JCISONLINE

Kristen, came home yesterday and was just really upset. You probably already made an assumption about me making a mistake. While my life is ridden with plenty of mistakes, I thought I did pretty well this time. She’s still in school and does observation hours for her education degree, after all that she goes to work for a family with an autistic child. Then she comes home to me… Yeah (insert joke here). But at school yesterday, she had a department head drop the ball. The lady needed to reserve some space for classes and she didn’t do it on time.

Basically students in this particular department have to wait to sign up for other classes and wait to tell their job about their school schedule because the lady dropped the ball… Needless to say I was upset but Kristen was not happy, then the child she takes care of was sick and that throws all of his “normal” behaviors off kilter(if you know anything about autism then you understand the quotes). Some other things were going on and it was a rough day… Really rough. Now generally I would try and come up with some profound piece of wisdom for her but I didn’t and couldn’t. I just held her while she cried. I know only of this type of love because she gives it to me when I have a tough time. When I need encouragement she is always the first one. I got to be that for her for this one instance. And it was cool. Haven’t got many of those chances early on in our marriage but yesterday I did. It was so much fun to drop everything and give to her and yet at the same time it was a learning experience. Because as men, we can always try to fix the problem but we can’t always feel the circumstances. I got too and I am grateful for it. Spiritual Leadership is definitely deeper than ordinary leadership. And I have so much more to learn.

Guys you’ve been there. Your wife is shopping and you are…well waiting for her to stop shopping So there I was at the mall the other day waiting as my wife was trying to find a dress for a friend’s upcoming wedding. And so I sat on the couch by the waiting room for her to decide if she like what she had found on the rack. (By the way thanks for the couch Macy’s!) And instead of the usual surf the internet on my iPhone I decided to make some casual conversation with an older lady who was chillin on the couch as well.

So I did. Her name was Francis. She lived in a town in the surrounding area and she goes to a church. The same church that she has been a part of since she was 5 years old. I could pretend to guess her age but these are the quanitative statistics she threw at me when I asked about her experience there. 4 buildings, 8 or 9 preachers, and 1 pastor?! I was peaked by her particular use of vocabulary, just like someone outside the church must be when we throw out “saved” words (that one was free!) at ‘em. So I asked her Ms. Francis, “What did you mean by that, what was different about this one?”

She said, “I was going through some tough times in my life. He helped me get through them. I grew real close to him and his wife through that and I still go see them at their house.”

No powerful sermons. No incredible charisma. No awesome programming. “He helped me get through some tough times”

I’m in the production and programming world. But nothing substitutes for genuine relationship and love that comes from our Savior given to those that we have relationships with. Francis’ small testimony of how she felt just reinforced that God calls us to love Him with everything and then love others. And that no matter how flashy, heartfelt, passionate and relevant our programming is unless we are concerned with people’s lives and how we can meet their needs through the love of Christ and pointing them that way, change isn’t going to happen.

So my Tigers were scaring me yesterday and probably were scaring Matt Mckee too.
But they squeaked it out and play Maryland Saturday. Regardless of you being a Memphis fan or not, you gotta love the Madness.

So to throw a little bit of excitement at you check out this video.

March Madness

Yeah so I went to a NKOTB concert last night. Kristen is a huge fan. I am not that much. Mostly because they were before my time and I just didn’t listen to much music from when I was 2-7! But Kristen used to have the PJ’s and everything of NKOTB. So knowing we weren’t going to go I blasted my friend for going to the concert, because I thought that he was a huge fan and didn’t know that it was going to be a surprise for his wife and that she also was a huge fan.

Long story short, I ate some humble pie when he offered us tickets to go to the show with them. I was extremely grateful and did have fun. Plus we got to see a few 30 year old women cry as they were singing “I’ll be loving You”.

Plus think about how a 30-35 year old mom would celebrate when their kid hits a home run or when they just killed the dance number they’ve been practicing for months; then change it to excitement about their own celebration with the back track as “The Right Stuff” .

But the best part of the night is seeing my wife smile as she got to see one of those bands she used to love, live. It was worth more than anything else in the whole world. So big thanks to Josh Bradley (student pastor at Brookwood, and soon to be blogger) for the tickets. Nothing makes me happier than seeing my wife happy!

Now I’ve got to find an animal to kill with my bare hands to earn some man cards back.