Home BlogPage 149

My Favorite Subject

What is my favorite subject? Is it math? science? English? recess?! Nope – it’s not a school subject at all, its a photography subject: my little boy. Daddy and the Boy Today we headed over to Garden of the God (note: I leave off the “s” as it is not Garden of the Gods, but of the One True God and Creator whom I worship!) While Luke’s favorite thing was the toy cars for sale at the Trading Post, my favorite was getting to take pictures of him at this beautiful place! (not my first time here!) And it should be noted, that if I’m in the picture, Sara took the shot, and she’s not a bad photographer herself! (She’s a great photographer!) “Look Dad, a ROCK!” I love Luke’s curiosity and enthusiasm over the littlest things. Often I had to call him on to see greater things when he was content with a little stone or stick. I wonder if my heavenly Father ever is trying to lead me to more amazing things and if I get content with lesser things and nearly miss the greater? Luke in his “special place” Luke loves finding little places he can crawl…

Continue reading

Puppets, Publishers and Peaks!

I know I’m supposed to be taking it easy and recovering from near death and all that, but today we planned a whirlwind fun day that was relaxing and enjoyable – both because of the people we hooked up with and the sights we saw! We started out in Colorado Springs (where we are staying) and went up to Littleton to have breakfast with Todd Liebenow, the Top Puppeteer and El Presidente of One Way Street, and #1 puppet and creative ministry supplier in the world. (for real) I’ve long wanted to see the OWS headquarters, and finally got to! Todd Liebenow and Karl The extra treat was that I had Sara and Luke with me and my little boy (who adores all my puppets) got to see “where puppets come from” with a tour of the factory. I could not photograph much out of fear of compromising industry secrets, but here is Lukey with some eyeless lambs: Luke among the Lambs After One Way Street we headed up to Loveland to the Group Publishing headquarters where I had a meeting with Christine Yount who, besides being executive editor of CM Mag, has a new official title I love: Children’s…

Continue reading

My Last Lecture?

About six months ago I picked up a book at Costco that looked like a good read, The Last Lecture. It was written by Randy Pausch, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. CMU had a tradition of having professors share what they believed was most important in life – what they would share if they could only offer one “last lecture.” By the time Randy was scheduled to give his “last lecture” they had renamed the series to Journeys and were unaware that it would indeed be his last lecture. I’m now in Colorado enjoying some vacation time that God sovereignly planned months ago when He knew that this past week I would end up in the hospital to have a stent placed in my heart. I’ve shared some personal reflections on facing my own mortality, and as I was packing for our trip out here saw The Last Lecture sitting on my desk, and grabbed it to read. Tonight I joined nearly ten million others who have watched the video (below) of his presentation and it was really good. You can watch it here on YouTube yourself (76 minutes long) as well as another talk he did later on…

Continue reading

The Heart of the Matter

Waking up in a hospital bed on Easter Sunday morning after a life-saving proceedure on your heart does wonders for your perspective on life. While family and some friends are quick (too quick) to jump on my diet or love of Dew, the reality is that while I certainly have to make some minor changes to my diet to eat more “heart healthy” and increase exercise, diet is not at the top of my list of the things I’m thinking about. I’m not devaluing the importance of these changes, I’ll make them, many I already was over the past few years, but facing one’s mortality so dramatically impacted me more in thinking about relationships, not food. Months away from turning forty, I suppose everyone at some point truly faces their mortality, and the deep realization that truly every day is a gift from God. Perhaps they go through something like I did, or someone they love does, or it may just be a significant birthday number that hits them; “I’m getting old!” While I’ve always known and believed that every day was a gift from God – when the events of the last 48 hours are such that TODAY is…

Continue reading

Update from the Hospital Bed

I’m writing this from a hospital bed in Aurora, IL after having a stent put into my heart that saved my life! The full story is here if you missed all the updates on Twitter and Facebook! Yes, I was twittering (which updated facebook) during the whole thing, and live blogged to give more detail than you can in status updates. It was really quite amazing that due to today’s technology I literally had more people praying for me probably than your average church prayer line – for those scratching their heads that I would twitter while having a heart attack, let me first say, A) I didn’t technically have a heart attack (explained in blog post) B) I was never in great pain, just enough pain in my chest to know something was wrong and decided the smart thing was to go straight to ER and C) I really truly believe in the power of prayer and wanted to get the word out so that I’d have prayer for myself and family during the critical hours when it mattered most. I never really felt dread or fear, though I had a sober understanding that this was indeed serious –…

Continue reading