Been Awhile Since Father's Day

As you can tell I am not a daily writer or blogger. I am more or less going to try and get some thoughts together to keep track of what I have been doing over the last couple of months. I would like to write daily and keep a type of journal. I think it would be good later on in life to allow my kids and family to reflect on what we did these days. This is probably going to be a long one since I am playing catch up.

So since Father's day what have we done? We have spent a lot of time together. Hannah cut her foot open, Emily went to church camp and Clay had surgery. You want to know more, read on!

So, soon after school was out we went swimming at my sissy's house, the Summer started off great! About a week later Hannah is walking into her Nanny Bune's (pronounced Boo-nay) house and the screen/glass door starts shutting as she is walking in the house. As the door was shutting she had her right foot in the house and her left foot was coming up to step into the house and the corner of the door caught the inside of her foot right above her heel. I was working at the restaurant Roper's (the best place to eat ever) and Stephanie calls me to let me know what is going on, that they are headed to the ER. My Hannah is still tough as a pine knot, as her Uncle Kenny once said. She toughed it out, she wouldn't say that she wanted me there because she wanted to show me how tough she was. I was very proud of her she came back with 4 stitches. Oh and this was the week she was suppose to go to church camp, and she was not able to go. That was a bummer, but I think she was a little glad. She is my kid that likes to stay at home.

Emily went to church camp and Cold Springs for her very first time this year, she had fun. The night before she was suppose to go, she was very apprehensive about going. In fact, she said she did not want to go. I told her that at this point it was too late to change her mind. Someone paid her way to go a couple of months before. I was approached a couple of months before camp and asked if Emily wanted to go, because someone wanted to pay her way. I asked her if she wanted to go to camp and she said yes. In the meantime she asked one of her friends to go with her and they said the would. So her friend paid to go to camp. So we are sitting here the night before she leaves and she says she doesn't want to go. After a little discussion I finally said, baby it comes down to this. Someone paid for you to go, you invited someone to go and they have already paid, so count this as your first lesson in obligation. She is 12 years old, I don't think this is too early to learn this lesson, do you?
Anyway, so she goes to camp on Monday. She was not expecting me to see her off, but I showed up and surprised her. It seemed to make her happy which is what I like to do, make my kids happy.
So she gets to camp and we, Stephanie and myself, go up there on Tuesday night for service and praise and worship time. It was a good message that the man preached. The music was loud, (what can I say, I am getting old). It was great music, I just had to step out of the pavilion so the sound would have somewhere to travel. Let me just say, we love our kiddos and our kiddos love us. That is a really great feeling. I told Emily that she could go and sit with her friends and she said, "no, I will sit with ya'll." Now let me tell ya, that makes a daddy proud when his 12 year old says she WANTS to sit with you. After service Stephanie and I were leaving and we are giving hugs and kisses and Emily starts to cry a little. She is laughing through the tears but she is crying cause she is already getting a little homesick. Stephanie says she will come back Wednesday night, so that made her feel better. All in all she had a really good time at camp, learned some stuff and brought some goals back with her. The book study they started is called,
A Call To Die. One of the things it asks them to do is to fast (give up) from something for 40 days. Now we all know how much Emily loves to watch TV, so that is what she chose to fast from. We were and are very proud of her for stepping up and taking this challenge. She is doing a great job.

Clay and his ear. This is the 2nd surgery he has had to repair the hole in his ear. He is such a big boy. This time what they went in and did was take a little fat from his ear lobe, and plugged up the hole in his ear with it. They roughed up the edges of the hole to stimulate it to heal and to attach to the fat and grow together. The Wayne and Kerri (our pastor and his wife) came and hung out with us while we were waiting for everything to be done. They gave Clay the goofy medicine, and just when you think the kid can't get goofier he does. He is a funny little guy. They took him back and we waited about 30 minutes and they were done. Dr. Shaw came out and told us that everything went REALLY well. I love this doctor. He is a real down to earth real person. Doesn't talk over your head to get you out of the room He is a real country boy and we are very blessed to have him as our ear, nose and throat doctor.
They bring Clay into recovery and we go back there to sit with him. The first thing he says is he wants to go to Nanny Hankins house to spend the night. We told him he couldn't, he just has surgery. Then he said "I am hungry". I said no kidding! The boy is always hungry and he always wants to eat, and yet very thin!! We get home and he is hurting some and feels sick, but that is about the extent of it. Wednesday he has pain and doesn't feel good, but by Thursday he is wanting to run a marathon. He is doing great now, we went back to the doctor and he said it looked good, but he is finished swimming for the summer. He is a little bummed out about it, but he gets to ride the 4-wheeler so he is cool.

I took a vacation week in July, the week of the 20th to be exact. We went and visited Memaw, Stephanie's dad, I took the kids fishing on Wednesday. That was a fun trip, we all caught a fish but they were all too little to keep. That was OK because we didn't have any to clean. On Thursday I took Clay and a little boy from church, Connor, fishing. It was the first time Connor had ever been in a flat bottom fishing boat, so he was nervous. We had a good time and he enjoyed himself.

Stephanie has been working on her nursing education. She is doing great... We have a super big praise to give to the Lord our God. She went for a 6 month MRI check up for her Multiple Sclerosis in July and we got the results that afternoon. She has no new lesions, WoooHooo, praise Him. She has not active lesions, how much better can it get? Well let me tell ya.....One of her lesions is actually shrinking!!! Praise Him praise Him Praise Him!! Oh yeah, she has not been on a MS medicine that reduces the amount of attacks that she could have in a few years, she did have some chemo for her MS about two and a half years ago, but that's it. So you know what, it is nothing the medicine did, it is nothing she has done, it is all in God's hands and His willingness to heal. He is the great physician. ALL of the glory and praise goes to Him. Showers of blessing have been poured out on us over and over and we are so thankful.

I told you this was going to be long. I am still not done.

The work that God is doing in my life right now is huge. It has been recently over the last few weeks that I have been broken. Broken in my life so that God can build me back up. You see our eyes and ears are a gift from God. Not a right to have not something that we should expect, but a gift. My wife brought that up to me. What we allow into those gifts has an impact and a result out of our life. We have started being very careful about what we watch on TV and what we listen too. How we react to different situations, at home, at work, or at school. Our lives should be a light in this worldliness of darkness. The bible tells us that we are in this world, but we are not of this world. Most of you probably know what that means, but if you don't, it means we have to be, as Christians-children of God, different. When people look at us funny because we don't watch I-Carly or Zack and Cody, Big Brother or things that are "harmless" we have an opportunity there to tell them why. We have to use facebook, myspace and twitter very carefully. We are responsible for shows up on our pages. If it is not good, tell that person to be careful and we don't like to see stuff like that, and if they don't stop turn them off.
I learned yesterday that our words are very powerful. Think of how much power is in a word. God spoke and it was. We have the ability to tear someone down or build them up. What do you like to hear? Words of encouragement or ugliness?
With all that said, think about your day your life....What changes could you make in your life to live more for God to get rid of the "harmless" little things in your life.

More later...I am going to try and write more.

Happy Father's Day

This is my first Blog, I thought it appropriate that I set it up on Father's Day, or close to it.

I got this email that said something about sharing something about my dad. Well my dad died about 2 years ago, but after he was diagosed with cancer I really started to appreciate the time that we had. I remember specifically about a fishing trip that we had when I was about 17 years old. This was the best fishing trip he and I had together for as long as I can remember. We liked to fish for bream and it was just me and my dad. We went to the resevoir and we found a really great fishing hole. I was at the front of the boat and I had to let out a lot of line on my fly rod. I had to put the line out on one side of the boat so that when I was trying to get into the hole, the slack would come out of the line. I was catching so many fish so fast that daddy was baiting the hook and taking off the fish. He got tickled because I was 17 and he was taking my fish off and baiting my hook. We went fishing again after he was diagnosed, and the tables were turned, I was baiting his hook and taking off his fish. We have pictures on both, some of our favorite times were fishing. My best memory and favorite memory was January 17 of 2006. This was the first time that I ever prayed with my dad. He was getting some blood and I went back with him and again, it was just he and I. I prayed that God would take care of him, I thanked God for allowing me to have such a great dad and for putting me in this family. I prayed and said a few other things and when I was done I looked up and saw a tear rolling down his face. I knew that God was working on him and working on his heart. I was so thankful and so blessed. After that, when I would tell my dad that I loved him he would tell me back. I cannot tell you how wonderful that made me feel. The night before my dad died, my sister, one of my brothers, my mom and I were there. We were all in his bedroom and I was sitting on one side of the bed and he was on the other side sitting up and leaning on my back because he had some trouble sitting up. He asked us all what our decision was and I said I don't even know what my choices are and he said that there was only one choice for him and that was Jesus Christ. I was so at peace then. I remember asking him about a year before if he knew that he was going to heaven and he sadi that no one knows that. My heart sank. So you can imagine that joy that I felt when he made this profession of faith. I know my dad is at peace now completely healed and in heaven. What I want for you all to get from this is; don't take for granted the time that you have with your family, your dad or anyone, try to burn every memory you can into your brain. Don't be afraid to ask your parents or any of your family if they know Jesus, for some reason it is harder to ask family members rather than strangers, love them enough to find out. Tell them you love them whether or not you hear it back, make sure they know that YOU love them. I love my family and friends. Happy Father's Day Dusty