Strange Christmas

Yeah, so this has officially been the snowiest December in recorded Oregon history.  It will also be my first “white Christmas”.  We also spent most of this week stuck in our house, which kind of sucked, but was also good for us. 

We were stressed though for much of the past week.  Lisa had Christmas programs that got cancelled and annoyed her.  We also had a doctor’s appointment scheduled for Monday to make official that we were having a baby, and get to see it on the ultra-sound.  That appointment was cancelled.  We were so saddened by that, but through some finagling we were able to get in Tuesday to the hospital to see little “Baby T”.  We saw the heart beat and the leg and arm “nubs”(their word not ours).  I told Lisa she could take back all of my presents, I had enough for Christmas.  Ever since we miscarried three months ago, we have been in a weird agony over this pregnancy.  Before you have a miscarriage you have no reason or though of losing a baby, and after you do, it terrifies you.   We have been praying earnestly that God has a plan for this little boy or girl and that with that plan, this little baby will bring Him the glory he is due and deserves.  We also are praying that we will do the same during this pregnancy and if/when this baby is born and then raised. Please join us is praising God for letting us see this little baby, and to hear its little heart beat.  Pray that God will get the glory due Him no matter what.

Writing again

I guess this means I am writing again.  It has been something like 4 weeks since I left The Church at Kelly Creek as worship pastor.  I am not going to get into the nitty gritty details of any of that, lets just say it did not end well, or fun for me.  Though it is finished I have mixed feelings over the past three years. 

What’s next for us?  Well the past couple weeks have been strange as well.  We went to Greater Gresham several weeks ago, we just needed to go and hear a great sermon and worship.  We just needed to go to church.  It just so happens that the dude preaching that week is the guy who will be starting the GGBC’s plant in Damascus and helping/overseeing the plant in NE Portland.  We really needed to hear what he had to say.  He and I will be sitting down and chatting when he officially makes it up here in January.

The next week we went to the beach with Dave and Katelyn and hung out.  Thanks guys!

Last week, everybody gets sick.  We all got sick and I didn’t make it anywhere until Monday.

This week, I believe the plan is to head to The Well.  My buddy Travis is the worship pastor their and I have wanted to visit for the past 4 years.

So…hopefully this becomes more than just my strange calendar.  I think it will, I have some ideas as to what I want to start writing about.

 

thanks for reading

Heading to the beach

Well, tomorrow after work we get to head out on the long trip to the beach.  We were offered a vacation of sorts with some friends and we decided that it would be good to get away for the weekend.  We are pretty stoked and welcome the change of scenery.

Bad News

We had kind of a rough week last week.  On Wednesday we lost the baby. It was one of those days that you wish never had come.  You feel pain like never before.  The type of pain that wells up from deep within you.  The pain you feel watching your wife hurt so badly and not being able to anything to comfort but cry along and hold her.  Wednesday was definitely the saddest day of my life.  Thursday brought the start of healing though.  We have seen the doctor and Lisa is fine physically, there were no complications. So that is good.

I want to thank all of you for your support and prayers.  It is great to have people genuinely care for you.

New Song.

This one is….awesome?

Huge News

Well, my wife (Lisa) informed me on Friday that in May we will be having another baby.  We knew that this was a possibility and are both stoked about it.  I spent a lot of time last night praying and talking to God about all the tough stuff we are going through at the church and asking for a “small win” to celebrate and He pointed out that we have a small win growing inside of Lisa.  I broke down their and praised Him for our little blessing.  I was stressed about finances and He reminded me that He knew that B2 (as we are calling it) is His kid and that He is going to provide for him/her.  Humbling but relaxing.

A week away, well, mostly

As most of you know I and my family went on vacation this past week.  It was our first entire week off, including Sunday morning in 51 weeks and it was needed.  We just needed to get away and hang out with a little less stress. 

A recap:  Monday morning we packed up the car and headed to Mt. Hood Village, just this side of Welches, and we stayed there in my Aunt and Uncle’s trailor.  We hiked a lot, swam a lot and watched some Olympics.  It was nice, the food cooking was a little stressful, but who cares.

Wednesday we headed home to stay the night there, wash clothes and pack for the beach.

Thursday-Sunday: we stayed in a beach house in Lincoln City.  It was a nice house, and the weather was there.  It was not a hot as it was here, actually about half of what it was here.  I think it reached 65 once, with a 25 mph wind.  Oh well, it is an Oregon beach.  We took Melody down to the beach and she took some convincing that it was ok.  By the time we left she did better but preferred to be carried most of the time.  Next year hopefully the wind will be less and we can spend more time hanging at the beach.

We are back now and ready to move forward and on.  I look forward to seeing many of you Sunday morning.  Maybe we can learn a new song together.

Selah

This is an interesting term in the Bible.  Oddly enough it is one of few words that when the translators, in all the English translations I have seen, still keep the word.  It is found quite often in the Psalms and it is probably a musical term for a “rest”, but it essentially means “stop and listen”. 

New Toys and b-day lists

I have really begun to get into getting guitar effects that will make my guitar sound even better.  I have developed a certain sound or at least am seeking a certain sound in my distortion and I am trying to find a pedal or two that will help me get the sound I want and to have the ability to control all of my sound levels well.  The way I am currently running things my amp has a clean channel and an overdrive channel and each has its own volume level.  So what happens is that I have to get the volume level on each set right so that when I switch between them in a set the level isn’t too quiet or too loud, and then you add in my SD-1 pedal which has to be run with the clean channel and has its own volume you add even more variables that have to be addressed. Long term I want to have a couple good distortion pedals that give me different drives and a good reverb pedal and be able to run them all through the clean channel to give me more control and ease of switching pedals. 

So that brings me to my b-day list that Lisa has me make each year.  I have spent some time selecting several pedals that I want to make this process happen and I am stoked to get any of them.  The great thing with new guitar effects is seeing how they change things and how they add to what we are wanting to do as a band.  I love this process.  I guess I get bored pretty easy when it comes to effects so I am constantly searching.

Small Adjustments

For a while now I have been thinking about buying another electric guitar.  I know which one I want and how much it costs.  Unfortunately the money is not there.  I had saved up some money and was about half way there when that money needed to be re-allocated and I started to get disappointed.  I realized that I was really starting to dwell on this other guitar that would make some things easier but was not entirely necessary.  I then kind of  came to a change of heart and decided to spend a little of the money to replace an effects pedal that I used a lot and to get a pedal board that would keep all of my pedals nice and tidy and powered.  The guitar was forgotten for a time and an immediate need was addressed.  I find in my own life that sometimes some small adjustments need to be made to remedy something more important.