date he arranged for me and a couple of others to preach in his absence.

Sure enough that time came for me to be called up to the big leagues. I have preached on one other occasion, but there was not as much at stake that time. We were with out a pastor and there was little happening at the church at that time. Well now our community is growing like crazy, and I am among some great speakers, including Josh, the senior pastor. To say I was nervous would be an understatement.

When I was finished preaching, I stood in the back after the service and received nothing but complements. What a great feeling that was. My wife gets to nervous to stay and listen to me, so she leaves and helps out with the children. The following day my wife listens to me on our churches podcast and gives the greatest compliment. She said," This is good, this is really good." I felt so good at that point. As I write this a week after I still have people coming up to me and saying what a good job I did. I love being a servant of God!

You can listen to what I spoke about on our community blog, http://www.beginningsmessages.blogspot.com/. It was on Transformers.

Just Finished

I have finished the longest book I have read since my collage days. To be honest I read more cliff notes in collage then the actual books. This book was a fun read. A lot of drama and suspense. I was surprised at the end, not to the point of disapointment.

The story is about a billionare that does something very questionable with his furtune after his death. The book has a large cast of characters, but a few main ones. There is one main character that is sent on an adventure to find someone and ends up finding himself along the way. While isolated on this adventure he finds out what means the most to him. I think that God tends to do the same to us. When we are isolated we tend to find we need to lean more on Him and build a stronger relationship with Him.

I have not read any other John Grisham books, but I might start after this one.