Recently in Personal Category

I rather liked this message from Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria which I read earlier this morning, so I've decided to replicate it completely on my site...

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Christmas is here again despite all covert and overt attempts to wish it away. The celebration in remembrance of the love of God in giving the Saviour to the world is so important, it cannot be wished away.

Though few human beings rejoiced at the birth of the baby Jesus, the Gospels tell about multitudes rejoicing in the heavens, about a bright star leading wise men to worship the new born king, and they also tell about the trouble his birth brought to those unwilling to have him as their Lord and King.

The incarnation is the divine condescension. The birth of Christ which we celebrate is the decisive divine intervention into human history. By it, history is measured and judged. Before the birth of Christ, all of history is categorized as era ‘Before Christ’ (B.C.) and since then, we have been in the era of ‘the year of Our Lord’ (anno domini, A.D.)

Today, multitudes of human beings join the angels to rejoice. Christians shining as light lead many to Christ and there still exists, great trouble among those who would not have Jesus. Efforts to turn Christmas into a mere holiday season continue unabated all around us. ‘Christmas Greetings’ are replaced with ‘Season Greetings’ as if it possible to have a Christmas without Christ. ‘B.C.’ and ‘A.D’ are changed to ‘B.C.E.’ (Before Common Era), and ‘C.E’ (Common Era) all in an attempt to conceal the fact that Jesus came to save an erring world from sin and eternal condemnation.

The cross of Christ which is the main reason we boast (Gal. 6:14) remains a stumbling block and a symbol of offense to those unwilling to receive God’s free gift of salvation. (Romans 9: 33) Under the guise of political correctness, symbols of Christianity in our daily lives and history are being challenged and subtly removed. All these subtle and calculated attempts of the non-believing world to mislead the unsuspecting believers and make them deny Christ should not deter us from celebrating for we are confident the efforts are bound to fail. As we celebrate Jesus’ birth this year, let us be mindful of the activities of the first celebrants; the joyous angels who while celebrating proclaimed the Good News to the shepherds.

We should also be bold to proclaim to an increasingly secularized world, the good news of the Saviour-born. We call on all Christians in positions of authority and indeed all ministers of the Gospel to vigorously resist attempts to remove Christ from Christmas and His centrality and importance in human history. We should be vigilant and avoid being misguided and misled by their seemingly innocent and socially acceptable philosophy. In being politically correct, we should not join in denying Christ his rightful place. Let all of us unashamedly proclaim the news of the greatest gift of all, the love behind the gift and peace the gift brings to all. Jesus the Christ is our Saviour, Lord, King and the best gift ever given by God to humanity. (John 3:16)

May God incarnate, give you true joy as you celebrate Him this Christmas and throughout the coming year.

Every Blessing,

Signed

The Most Revd. Peter J Akinola, CON,
Archbishop, Metropolitan and Primate of all Nigeria.

Well, thanks to Douglas Adams, on Monday I became the answer to Life, the Universe and everything. It was quite the fun birthday. I've found as I've gotten older, it's not about what I get. I'm sure the 13 year old me would be aghast at that, but it's true. For my birthday from my wife and daughter, I got one present from each of them, and it was good.

From my wife I got a DVD of a new version of one of my all time favorite movies, but one I never owned before. That was "Flash Gordon (1980)". From my daughter I got a Christmas tree ornament that said "Third Christmas" and was a cat. I got some $ from family back home, and it was great. But none of that even compared to the best present of the day.

That came from my two year old. At some point in the afternoon, I was on the sofa, and my wife had come over to give me a hug and a happy birthday kiss. Well, while she was doing that, my little girl also came over and put one of her special blankets on top of my lap, and then gave me this really huge hug. It was totally unprompted, and made both of us cry. My daughter's blanket was the best present I got on my 42nd birthday. Hard to beat that.

Be on the lookout. If you are at a serious function, one never knows when a dinner roll might end up in your lap.

These guys are scary.

When you've been married for almost 11 years, you find yourself (or I do) in a constant battle not to take one's wife for granted. It's difficult at times when your wife has a personality who wants to do things for others. It's way too easy to allow it to slide and... aw heck, that's not what this blog entry is about.

Now I've posted things like this before, and they've usually been as a public apology or something. That is not the case here. My wife just took off to go see the most recent Harry Potter movie, and I have to say when she left, she looked cute - her hair was really nice.

Just wanted to mark that thought as I sit here about to go wake up our daughter from her nap. Oversleeping on naps is probably something generally inherited from me.

...or "How I came to love Jesus". This was part of an assignment in the discipleship course I've been taking at my church since last September. I am supposed to deliver this testimony to a specific person, which I will still do. However, it occurred to me that I can reach much more than that by posting it here. We were told to keep it to 1500 words, which is probably a good idea, otherwise I could have written 5,000 easily. This was actually slightly over, at around 1560, but I didn't want to trim any more from my first draft of close to 1,800.

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Jesus has always been a part of my life. My problem is that I never always acknowledged it, or even when I did, didn't give him the attention he deserved. That's the crux of my story. I've never really let him in the door until very recently in my life.

When I was child, I was raised and taught Sunday School lessons from an early age. I knew all the things you were taught, I even believed them, as much as a young child could believe things in the same way an adult can. I had several years of Sunday School perfect attendance when I was around the ages of 5-7. I could say the Lord's Prayer at an early age, and I was very much the proper young Christian boy. As time went on, my parents divorced (at 12yrs), and while I don't have a conscious recollection of that causing a problem at the time, it likely did, as it did upset many portions of my life. Not long after that I started to rebel in school, lost focus, and quite a lot of things didn't have the same flavor anymore. I used to sneak into my mom's bedroom on Sunday mornings, and turn off the alarm clock so we wouldn't have to go to church. I considered church an imposition on my Sunday morning sleep. At this point in my life, Jesus was never really an active thought. Not that I actively campaigned against him, or anything along those lines, it just was never an up front thought in my mind. Somewhere during this time, I stopped going to church completely, as I didn't feel connected anymore.

There were a few other moments after that where I had the chance to reconnect, but did not. There was a person who ministered to me in a church and asked me if I was saved, and told me that all it would take would be for me to accept Jesus as my Lord and saviour and let him into my heart. I said the lines, and the person said I was saved, but I didn't "feel it" in my heart. I also attended a Billy Graham Crusade and came forward at the end to receive Jesus. That was an opportunity and I didn't follow through on that, either.

Some years later, my family happened upon another Episcopal church led by a Father Edd Schultz. Father Edd was the first building block in my return to church in that he was young, and hey - he had Cable TV! A priest who had MTV was something cool to this teenager, so I bought into it. I enjoyed attending church there, and continued there until Father Edd left the church to move elsewhere in the country. At that point I more or less stopped going again. When I moved to Texas in 1992, and all of that was lost - I never went to church after I moved to Texas for awhile.

I got married in 1996; after that my wife and I attended a service at HTEC. We felt the church was nice, but due to my general laziness and desire for Sunday morning sleep, we did not return. At this point in my life, I had pigenholed my thoughts on religion into this. If I believed Jesus was saviour and my Lord, I would be saved. I didn't need to attend a church, and I didn't need all that other stuff. I believed, so I was good to go. It was my daughter who ended up leading me back to church - and she hadn't been born yet.

Late in 2004, my wife and I decided that since we were having a baby, that we needed to attend a church. As our families are about 1500 miles away, we needed a support system. After a couple of attempts elsewhere, we returned to HTEC, as that was the religion I was raised in. After attending several services, we felt very welcomed and comfortable; so we stayed. This was a seriously important decision, as it's here that I found Jesus for good, and let him into my life in a way that had NEVER happened before. In looking back, I always sort of paid lip service to Jesus. I believed, or thought I did, but it was't until after my daughter was born that I started noticing that I was feeling more filled, and more excited at attending church. That had never happened to me before. I prayed to God a lot during my wife's pregnancy, and those prayers were answered in the form of a very happy, and very healthy young daughter. Up until this point in my life, Jesus was mostly an afterthought, and he still blessed me with the best daughter I could have imagined. It was that realization that started me back without looking for a "way out" like I used to.

The big moment came when I was standing on the front lawn of my rector's house one evening. I had been there to fix a problem on his computer, and afterwards we were talking about a discipleship course he was going to soon be embarking on. I was not planning on doing it, mostly because I was (or thought I was) unprepared for the course. After hearing my reasons, the rector calmly told me I was full of shit - in those words! One wouldn't think that the turning point in one's religious life would be an obscenity delivered by a priest, but it was for me. God gives you what you need, and that's what I needed - a jolt like that to get my attention. On the drive home that night, I changed my mind and decided to take the course. It was a giant leap of faith on my part, as I really had NO idea what I was getting myself into.

As the weeks went along in the course, I found myself believing and reading scripture more than any other time in my life. I started being able to recite parts of it, and I found the course was nowhere as difficult as I anticipated it would be. I found that some of the things we were taught and learned about weren't the hollow things I thought they were when I was younger - these disciplines like fasting and prayer had real life meaning! As I let these things into my life more and more, I found that I had a deeper peace about various issues in my life that were never peaceful. I found that I did not stress internally about things as much as I used to. Now that's not to say I can't still run off the end of the stress meter, and I do from time to time. But overall, I've found great relief in simply allowing problems in my life to be turned over to Jesus. To a non believer, that might sound hollow, but the Holy Spirit has worked miracles in my heart.

The biggest changes have come in the last 5 months or so since I started taking scripture to heart. Oh sure, I could spend more time with the living word; and I still sin like everyone else, but I have an avenue out. The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. My most recent example is that I was lifted of my fear of praying in public. I used to dread that with a crippling fear that would stop me from any public prayer. In one of the discipleship class sessions, we had a big prayer group session, and I felt that something happened to me, but I did not know what. That was answered the next day when I had to take my wife to the hospital, and while driving there, I said a prayer for her healing with my hand on her head. Shortly after that, she told me that after I had taken my hand off her head, it felt like my hand was still there. This was a powerful moment for me, because it showed me what God had done in my heart, which was remove my fear of prayer. And as I've learned in James 5:16, "the prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effect". I've felt no problems with praying for people any longer, and that is a blessing my life. I wanted to cry when I realized what had happened to me.

This discipleship course has given me so much more strength and peace than I could have ever believed I was capable of. Praise God for getting to me through my rector swearing at me, as I credit THAT as the reason I now am stronger than I ever believed I could be in Jesus. My wife has told me that the course has changed me externally too, which is nice to hear, since I cannot see that. I cannot wait for what else will come on this path I have chosen. It can be your path too. It doesn't take much to get started on the path either, if you have any questions on how, just ask me. May God bless you, as he has me.

My two girls. I love them both from the bottom of my heart, and I thank God every day for both of them. Without 'em, my life wouldn't amount to much.

Yesterday was my 10th anniversary. I got married to my wife on October 26, 1996. I swear, it does NOT feel like 10 years have passed. 5 or 6 perhaps, but not 10.

Generally when guys make this kind of public statement, there's some gigantic profession of their love for their woman. That's not why I'm here. I've known my wife for 19 years and 3 months. We've been married for 10 of those years. If she doesn't know how I feel about her by now, she hasn't been paying attention. Besides, I tell her privately. I don't need to get all mushy to the world. I will say this. I first asked her to marry me back in 1988. She declined, although claimed at the time if I actually did have a ring on me at the time she would have. I always wondered about that.

Anyway, it's been a fun ride. We've had our problems - what couple hasn't? But those fade, and the positives are what's left. As we head into our second decade of marriage, we have a beautiful 18 month old daughter. That has as most parents have discovered become the driving force of our lives.

The Christmas after I turned 30 I was seriously depressed. I had failed in most goals I had set for my life at that point. Little did I know that I would be guided back to my wife the following year, and it's been great since. Thanks for the years! Couldn't think of someone better to grow old with.

OK, I got mushier than I thought I was going to, but it wasn't intended to be that way. :)

While my daughter can say words and "two word" sentences, she can't do anything like this story below. I guess we have lots of fun to look forward to.

One of my nephews back home came through with a doozy of a line, that prompted this author to almost spew his dinner onto the table upon hearing it. You see, he's raised Catholic, and one recent Sunday he was staying over for the weekend with one of my step-sisters. Well, she and her family attend a Protestant church. So, said nephew got taken along to the Protestant church. Upon entering, they walked through the coffee hour that the church has, you know, coffee, donuts, that kind of thing. Upon seeing the spread, said nephew exclaimed really loudly..

YOUR JESUS HAS DONUTS!

Which I'm sure prompted much laughter. When my wife relayed that story to me a few days ago, it made me bust out laughing - I wish I could have seen the immediate reaction to that exclamation. It's quite amusing, especially since said nephew is just 2.5 years old. :)

It's still funny to me several days later. I wonder what my girl will come up with like this.

I hate being sick. That stupid tingly feeling you get when you have a fever. You just want to lie there and feel miserable. Blech.

Last night my wife posted an entry on her blog detailing everything she did in a day of taking care of Samantha. It's rather a lot of stuff, and from my perspective appeared to be designed to show off the fact that taking care of a baby/toddler keeps you from having any kind of set schedule at all. I've always wanted to do something like that, and since today was my day to watch Samantha, I decided to do the same thing. Of course me, being me - I was hyper anal about times, lists, and what I put on here. I did also for the most part leave out my trips to the bathroom; figure you don't care to read that. So I have way more detail than Lynn did on her entry. So here we go...

• 7:05 - Samantha cried out, and jarred me awake. She did however not really "get up", and stayed quiet, so I stayed in bed.
• 7:12 - Bladder got me out of bed to hit the bathroom
• 7:15 - checked email - toy ordered for Sam shipped to my mother's house. Why I checked my email before getting in the shower? Be glad I used the bathroom first, I've been known to roll out of bed straight to the computer.
• 7:22 - I got in the shower, and talked to Lynn at same time, as she was getting ready for work.
• 7:38 - I started setting up the laptop in the kitchen, as it was going to be where I kept this log all day, as it's a central point in the house, plus I use it on Saturdays anyway.
• 7:39 - Started bottle in warmer
• 7:40 - Checked on Momma changing diaper
• 7:44 - Fed Samantha bottle
• 7:45 - Started a pot of coffee for myself.
• 7:46 - Said goodbye to Lynn, she went to work
• 7:48 - Toasted Waffle for Samantha's breakfast
• 7:51 - Fed Samantha waffle, ate my own cereal
• 8:05 - Started Baby Einstein DVD for Samantha
• 8:07 - Finished setting up laptop in kitchen had to hook up power and the mouse - I hate laptop touchpad mice
• 8:08 - Once that was done, I went outside, got the newspaper, and turned on the soaker hose for awhile, as the Lord knows we need rain around these parts.
• 8:11 - Finally managed to drink some coffee.
• 8:13 - Got on the computer and did some usual morning stuff (browse web, sent pics to some people, fantasy baseball updates, email, news, general stuff)
• 8:32 - Took out some trash and checked on soaker hose
• 8:36 - Worked on update for last night Rangers game for my Texas Rangers site
• 8:50 - Baby Einstein over, get more coffee, go play with Samantha in living room.
• 9:15 - Samantha was still playing at this point, but not much was holding her attention for more than a minute or so. She'd look at pictures, pick up this toy, that toy, and move on quickly. Came in to kitchen to update this list.
• 9:16 - Samantha followed Daddy to laptop and wanted up, so we looked at pics of Samantha. Samantha loves looking at pictures, and she knows daddy's laptop has pictures, and certain pictures of herself make her smile rather a lot.
• 9:23 - Called mama at work to say hi
• 9:25 - Seemed tired (yawning, rubbing eyes), put down in crib for a nap.
• 9:27 - Turned on baby monitor, freshened coffee cup
• 9:29 - Went to play Xbox 360
• 9:40 - Samantha fell asleep, as far as I can tell, continuing to play Xbox 360 (MLB 2k6 for the record)
• 10:30 - Read article on grocery stores in newspaper
• 10:35 - Fed cats
• 10:38 - Looked at 3D Realms forums
• 10:54 - Washed the few bottles that were in sink
• 11:05 - Called mama to say hi again
• 11:07 - Started reading my email backlog
• 11:10 - Samantha woke up, continued to read email
• 11:15 - Walking by the window, I saw the mailman at the next house, so I went out and met him to get mail (bit too hot for Samantha today in my opinion, plus she wasn't awake yet anyway).
• 11:17 - Mailman brought Amazon coupon, cancelled camera order with Dell, replaced with Amazon order. This is the camera.
• 11:21 - Went in to take care of Samantha, change diaper, change clothes
• 11:25 - Fed Samantha a bottle, prepared her lunch, read email while she ate bottle
• 11:33 - Fed Samantha lunch (rice & peas). Lynn said she loves this meal, and she was energetic at the start, but I think she had enough; she didn't finish it. Towards the end she started putting peas and rice in her hair. I stopped that of course, but it was still funny to see her with rice in her hair.
• 11:58 - Done with lunch, didn't want all of rice/peas - taking into living room for Blue's Clues
• 12:00 - Cleaned up kitchen floor, as there was rice and peas everywhere - about dozen peas, uncounted rice
• 12:04 - Started another blog entry for my Texas Rangers site
• 12:08 - Mama called from work
• 12:14 - Back to baseball blog entry
• 12:17 - Read online news
• 12:25 - Got samantha from crib as Blue's Clues was over, went to play in living room, but on the way discovered I needed to change a dirty diaper - oh joy!
• 12:29 - We came in and had a big living room play session. The usual stuff went on, blocks, cars, looking at her photo album, knocking down the stacked toys I stood up. There were a few things that stood out. As with Lynn's "Rose Tyler" entry on her blog, I asked Samantha where Rose Tyler was, and she went off and started playing with the doll, which was very cool. One other thing that I really enjoyed was when we played in this red plastic chair Lynn bought. Samantha loves sitting in this chair. She can't get in it on her own yet, but she does go to it, stand up, bang on the chair, and then look at you to put her in it. So I did. She then put her own blankt over top of her head and sat there. I peeked in from the bottom of the blanket, and when she made eye contact, she got a huge smile and then reached out to hug me (all under the blanket). I loved it. Was a wonderful heartwarming moment.
• 1:14 - Samantha seemed a little tired, put down in crib for a nap.
• 1:17 - Used bathroom, came out to kitchen to mark latest updates to this list.
• 1:18 - Checked in on Rangers game on TV that was supposed to start 20 minutes previous to this. It was in a rain delay.
• 1:21 - No game, went outside to examine soaker hose situation
• 1:25 - Came back in fixed my own lunch, sat down in living room, watched TV while eating it (This Week in Baseball and some random news stuff I had on the TiVo).
• 1:50 - Came back to laptop, quick check of other baseball games, and the usual web browsing, email checks, etc.
• 2:11 - Went in to get Samantha up, who is now awake.
• 2:15 - Playtime in living room - the usual stuff.
• 2:21 - Kira decided to stroll through the play area, which means Samantha is off - Samantha loves chasing Kira. Kira is not a fan of being chased, and she usually gets trapped behind the cat tree, which prompts much laughing from Samantha.
• 2:25 - We went into the master bedroom and played "The Bed Game". It's kind of silly - I load up one side of the bed with this really long body pillow of Lynn's, and then the other side is mostly me laying there with some pillows at the far end against the wall. What we do is Samantha crawls towards the end of the bed that my head is not at, and then I roll her down the pillow towards me, and she's laughing the whole time. She then rights herself, and then crawls back to the other end of the bed and waits for me to do it again. She loves this. Not sure how we got onto this. However, the bed game will have to end soon as she's getting too big for it, and she wants to crawl off the side of the bed to go after the cats. The pillows don't stop her as well as they used to.
• 2:40 - After the bed game, Samantha got to watch another episode of Blue's Clues while Daddy did some random picking up, plus started a download of the new Doctor Who episode from England.
• 3:10 - It's afternoon snack time, and Samantha gets one of her favorite snacks - a banana. I did have a Michael moment though as I knocked the banana holder to the floor and it broke in half. We'll need a new one.
• 3:25 - The banana is over, so it's a quick diaper check (don't need change), and then back to more living room play. Right around this time Daddy taught Samantha something new! One of Samantha's things is knocking down the peek a blocks which stack onto each other. I noticed Samantha trying to slide one of the blocks onto the base you use to start the stack. She was doing it all sideways, so I stopped and showed her how to do it a few times. She seemed really interested in watching me try to teach her, and after a couple of attempts, she managed to do it right - she stuck the block to the base, pulled it apart, and stuck it again. Daddy got EXTREMELY excited - as it was a visual, tangible piece of proof that I taught her something. I clapped, and told Samantha what a good job she did. I really loved it - I almost cried. I got so excited I had to call mama at work again. :)
• 3:40 - After the call it was back to living room for more play. Samantha was fixated on Rose Tyler again - the doll has a magnet in it's head, as does the pacifier, so it will stick to the doll's mouth. Samantha spent about 15 minutes just pulling it off, putting it on - she played with no other toys during this time.
• 3:57 - Diaper change!
• 4:00 - Daddy burnt himself out in his extreme excitement over the block success, and got really tired. Samantha went in the pack & play (with no TV or DVD). I lied down on the sofa right next to her for a few minutes.
• 4:20 - Daddy held Samantha and walked around the house looking at various pictures.
• 4:29 - MAMA'S HOME! We're both happy about that! After momma gets changed, daddy lies down on bed to rest for a few minutes after brief update on my Rangers site regarding the rainout this afternoon in Boston
• 5:00 - Came out and started playing catch up again with this list.
• 5:25 - The Rangers game finally started (about 5 hours late or so), so I put that on while being online working on this list.
• 5:45 - Stopped working on the list for the time being, and watched the Rangers game.
• 6:10 - Watched Samantha for a bit while the Rangers game was still on - Mama needed to make some Cole Slaw for dinner tonight.
• 6:30 - I paused the Rangers game, and got up and started prepping the Michaelburgers for tonight's dinner.
• 6:38 - Michaelburgers take the grill
• 6:54 - The Michaelburgers are done. During the cook time, I also went out front and messed with the sprinkler (which didn't work right) in an attempt to water my lawn, which desperately needs it. I also parked the truck in the garage.
• 7:02 - Lynn and I start eating dinner while the Rangers game was on. Samantha was in her pack & play at this time. Not sure when we finished, but when we finsihed, momma took Samantha and went and played in the living room - daddy continued watching the Rangers game.
• 7:40 - Daddy pauysed the Rangers game again, and got up and cleaned up the kitchen from dinner while momma was bathing Samantha.
• 7:47 - Back to the Rangers game, also sorted some mail that had piled up the last few days.
• 8:05 - Took in Samantha's nighttime bottle, Samantha goes to sleep for the night.
• 8:06 - Got online, checked out email.
• 8:11 - Picked up the mass of toys that were all over the floor in the living room.
• 8:16 - Back to the Rangers game. At some point during here I fell asleep on the couch watching it. No clue exactly when, when I got up the game was over.
• 8:40 - Lynn came out and read the newspaper. I watched some random stuff on the TiVo. Mostly VH1's Rock Honors special.
• 9:10 - Read a bit of the new issue of Sports Illustrated
• 9:15 - Started watching episode of Doctor Who that was on Sci-Fi Channel Friday night. About 30 seconds into it, Samantha cried out, so momma went in there and calmed her down. Daddy got online for a few minutes.
• 9:27 - Back to the Doctor Who Episode.
• 10:15 - Showed Lynn a 7 minute mini episode of Doctor Who (from the UK on the laptop) that came next in chronological order after the one we watched on Sci-Fi channel; this mini episode will likely never air in the US.
• 10:25 - Watched a bit of the late local news (mostly about weather, which is now at 100-102 now regularly - ugh).
• 10:40 - Talked to Lynn a bit before she went to bed for the night.
• 10:53 - Came in here to work on finalizing this list. At this point, the list is current with what I'm actually doing. Also during this time I email chat with my brother who is at work back home in Pennsylvania, as well as browse the web since I'm now caught up with the list.
• 12:05AM - Done with the Internet for the night, I'm going to head into the other room and watch the new episode of Doctor Who that was on in the UK earlier this afternoon.
• 1:08AM - Doctor Who is over, now it's time to play a game on the ol' Xbox 360, and likely hit the sack, as I'm getting tired. I can never just "go to bed", I have to be drop dead tired, otherwise I lie there, think of something, and get my mind going again, and wake up. That's my day, roughly 18 hours or so after it started.

UPDATE Sunday: I ended up finally going to to bed around 2:15AM. Which is about average for me.

My wife just informed me I didn't update my blog in over a month now.

So here's your update, honey.

As I sit here writing this, it's 5:40AM, and I'm sitting at an IHOP in Rockwall Texas. I had my laptop with me as I was taking it to work later this morning, and I turned it on, and discovered that the IHOP here offers free wirless internet. So you know I had to jump all over that. :)

I'm here after spending some time at church for the annual Easter vigil. I did this at my church last year as well. My wife and I started attending our church here in Garland in November of 2004, and this is the second Easter since then. It's by far not the only times I've done this. I've participated in my church's annual Easter vigil for as long as I can remember.

My "hour" was from 4AM to 5AM. So after downing a bunch of coffee in my truck before it was my time, I went in. My church really does a great job at making different rooms on the campus look beautiful for various reasons. This was no different. The room is made up to look like the Garden of Gasthemene (sp?) - the idea being will you honor Jesus' request to spend an hour with him? Sure, that's no problem. Given all the blessings I have in this life, it's a very small price to pay. I always pick times like 3AM and 4AM, as they're not convienient. THat's a strong belief I have, that the time I pick to spend with Jesus is not "easy time" for me.

So I went in, I prayed, I sat, I read my Bible that I had brought with me. I wished I had done that last year, but didn't, so I made sure I had one with me this time. As usual, it was very moving. Not that I really needed affirmation of this, but my choice to participate, and participate specifcally HERE was shown to me by the others in the room with me. You the reader woudln't know most of them, but three of them are significant. One is a fellow within the last year who was saved by Jesus after a life of drugs and I found out when leaving by looking at the schedule that he was going to be there the whole night! Now that is a committment. One of the other folks was one of the church elders, but the most important one was the Rector Emeritus for our church. Having him in there with me sharing his soul and his prayers and time with me told me I was in the right place.

Last year I felt God spoke his love to me while in prayer directly. This year, I feel that he showed me his love through the presence of Fr Ralph. I was scheduled to be there, he was not. I'm sure folks who don't believe in God might see this as nothing, but I see it differently. God loves me, and I'm not ashamed to say it. If you're reading this and don't believe or love God, know he loves you too.

God bless Fr Ralph, God bless my church, God bless my wife and daughter, and God bless the folks who invented the computer systems that allow me to bring this message to you.