By the Blue Light

2nd Coming Day

2011-12-22T11:48:00.000-08:00

Just was thinking today that we celebrate Christmas to rejoice in the coming of the Savior - when He was born and came "in the flesh", incarnate, or "with meat". And we celebrate Easter to take joy in his death for our sins, and resurrection, His conquering death and rising again so that we also - through relationship with Him - can rise again and not live eternally separated from God.

But just as an Advent celebration looks backward to remember his birth, it also looks forward to wait with great anticipation for His return. What a day that will be! While we will celebrate daily at His constant presence and our new restored perfect life actively in relationship with Him - no more sin and no more sorrow - I wonder if we will not also celebrate that "Return" day. So, Christmas 1, Easter and Christmas 2! 1st Coming Day, Easter and 2nd Coming Day!

Maybe it won't be necessary, and maybe every day will be filled with the joy and ease of Christmas, but perhaps there WILL be a day of remembrance still. For all God has done for us, over and over. God sent His son, then poured out His wrath on Him (instead of on you and me), resurrected Him and He's sending Him again as THE GREAT KING, a warrior savior who will make all things new.

Rainier Summit #2, June 10-12, 2011

2011-06-20T14:36:00.000-07:00

I always like to write trip reports on my bigger climbs so that I can remember them, record key learnings and share the stories with others who are interested. So, this documents my climb of Mt. Rainier via the Disappointment Cleaver route from Friday, June 10th to Sunday, June 12th, 2011. I climbed with good friends and climbing partners Ben and Mark Gossett. I do almost all of my climbing with them and really enjoy their personalities, temperament, attitudes toward climbing/safety, and shared love for Jesus. When you’re roping up to someone and trusting your life to them, it’s really nice to have so many things in common, and it’s also really nice to have done many climbs together already so that you know you can trust them.

The trip started out with a lot of blessing in that Ben and I were both able to get out on the same weekend without causing our wives too much trouble/extra work, as they were both out of town with the kids. It looked like there was going to be a weather window over the weekend, although there had been some snow on the mountain during the preceding days and we were a little concerned about avalanche danger. We decided to get up there to get a better feel for conditions.

We met up, drove to Paradise and left the trailhead at 4:30pm on Friday the 10th. We hit clouds around 6,500 ft (Paradise is at 5,400) and climbed into a foggy, grey world. Not really a white-out, but at times it was difficult to see the route/wands. At around 8,000 feet, the clouds parted and we made camp at around 8,200 feet – above the clouds. We carved out a platform in the snow, set up tents, boiled water, ate dinner and enjoyed the views. It got pretty cold that night (20’s?), but there was little wind. We were in our down bags for the night by 10pm (the sun had not set much earlier) and didn’t get up until 8am. None of us slept straight through of course, but we had a hard time getting out of the warm bags in the morning.

Looking down at the clouds from our camp at 8,200 feet.

Looking up at the summit from our camp at 8,200. Clear blue skies beckoning.

Eventually we got up, broke down camp and got focused on moving up again. It was warming up and sunny on our way up to Camp Muir at 10,100 feet, where we stopped to talk to the climbing rangers and use the pseudo-facilities (a glorified porta-potty that always seems like it could rocket down the hill at any moment because it’s tied to the side of the mountain). Shortly thereafter we left for Ingraham Flats and enjoyed the total snow coverage on Cathedral Gap, which is often a sliding rock pile by this time of year. The snow levels on Rainier are running about a month behind and were fantastic this weekend.

Porta-potties that hang on the side of the mountain at Camp Muir. They are "emptied" by helicopter.

We rolled into our high camp at Ingraham Flats at about 2:30pm and carved out a flat area in the snow with some wind protection. We spent the next five and a half hours melting snow and boiling water to stay hydrated in the morning. We realized we’d made a mistake in bringing only one stove – we really needed two in order to make quicker progress. Because of this error, we didn’t get into our bags and to sleep until about 8pm. It was going to be a short night’s sleep as we had set alarms for 11:45pm. The stove issue also meant we were not able to hydrate well that afternoon and evening (Saturday), which would cause us trouble on Sunday.

Our camp at Ingraham Flats at 11,100 feet - our launching point for a summit bid. This camp is basically level with the top of Little Tahoma (in the background), Washington's 3rd-highest summit.

Alarms went off at 11:45pm – we were up getting harnesses and crampons on by midnight. We had laid the rope out with our ice axes already, so we were ready to go by 12:45am. I tried to eat a dessert bar I had set aside, but it was frozen solid so I wasn’t able to eat it. I also had another huge issue: I had recently bought a larger platypus (water carrier) with an insulated tube and cap (the thin tubes don’t work on Rainier at altitude, where it’s very cold, without insulation anyway). Apparently, they don’t work WITH insulation either. The mouthpiece was already freezing and soon I had no water – I would have to share with Ben and Mark and carry my water to replenish them.

We left camp and headed up the hill and to the right to avoid a large crevasse. We stepped over a small one (one foot) and tried to make quick progress through an area where large house-sized ice-blocks loom (and where 13 people died in an ice fall in the 80’s). The route transferred onto the Disappointment Cleaver after skirting a few rock outcroppings. The guide companies had installed a fixed line in this section of the climb, because of steepness that could cause problems for their clients, but we avoided it. We climbed up the steep section and onto the spine of the Cleaver, and kept moving up for about an hour until we hit the top of the Cleaver at 12,100 feet. We rested for about 5 minutes and I was able to get some water from Ben and Mark. At this altitude even their better insulated bottles were getting cold.

This is the "Disappointment Cleaver" seen after we were back down. If you look closely, you can see climbers on the spine.

We continued our progress, traversing out to the North towards the Emmons Glacier. The traverse across was fairly flat (even down a bit) to skirt around a few icefalls. Even the flat traverse though had significant exposure and large crevasses (big enough to drop a house into) at the bottom. It was important to step carefully and to be ready to self-arrest a fall by yourself or a climbing partner. I kept my headlamp focused on the path in front of me and avoided the sometimes disorienting look out into the exposure and lower peaks looming up from below. Sometime around now, the sun came up and began to warm our environs a bit.

This is the traverse out to the Emmons Glacier and the large crevasses below. The pic is not taken straight - it should look a little bit steeper.

We kept going up, climbing up the switch backs and eventually made another stop for water on a steep section, where a large group passed us. Once we got going again, we passed them as they rested on a few ice steps along the route. We were now at about 13,300 feet. I was bonking. The altitude, lack of water and poor food consumption at the beginning of the climb (down at 11,100) was catching up to me and I was lacking will power. I was doing a lot of taking 6-8 steps, one full breath at each step, stopping, breathing hard and then moving again. Mark was doing a good job of giving a little tug from above (he was in front now) to keep our rope team moving. We converged with a group of guys coming up from the Gib Ledges route (a steeper and more exposed route directly out of Camp Muir) who congratulated us on the self-supported climb, and we all kept moving up. It was tiring, but we knew we were close.

This picture is taken near the crater rim.

A short bit later, at 6am, we crested the crater rim at about 14,100, walked into the center of the crater, dropped our packs, unroped and collapsed onto our gear. All of my water was frozen, even water in my pack. My suntan lotion (which I needed) was frozen, and I munched on barely edible frozen gummy worms. They warmed in my mouth and allowed me to swallow them. I needed the sugar boost. Ben and Mark’s water was nearly frozen too, but we were able to share it between us.

We finally got going again and trudged slowly up to the Columbia Crest true summit at 6:30am. It was cold and the wind was blowing pretty good. It was probably 10-15 degrees and 0 with the 10-15 mile/hour wind. It was a beautiful summit morning though – the clouds were still down low at 8-10,000 feet – and we could see both the city of Seattle and all of the big peaks around us. As I took a 360 degree video, including a view of the Liberty Cap summit, it was sad to realize later that a 50 year old man was struggling for life somewhere near that summit right around the same time.

Mark, me and Ben (left to right) on the summit at 6:30am.

The crater - we are headed back down now.

We didn’t stay long on top, made our way back to the shelter of the crater, fueled up a bit more, re-roped and headed down. We were moving slowly and allowed several groups to pass us. We wanted to be safe and make good decisions with our footsteps and knew that slow was better. Once we got back to 13,000 feet, the air thickened up a little bit and it was getting warmer. I took off my down sweater and we continued to make our way down. Once we got to the top of the Cleaver at 12,100, it was getting hot and we were feeling better. After a 10-15 minute break, we headed down the steep Cleaver, stepping carefully and short-roping. Surprisingly, there were still people headed up the Cleaver, even though it was 10 in the morning, well after a normal start time to avoid ice movement, crevasse falls and avalanche danger. We made quick work of the Cleaver, traversed quickly through the section of giant house-sized ice blocks that hang above the route, and trudged into camp. It was 10:45am and we had been moving for 10 hours solid after less than 4 hours of broken sleep.

Ben leading back down - at the top of the Cleaver.

We are almost back to our high camp now.

We collapsed into our tents, refueled on water and snacks, boiled some fresh water for the down-climb and began to pack up. By 1pm we were ready to move and headed down to Camp Muir. At every step the air was getting thicker. At Camp Muir, the clouds were beginning to come up-mountain a bit, and as we descended past the 10,000 foot mark, we moved into the clouds. We made quick work of the Muir snowfield and down-climb to Paradise, arriving at 4:30pm. We had been moving for almost 16 hours. In what seemed like a gift from God, as we stepped onto pavement again for the first time in three days, it began to rain. We had had beautiful weather all weekend, so the fact that the rain held off seemed like a blessing.

We gave a prayer of thanksgiving, then it was back off to civilization, half pound burgers and chocolate shakes at the Highlander and warm beds at home.

1999 Kelly and Now Kelly

2011-05-05T12:26:00.000-07:00

I am always moved to write you or call you when I remember "the old days". Julius' pictures struck a chord with me. I loved those days. I always loved you and I still do. I loved you for years before you loved me, you know? It killed me that you only gave me passing attention. I am so glad God chose to move to burden your heart and change your heart towards me. Thank you God for giving me Kelly.

I loved the easy way we spent time together. I loved your smile and that laugh. I loved your strong confidence probably more than anything. You knew who you were and you still do. I loved your passion for Jesus. You knew him and you still do. More now, even, as he has sanctified you and changed you and refined you through the heat of marriage, life, children, hardship in living far from home, building new friendships and missing old ones, and trying to figure out how to best use your strong giftings.

Love, I loved you then but I love you more now. Then we were two, and we were a strong two. A bold match and two feisty warriors who knew what they loved and what they believed. But now we are five. That same two, plus three gifts. One little passionate lady so full of life, full of all the bold confidences, joys, passions and fires of her mama and daddy, and even with all that fervor still a petite feminine beauty. One little lady who personifies grace, easygoing, beautiful, quiet spirited but not without thoughts (many of them), a dainty little lady who wears the effects of femininity like a crown. And a little boy with strength, masculinity, life, strong hands that move little mountains, strong feet that go brazenly into new adventures, and yet a sensitive spirit that hides behind mama’s legs when daddy roars too strong.

We’re older now too, aren’t we? Maybe we don’t cut the same figures or cast the same shadow. We both show the physical effects that God said we’d wear because of the fall. And we battle some of the same or maybe even new demons at times. But I am thankful that Jesus is rooted even more deeply than ever in us. He has intertwined himself into every sinew of our being, every thought, breath and step. He has been our refuge in each storm, and he is the warrior King that storms into each situation ahead of us. He is somehow also a gentle warrior King though, and I pray with every part of me that some of that life giving Spirit is wearing off on us.

Love, most of all, thank you for your patience with me, your broken husband who loves you but does that so poorly at times. My heart is for you, but it so often loves itself first. I confess that to you and Jesus and I am praying for more growth, that my heart would be growing in Jesus-focus, self-sacrifice and grace for you and our little people.

Love, as we approach ten years of marriage together and fourteen years as friends, this next year I hope to wash you with the Word and in prayer, protecting you and our family from the evil one, his servants, their works and effects. And proactively entering – through prayer and closeness with Jesus – into the work God has for us in this life.

I love you Charlotte 1999 Kelly and I love you Now Kelly.

Humbled.

2011-03-17T11:18:00.000-07:00

I am humbled today watching this video. My callous heart has often ignored and de-valued the great Gospel of Jesus and taken for granted the great gift of having the Scriptures in my language, at arm's reach, at my fingertips day in and day out.

Oh great God forgive my arrogance and callous heart.

The Kimyal People Receive the New Testament from UFM Worldwide on Vimeo.

Silly government, truth is for kids!

2011-03-16T17:59:00.000-07:00

Articles like this, which come out quietly months after everyone has mostly gotten used to getting their naked junk photographed in full-body scanners, remind me that I and others are silly to take everything the government says at face value.

Remember back when the scanners were getting installed and a few watch-dog groups came out and said that the radiation was actually 10 times higher than the government claimed? And the government supposedly re-tested and said "nope, we were right." Well, whoopsy-daisy they did the math again and darned that stinkin' extra zero those watch-dog groups were right again!

Now, I'm not saying that the extra 0 really means that these are dangerous, but I'd think twice if I was a regular multi-times per week traveler. No radiation with my Wheaties thanks very much. My point really is that we ought to carefully question the "powers that be" that say what's what and take it or leave it. It's also worth thinking hard about whether its cool to allow someone to grope you just because you don't want to get photographed nekkid (haha that was for my southern crowd). Uber point: think critically.

Jesus-filled Job

2011-03-15T15:44:00.000-07:00

It is not likely that this would be my reaction:

"18 While he was still speaking, yet another messenger came and said, “Your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house, 19 when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on them and they are dead, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”

20 At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship 21 and said:

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will depart.[c]
The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;
may the name of the LORD be praised.”

22 In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing."

Pretty incredible person that must have been filled with much Jesus-oriented, savior-longing, God-sustaining grace and trust.

Moms of multiples are freaks of nature

2010-11-29T13:52:00.000-08:00

This kills me because it is SO incredibly accurately true of the kinds of conversations we have with people sometimes.

Funny things the kids have said lately

2010-11-09T10:25:00.000-08:00

G: Daddy, you are handsome!
Me: G! Thank you! That is so sweet!
.....
Me: G, what does handsome mean?
G: I don't know! (smiles)
.....
K: You are handsome Daddy.
K: Daddy, Eric is handsome.
Me: Who's Eric?
K: Princess Ariel.
Me: Oh, is Eric the Prince in the Little Mermaid?
K: Yes.

-----------------------------------

At the dinner table, S is sitting next to me.
S: Da-E, Yook!
Me: Kelly, did he just say Daddy Look?
S: Da-E, Yook!
S is balancing his cup upside down on his tray and wants me to see! Thus begins a long future of a boy trying to impress his Dad, huh?

Does this make smoke come out of any of your ears?

2010-11-02T11:24:00.000-07:00

Wow! It's been a long time since I've paid any attention to this blog. Life is getting back to normal lately, though, and I want to get back to it.

Here's a little kick-off: Does this article (and the associated content of course) make smoke come out of any of your ears? Does it bother you or no? The article is about new airport screening techniques that include aggressive pat-downs by security if you choose not to go through a full-body screener. According to the article, there will soon be ~1,000 or so full-body screeners in airports around the country, so we will all soon have this choice to make.

Here are some choice quotes from the article:

'The new searches are done with screeners' hands sliding over a passenger's body. However, the searches require screeners to touch passengers' breasts and genitals.'

'"As a woman, it is somewhat unnerving to have someone touching you in these areas in full public view."'

'An effective pat down "has to be invasive" and touch both breasts and genitals, says Billie Vincent, a former security director for the Federal Aviation Administration. "It is clearly a technique that most people would consider an invasion of their privacy."'

'"Are we giving people two intolerable actions at airports?" Calabrese asks. "They can be virtually strip-searched or endure a really aggressive grope?"'

In summary, I like this Ben Franklin quote: "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." Is this really the United States? Is this what we have come to? I think it is sad we have let our fears about terror take us to this place. It doesn't seem right to me.

Andrew Peterson - Dancing in the Minefields (Official Video)

2010-07-27T12:41:00.000-07:00

Andrew Peterson is one of my favorites - great voice and amazing writer. This song "Dancing in the Minefields" is from his newest album, which I don't have yet, but sounds amazing. I wanted to share the song because it was an encouragement to me and encapsulates so much of what I think and feel about my own marriage. Being married is hard, harder than I thought it would be. But is has so much joy in it too and it's exactly where God has called me to be. He has used my marriage to my sweet bride Kelly to challenge me, refine me, crush me and lift me up. It has been a great tool for sanctification and a means by which I as a man get to articulate the Gospel - trying to be like Jesus in laying down my life for my bride.

Please enjoy and, if you're married, be encouraged! You and I both, like the couple in this video, can dance with our spouse when we're old and grey and when many hardships and joys have passed between our hands. Jesus is faithful to be our root, our strength and our guide.

Nine years of marriage today

2010-07-07T17:24:00.000-07:00

To my sweet Kelly,

It’s hard to believe that it’s been nine years! I loved going to breakfast with you this morning. Is that something that older couples do, though? It’s true, we’re getting older. I’ll be 35 this summer. You’re 32. We’ve been married for almost a decade and I’ve known you for 13 years. Incredible.

I loved talking with you this morning and thinking through all of the ways we have changed and grown and matured over these nine years. No doubt the big E on the eye-chart is the growing we have left to do. Nine years has refined us in many ways, but it has made so much about who we are and who are not so evident too, hasn’t it?

What I know more and more though is that I love you, your companionship, your sweet smile, your fiery personality that takes no prisoners, your giftings, your Holy Spirit leadings, and your kindness.

I love what a devoted and incredible Mommy you are. So intentional about the Scriptures, about teaching them verses, about teaching them words and letters and numbers, about letting them help you cook (and learn from you), about guiding them through craft projects. You are a faithful and strong Mommy.

I love your heart for the Gospel and for the Word. I love how much you love Jesus and His ways. I love how much you connect with Him and hang on that time.

There are so many other things I’m thankful about. But on this day I just want you to know that I love you and am proud of you and so thankful to Jesus that He saw fit to give you to me. I really enjoy being married to you and Lord willing can’t wait for more.

Love you sweet baby.
Me

Not much else to say but this

2010-05-21T11:02:00.000-07:00

This is my heart this week. Hard week on a couple of different levels. But Jesus has used this week to just rip away every one of my idols and engage me full force. No Kelly. No KG&S. I have felt out of shape and like I may not climb this summer.

Idol #1 crushed. Check.
Idol #2 busted. Check.
Idol #3 smashed. Check.
Idol #4 rocked. Check.

You get the picture.

Sometimes when I am talking with little K and she is sitting on my lap, someone else will say something and I will turn to respond. She will take those two hands and rip my eyes back into perfect contact with hers. Eye to eye and nose touching noses.

Jesus has done that with me this week. It's been painful, but necessary and meaningful. And I pray that He would keep me close. Psalm 42-46 have been my heart this week. And Romans 15. And Psalm 112.

Thank you Jesus for your word and for your hands turning my wandering face back to you.

Jesus, I Come

1. Out of my bondage, sorrow and night,
Jesus, I come; Jesus I come.
Into Thy freedom, gladness and light,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
Out of my sickness into Thy health,
Out of my wanting and into Thy wealth,
Out of my sin and into Thyself,
Jesus, I come to Thee.

2. Out of my shameful failure and loss,
Jesus, I come; Jesus, I come.
Into the glorious gain of Thy cross,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
Out of earth’s sorrows into Thy balm,
Out of life’s storms and into Thy calm,
Out of distress into jubilant psalm,
Jesus, I come to Thee.

3. Out of unrest and arrogant pride,
Jesus, I come; Jesus, I come.
Into Thy blessed will to abide,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
Out of myself to dwell in Thy love,
Out of despair into raptures above,
Upward forever on wings like a dove,
Jesus, I come to Thee.

4. Out of the fear and dread of the tomb,
Jesus, I come; Jesus, I come.
Into the joy and light of Thy home,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
Out of the depths of ruin untold,
Into the peace of Thy sheltering fold,
Ever Thy glorious face to behold,
Jesus, I come to Thee.

2010-05-18T11:03:00.000-07:00

The Story of Zac Smith from NewSpring Media on Vimeo.

I am increasingly certain that life is very fragile. We are either close to or aware of many people with cancer or other life-threatening disease. We are also close to or aware of many people, Kelly and I included in the list, who fight about much simpler and sillier issues. Oh that those of us who enjoy good health today would take joy in it and fight less.

May we be encouraged by men and women like Zac, who recently lost his battle with cancer, who love Jesus faithfully even when times are very very rough. May we celebrate every day that we have with our spouses, our family members, our children.

God is good, in both good and bad he is sovereign and he is good. Oh that we would understand this truth as many who have walked through the darkest hell still understand it.

Oh, how He love us, Oh, oh, how he loves us.

A song / a prayer

2010-04-28T11:09:00.000-07:00

This came through on the ipod today and it spoke to my heart as a beautiful song and prayer for the day:

take my heart and help me feel
take my faith and make it real
take my eyes and help me see
all the love surrounding me

don’t let me go
hold me close to where you are
don’t let me go
take my heart take all of me

take my loss and take my gain
take my trials and take my pain
take my life and let it be
all that you would have for me

don’t let me go
hold me close to where you are
don’t let me go
take my heart take all of me

Found my ring

2010-04-16T21:09:00.001-07:00

My wedding ring has been missing since Monday night. I have felt naked without it. I have a habit of touching my pinky finger to my ring to make sure it's there. I have still been doing it this week without the ring. Ugh.

The girls have been very into wedding rings lately (they say "you are mawwied to Mommy"). K asked to hold it Monday night and I said yes. 45 minutes later I remembered that I had given it to her. She had been in the family room and was, until Thursday, still in her cast. And she didn't have her boot/shoe thing over the cast, so I knew she hadn't left the room. She won't walk on the hardwoods in her cast without her boot on. So I thought it was isolated to that room.

I looked through everything Monday night. No luck. Tuesday night I came home and moved everything from the family room into the kitchen and painstakingly re-assembled the room, going through everything, dusting, vacuuming, going through the contents of the vacuum, everything. No luck.

Wednesday night I looked again, but half-heartedly. It seemed so frustrating to look with no success. Last night I spent two hours going through every nook and cranny of the couch, the big chair and the leather chair. Nothing.

I became convinced that K had put it into her cast - it just seemed like the only place left. She would say at times that she had, then later would say she hadn't. We waited with anticipation for her Thursday doctor's appointment for an x-ray and cast removal. The leg had healed, but the ring wasn't there.

Tonight I was putting the girls to bed and came out of their bathroom. There was a small basket on the floor outside the study with a bunch of crafts in it. I had seen it last night and thought to look in it, but glanced and realized there was no way my ring was in there because it hadn't been in the family room earlier. So I passed it by and spent two hours on the family room instead.

Tonight on the way to the girls' bedroom I saw it again and picked it up to put it on the banister to remind myself to look later. Then I noticed two socks in there and was in the process of gathering socks for the girls to put on for bed. I grabbed them and one was heavy. I got excited because I saw it had something solid in in. I squeezed the sock and got more excited and was thrilled to dump the sock out and find my ring. What a joy! The girls rejoiced with me too.

My guess is that Kelly had been cleaning and brought that little basket upstairs sometime after K had set the ring in the sock in the basket, all within 45 minutes of me giving it to her and realizing it wasn't in plain view.

This sounds silly, but I have felt naked without that ring. It is such a symbol of my love for and commitment to Kelly. It's present on my hand every time I use my hands to talk at work, every time I walk through the store, every time I brush my teeth and go to bed at night. For almost nine years it has been as much a part of my body as my finger... I rarely take it off.

I felt this week like the woman who lost the gold coin who proceeds to "light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it[?] ⁹And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.'"

So friends, rejoice with me! Thank you Jesus for helping me to find this ring that I love and which always brings back to me the fond memories I have of that hot day in July when I stood before my friends and family and married my sweetheart.

Cowan Family Update March 2010

2010-03-08T17:27:00.000-08:00

It’s been a long time since I’ve blogged, mostly because we’ve been really busy and when we have a free minute, I’ve been using it to veg, rather than blog. Work is really busy for me. I am working on our Global Strategy team now, no longer our Marketing & Category strategy team, so I have been really busy helping drive development of the company’s 2011-2013 global strategy.

Things at home have been such a joy lately. The girls’ language skills have really exploded and S is fully mobile. He pretty much walks wherever he wants to go now, although it is also common for him to take 15-20 steps and then sit down and crawl the rest of the way. He gets tired! But he can start, stop, turn, squat down, etc. It’s very cute. He looks so little to be walking. He hasn’t learned to stand up in the middle of the room (without something to pull up on) yet, but he is pretty close. He can get up on both knees and then puts one foot flat on the floor, but this is a pretty hard way to learn to stand without support because it requires a lot of balance.

Anyway, there have been a lot of funny things said by the little ladies lately, and other funny happenings:

When I get home lately, K has been running up to me with that big grin of hers for a hug... she yells, “Daddy!”, puts her hands on the side of my face and says “Daddy you my best fwiend!” G will interrupt her to say “No, Daddy my best fwiend!” So sweet. They are convinced both that being someone’s best friend is something exclusive, and also that every member of the family is best friends with every other member.

Last night when I was putting the girls to bed, I went over to snuggle with K and I told her what a fun day I had had with her. She said “Daddy, I don’t want you to go to work tomorrow.” I told her I had to go to work so that I could earn some money and take care of the family. This morning when she got up we were downstairs and she said “Daddy, you have to go to work to buy some money.” I said, yeah.

Both girls love to help me go get S up when he wakes up. They run in and stand on the side of his crib and giggle. He loves it and stands up to see them. I think it makes his day.

Little G continues to be so good at playing by herself. She is great with K too, but she is very easy-going when alone and doesn’t require a lot of outside input. This was how I was when I was a kid too (so my Mom says). The other night I was cleaning up toys after they had gone to bed and decided to leave an amazing little set-up I found on the coffee table where G had been. It was about 12 little stuffed animals organized into types of animals and by size, all around a table with a cake on it, and sitting in chairs. There were two tigers together, Two bears, two lambs, etc. Very cute and smart.

The girls are making some pretty good progress on potty-training. We’ve decided to just take a relaxed approach and let them practice and practice until they’re ready at their own pace. Some weeks K has a great week and some weeks G has a great week. Maybe this is too much info, but for us it’s a huge thing: K has gone number 2 in the toilet every day for about 5 days now. She hasn’t asked us, but we’ve been asking her if she’s interested and she is and does. Meaning, we haven’t changed a K dirty diaper in almost a week. Pretty cool stuff (all you parents will understand!).

One other cool thing, I told K to buckle herself into her carseat yesterday and to my surprise, she did. Usually she can get the top plastic buckle and that is it. Yesterday she buckled the top, pressed the two metal connects fully into the bottom connect until they clicked and then pulled the strap to pull it tight. I had to tighten it up some more of course, but I was sort of shocked. I have seen some adults struggle with our car seats so this is no small accomplishment for a not-yet-three year old. Haha!

In addition to walking, S is learning to do some other things: He eats babyfood like a champ, he loves cheerios, he love to swirl his hands across a tray of cheerios and knock them onto the floor, etc. This morning he came over to grab my electric razor while I was sitting on the floor with them and shaving. I wouldn’t let him have it so he rolled onto his stomach, yelled, straightened his body into a little U and threw a tantrum. It sort of caught me off guard because we haven’t seen a lot of his depravity yet, but it was sort of cute too (for the first time, anyway). Yesterday he was carrying K’s lamby, she noticed and took it from him, he turned around and gave her two swift open-hand smacks to the back. Kelly and I were sort of shocked and I had to sit him down and have a talk with him about it.

S has learned to do a war-cry type “oh oh oh oh” thing (what else do you call this?) by hitting his open palm to his mouth while yelling. Kelly taught him this randomly last week when he was crying and she was trying to distract him. He learned it immediately and now does it to himself and to others at will.

He has also learned to turn the water on in our bathtub. This is a big no-no in our book because while there’s no way he could get in there, I still worry that somehow he could get the water on, get in the tub and stop up the water. It’s probably an impossible thing to worry about, but I still do. So, when he touches the hot/cold water handles, I say no touch and do the baby-sign symbol. If he touches it again, I will give a little smack to his hand while it’s on the handle until he moves his hand. This morning he was looking at the handles (wanting so badly to touch them), touching his fingers to his thumb (the baby sign) and yelling “Na Da! Na Da!” which sure sounds a lot like No Touch to me, but who knows!

K and G both really love to go to church and always ask if we can “sing songs” (we bring them in to worship after their Sunday school). K goes running for Buzz Lightyear when she gets there, which explains why she wants to have a Buzz party for her pending b-day. For some reason she also has been talking about having a “red” birthday, so we’ll see what we can come up with for that.

Other than the kid stuff, which has been a constant joy, Kelly and I have been keeping busy with our Tuesday night community group, a Thursday morning group I’m in and a Friday group Kelly is in, and we’ve been getting more involved with mentoring and counseling a few Mars Hill folks.

Additionally, we just started a “Love and Respect” training taught by a Godly older couple at our church, and will be doing that on Friday nights for about 2 months with about 10 other couples, about half of whom we know and really like and respect. Should be fun.

We have also been really blessed to have Pastor John Piper teach at Mars Hill twice in the last couple of weeks (all on one weekend), a tremendous joy to us. And we are really looking forward to getting some vacation time in April and May. I have only taken a couple of days of vacation since we were in Charlotte last September, and the days I took were in October, so we are overdue. We are going to Palm Desert for some warm weather and family time in April, and then will be in Charlotte/Wild Dunes in May. While I’m updating, one other thing I’ve been up to is kicking around a business idea with my friend Tyler. We’re excited to see if something cool could come together for us to do in our voluminous free time :).

So, that’s the update!

My Love

2010-01-08T11:37:00.001-08:00

I’ll never forget the day I first met her. It was after church, I was out with a huge group of friends and this beauty was sitting at another table with a good friend. I was more outgoing that I am now. Now I am settled, the king of my small dominion, less need to be out bouncing around. But that day I bounced over to a number of different tables, if only to keep from looking like I was bouncing to only one table. But focus on that table I did.

Those killer blue eyes and straight brown hair not quite to her shoulders. This was one to write home about. And there hadn’t been many of those. I was never the dating-around type. I was then what I am now – focused, intentional and goal-oriented. I didn’t date around because I knew what I wanted and I hadn’t found it yet. Oh that I could burn that perspective into my children, that they would not waste their time and heart, but be intentional or move on to God’s best.

But back to my love. I talked to her off and on that night (as much on as I could!), hopped a curb in front of her in my brand new truck to be a show-off. Oh twenty-two looks so different from thirty-four, I hope. And then flirted with her (and she with me) as we drove back to the church. Once there, I told her she was gorgeous and that I wanted to get to know her. She smiled, told me she’d be around, and that was that. My heart was sold, gone, finished for that girl. I never loved anyone else again. Never.

A couple of weeks later I wrote her and told her I felt like God had freed me, even encouraged me to pursue her. She wrote me back in that classic blunt style she is famous for and told me that if she and I worshipped the same God, how could He be telling her something so different? She was currently “it’s complicated” with some other guy, and it would remain that way for the next few years. We agreed to just be friends, although when I had the occasional opportunity to spend time with her, it was like a knife in my back if she wasn’t as flipped over me as I was her (which she rarely was).

I felt God asking me to be patient with her heart, to pursue her in friendship ways, but not to smother her. Give her space. We built our friendship a little bit. I heard a lot about her from my high-schoolers who knew and loved her. Near my second to last summer in Charlotte, I heard she was thinking about marrying that other guy. He was even at our youth group beach trip that second-to-last summer. I knew I was going to have to tell her that he wasn’t the guy to marry and that I was. I wasn’t going to be able to let it go. I was preparing to make my Custer’s-last-stand, even if it meant I carried my heart back home in a bag full of arrows.

Soon after, things ended with them. My heart had a huge flare of excitement and hope, but it wasn’t time for me to chase her down yet. She hadn’t said yes to my efforts. I knew men should be intentional and I wasn’t afraid of doing that, but I had started it off that way three years earlier (however immaturely) and she had never yet said yes to my efforts. She had tried to set me up with friends. She always spoke well of me. But her heart wasn’t yet open to a me-and-her.

I did ask her to go on a double-date with me and a friend though. I didn’t want to scare her, so I called it a just-friends thing. In fact, in my weakness, I asked her over voice-mail. She spent hours analyzing my tone and what I meant when I said “just friends.” We went out with the other couple and then spent hours talking over dessert.

And then a switch flicked in her. This person that never called me, never emailed, never responded with an open heart was calling and emailing. Her car broke down at midnight when I was out of town at Thanksgiving and she called me thinking I could help her out. I would have if I’d been in town. Next time I saw her she was stunning. She always looked nice, but why so stunning tonight? Was it for me?

That same night she confronted me and asked if my heart was still interested. Could we try a her-and-me? I had to stifle a grin, a shout, a wild crazy drunk-on-love dance around the parking lot. This lovely girl was opening her heart to me.

And thus began a wild love affair that saw us engaged six months later and married three months after that. And now we’ve been married for 8 years, 26 weeks and 3 days. Sweet love of mine.

My Kelly is so good for me. So perfectly suited. Don’t get me wrong – we can fight with the best of them. We can argue till the sun goes down. We can pick and fight and annoy and hurt like there ain’t no tomorrow.

But at the end of the day there is no one like her for me. We are perfectly suited. Both fiercely passionate and strong. She would crush, absolutely demolish, a lot of men. And I would ruin a lot of women. But God has matched our strengths together for a purpose. For who He wants the two of to grow into and what He wants us to do with our lives. And He has matched our weaknesses together to help us change. To help us become different than these despicable Jesus-forgetting people we are so much of the time.

I’m thirty-four now. I was twenty-two when I first laid eyes on that beauty with the not-quite-shoulder-length brown hair and crazy beautiful big blue eyes. Our lives have changed in immeasurable ways. We lived in Charlotte then and have been gone from there almost a decade now. We were just babies then. And now we’ve had four babies, lost one, are growing and loving and just absolutely crazy in love with the other three. I was cocky and full of myself then. I still am now, but God has humbled me in so many ways that all I have left is to see that any good in me is Him. She was wild and strong and passionate then. And she still is now, but God has tempered it with a beautiful and graceful intentional spirit that is so wise and mature. She is one of the wisest, most intentional, faith-filled, passionate, God- and people-loving women that I have ever known or likely will ever know. God has given her so many gifts that I stand humbled by the daily strength required to lead her into using them effectively and for His purposes.

But mostly, I am still passionately in love with that beauty. My heart is for her. And I am thankful, oh so thankful, that God saw fit to let me be in her life, to let me be her husband, to give me the chance to be her leader and pastor.

Thank you Jesus for my Kelly. She’s a treasure I make a daily promise to shepherd with love, concern, passion and care. I love you sweet darling Kelly.

Kids and Prayer

2010-01-05T14:30:00.000-08:00

Prayer seems like it can be a very simple thing, and it should be. But it also seems like something you can work hard to cultivate in your children. We are doing that work with ours. I’ve said this on my blog before, but I very intentionally pray for each of them before I leave in the morning, and they know to pause what they are doing to come over and have me pray for them (OK, S doesn’t know yet :), but he will).

More lately, I have been trying to pray over little things with them if they have a problem. Last night K woke up in the middle of the night and was rubbing her eyes. She acted like they were bothering her, so I put my hands on them and asked God to help them feel better. Things like that.

We have also taken great joy lately in praying for others. We used to use prayer exclusively as a way to thank Jesus for various blessings during the day, and for people we love. But it has been nice that God has given us opportunities to pray for various people we know have needs, like Kate McRae or Pastor Matt. K saw me looking at Kate’s Caringbridge page the other day and looked at various pictures of her with me as I explained that she is sick. I could see the compassion in little K’s eyes as she tried to process why this little girl had lost her hair. And she and G both very quickly say “Kate and Matt” when I ask them now at night who they want to pray for.

Last night I was trying to explain prayer to them and articulated that when we pray, we are talking to God up in heaven, and that God’s heart loves us – that when we pray He listens and answers our prayer. And that God loves Matt and Kate and can help them feel better. K said “God’s heart wants help Matt and Kate feel better.” I said yes. Exactly.

It is lovely to see God and His heart springing up in their little hearts. It brings incredible joy to my spirit and to Kelly’s.

Christmas Traditions

2009-12-22T16:59:00.000-08:00

It is with the beautiful and encouraging writings of my wife, my friends and my pastor still fresh in my mind that I lay out a word about our Christmas traditions. Kelly did such a great job of outlining our heart behind our traditions, and I just thought I might add to it a bit and flesh it out with descriptions of some of the practical activities. As the leader of our household, I really connect with Pastor Mark’s description of Dad’s role in all of the activities and I cherish that responsibility.

Cutting a tree. We generally go cut our tree the day after Thanksgiving. We were going to a local Home Depot or Lowes in the past, but this year kicked off the wonderful (and now annual) tradition of going to a local tree farm. We found this great farm in North Bend that was literally in a small valley with Mt. Si looming over us. The owners were Christians (a rarity around here), which made it all the more special. It felt great to cut down a tree that’s been growing in our backyard for 10+ years and Kelly and I and the kids had a great time. Nani and Poppi came too. The girls’ favorite trees were the small ones that were their height.

Getting the house ready. We spent a good chunk of time that weekend getting out the Christmas decorations, putting them up, trimming the tree and putting the lights up outside. The girls had a ton of fun helping Kelly unwrap all of the ornaments and helped me put some of them on the low branches of the tree. The girls also have a small artificial tree that they decorate and redecorate throughout the month. S mostly crawls around and creates mayhem. We have what I consider to be a nice but not obscene number of white lights on outside. They are on timers so I don’t have to think about them again the rest of the season. And we put ornaments on a Christmas-tree-like tree out front. I have been challenged by something I read on Desiring God to ask myself how the external part of our house reflects our love for Jesus. Maybe we need a lit nativity? Or a lit Cross (I think I could make one for way cheaper)? That would be cool. I also intentionally do not do too many lights because I don’t want to get into a competition with some of my more ambitious and competitive neighbors.

Christmas Music. One of my secret vices (along with Diet beverages) is Christmas music. We have about 500 Christmas songs on our iPods. That doesn’t sound like that many until you think about it being roughly 50 albums and 50 hours of Christmas music playing without a stop. That’s a lot! We also often start in early November. I love Christmas music though – it always lends that Christmasy spirit to the season for me.

Various activities in the house with the kids. Kelly has her list of things she does with them during the week. I have a couple of things I like to do too, including building and decorating a Gingerbread house with them, watching Christmas movies (Polar Express, the Rudolph movie, others), cooking and decorating Christmas cookies, and reading Christmas books focused on the birth of Jesus.

Various activities outside the house with the kids. We have several other traditions or new traditions that we don’t necessarily do every year, but are part of the repertoire when we are looking for activities to enjoy the Christmas season. Some of these include going downtown to see the Gingerbread house display at the Sheraton, going to see the CRISTA Nativity displays (haven’t done this yet, actually), seeing the light display at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens, or the light display at Warm Beach (kind of a long drive). We also go to Bellevue Square as a family and let the kids (and me and Kelly too of course!) pick out an ornament for the year. I love Kelly’s idea of recording who’s is who’s and saving them to have as their “starter” set when they have their own tree some day.

Advent We have been excited to learn about and implement a real Advent study this year, including lighting five candles (one for each of the four Sundays before Christmas and the fifth on Christmas day) in additive progression as we approach Christmas. It’s been really interesting to learn about Advent’s meaning (“coming”) and its application as 1) remembering that Jesus came, 2) looking to the ways that His coming, and His having left His Holy Spirit with us, effects us and grows us today and 3) looking to His coming again in glory. I love the picture of the light growing (adding lit candles each Advent Sunday)as the true light comes and arrives and we’ll look forward to practicing this with greater wisdom every year (this year seems like we’re just taking baby steps!).

The Christmas story We have tried to be really faithful to read and know the true redemptive depth of the Christmas story. We have read it again and again to the girls, we have read parts of it during the Advent candle lighting, and we’re even going to try to memorize “Matthew’s Begats” (the rich genealogy of Jesus) with the kids in future years – Andrew Peterson has a really catchy and fun version that is full of life and meaning.

Thoughtful consideration of others God has put it on our hearts to grow in the area of generosity at Christmas (and other times). I in particular need to grow in this area. Someone reminded me recently of Oskar Schindler’s broken realization – despite having saved over 1,000 Jews from concentration camps during World War II – that he could have done more. We live such rich lives and even giving in a small sacrificial way can bless someone else and help us keep an attitude of distance from a love and pursuit of money and wealth. A few things we have been oriented towards this year: Helping our community group take care of a family in need, “Christmas bags” for the homeless (Kelly put new socks, cookies and some Scripture in a little gift bag and has been handing them out when she sees a homeless person on a street corner, in safe parts of town), and sending a care package to an orphan who is in our life. In past years, we have bought presents off of the World Vision Gift Catalog.

Christmas Movie date nights for me and Kelly Kelly and I have a bunch of Christmas movies we like to watch during this season, including Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, The Polar Express, Elf, It’s a Wonderful Life, and a few others. In the future, I’d like to check out The Nativity to see if it’s a good one to watch this time of year. We also started a new tradition of watching the Andrew Peterson Behold the Lamb of God Christmas concert DVD, which is a cool narrative of the Christmas story from Old Testament through New Testament.

Kelly Christmas Date Kelly and I always do a Christmas date in December. This year we got dressed up, had a great dinner at Daniel’s Broiler and then went to see The Rockettes Christmas Spectacular at the Paramount Theater. We really enjoyed the show – the first three quarters were pretty secular, dancing Santa Claus, Nutcracker scenes, the Rocketettes, 50’s style Christmas dancers, etc. But it finished with a very surprising bang: a living Nativity (real sheep, real camels, etc.), including the Wise Men and their train of people/animals. They read scripture from Isaiah and finished by reading “One Solitary Life,” about the influence and historical centrality of Jesus. Pretty amazing finish.

Dates and Buddy Time I do a special Christmas date (or buddy-time in S’s case) with the kids during this time of year. The girls each get to buy a special Christmas dress, I will take them out to eat and to do something special. I do this at other times of the year too, but we try to make this one extra special. S and I are going to start having a Christmas “buddy-time” too. This year I think we might do some last minute Christmas shopping (classic man-time, huh?), but in future years I’d love to take him go-kart racing and stuff like that. We will also be having S take his Mommy on a date during Christmas time so that he can learn how to treat his future wife really well and honor and respect her.

Hospitality We haven’t had a ton of opportunities for this over the years, but we’re trying to develop a heart of hospitality during the Christmas season (and other times, too, of course). Last year we were blessed to get to spend part of our Christmas day with the Connelly’s. This year we invited another friend who might not have been home with family. In general we want our home to be one of hospitality and “family” for those who might not be near it at this time of year.

Extended Family Kelly and I trade years that we spend time with our respective extended families. For example, this year is a “Jason’s family” year and next year is a “Kelly’s family” year. Of course, both of our families are both of our families, but you know what I mean. When we can make it work, we have tentatively scheduled to be in Charlotte for Christmas every fourth year. So, for example, we would be with my family on Christmas Day on year one, we would be here in town but have Kelly’s family in town on year two, we would be with my family again on year three, and in Charlotte with Kelly’s family on year four.

We always get to see each of our families somewhere near Christmas, even if we’re not there on the actual day (for example, we were blessed to have Leta and Andy in town last week and celebrated with them then). We’re excited to be in our own home at least three out of four years, though, as we feel like it’s important for the kids to have their own traditions and to build them in their home.

Speaking of extended family, we’ve been really blessed to get to do a big dinner at Canlis for the last eight or nine years, and we hope this tradition will continue either at Canlis or somewhere else equally special.

Christmas Eve We usually try to go to our Christmas Eve service (if Mars Hill is doing one), or sometimes to another family member’s church service. We usually finish the night setting up toys, wrapping presents and watching The Polar Express. I have made this a Christmas tradition and I love it. I have also begun watching the Catholic Christmas mass (“Christ-mass”) at midnight on Christmas morning, which is pretty cool.

Christmas Day Christmas Day starts with the kids and going downstairs to see the tree and anything Mommy and Daddy might have put in the stockings. We usually try to do something yummy for breakfast before opening presents. Our Christmas morning traditions are still developing since our kids are so young, but we hope to celebrate the 5^th Advent candle and reading the account of the birth of Jesus before opening presents. In general, though, our heart is that we would keep Jesus and family-relationship-building central to the day.

So, that’s it! I know, it’s a long list. If you’ve made it this far, I hope you enjoyed it and that you got some ideas from us. If not, then it was mostly a journal account for me anyway, so that I can take a look at what we’re doing and assess areas to grow and change and mature.

Merry Christmas!

Baby, It's Cold Outside

2009-12-17T16:51:00.000-08:00

I have for years thought of Christmas in the traditional and common way that it is often thought of today: a secular holiday with a very real and spiritual foundation, the birth of the Christ child Jesus. I have reveled in the holiday spirit, the silver bells, the dreams of wintery snow scenes, holly scented greenery and jingle-themed music. Old-school crooners like Dean Martin and Bing Crosby not replaced but supplemented by new-school crooners like Michael Buble and Josh Groban.

I have treasured these feelings and memories for their connections in my heart to the care-free days of my childhood when life was pretty easy, low on responsibility, and spiritual, but not heavy. The Christ child was relevant to me, but mostly in a passive way that gave a nod to the tradition of Jesus, but allowed me to continue in the revelry of the day and my active love for the Christmas holiday itself.

To think of “Baby It’s Cold Outside” brought instant connection in my heart to that full and rich and joyful and warm Christmasy feeling, and meant a celebration of that wintery warm-by-the-fire’s-glow feeling and that hot cup of chocolate.

And to be honest with you I have looked for that feeling in my heart for the last five to ten years. It hasn’t been there as fully or with as much life as it used to carry. I have looked for that “Baby It’s Cold Outside” feeling, trying to restore that Christmas cheer and pine-needle aroma.

And today, while thinking about that feeling and my search for it, I actually reached outside of the doorframe of my mind and found that it was in fact cold outside. I was surprised to find that the warm glow of my Christmas expectations wasn’t outshining the cold. The Christmas aroma was not overpowering the more pungent smell of sadness that I and so many others breathe this year. I realized it was a cold that chills me past my skin, past my bones and way down into my soul.

This week one of my brother’s best friends died. He was 26 and succumbed to the swine flu. Two weeks ago we heard that one of our favorite pastors had had a seizure, that doctors had discovered a fist-sized tumor in his head and yesterday we heard that the tumor was malignant and fighting for ownership of his brain tissue. This week we watched as two young men and a young lady who loved Jesus and served him fought for their lives on the side of a mountain I have climbed. I know exactly where they walked. This month we have watched a number of couples in our lives battle for their marriages, sometimes winning and sometimes failing. We watched an Acts 29 church family suffer as its pastor took his own life. The list goes on and on.

And at one point today, I thought, this is a sad Christmas. It’s hard to walk with a happy heart and dream of sugarplums dancing, laugh with Frosty the Snowman and strain to hear silver bells ringing when so many people are suffering so completely. It feels so heavy and pointless and sad.

Baby, it is cold outside. Very cold.

But as my heart reveled in and gave itself over a bit to the sadness alive in this season this year, God washed over me with a voice like a strong current. This is the meaning of Christmas. This is why He came. This is our redemption.

Because it is cold outside. Because of loss and sorrow and tears. Because of death and dying and sickness and sadness. The Christ child came to redeem these. And they are His. That little boy so poor and needy in that manager hay grew into a toddler and a youth and a man. And lived a sinless life so that He could lay it on the altar as a sacrifice for our sins. And He did.

And so today, you and I can walk in that, setting sadness aside, knowing that He has a plan that doesn’t check in with ours, but defines ours and writes ours. His ways are not our ways, but we know that His ways are good ways, and that He loves us. And that is why the God of the universe humbled Himself as He did, to become part of the creation.

To bring a warmth to us and to redeem the cold. That we might have perfect communion and connection with the God who before that Christ-child was untouchable by us because of our sin.

Baby, it’s cold outside, but there is a Savior. The Christ. Jesus.

So I am going to wallow in that memory this Christmas, and will know deeply in my heart that Christmas is to celebrate our Savior who came to bring us life and life eternal. And He will be my answer to the cold outside.

"O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." And he who was seated on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new."

Santa - Jesus Theology

2009-12-11T13:13:00.000-08:00

OK, I stole this concept from Matt Chandler, but I still want to elaborate on it for a minute: I think a lot of Christians are into the whole Santa Claus thing because Santa theology is so much like their own Jesus theology:

Santa theology:

He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness sake!

Translation: Santa is omniscient like God. And, if you do good things, you get presents. If you do bad things, you get coal.

That all sounds so good until you have kids and you realize, wow, If I was really keeping track like that and playing the good Santa Claus, I could never give my kids presents because dang it they are bent and cruel at their core!

Many Christians (self-included at times) hold Santa-Jesus theology:

Jesus gives me good gifts when I am good and withholds his love when I am bad. Christians get these ideas 1) from their own moral code (and American pull-yourself-up-by-your-boot straps ethos) that says I can get myself out of anything, 2) from a desire to feel in control (if my behavior can control outcomes than I am in control and not God), and 3) from pastors who don’t understand their Bible.

The small (wink, wink) problems with this kind of theology are 1) the reality of life and 2) what God’s Word says:

1) The truth is that even people who – by the world’s standards – are good (they love people, love their kids, are generous, and give their money and time away) sometimes suffer. Take Matt Chandler as a case in point – he is a faithful man and “obedient” in many regards, but God has seen it fit to allow him to have a brain tumor about the size of a fist that needed removing. Or how about the man and woman who love Jesus and give their lives away, but lose a baby? Or the missionary that sells all he has and moves to India and is set on fire with his family? In these cases, good works do not equal good gifts in return. Nevermind the truth that plenty of “bad” or disobedient people live blessed lives. We can see from practical living that this kind of theology is a farce.

2) The Bible reminds us that none of us are good and therefore none of us worthy of either the common grace we get every day (the beautiful weather, the amazing planet God has given us, another day of life, etc.) nor the fullness of God’s forgiveness of sin. It comes only by grace (unmerited favor).

"There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes. (Romans 3:10-18)

Likewise, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23)

Thankfully, there is grace, both for our kids on Christmas day (we can love them and share gifts with them gracefully) and for those who know Jesus every day and on Judgment day: “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:5-6)

“But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.” (Romans 3: 21-25)

The Stinsons

2009-12-09T14:30:00.000-08:00

I got ready for work and came downstairs to say goodbye to the Stinsons yesterday. They were leaving later in the day but I wouldn’t be around. Kelly and the girls said their teary goodbyes around noon when Kelly took Shawn, Kal and P to the airport.

It was a bittersweet day. So much excitement for them and their return to Charlotte and family and friends who love them so much. And so much anticipation and hope for Redemption Church and their desire to bring some of the Seattle-meets-Acts Biblical culture back to Charlotte. And yet of course it was hard for those of us here who love the Stinsons and have seen them become such an integral part of our lives over the last two years. Some band-aids come off easy, some come off with a lot of pain because of all of the glue involved. There’s a lot of glue on the Stinson band-aid:

The Stinsons lived in our home for three of the twenty-three months they were in Seattle, not even mentioning all of the Tuesday night Idol nights, camping trips, weekend get-togethers, or the occasional times they spent the night in our guest bedroom.

Our kids ask to pray for them every night before bed (including them in the list of Mimis, Pops, Nanis, Poppis, Uncles, Mommys and Daddys).

When you ask G to say the Cowan names she says Daddy Cowan, Mommy Cowan, "K" Cowan, "G" Cowan, "S" Cowan, Shawn Cowan, Kalle Cowan, "P" Cowan. Hilarious.

They were in our house enough that in the last month I expanded my before-bed routine of coming out onto the upstairs landing and praying over the house and the neighborhood and each occupied room to pray not just for our room, and K and G’s room, and S’s room, but added prayer over P’s room and Shawn and Kalle’s room.

They spent almost every significant holiday with us and our extended family – Easter, a Mother’s Day here and there, both Thanksgivings, both 4^ths of July.

They got to know and love my parents and felt really comfortable in their home and in their care. My parents love them as children and friends with the incredible gracious love my parents always give.

Even my sister and her family came to know and love them (my sister cried when they said their last “see you later”).

The Stinsons were counselors to us through some difficult times, including a painful family situation.

We walked through a period of deep grief with the Stinsons that rooted our hearts together forever.

Kelly and I both built on our friendship with Kalle. Kelly has been in Kalle’s life since she was about ten years old, and I’ve known her since she was fourteen. We’ve watched her grow up to be this amazing godly Mommy and wife and it’s been a great joy.

Kelly and I also both built on our friendship with Shawn. While we knew him as Kalle’s husband and had a friendship with him, I was able to build a solid and close friendship with this mature, solid, Jesus-loving Daddy and husband that I very much value.

And lastly, we fell in love with that little P-diddy and his sweet gentle spirit. He has the biggest smile and the saddest sad face ever seen!

We are very thankful for the Stinsons and for the depth of relationship that God gave us while they were here. I think both couples learned from each other and I know he rooted our hearts together and showed us what true community looks like. It will be hard to replicate, in part because the opportunity to “live together” and do life together in such a close and intentional way is so rare in our American and Christian culture. But we will pray to Jesus for more of it.

Likewise, we will continue our close relationship with the Stinsons. We’ll have to be even more intentional, but they’re important people to us, so it will be a natural intentionality.

Thank you Jesus for good friends! Thank you for these two great years with the Stinsons!

Spurgeon on Winter and Suffering

2009-12-01T11:24:00.000-08:00

I am reposting something Lauren Chandler posted on her blog this morning – it is particularly relevant for them as they struggle through this difficult news of Matt’s tumor, discovered when he had a seizure and fell in his home on Thanksgiving day.

But it is relevant for all of us as we struggle through various seasons of pain, loss, frustration. Sometimes it is a death in our extended or close family. Perhaps it is frustration with a job search or with career growth. Or other issues.

This was encouraging to me, and I hope will be to you at all. Spurgeon seems to be saying that God uses these winter seasons not only to kill off disease or germs in our own life (to further refine and grow us in a later season), that God is sovereign and not out of control, but also that God is a present and living presence that we can count on as we go through difficult times and seasons.

Morning + Evening by C.H. Spurgeon--December 1, Morning:

"Thou hast made summer and winter."
--Psalm 74:17

My soul begin this wintry month with thy God. The cold snows and the piercing winds all remind thee that He keeps His covenant with day and night, and tend to assure thee that He will also keep that glorious covenant which He has made with thee in the person of Christ Jesus. He who is true to His Word in the revolutions of the seasons of this poor sin-polluted world, will not prove unfaithful in His dealings with His own well-beloved Son.

Winter in the soul is by no means a comfortable season, and if it be upon thee just now it will be very painful to thee: but there is this comfort, namely, that the Lord makes it. He sends the sharp blasts of adversity to nip the buds of expectation: He scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes over the once verdant meadows of our joy: He casteth forth His ice like morsels freezing the streams of our delight. He does it all, He is the great Winter King, and rules in the realms of frost, and therefore thou canst not murmur. Losses, crosses, heaviness, sickness, poverty, and a thousand other ills, are of the Lord's sending, and come to us with wise design. Frosts kill noxious insects, and put a bound to raging diseases; they break up the clods, and sweeten the soul. O that such good results would always follow our winters of affliction!

How we prize the fire just now! how pleasant is its cheerful glow! Let us in the same manner prize our Lord, who is the constant source of warmth and comfort in every time of trouble. Let us draw nigh to Him, and in Him find joy and peace in believing. Let us wrap ourselves in the warm garments of His promises, and go forth to labours which befit the season, for it were ill to be as the sluggard who will not plough by reason of the cold; for he shall beg in summer and have nothing.

Fascinating Marriage quote

2009-11-24T16:11:00.000-08:00

From Piper's Blog:

Here's an unusual wake up call about the wonders of marriage.

To complain that I could only be married once was like complaining that I had only been born once. It was incommensurate with the terrible excitement of which one was talking. It showed not an exaggerated sensibility to sex but a curious insensibility to it. A man is a fool who complains that he cannot enter Eden by five gates at once. Polygamy is a lack of the realization of sex; it's like a man plucking five pears in mere absence of mind. (G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 103)

Noel Piper on Adoption

2009-11-12T16:49:00.000-08:00

As I have said before, Kelly and I have a developing heart for adoption. We don’t know exactly when (although it will certainly be several years before we even start the process) or from where (we have a heart for Asia), but we feel like it’s a burden God has given us.

Somehow I stumbled on Noel Piper’s blog (she is pastor John Piper’s wife) and she has been documenting their adoption story in honor of Orphan Sunday, which apparently was 11/8. You can read her story from start to finish starting here, but I wanted to show you a letter she wrote to John when they were considering adoption. She had a very strong heart for it, and he was in consideration phase. She was trusting the final decision to him. I found this really interesting, and got a real chuckle out of the last set of points (“Being radical and taking risks”)! I also love how she calls him "Johnny".

You can find the original blog here:

-------------------

Johnny writes papers when he wants to explain his view or make a point. So during the days we were deciding whether to adopt, I tried to speak to him in his own language. I wrote what I hoped would be a persuasive paper.

Johnny,

I want to assure you that, in no way, do I think our ministry will be crippled if we go on as we are. It is rich. But I do believe that by adopting a daugher, God will add richness and depth and understanding and credibility in many areas of our personal and public lives.

Random Thoughts

In general, I expect that having 1 child at home will seem very easy after all our years of 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, etc.
Having a young aunt here will be extra fun for the grandchildren that will start to visit, maybe before many years.
Having a child again at this stage in our life will keep us from moving as quickly into older stages. It will shove us back a generation.

Pro-Life Ministry

The very act of adopting is a renewal and revitalization of our efforts against abortion and for life -- in a very new and powerful way.
Adopting would add tremendous credibility, and confirm our seriousness in the effort for life.
A person who is as vocal and visible as you about life will be very visible as a supporter of mothers, as a protector of children who would otherwise be unwanted and perhaps in danger, as living out the implications and responsibilities that follow in the wake of stopping an abortion.
You have a powerful voice. Even if your writing/speaking isn’t directly about Life and adoption, it will be there, because what’s happening in your life IS there in your writing. And you will be an influence to many for the good of children who need homes.

Racial Reconciliation

Our efforts toward racial reconciliation would have tangible credibility.
We would have personal experience with family-level racial diversity.
We would open ourselves to personal experience of how an African-American person and a mixed-race family is treated differently from the way to which we are accustomed.

Biblical Masculinity and Femininity

You will gain new understanding and clarity when your Biblical understanding is applied to the life of a daughter. I expect you to have strong confirmation of what you’ve understood and taught all along.
It will be a good thing for your promotion of these Biblical truths to actually experience and learn how to raise a girl to be a godly woman in a society that expects something else.
Maybe there are practicalities that you haven’t even thought of, that you would see when raising a daughter, and these things would expand your understanding and teaching.
Your speaking and writing and persuasion in this area will have new credibility, when you have a daughter.

Evangelism and Missions

To add another child to our family becomes the most personal kind of evangelism toward adding members to the Kingdom.
And considering our attitude toward missions, it may also be mission recruitment for the sake of the Kingdom!

Your Writing and Speaking Ministry

Your public ministry will be deeper and richer because we know that everything God puts into our lives comes through into your writing and speaking as a clearer, more pointed explanation of God and his ways.
We know there are angles of God’s face and aspects of his personality to be discovered in new situations he puts us into. We will experience more of God as we live with a daughter. And that deeper experience of God will make your public ministry so much richer.
For instance, if we adopted a child, and raised her, we would understand God’s adoption in a much fuller way -- what it means to adopt a person who is not part of your family and make that person fully a partaker and inheritor of your own life and family.

Being Radical and Taking Risks

I think it would not be fair to quote yourself to you to try to make a point. But I must say that very often over the years you have made statements about taking risks and trusting God and doing unexpected and radical things -- and I often hear those statements in the light of the radical thing I want to do, and therefore want you to do with me.
To adopt -- at our age and when it would certainly not be expected of us and when it is not financially easy and when it might make other ministries more difficult -- would be more than a token. It would say that you are serious about radical faith.

Hosea and Gomer

2009-10-13T17:01:00.000-07:00

What a beautiful picture of God’s grace to us, each of, before Christ, as we harlot ourselves out to other passions and loves than the love for our Jesus who made us. Our creator, friend, hope. He runs after us and is faithful to us no matter.

I love you Jesus.

Hosea 1:2,3
Hosea 2:13-16
Hosea 3:1,2

Hosea – Andrew Peterson

Every time I lay in the bed beside you
Hosea, Hosea
I hear the sound of the streets of the city
My belly growls like a hungry wolf
And I let it prowl till my belly’s full
Hosea, my heart is a stone

Please believe me when I say I’m sorry
Hosea, Hosea
You loveable, gullible man
I tell you that my love is true
Till it fades away like a morning dew
Hosea, leave me alone

Here I am in the Valley of Trouble
Just look at the bed that I’ve made
Badlands as far as I can see
There’s no one here but me, Hosea

I stumbled and fell in the road on the way home
Hosea, Hosea
I lay in the brick street like a stray dog
You came to me like a silver moon
With the saddest smile I ever knew
Hosea carried me home again, home again

You called me out to the Valley of Trouble
Just to look at the mess that I’ve made
A barren place where nothing can grow
One look and my stone heart crumbled
It was a valley as green as jade
I swear it was the color of hope
You turned a stone into a rose, Hosea

I sang and I danced like I did as a young girl
Hosea, Hosea
I am a slave and a harlot no more
You washed me clean like a summer rain
And you set me free with that ball and chain
Hosea, I threw away the key
I’ll never leave

Learning about Mormonism

2009-10-07T13:15:00.000-07:00

Having spent my high-school years growing up in the Seattle area, I became pretty familiar with Mormons, or members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, as they call themselves. The Mormon church is a fascinating cult religion and I feel like God has given me a missional heart towards this people group, perhaps rooted in a visit to the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City, UT when I was in college and on a ski trip in Utah.

Now that we live in the Seattle area again, I realize how ever-present Mormonism is here (being so close to the core Mormon states of Utah, Arizona, Idaho, etc.). We have a large Mormon temple which I pass every day on my way to and from work, as well as a large “ward” or community church type place, only a mile or so from our house.

I’m not sure how I came across it, but a year or so ago I began to follow a blog called Mormon Coffee, which is managed by a man named Aaron Shafovaloff, who is called to bring Jesus to Mormons and lives in Salt Lake City. The blog is an amazing resource for learning about the Mormon church, and has led me to do other research and reading, including finishing “Under the Banner of Heaven” a few months ago.

As I have brought many of these things I’ve learned home to share with Kelly, she has encouraged me to share them on my blog. So, while you can learn much more from the Mormon Coffee site (as well as watch Evangelical Christians (including many ex-Mormons) and LDS-defenders discuss the topics), I’ll pop some of the interesting ones on my blog here too.

For example:

Mormons say of Joseph Smith (founder and prophet): "Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it..." (Doctrine and Covenants 135:3)

And yet you could fill volumes of books (and it’s been done) on the inconsistencies of this man, for example:

He was a polygamist, having upwards of 49 wives, including many young women who he coerced into marrying him at threat of eternal condemnation to hell (the threat extended to these girls’ extended families as well).

o Smith claimed to be a prophet, claiming to receive revelations from God. This is how he received the Book of Mormon, etc.

o One thing he prophesied (as did the prophet who came after him, Brigham Young): that the moon was inhabited by people that lived to the age of ~1,000, and that thye dressed in the Quaker style. :) (Source: http://www.challengemin.org/moon.html)

o Accordingly, even his mother acknowledged his huge imagination, noting that he made up fascinating stories (that sound a lot like the Book of Mormon) long before he “discovered” the BoM: “During our evening conversations, Joseph would occasionally give us some of the most amusing recitals that could be imagined. He would describe the ancient inhabitants of this continent, their dress, mode of travelling, and their animals upon which they rode; their cities, their buildings, with every particular; their mode of warfare; and also their religious worship. This he would do with as much ease, seemingly, as if he had spent his whole life with them." (History of Joseph Smith by his Mother, 1954 edition, p. 83)

o Prior to “discovering” the BoM, Joseph Smith was arrested and found guilty of scamming people by claiming to be able to use a magical stone to divine hidden treasure:

§ "Prisoner [Joseph Smith] brought before Court March 20, 1826. Prisoner examined: says that he .... had a certain stone which he had occasionally looked at to determine where hidden treasures in the bowels of the earth were; that he professed to tell in this manner where gold mines were a distance under ground .... he had occasionally been in the habit of looking through this stone to find lost property for three years, but of late had pretty much given it up on account of its injuring his health, especially his eyes making them sore;...

§ "And therefore the Court find[s] the Defendant guilty. Costs: Warrant, 19c. Complaint upon oath, 25½c. Seven witnesses, 87½ c. Recognisances, 25c. Mittimus, 19c. Recognisances of witnesses, 75c. Suboena, 18c -$2.68." (Frazer's Magazine, February, 1873, pp. 229-30)

o In 1835, Joseph Smith rounded up some Egyptian “plates” and translated them into the Book of Abraham, which is now considered part of Mormon scripture. He did this long before serious Egyptian language study, which was fully developed when one of the plates was discovered by the Mormon Church in 1967. The plates were analyzed by professors who could translate the language, and found them to have nothing to do with Abraham, rather were common funeral directions connected to a random buried Egyptian. So, Joseph Smith, who claimed to be able to translate these plates (the Book of Mormon was supposedly also in Reformed Egyptian when he translated it), had fabricated this lie.

Mormons believe that if you live a righteous life, you can become a God or Goddess (or God’s wife, it seems). This is why they believe in eternal marriage. Mormon men and women are married “eternally” (despite what Jesus says about this in Matthew 22:30 or Mark 12:25), populating the spirit world with spirit children, who are then “birthed” into the physical world by Godly Mormons.

o A religion that says 1) marry lots of women and 2) populate the world by having lots of sex – now this is certainly a religion invented by a man, right!

Mormons are not Christians. They are not “little Christs” who worship Him. As example, in the early ‘80s Mormon students at BYU were meeting in the dorms praying “for a special relationship with Jesus.” A famous Mormon leader named Bruce McConkie spoke to them in a sermon on campus and said, clearly:

o “Some ("holier-than- thou" students) begin to pray directly to Christ because of some special friendship they feel has been developed. In this conception a current and unwise book, which advocates gaining a special relationship with Jesus, contains this sentence - quote: "Because the Saviour is our mediator, our prayers go through Christ to the Father, and the Father answers our prayers through his son. " Unquote. This is plain sectarian nonsense. Our prayers are addressed to the Father, and to him only. They do not go through Christ...You have never heard the First Presidency or the Twelve...advocate this excessive zeal that calls for gaining a so called special and personal relationship with Christ...never, never at any time have they taught or endorsed the inordinate and intemperate zeal that encourages endless, sometimes day-long prayers, in order to gain a personal relationship with the Saviour...I wonder if it is not part of Lucifer's system to make people feel they are special friends of Jesus when in fact they are not following the normal and usual pattern of worship found in the true Church." (Bruce McConkie, Speech at BYU on March 2 1982).

o In the same speech, he said “We worship the Father and him only and no one else. We do not worship the Son and we do not worship the Holy Ghost.”

Why is there confusion about whether Mormons are Christians? They do not worship Him.

Anyway, I hope you find some of these interesting and thought-provoking. I will share more as I come across them and am learning myself. At the end of the day, I don’t hope to have this knowledge end with me. I am hoping it will spring into a deeper heart for share the Gospel of Jesus with Mormons who don’t know the true Jesus.

Good Eats Southern Style

2009-10-01T16:37:00.000-07:00

We just got home from Charlotte and the beach. It was an amazing trip. Very relaxing, very nice to detach from work and regular life. And we had lots of help with the kids which was really fun and refreshing. At the same time, I got to spend a ton of time with the kids, which I really really enjoyed. And good time with Kelly too. And great time with family and friends in the Southeast. Thanks Andy and Leta for all that you did to make our trip special!

I might blog on some other aspects of the trip later, but one highlight for me was the food. Here’s where we ate while in Charlotte, on the way down to the beach, and in the Charleston/Wild Dunes area:

Chick-fil-a – I ate here four times (!), including once for breakfast. Chick-fil-a really cannot be beat. It is the best fast food around bar none. The girls are big fans of the nuggets here and Kelly is a big fan of the lemon pie. I am a big fan of everything on the menu and I always prove it when I walk in.
Starbucks – old faithful. 'Nuf said.
Caribou – Kelly likes Caribou and we only went because the Starbucks down the street was closed for a late night remodel. Caribou is a little bit “theme-y” for my taste, but not terrible.
Deejai Thai – this was a new place that I tried with my good friend Jay Mink. Great food, atmosphere and very reasonably priced. Bye Bye Thai Taste.
Manzetti’s – used to love this place when I lived in Charlotte, but literally have not been there since I lived there eight years ago. It was really nice to be back. Mama Manzetti’s Chicken is amazing and the bruschetta was great too. It will be even nicer once they ban smoking in restaurants in Charlotte (“Hello! Get with the program!”) as this place has a big bar and lots of smokers in it.
Taipei South – another old faithful. Enjoyed my usual, Sesame Chicken with wings and a Diet Coke, while catching up with my good friend Robbi.
Thai Orchid – No one else wanted to eat this with me, so I nearly gorged myself on an entire order of Mee Crob and Panang Curry. Amazing amazing place – best Thai food I have ever had anywhere. Especially that Mee Crob.

Hank’s Seafood – During the Charleston portion of our trip, we had dinner at this very nice restaurant with Tyler and Court (and Salem and Jake). It probably was too nice a place for the babies, although Kel and I didn’t really love our meals either. I had shrimp and grits and she had broiled something or other. I think they were trying to be too high-brow.
Sullivan’s on Sullivan’s Island – While at Wild Dunes, we hauled the whole family down to beautiful Sullivan’s Island to eat at perennial favorite Sullivan’s. I had my all too yummy favorite there, shrimp over a fried grit cake over country ham. Side order of fried Okra. I resisted the french fries this time and had a baked potato instead. We had an amazing load of hush puppies to start us out though (accompanied by honey butter), and the real highlight: fried green tomatoes. Amazing! The lowlight was that I could count seven tiny shrimp on top of my grit cake. Seemed light. I mean people, I am in shrimp country here, load me up! And yes that is a lot of use of the word fried for one meal sitting. Welcome to the South and the Low Country. Seriously, do you ever watch Paula Dean do her thing?
Coconut Joe’s – Kelly and I had a fun little date night down on the beach at Coconut Joe’s. We both had more hush puppies (although these were actually coconut fritters) and shrimp po’ boys. Yum. It was nice to get back to this place because I can remember eating there with so many different friends, including Andrew and Amy, Nick and Jessi and Josh and Katie (you guys remember that?), as well as Tyler and Court. Lots of good memories. The lowlight of this dinner was the 45-year old biker dude who kept making out with his girlfriend/wife right next to us, including lots of lip-smacking noises. Made me want to toss up my dinner before I even finished it.

So, yes, now I really have to get back to my running schedule because that is a fat-filled eating schedule, huh? Ugh. But it was tasty and I would do it again (and will next year!).

The Bachelor Life

2009-09-14T18:54:00.000-07:00

When people at the office heard that Kelly and the kids were going on vacation a few days ahead of me, the excitement was palpable. Bachelor weekend! Everyone seemed very happy for me.

And yes, there are advantages to being at home sans family. There is no milk to get ready for the morning’s demands, nobody waking up in the middle of the night crying, no little people knocking on our door at 7am, no tiptoeing through my own bedroom because Kelly’s been asleep for an hour by the time I pick myself up off the couch, finish chores and get up to bed.

But this time has confirmed what I already knew, I am called to be a husband and a daddy. My life just isn’t complete without them. The house is quiet like it must be when we leave on vacation, except I’m in it. I feel a little like I got left behind. The girls’ bedroom looks like they just got up and came into our room, blankets strewn across the bottom of their beds. There are toys and bouncy seats downstairs in the kitchen and family room, but nobody to play in them. It’s odd, you clean up a room and it’s still clean an hour later. The kitchen stays tidy aside from my collection of Coke Zero cans and a much smaller than usual row of dishes. The shoes in the front hall are all neatly organized, not dropped here and there when a little lady decided to stop clomping through the kitchen in Mommy’s high heels. The house feels lonely and so do I.

The upside to the weekend without responsibility was getting to get away to Vesper Peak with Shawn, Ryan and Steve. Glorious weather, a very very cold dip in a snow-melt lake, a good solid hike and scramble up to the summit of Vesper, and then a night near the top talking about the stars, creation, food, humor, and life. And best of all good time with good buddies. I wouldn’t have traded that weekend away for anything, but it would have been a joy to return home to my gorgeous wife and my beautiful children. I look forward to seeing their sweet faces and to saying goodbye to what others call this bachelor life.

Chick-fil-A

2009-09-03T12:14:00.001-07:00

One of my favorite things (among many others) about going back to Charlotte is returning to the land of Chick-fil-a. Nuggets, Chick-fil-a sandwiches, those little nuggets buried in a sweet biscuit for breakfast. Caffeine Free Diet Coke. OK, I know we have that here too, but it tastes so good in that styrofoam cup! And waffle fries and polynesian sauce! Yes! I am excited.

No lie, I ate at Chick-fil-a 5 times last time I was in Charlotte - over a 8-9 day period.

Yes, I am excited.

Little man

2009-08-28T12:51:00.000-07:00

I didn’t know that I would fall so in love with my son. I have always had a heart for daughters and knew that I would love them if I got to have them. But I didn’t know how big my heart would be for him! He is such a charming and sweet little person though. So full of life and smiles and joy. He teaches me so much about the kind of spirit to aspire to in life. Just as there is a special bond between a daddy and his daughters, there is a different but equally special bond between a daddy and his son. Some days I pray over him that we would be like me in some ways, and often I pray that he would not struggle with sin in ways that I have. But all days I pray peace and love and joy in Jesus over him. I love my little man.

Enjoy these lyrics from one of my favorite artists, Pierce Pettis:

LITTLE MAN
Pierce Pettis, ©1990 Let's Have Lunch Music (ASCAP)

Little man he smiles at me
He ain't got no hair
He ain't got no teeth
But he is beautiful indeed
He is my little man

Little man he cries at night
He don't know no wrong
He don't know no right
And the dark is full of serpent bites
Oh watch out, little man

I can't always catch you when you fall
As you grow you'll see I'm not that tall
Just the one who loves you most of all
Oh, little man
You're always gonna be my little man

Little man sleeping in a ball
Who's the fairest of them all
I'll leave the light on in the hall

(Chorus)

Little man he smiles at me
He ain't got no hair
He ain't got no teeth
But he is beautiful indeed
He is my little man

Cowan Family Update 8-26-09

2009-08-26T15:26:00.000-07:00

Thought some of you would appreciate a little Cowan family update. Between vacations, a very busy few months at work for me, and fun activities like Josh and Mandy’s wedding coming around the corner (and all the family in town), it's been really really busy.

We did have a fairly chill last weekend, though, and I thought I’d give you a look into our lives and share some of the weekend’s happenings. Things with the girls are particularly interesting right now as they have so much to say about everything, and are growing up right before our eyes. And sweet little man seems to love them so much and can hardly be in a room without cranking his head to find out where they are so that he can follow them around. I think it’s why he’s been crawling/inching his way around so much lately: he wants to get where they are!

We took the whole family to Starbucks on Saturday morning, which was so fun. The girls split a doughnut as they are wont to do. Kelly and I had breakfast sandwiches. It was a nice and relaxing time, but apparently we were quite a spectacle as people just stared and stared at us while in the long line. A man even came up to us when he was leaving and said he really enjoyed watching our sweet family. It actually wasn't creepy, even though he said he recognized me (he turned out to be a fellow Mars Hillian).

When we got home, and before naps, I brought the girls outside while I worked on cleaning the van and getting carseats rearranged (long story). The hilarious thing was that K & G climbed right up into the front seats and spent over an hour there pulling nobs, twisting buttons, yanking turn signals, etc. K was at the steering wheel and she kept saying “Tuwn it on”. I would say no. She would “why?” (her new favorite answer to every comment). I would say because we’re not going anywhere. She would respond “I want to dwive” or “I want to dwive Nanni’s house”. G had lots to say about it too.

Then the kids took naps and we got them up to go to the Aquarium. It was a gorgeous and perfect day for the aquarium. As soon as we got there, the highlight for the girls was seeing a diver in the giant fish tank. I asked G many times later that day what she saw at the aquarium and every time she said “man”, “oughta” (otter), and “feesh” (fish). Strangely, the man was the highlight of the trip to see the fishes.

We celebrated Josh’s bday that evening at the lakehouse. K had a funny moment when 5 or 6 of us were standing around listening to my brother tell a story. She started trying to repeat the whole story and everyone stopped to listen. She continued for a minute, then lost her train of thought (her words couldn’t keep up with her brain on the topic, I think). She finally turned around and buried her face in my legs because she was so embarrassed to have not been able to finish her sentence. It was so sweet and rare for my little outgoing girl.

That night we read the Bible as we do every night. I am certainly not shoving it down their throats. They DEMAND the Bible. “Wead a Bible” they yell when we go into their room for the night. They are quickly becoming masters of the text, believe it or not. Tonight, when we got to the creation story and I talked about Jesus creating the heavens and the earth, and then cracked the first page of the story of Adam and Eve and the Fall, K immediately said “eat a apple, get out.” and was referring to Adam and Eve eating the apple and God expelling them from the garden. They remember every little tidbit. Sometimes they mix it up though (later we were getting to the Gospel sections and K said “Dedus (Jesus) eat a apple.” Uh, no). The highlight of the Bible reading was that they love the section on Jesus’ death and resurrection. After we read through it G kept saying “Dedus died, now awive.” And K would say “Dedus died, uh uh now come back, awive.” I love their little minds learning about Jesus, however immaturely right now.

While we’re talking about Jesus, it reminds me that while we were on vacation at Banks Lake, I was struck by another understanding that K had. I was out on the back deck with them looking out over the beautiful lake and high cliff walls and setting sun. I was telling K how God created all of this. Then I picked G up and explained the same thing. Then I said to K, who made all of this? She said “Dedus made uh all”. I had not prompted her to say this, but I often intentionally use God’s name and Jesus’ name interchangeably. It stunned me that she has noticed this and was using them this way.

The next day was busy too – church, a quick bite of lunch with friends, naps, and then some errand-running. The girls very much enjoyed sharing a cinnamon pretzel at Auntie Anne’s (although they wanted a lot of helping cleaning off their sugary hands). Then we finished the evening with dinner and bedtime.

This night, we were reading about Jesus’ triumphal entry to shouts of Hosanna. I opened to this page and asked them what the people said when Jesus came to town and they both raised one arm and said “hosanna!” They have learned that because when we get to this part, I always sing the chorus of Hillsong’s “Hosanna” and raise one arm in praise. We finished reading, and they yelled “Yeah Dedus!” as they do most nights when we finish reading the Bible. And then there was much, MUCH talking about how “Dedus died uh cwoss ah ah now awive” as we got them to bed and sleeping.

What amazes me most about them is that their little hearts and minds are just sponges. They soak up anything that is nearby. I am thankful to Jesus and the Holy Spirit that they have helped them to have an interest in the Gospel texts.

This weekend we have Josh’s wedding and soon thereafter we’ll be in Charlotte and Charleston for our very exciting Fall trip to visit family and friends!

Rainier Summit Part 2

2009-08-18T11:30:00.000-07:00

The ride to Paradise was uneventful, except that it was one of the free weekends in Mt. Rainier National Park so we avoided the entrance fee – nice. Overnight parking required a half a mile walk down the hill from the Paradise Inn. We registered with the park service rangers and were able to reserve a night at Camp Muir and a night at Ingraham Flats. We were feeling thankful about this as sometimes getting reservations of your choice is hard (especially during busy good weather periods).

At roughly 6,000 feet with the mountain behind me

After praying for safety and a healthy return to our wives and families, we departed from Paradise at about 10:30am. I was carrying almost 50 pounds, including my climbing gear (harness/etc., picket, ice axe, helmet, crampons), sleeping bag/pads, stove, water, food for 3 days, extra clothes for colder (higher) temps, etc. It was a beautiful day expected to hit the mid-80s. From our starting point at 5,400 feet to 7,200 feet (Pebble Creek), there was very little snow on the ground and tons of people. The crowds started to thin out as we continued our ascent, and we hit snow just above 7,200 feet. The Muir snowfield was in good shape as we headed up – we arrived at Camp Muir (10,100 feet) at about 3pm. Views of Mt. Adams, Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens, all to our south, were gorgeous. Ben and I found a good spot to drop our stuff, set up camp and spent the next couple of hours melting snow to boil water for the night’s and next day’s use.

Camp Muir at 10,100 feet and our home for the first night

Another view of Muir and the public shelter up on the hill

Our tent home for the night - notice the climbing route in the snow behind it

And here's a better view of the start of the route, across the Cowlitz Glacier and onto the gray rocks of the Cathedral Gap. From there it's a left turn and on up to Ingraham Flats

A view up to Cadaver Gap (from Muir) and in-between the two rock ribs: the Disappointment Cleaver

After all of the time I have spent outdoors, I am finally learning how to manage my food consumption to keep my body well-fueled and to keep a climb energized. Mostly, I bring foods that I like to eat, as nerves and altitude both contribute to a general lack of interest in eating. It’s pretty easy to burn 700-1,000 calories in an hour of steady climbing, so over our 4,700 foot climb from Paradise (parking lot) to Camp Muir, we easily burned 3-4,000 calories. This is why I dropped about 4-6 pounds over the 3-day climb. For this climb, I brought sour gummy worms, Milky Way and Snickers Candy Bars, a trail mix with M&M’s, two McDonald’s breakfast burritos with mild salsa, a freeze-dried and very yummy lasagna meal, three cans of Starbucks Doubleshot (one before each climb segment), two bottles of Ensure Plus (great meal replacement calories I used to charge up my system after the harder climb sections) and a bunch of Kool-aid mini-packets to add to my Nalgene bottles to get sugar back into my system.

Partly because we were tired from the climb up to Muir, and partly because we both have busy home lives (Ben has a three-week old newborn at home and I have my three two and unders), we were in the tent by about 6pm to catch some z’s. I slept pretty fitfully, as I always do in a tent on a mountain, and mostly laid there from 12-2 as parties around us prepared and left for their summit bids (many folks, including the guided Rainier Mountaineering Inc. groups, leave from Muir rather than the higher Ingraham Flats camp). We were up and going again by about 6am, in part because there were a bunch of alpine “bee-flies” buzzing the tent and getting us up early. I call them “bee-flies” because they are annoying and persistent like flies, but they look a lot like bees. Who knows what they actually are.

At any rate, they woke us up and kept us up with their buzzing. We got up and broke down the tent and camp and packed up to leave for Ingraham Flats. We were entering the first part of the climb that is on a glacier, so we put on the harnesses and roped up, put on the helmets (rock-fall danger is an issue) and traded the trecking poles for ice axes. We left Muir and spent the next hour (give or take) crossing the Cowlitz Glacier and heading up a steep rocky slope called Cathedral Gap. Once you are standing on top of the Gap, you get a great view of Mt. Tahoma (which is 11,100 feet tall and is the black and rocky protrusion on the East side of Mt. Rainier) and on down the Ingraham Glacier, which is very broken up and full of building-sized ice blocks and gaping bottomless crevasses this time of year. Keeping all of this on your right, we crept up the ridge and trudged up to Ingraham Flats at roughly 11,000 feet on the Southeast slopes of Mt. Rainier. We found a good spot for camp and setup for a long day of waiting for our summit bid. We kept ourselves busy by melting more snow and boiling water, prepping our gear, and laying in the tent.

My climbing partner and friend Ben when we arrived at Ingraham Flats. The Ingraham Glacier is behind him (the summit is hidden behind the false summit seen in this pic)

Here I am before we set up camp (with the Disappointment Cleaver rock rib behind me - we would be climbing this "spine" of rock in another 12 hours' time)

A clear view of the Ingraham Glacier (notice the climbers coming down from the Disappointment Cleaver)

The Disappointment Cleaver rock rib annotated with red loosely marking the route over snow, ice and rock

The view to the north/north-east from Ingraham Flats - notice the massive ice blocks on the left side of the frame

From our camp at Ingraham Flats - looking at Mt. Tahoma, an 11,150 foot subsidiary peak of Mt. Rainier's

Even though I had hauled the lightweight “Practicing the Presence of God” book up to 11,000 feet, I had exactly zero interest in the book. I was feeling very low energy, maybe because of the previous day’s work, maybe because of the altitude. It was hot in the tent, but I spent most of the afternoon in there trying to catch some sleep and listening to Pierce Pettis on the iPod. Even though I had only been gone from home for about 36 hours now, I was missing Kelly, K, G and S. Pierce’s “Neutral Ground”, one of Kelly’s and my favorite songs, made me miss her, and then “My Little Girl” came on. Such an emotional song for me as it’s about a Daddy trying to protect his little girl’s heart as she grows up.

Kelly knows how much I miss my family when I’m gone (this trip was the longest I think I’d ever been gone from them), so she sent me up with a picture of the family, which I wanted to take to the summit like a sponsor’s flag, and a picture of K&G. Kelly wrote the most amazing note on the back of the family picture which was a constant encouragement. She said: “Jason, I’m so excited for you! You CAN do this!! If you lose your strength, pray that God Himself would be your refuge and strength, your very present help in trouble. I love you no matter what and miss you so much! We all love you and are praying for your safe return. Love, Kel.” I even shared the note with Ben to encourage him.

Knowing we were getting up at around 11pm to depart at midnight, we got ready to go to bed at around 6pm. I had been messing with my phone on the way up – it never seems to work on the mountain although I hear stories of people using them to call 911 to alert Rangers in emergencies. So I knew some phones worked. Anyway, I was messing with settings to try to expand the phone beyond 3G to its other more comprehensive settings. I had shut it off earlier when it wasn’t picking anything up. Around 6:30pm on Monday eve before our summit bid, I turned it on and apparently turning it off and back on reset it to the new more comprehensive range. It was picking up some newly received texts from Kelly, my Dad and Shawn Stinson. And a sweet voicemail from Kelly. And – oh joy! – my work email. Since I was on vacation (although not a very relaxing one!), I ignored the work email and texted back Kelly, my Dad and Shawn. My Dad had written a nice text telling me he loved me and that he and my Mom were praying for safety. Ben was able to call his wife and check in on her and his newborn son. I called Kelly and in classic Kelly fashion was unable to reach her on either the home phone, her cell phone, or even her Mom’s phone. I shot her a couple of texts and voicemails, though, and was able to tell her I loved her and that we were leaving for the summit in only four to five hours. It was so great to hear her voice even on her voicemail. I did get this text from her before we left for the summit, though, which was encouraging: “I am so mad i missed your call!! I am so proud of you! I wish you knew how many times we have prayed for you. Tonight G asked me to pray for you!”

We went to bed and got some nervous “wake every 20 minutes” sleep. It seemed windy outside, but wasn’t too bad when we got up at 11pm. It was very dark outside as the moon was just a sliver in the night sky. We were thrilled to see a cloud-free and incredibly star-filled sky. Some groups around us (there were probably three or four other occupied tents at our camp) were stirring, and Ben and I got moving fast. We were hoping to be the first ones on the route, but only just ahead of another rope team of two (to increase our margin of safety and theirs). Although I had been nervous during the day before, and during the sleeping hours ahead of departure, now that we were up and moving, I was all business and not worried much anymore. Just ready to climb and be on a part of the route I’d never been on. I was carrying my regular pack, but it was much lighter, with some food, about three liters of water, a down coat as an emergency bivy, a picket and the usual ten essentials (first aid, firestarter, etc.). I was actually wearing a lot of my other gear (crampons, helmet, headlamp, rope, harness, ice axe).

We flipped on the headlamps to light the route ahead of us; We prayed and asked Jesus for safety and wisdom. Ben led our little rope team and we were on our way. First ones off. No one would pass us and we would have the mountain eerily to ourselves. We climbed straight up several hundred feet and cut hard right after getting around a large and deep crevasse. We had to step over a couple of deep but not wide (maybe 9-12 inches) crevasses, then headed down towards the Disappointment Cleaver rock section. Ben had told me this was possibly the crux part of the climb. 1,200 to 1,500 feet of rock and steep snow slopes depositing you on the top of the Cleaver.

We stepped off of the glacier and onto this steep and huge “rib” of rock (the Cleaver) that stands like a giant nose on the side of Mt. Rainier. We searched with our headlamps to find the wands (small flags) marking the route on the rock, and we steadily climbed up. Back and forth through the rocks, sometimes using one hand and one ice axe. The rock loomed above us even darker than the moonless sky – those were the places where the night sky was not peppered with stars. A huge crash of rocks fell behind us as we made our way up the rock and I prayed silently for the two men behind us, that they were safe and not close to the heavy rockfall. Routefinding was difficult, but our headlamps would occasionally reflect the wands the National Park Service rangers and commercial guides had left to mark the way. After 20-30 minutes of making our way through the rocks, we were able to find the exposed switchbacks up the side of the Cleaver. Roughly thirty more minutes later and we had come to the top of the Cleaver, where the slope lessened (if only temporarily). It was about 1:30 in the morning and we were coming to “the ladder”.

The ladder had become a bit infamous in my mind. The day before several guys coming down from the summit had said, “watch out for the 2x8 over the three foot wide bottomless crevasse. That was enough to make me nervous. Although one guys said he had simply jumped it, which made me less nervous (if it was jumpable then the plank crossing couldn’t be too bad). Then others who came down said not to worry, it was now a 4 foot crevasse, but that the rangers had put down a ladder with two 2x8’s on it. Good, no worries. When we arrived at the ladder, it became clear where it was going to be, because the whole section of the route was very broken up. Huge house-sized blocks of ice all around and a couple of deep but not wide crevasses to step over. Then ninety degrees to the right and an 8-foot ladder laid down over a three and a half to four foot wide gaping crevasse. I didn’t look down on my first trip over it (knowing there would be another on the way back). You could almost feel the depth through the blackness though. I kept the rope taut as Ben crossed and he for me. It was just baby steps as the sharp points of our crampons grasped the wood planks. Then a left turn and across a snow bridge that was preserving the route across another large crevasse brother to the one we had just crossed.

The ladder and the snowbridge, both crossing large "bottomless" crevasses

A closer look as we approached (actually these were taken on the way down so we had already crossed over)

A close-up looking down into the crevasse (wish I had leaned out a little further so you could see the blackness down below) - notice the marks left by crampon points of crossing climbers

This is the view of the ice-fall to our left as we are crossing the ladder - these are house-sized chunks of ice so it's a pretty intimidating jumble of glacier

Close-ups of some of the ice-fall around us

After crossing over the ladder and the snowbridge (visible in the bottom-right corner), the route traversed across the mountain to avoid some large ice-fall sections (including one that had already collapsed over the route) - you can see the bootpack in the picture outlining the route the Rangers have suggested

Then the route opened up. A long flat section across the side of the mountain over to the shoulder of the Emmons Glacier. There was a fair amount of exposure below us, but the climbing was easy, the weather pleasant and wind light. At one point I realized the route was crossing over a large ice block that had a long fall on the right and a deep crevasse on the left. Pretty crazy. Sort of a two foot wide tightrope walk with a backpack, heavy boots and gear on. But my ice axe had plenty of purchase on the left to keep me secure and connected to the mountain.

After continuing out towards the Emmons glacier on this long traverse, the route finally traversed left and we began a long series of switchbacks. 20 minutes of climbing South and then a right turn and 20 minutes of climbing North. Back and forth. Back and forth. My eyes focused on keeping the rope in front of me out of the way of my crampons, taking step after step to keep the distance between me and Ben steady so that the rope wouldn’t bunch up if I got going too fast, or didn’t go too taut and pull on him. I had plenty of cardiovascular strength in the tank, but was feeling hungry (I had only had a small Starbucks doubleshot when we left camp) and a little low energy. Ben and I stopped a couple of times to drink some water and I hit a small tube of Clif Bar energy goo.

This is not my pic, but one I found online illustrating the view from the top of the Disappointment Cleaver

Also not my pic - does a good job of showing the traverse across the side of the mountain once leaving the Cleaver

One more (also not my pic) illustrating the route's wandering to avoid large crevasses - this was very similar to our day on the mountain

Not my pic, but illustrates well the exposure as well as the route's meandering around large ice blocks that are a routine part of this heavily glaciated peak

Somewhere around 2:30-3:00am, we were at roughly 13,000 feet. I added a layer of gloves and put my beanie hat on underneath my helmet. We were making good progress fast and the guys who left 5 minutes behind us were now nowhere to be seen. It was like we had the upper reaches of Mt. Rainier all to ourselves. Pretty amazing feeling. I was still trying to manage my food intake and was popping bites of a candy bar, but was still feeling low-energy. Ben kept me on my toes though as we kept a pretty relentless pace and did not stop to rest more than 30 second “catch your breath” rest-stops. 1,411 feet to go.

Once we got to about 13,500 feet at about 3:30am, I realized that I was looking at the altimeter way too much and was only discouraging myself. Rather than looking and thinking “whoa, we’re already at 13,300?”, I was looking and thinking “what? we’re only at 13,100?”. I decided to start counting my steps and counted about 250 steps per 100 feet of vertical. So, that gave me a number to shoot for every 100 feet and made the time pass. Finally, out of the slowly lightening sky I could see rock formations up above us that I thought might be the crater rim. I knew we were at around 13,800, so only another 600 vertical feet to go, maybe half an hour or so. I could do that no problem. What seemed like only five or so minutes later, we stepped over the crater rim at 14,100 feet. I was actually shocked because I was expecting and bracing for a longer climb. I had been told that once you crested the crater rim it was a FLAT walk to the true summit, which would have meant we were basically done going up once we crested the crater rim. I quickly realized that the true summit was not only on the other side of the very large crater (maybe the size of two football fields in diameter?), but also another 300 vertical feet up. This was very demoralizing. We were now walking very slowly and still needing to stop every five minutes to rest and catch our breath. There were some small crevasses even on the summit that we stepped over, and a large open “snow-cave” on one side. Just before the summit, we stepped off of the snow and onto some rock that was covered in delicately wind-shaped ice. Ben stepped on the ice and the intricately-connected ice snapped like a frozen rope making a sharp whipping noise that startled me (given that on glaciated peaks I am highly paranoid about crevasse falls).

Not my pic (it was dark when I was there!), but this is what the inside of the summit crater looks like

One more that is not my pic, but illustrates the path through the crater (the other side is the "low" side, pic is taken from the high side, although the pic makes it look more gradual than it felt!)

But it was just a noise and we continued on up to the true summit of Mt. Rainier at 14,411 feet at 4:51am on July 21st, 2009, four days after my 34th birthday, having left camp at 12:20am (GPS said it had taken four hours and twenty-seven minutes). It was a very exciting moment for me and the fulfillment of a decade-long dream and long pursuit of climbing and mountaineering skills and outdoor experience-building. The summit (called Columbia Crest) was pretty large (maybe 50 feet in diameter?) and you could see “the other two” summits of Mt. Rainier, including the slightly lower Liberty Cap (14,112 feet) and the crater rim (called Point Success, 14,158 feet), that we had just crossed over. Although the wind was not strong, it was still cold on top, especially because the sun was not out yet. The sun was just coming up over the horizon and the sky was a mix of black and orange. We could see what was probably the town of Puyallup to our Northwest, and we snapped some pictures as the sun slowly began to rise. It was an amazing feeling to have the summit to ourselves – not another soul in sight.

Me on the summit with my family photo

Self-portrait of the climbing partners (alone on the summit)

The sun rising over Puyallup and Seattle (not visible); if you look carefully you can see the curve of the earth on the horizon

After ten to fifteen minutes on the summit, we returned back down to the crater and tried to call our wives (even though it was 5:15am). Cell phone reception was not great and we were cold so we got going again. We crossed over the crater lip and headed back down. Maybe fifteen minutes from the crater lip, we ran into the party of two other climbers headed up. We stopped and said Hi and wished them well, continuing down. Over the next hour or so, we moved off the route a number of times to let other parties pass (on their way up), including five to six guided parties of three. As the sun rose and we continued to come back down, it got very very hot. We began to delayer and tried to keep up with our water intake needs. It was actually really amazing to see the difficult and crevasse-ridden terrain we had ascended earlier that morning. Huge portions of the mountain were covered in house-sized chunks of ice and the route crossed around and occasionally below these massive features.

Sometime around 6:30-7:00am we got back to the snowbridge and ladder crevasse crossing just above the Disappointment Cleaver. It was pretty wild to see it in the daylight and to carefully look over the lip of the large crevasse into the deep deep opening. We continued down onto the Cleaver and made quick work of the switchbacks and back onto the rock section. We were anxious to get out of the dangerous higher sections that are prone to melting and shifting (not to mention rockfall) in the hot sun. After some quick routefinding, we quickly but gingerly made our way down the rock section and back onto the glacier, climbing up and around a very large (maybe a hundred yards long and twenty feet wide?) crevasse that we had passed in the night climb up, hopped a few small ones and then made a long straight downward slog back to camp. We arrived at camp at roughly 8:30am, pretty tired, but motivated to pack up and get down. I was thrilled to get to call Kelly and report the good news – knowing that she has been my biggest supporter for my climbing goals. We broke down camp, threw it all on our backs, roped up again for the final section of rock and glacier, and descended back to Camp Muir. We were there by around 11am and spent about an hour there boiling water to drink and recuperating a bit. We left Muir at about 12:30 and were back down to Pebble Creek (the bottom of the Muir snowfield) at about 1:30pm after making quick work of the snowfield (dropping 3,000 vertical feet in an hour by doing standing slides and by careening down as fast as we could make ourselves go). The sun was hot and we were tired, so it was a real highlight to take my shirt off and put it, my hat and my head in the icy glacier-melt water of Pebble Creek.

An hour and a half later (including a missed turn on the trail that took us out of our way) we were back at Paradise among the hundreds of tourists there to visit the mountain. It was a gorgeous day, and hot, and we had been on the move for fifteen hours now, and we rejoiced to reach every climber’s goal: the flip-flops in the back seat of the car that you trade for your big old climbing boots. Success! We also made quick work of a couple of Cokes from the Visitor’s center and headed back home to our wives, children and loved ones.

It was very exciting for me to finally get to the top of Mt. Rainier. It was exciting not only to summit, but to do it in a small independent party of two. It was amazing to have the weather we had. It was incredible to have the upper mountain to ourselves and a quiet summit. It was very fulfilling to know that months and months of running and training had paid off on summit day. In my pre-climb training, I had achieved my personal running goal of being able to run five consecutive eight-minute miles and it made the physical/cardiovascular part of summit day very manageable. There was more in the tank when I got to the top and more in the tank when I got back to the car (I ended up feeling good enough to go home and go swimming in Lake Sammamish with the kids, and stayed up until midnight that night with Kelly (up 24 straight hours, including 15 at a very high level of output)).

Additionally, it was a day of great thanks for me. I was thankful for great weather (including light wind on summit day), particularly great weather that coincided with a trip we had planned for Kelly’s Mom Leta to come out and help her with the kids while I was gone. I was thankful for Leta coming all the way out to Seattle to help Kelly and keep her company (how amazing is that!). I was thankful that I had finished up a big presentation at work the Friday before my trip and didn’t have to worry about work. I was thankful that my climbing partner Ben had been able to go, even though he and his wife had just had their first baby several weeks before. I was thankful that my phone had worked at Ingraham Flats (to be able to call Kelly and to have the ability to call 911 and reach park rangers if necessary). I was thankful that the two guys camping near us at Ingraham Flats wanted to leave at a similar time in order to have more safety margin (they could help us if needed and we could help them). I was thankful that Camp Muir was available on the first night and Ingraham Flats on the second night (sometimes they fill up). I was also thankful to have the vacation time to get to do a three day Sunday to Tuesday climb that made it more manageable and fun (and it also meant I was able to spend Saturday with Kelly, K, G and S, making the days away from them more bearable (especially since two of them would have been work days anyway)). I was also thankful for my climbing partner Ben’s rope leadership and company on the climb.

And I was particularly thankful for two people: Jesus for his encouragement and strength throughout both this climb and the years of climbing building up to this one. And for the safety net He put around us to get us safely up and back home.

And I am especially thankful to Kelly for all of her love and encouragement to me over the years to go chase and reach my outdoor adventure / climbing dreams. Kelly has worked quite a few Saturdays when I might have been home helping her with the kids, instead sacrificing to let me go do training hikes and summits and summit attempts. So I am very very thankful to her, which is why I wanted my summit picture to include her and my family.

To wrap up, let me say this: on my way down the mountain, I remember plotting, as I do on almost every climb, how to go about selling my mountaineering gear. Climbing, for me, is an incredible chance to get outdoors and worship not the creation, but the Creator. The vastness of a place like Mt. Rainier is readily felt when you go through the experience of climbing it. And that vastness reflects the incredible height and breadth and grandeur of all of the attributes of God. But in addition to that beauty, climbing is about suffering and you have to love to endure to be successful, even in little ways, at it. And inevitably that suffering gets to me and I wonder why I do it and plot ways to stop doing it. Then.... I get back to the car and I drink a huge carbonated and high-sugar beverage, and I take off those blasted boots, and lean back in my seat, and start talking and dreaming about the next climb, the next route, the next mountain. It’s a crazy and addictive sport and I am an addict.

So, until the next climb, thanks for reading my account!

The route as tracked by my GPS (starting at Ingraham Flats and going to the summit and back down again)

Loui Giglio Twitter Press Conference

2009-08-18T10:39:00.001-07:00

This is pretty funny - I got a kick out of the zoom-in around 3:30.

Rainier Summit Part 1

2009-07-23T16:44:00.000-07:00

OK, so bear with me on the length of this as this about as much a personal climbing journal for myself as much as it is a blog post:

I like to believe that I am a persistent person and am pretty good at setting goals and running after them. There are areas of my life that bear this out (and perhaps some that don’t). Despite spending three and a half years or so in the Seattle area – The Mecca of Outdoors living with close city access – I began to get interested in the outdoors only after graduating from Northwestern and moving to North Carolina. I had heard a little bit about whitewater kayaking and wanted to learn how to do it. I signed up for a weekend class and walked out after the first hour – I was convinced that I could learn from a friend or two a lot faster than the slow pace of the class allowed. My friend Paul Peters was kind enough to spend a lot of time teaching me how to roll and how to navigate a river, and despite dislocating my shoulder on my very first river run (not to mention many other times on many other runs), I progressed quickly through Class 1-4 rivers (Green, Nantahala, Ocoee, Pigeon, Little, Nolichucky, New, New Dries, Pigeon Dries, Laurel, French Broad, among others) to successfully running – numerous times – my “goal” river, the mighty Upper Gauley in West Virginia, which has five class V rapids, within 18 months of starting out paddling. I was single and pretty fancy-free, so I paddled a lot, even going to rivers by myself to find new people to boat with, even paddling when I didn’t want to some weekends just because I knew it would be good experience and would help me achieve my Gauley goal.

Around the same time, about 10 years ago when I lived in Charlotte, I decided that I wanted to climb Mt. Rainier. I read articles about Mt. Rainier. I looked at pictures and devoured mountaineering books like “Into Thin Air.” The experience itself sounded miserable, but seemed to be the ultimate test of one’s mettle. Strangely given how unlikely it would have been for me to actually climb it anytime soon, I spent $200+ on a pair of goretex bib climbing pants (only to learn later that no one wore bibs on big peaks in the Cascades (too hot and not “layerable”)). I bought a pair of uber-stiff climbing boots and wore them around little hikes in NC. I was passionate about Mt. Rainier.

When Kelly and I got married and moved to Berkeley so that I could go to business school, I met a few friends who were interested in doing some really basic mountaineering climbs, and we trained for and planned to do Mt. Shasta in Northern CA. Life got busy and weather never quite worked out, so we didn’t end up doing it. But I was still really passionate about mountains and Mt. Rainier.

When we moved to Seattle, I had finally landed in mountain paradise. We have all of the largest and most heavily glaciated peaks in the lower 48 states within about a three hour drive of Seattle. This is mountaineering Mecca. One of the largest and most famous climbing clubs in the United States is here (the Seattle Mountaineers), and the city is home to many of the most famous US mountaineers, including Ed Viesturs (the only American to climb all 14 8000 meter peaks without supplemental oxygen), Jim Whittaker (first American to climb Everest), and others, most of whom learned their trade climbing the lower 48’s most complex big peak, Mt. Rainier. All of this activity revolves around the Cascade range, which is in our backyard, and 14,411 foot Mt. Rainier.

A year after moving to Seattle, in July of 2004, I climbed Mt. Adams (12,276 feet) with some friends from work. It was a totally non-technical climb (no glacier on the route we did), but required crampons and ice axe. It was a great climb and I was hooked. The next summer, I attempted Mt. Baker with a friend, but we went late season (September) and turned around at around 7,500 feet due to heavy crevasse danger and few people on the route (and only two of us climbing together, one of us (me) very unqualified to assist in a crevasse fall!).

So, I was climbing, but I didn’t have many skills. I didn’t have glacier travel experience, rope or knot experience, or self-arrest or crevasse-danger experience. And to top it off, I really wanted to climb Rainier as part of an independent climb, not guided. I tend to be a very independent person (Kelly would say that is an understatement) and wanted to get up Rainier and other peaks as part of a self-supported team, not a large guided “company” team.

So, during the winter and spring of 2006, I took a 9-month “basic” climbing class with the Seattle Mountaineers to learn glacier travel, crevasse, self-arrest, scrambling, rock-climbing, rope, knot, etc. experience. The class was A LOT of work and time commitment and I really appreciated Kelly’s patience and determination (with me being gone a lot) to help me learn good skills. We had to summit three peaks (two glacier climbs and one rock climb) in order to graduate. I climbed Mt. Baker (10,781 feet), Mt. Ruth (7,115 feet), Icy Peak (7,073 feet) and Ingalls Peak (7,662 feet) in order to finish. I was interested in Mt. Rainier that summer, but it just never worked out.

Summer of 2007, K and G were born. I was training for and hoping to climb Rainier, but 5 months of up every three hours for an hour was really not working for getting in shape for a big climb. After sort of bonking on an attempt on beautiful Vesper Peak (6,214 feet) (which I have since climbed) I decided Rainier wasn’t going anywhere and that it would have to wait.

Summer of 2008, I was trying to get things planned with my friends Ben, Mark and Jim, a great group of guys (3 brothers) who I trust and who love Jesus and with whom I share similar climbing qualifications and general interests. Really a great group of guys. We tried Rainier three times during the summer of 2008. We got up to Ingraham Flats at 11,100 feet over Memorial Day weekend, but had to come down due to heavy snow and winds. It rained on us July 4th weekend and we were too soaked to continue on up into harsher conditions – we turned around at ~8,500 feet. We had one more weekend planned (during perfect weather conditions), but sadly the brothers’ granddad died and we had to bail on the trip. We did climb Mt. Hood (11,239) that summer though, which was a wonderful climb (we drove to Portland from Seattle on a Friday night, crashed at Jim’s house for three hours of rest, arrived at the mountain at midnight, left for the summit, summitted at 7am and came right back down).

So, now we are in 2009! We had the vacation days scheduled, Kelly’s Mom had agreed to come out to help Kelly with the kids and to keep her company, everything was set. We had a big group planning to go, and slowly they trickled off... and finally it was down to just two people, me and Ben. I was concerned about doing a glacier climb with only two people on a rope. But after talking with Ben and a few others with more experience, we decided to go for it... and the weather was looking really really perfect....

Written before Baby S was born

2009-06-30T16:15:00.000-07:00

I am sitting here at my desk working today. Listening to a little shuffle play on my iPod. Shania Twain came on. From This Moment. Made me think of that first dance of ours at our wedding almost eight years ago. My sweet love where have the years gone? I know you so much better today. You know me so much better. My good points, and so many more rough edges. Jesus is alive in us though, darling, setting fire to our sin and selfishness, refining us in that blaze and white hot heat. Some days it seems like I can look at you today and see the change from yesterday.

And as you labor around the house carrying the son who dwells within you, little girls clinging to your every step, full of life and love for you, you continue to impress my heart. Your momma gift is so strong in you. When they were born, I used to feel the need to take charge in the way I do so often. The leader and micromanager in me. But now I just marvel at your confidence, wisdom and poise. If there are questions about how to take care of them, what noodle to feed them, what clothes to put on them, it’s from me to you, not the other way around. I lead our family and set strategy and drive direction and guide theology, but you are our tactical and operational expert on our daughters and our home. You are what I call our practical theologian. You live it out in front of them and guide them ever so gently. Thank you for owning that role darling.

And as I think of you in my minds eye, at home blessing them and me today, I sit here at work laboring for you and for our family. My mission in life – with respect to my work – is clear to me, to be a leader and cultural influencer in the secular world. But I work in large part to bless you, to support you, to provide a home for our family. Even more important than my work is the legacy we are building. To raise children in Jesus, to track so deep and fast and heavy that the wake of our legacy will ripple out behind us for generations and generations. And that ultimately that wake would be not for our glory, but God’s.

Sweetness, thank you for our life and the vast and meaningful ways that you contribute to it and grow it with me. I love you.

Cowan Family Upate

2009-06-23T16:41:00.000-07:00

It’s been a long time since I’ve had much time for blogging. My list of priorities goes something like this 1) Jesus, 2) Kelly, 3) K, G and S, 4) Starbucks, 5) Mars Hill/ministry, 6) friends/community, 7) blogging. Blogging probably isn’t even number 7, but point is it’s sort of somewhere towards the bottom of the list. Although, truth be told, I also use my blogging as a form of ministry, so I guess it really is more of a number 5. But even number 5 has taken a hit lately as we have been overwhelmed by the depth of life change that came with increasing our children count by 50%.

Things are great at home although very very busy. It is not easy job to manage two very active two year olds and a nearly 3 month old who is quite a handful. He is a busy busy baby who likes to eat and who likes to be close. He is happiest when he’s being held, second happiest when you’re right in front of him talking and cooing with him, and pretty much unhappy when you’re not within six feet of him. He is a relational baby! Taking care of this brood is manageable when you have three adults, pretty hectic when it’s two of you, and all out mayhem when it’s just Kelly. Sometimes when I take care of them by myself for 30 minutes, I actually wonder with every part of my being how Kelly does it all day. She is such a hard worker. But if you’re a praying person please pray for strength, energy and encouragement for my sweet Kelly.

Their have been quite a few fun events lately, and I’ll include just a few snippets. One highlight has been all of the talking from the little ladies. K in particular is a real jabberbox. G understands everything, and is getting to be quite a parrot, but she’s quite a bit more reserved, so doesn’t offer much up unless you really ask for it. It is very common now to be driving home, Kelly and I in the front seats, S and G in the middle seats, and K in the way back. The van will get quiet and all of a sudden K will yell (literally): “Hey Daddy!” It is actually awesome.

A few snippets of life:

• Kelly was nursing S in our play room with the girls one afternoon. While she was sitting there, the girls decided they wanted to leave the room, so they got up together, G opened the play room door (she is better at that than K), they both walked through and G closed it behind them. Not a word. Just left K in there by herself to go explore the house.
• Later, the girls came back in. They have these three Pottery Barn Kids chairs that Nonni and Poppi got them for their birthdays. Each has their name embroidered on them. Kelly was sitting in K’s chair and K walked up and said “my chair.” She was right, which was kind of funny, so Kelly just moved. What a precocious little girl.
• One day a month or so ago we heard G’s door open upstairs during what was supposed to be a nap. I went up and found G wandering around the upstairs. Apparently she can now climb out of her pack and play (especially when it is next to her big girl bed and she can use that as a landing zone). A few days later I put her in her crib and told her to show me how she gets out. She obliged immediately by pulling herself up on the front rails and throwing her right leg up on the side rails (our little gymnast, it was like she was on a pommel horse). Pop, she was over.
• A couple weeks ago I took K, G and S to Target by myself. It was nearly bedtime, so it was sort of a suicide mission, but we were there nonetheless. I was pulling K and G in a big red Target basket and was pushing S with my other hand in his stroller. I had taken a pair of their shoes back and was finding a replacement, and then went to another part of the store. When I got to the other section, I saw not only the shoes I had picked up for the girls, but also a pair of purple “jellies” in the basket. I assumed they had fallen in and headed back to the shoes section to take them back. As I put them back on the shelf, K went hysterical. Apparently she had seen them on the way through the section, grabbed them and put them in the cart (she’s a smart cookie: she knows the things that go in the cart go home with us). Funny thing is they were the right size. Well, sadly for her, we did not buy them, but thankfully Mimi sent them each a pair a week or so later, so all is well.
• Now that G is climbing out of her crib, and because we’d like to get K out of the nursery and into their new big-girl-room (with G), so that we can paint it blue and get S into the nursery, we are transitioning the girls to sleeping in their big-girl-beds, which are in the same room in what used to be our office. Man, trying to convince them to stay in beds that they can get out of at night is a real chore. It is a matter of training that takes incredible patience and persistence on the part of Mom and Dad. I usually just get a chair and sit right outside their room with a book and am usually there at least an hour:
• The first couple of nights we tried it, G got out of bed repeatedly. I mean like 10-12 times. One of the first nights, she managed to get herself tired enough to fall asleep in bed, but the second (and maybe third) night, she fell asleep on the floor of the room after I locked it from the outside because she had been venturing out of the room to explore the upstairs so frequently. One night she fell asleep on a pile of 30 wipes that she had pulled out of a wipes container. Sweet thing is such an endless explorer! I was hoping by locking the door that she would get back in bed and go to sleep, but that didn't work. She just found things in the room to explore in the pitch black (like the sound machine, who's volume button she turned up and down and up and down...)
• In the last few nights, I threw caution to the wind and decided this was hard enough as it is, might as well go whole hog. So we added K into the mix. Oh, painful. Now, like the toddlers who love each other that they are, they talk back and forth incessantly. Sometimes for an hour or longer. Often with hops out of bed to visit the other one in her bed. K will sometimes throw her lamby on the ground and cry for it - sweet G will hop out of bed to get it for her, then scramble to get back in bed before I catch her out of bed. The will often sit up in bed and look at each other and say back and forth “hi”, “hi”, “hi”, “hi” and giggle and laugh. I came in a couple of nights ago to tell them to be quiet and to go to bed, and as I was leaving the room K said “happy birday Daddy”. Don’t know where that came from because it wasn’t my birthday, but it was hilarious.

Anyway, those are the adventures at the Cowan house. I’m sure there will be many more to come and I will keep you all in the loop.

Grace

2009-06-18T09:45:00.001-07:00

This is a cool picture of grace - and I'm glad to see that a Christian man would bring this to life.

Piper response to Obama on Abortion

2009-05-13T12:52:00.001-07:00

Dear Freeman Family

2009-05-12T14:53:00.000-07:00

It was with great sadness that I read this morning about your having lost sweet Kayleigh. Sadness for your lost time with her, for the lost future. And yet, I also rejoice in the hope for her future and for the great expanse of time that you will spend with her after this life. Our lives are just a blink in light of eternity (Psalm 39:5 - You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man's life is but a breath). What a joy that as Christians we can rejoice in that future when we know Jesus!

Thank you Freemans for the ways that you have brought glory to Jesus through this difficult circumstance. Your faith has been an encouragement to us all. Thank you Kayleigh for being a means by which the Gospel could go out to the nations. Many people live much longer lives with much less impact.

Thank you Jesus for your victory over death. We long for heaven that we would know our new bodies, our new life with you Jesus, and for perfect relationship with each other and with you.

1 Corinthians 15: 20But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.... 25For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26The last enemy to be destroyed is death.... 36How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body.... 42So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"[e]; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. 48As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we[f] bear the likeness of the man from heaven. 50I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory." 55"Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" 56The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Help the Kayleigh Freeman family

2009-04-27T16:54:00.000-07:00

Friends, please read this post and see if God doesn't tug at your heart (He did mine). This family, part of the global body of Christ, is hurting and needs help. They are likely, unless God does a miracle, going to lose their Kayleigh baby. Let's help them out even if it means a small sacrifice on our part.

Moi Jesus

2009-04-24T15:52:00.000-07:00

I am a Daddy who really wants to be an effective communicator of the Gospel and a kind and gentle pastor to both my wife and my daughters. I do this (sometimes well, sometimes not so well) through a number of pretty organic means with K and G (and now S). I sit down and pull each of them onto my knees in the mornings, we touch forehead to forehead and I pray for each individually – out loud. At night, when it’s bedtime, after we’ve brushed teeth and changed diapers and the whole lot, I spend a little bit of time with each individually, then will turn the lights off and pray for her (out loud) and then will sing a few worship songs. And then, later on in the evening after they’ve been asleep a few hours and I’m on my way to bed, I always return – every night – to pray over them, to pray that God would soften their little hearts towards Him, that the Gospel and their need for it would begin to take root, that they would respect their Mommy and Daddy as their authority and learn to know Jesus as their authority. And I pray that the Holy Spirit would minister to their souls at night and begin to make Himself known to them – that His voice would be a regular and effective communicator and lover of their sweet but ultimately depraved and very God-needy souls. And I pray that they would come to hear and know and recognize that voice, and come to know Jesus at a young age, and finish strong at an old age. I also pray that their lives would be lived for His Glory.

Although they are young, it has been a really incredible joy in my life lately to begin to see some sweet – albeit humble – fruit from this ministry: lately, as I put little G to bed, I have been singing Amazing Grace and Hillsong’s Hosanna. Much to my joy and surprise, G has begun singing with me. She mostly sings “Hosassa”, but what’s amazing to me is that she always sings. She doesn’t say it, she raises her sweet little voice and sings. It is a heartbreaking gift for a Daddy. Every time she does it I am hoping Kelly will come to the door and hear it.

And we had a cool moment last night too. After diapers and before teeth, I got down our rhyme Bible that the Sinnetts gave us. As usual, I paraphrase even the paraphrased rhymes because even those are not short enough for the 2 year old toddler span of attention. But we flipped to the New Testament tonight and looked at the Gospels. I try to show them Jesus in the Old Testament too, but it was easy tonight as we read through the Gospels and looked at all of the drawings of Jesus and the disciples and the man being lowered through the roof and Jesus calming the storm on the Sea of Galilee.

Anyway, it was time for bed, so I wrapped things up and put the Bible back up on its shelf. K immediately looked at me with a desperate face and said “Moi Jesus! Moi Jesus!” And tears streamed down her face. Now, what can any God-fearing Jesus-loving Daddy do besides get the Bible back down. So, we had some more Jesus. It was more sweet time with them. And when we wrapped it up again, of course there were more “Moi Jesus” yelps and possibly even a small tantrum (demonstrating her heart’s need for Moi Jesus!), but regardless it was nice to see my daughters so interested in the Savior Kelly and I love and whom we hope they will come to know and love.

The girls turn two tomorrow. I can’t believe it. We are very thankful to Jesus for their sweet lives. Thank you Jesus for your grace to us.

The Meaning of Marriage

2009-04-15T14:20:00.001-07:00

I just saw that John Piper has a new book coming out. I am excited. I love John Piper. His book is about marriage, its great value, its temporary nature (in that we will not enjoy it in heaven), its role in our lives and in our ministry to non-Christians.

I know very very very very very very very few Christians who understand and hold a covenantal view of marriage, that marriage is primarily about demonstrating the Gospel, that Jesus marries us, His bride, and stays with us no matter how devastatingly bad, cruel and sinful we are to Him, and that as Christians we are called to live out marriage in the same way (just as God asked Hosea to stay married to his whoring wife, to demonstrate the Gospel). Secondarily, marriage is about our sanctification, that we would be more like Jesus. As our Pastor Mark says it, "the purpose of marriage is not to make you happy, but to make you holy."

John Piper says it even better than I can describe it all: "Most foundationally, marriage is the doing of God. And ultimately, marriage is the display of God. It displays the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his people to the world in a way that no other event or institution does. Marriage, therefore, is not mainly about being in love. It’s mainly about telling the truth with our lives. And staying married is not about staying in love. It is about keeping covenant and putting the glory of Christ’s covenant-keeping love on display.

"If you are married, this is why,” says Piper. “If you hope to be, this should be your dream.”

Our Birth Story and Name Explanation

2009-03-31T20:35:00.000-07:00

Kelly called me Friday morning at work and said, “what could be one of the worst things to happen to us right now?” A laundry list of troubles popped into my mind, and Kelly told me that Kanah had been throwing up all morning. We prayed, right then and there, that we wouldn’t all get it going into our last weekend before the new baby, when we had lined up so many important things: getting the house cleaned and ready for the new baby, Kelly’s Mom arriving late Friday for a brief trip to see the new baby, spending some good time with the girls to help them prepare for their new brother. And our timelines were tight. Kelly’s Mom was only here a short time. I had been working like a dog to get my schedule coordinated at work (with a new job) so that I could take a week off, and we needed the c-section to be as early in the week as possible in order for me to maximize that time at home. And then we had a photographer coming to take pictures of the big day.

So, Kanah, was sick for about 24 hours. When her symptoms mostly subsided by Saturday morning, we breathed a collective sigh of relief. No one else had come down with anything yet. Alas, it was not the end. I was clicking off the lights late Saturday night and doing my nightly check on the girls before bed and heard Grace vomiting. I went into her room and found her in a pool of it. I got her up, changed all of her clothes and sleep-sack, changed her sheets and put down a towel in case it happened again. Lights off. More. New clothes, new sleep sack, more laundry, and finally bed for me. The sickness started only hours later for me. Unbelievable gut-wrenching stuff that left me absolutely floored for about 24 straight hours, and I’m still struggling with it now 48 hours after the first 24. Kelly started about 8 hours after I did, but had eaten lighter in anticipation of it, so wasn’t dealing with as much vomiting, mostly just exhaustion and a few other symptoms.

We called the doctor repeatedly to see if we needed to cancel. Would they be able to do the surgery? What if I couldn’t go because I couldn’t stand up? Would I be able to hold my son? Would Kelly’s Mom get this and not be able to hold the baby after flying out here to be here for only 5 days? We canceled with the photographer. None of us felt like being in photos and we didn’t want to risk her getting her three kids sick.

We went to bed very early Sunday night after being in bed all day Sunday, not sure what Monday morning and our scheduled 9am c-section would look like. After a fitful night, we were feeling a little better than on Sunday. I really believe it was just the grace of God because my symptoms still aren’t totally gone. He just gave us strength where there was none. An extra bit of grace. We arrived at the hospital at 7am. Surgery was pushed back from 9am to 10am, then to 11am, then to 12:30pm, then back to 11:30am. The extra time was good for me because every extra minute was healing. But it was bad for Kelly because she hadn’t eaten at all since Saturday night, then wasn’t allowed to have food or even water for 8 hours prior to her surgery, which then became 9 hours and then 12 hours…

We finally made it to the operating room at noon and our sweet son Salem Chandler Cowan was born at 12:20pm. He weighs 8 pounds 4 ounces and is 20 inches tall. He has a lot of black hair (like his Daddy) and he is handsome and sweet. We are very in love. We are so thankful for our expert surgeon and OB Heather Moore who did an amazing job. She was really happy with how Kelly looked inside and with how the surgery went. I got to watch every minute of the surgery and document with camera and video. I am most proud of Kelly who endured a lot of vomiting and sickness during the surgery and afterwards. I think it was really hard on her body to go through that after having the stomach flu. She was a warrior in that operating room just as she has been in carrying our son for 9 months. And just as
she was with our girls. Pregnancy and childbirth is a crazy crazy thing. My friend AJ used to say that it didn’t seem to matter, the curse always got the woman somehow. Either she’d have a brutal pregnancy and an easy delivery, or an easy pregnancy and brutal delivery. But either way the curse got her. And man it got Kelly.

Kelly and I are really excited about our son’s name. We have wanted to name a baby Salem for a long time, but we wanted to only use it for a boy. And the girls’ middle names are Kelly’s Mom’s maiden name (Brittain) and my Mom’s (Hutton), so it was a natural fit to use Kelly’s maiden name for him, as a way to honor her Dad’s family, and also because it’s a great boy’s name: Chandler. Salem is a Biblical name that appears three times in Scripture: Genesis 14, Psalm 76 and Hebrews 7. Salem is a derivative of the Hebrew word Shalem meaning to be complete, sound, or perfect, whole, full. Another derivative is Shalom, meaning peace. One last derivative, Shulam, means to be fully paid. Kelly and I really believe in naming our children in the Biblical manner, that our children would be defined by their names. And we hope Salem will be defined by the idea that his life is paid in full by the blood of Jesus, and that he can live in the fullness and peace of God by that sanctifying work of His Savior, who we hope and pray that Salem will come to know.

So, that’s our story. It’s been quite a five days. Kelly’s Mom has been super gracious to watch the girls faithfully during this time, when we actually didn’t have any energy or strength to do it. And God has been good to give us strength to get through this. Thank you Jesus for the birth of our son and for his sweet life. We give it over to you in trust and faith and love.

Twouble with Twitters

2009-03-26T10:24:00.001-07:00

Uh, what.... Chick-fil-a in Washington

2009-03-20T14:34:00.000-07:00

Kelly and I were stunned to learn this week that there is a Chick-fil-a in Washington state. It only opened in September, and is on Western Washington's campus in Bellingham (so it's about an hour and fifteen minutes away), but this is kind of a watershed realization for us because we are Chick-fil-a fanatics and we only get to eat it when we're back in NC.

We are going to have to budget more time for our drives to Whistler now that we know this. How exciting! And maybe it means they will be expanding elsewhere in the state!

Yeehaw.

Embryonic Stem Cells and Obama Part 2

2009-03-10T12:38:00.001-07:00

Well, as predicted, President Obama kept his promise to put to death Bush’s prohibition on the use of federal dollars (tax dollars) for the exploitation of embryonic stem cell lines for research purposes. One of the things I found most egregious about the pomp with which he and the Obamatons did so was their language claiming that they were merely aiming to shield science from politics. And by politics, they mean morality. They mean, we want to protect science from morals. And that in itself is preposterous, as science should be a slave to our laws and policies and morality and what we as a people believe about God and ethics and morals, not above it. God help us if our science ever supercedes our morals. What Obama and the Obamatons really mean is, in this case, we want to free up this issue from the “burden” of the moral problem and implications.

As Harold Varmus, the co-chair of Obama's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, said it, “this is consistent with the president's determination to use sound scientific practice, responsible practice of science and evidence, instead of dogma in developing federal policy.” You can insert the word morality or religion or faith above where dogma is. Dogma is a nice way of saying it, if that’s possible.

Net net, this means the federal government will be spending your and my tax dollars on research on embryonic stem cells, stem cells derived from the inner cell mass of an early stage embryo (fertilized human egg) known as a blastocyst. The order doesn’t even mean that this research is now legal (it always has been), it just means that the government will now fund it. So, when a company can’t find private capital to fund its research, it can now go to the government. Sounds familiar, huh? After all, the government is funding all sorts of things that private enterprise won’t fund these days.

Now, CHECK THIS OUT, as Wesley Smith pointed out on his blog yesterday, there is more to this story. Obama also rescinded Executive Order 13435 of June 20, 2007, which was a Bush-instituted order requiring that the federal government fund alternative methods as well, many of which have proven to be very hopeful, but without the ethical and moral implications (use of adult stem cell lines, for example; learn more about this here and here).

So, effectively, Obama said yes to federal funding for embryonic stem cell research and no to federal funding for alternative stem cell research. It’s really a sharp stick in the eye to anyone who thinks that an embryo becomes a baby. And you would think that would be all of us since there is such a thing as logic, but apparently it’s not all of us.

And even more than this, the reality is that Obama is helping the American public perceive embryos as meat, mere fodder, for the research machine, rather than the building blocks, the root source of humanity, the beginning of life, HUMAN LIFE.

Let me tell you people, I am not an alarmist, and I am not a conspiracy theorist, but it is a sad and scary thing when your government is OK doing research on people. Not just OK, but actually funding it.

Just because you say it’s not a person doesn’t mean it’s not a person. It’s not a you say tomato, I say tomahto kind of thing. It’s a where we came from thing. You and I are adults who were once teenagers who were once toddlers who were once fetuses who were once embryos who were once embryonic stem cells.

And the truth is that a blastocyst becomes a human, an image bearer of God. In a culture where we push for respect for every part of our world, for our environment, for our pets, for our animal life, shouldn't we also show as much respect (or more really!) as possible for our own human race?

Obama and the Stock Market and I can't believe I'm referencing Krugman

2009-03-06T11:05:00.001-08:00

And check this out too (and Paul Krugman is about as liberal as they come...)

Abortion and the Gospel

2009-03-04T14:28:00.000-08:00

This is a really sad and confusing article about a topic that I just can’t quite understand:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/02/06/health/main4780007.shtml

Basically, a girl goes to terminate her 23-week pregnancy by having an abortion. The clinic gives her drugs to dilate her cervix, but, before the doctors are able to kill the baby (named Shanice) inside of her, she gives birth to the baby. It’s a 23-week pre-term baby girl and she is alive. Instead of taking care of the baby, the clinic’s owner cuts the umbilical cord, puts the baby in a biohazard bag and throws her in the trash.

People, on both sides of the spectrum of the abortion debate are understandably enraged. This is a sad and devastating thing.

But I don’t understand why, if you are pro-abortion, this would really bother you much more than the alternative. If the pregnant girl had arrived to the clinic on time, prior to giving birth, a doctor would have poisoned the baby or otherwise killed it inside her womb. The pregnancy was clearly viable – the baby would have lived with proper care – why are people aghast because she was thrown away? For goodness sake people, call a spade a spade, either way you were throwing this living person away!

A few other comments in the article bothered me:

‘"It really disturbed me," said Joanne Sterner, president of the Broward County chapter of the National Organization for Women, after reviewing the administrative complaint against Renelique. "I know that there are clinics out there like this. And I hope that we can keep (women) from going to these types of clinics."’

Sterner would rather women go to clinics where the procedure is done more cleanly and with less controversy. Messy situations like this only expose abortion for what it is.

And this last bit doesn’t make sense to me either:

‘Should prosecutors file murder charges, they'd have to prove the baby was born alive, said Robert Batey, a professor of criminal law at Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport. The defense might contend that the child would have died anyway, but most courts would not allow that argument, he said.

"Hastening the death of an individual who is terminally ill is still considered causing the death of that individual," Batey said. "And I think a court would rule similarly in this type of case."’

This really seems like circular logic to me: this baby is somehow terminally ill? Ironically, one minute the baby is inside of her and not terminally ill. Then a girl takes a drug to allow a doctor to kill the baby. But because the baby escapes this fate and the mom gives birth (alive), the baby is all of a sudden terminally ill. But only because you pushed the baby into being born outside of a hospital and away from a neonatal intensive care unit! Only because you forced her to come early! So, it’s totally cool and totally legal to push a baby into a terminally ill situation, but not to hasten its death after you pushed her into being terminally ill. This is absurd! Both of these crimes should be prosecuted equally, but that is not the logic of the world, which loves its choice and its control.

The truth behind this article is that, to the people running this abortion clinic, killing the baby before or after it was born made no difference. Their attitude towards life and to the idea that humans are image bearers of God was the same. And that’s why this little one was treated like a piece of trash.

I'm not going to sit here and say that we live in sad times, as if now the times are sad and before the times were good. People aborted babies and offered them up to Molech in Bible times too. But the truth is this situation highlights the depth and depravity of the human heart and how incredibly, how massively, how devastatingly true it is that humans need a Savior. And money and government and new presidents and new medicine won't save us. We can only be saved in One who can stand in between us and God. And there's only ever been One who could do that, because He wasn't busy dying on behalf of His own sin, but ours.

Nadya Suleman

2009-02-23T10:31:00.000-08:00

OK, so I definitely get it. Having 6 children without the support of a husband and Dad seems absolutely sad and absurd. It is devestating to think those children don’t have a committed Daddy and Father-figure. And then to add eight more into the mix is even more sad and irresponsible.

But here’s the part that I don’t get: People are unbelievably, violently angry. People want to do this woman violence – that’s a way to solve the situation and care for the babies, huh? Do Momma violence!

Here’s why I think people are so angry: Because she chose not to abort the babies. I think many people think that’s what she should have done in order to be responsible. The irony to me is that the same people who are “pro-choice”, the same people who put all of the choice and decision power on the Mom for choosing to have an abortion or not, are the ones who are furious that she decided not to abort any of the babies. Isn’t that ironic? So, we are pro-choice and pro-empowerment and pro-woman until the woman chooses not to abort.

The other thing I’ve heard is people calling for the government to take the babies from her and put them into the foster system. Now, unless it was some sort of abuse issue, or unless this woman is found to be mentally ill (and unable to care of the children), then this is clearly the wrong decision: to take them from their loving Momma (however unprepared she may be) and grandparents and put them into the broken and disgusting government foster system. And by the way, the government doesn’t get to make that decision, unless there is abuse.

ONE LAST THING: Does anyone think it is exciting that eight little babies were born healthy? That is amazing. Life is amazing. God is good.

I find this discussion rather fascinating. What do you all think?

Pastor Mark and Pastor Matt

2009-02-18T12:11:00.000-08:00

Check this out folks. It's really great:

http://blog.marshillchurch.org/2009/02/13/pastor-mark-on-cnn/

One other quick thought that was on my mind. I was listening to Matt Chandler this morning and he was talking about three questions to ask yourself when you are considering evidences of a Godly life, of true heart change, and I thought they were worth noting:

1. Do you have an affection for God? Do you love Him, do you think about Him, do you desire to connect with Him. I love that picture of having affection for God because I understand that term really clearly. It is easy for me to say that I have a deep affection for my wife and my daughters. I want to be around them all the time. I can't wait to leave work and get home and see them spend time with them, love on them. So this idea of assessing your affection for God makes sense to me.

2. What do you do with your money? This seems like a really reasonable thing to assess too. As Jesus said, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also". What we do with our money often paints a tell-tale picture of our heart and fears and security.

3. What do you think about people? Do you have a heart for people? Do you love other people? Do you believe that other people are image-bearers of God worthy of patience and love and consideration? Even people who aren't just like you or who travel in different economic or social circles?

I find all of these questions very convicting and heart-pricking. They each increase in me the realization of the depth of my need for Jesus and His sanctifying work in my life. And hopefully they will be relevant and interesting for you too.

Random Ramblings

2009-02-09T16:15:00.000-08:00

I must have Seattle in my blood because when I left for work Friday morning I was giddy. Not giddy because I was leaving home. It had been a great morning and I had departed by getting my usual kisses through the gate by A and B after praying over each of them and Kelly and the baby. I was giddy in that kind of “the sun is shining and it’s going to be a great day” way. Except that it was grey and cloudy and raining.

It hasn’t rained in a few weeks it feels like (maybe I’m crazy?). Lots of fog and then five days of blue sky over the last week. Mt. Rainier has been in all its God-forged glory. But it was raining, I had half of a freshly warmed Starbucks mocha in my right hand, and it just felt so darned cozy in my car, heater on, Matt Chandler on the iPod. I got that settled joyful feeling in my heart and I thought, I must have Seattle in my blood.

Anyway, speaking of Mt. Rainier. I am feeling the climbing bug bad. I know some guys have been summitting Rainier over these last couple of weeks. Even in the dead of winter. But it’s been warm and sunny. The routes are avalanche and crevasse free mostly. And it has given me the climbing bug. I’ve been cranking up my runs to start the slow burn towards spring.

And speaking of the baby. We had our last perinatalogist appointment on Wednesday. Baby boy weighed in at 4 lbs. 10 ounces at 31 weeks and 3 days. Aforementioned baby B was born at that weight at 34 weeks 2 days, so little boy is big! He was in the 80thish percentile for head and stomach, so Dr. Wall said he is stout like a brick. It’s exciting to have a little boy who’s cruising along and seems to be doing well. Kelly’s cervix is doing great, so Dr. Wall released us from future appointments with him. We had a nice conversation about adoption and babies and Moms at home with babies and his wife and lots of other things, and got the chance to thank him for all the things he has done for our family in helping bring our 3 children to where they are, as well as being a constant encourager through our process.

And lastly, and way off topic, it has been interesting to read about some of Obama’s new policies, including this messy stimulus bill, Gitmo, and terror suspects. Check out these compelling articles here:

Obama Made a Rash Decision on Gitmo - The president will soon realize that governing involves hard choices

Obama concerned about justice for terror suspects

The Stimulus Tragedy - Obama bets that we can spend our way to prosperity

If Jesus Had Been Married

2009-02-01T12:31:00.000-08:00

Please forgive me for a little bit of sarcasm. I just think this is a really funny title for a book. I saw this at the store today and was pretty surprised. I mean, I get it: people have a lot of hope in Barack Obama and his presidency. But calling his wife Michelle the "first lady of hope", making Barack's name synonymous with the word hope - that seems a bit over the top.

It is going to be interesting to watch this presidency. It is very exciting to see our first black president come into office. Considering these challenging economic times and the tough war we're fighting abroad, there is much reason to have hope. On the other hand, I am already very sad that he has pushed forward legislation that is hurting the unborn (in the name of choice).

But truth is our hope is not in a President, or in any man. Our hope is in a Savior. And His name is Jesus.

Christmas Date with Baby B

2009-01-26T16:13:00.000-08:00

Just out of respect for their privacy, I’m going to start calling my daughters A and B whenever I talk about them on my blog. One was Baby A in utero (the presenting twin) and one was Baby B, so it’s appropriate.

I haven’t yet blogged about the joys of my Christmas date with B. This little one has such a sweet and sensitive spirit and it was so fun to have some great Daddy time with her, just her and me. We happened to be at my parent’s place the night before, so I came to the door at their house to “pick her up”. She was waiting at the front door trying desperately to peer over the bottom half of the door to see through the glass and watch me come down the walkway. She was wearing her cute Christmas outfit.

We got buckled in and went down to the Bellevue Top Pot. We ordered a frosted raspberry doughnut and a chocolate milk. We sat down and hung out together, ate doughnuts, drank chocolate milk, talked about life and Mommy and her sister Baby A and Christmas. She enjoyed her doughnut so much that we bought another one. Maybe because she’s so cute or because you don’t see a ton of Daddy’s out all dressed up with their daughters, but we seemed to attract a lot of attention while we were there.

After our breakfast date, we went to Barnes and Noble and hung out for a while looking at books. She was very into all of the books. Some of her favorites were a book about Cookie Monster and Elmo, and another one with a woof-woof on the cover. I wanted to buy her a Christmas Book about the birth of Jesus, which I did.

After B&N, we hopped back in the car and headed back to the house. It was a sweet first Christmas date with my Baby B. She was fun and pleasant and contemplative and sweet, like she usually is. It was a joy for me to take her out on her first date. As I've said before, I want these little ones to learn from the get-go that they are loved and valuable image-bearers of God - that they deserve to be pampered and treated and blessed. I am hoping that the standard I set for them will be so rich and full and graceful that they will know their great value and worth.

I love you B!

Love, Daddy

Friday: Just Linking Around

2009-01-23T09:41:00.000-08:00

The FDA allowed its first test of embryonic stem cell therapy today. The FDA says it doesn’t play politics, but the decision was made public just days after Obama was sworn in. Obama is expected to rescind Bush’s directive restricting federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

Here’s the link:
http://www.reuters.com/article/governmentFilingsNews/idUSN2329676520090123

And now a bail-out for the abortion industry: Obama signed an order today lifting a restriction on federal funding for international abortion groups. So now our tax dollars can go to supporting abortion groups in other countries! This was a restriction instituted by Reagan in 1984 – it was lifted by Clinton in 1993 and was reinstated by George W. in 2001.

Here’s that link:
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE50M3PQ20090123

Wesley's Smith's self-review of his 2008 Bioethics Predictions

2009-01-22T15:35:00.000-08:00

This is pretty fascinating. Check it out below or at the CBC's website. Read the article long enough to get to the part about "decapitating" flowers. Yes, you read that right. This is amazing stuff:

My 2008 Predictions in Bioethics: A Mixed Record, by Wesley J. Smith, CBC special consultant.

This has been a very bad year in bioethics, much worse than I imagined only one year ago when I made my annual predictions for the coming year. Still, my record as a prognosticator isn't bad. Here's how I did:

I was wrong when I predicted that assisted suicide would not pass in Washington State: The most important event in bioethics for 2008 was passage by Washington voters of I-1000 legalizing physician-assisted suicide. I saw the initiative coming, calling it “an almost sure thing” to make the ballot. I got that part right. But as to the key question, I wrote: “Will it pass? My head tells me that it will: The media is biased; [Former Washington Governor and I-1000 sponsor Booth] Gardner has deep pockets; and, as always, the polls look bad. But my heart tells me that it will fail…The initiative will lose in a very close vote.” Not only was my head right, but it did much better than my worst fears, cruising to an easy 58-42 win.

I was right that assisted suicide would not be passed legislatively : I predicted that despite concerted attempts to pass assisted suicide legislation in several states, none would pass. Bingo. However, Luxembourg is on the verge of legalizing euthanasia. But that won't happen until next year.

I was right that Futile Care Theory would not advance : One of the big bioethical controversies to come is the claim by many bioethicists that bioethics committees should be able to unilaterally withhold wanted life-sustaining treatment based on “quality of life” judgments. It is explicitly legal in Texas, but as far as I know the futile care agenda did not advance in 2008.

I was mostly right about the year in embryonic stem cell and human cloning research: I made several predictions about the embryonic stem cell and cloning debates, which at the time were expected to be a huge controversy in the presidential campaign. That didn't happen because of the big induced pluripotent stem cell breakthrough. In any event, here is what I got right:

· Research into human iPSCs will advance toward overcoming the need to use viruses in the cell reprogramming : In mice, IPSCs have been created without using viruses at all.

· No laws will be passed to permit egg buying for biotechnological research : Agitation has continued to permit egg buying and selling, but so far, no dice for Big Biotech. However, the UK demonstrated why it is called Brave New Britain by permitting modest financial incentives, such as a discount on IVF procedures.

· The Bush ESCR funding restrictions will not be overturned : This seems obvious now, but at the time Congress was threatening to pass bills with a veto-proof majority. Thanks (in part) to the IPSC breakthrough, it didn't happen.

· there will be no changes in the law about human cloning: Bingo. However, in Brave New Britain authorities permitted biotechnologists to make human/animal hybrid cloned embryos for use in therapeutic cloning research.

Here is where I was wrong: I predicted that “the first human cloned embryonic stem cell line would be created,” because scientists want more than mere embryonic stem cells from human cloning. They tried but the task is apparently very difficult. While there were reports of cloned embryos being created, apparently no cloned embryonic stem cell lines were created—although it was done successfully in monkeys for the first time.

I also missed the extent to which human exceptionalism would be undermined : Last year saw the enactment or near-enactment of some of the most radical proposals in history, which I never imagined would come to pass.

1. Spain's Parliament cleared away all procedural impediments to passing the Great Ape Project into law that will create a “community of equals” among human beings, chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas, and bonobos in that country.

2. Switzerland established the intrinsic dignity of individual plants . According to a Swiss Bioethics Commission, it is immoral to “decapitate” wild flowers.

3. Ecuador granted “rights” to “nature” that are coequal with those of human beings.

The import of this trend cannot be overstated. We are being led by radical environmentalists and anti human exceptionalists toward an international public policy that will sacrifice human welfare and prosperity “for the animals,” or “to save the planet.”

All in all, I was pretty prescient about 2008. Alas, my crystal ball tells me that next year will be an even more difficult time for the equality/sanctity of human life in bioethics and society's support for human exceptionalism. I'll tell you what is likely to happen in 2009 regarding these matters in an upcoming CBC report.

Blogging Funk

2009-01-14T15:45:00.000-08:00

Ugh – I am in a blogging funk. Today’s post notwithstanding, I am neither reading nor writing blogs. I am trying to assess my motives for my own blog.

I suppose I should write for a few reasons:

1) For the sake of posterity: that my children can read what I write (especially to the extent it reveals something about me and to the extent it reveals something about my love for them).
2) For the sake of my pastoral role: to the extent that I have a pastoral influence, I should continue to blog for the purpose of teaching and pasturing my albeit small flock.
3) For the sake of my writing: I like to write, and writing is the best practice for writing.

I should not write for a few reasons:

1) For the sake of hearing myself talk.
2) For the sake of gathering an audience.
3) Out of feeling of obligation to keep my blog current: sometimes I feel like a slave to blogging, and I don’t want to.

That’s it – enjoy the day!

Sorry

2009-01-06T16:59:00.000-08:00

Sorry to be such a pathetic blogger lately. I have felt pretty "out-of-whack" with New Years last week, Christmas the week before, and then the crazy snow the week before that. And we had visitors for a week too.

It's been really good to get back in the groove of things this week. Back to work Monday (which was almost ruined by another couple inches of snow Sunday night that thankfully melted that night). Back to my Bible Study with the Band of Brothers this morning. Community Group tonight. Synch night with Kelly tomorrow night. And a date night this weekend.

I have a lot of things I want to blog about, so I'll try to get going on it! It's just good to get back in a routine. One of my first "need-to-Blog" items is my date with Grace, which I never documented.

Hope you're all well!

Funk and Christmas

2008-12-30T11:58:00.000-08:00

I feel like I'm in a post-holiday funk. I used to get this way when Christmas ended (I'm going to write more about Christmases gone by in a post later this week), so maybe that's what it is. I always look forward to the season, to the music, to the tree, to the lights, to celebrating the birth of Christ. And so when I get in this taking it all down mode, and when I no longer have the season to look forward to, it can bum me out. Maybe that's what it is.

We did have an amazing Christmas though. There was something really special about having a very white Christmas. There was probably six inches on the ground and we got another three or four on Christmas Day. What a sweet gift. We were blessed to have a pause in the weather on Christmas Eve so that Andy and Leta could get in to Sea-Tac.

We had a great Christmas Eve dinner over at my parents house - tenderloin, scalloped potatoes, scratch-made rolls and chess pie. It was pretty cool to have both my parents and Kelly's parents together for Christmas. We were planning to attend Crossroads' Christmas Eve service, but they canceled it because of the weather. A Christmas Eve service is one of my favorite parts of Christmas, so I was sorry to miss it. The rest of the eve was a flurry of wrapping presents and watching The Polar Express, kind of a tradition of Kelly's and mine for three years now.

The girls got up at their usual time on Christmas morning - sometime around 8am. They were very interested in things downstairs, although I'm sure they had no idea what was going on. We had a fun day opening presents and spending time with Leta, Andy, my parents and Josh (who came over for lunch) and Nick and Jessi, E and Glor, who came over in the afternoon. Having Nick and Jess around was really special because we haven't gotten to spend a ton of time with them (our two families) lately, and it was nice to just chill, watch the snow fall outside, play games, eat food, talk, and enjoy Christmas. Highlights of the day for me were reading the Christmas story in the morning (out of the girls' kids Bible), as well as Isaiah 9 and 53 (we had read the Christmas story out of Luke the night before), and reading it again and acting out the Nativity story with the kids that evening.

We got to do Christmas all over again the next day at my parent's place. We had a great time, ate a ton of food (homemade cinnamon rolls, buckeyes and other treats, andwiches and a spaghetti dinner), opened presents and enjoyed being with each other. The girls opened a few more presents and we had a really nice time.

Here are a few pictures to sum it up!

This is the girls at the top of the stairs in the morning, looking down on the Christmas tree:

Baby B walking down the stairs:

The girls looking at the wagon Mimi and Pop got them for Christmas:

The family opening the stockings:

Checking out the snow:

The family in front of the tree (that's the girls' dollhouse wrapped on the right side of the pic):

Doing the Nativity and reading the Christmas story:

The Cowans and the Connellys:

At my parents the next day for Christmas Part 2:

Baby A with her two babies (one is Baby B's):

A Few Christmas Ramblings and “Linking Arounds”

2008-12-21T17:37:00.000-08:00

1. We went to dinner at Canlis Friday night with our family. This is the seventh year we have done this. It’s a really special treat that my parents put together to celebrate the year and Christmas. The food was amazing, and as usual the service and presentation was amazing. When they bring food to a party of eight, all of the plates are presented at exactly the same time (it's like a dance)... things like that. The meal started with a tiny serving (two spoonfuls) of sea urchin layered over wasabi and pureed cauliflower. It ended with a palate cleansing one-bite carrot cake. In between was pretty amazing too! We were blessed to have some friends take care of the girls for us.

2. Check out this Christmas article from the CBC (Center for Bioethics and Culture). Pretty interesting stuff and relevant to Christmas.

3. “Angels We Have Heard on High”, off of Sara Groves’ new Christmas Album “O Holy Night” is my favorite Christmas song right now. I just love how interesting it is – it has a really strong Mariachi influence, which is pretty cool and wild for a Christmas song.

4. I caught Kanah dancing to some Christmas music the other day. She was wearing some Christmas jammies she has and was dancing in front of the refrigerator, where Kelly has our Christmas cards/pictures put up. The girls love the pictures. Pretty cool Christmas memory (for me anyway, not sure if she’ll remember it!).

5. Another fond memory from this Christmas is the love Grace has for the small Christmas tree we have on our kitchen island. Grace often walks up to the island and points to the tree she knows is there but can’t see (from the floor) and says “tee”. We get it down and she will spend an hour sitting on the floor trying to put ornaments on the tree.

6. Some of you may have seen this already, but Derek Webb has a new venture where he is helping distribute music through a new method... There are some good Christmas albums on there right now. You can either pay what you want for the albums or tell five friends and get it for free.

7. We’ve had a ton of snow here in Seattle this week/weekend, and may be getting even more tonight. It may make for a light week at work this week I think, never mind the Christmas week.

8. We are looking forward to having Andy and Leta come in this week. We only wish Travis was coming too!

9. Kelly has made some yummy treats this week. She just randomly decided to cook a pecan pie, which was very tasty, and has been working on some other cookie treats to distribute to neighbors this week.

10. I finished Kelly’s Christmas shopping on Saturday! Whoo-hoo! I kinda’ took a risk, so we’ll see how it goes!

Christmas Snow Surprise

2008-12-18T14:34:00.000-08:00

We’ve had a sweet Christmas surprise these last couple of days with snowy weather! We were anticipating snow yesterday, so I worked from home to avoid a bad traffic situation (Seattleites do not know how to drive in the snow and a couple of years ago we saw an 8-hour commute home from Starbucks to our neighborhood during a bad snow). Then last night we finally got the snow and it meant more working from home again today. It’s been nice to get some work done while listening to Christmas music and being around the girls and Kelly.

We have a bunch of Christmas plans in the works for the next week or so. I for one need to finish my Christmas shopping. Kelly keeps saying “what did you get me for Christmas?!” and I keep saying “your guess is as good as mine!” I actually know what I’m doing, I just haven’t done it yet.

We also have plans to do a big extended family dinner on Friday, to go to Snowflake Lane (an outdoor Christmas show in Bellevue), attend a Christmas party on Saturday night and some other fun family traditions. We’re looking forward to having Andy and Leta arrive on Wednesday. There’s a lot going on, but we’re looking forward to it!

I hope that each of you are having a blessed Christmas season. Merry Christmas!

Christmas Date and Weekend

2008-12-15T16:27:00.000-08:00

Kelly and I got away for our annual Christmas date on Friday night. We enjoyed a nice dinner at Palomino in Seattle, and then saw “Four Christmases”. It was pretty cute and put us in a Christmas-y mood, but we were also both tired after a long day and the movie didn’t start until 10:40pm. But that was the price to pay for a nice long dinner and conversation. Overall, it was really great to just get some time together and to review the things we’ve been learning and growing through in 2008.

One of the highlights for me was watching Kelly tear up as she was thinking about our girls growing up and the reality that they will never again be who they are today. These days are going by and will never be back again. Of course I didn’t take joy in seeing her cry, but in seeing the depth of her love for our sweet daughters.

Saturday was a busy and fun day too. I took Grace out on her first Daddy date (more on that in another post). Then I watched the girls in the afternoon while Kelly went to Mars Hill Bellevue’s Ladies day. The weather was really starting to turn cold and we braced ourselves for snow while heading out to a Christmas party with my group from Starbucks. We had a great time at the party (there were a lot of kids!) and then headed home in the snow.

It is good and cold in Seattle right now – in the mid-to-high 20’s. We are expecting a good snow storm around here on Wednesday. Should be fun!

That’s all for now. Merry Christmas!

Kanah Love

2008-12-12T09:16:00.000-08:00

Real post coming in a minute, but just a quick shout-out to say Kelly and I are looking forward to our annual Christmas date tonight. I feel a little unChristmasy this year, so I'm hoping this will help kick things off!

On another topic...

I’m not naïve enough to think that my date with Kanah on Saturday was so fruitful that Kanah is now a Daddy’s girl instead of a Mommy’s girl, but she and I did have some unique connections this last week that we don’t always share. She’s so “Miss Independent” and so very “Mama’s girl”. But here are the things that happened over the week that I have been treasuring:

1. My buddy Shawn and I were doing some work on the house last weekend (installing some surround sound speakers in the family room). We were in the crawl space a bunch and there was lots of drilling on the floor of the family room. This made a lot of noise and scared the girls. Kanah came running at me a few times with a look like “help me Daddy!” I was happy to be the rescuing Super Man!

2. At one point this weekend, Kanah hurt herself and jumped into my arms for a hug. Momma Kelly came running and 99 times out of 100, Kanah reaches for her and lurches her direction to be comforted by Mommy. I love that my girls love their Mommy, so no hard feelings on my end. But this time, Kanah wouldn’t let go of me. She grabbed me like a monkey. Love it!

3. Before dinner last night, the girls and I were sitting on the floor of the family room watching Cinderella, which is surprisingly short by the way (maybe an hour?). It was their first time through the whole thing. When we turn a movie on, the girls love to scoot back and lean on me to watch. Grace always gets antsy after a few minutes and starts to crawl around and try to balance on my leg. When Cinderella was dancing with the prince, I picked Kanah up and extended my left arm and her right arm, and we danced just like the prince and Cinderella. She laughed and giggled and tried to keep the movie in sight as we spun and bounced. She loved it.

I sat her back on the ground because I had to go check the mac and cheese that was cooking (for their dinner). I came back from the kitchen and Kanah was standing on the ground with her right arm extended and her left arm close, going in circles, continuing her little Cinderella dance and giggling. What a sweet little bug!

4. I was putting the girls to bed a few nights ago. They were both finishing up their bottle and getting up to run around the room and try to evade me, knowing full well it’s time for bed. Kanah wandered over to me… I was on my side with my head on the carpet. I said, “want to snuggle?” She said “snuh-gwuh?”, then plopped down on her stomach, head on the carpet right next to me. She stayed there for about 3 seconds, then popped up and grabbed “Mammy”, which is her lamb stuffed animal she goes nowhere without. Then she said “snuh-gwuh” again and laid back down next to me. This is the first snuggle with Daddy! How awesome! I'm not really even sure how she knew what a snuggle was, but she did.

So, that’s the list. It’s been a joy to spend time with my girls and I love them both dearly.

Advent Conspiracy

2008-12-10T13:25:00.001-08:00

I blogged some time ago about the World Vision Christmas catalog (http://bythebluelight.blogspot.com/2008/11/world-vision-christmas-catalog.html) and about Starbucks participation in Bono's (Red) (http://bythebluelight.blogspot.com/2008/11/new-starbucks-red-ad.html). Here's another cool vid on the "Advent Conspiracy". Just another cool reminder to you and to me to think missionally and relationally about Christmas.

I say reminder to you AND to me because while it's easy for me to post videos and blogs about this, its harder for me to actually do it and love it, to give cheerfully! But I am trying to develop a more compassionate heart. Kelly has a way more nurturing and compassionate heart than do I. I'm glad she helps steer us there (and challenge my heart to grow!).

CSI and the Holy Spirit

2008-12-09T12:34:00.000-08:00

I used to not watch shows like CSI. CSI: New York, CSI: Las Vegas, CSI: Miami, Cold Case, etc. I used to agree with Kelly that they just weren’t good for my head. Too much murder and crime and demonic activity on display.

Then we got a Tivo. Or a new Tivo I should say. Our old Tivo never required the Tivo service. It just worked like a glorified VCR. But now the new Tivo requires the monthly charges, but also has some cool features. Like recording shows it thinks you might like. Not sure why, but it’s been recording CSI. So, when I’m ironing or doing some chore where Kelly and the girls aren’t around, I’ll watch CSI. I know Kelly’s not into it (she gets bad dreams easily), but the crime scene analysis, while gruesome sometimes, is fascinating. The crime detection techniques are sophisticated and mind-bogglingly brilliant. And the shows don’t seem to glorify the crimes themselves. The crime “flashbacks” are pretty tastefully done.

Last night, I was cleaning the family room (girls had thoroughly destroyed it, as they do every day, every hour, every minute), ironing and organizing a huge box of cables and cords, all in front of the TV watching CSI: New York. Kelly was writing in the next room in front of the Christmas tree.

I had a fairly simple but very illuminating Holy Spirit moment. In retrospect, it was sort of a “duh” moment, but it was amazing to see the Holy Spirit connect the dots for me on something that until then had been hazy to me.

I was literally sitting in front of the TV thinking “why did I not used to like CSI? This show is not really too troublesome and doesn’t cause me to stumble in any ways, as far as I can tell.”

Then, the Holy Spirit brought to mind a dream I had had the night before, a dream that had been bothering me all day. In my dream I had been in a race of some sort and was outdoors. In part of the race, I rounded a corner and found what was essentially a gruesome crime scene involving a friend of mine. I woke from the dream with a very vivid picture and memory of the dream and scene, unlike many dreams of mine that fade by morning or are clear for a few minutes and then pass. This one lingered. It reappeared in my mind at several points during the day, but I never thought about its root or source. It bothered me and caused me to feel a little sick at numerous times during the day, but I never connected it back to anything else.

And then, here I am sitting in front of the tube thinking about how CSI is a cool show and that it never bothers me and that not watching it before was silly. The Holy Spirit literally connected the dot and knocked me – ever so softly but oh so clearly – on the side of the head and said, “uh, do you get the connection?” There is clearly, vividly, obviously a connection in this dream and these shows, several of which I’ve watched over the last few weeks.

Thank you, Holy Spirit, good counselor of mine, for helping me to see the truth of how these shows hurt my mind. I confess my ignorance and shortsightedness. Thank you for being a patient and gentle voice to instruct me in right ways for my life. (By the way, I am saying this for myself, not a blanket judgment on the show for others of you, but this is MY conviction based on the Holy's Spirit's leadings for me.)

Thank you, Jesus, for leaving us with your Holy Spirit to give us clarity and focus. Some might call this a coincidence, or just my brain connecting the two issues, but to me this is yet another proof of the existence of God: His Holy Spirit spoke to me and illuminated an area of my life that was under attack. And He rooted it out. All praise to Jesus and His Holy Spirit.

John 14: 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— 17 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.

My Daddy Date with Kanah

2008-12-08T12:00:00.000-08:00

Kelly and I had a great weekend with the girls. And we really appreciated Shawn’s help installing some speakers, and Shawn and Kalle’s help watching the girls Saturday night so we could go to Purple and get some good time together. Our topic of conversation was “what are the ways I love you best” and we each shared. It was a good way to grow our love for each other and to discuss how to continue to mature in our care for each other. There are LOTS of ways for us to continue to mature in our love for each other.

But the highlight of my weekend was sweet Kanah Glory. Saturday was my first Daddy date with Kanah. I put on a nice shirt, grabbed the video camera and came to the door of the house and knocked and asked if my Kanah girl was there. It was kind of fun filming my walk to the door to pick her up. And she was there of course! She and Grace both came speed-walking (it’s unfair to call it running) to the door. Grace was dressed in her jammies and Kanah was dressed in her red Christmas jump-suit. I’m hoping to always buy each of the girls an outfit or dress for their Christmas date. The red jumpsuit was this year’s. We took a picture by the tree and we were on our way.

I popped Kanah in the carseat and we drove to Starbucks. It was sort of weird to have just her in the backseat behind me. I’m so used to having the van-full or to having at least K&G both in the backseat. We got to Starbucks and got in line. The store was busy! Kanah was her usual Miss Curious and was smiling at everyone. I ordered a drink, got a Top Pot doughnut to share with Kanah, and got her a kid’s hot chocolate. She hasn’t had one of those before, but I thought we’d give it a try. We sat down and dug into the doughnut. She was not even remotely interested, but eventually gave it a try and loved it. She was so cute sitting on the chair next to me. Every now and then she’d stand up and smile at the couple sitting at the table to our left. But mostly she just sat and hung out with me. We talked about the people around us and just enjoyed time together. She wouldn’t drink the hot chocolate. I tried to explain to her that it was just milk and chocolate (both of which she loves!), but she wanted none of it. I should have tried a straw. Anything from a straw seems to be liquid gold.

After some time at Starbucks, we got back in the van and went over to Barnes and Noble. Kanah and Grace both LOVE books. We headed straight for the kids section and sat down and explored Christmas books. Kanah walked all around and was particularly interested in the Shrek Christmas books and anything with flip-out pages. If I found one that didn’t have flip-out pages, she’d still try to pull the flat page to pull out the flip-out. We had a great time reading and spending time together. I bought Kanah a children’s book that walked through the story of Jesus’ birth and we headed home. I got Kanah in her carseat, she drank her bottle and read her new Christmas book, and we were on our way.

We were probably only gone about an hour and a half, but it was precious precious time for me with my daughter, time we will hopefully both always cherish. But another important goal for my dates with Kanah and with Grace is their future! I am hopeful that Kanah and Grace will marry men that love Jesus. I want a man to court Kanah and honor her and take good care of her on a date. I want a man to respect and care for and cherish Grace. So I want to model all of that out for each of them starting from age one. So when some lugnut in a beat-up old Camaro peels out and hollers at her to get in, they already know what a real date looks like (and that ain't it). They will already know what it looks to be honored. And my girls will watch me model that out in my time with their Mommy, but they don’t go out on our dates with us, so they need Daddy dates! And they need to see me caring for them in healthy ways. I am trying to create very high maintenance ladies.

So, that’s my heart, and I’m excited to have had my time with Kanah on Saturday. I love you little Glory!

Fun with Daddy or Mommy

2008-12-05T13:51:00.000-08:00

I was listening to a really good Matt Chandler sermon last night on the way home from work. He was talking about childlikeness versus childishness, and how we ought to encourage a Godly childlikeness (a hopeful, humble sense of wonder and faithfulness and trustfulness) in both our children and in ourselves, and how we ought to discipline out childishness (angry, arrogant immaturity, etc.), in both our kids, in ourselves, and in the believers around us. It was a good sermon.

Along those lines, he was talking about his discipline approach with his kids, as well as his “living life” approach. He discussed an idea I really liked, and I wanted to get all of your ideas on it too. Matt said that he stresses “having fun” with his kids, while of course maintaining the discipline of being the authority and the Dad first and foremost in their lives, so that they can understand how to live under the authority of God. But also prioritizing and enjoying fun, that as Daddies we would not exasperate our children (Ephesians 6:4).

Matt gave an example of the fun he has with his kids. He’ll put them to bed, jammies on and everything, teeth brushed, in bed. Kisses and prayer time and off to bed. Lights out. He’ll go downstairs for three minutes, then before they’re asleep, who’ll go back upstairs and say “who wants doughnuts?” His two year old son will yell “doughnut run!” They’ll get out of bed and in their jammies head down to the Dunkin Donuts at the local Super Wal-Mart. What a great memory those kids will share with their Daddy! Now, you wouldn’t do it every other night, but what a fun every-so-often connection time with Daddy!

The girls and I have lots of these times already, including hang-out time and reading books, wrestling on the floor when I get home from work, trips to Target and Costco together (they love berry smoothies at Costco), etc. But I am excited to develop more of these intentional and special fun times, with me and the girls, as well as me and Kelly and the girls.

What I’d love to hear from some of you guys and girls, including you readers who don’t often comment, is what kind of fun memories do you have of time with your mom or dad from your childhood, or what kind of fun intentional things do you do with your kids now, or are you planning to do?

Post away!

Randy Jackson at Starbucks

2008-12-04T14:46:00.000-08:00

Just saw Randy Jackson. He was here in my building to talk about a new book he has written about health and wellness and weight loss. Pretty cool dude. Seemed very down to earth, was very funny, all around nice guy. Seems like what you see on American Idol is pretty much what you get in real life.

One funny thing about him, from what I observed anyway, is that he likes to refer to himself as "The Dog." So, similar to Jimmy from Seinfeld, "Jimmy likes Elaine." I heard a lot of "The Dog likes foam on his latte," and the like. Pretty funny. He was also sporting this huge watch (Curtis & Co. he said) and these nutty chick-like Wicked Witch of the West pointed shoes. Pretty funny.

A very likeable guy. Oh yeah, for all you Charlotteans out there, he also mentioned (in talking about what he's working on right now) that he's working on launching a band called Paper Tongues, which I believe is fronted by Aswan North, who I think Shawn and Kalle have mentioned to us. Didn't a bunch of you meet Randy when he was there to check out Aswan? Am I remembering that right? Anyway, cool stuff.

Wild Twin Ride

2008-12-03T10:04:00.001-08:00

I just had a funny phone conversation with Kelly. We were talking about something, and I could hear the girls prowling around the kitchen and family room in the background. They were wailing a little bit, and talking. Every now and then Kelly would say “Kanah, get out of that cabinet, you know you’re not supposed to be in there.” Then we’d keep talking and she’d say to me, “sorry, hold on.” Then she’d say to Grace, “why are you in the pantry, you know that’s off limits,” and she’d go remove her (and Kanah too) from the pantry, where they like to pull down packets of tea and sweetener, and close the pantry door. They like to go everywhere off-limits when she’s distracted by the phone.

Kelly and I kept talking for a minute as I was asking her for her thoughts on something I was drafting. She said, “I don’t know! I couldn’t draft a hello e-mail to my grandmother right now!” Hilarious. Kind of a “you had to be there moment”, but it’s always amazing to zoom in and get a small picture of Kelly’s crazy day. Kalle and Shawn, you guys are in for a wild ride!

Thankfulness

2008-12-02T11:33:00.000-08:00

Historian H. U. Westermayer wrote, "The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving."

I am thankful that we had a really amazing Thanksgiving day. It was full of friends, family, food, a fire in the fireplace, laughter, giggling babies and even a late evening movie night. One regret though, as Kelly noted on her blog, was that we didn’t set aside good time to be thankful on Thursday. I’m sorry we didn’t do it more intentionally, and so I’d like to take some time to articulate the many things for which I am thankful:

My Jesus – I am so thankful for the deep and abiding and graceful love of Jesus. He has pursued me so faithfully and I have been excited and humbled to watch my faith grow this year, through deeper Bible study and memorization, through theological books and studies, through Matt Chandler and John Piper sermons on my iPod, and through the encouragement and mentoring of other leaders at Mars Hill. I am deeply grateful for Jesus’ graceful pushing, prodding and loving on me. Additionally, Jesus has continued to sustain our family in so many ways: Kanah and Grace and their health and development, our family finances, providing for our home and transportation, keeping us healthy. There are so many ways he has blessed us and I am thankful.

My Kelly – I praise Jesus for my wife. She has grown and matured in so many ways this year and it is amazing to watch. I have seen God sanctifying and maturing her. I have seen God give her a heart for our children. I have seen God give her an amazing work ethic. She has been faithful to look to God’s leadings (and mine) in many of these areas and I am thankful to get to be a part of it. I am not just thankful for the many ways Kelly takes care of our family, of me, of our home, but I am also very thankful for her strong and wise spirit. She is constantly prodding and encouraging our family and me to grow and mature in wisdom and God’s love. She is a strong and confident woman and I am so thankful for Jesus’ strength in her. I am also thankful, selfishly (!), for her beauty!

My Kanah (Glory) – I am so thankful for a little girl with great passion. She is strong and emotional and passionate like her Mama. She is a great walker and an amazing talker. She is a great hugger and a big laugher. I love her determination and her smarts. She is full of life and energy and knows what she wants. I see the glory and strength of Jesus marked all over this one. I am thankful to Jesus for this amazing gift of little Kanah. My Glory girl.

My Grace (Beauty) – I am so thankful for a little girl full of life. She is our gentle and patient one. I learn grace and a gentle spirit from her. She is our fast walker and our patient talker. She has something to say only when necessary. She is happy as a clam to play by herself. She wakes up in the morning content to talk patiently until we come in to get her. She loves to hum as she reads books, one of her favorite activities. She loves to wrestle and can giggle like no one else. Thank you Jesus for my Beauty Girl.

My Dittle Man – I am so thankful for the gift of life inside Kelly. This one is active! He seems more active than Kanah and Grace. He is a kicker and a puncher and a squirmer. We look forward to meeting him, but can say already that we love him and that we praise Jesus for the gift of life. Thank you Jesus.

My family – I am really thankful for family. My family has been through some rough things this year, and I can say with joy that they have done it with strength and Godliness and hope. God has been faithful. It has been a true joy to watch my parents seek after Jesus and Godly counsel as they have navigated life this year. I am also really thankful for siblings that have endlessly pursued family unity above their own gain. I am also especially thankful to get to watch my younger brother Josh mature into such a Jesus-seeking and wisdom-loving person this year. It has been a real gift. I am also really thankful for Kelly’s family and the many ways they have loved us this year. It is so fun to get to watch them love our girls. I am thankful that they have pursued us by coming out here, that they have opened up their home to us numerous times, and that they are coming here for Christmas this year!

My friends – My friends have been an amazing encouragement to me this year. I have been in a men’s study (a band of brothers) on Tuesday mornings that has been incredibly encouraging and illuminating. It has been really humbling and exciting for me to be – weekly – amongst a group of guys that really love Jesus, want to be more like Him, who enter into relationship with one another with humility, deference, and submission (to Jesus and to one another) and who have oodles of wisdom. Thank you Jesus for my Tuesday morning group. And I am thankful for our community group, which has been a constant source of fellowship and encouragement. I am also really thankful for my friends, in particular some guys I’ve gotten to spend a lot more time with this year, Shawn and Nick, and for my long-time friend Greg, and for a new friendship in my long-time brother Josh.

My church – Mars Hill continues to be an incredible blessing to me, to Kelly, and to our family. I have had the great privilege of working with the operations team and a few of our elders on a few projects this year. I have been a part of an amazing community group and band of brothers men’s group. We have been blessed richly by studying through the Song of Solomon series (Peasant Princess) among others, and have really really enjoyed our new church family at the Bellevue campus. It is easy to see that Jesus loves His bride, and it is exciting to be a part of the growth and maturing of His bride on the Eastside.

My job – I continue to be thankful thankful thankful for my job at Starbucks. God has been so good to me through my job, and I am building a wealth of experience at Starbucks. I don’t say enough how fortunate I am to be at Starbucks and I praise Jesus for my job.

My etc. – I am thankful for getting to summit Mt. Hood this year, for getting to over 11k feet on Rainier, for Kelly’s patience with my climbs and training. I am thankful for our Mt. Baker trip. I am thankful for our great vacations this year to Banks Lake, Palm Desert, Whistler, and Wild Dunes. I am thankful to John and Laura for letting us use their beach place. I am thankful for getting to work out and for many good runs this year. I am thankful for my 4Runner and the fact that it keeps on ticking. I am thankful for Coke Zero and Cherry Coke Zero. I am thankful for daughters. I am thankful for so many things. The list goes on.

Thank you Jesus.

New (STARBUCKS) RED Ad

2008-11-26T11:18:00.001-08:00

I am proud to work at a company like Starbucks. I am glad to be a Christian influencing culture in a culture-shaping company like Starbucks. We have a new ad running tomorrow on CNN and a few other places talking about a promotion we are doing starting tomorrow and running through January 2nd. Starbucks has partnered with Bono’s (Red) to give 5 cents from every one of the “holiday trio” purchased during that time period to AIDS charities connected to (Red). The Holiday trio this year is: Peppermint Mocha Twist, Gingersnap Latte and Espresso Truffle (yummy all). Pretty cool if you ask me.

One of the things I like about the ad is that it is so soul-searching. When was the last time you saw an ad that explored issues like salvation? For example, within the ad, it asks, “What if, when we save someone else’s life, we save our own?” Now, clearly, from a Christian perspective, a man or woman’s good works won’t save them, but I like that the ad is at least dialoguing, thinking through how it is we ought to be living this life. Our beliefs and how we live our lives ARE connected. This particular question reminds me also of Jesus’ call in Luke chapter 9: “23 Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. 25 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?”

Some other cool concepts are discussed too, like community (“what if we’re not separated from everyone else, but connected?”). Concepts like loving your neighbor as yourself (Luke 10) and reaping what you sow (“what if what we do to another, we do to ourselves?”).

And really, when was the last time you saw in ad, in our commercial, money-grubbing, self-absorbed culture that asked “what if just part of our purpose here is not ME?” Brilliant and deep. Now, the ad answers it, “not about ME, but WE,” and I would say the true answer is not just part of our purpose, but ALL of our purpose here is not ME, but Jesus. Our purpose is Jesus and the glory of God.

But I love the dialogue and I love that Starbucks cares about other people. That is a fact I can tell you rings true from someone who is inside the company and sees the heart of many of our executives and employees.

Enjoy – and go get a handcrafted Peppermint Mocha Twist, Gingersnap Latte and (!) / or Espresso Truffle beverage!

World Vision Christmas Catalog

2008-11-25T11:02:00.000-08:00

Hey folks –

As we approach the Christmas season, I thought I’d point you all to a really cool way to bless people at Christmas. The World Vision Catalog. The catalog is full of cool ways to give. You can buy a family a goat. You can buy a family two chickens. You can buy a family a share of a well. You can provide care for young ladies overseas who have been sexually exploited. And many other cool ideas. The link (here it is again) has an online catalog, or, if you scroll down the page, there is a link on the right to order physical copies (for you and friends). My girls LOVE to look through the catalog because it has so many pictures of cows and goats and chickens!

Not only can you bless someone in need overseas, but you can also bless someone locally by giving a gift in their name (and World Vision will give you a card to share the details with them).

Check it out!

Salt and Light and Hugh Heffner

2008-11-20T12:39:00.000-08:00

Matthew 5: 13"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. 14"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden."
__________________

One of the things I like to dialogue about in my blog is the culture we live in. This next post is likely to drive a bunch of traffic to my blog (hah!), but they won’t find what they’re looking for.

I was in the sauna at the gym the other day and was flipping through a People magazine that was in the sauna. I read a brief article on Hugh Heffner’s “girlfriends”, who are the stars of a reality show on E! called Girls Next Door. Now, Kelly and I only get basic cable, so I’m thankfully no expert on the topic, but apparently a couple of Hugh’s girlfriends are moving out of the Playboy mansion and he is replacing them with some other girls.

Now, I think it’s clear that at 82, Hugh having three girlfriends is really more about trying to keep the polish on the fading brand that is Hugh Heffner than it is about anything else, but a couple of interesting observations:

1. One of the girls, Kendra, is getting married to a guy who plays for the Philadelphia Eagles. So, I guess she must not have been a very good girlfriend to Hugh if she’s just now moving out of the house and is about to get married!

2. How distorted is this: when asked about Kendra getting married, Hugh said “I have given her my blessing.” Hold on while I get a vomit bag. So, your ex-“boyfriend” blessed the marriage? Isn’t that something your Dad does? Oh, I guess that makes sense since he’s old enough to be her granddad. It also makes you think that this poor girl must not have a Dad around, which is likely how she got into the lifestyle she’s in.

3. People magazine commented on the whole thing like it was any old topic. No big deal one way or the other.

Anyway, there’s really not much more to this post than that, just a few observations. But it’s one more reminder why we as Christians are called to be salt and light in the culture. We’re called to be salt because salt is a preserving agent. God wants us to be salt to the culture that we might preserve it, that we as salt would save the culture (the meat) from molding, dying, stinking, rotting. That we would bring redemption through the message of the Good News of Jesus Christ. 1 Timothy 2: 3This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 5For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6who gave himself as a ransom for all men — the testimony given in its proper time.”

And we’re called to be light that we would model out, as a city within a city, redeemed behavior; that we model out redeemed living before the culture; that we would get in and influence and love the culture upstream, where the media and arts and businesses are founded and growing.

So, that's it, just a brief encouragement for you (and me) today.

How was the weekend?

2008-11-17T17:13:00.000-08:00

Just a quick posted to say we had a very full and enjoyable weekend. We did a lot of house clean-up and organizing on Saturday. The girls kept me hopping. It’s a wonder Kelly gets anything at all done during the week with them munching her ankles. Kanah has started saying “Daice”, which is her version of Grace. It’s very sweet.

I was changing Grace’s diaper on Saturday, she was laying on her back. Kanah walked up, sat down and planted a 10-second kiss on her lips. They both just sat there and laughed. They thought it was so fun. They have both taken to giving me kisses through the baby-gate when I leave in the mornings. It’s pretty cool. I always know that Grace wants to give me a kiss when she walks up with this tight-lipped grin. That is her kissing face.

Sunday evening was amazing at the Triple Door. It was supposed to be a triple date, but one of the couples had some issues to deal with regarding a sick family member, so it ended up being Kelly and me and Shawn and Kalle. The food was wonderful. The venue was probably the coolest venue for a show that I’ve been to. And David Wilcox was really cool. His guitar work was very inspiring. I kept thinking that someday in heaven I’d like to spend the time to learn to play guitar like that. I’ll probably never have the time (or talent perhaps) in this earth-bound life to play the guitar like that, but man, to be able to make a guitar sing that way is a sweet gift.

Weekend Plans

2008-11-14T15:51:00.000-08:00

We have a busy weekend in the works!

Tomorrow is a Daddy day. Kelly has a craft night with the ladies planned, so I will have the girls in the evening, but I'm hoping to keep them busy and out of Kelly's hair during the day too so she can get some things done. Here are the ladies out at the pumpkin patch in October (their hair is getting long enough to put in little ponies... they are getting old!):

Sunday is church at Mars Hill and a fun date night planned with some friends from community group. We're going to see folk musician David Wilcox play at a place called the Triple Door. We haven't been there yet, but it's supposed to be a great and intimate place to see a show. All of the seating is in 8-person moon-shaped tables and they serve food before the show. The food is from the adjoining restaurant called "Wild Ginger", which is an excellent local Thai-fusion place. Here are a few pics of the venue:

And speaking of David Wilcox, he's a favorite of mine from my college days. I like his current stuff, but I love his older stuff (albums like How Did You Find Me Here, Home Again and Big Horizon). In case anyone hasn't heard of him and is interested, his website is www.davidwilcox.com.

While we're on the topic of music, my absolute favorite is a guy named Pierce Pettis (www.piercepettis.com). Brilliant lyricist, amazing communicator of his thoughts and faith, outstanding guitarist. Check him out if he's ever playing locally. He usually plays small local shows and I have talked to him frequently at shows (he even responds to email!).

We are having a ....

2008-11-11T15:11:00.001-08:00

Many of you know we are having a 3rd baby. We have twin daughters named Kanah and Grace who are about 18 months old. They are busy busy bodies. We have a new baby on the way, due April 5th. With this one, we will have 3 children under the age of 2 years old. This is physically impossible unless you have twins or triplets. I give all respect to my brave, strong and Godly wife Kelly, who loves them all well.

Right now she is busy loving the baby-in-utero so well. We are hoping and praying that Kelly won't have to endure the same long pregnancy battle she did last time. With the girls, she began to have a shortening cervix and other pre-term labor issues at around 22 weeks. She was admitted to the hospital at 26 weeks, where she spent the next 4-5 weeks. She was sent home for two, then was back in the hospital for a week with kidney stones. After a total of 12 weeks of bedrest, her water broke at week 34 and our daughters were born at 3:14am (Kanah) and 3:15am (Grace) that morning.

Women who give birth to a singleton preemie are 80% likely to have pre-term labor the next time around. With twin mommas, the odds are only 20% (since having the extra baby, fluids, etc. is often the main culprit), but they still watch them closely. Kelly has appointments every two weeks to keep an eye on the baby and her cervix.

We are praying that Kelly will avoid bedrest and a long hospital stay this time around. We're praying for a good old fashioned boring pregnancy.

And now, without further ado, I'll let you open the box showing gender the way many of our family/friends did...

A BOY! We are thrilled. We would have been thrilled to have another daughter too, realizing that would have made us likely an "all-girl-children" family as we are thinking of adopting our 4th from China (where most girls placed up for adoption are females), but it is a special blessing to get to have a son.

He already has a name too, but we won't reveal that until he's born.

Embryonic Stem Cells and Obama

2008-11-10T12:16:00.000-08:00

I know quite a few Christians who supported Obama, despite his views on abortion. I know many felt that it was unfair to vote on a single issue, or that a President doesn't really have that much influence in large issues such as abortion.

But here's one a President does have influence on, and can change with the flick of a wrist and a signature on a page:

Obama Could Lift Stem Cell Funding Ban:
http://www.livescience.com/health/081110-embryonic-stem-cells.html

Also:

Obama plans to sweep Bush stem-cell restrictions aside
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16007-obama-plans-to-sweep-bush-stemcell-restrictions-aside.html

It's a very similar issue to abortion, in that research is being done (and now will be funded by the federal government, to which you and I pay taxes) on human embryos. Human embryos will be harvested - literally human beings will be created in a test tube and harvested/used for scientific experiments - in hopes that we can discover cures to various diseases, cures that are quite possibly decades off, if ever.

So I guess a President does have a lot of influence!?

Real quick post - False saviors

2008-11-06T17:31:00.000-08:00

Since my financial blog sparked such a barrage of replies, comments, interest, and excitement (not), I thought I should get out there and bring all of my writing genius to bear again today. Actually, I guess the reality is that all 3 of you that read this blog commented, so that is a 100% success rate.

Anyway, enough self-aggrandizing.

This is a bit random, but was thinking today about all the nutty stuff our culture puts its hope in. Barack Obama being a huge one. I can't tell you how many people - Christians even! - I have seen talking about how Barack is going to be the big change factor. Save our economy. Save our country. Save our hearts. Wow.

Here are a couple of quick links on that topic, one a blog by Pastor Mark (Driscoll), the other a video blog by Pastor John (Piper):

http://theresurgence.com/in_god_we_do_not_trust

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

Also on the topic of false saviors, how do you like these puppies:

Me as savior (saw this one in my gym here at Starbucks):

Oprah as savior (saw this one at Costco):

Spaghetti Carbonara and Financial Blogs

2008-11-04T10:33:00.000-08:00

Couple quick things:

1) Kelly cooked me up a mean Spaghetti Carbonara last night. And I mean MEAN. It was the first time she'd ever cooked it and it was unreal. I just had to give some props to my lady. She is a good cook and I appreciate her.

2) I have been asked to blog for Mars Hill on encouragement and counsel to other members regarding navigating the waters of a choppy economy - topics like "planning, giving, etc.". If you stop through and read my blog, would you mind just letting me know what particular questions you have about these topics... I'm looking for ideas and want to make sure I'm actually addressing real questions. That would be helpful. Any finance/budgeting/etc. related questions would help me get my creative juices flowing. Thanks.

Updated pics of my ladies

2008-10-27T17:03:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted any pics of my little ladies lately, so here they are. Most of these are from a great recent trip to Whistler, including the one of the girls in their backpacks, getting ready for a hike in the rain to see Narin Falls.

Christmas in October

2008-10-26T21:14:00.000-07:00

I have been a pathetic blogger lately. It frustrates me because I want to be a more regular blogger, but I don't seem to mind the days inbetween blogs passing me by.

I did have to blog about this though. Kelly and I got to go out on a date last night, thanks to her Mom being in town and watching the girls (thanks Leta!). As we were pulling back into the neighborhood, we passed a street in our little neighborhood that gets really into Halloween. Pumpkins on the doorsteps, pumpkin-shaped light covers over the street lights, even orange lights hung on the houses and evergreen trees decorated in orange lights. I kid you not.

But this next one blew my mind. We pulled around the corner and one of our neighbors has Christmas lights up. Red, white, green, lit up strong and bright on October 26th. And a Christmas wreath lit up over the doorway. October 26th people!

I have a theory about this kind of behavior. My theory is that our neighbor is not a native of the United States. So, that being the case, they may not know that most Americans celebrate Christmas in the month of December. And given that, in our bizarre marketplace/consumer culture, the Christmas stuff is already out, they may well think that many Americans have begun to celebrate!

So, you can't blame them if that's true, but it still seems ridiculous to me.

Shrimp & Fried Grits

2008-10-06T10:48:00.001-07:00

On a recent backpacking trip with Kelly, Kalle and Shawn, we were all trying to decide what food dish we'd be willing to eat for the rest of our lives.

Here's my potential list:

1. Mee Krob from Thai Orchid in Charlotte. This is essentially a Thai lettuce wrap with a beautiful sauteed shrimp/chicken/water chestnut mix, crispy light rice noodles (for texture and crunch) and hot sauce for spice.

2. Stir-fry from my kitchen, wrapped in spring roll wraps lathered in Hoisin sauce.

3. Chick-fil-a Chicken sandwich with a huge waffled potato french fry pile and a side of chicken nuggets. Polynesian and honey mustard sauce on the side please.

4. Last, but not least, and possibly my favorite, is a meal I ate at Sullivan's on Sullivan's Island when we were at the beach in Charleston this year: Let's start at the bottom of the plate: a bed of country fried ham, covered with a HUGE triangle of fried grits (a grit cake). On top of this beautiful grit cake was a pile of shrimp, all doused in a thick bacon-based grey gravy. Amazing. On the side I had fried okra and french fries. And oh yeah, dinner was preceded by hush-puppies with honey butter, and was followed with a fresh home-made slice of key-lime pie. Kelly ate most of that though. And truth be told I only ate half of my dinner because it was so filling.

So, that's a starter list anyway. If I were to choose #4, it might be a short-lived "rest of my life." Not sure how many days of that my body could take.

John Piper and the Gospel

2008-10-04T00:19:00.000-07:00

Quick midnight blog before I go find my beautiful bride in our bed. I just had a great moment. We're going to see a toddler play in the morning with the girls, some friends and my parents. So we're over at my parents. I just stood at the island in the kitchen with my Dad and ate hot scratch made chocolate chip cookies, glass of milk in one hand, John Piper teaching before my eyes. Preaching the Gospel. I love John Piper. Check it out, the Gospel in 6 minutes:

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Articles/ByDate/2007/2389_The_Gospel_in_6_Minutes/

Pastor Mark Driscoll and the Shepherd's Voice

2008-09-26T15:53:00.000-07:00

In John chapter 10, Jesus talks about being the shepherd of His sheep (us / the church). He says, “2The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. 3The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice." Likewise the pastors/elders of the local church are the shepherds and leaders of the church family. They care for it, feed it, protect it and love it humbly as servant-leaders of the church family, in submission to our head pastor Jesus.

A cool thing reminded me of this on my way to work this morning. I was driving west on I-90 towards Seattle, and I had 105.3 on in the background as I was praying through some things. Pastor Mark Driscoll, our teaching pastor at Mars Hill, came on 105.3, praying. His prayer was part of a commercial advertising an outreach ministry of 105.3’s. They never even mentioned his name, just played his prayer. The cool thing for me was that he wasn’t two words in before my ears perked up and I knew his voice. I recognized some of the unique ways he intones words like the name of Jesus, the particular emphasis he puts on certain parts of a sentence. I know his voice. I called Kelly to tell her about hearing it. She was on her way to visit a friend and was in the car and had heard it too, and also recognized Mark's voice.

I praise God for Pastor Mark and the other elders at Mars Hill who have been used by Jesus to make a significant impact on my life, calling me to maturity, to stronger leadership of my family, to a stronger role as Pastor-Dad, to an increased desire to be a protector, provider and caregiver for my flock/family. I praise Jesus for these things and for that pastoral voice Pastor Mark and the other elders have used to lead me closer to my Shepherd Jesus.