a reminder...

Have You Ever?

listen to this song if you get the chance. it has been a favorite of mine for some time now, and i always find myself listening to it when i'm challenged.

the reason i like it so much is that it reminds me to focus despite all my challenges on jesus. seek jesus.

in my time of change, of questioning, and of challenging my beliefs, i am truly seeking to know the heart and mind of jesus, and to embrace his mission.

lately this song has been on my mind, along with the following passage:

He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

just wanted to remind you why i am writing, and to remind myself who i am seeking.

my birthday

kerry woke me up early last thursday morning to celebrate my completion of 23 years of life!  i stumbled into the living room to find birthday streamers and balloons scattered around, with kerry waiting in the middle of it all, eager to present me with a gift!  am i lucky or what?  there is no greater joy that i've found than to wake up, roll over, and see her beautiful face watching me.  anyway, she  got me some new tennis balls since the weather is finally feeling like summer, as well as a brand new outdoor basketball!  we have a great little community court here that i can use now without having to borrow blake's ball!  finally, she also got me this wicked sweet water bottle (camelbak) that is bpa free.   the one in the picture is red like kerry's, but mine is dark green.  the blue cap on the bottle is actually where you suck the water through.  my co-worker called it a "man-nipple" though i don't think i'd go that far.  kerry and i had a nice dinner together that night, and a relaxing evening at home.  it was a great birthday.

the following evening i was expecting to have blake and sarah over for dinner.  we were going to have a huge mexican spread, and i was indeed looking forward to the tacos, guacamole, etc.  about 5:30, there's a knock on the door and kerry asks me to answer it.  to my surprise greg and sara fleehart had made the trek down from seattle and were at the door with blake and sarah!  it was quite a surprise!  for about 20 minutes we enjoyed the presence of our company, showing greg and sara around our new place and shared a few drinks.  then, another knock.  this time, nathan was at the door, and it was then i realized i truly have the greatest wife in the world.  she got all of our closest friends from the area (sans eileen who was in los angeles) to come and celebrate with us!  it was a fantastic evening with friends who we are quickly considering family.  i couldn't have asked for more on my birthday.  isn't kerry wonderful?

as a side note, greg and sara brought a few little gifts for me in this gift bag:

the bag is actually a hologram that changes between hannah montana and miley cyrus. amazing!

put away falsehood...

"Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body." Ephesians 4:25

throughout the last year or two (and even now) there have been and are some seriously ridiculous rumors going around about barack obama. please visit this site:

http://www.matthew25.org/paf/index.htm

i've posted a link under "stuff to read" as well. the site is called "put away falsehood." yes, they are a p.a.c. yes, they recently endorsed obama for president. but they present the facts surrounding some of the more serious rumors and lies. read and learn. then decide.

regarding mr pickens and those ads -->

just a quick note. t boone pickens' plan (if you don't know what it is, click on one of those ads -->) is doing a lot of good in terms of getting the entire country to wake up and pay attention to our current energy problems.

while i don't think his plan is flawless, i think it's a step in the right direction towards better energy sources for our power grid. by adding that many wind farms between canada and texas, we will surely be getting more power from a better, cleaner source. i think his plan to use these savings (monetary and with nat gas) for powering ngv's like honda's civic is a bit of a stretch. while natural gas is certainly a nice alternative to crude oil from opec, i think we need to focus on moving towards transportation that relies fully on renewable, clean energy sources. natural gas may be a nice intermediate step, but along with non-food agro products, i don't see it as a viable long term source.

still, t boone certainly has gotten more people to start thinking about moving in the right direction, which in this case is a good thing.

are you kidding me?

this might be one of the craziest things i've ever seen. the bush administration is attempting to label most common forms of contraception (the pill, iud's, the ring) as abortion! Read the full article here.

Treating the Pill as Abortion, Draft Regulation Stirs Debate
By STEPHANIE
SIMONJuly 31, 2008; Page A11
Set aside the fraught question of when human life begins. The new debate: When does pregnancy begin? The Bush Administration has ignited a furor with a proposed definition of pregnancy that has the effect of classifying some of the most widely used methods of contraception as abortion.

A draft regulation, still being revised and debated, treats most birth-control
pills and intrauterine devices as abortion because they can work by preventing
fertilized eggs from implanting in the uterus. The regulation considers that
destroying "the life of a human being." Many medical groups disagree. They
hold that pregnancy isn't established until several days after conception, when
the fertilized egg has grown to a cluster of several dozen cells and burrowed
into the uterine wall. Anything that disrupts that process, in their view, is
contraception.