An Engineer's Guide to Cats

You should watch this video all the way through. The dry humor is hilarious!

My Happiest Moments

For some reason I was thinking today about my life and what my happiest moments have been. My happiest moments came to me instantly. The following photos explain it all. :)

The day I married Sarah is and will always be the greatest and happiest moment of my life. Words cannot express how blessed I am to have Sarah as my wife. She is my joy and crown and love her with my whole heart.

After marrying Sarah, the day Phoebe was born comes in as the very strong runner-up. Phoebe has been such a joy, and I enjoy loving her and getting to know her more and more each day.

I am so blessed with the two most precious girls in the world. :)

H34T

A friend of mine posted this video from my days back at Biola. HEAT was the name of my floor, and this video introduces several guys from my floor. It's kind of fun to reminisce.

Japanese Scare Tactics

I died laughing after watching this. Gotta love Japanese humor. Enjoy!

Phoebe is crawling!!!

Daddy's Girl...or more like Phoebe's Daddy

I'm sure you've picked up on this fact, but I am the most blessed man to have such a beautiful wife and daughter. Both their smiles brighten my life with so much joy.

Our Growing Girl

Phoebe just continues to grow to be a more beautiful girl. I'd better start dusting off my shotgun soon...(if I had one) She's also able to stand on her own if she has something to hold.

Early Spring Snow

Recently we were overjoyed to wake up to see the world outside of our apartment beautifully dusted with snow. Our view is beautiful enough to begin with, and the snow just made it breathtaking.

The Jonny-Jump Up

"Pray Hard" Time

I received an encouraging email from a brother who suggested that I was entering a "pray hard" time - meaning, I was entering a period of time that God intended for me to cry out to Him in fervent prayer. I began thinking about this.

How do I pray hard? Lord, I don't know what praying hard looks like! I don't even really know what praying hard means! I know praying hard does not mean that some how you just turn up the volume or the frequency in prayer and God answers..."lord, please allow this to happen. Lord, please allow this to happen. Lord, please, allow this to happen. LORD, PLEASE ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN!!!" I don't think that's how it works.

Nor do I think increasing the quantity of time in prayer will guarantee God's answer. Praying for 3 hours will make no more difference than if I had just prayed 10 minutes. I don't think becoming more passionate will change anything either. Will being prostrate on the ground as I pray fervently make my prayer somehow more effective? I don't think so.

So, Lord, how do I pray hard? I acknowledge that only you can accomplish this feat. I care deeply about this dilemma and I know that you care, so will you please allow this to occur? I am hopeless in and of myself...

It was as I was telling Him all these things that He opened my mind to see a reality about prayer that I had never considered. With praying hard, the act of prayer and its methodology, though important, is just one tiny facet of praying and is not most important. What is most important in praying hard is the posture of my soul in the presence of Almighty God! As I was talking to the Lord about my confusion and powerlessness in knowing how to pray hard, I realized that I wasn't trying to "pray hard and in the correct way,
" but that the posture of my soul was in a state where I fully embraced the futility of my own efforts and the truth that only divine intervention from my heavenly Father could accomplish anything for which I hoped.

Lord, forgive me for turning prayer into an activity based on my own efforts. Even prayer is only accomplished by Your grace. Help the posture of my soul to lay prostrate before you, acknowledging my powerlessness and the vanity of my own life and efforts, and that I would cry out to You alone for salvation.

Phoebe and her peeps

Phoebe has lots of friends and they love hanging out with eachother.

a gift from Aunt Briana

Thanks Aunt Briana for your the hat and scarf! Love, Phoebe

The recent faces of Phoebe...

Phoebe's sweet hairdo.

Messin' around...

Phoebe and I messing around during my day off. We had lots of fun. :)

Mel-dee-dee

It had been about 20 years since seeing “Mel-dee-dee”. That is what I called my friend Melodie, when I was 5 years old. She and I were friends and neighbors growing up in Northern Virginia. We got to reconnect and it was so much fun going over memories and catching up! We used to take being mommies to our baby dolls very seriously when we were little. I remember Friday was “wash day” for the baby doll clothes and we’d hang the clothes out on the line in the back yard. One time I was at Melodie’s house for the night and I was enthralled with a little cactus plant they had. Melodie warned me not to touch it, but of course I had to and I got a thorn stuck in my finger. I wouldn’t stop crying about it and I remember not sitting still for her mom to try to get it out. Her list of ideas of distracting me and making me happy was completely exhausted and she finally stuck me in a bedroom while I sulked. Looking back it is very funny. It’s wonderful reuniting with old friends – I think that’s what we’ll be doing for part of eternity in heaven and it’s going to be great!

The Trinity as a Paradigm for Spiritual Transformation

I just read this excerpt by Ravi Zacharias and thought it was very good. I hope that you are equally encouraged and challenged by it as well.

"It is a sad fact that the doctrine of the Trinity has been believed in but rarely preached on in our churches...(read on)"

Our little goof ball

Phoebe did this all on her own. Such a goof ball!

I am Phoebe

Don't mess with me.

English Muffins

For as long as I can remember I have always loved English muffins. When I was a little kid, I would ask my mom if there was food in heaven; and if there was, I told her that I would eat fried eggs and English muffins for all eternity. Needless to say, whenever I have eaten English muffins, it has always been a bittersweet experience, for I know that once I finish the English muffin, it means that I am one English muffin closer to finishing off the bag, which for me is always a heartbreaking moment. Even though I experience the most heavenly bliss as I eat them, I am simultaneously flooded with a melancholic awareness that the ecstasy would soon end, and if I want more, I would have to pay out the nose to buy another bag at the grocery store. Who wants to pay $2.50 for a bag of six Thomas English Muffins?!

The reason I have told you all this is because it will help you understand how enthralled I am that I have now discovered the most glorious solution to my (now) late heart-wrenching conflict! I have discovered that I can make English muffins in my own kitchen!!! I hope you understand that to me, this is better than discovering the Holy Grail, the Fountain of Youth, even the Garden of Eden itself!

Earlier this morning I made my very first batch of English muffins. They were much too dense than I had hoped for, but they still tasted like English muffins. If anyone has any idea how to get dough to rise really well and make those little tiny bubble holes for which English muffins are world renowned, please let me know! An interesting thing to note about baking English muffins - you actually do it over a skillet. I would never have guessed. Anyway, I will periodically keep you posted as I continue to improve on making English muffins.

God Himself

A sister in Christ, for whom my heart breaks because of the pain and fear her and her family are currently enduring as she battles with cancer treatment, recently wrote this: "George MacDonald is so right. It’s not what God can give me that I want, it’s God Himself. He can give me so much. He has given me so much. But even if He gave me my normal life back tomorrow, it would mean nothing without God Himself. That is where the true rest comes, and while there is a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual turmoil in my soul, there is One stronger within me than all this. He is the One that keeps my soul from suffocating under the oppressive fatigue. He is the One Who surrounds me with His light even when the dark clouds come."

Whenever I am faced with painful, trying circumstances, I often find myself praying that God would "give me this" or "give me that," and that if God were to give me those things, then everything would be ok. But what a lie from the pit of hell that is! What is life without being filled with God Himself? I read this morning in Psalm 37, "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desire of your heart." What is the true desire of my heart but to bask in the celestial glory of God Himself! His love alone is better than life. And praise God that He has an unrelenting grip on my soul, for were I not bound to Christ by His redeeming blood, I would so recklessly and unabashedly seek anything but Him! Oh that I would delight myself in the Lord so that the desire of my heart would be satisfied in the river of His delights!

"How priceless is your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights." - Psalm 36:7-8