Wednesday, June 22, 2011

New Challenges Everyday

Most people have some sort of routine throughout their day. For the most part my routine is consistent. I wake up, I'm usually the first to shower, shave, get dressed, take Carter to sitter's (some days Cassie does this), get to work, have lunch at some point, leave work and pick Carter up if I am the nearest one to him, then our evenings can vary day to day but I try to be in bed by 11:00 and then we start over. We can get comfortable with our routines or our plans for life. Then IT happens!! IT can be many things. Loss of job, loss of loved one, car breaks down, we get injured, we get sick, we get dumped, or any other event that brings us to a screeching halt. Next there is usually a reaction. This reaction can vary depending on the situation. There could be disappointment, pain, anger, terror, humor, or even denial. We then might try to analyze what just happened, try to fix what might be broken, heal what is hurt, tame the fear that has risen, we might stand and fight or we might just run away. Then comes the endless cycles of what if?

Why do we do this to ourselves? We hear the comments of friends or family to "give it to God" We shrug this statements off and for some crazy reason we think we can figure it out. We think we can fix IT. Now all the while we might be saying that we are giving IT all to Him.... but we're not, we think about it constantly we struggle to come to grips with IT. Or sometimes we ignore IT and we think IT will fix itself. There can be many factors to why we hold onto IT. But I think that the main reason why we don't trust God with IT, is because we are afraid of his answer or his solution. His answer might be to get that job we don't want to take, stop loving that person that is wrong for us, learn to live with a new hanicap, be grateful for what we do have and stop longing for the things that we can't, or give up that habit that has us hosstage. In the recent days God has really been hammering me with how I have to renew my mind everyday. We never know what tomorrow will hold, so we need to wake up everyday and renew our mindsets. We are never going to be able to stop IT from happening but we can control how we respond to IT.

Until you have a son of your own... you will never know the joy, the love beyond feeling that resonates in the heart of a father as he looks upon his son. You will never know the sense of honor that makes a man want to be more than he is and to pass something good and hopeful into the hands of his son. And you will never know the heartbreak of the fathers who are haunted by the personal demons that keep them from being the men they want their sons to be. Kent Nerburn

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Where to begin?

I have never blogged before so I don't really know where to start. At this very moment I am at work and I am really bored and thought it would be a good idea. I am not really good with words so if you are looking for something witty or inspirational then I would suggest you find another to read. My hope is that one day my son can look back on this and get a better insight into what his dad is all about.

So lets begin with a little background. As the title says I am from Mount Pilot with is really known as Pilot Mountin NC. You may or may not have heard of the Andy Griffith Show, but this is the town from the show. Its a fairly small little town, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Life was pretty simple with its share of joy and laughter along with the tears and pain. I lived there till I graduated high school and then for a couple of summers during college. In my heart I will always be a North Carolina boy through and through. Many years removed from my high school graduation I now reside in Knoxville TN. Instead of going through my whole life's journey lets begin with me telling you the current state of my life.

I have spent the last six or so years with my best friend, she also happens to be the mother of my child and my wife of fives years. We have made a lot of memories, laughed a ton, and cried some rivers, but blessed more than we ever diserve. Our son is about three and a half months old and he already has a death grip on my heart. Next to his mother, he is the single greatest person in my life and I love them both more than any blog could ever describe. I am a new creation because of my savior. I will not shy away from my faith and there is only one true God and his son Jesus Christ is the ONLY way to salvation. We have some really great friends and if it were not for them we would not be the people we are today. We love them and rely on them heavily with not having family closer than four hours away. I work for a credit union (not a bank... there is a huge difference) and I really enjoy my job.

I will share more about my life in posts to come but for now I want to share some thoughts and events that are on my mind today. For the last couple of days I have been struggling with some issues that need an attitude check from yours truely. With the nature of my job i get to travel throughout the credit union and I get to talk with a lot of people. One of the things that erks me the most is when people's actions are based on the actions of someone else. What I mean by this is for example: lets say Bubba was supposed to meet me for a round of golf and didn't show up til thirty minutes after our tee time. The next time we play i shouldn't show up late just because he did last time. Our actions are our responsiblity and ours alone. Last night I struck out in our SLOW PITCH softball game. I could have reacted by throwing my bat or yelling in disgust of myself. Thankfully I was able to just walk to the dugout and grab my glove. Now that I am done blowing my own horn, I have been doing quite the opposite with my feelings and my thoughts with an ongoing situation. Last nigh made me realize this more that ever. Its in the little moments where I think God gives us a spiritual slap to the face. We fed our son oatmeal for the first time last night and I watched him struggle a little to get the food to the back of his mouth and swallow, I thought about how much easier that milk must be for him to get down. Jesus uses the reference to milk and honey with our spirtual growth. Learning something that is nessary for our growth and development is often times frustrating and challenging to deal with. That milk and honey goes down a lot easier and the oatmeal, as frustrating as it may be we never will mature and experience the goodness of the oatmeal if we don't learn how to eat it the right way. I don't plan on using this blog for bible lessons it just happened to be on my mind this morning and I thought it would be a good start.

I'm pretty sure that I will be sharing many stories to come about my little man and hopefully you can get a kick out of them. I will say that I know that we are truly blessed with a great baby. He loves his sleep and on a regular basis he likes to sleep anywhere from 9-11 hours through the night. There have only been a handful of nights where one of us has had to be up at an odd hour of the night with him. His item of comfort is a little horse blanket that we have named Horsey. He loves Horsey so much that my wife took it upon herself to order an extra in case he goes missing. She gets are HUGE "job well done" for that one. I can't wait for him to be walking and talking. Looking for to my first Fathers Day this year, its been a long time coming and I can't more happy with my new role. As I wrap things up for this first post I have decided to have a closing line or saying with all my post. I will try to come up with some of my own or might even borrow a few.

Toys, nice shoes, cars, movies, games, money, camps.... these are all things that we would love to give to our kids as they grow up. But when they are grown and out on thier own the things they will cherish are the time, lessons, words, skills, and love that were shown our taught to them by thier father that will mean the most.