Weekend Matrimony

Did a wedding for a couple friends/church members this past Saturday. This happened at the reception.



Flash Mob Randomness. Classic.

Congrats Mr. and Mrs. Toddy

How's It?

Crazy week of meetings this week. Here are some life updates.

-Bought a crib and a mattress yesterday. I guess it is official. We're having a baby. I'm excited. She is pretty stinkin' active in mama's belly...either that or Shaina's got some massive gas issues (which has not been ruled out!)

-Congrats to Peyton Hillis, the cover boy for the Best Selling Sports Video Game of all time, Madden. Hillis won the 2012 cover in a landslide against Mike Vick, who appropriately enough got beaten up by the Dawg Pound :-). They will have to shrink Hillis' biceps from actual size to fit him on the cover.

-The Number One seeded SUM Guys fell in their loser bracket game last night to the three seed by 3 points. We played well but came up short. Special shout out to the two officials for our game from St. Mary's School for the Blind. You did well, considering.

-I got to be part of my cousin Terri's wedding over Easter weekend. It was a lot of fun and I am really excited for her and her new husband Rod! God and I don't tie loose knots, so they are in it for good!

-Today I've got an important luncheon with some area churches to cast vision for City Love, an opportunity for the area churches of Wadsworth to join forces and love and serve the community on Labor Day Sunday. It is always fun to see churches lay aside their egos for the Church of Christ. And it is amazing what God can do when we only care that He gets the credit!

-Good Friday last week was a blast. There were more people there that I didn't know than that I did which is awesome. My hope is everybody thinks about the Rooster in a new light. The band that came together for that event was incredible. But the message and the music didn't compare at all to the READINESS of the people who came to worship. It is amazing when the people WANT God to meet with them. That environment, whether 2 strong or 200,000 strong is the best environment on Earth.

-Finish this sentence. With the 6th pick of the NFL Draft tonight, the Cleveland Browns ____________________________.

(I say, "The Cleveland Browns draft Patrick Peterson"...if he's available!)

Man's Game

In the last month of Shaina's pregnancy, my Man-o-meter is off the charts.

A couple weeks ago, I took apart the bathroom sink and unclogged the drain. Man's Game.

Then, just today, I patched a tire on my cavalier and put it back on the car. Man's Game.

I play basketball every week and golf in the summer. I grow hair at a clip that Best Cuts would drool over...only its not on my head.

If I get much more manly, this blog will be renamed the Testosterone Revolution.

But the manliest thing I can ever do, is honor my wife more than myself. To not belittle her in public or private. To root for her when she takes risks in her faith. To guard her heart when the storms are fierce. To love her as Christ loves the church.

And sometimes, that brings my man-o-meter measurements down a bit.

God help me to be a man after your own heart.

Beware the Codependent Train Wreck

I've been thinking a lot about co-dependency lately. I see couples who go beyond complementing each other, to the point of needing each other to find fulfillment, function or purpose. This is not a safe place to be, because guess what? When we are codependent, we become insecure...If Shaina and I are stuck in codependency, then we will always live with a potential for distrust. The more I need her and need to be needed by her, the more she becomes an idol. Then, when my lofty expectations (we tend to exalt our idols) of her go unfulfilled, our relationship operates out of control, manipulation and distrust.

The same thing happens for preachers. I cannot find my fulfillment in how the people receive me after a sermon. As soon as that becomes my focus, I will inevitably be consumed by ensuring that this reception happens continually. When I don't get it, I will question whether I am good enough, anointed enough...etc...and more and more I will seek to accomodate and entertain the people and what they want rather than the Lord and what He wants. Preachers who succumb to co-dependency will often lose their prophetic edge in order to appease the people and a preacher who has lost his/her prophetic edge is not much of a preacher.

Likewise, I can't depend on my pastor to be my spiritual refueler, recalibrater or reenergizer. Because if my faith is dependent on the Sunday morning message, what happens when its a bust? What happens when my ears aren't opened to hear? What happens when my calloused heart isn't soft enough to receive the Word of the Lord? What happens if the preacher is caught up in moral failure and my faith is dependent on him/her?

We cannot depend on fulfillment coming from spouses, friends or pastors. It must be found solely in the sustaining Presence of the With-Us God.

So...as we remember that Ahaz and the Judahites put their hope and trust in the Assyrians, we need to go there...Who or what is your Assyria? Where are your affections, your hopes, your time and your trust going other than on the cross and resurrection of Christ?

Relationships and Philippians 2

Married or ever plan to be married...Watch this.

Hot, Sexy Monogamy

Had a sacred moment at church a few Sundays ago. There was a contemplative prayer journey that Shaina's dad organized for people to draw closer to God during Lent.

We were divided into groups and I was paired with an older lady from the congregation. The groups began their journey at different stations and rotated through. We happened to be a group behind this lady's husband, so they did the station one step before us.

One of the stations was focused on thanksgiving. It was a creative station that allowed participants to write or draw on a huge expanse of paper all the things that we thanked God for.

We walked in and before we began writing and drawing our own, we glanced at what those before us had done. My cojourner put her hand down on one of the bulletpoint writings and paused...then went on to sit and make her own list. After she moved past it, I noticed it was her husband's and he had put "the second love of my life behind Jesus Christ ________" and then put her name down.

50 years of marriage and they still have the hots for each other. That's what I pray for in Shaina and I's relationship...that we not just simply get to 50 years because we're both too stubborn to do anything else, but because Christ has been our first love and we have sought to live His way and by His provision. Hot, Sexy, Monogamy. God designed. God approved.

What is the one key to success in your marriage?

For Better or Worse

I love my wife.

After five years of marriage, I think I finally discovered and spoke her love language.

We were just into bed after a nice night of dinner at Rockne's and shopping at WalMart, when suddenly my wife gasped and looked at me with a frown. No I had not just taken my shirt off to reveal my pasty caucasian flab. Instead, Shaina had something in her hair that was making her nervous.

We went into the bathroom and turned on the lights and like a mother monkey lovingly grooming her baby monkey, I began picking through my beloved's scalp. Shortly, I found it, a little bugger that looked alot like the above little buggers...maybe a little bigger than the biggest. A tick...but he didn't just want to surrender...he was trying to burrow into her scalp to eat her succulent brain matter. So I clamped down and ripped the sucker out (along with a good portion of Shaina's hair and scalp). Shaina quickly flushed it down the toilet, perhaps thinking baptism might make the situation less grotesque.

She combed her fingers through her hair and felt something more...Wouldn't ya know it, MegaTick's little cousin Tickeysha was frolicking in the meadows of Shaina's follicles. I quickly snatched her up like a fat kid grabs a fudgeround and booyah...Shaina was groomed.

Not sure if the dog is bringing this Tick family into the house or what, but this all went down about an hour and a half ago and guess who cannot go to sleep now? Me...there's just this sensation that there are thousands of ticks in my bed and they are just waiting to burrow in my pasty whiteness.

It's a funny and nasty story. But I call it a love story. After all Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It does not hesitate when giant creatures seek to feast on brains. Straight out of the Bible...It's in the Greek.

P.S. Yes Shaina's hygiene is excellent. She showers far more regularly than I do.

P.P.S. With that said...this is the third different tick encounter she has had since I've known her. It has to be her voluptuous scalp, mixed with an intoxicating aroma of brain matter that lures these buggers to her rather than me.

Operation Frostbite

I challenged Shaina a few weeks ago when the weather began to change and the nights started to get pretty chilly, that we could not turn the heat on in the house until November 10.So far so good, but forecast for tonight and tomorrow is a wintry mix with some snow accumulation possible!

It will be a test of our fortitude and wherewithall, but if it saves us 20 bucks then by golly, what's a little frostbite?

Is your heat on? When did you turn it on?