Moving into the Blog World

Aside from my faith in my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the greatest blessings in my life are my wife and my three children. Without these four elements in my life, I would be nothing. I have been searching for a vehicle to portray just how much they mean to me. I am not much of a conversationalist, especially in the evening! To say what I am really thinking or feeling seems to always get skewed, misinterpreted, or something key gets left out. So I have turned to the world of blogging.

My family knows that I am a Zig Ziglar fan. I am not a stick your head in the sand, and everything will be alright type of person. I love my extended family dearly, but if there is a flaw, it is the fact that they always seem to be waiting for the "shoe to drop". On both my mother and my fathers side, in spite of being raised in the Christian faith, there is a thread of gloom and doom that seems to weave into most conversations. I guess we could say we are a glass is half empty type. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying we aren't loving and caring, or that we are all loony, we just have a flair for turning most everything into a melodrama.

That's where Ziggy comes in. A friend that I worked with gave me a set of his tapes about ten years ago, and I have listened to them several times over. It has challenged me to try to see life as it should be seen by a believer in Christ.

There will always be conflicts, trials, and tribulations and this family has certainly seen its share. Nowhere in the bible does it say that these things will ever cease in this life. By accepting Christ we do not get a free pass from these things. A favorite quote of mine is from Lou Holtz : " Life is 10 % of what happens to you, 90% of what you do with it." Hence the Christian life. Christ is that fulcrum that allows us to endure all of the troubles we will face here. I am not saying that I have arrived, just ask my wife! But I do try to stay on the positive side of things, and "keep my eyes fixed on Jesus" (Heb. 12:2).

Any how, I did not know by mentioning Zig Ziglar that I was going to go on the tangent that I just did. Remember what I said earlier that I was not a conversationalist? I have seen the bewildered look it peoples eyes hundreds of times when I've talked them..."say what"! So let's get back to the reason he was mentioned.

Zig says that he believes everyone should write a book. Not necessarily to get published, but as a way of telling their story to those closest to them, to help them understand the inner workings of our minds. That is what this blog will be about, the illuminations of my thoughts and my life. This is dedicated first and foremost to Terrie, Rebekah, Lisa, and Stephen. You are who I am. I don't care if another person on the face of the earth reads these posts, but for the four of you, I pray that it will give y'all a better understanding of your husband and your daddy.

Finally, I want to publicly talk about and praise our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ for having chosen me and my family to be his own, and how God our Father through the Holy Spirit leads us down mysterious paths to do his will. Would you believe that this venture into blogging started ultimately 11 years ago, and was birthed 3 months ago while searching for a slick way to butcher chickens on the Internet....

There's that bewildered look I was talking about!!! More in the future.....