Moving Day!

Tonight we hope to move much of our belongings from Grand Haven into our new residence in Norton Shores.    Yeah!  Then, Saturday we will move the remainder from this mountain of boxes at church.  You are all welcome to help!  We may even be sleeping in beds by 10PM at night!


This has been a long process of making our home in MI.  There has been many moments of anxiety and lost sleep.  We have left many good friends in MN and have begun to make good ones in MI.  We have put in much effort (as have others from church) to make this house our new place to live.  I have missed too many family meals and bedtimes.  It has gotten very old to come home and hear, "Yeah, Daddy is going to eat dinner with us tonight!"  


We have been anticipating this next step in our MI journey for a long time.  Presently, Grand Haven is called home but it is merely a temporary residence, not our home.  We haven't unpacked much at this house because we have bigger plans.  We haven't put energy into beautifying the Grand Haven house because we plan to continue the process of making the Norton Shores house our home.  After all, it is all a process.  Someday this year I hope that I and my family will be able to call the Norton Shores house our home.


I hope that I can have the same focus on my heavenly home too.  This life is to be lived to the full but it is not our final destination. We should invest some energy and focus here but always remember that this is not our final home.  It should not be confused with the end of our journey.  It is only a taste of real life, a glimmer of what is in store for us.  


I want to have the laser sighting on this life like that of the last verse of "It is well with my soul".
And Lord, hast the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

That will be a cool moving day!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjGZqp59RZg

Genuine Love

Mornings are an adventure.  It makes sense that I take the kids to school since I need to be to church not long after the kids need to be at school.  So we rush around and get all of the lunches made and clothes on.  Most mornings child #3 is the slow one because she can be and it bothers the others.  We all have our control issues and this one is hers at the moment.  Other than that, mornings have fallen into a quiet routine of which we have navigated safely so far and without coming to blows.

This morning Maria asked me if I would help her roll up her blanket with her.  Preschool is so cool these days. I just had hang time with mom.  I could have been a rocket scientist if I had preschool!  But I digress.  Maria brings her fun dog blanket pillow for rest time at school.  She wanted it rolled up well so that it is easy to carry.

We fold the sides in together and begin to roll it but it doesn't roll as she wanted.  I notice that she couldn't get it so I jumped in and did my daddy thing to fix the problem.  I rolled it up and stuffed it just right so that it looked like a cool dog blanket pillow.  I must say, it did look well done!

Then, the coolest part of the morning took place.  Maria realizes that she now is in possession of a cool looking dog blanket-pillow.  Her face changes from one of anticipation to that of "this is the coolest thing ever!"  She lunges at my neck and gives me the biggest hug and kisses me on the cheek.  Then she says thank you, picks up the pillow, puts it in her backpack.

Such a genuine display of love is maybe the coolest thing ever!  This girl showed me her deep appreciation for my efforts and her love for me as her dad.  As a dad, what else would be better than that?

I get moments like that with God too.  Hopefully you know what I mean.  God unexpectedly puts a person in my path to bless me.  God arranges a complicated set of circumstances into a perfect alignment that I thought impossible.  God inexplicably sends his comforting peace when I am frazzled and am most definitely in need of it.

When I am confronted by God's greatness and goodness, my attitude suddenly changes from one of deep concern to a response of wonder and amazement of my heavenly dad.  He blows me away!  I sit back and smile and say, "God you are so good to me!  Thanks!"  And if I could physically hug his neck, I would for the longest time.  Someday!

Grace Paint!

I have found that there are 2 kinds of people in the world: those who like to paint and those who will avoid painting at all cost!  People give various reasons for why they would never want to paint a room in their home.  Maybe it is skill level or confidence which I understand.  It's OK.  Not everyone likes to paint.  I am trying to understand people who are not like me.

I love to paint and have found many benefits in painting.  It is therapeutic in that it calms me down and gives me confidence in doing something that I can do pretty well.  It is enriching in that I can listen to sermons on my MP3 player and get ideas for my own preaching.  It is helpful to others in that I get to help out others who don't paint. Sometimes they even pay me which is always beneficial!

Mostly, I can't think about painting without thinking about God's grace.  Because every wall has it's history, often times I need to paint over nasty stains.  Who knows how they got that way but they now make the wall look shabby and worn out.  Many stains are so bad that there is no way to return the wall to a good condition except by using a stain blocker.  Without the stain blocker, the stain would bleed through and the wall would still look shabby.

I love to use Kilz stain blocker which covers the stain and allows the wall to accept a good coat of paint.  The stain is still there but it is now covered.  No one will ever see the stain again!  It will not bleed through to the final coat of paint and it will look as if the wall never had a stain on it!  It's a miracle!

We all are like walls: we all have nasty stains.  God calls them sin.  Even pastors have sins.  They are just better at hiding them.  The miracle is that my God sends me grace as a stain blocker to cover the nasty sin stains in my life.  Through the work of Jesus and my trust in him, he covers my stains.  The stains are still there but they have been covered and will NEVER be seen again.  When God looks at me, he doesn't see a dirty, shabby, sin-filled rebel.  He sees me as a beautiful clean and new person who has no sin stains.  All of this because of God's incredible grace!  Isn't God's grace amazing?

Oh, I do love painting!