End of my time with GT

It is a sad state. I just received an e-mail from the GT Dirt Coalition that the team has ended. I was really looking forward to racing for them again this year, but looks like I won't. I really enjoyed racing my GT and showing it off at the races, but I will continue on, probably still racing my GT cause I don't have anything else to ride. Thanks GT for the great ride!

Couldn't the sun just shine?

It seems like forever since the sun made its presence known to those of us in the midwest. We had a brief spot of sun today, but so far it is filtered through some grey dismal clouds. It is hard to get used to the weather here in the north again. For 5 years we lived in southwest Missouri and this time of year we had pretty good weather, but this snow from Thanksgiving to Memorial Day is too much. Yes I know I exagerate, but it feels true.
We finally got around to buying a new car. This has been a 3 1/2 year process(since our son Corban was born). We did only have a VW Beetle and with the way we have kids we did not have any notice so buying a car was not really possible. For the first six months, we had both kids in the Beetle alone. We finally found a Ford Focus and we had that for almost 3 years, but it never really fit us well. So we decided it was time. It is so nice to have room to move in the car. Traded in the Focus and got ourselves a minivan. Yeah, we are one of those people now. I swore I would never own a minivan, but having two kids has changed my mind on the whole subject. It is a nice Pontiac Montana with the DVD built-in. Can you say road trip?

Great Expectations

At Church, we started a new small group last night with the younger couples. I call them the younger mainly because of our kids age, but also in their marriages they are fairly young. Joy and I are the oldest with 14 years in, but our kids are 3 and 4, so we fit right in. It was a good start and part of our lesson was talking about the desires we bring into our marriages. Whether it is all of a sudden or over time, when we get announced as man and wife, these desires become our expectations for the marriage.

Expectations can come from anywhere: TV, media, books, parents or others marriages. These sign of an expectation can be, "Well that's not how my parents did things!" Of course it can be any number of ways, but expectations can be detrimental to a relationship. If our spouse does not live up to the expectations we can get conflict. Conflict is just a nice way of saying having a fight. This is an option for expectation not being fulfilled, but it does not always end good unless we know that the conflict is not going to end in someone taking off and saying, "Enough!"

We talked through some of the different solutions for expectation, but we ended on the perspective shift of fighting for our marriages. It is not enough to fight for our marriage. We are in a relationship with another person. We need to fight for the other person, just as the other person should be fighting for us.

It is never easy to have a one-sided relationship, because it is not possible. It's in the definition: one-sided is not a relationship. Our prayer is for our group to become more we centered and fight the temptation to be I. Working together to strengthen our marriages with the strand of 3 cords making sure Christ is the third strand.

Lost at Sea

I realize this may sound like I really am lost at sea, but really it is just a sea of busyness. I have not written anything in 2 months and right at the moment I do not have the time either to sit and be very creative, but Christmas and new years are over for another year and we have jumped both feet into the January blahs. It seem that this time of year is the hardest for me to get out of bed and do anything simply because of the lack of sun light pouring in my face. It is always nice to have a sunny day to sit; letting the sun energize me. More of these times are needed for me.

For those interested, I was ordained as a minister in the Evangelical Church Alliance this past Sunday. It was a great service and I thank everyone that came out and supported me. Most important was my family. I really need them there for this stepping stone occasion. I also need to thank Pastor Pat for coming out and making it a great Spirit-filled event.

For now, we must all go forth and combat evil doing our best to see God's will and follow His ways.