MVP

Last night (Dec. 12)my company had their annual Christmas party. I had been eligible to go for the last two years, but had not gone. This was the(to me) third year that I was invited to go and my first to actually go. So my wife and I went to celebrate with my co-workers. At this party they hand out annual awards. Bonuses, perfect attendance and MVP. Thursday before the party, they handed out ballots to vote for team members who you thought was the MVP of your team. My name was on the ballot. I thought "yeah right, I'll never get this award." Not that I was trying to. To me I just go to work and do my job and go home. Back to the party. The president of the company gets up and starts the "program" if you will. His first hand out award was the MVP award. He announces a couple of names, and then the shocker of the evening (to me), he announces my name. I am thinking "no way." I get up, go up front shake his hand, take the award, get a picture taken and then sit back down. At the end of the night, the HR person asks me if was surprised about the award. I told her yes I actually was. She was like really come on, you deserve it. I told her that I am just doing my job. Nothing special. She see's it differently. This got me to thinking about the Bible and how I go about work. It says in 1 Corinthians 10:31 1 Corinthians 10:31New Living Translation (NLT) 31 So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. To me, the whatever you do part of this passage includes work or play. So whatever I do at work, I do it for the glory of God! Or it says in Colossians 3, Colossians 3:23 New Living Translation (NLT) 23 Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. So you see, I just go to work and do it for the Lord. I am not working for awards. My award is in Christ. Yes it was nice to get acknowledged for doing a good job, but again, that's not why I do it. All Glory To God!

Snowy Back Roads!

The Monday before Thanksgiving, we received a little bit of snow. Maybe one inch or so. But the way the wind was whipping it around, you would have thought that we were having a blizzard. I had to go to pick up our dog at the boarders because we had been out of town with my in-laws celebrating Thanksgiving. So upon leaving work, the roads were already getting icy. I work in town, so I thought no big deal. Then I got outside of town and it was a whole different world. I could hardly see where I was going because the wind was blowing around that little bit of snow. The place where we take our dog to get boarded is out in the country. There are no major type of roads to get there, just the little two lane back roads. I mean these roads are a step above dirt or gravel roads. They are tiny. So anyway, I was traveling on the road where this place is located and I could not tell if I was going to drive into the ditch, a big snow drift or what. I literally could not see a few feet in front of my car. And then it happens. I could not believe my eyes. A snow plow. Coming directly towards me. I am like "dear God" I don't need this right now. I could hardly see because of the blowing already that was happening naturally, let alone more blowing from this oncoming snow plow. And as you may know, the plows on these trucks are huge. They take up probably a lane and a half of traffic. I was already on the smallest of roads and now had to deal with this. I started praying "God, protect me now. Keep from going off the road, or getting hit by this plow." I am not sure, but I think that I came almost to a complete stop, and I think that I may have closed my eyes, when I thought the moment of impact was imminent. So I sat there waiting for the crunch to happen, and nothing. I opened my eyes and guess what? The plow was behind me going on his merry little way. I began to thank Jesus immediately. For keeping me safe and for answering my prayer right away. See God doesn't always take forever to answer prayer. He can answer in a matter of seconds. Amen to that! Praise The Lord!

The Power of Prayer and The Healing Hand of God!

I have a friend at work (Laura), who has a friend in the hospital (Norma), who is dying from cancer. Another co-worker (Jackie)knows about the situation with Norma, and asked Laura if she could go and pray for her. Laura said "sure, that would be great." With that, Jackie asked me if I would like to go with her to the hospital and pray for Norma.I told her, "of course I'll go with you." So we made plans to go to the hospital right after work. In the mean time I learn that Norma's daugter had been trying to get a temporary visa so she could come and visit her mom. She hadn't seen her in over 12 years. Laura found out earlier that day, that the daughter was granted a weeks stay so she could visit her mom. Hallelujah, right! The end of the work day comes (Monday), and Jackie and I ride over to the hospital together. We walk up to Norma's room and find Laura already there. She was extremely happy too see us. We asked her if it was alright to go in and start praying for Norma. She told us to hold on a minute, went in the room and then came back out and said it was alright to enter. So we go in, and there was Norma laying in the bed with her children beside her. She was unable to move, see or talk. She was only able to hear. She could squeeze your hand to let you know that she had heard you. She was pretty much on her death bed. The doctor's didn't give her much of a chance to make it much longer. So there we were, all around the bed. Norma's family is Mexican. Jackie is Puerto Rican, and I'm a white dude. Jackie takes Norma's hand and starts praying for her in Spanish. When she is finished, I start praying for her in English. I didn't understand a word that she said and I'm pretty sure that the family didn't understand a thing that I said. But that's alright because prayer is an international language. When finished praying, we say goodbye and head back to work so Jackie can drop me off. The family is very grateful that we came to pray for someone that we don't even know. We told them, "we don't know Norma, but we know Laura". On Wednesday of that same week, I ask Laura how Norma is doing. She proceeds to tell me that she had started moving around and trying to get up. She was thrashing around so much, that they had to sedate her. I began to thank God for what Laura had just told me. Friday comes and I ask again how Norma is doing. Laura whipped out her phone and showed me a picture. It was a picture of Norma laying in the bed, reaching up and wrapping her arm around her daughter and giving her a kiss. I couldn't believe my eyes! I began to praise The Lord for her miraculous recovery. What a change since we saw her on Monday. The next Monday rolled around, so once again I asked Laura about Norma. She told me that she was able to eat solid food for the first time since entering the hospital. Not only that, she was able to talk. She asked for pancakes and told her daughter that she loved her. WHAT?? Praise The Lord once again. Hallelujah! Wow, in a weeks time, she went from being comatose to eating and talking. The doctors chalked it up to her daughter being here and giving her motovation to get better. That could be a little bit of it. But Jackie and I are like, "That's GOD!" So today (Wednesday), when I get to work, both Laura and Jackie are almost jumping up and down with excitement. They couldn't wait to show me new pictures of Norma. Laura gets out her phone and shows me the two pictures she took of Norma. One shows her sitting on the side of the bed. The other one shows her sitting on the side of the bed with her giving the thumbs up sign. They were so giddy and it made me giddy. What a great God we serve. I was praising Him and thanking Him. It made my whole day. I walked around on a cloud the rest of the day. To see God's miracles happening first hand. Oh my!! Again the doctors give credit to her daughter being there. But you can't ignore God's healing hand upon her. He has raised her up, out of that bed. For how long we don't know. If it's for a month, a year, 40 years, doesn't matter. Give all the glory to Him! She has gotten so much better, that she is moving back to Mexico with her daughter later this week. So I dare your to tell me that prayer doesn't work. That God doesn't heal. He is still in the healing buisness. Still performing miracles. AMEN!!

I WILL!

Six years ago today (10-11-08) a pastor stood in front of me and asked me a very important question. "Do you take Leigh as your lawfully wedded wife?" "If you do, say I will." My response of course was "I will." I have been thinking about this. What does I will mean? In a mariage. This is what I will means to me and our marriage. TO LEIGH I WILL, Love you unconditionally, through the good times and the bad. Take care of you when you are sick. Cherish you. Adore you. Provide for you. Protect you. Treat you as my equal. Share my dreams with you. Take you by the hand and walk with you through this crazy thing called life. Tell you that I love you every chance that I get. Dance with you. Embrace you. Kiss you. Marry you all over again. I will do all of these things and more that I am sure that I am forgetting about. God knew what He was doing when He brought us together. I thank God everyday for you. You are an amazing wife and I am blessed to be married to you.

How AWESOME Is My God!!

Last Sunday, I was on the eve of one of the busiest weeks of my life. I had been getting sick ever since that Fridat night and really wasn't feeling well by late Sunday evening. The week coming up had me working my 8 hour shift at my job, then getting home and changing and the driving almost an hour and a half to do an outreach with our new church plant at the Stephenson County Fair. My family and I were scheduled to work from 6 to 10 Tuesday through Friday. So getting sick was not an option. I woke up Monday morning REALLY not feeling very good at all. I had to go to work to get paid for the July 4th holiday. I couldn't afford to miss two days of pay. So I went and stuck it out all day! I actually worked an hour of overtime to boot. I came home and looked at my yard. Yes, it needed mowing. I knew I had to do it that night as I would be gone the rest of the week at the fair. So I mustered up (God gave me) the strength to do it. I figured in my mind that I would sweat out the cold and sickness. Sounded good in my head anyway. I did both the front and back and was exhausted, but God got me through it. Then I figured that I would really feel worse on Tuesday, because the last time that I mowed a yard whilst sick, I went down for a week. So I thought that history might repeat itself. I am happy to report that it did not! That Tuesay morning God gave me new strength and energy. I was a little sore from all the pushing, but overall did not feel to bad. Praise The LORD! I went to work, continued to feel a little better and made it through the day. Came home changed and then headed out to the fair. God gave me the strength to stand there and talk and tell about our new church for my four hour shift. Another Praise The LORD! This cycle went on for everyday from Tuesday until Friday. The only difference was that I continued to feel better everyday. Again, Praise The LORD! His mercies are anew everyday, but so are His strength giving and energy new every morning! So on top of all of this, Saturday, my wife was hosting a bridal shower for a really good friend of ours at our house. We had to clean like crazy after getting home from the fair. We were up till well after 2am cleaning. Again, God gave us the strenght and energy the next morning to do what we needed to do. After the shower, we had tickets to go to the Cubs game at Wrigley Field. So we drove into Chicago, went to the game and came home. This was the cap on that busy week that I had mentioned earlier. WOW, what a week! I thank You LORD for getting us through it. For providing us safety and financially. Giving us strength and energy to do what we needed to do. I was getting up at 5am everyday to go to work and then going to bed everynight after midnight. I went to bed exhausted but woke up renewed. This is how AWESOME my GOD is!!

Birthday Card

My birthday was last week. It was on a Thursday, so it meant that I had to go to work that day. I get to work and walk into our office and there on the desk sat a little cake with a birthday card on top of it. I had no idea of who put it there, or when it was put there. Later on during the day, I found out it was a female co-worker that had brought it in. She told me that she just wanted to show her appreciation for me being encouraging and supporting her while she was driving a forklift.

The front of the card reads "I'm pretty sure You invented the whole idea of small acts of kindness." The inside of the card reads "You bring happiness with you and go out of your way to be there when people need you. Especially me." You're the Best. Wow, pretty nice, right! The she wrote, "Thanks a bunch for everything and just being you. Best wishes." "Happy Birthday" This card really touched me, let me tell you.

I'll tell you why.

This co-worker friend lives a lesbian lifestyle. I don't treat her any differently because of this. I treat her just the same as everyone else I work with. I show her the love of Christ in the way that I support her and encourage her. She knows that I am a pastor. She has come to me for prayer for her and her family. She comes to me with questions about Christianity and the Gospel. I live out my faith and salvation while on the job and everywhere I go. You never know who is watching you. She knows that she can come to me with questions, or encouragement. I will always tell her the truth in whatever she asks me, and she knows that.

So anytime I hear that we Christians hate gay people, I will point to this card and say that is a lie! Would she give me that card and a cake if I showed any kind of hate towards her. If I treated her any differently than the rest of my co-workers, she would've noticed.

Anytime that I hear that Pastors are only condeming gays to hell, I'll point to this card and say that is a lie also. It's not my job to judge her, it's God's. I just do my best to show her the love of Jesus and live the life that He wants me to live. Live by example. Do I dis-approve of her lifestyle, yes! Do I hate her as a person and friend, NO!! God hates no one. He is love. Jesus is love! He tells us to love everyone. So I am trying my best to show that at work, and beyond!

Praising & Thankful

We use LP gas to heat our house. We also use it for hot water, cooking, etc. About the middle of February there was an article in the local news paper about there being a LP shortage, and the prices would be well over $5.00 a gallon. AWESOME!! You see, when we get a fill for our tank, the charge for the fill comes all at one time. So we were going to be looking at a good  chunk of change for our next fill up.

A few days later, there comes a letter in the mail from our LP provider. It says that because of the shortage, we are supposed to let them know when we are at 15% of our tank to ensure a timely fill. I go out the next morning and look at our gage and we are at 30%. Cool I thought. We have a little while before we need a fill up.

A couple of weeks later I go out and check it again, just out curiosity. Our needle was well below the empty mark. It meant that we didn't have any gas in our tank. I started freaking out, with especially how cold it has been. We called our delivery guy and he said he could get out that day! Thank You Jesus. Well, I came home from work and found a note stuck in our garage door. It said that he couldn't do the fill because our gate was frozen shut. He could not open it to get in. Great I thought. We were able to keep the house warm, cook and take showers, so I was praising Jesus. But with this news of having to go another day without, I thought for sure we were done for. So we prayed that we would last another day. God heard our prayers and delivered on them. The guy came the next day and was able to fill our tank. Thank You Jesus!

So now comes my praise and thanks to Jesus! Our needle was well below empty like I said before. With the news of there being a shortage and all, we were able to get a delivery the very next day of calling. Thank You Jesus. The driver was able to get in the gate and here is the biggest thing. The price per gallon.... was under $3.00. Hallelujah!! So our bill was very large to say the least, but not as large as I had anticipated!

This reminded me of the Bible story (I am paraphrasing) about the woman and her son who were out of oil and flour, they had just a little bit left, they were going to cook what was left and then prepare to die. Elijah came along and told her to keep on cooking, and they never ran out. God kept on giving them all that they needed. Just like us. Our gas tank was empty and we shouldn't have had heat, cooking gas or warm water for showers. But we did. Thanking and praising Jesus! He is our great provider! He is all that we need. THANK YOU JESUS!!

Workout Change

I like to watch movies while I am working out in our backroom. I pick out a dvd that we have, or a tv series to watch. I am a big fan of the tv show "The Shield". It ran for seven seasons on F/X. I have all of the seasons on dvd. So I began to watch them while doing my workout. I usually had no problem with them. If you know the show at all, it is a bit rough and the language is suspect. Ok, it's really bad!

At the beginning of the new year, I started watching season five. I don't know what it was about this season, but it really started affecting me and my attitude towards everything. I was starting to use inapropriate language at home and at work. My attitude went from being a positive up beat person to being a negative and don't care one.

When watching my dvd's, I always have the volume turned up real loud, so I can hear over my breathing. One day my daughter got tired of my grumbling and complaining and hearing bad language, so she came out to where I workout and told me, that she didn't need to hear the show that I was watching. The bad language, the violence. She was tired of it. Tired of hearing it, tired of seeing it whenever she came out to ask me a question, tired of it affecting me and my attitude. I felt convicted. What kind of example was I setting for my daugther? Not a very good one I must admit. So she challenged me to start watching more family friendly video's while excercising. I have to tell you. It has made a difference. I always say "junk in, junk out". So I took away the trash and replaced it with something better. My daughter is pretty smart, I must say, and everybody benefits from it.

Praise The LORD!!

Positivity!

Back in May of 2013 we hired a new employee to work in our department. Ever since that day, this guy has been getting under my skin and making work not so fun. I didn't look forward to going to my job at all. All this guy did was complain and grumble about everything. Money, hours, responsibilities, etc, etc. One of the most negative people I have ever met.

The last couple of months, I have been bringing that negativity home with me. Complaining about everything, even though everything was great. I just saw the negative instead of the positive. If you know me, that's not how I am. I try to always look for the positive in everything. Anyway, so one night I was going on and on about this and that. I guess that my daughter had enough of it. She told me that was it. No more complaining about the guy from work, or the job in general. She told me that every night when I came home from work, she wanted to hear something positive that had happened at work that day.

So on the first day, I came home and she questioned me, "so what happened today that was positive?"
I told her something that I was thought was positive for the day. She accepted that, and said that she would be asking me all week. Well it has been about two weeks now, and you know what? My whole outlook at work has gotten better. I don't complain at work as much and I sure don't complain at home about work as much.

My daughter is pretty wise and smart. I praise the LORD for that. She can see things that no one else can. She is pretty awesome, in my book!!