a closed spirit

i wounded her enough over our marriage in the little things that she closed her spirit to me. it was a raised voice here, a harsh word there, no encouragement while she struggled, and not valuing her opinion...among so many other things.

i acted in a way that had no repentance of my sins. i did not ask for forgiveness. everything kept building up on each other.

she had to close her spirit to protect herself.

today, i am at the same point...but only if i choose to be...in all situations we have the choice to lead our hearts or to follow them...my choice today is to love kim with all i am and allow myself to be in a spot that i may be hurt again or to act in a way protect myself from her actions and any further pain...

phillipians 2:7,8 says but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

it is possible that i am reading this wrongly, but what i am reading is that jesus took pain after pain for us, all the way to the point of his death...those pains were unneeded pains to him, because he was perfect, and he is god...he did these things as an expression of his unconditional love for us.

i could close my spirit to kim, and i could protect myself from any pain that could be caused by the rejection that is to come if i put myself out there...but how would that be loving her unconditionally...i would be saying, kim, i will love you as long as you do not carry on in your pursuit of your own happiness instead of what god has for you...

jesus has not stopped loving kim despite the choices that she is making. i committed to her that i would love her for better or for worse, essentially that i would love her unconditionally. today, i can choose to have integrity and choose to stand up to my commitment. today, i can choose to love her as i said i would.

and that is my choice...to love. i will lead my heart and not close my spirit to her. this day, and every day to follow, i will choose to love.

a different view

god is faithful to his promises.

that is the view that i want to pursue.

i think ryan said it best 3 weeks ago, the night that i had to tell the boys that mama wasnt coming home and wasnt going to be living with all of us anymore...

3 hours after we started talking and after many tears had been shed and many questions were asked...i was laying in bed with the very somber boys...trying to answer more questions that noah had...

but ryan blessed my heart so much that i started to cry..."but daddy, don't say mama isn't coming home, because god has a special plan for each of us."

god's promises to me are plenty...and he is faithful...

set your minds on things above, not on earthly things colossians 3:2

is she really gone forever

it has been nearly a month since kim filed for divorce. my world continues to be torn apart. the reality of this action is hitting everything...

i have nobody to come home to on certain days anymore. i have nobody to to tuck into bed some nights. i have nobody to sleep next to and cuddle with. i have nobody to share my heart with the way i shared it with her.

all i have is emptiness.

but yet somehow god is going to use all this for his purpose and his glory. he is shaping me right now into what he has always wanted me to be.

i still want to scream though.

wireless...finally

we are now home. the immediate family rush is now over. time to get down to business, pictures of noah. now, i am not as cool as some of my friends, and on top of that i do not know how to create massive picture files. but what i can do is give you 5 of the best shots i've got. then in a couple days i will show you noah's first bath. it is video...

ok - so heeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's noah.



this was very shortly after he was born. thank you andrea for the hat...and for everything you did to help kim.

all that hard work makes a baby tired

funny story. not more than a minute after kim put this on him the bottle he had just eaten went all over it. it was just coincidence.


yes - that is a real smile from big brother ryan. he really loves his little brother (so far)


this one is my favorite.

welcome noah

i was only a day off in my prediction that noah would be born on the 25th of may. we did go in on the 25th, but it was the 26th after all. noah was born at 7:42 am. he weighs 6lbs 9oz and is 18.5" long.

he is a real cutie too. if you don't believe me than come see him. i will get pictures onto this site as soon as i can figure out how to get past the novell security at the hospital.

one thing i learned this weekend

i am going to be 27 in a few months. it is hard on me to not think of myself as a young person, but i have challenged that perception a bit this past week. today, i think you lose the right to be considered a young person when you have your first child. somebody depends on you then. their food comes from you, they depend on you to tell them right from wrong and when to go to bed.

i think this because i see being young as being a person that is carefree. somebody who is able to drop everything and run to chicago on a whim. you dont have to ever call in to work because your kid is sick and cant go to day care.

but all this is an unfinished thought for discussion some other time. what i sat down to write about was a conversation i had with my father in law this weekend.

we were driving to pick up some pizza from mancino's in fremont (good stuff, get some if you can) and talking about this and that. as we conversed, jack would say something and i started to think, yeah i know exactly what that is like. jack would say something else and i would think, wow, you struggle with that too.

now to understand why this is such a big deal to me is because i am somebody who likes to sit more at a computer while jack is someone who would rather be freezing his kiester off in the woods waiting for a chance to see a buck, let alone get a clean shot at it. jack is more of a man's man, where i am more of well, i am not so much of a man's man. jack can fix things. i can't. i hope you are starting to see some of the differences here, and why this is big to me.

what i learned will stick with me for a while. it will help me be a better person. we are all similar people. despite our background in life we are looking for the same things in life. there is a common ground for us to start on, it just depends if i want to care about other people and use what we have in common for the good of the kingdom.



by the way, noah should be here soon. i picked the 25th long ago and it is looking like i have a chance to be right.

things that would be fun

between working too much, being with kim and ryan , and sleeping, i have compiled a small list of things that would be fun to do. here we go

own season tickets to a baseball team (preferably an mlb team like the a's, but even the whitecaps would be cool).

have a prom type party with all our current friends. tuxes and all (that way instead of renting a tux at $130 for my brother tom's 3rd wedding i could just buy one).

attend a huge sporting even like the nfl draft, or the world series or something like that.

be on a cruise or a week long vacation to somewhere sunny with my friends.

joining a bowling league (it runs in the family)

so those are just a few thing. anybody want to go with me?