OK, so … cool story, had to blog.

We came home from our glorious and wonderful vacation (it was perty neat, actually) and found that at pile of dishes had quickly made their presence known on our kitchen counter. Now, on vacation, the unit that we stayed in had a nice full kitchen… with a dishwasher. We rather enjoyed that dishwasher… Well, we had stayed in places with dishwashers before… but something clicked this time. When I saw our dishes at home, I thought, “WHAT are we doing… this is such a WASTE of time… we do NOT need to be washing dishes!?!?” So… I said to Jen… we’re getting a dishwasher. We really need to.

So, we don’t have any money (and never really have) so we are good at finding the bargain basement prices on things in pretty good shape. We began the search. Found some $50-$100 dishwashers (from here on referred to as “DW”) on eBay… not bad. Then looked in online classifieds… no luck. We were heading to Syracuse to pick up our trailer (long story… perhaps will post later) and thought to check thrift stores out there…

Viola! (that’s French for something…) They had one!!! 🙂 $15!!!! They said it worked when they got it and should be fine! BUT, they close at 5pm. It was 4:15… 1 hour drive… couldn’t do it.

Not to worry, we know a very helpful guy with a truck named Joe. I called Joe up, asked if he could pick it up for us, he said no problem. I told him we had not seen it, so if it’s a piece of junk, don’t do it.

Well, we get the call from Joe when we are about half way there that this DW is a piece of junk. 🙂 BUT, he said he had calls in to about 8 people to see if someone in their church had an extra DW sitting in the garage or something… he said to call when we get there and see if anything has come up.

Thanks Joe! Awesome!

Well, we get to the church, hook up our trailer, and I am about to call Joe when… my phone rings….

“Hello?”

“Hi Greg, it’s Joe”

“Hey Joe, I was just gonna call you!”

“Well, here’s what I’ve got… there’s a guy at Home Depot right now, he’s negotiating a price on a scratch and dent deal… says it’s a $600 DW that they are willing to give him for $300… HE is willing to chip in $150 if you can do the other $150? Is that even in your price range?”

I’m shocked. Stunned. Who would do that for us??! They don’t even know us?

“Uhhh… well… honestly, we are in the $30-50 price range… I’ll have to talk to Jen and see if we can do it. We’ll call you right back.”

“Cool. Talk to you later”

“Bye.”

So… we talk… and are amazed at the generosity of this guy we don’t even know… willing to plop down $150 for a DW for us. Wow. BUT, we know we can not do $150 at this time… so… we called Joe back…

“Joe?”

“Hey Greg.”

“Uhhh…. dude… that’s so cool… but, we really can’t do it. Please tell him THANK YOU for us. That’s very cool.”

“He is a very cool guy. And, I know… I am in the same boat. (Financially) I thought that might be a bit much. Sorry… that’s all I could come up with.”

“Joe, that is awesome! Thanks for all your help!!”

“Your most welcome.”

“Cool… well, we’ll talk to you later! Thanks again!”

“Bye!”

AND… that was it. We packed up the trailer. Started to head out to grab some food before we went home. And about 10 minutes later… we got another call.

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s Joe.”

“Hi Joe! What’s up?”

“Well… where are you?”

“We’re still in Syracuse… just heading out to get a little dinner before we head home… why, what’s up?”

“Well… could I inconvenience you?”

“Sure… I think? What’s up?”

“Could you stick around for maybe an hour or so?”

“Uh… yeah? Whaddya got?”

“Well… I have a brand new DW for you from Home Depot.”

Silence

“What?”

“He just said, ‘Don’t ask.’ So, I didn’t ask… he can get it to the church by 7:00pm… if you can stick around that long…”

AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHOOHOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

“Yeah, that would be great.” 🙂

“Cool… I’ll see ya at the church at 7pm.”

“Alrighty… see ya!”

=================
Now, what just happened? We were going to settle for a piece of junk in the basement of a thrift store for $15 and instead… God provided a BRAND NEW AWESOME DW for FREE from a guy we don’t even know?!??!??!??!?!??!?!??!?!? WHAT is that all about?!??!

So, the guy (Garth) shows up… smiling… load the DW in our Van and tells us a cool story of how this was totally God working in his wife’s heart to want to do this for us. And Joe tells us a story just before that of how this evening was God working in his life — teaching him some things… and we got to see God providing for us through his people… for FREE… my goodness. What an awesome evening.

Well, we still need to install it… but I dare say every time we look at it, we will be reminded of the bigness and goodness and amazingness of our God.

Hope you are too.

I often find myself wishing that I did not need to sleep. That there were 73 hours in a day. That I could do ALL the things I want to do. Like, Blog. I could. But I would have to not do something else. I already do that with many other things in life. I am in the middle of at least 7 books, and have begun another 2 or 3 in addition to that. Often wish I could read… feel too busy. I like to do fun stuff with my family. There’s always more work to do. There are lots of things I want to do around the house – projects and stuff…

Wish I had time to blog…

Be warned, this one is a bit more deep than usual… but… this is a fun place to share deep thoughts. 🙂

Today I noticed a strange mark on my hand … and thought nothing of it. Then a little while later, I noticed it had not gone away…. immediately I thought of my brother-in-law Jeff. Jeff had some crazy (somewhat similar) marks on his leg (much much more severe) just before he died in 1998. All of a sudden, I remembered the fragility of life. I was just made to wonder… what if that same thing happened to me? Jeff found those marks, and one week later, he was dead. That was it. Very sudden and crazy.

So, thoughts of leaving my wife and little kids (one still to come!) alone, without a dad, started to fill my head. Thoughts of all the stuff I wish I could “have done” better… and even thoughts of how great it will be for this life to be done and my real one to begin with Jesus. That will be simply amazing.

And then I just prayed, and asked God to bring me peace and at that moment, I was totally fine. But I had a renewed perspective on life again.

Jen has been rather hard to live with during this pregnancy… not very nice sometimes and quite moody. And, while I know that’s “normal” for pregnancy… it’s still not very fun, and I have not been nice in return. All of a sudden… none of that silliness matters, and I resolve to live every day to its fullest. Not letting petty things get in the way, or carry on for a long time…

I think of the way I wish I could spend more time with my boys. I love them so much. But often many other things take my time from them. Today, I decided to drop more things and make more time with them. I love them.

And you know the funny part? What is so cool about this whole thing?

The mark is gone. I feel fine. Funny how a little mark can change a life. At least point it in a new direction.

And, the truth of what I was thinking is still very present. There is no guarantee of tomorrow, or even the next minute. So, for those of you still reading….

Consider this your little mark.

We watched the Buffalo Bills game last night… they are our favorite team. They still are. Boy was that a BAD game. Awful. Worst I have ever seen I think. The offense, which is most likely the best (or at LEAST in the top 3) in the league right now… was absolutely completely not there. I mean really. Nothing. Worst ever. That was not as fun to watch as we thought it might be. BUT, you know. We still like the Bills. Their defense was GREAT. The Fins had 74 plays (that’s at least twice as much as normal) and they only scored 17 points. 🙂 (that’s like 8.5/game… pretty good) The Bills scored seven… on DEFENSE!!! That’s how good the defense was. They outscored our offense!

Well, ya know what…

We still like the Bills.

God is so full of cool stories… must share more.

#1) [TODAY] So… we are heading to Florida, and scheduling this trip has befuddled me. No huge slamming of the door like our Colorado trip – but, a serious dampening of what I thought we would be doing. And, so there is a cool open lull in the trip right near Jen’s bday. So… I remembered Jen’s folks stay at a resort place down in the area we were heading toward around that time (Jen’s bday time) and so I thought I would ask the people they get that from if it HAPPENED to be available, and at what cost. Thinking it was out of our league, but, worth a try, right? WELL… today they call back, and have exactly the week that we happen to be mostly free, and say that it is…. COMPLIMENTARY!!!! WOW!!!!! 🙂 A FREE week in a RESORT on the beach in FL .. BY OURSELVES (our family) in the middle of our tour… Wow. Crazy.

#2) [Yesterday] So… (nice way to start a story) we are reading through Experiencing God with our small group… very cool study… the thrust of it so far is, get close to God, watch and listen for Him, and jump in on what He is doing. That’s cool. I want to. Well… I had lots going on… very busy… and I think of our friend Bob… he is a seeker. Wants to experience God… but I feel like I have missed the opportunity to help him a few times recently. So, I pass his old coffee shop – was thinking of him. He e-mails me… says thanks for the e-mail… still looking for support, and God… cool. I should call him… next few minutes, another friend calls me. In talking to him… we end up talking about BOB. Wow. Guess I should call him. Will when I’m done…. OHHHHHH…. Watch what God is doing and jump in. Called Bob. Was good. Will call again. Thanks God.

#3) [A short while ago] We were having van trouble. We were going to fix it. We were too late. I was in Syracuse, NY (one hour east) and the van broke down [transmission!] at a light. Hmm. Well, I pray… I have to get home. I asked God to get me home. The van goes. Sputters as I am about to enter the thruway (kinda no turning back from there…) I wonder… “Is God allowing me to break down here so that I can help someone here today to experience God?” I think… that’s too much thinking. Must get home. Get me home God. I believe you can. At an exit 20 miles from there… van slips out of gear. Bad. God… is there someone at this exit you want me to help??? TOO MUCH THINKING! I asked you to get me home… I know you can. No more problems. Van died as I parked it. no more transmission. Wow God. Wow.

Cool.

Check out the web-updates at our music site: http://www.basicmm.com. Specifically the news page

You may not know this about me… but I am a major fan of old computers. 🙂 When I was a young boy, my parents bought a TI-99/4a Computer (Texas Instruments… had 16K RAM!!) 🙂 And, I began programming it (in… get this… BASIC !!! HA!!) And I took some more classes in school… I was hooked.

Well, we sold the TI long ago in a garage sale or something… and I didn’t have a computer till my senior year of college – my parents got me one as a graduation gift. A Macintosh Performa 6214CD. Very nice for its day. 8 MB RAM and a whopping 1 GB Hard drive. 🙂 We moved up the ranks pretty quickly after that… to an apple 6500/250 – then my parents got generous again and bought us the most amazing computer system I had ever seen – the G4 Dual 500Mhz Processor. 256 MB Ram, FORTY GB HD… Dual 500 Mhz G4 Processors… amazing.

It was shortly after that at a rummage sale that we found an entire Apple IIc system for only $5. Five bucks. I thought that was so incredible. We got it. We cleaned it, and fired it up… worked AWESOME! I found my old disk of programs I wrote in 7th grade! It was great. Well, that started it. Soon after that, I found an old TI on ebay. Took a couple tries… but finally got one that worked. 🙂 Very cool. NOW, here is just a sample of the inventory in this house:

[AT LEAST] 4 TI-99/4a Computer Systems (for parts and resale 🙂

Apple IIc

Apple IIgs

Macintosh Performa 6214CD

PowerMac 6500/250

iMac G3 333Mhz

iBook G3 600Mhz

Mac G4 Dual 500Mhz

Oh… we also found a Texas Instruments Speak & Spell at a garage sale in Las Vegas…

You know… I am a Christian Male “conservative” – so… I am supposed to be against abortion, right? Well… that’s true. I am definitely against abortion. But, not so much because of any of those things…

We got to see the ultrasonic images of our baby this past week. (ISN’T SHE CUUUUUUUUTE!?!??!?) 🙂 And as I watched that baby move around in there – it was just so fun! – I thought… wow. This is so amazing. This new life did not exist just a few months ago. Now it’s pretty much like you and me. The medical ladies said that the baby can evacuate it’s bladder (cool medical terms, eh?) and “breathes” (uses it’s lungs) and even yawns, and I saw it suck on its hand… just amazing. No one can see that and think that this is not a baby!!!

And then later, Ian made some comment about wanting a baby sister… and that we’d have to “try” for a baby sister (an interesting comment coming from a 4-yr-old…) 🙂 In response to that I said something like, “we don’t have to try, you’ve got one right here! Nothing we can do about it now!!!”

And you know, as I said those words, my heart sank. And I wonder if the same happened to the two ladies in the room with us who live and work in the medical field. I was not trying to voice my “anti-abortion” sentiment (that was for you anti-lifers out there — why is it that people who want to save babies get the “anti” tag and people who like abortion get the “pro” tag?) … I was meerly stating the obvious fact that we DEFINITELY already HAVE a baby!!!

There was an article in Readers Digest this month (not usually very deep reading – it is most often found in bathrooms…) asking the question again, “When does life begin?” They were saying that now with modern science and medicine we can actually preserve babies who are born prematurely much earlier than we could before. Even before that magic abortion cut-off of 26 weeks. (Apparently abortion is illegal after 26 weeks in most states) Just raising the question of when abortion is ethical and ok… In addition to that, they mentioned the Scott Peterson deal where he is being tried for the murder of his pregnant wife AND their unborn son. (NOT a fetus, as abortion legislation and proponents would suggest…)

There has been so much heated debate over this issue… but I truly (from my least conservative white male christian perspective) can not see why? Really. Go see an ultrasound. Watch the baby move and act and re-act in the womb. Understand that as early as 8 weeks I think that baby is doing most of the stuff it will do outside of the womb. It’s a baby.

Infanticide has been practiced in many cultures for various reasons throughout history. And, approx 30 yrs ago we decided to try it in ours, but we have made it pretty neat and tidy by calling it pro-choice. How sad.

God, forgive us for our continuous progression away from you. Please continue to wake us up and turn us around and give us another chance to walk with You again. Please wake your church up and use us as your hand and feet and your voice in this country that was founded by people who love you. Use me, God. And this growing and awesome family you have given me.

For more of the photos from the ultra-sonic photo shoot, click here.

Our small group is going through the Experiencing God study… very cool. And, well, a big part of that is knowing where God is working around you, and seeing him lead in your life. Well, sometimes it seems hard to see where he is leading (or if he is leading at all)

I have begun to think that is because we are so very impatient. We want “leading” on our timetable. I do. Don’t you? I have stuff I need to do (for God, of course..) and it gets frustrating when things are not happening according to my schedule! That is happening for me right now – even this morning… and I am remembering to just sit back, relax, and smile… knowing that God’s timing is better than mine.

I am trying to iron out all the weirdness with our upcoming trip to FL, but it only gets weirder. Nothing is working out. It totally reminds me of Acts 16 where God wanted Paul in Macedonia, not the other places he was trying to go.

SO… God.. (I figure God reads my BLOG more than anybody else, so I often address him here, too…) where is our Macedonia? You have freed up lots of room to do other stuff in FL (not the stuff I had planned – that I thought was from you …) Will you tell us? Or do I get to watch and listen and act in the moment that you have prepared for us? That is a lot harder. I like to plan. But I trust you.

Do you trust him? What if God has some major plan for your life — are you too scheduled to accept it? Or to even notice it? What if your only means of income (at least the one you control) was severely lessened…. would you trust him to provide when it seems like he couldn’t? OR would you scramble to make sure your needs were met?

"Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs, and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern."

That’s what I want to do. God, help me to do it.

Well… sometimes, that’s all you can say.

This morning, I had to wake up early (8am) to get up to finish some minor repair (maintenance) work on our van. I was going to be up there for a while, so I thought I would take advantage of that time and transfer all of my unanswered email files to the laptop – as I have done countless times before – but this time, I made a mistake. It was completely my fault. I just missed it. I transfered the old files onto the new ones. BUT, when I did that, it did not complete the transfer for some reason … and I reconfigured the network so that I could transfer again — and this time, I copied the EMPTY files onto the laptop – so now ALL of our email files were ERASED. Gone. That was sad.

So I spent 45 min trying with futility to recover. And by then, I really had to go. I was late for our appointment with the van. I was so bothered by all of that. Just really bothered. But I was starting to say… what can ya do… when…

There was a stop sign. I forgot about the stop sign. I was supposed to stop.

I slammed on the brakes… started skidding a bit (though, not really, cause they’re anti-lock brakes) and heading very quickly and out of control for this very dangerous intersection. I did not want to go through it, so I tried to turn… but it was no use. I went right through the intersection, and by now I was off the road… and heading straight for a tree! So, I turned hard one more time.. and I just caught the tree with my right front bumper… going about 20-30 mph… and well…

The van is no more.

Air bags deployed. Right side of the vehicle is crumpled. Frame is bent. Lots of bad bad stuff.

I was on my way to finish the tune-up. We had just replaced everything. Including the $2300 transmission job.

What are ya gonna do? 🙂

The worship service we were part of last night was about praising God when everything around you is crazy. That is what we get to do today. We know that He loves us and we know that He will come through on this. No matter how crazy it looks. We know.

So… know with us. Whatever’s going on around you… or to you…or whatever. God knows. And He is gonna work stuff out for you in such a way that you will say GOD GETS THE GLORY! Glory’s a weird word… the props… the honor… he’s da man.

Remember that.

We really don’t know anything yet on the status of our van. We know it still doesn’t go. 🙂 The State Farm Insurance folks called yesterday, and said they heard of our rush, and so they will do their best… but their best is Monday. So, we wait.

Waiting is not that fun. But it’s better. If I could actually take control and get everything done, part of me would be thrilled. It’s fun to be able to accomplish things! Just yesterday, the loaner van our friends are letting us borrow had a fast turn signal indicator that indicates a burnt-out bulb. So, I pulled into NAPA Auto Parts and bought a bulb, and replaced it. I took control, solved the problem… felt good! (I must be a guy…) 🙂 But, there are probably more things in life that we can not control… where we have to wait on and trust other people – or even better (and harder?) … we have to wait on and trust God. To do more than we can ask or imagine. (Eph 3:20-21)

That’s what I am now praying for. More than I can ask or imagine.

We are going through a study right now called Experiencing God. Very cool. In today’s reading, he told a story about a time when their small church hired a pastor, but couldn’t pay his moving expense or his salary. Well, they determined to somehow give him $850/mo. They asked God to provide what they definitely could not. Within a short period of time, a church in Arkansas called and gave from their missions an $1,100 check. Out of the blue. Very cool. And then another group called and gave enough to cover one whole year of $850/mo! And that one was just as the new pastor was pulling in the driveway! They found out right then that the moving expenses they had were about $1,100!!!! Wow!

God is so much bigger than we usually let Him be. We usually relegate him to the fatal diseases and other immediate catastrophes… but we don’t let him take care of everyday things. We can do those. We should do those… it’s our responsibility. There is truth to that – God has trusted us with many things. BUT, He has not left us to do life on our own.

"And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever — the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. … But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you."

Read John 14-16

Today, I am going to think of ways that I can give God more room to be GOD in my life. One way is the van. WE can not do that one on our own. Yes we have insurance… but who knows if that is enough. We are still in debt just from the new transmission we put in the vehicle. I can not wait to see how God moves to provide so we can tell everyone how COOL he is!!! He is amazing, mighty, powerful, Provider… He is my God.