Mountain Top Experience

This is "Red Nose." I saw it everyday for about a week while I stayed in Colorado at the Blessings Ranch for a Ministry Excellence Week with 7 other pastors. This trip truly was a great trip that will help to sustain me over the long haul in ministry.

I've stated this a few times, but I really believe that in 10-20 years when I look back on the week I spent at the BR, I will still be able to say that the week I spent there was one of the best things I ever did. I feel as though I had been lagging behind in my walk with God and that my passion for ministry had tapered off. But this week renewed communion with God, energized me with passion for ministry, and has given me great hope for future ministry.

Of course it was very difficult to be gone from Lyndsay and the kids, but it was well worth it. It was great however, when I finally saw Xander again. I had met TWH and MKH at a halfway point between our homes (he had been staying at their home that week) and we made the exchange. He is always a little unsure of what is happening in those moments. He may not be sure that I've really come to get him, or if he's coming home with me. But when mema and papa drove away and we got in our car and started down the road, he began to cheer, saying, "Yeah Daddy!!" Of course I cheered back saying, "Yeah Xander!!" We cheered like this as we pulled out of Culver's, as we drove down the street, as we drove down Prospect all the way to the on ramp, and several miles down the interstate.

This was about 5 minutes of cheering for one another; it was hilarious and wonderful. It was like he really realized that his dad had really come for him, and was taking him home. And in the midst of that moment I realized that my interchange with my son mirrored the experience that I had all week long as a son with his Heavenly Father at the ranch, where I feel that God was cheering and smiling at me and I was cheering and smiling back.

Well things are getting back to normal around here. Lyndsay and I have managed to watch 3 whole discs of Lost Season 2 in an attempt to begin watching the third season in "real time." Xander has gone number 1 and 2 in the potty chair and Avery is starting to take cereal.

We were sitting around the table last night talking with Xander about Halloween, trying to get him to say "trick or treat," which he can say almost flawlessly. So Lyndsay decides to get him to say, "smell my feet," to which he would respond by dipping his head down towards his feet and taking a whiff in an attempt to smell his feet every time she said that. We finally got him to say, "smell my feet," but not without the dipping and whiffing. ROFL

Life is good, God is faithful, and children are such a joy. May God bless you this day.