Thankful for sickness?

(NOTE:This pic is NOT Davis)
Apparently Thanksgiving is not the greatest for our family at Thanksgiving.
Last year I got the sickest I have EVER been. Here is the post.

Well this year it is very different but we still have a pretty good bug.
RSV.
3 Letters completely wrecking a day.
Lawson, Demetria and Chris' little 7 week old boy actually had to be hospitalized for breathing treatments because of RSV.
Both Davis and Annie were diagnosed with RSV tonight as well, awesome.
Davis has two really bad ear infections but they are hopefully viral, so it will just clear up with the RSV.

For two kids with RSV I have never seen two kids smile more in the "sick lobby."

But none the less it was a sick day for me as I stayed home to watch the kids while Katie dealt with her own cold.

On the plus side we did get an awesome Panda Compressor Nebulizer System, who doesn't want one of those? I hear that they are all the rave in NY :)

Thanksgiving Week

We are coming up on Thanksgiving week, which is crazy.
Some beautiful weather here in Knoxville the last couple of days.
Katie had her first small group in our new room this last week and last night we had some friends over for some soup.
It is hard to beat just sitting around with good friends and sharing life.
Here are some pics from last Thanksgiving.
What a difference a year makes.

Preach the gospel to yourself

As Christians, we must always preach the gospel to ourselves.
We far too often go to camp "accept" Jesus and nothing changes.
The gospel must be preached, at least in life, daily.
Here is a video of Matt Chandler. He is a preacher in Texas. God has used him to take a floundering baptist church and turned it into one the most alive- gospel centered- churches in America.
If you have 3 and half minutes, I hope you can watch the video.


Sorry it's a little out of whack, didn't want to take the time to resize the HTML.

Hello

Well apparently adding a room on to your house takes up a bit of your time. If you haven't noticed, we haven't updated the blog recently. (unless you are one of those that checks the blog once a month).Well our house is finished! We are so happy with the way the addition turned out. We do miss the construction men showing up at 7:30 each day, but we are making it. In all honesty though, the guys that built the room were great, Mark, Bill, Dave, Richard and Kelly were the the main men who did it and they are all stars. They worked on our house like it was their own. I am pretty sure Davis thinks they are the coolest guys around because of all their tools and skills. Much has happened. New room, Annie is now 6 months old, Halloween, etc...Here are a few pics from the last month. I'll be back soon, promise.

Here we are

Welcome to the world Lawson.
We (Katie, JC and Annie) went and met Lawson on Saturday. He is doing well and we are so excited about him being in Knoxville in just a few weeks.
He was born at 8lbs 13oz.


I promise he has eyes, these are just some quick pics of the little guy napping.
While we were there Muma got some sweet nap time with Annie. It's amazing how big Annie looks compared to a newborn.
Davis stayed here with Archie and Susan, Grandmommy and Grandaddy, while we were gone and had a great time at the mall playing.
(Annie trying out Lawson's swing- which is amazing)

Annie turns 5 months old today.
If there have been a quicker 5 months in my life, they must have been so fast that I don't even remember them.
We continue to be so thankful for our kids, their health, and watching their amazing personalities develop.

We went to a pumpkin patch together last Friday. Honestly I think Davis was more distracted by the tractor delivering the pumpkins than the pumpkins themselves.





I promise the updates will become more regular before the kids turn 15.

Come on Lawson

Lawson is due any day now.
Lawson is/will be Demetria and Chris' son.

Today Annie was so excited thinking about Lawson arriving she was biting her lip with excitement.
I also think Annie is excited that they are moving 3 miles from her.

Nothing lasts forever

Part of my job at Fellowship is leading one of the newly married community groups.
This group started because our other newly married community group was overflowing and more and more young people were visiting. So a year ago Katie and I helped start a newly married community group.
Katie and I were talking today that there are over 20 couples who consider this place home.
We get the opportunity to pour our limited 7 years of marriage into these newly married couples.
Today I referenced a book called "This Momentary Marriage" by John Piper.

Let me first say that I would recommend ANYTHING by John Piper. If you are looking for a good book to take you beyond "Christian bookstore reading", I would highly recommend Piper. He cites scripture constantly. He backs up his thought with the truth of God's word. His books are not sit down, drink a cup of coffee and finish in a weekend. Rather they make you wrestle, challenge you, and make you uncomfortalbe- but still i recommend them.

The idea of This Temporary Marriage is that nothing lasts forever, including marriage, except for Christ.
We know that our possessions will not last forever, our house, our bank account, our tennis game, etc. But either will our relationships. Matt 22:30 tells us that in eternity there will not be marriage.
So what does this tell us about marriage?
It is God's idea.
It's a gift from God.
But this is a gift with a purpose, sort of like a gym membership. (NOTE: NEVER give a gym membership as a gift, there is nothing good that will come out of that gift!) But lets say that someone gives you a gym membership. It is a wasted gift if you do not use the gym to work out and get in better shape.
The same is true of marriage. It has been given to us as a gift to make us more like Christ. It we are not allowing our marriage to make us more into His likeness I would argue our marriage is being wasted.

I don't want to talk too much about the book, you can read it for yourself.
Actually you can download it for free.
Your marriage, or your singleness (also in this book), are too important to just happen.
Your marriage is THE greatest tool that God has given the world to show His covenantal relationship with His people.
Read it for free HERE