Odie Mooney

1995 - June 3, 2008

Odie was, simply put, the greatest cat in the world.

He passed away last night, at home, after a couple of weeks of not eating well and losing a lot of weight. The vet visit on Sunday confirmed that all of his blood cell counts were decreasing, which indicated a bone marrow problem. We tried some prescription food with him Sunday evening and yesterday, but he wouldn't eat anything. We even tried plain tuna last night and he completely ignored it.

Odie was a stray when we found him. Before we were married, Amy was living with some friends in an apartment, and one day as she came home there was a kitty cat outside. She called to the kitty, and he came towards her, and the cat enjoyed the attention - something very unusual for a stray. Amy also noticed that the kitty's leg had been injured, like it had been broken. She took pity on the stray cat and started feeding him occasionally.

Before long, calling for "kitty" would result in him running towards her, meowing as he came. We took him to the vet, who told us that he was about a year old, and had FIV - the feline version of the HIV virus - and should be kept separate from cats that did not have FIV. With this condition, they said, he could live a couple of years or as many as 10.

His leg had indeed been broken, but had already set and it would be a major ordeal to re-break it and heal it correctly. He didn't seem to have any trouble getting around, so we left things as they were.

We named him "Odie" after the dog in the Garfield comic strip, for several reasons. First, he came when you called him. He also starting responding to snapping fingers - we'd snap and he'd come running. He also tended to drool a lot. He was always looking for attention, and would let you pet him like a dog - including petting his tummy, something I do NOT recommend trying with other cats (especially if they have claws!).

I kept Odie outside at my parents house, initially, since my sister already had an indoor cat. Amy and I were married in 1997, and he became a part of our family. He was there when we moved into our apartment.

It was always apparent to us that Odie had not always been a stray. He was way too interested in human affection, but also the first time we opened a can at our apartment he went nuts. So we knew he had been fed from a can at some point.

Like a dog, Odie was an over-eater. If we filled his bowl with food, he would eat the entire bowl in one sitting, even if it meant that most of it would come back up later. So we quickly learned to feed him the "right" amount, twice a day, just like a dog.

When we had guests over, including a large party, Odie was always in the middle of it, looking for attention. The picture above was taken at McKenna's birthday party in December. Odie was right in the middle of it, like he always was.

When McKenna was about 2 and a half years old we discovered that she was having mild allergic reactions to him. After petting him her face would have a minor rash, even if we washed her hands afterwards. So we started looking for another home for him.

After awhile, our friends Kevin and Faith took him in at their apartment, where Odie had his home away from home. Odie spent a few years there, until Kevin went to college, and married housing didn't allow pets. Meanwhile, we were finishing our basement at our new house that would be a great place for Odie to hang out. So last fall Odie came home.

McKenna and Jeremiah had really begun to enjoy Odie again. We kept wanting to see if McKenna still had an allergy, but McKenna insisted on petting Odie only with her bare feet. Which didn't bother Odie at all.

A couple of months ago Odie stopped eating as well as he used to. We tried to start using canned food with him, and that improved things, but soon after that he wasn't eating that very well, either. We took him to the vet about three weeks ago, where they discovered a heart murmur, and found that all of his blood cell counts were low - which indicates that the bone marrow is not doing its job. Last Sunday's visit confirmed that diagnosis, but we really thought we could get him eating prescription food (or plain tuna) enough to go on for a few weeks. We also thought that this process would last a little longer, but it seemed to happen so quickly.

Even up to the very end, Odie was still a sweet kitty. Last night I was downstairs with the kids playing a video game with them, and Odie came up and sat down right between us. Looking for attention. Naturally, we obliged. We tried to give him lots of extra love over the past couple of days, including a good brushing (which he always loved).

We will miss Odie. I'm really glad that he was able to be at home with us for a few months, and that the kids could get to know him again.

McKenna wants to know if Odie is in heaven. I told her that if dogs and cats go to heaven, Odie is surely there - he was such a loving, sweet, and gentle cat. If Odie is in heaven, his heaven is likely to be a place with lots of hands to pet him and lots of feet for him to rub on.

In many ways, he spoiled us, because after having the greatest cat in the world, any other cat won't quite do.

Labels: life

It's now official - I've gotten myself completely caught up with photos, and moved everything over to Picasa, Google's photo album software and website for sharing photos. There are about a year and a half worth of pictures that I never got uploaded into my previous online photo album, so if you've been waiting for updates for awhile, head on over and enjoy.

One of the great things about Picasa is that I can upload pictures in really large sizes. I decided awhile back to upgrade the amount of storage I have (beyond what they provide for free) so I can use it as an online photo backup.

But perhaps the best thing about Picasa's web albums is that it supports RSS - so you can actually subscribe to my online photo albums, and get notified when I upload more stuff. If you read my blog you probably already know about this, since I've mentioned two times already. This also means that I won't be metnioning when I update pictures - so if you want to see the updates, you'll need to subscribe to the RSS feed from Picasa.

Now that I'm caught up with that, maybe I'll have some extra time to post something else soon!

Labels: life

I want to thank everyone who called, e-mailed, or commented notes of support and congratulations. We're simply thrilled about Kyla! Now we're just looking forward to when we can get some real sleep again! I've uploaded a few more pictures of Kyla's first couple of days. Enjoy!

Kyla's Birth - September 7, 2007

If you're interested, be sure to subscribe to my Picasa's RSS feed, because I'll be doing my best to keep up with pictures over the next couple of months. I've also nearly finished uploading all my old albums up to Picasa, and then I'm going to get the last year or so worth of pictures uploaded.

Labels: life

It's a girl! Join us in welcoming Kyla Elizabeth Mooney into our family. Kyla and Amy are doing great. Kyla was born at 4:02 pm and weighed 9 lbs 6 oz.

The nurses checked Amy at abouut 3:00 and declared her "complete," ready to go. The rest was just waiting for the doctor to get here! Pushing took about 15 minutes, and it was over!

She is absolutely as beautiful as her brother and sister were when they were born. Thank you all for your prayers and support!

Of course, the story would not be complete without some pictures:

From Kyla's Birth ...

From Kyla's Birth ...

From Kyla's Birth ...

Labels: life

We got here a little after 10:00 this morning. They were a little busy so they had us come in a little later than originally planned. It took awhile for them to get Amy checked in, IV set up, etc. So the real induction didn't get underway until around 12:20 this afternoon. They also broke her water shortly afterward. Amy had a few contractions before they started the medication, but within about an hour or so after the medicine, and breaking the water, the contractions picked up pretty quickly - they got to the point where they were every 2 to 3 minutes apart. They were rather short, but painful - so we went ahead and had the epidural taken care of at about 2:00.

So right now we're just hanging out watching the monitor go up and down every couple of minutes. The calm before the storm. So the final chapter of the baby watch is officially underway. Stay tuned!

Labels: life

No baby yet - we had fully expected to have had this baby by now. We hit 39 weeks yesterday. Our other two kids didn't make it to 38. I guess it just shows us how each one is different, and we always have to wait on God's timing.

We had an appointment today, and the doctor scheduled an induction for Friday. For those who don't know the "lingo," that means that we will go to the hospital, they'll hook Amy up, and start giving her a drug that will get the labor started. It's common for labor to be more intense this way. But they're concerned about letting this "little" girl get too big, so they're not going to let us get to 40 weeks.

It's a big week this week. Jeremiah had his first day of preschool today and McKenna will have her first day of kindergarten tomorrow. Our anniversary is on Thursday. We're looking forward to capping this week off with the introduction of a new family member! Please be praying for us!

Labels: life

So I've updated the site layout a little bit. Nothing drastic, but I wanted to highlight the improvements:

Different Font - I got tired of Trebuchet. It's a nice font, but it looks awful without ClearType. Also, it's just too curvy for online use, especially at a medium font size. So I decided on Arial. It's so Write.exe (a Windows 3.1 reference for any non-geeks out there), but it's also very Web 2.0.

Width Limit - Large computer screens are getting more and more common, and there's just no reason for my blog to word-wrap text at 1440 pixels. But I also hate fixed-width web design, where you can't see everything horizontally unless you're browser window is big enough. So I've got the best of both - the site is resizable between about 600 pixels (small enough for an 640x480 screen) and about 1000 pixels (fill most of a 1024x768 screen).

New Header - I changed the font used in the header to reflect my more musical nature.

Updated Sidebar - My sister got married almost a year ago. And it took me that long to put Jason's name on the sidebar... I'll admit it, I'm a slacker! I also added links to some of my favorite political and programming sites that I read (or contribute to). And now up at the top are my "critical posts." These are the handful of things I've written that most define what I believe and how I think.

New Photo Albums - I've added a link to my Picasa photo album. I'm still behind on getting everything moved over, but that's where the new baby pictures will go. Eventually, videos, too. And it has its own RSS feed, so you can know as soon as I get around to putting more pictures up there.

Labels: life

Part 2 of the saga... Amy woke me up at about 3:30 am today to let me know that the contractions she had been feeling before we went to bed were about 4-5 minutes apart. Still not very painful, but they were keeping her from getting back to sleep. So she did the checklist of things to see if they lessened - go to the bathroom, take a bath, have a snack, etc. At 4:30 am things hadn't really changed, so I called my mom and she called the doctor. The doctor was still in the mindset to try to stop the labor, so he went ahead and told us to come in.

We got to the hospital around 7:00 am. The contractions had slowed down a little bit by that time, about 8 minutes, but they were thinking about trying some medication. We decided to wait a little longer instead. By 8:30 am they were about 20 minutes apart and they sent us home.

So we're back at home now. With orders to stay at home until the contractions get painful, and are really progressing. In other words, they are definitely not going to try to stop them next time. Which is fine with us, because we don't want any more false alarms! But it could tomorrow, next week, who knows?

As they say with any good trilogy, the third installment changes everything. So next time will be the third time we've gone to the hospital thinking we'll have the third baby. Hmm...

Labels: life

Well, things have slowed down enough that they're sending us back home. We have no clue how long it will be until we have to come back - things could pick back up anytime. But at least we can wait it out at home instead of having to wait here.

We'll keep you all posted on how things are going. They're hoping we can put this off for another week or so. Keep us in your prayers!

UPDATE: Things are still calm as of this evening. Amy is still having a 3 or so contractions an hour, but they're not painful. Which isn't unusual for this point in a pregnancy, anyway. Before we left, the doctor told us to call when things were more intense than they were yesterday - which indicated to me that they won't try to stop it next time.

Labels: life

Amy called me at 9:30 this morning saying that she was having contractions. And that she had three of them in the course of 15 minutes. They weren't the typical, minor pre-term contractions, either. These were painful.

After a couple hours of resting, and talking with the doctor on the phone, we came in to the hospital at about noon. We've been here since, and they've not been able to lessen the contractions with the medication they've tried. Things haven't really progressed yet, so there's still a slim chance that they'll go away. But we'll be staying overnight in any case, while they monitor the contractions.

The couple of hours we had at home this morning gave us a little bit of time to finish getting some stuff packed and for my mom to come over to watch the kids. So we're ready if it is indeed time. Amy is at 34 weeks, which is a little earlier than ideal. But our other kids were born at 37 weeks at over eight pounds - based on some estimates from ultrasounds a few weeks ago, this little girl should be over six pounds when she's born. But we would definitely appreciate your prayers!

And yes, I'll post here when we're sure this is it. They've added free Wi-Fi here since the last time we did this three and a half years ago. So you'll see a birth announcement up here within a hours instead of days.

Labels: life

Church - I led worship and teaching at house church Sunday night, which was fun. I did a few songs I had never led before, including "Salvation is Here." You wouldn't think it would work in a more intimate setting, but actually it was great.

Baby Watch - We're nearly there on a name. I think we're down to two middle names. Amy had her final baby shower on Saturday, so now we're getting the last few things we know we'll need. Including furniture. We have our crib (actually, I'll be getting it back from my brother soon), but we need a dresser, and we're also thinking about getting a daybed so the baby's room can still double as a guest room.

Home Improvements - That shower door did get installed, but it was two inches lower than what we ordered, so the new one will be installed on Wednesday. Figures. This project has taken longer to wrap up than we anticipated!

Conservative Rant - I forgot to mention my post last week, called Obama Wants Sex Education for Five-Year-Olds. Another great example why I won't trust the government to educate my children.

Labels: life, politics

Family - My sister Shane and her husband Jason left for Germany on Friday. They'll be sharing their experience on their blog. They'll be there for nine months, with a visit back in January. We'll miss them, but this is a great opportunity for them!

Harry Potter - Just finished the seventh and final book this morning. I'll share my thoughts in another post, but it was very, very good.

Baby Watch - I got the "guest room" cleaned out, with some help from Britt. So we're one step closer to being ready for a new baby girl! Now we're on the lookout for a dresser and some other miscellaneous stuff. Amy's back has been doing better over the last couple of weeks, which has been a blessing. But she still wants to speed up time and get to the end of this pregnancy.

Home Improvements - We're getting closer to finishing our latest major project in this house, which is fixing up the master bathroom. We knew when we bought this house that the shower would need some attention - the grout on the shower floor tile had more or less failed. The trim in the bathroom was also of the shiny brass variety, but the finish was looking pretty rough in a lot of places. We ended up having the shower torn out and had a new one put in with a mixture of ceramic tile and natural stone. We had a plumber in over the weekend to change out all of the fixtures, and we're having a new shower door put in today. Now we just have to touch up some paint, and we'll be replacing the lights, towel bars, cabinet knobs, etc. I'll post some pictures when we're done, hopefully by next weekend. But it is really coming together, and it'll look great when it's done.

Labels: life

I got rid of BellSouth last year and switched to SunRocket. Overall, I've been satisfied with their service. Or, I should say, I had been satisfied. At this point, SunRocket is dead. They've laid off nearly all of their employees. Our phone isn't working. We can't access our voicemail online.

The thing that is extremely annoying about this? No warning. No notices. Our service stopped working on Monday. SunRocket's support lines are shut down. They did not respond to my e-mail. Only when I started searching the web did I discover that they were going out of business.

This is a perfect example of abysmal customer service. It would have been simple for them to explain the issue to their customers and warn them that this was coming.

I was at least able to forward our number to Amy's cell phone so we can get calls. It seems like something is still working over there. But I've already started the process to switch to Packet8. Hopefully they'll stay in business for the next year. And hopefully if they do go out of business they'll warn their customers before turning off their service.

UPDATE: I finally got an e-mail today (7/20) from SunRocket. Basically, the e-mail tells customers that they are shutting down, and they have set up transfer agreements with Packet8 and TeleBlend. Our phone had a dial-tone last night, but I'm not sure if that will last or if Packet8 has the SunRocket hardware info, or what. Anyway, at least they did finally e-mail customers, even though they should have sent some kind of notice a week ago.

Labels: life, tech

Worship - Last week I got to play bass, this week I got to play lead guitar. There's a world of difference between playing guitar while you're leading worship and just playing guitar - and again, I haven't done that in a long time. I had a blast. It didn't hurt that we did a few songs that totally rocked out as well!

I'm going to have to scale down how much I help out over the next couple of months, though - Amy will be at 32 weeks tomorrow. Given that McKenna and Jeremiah were both born at 37 weeks, and that like them, this little girl is measuring two weeks ahead, we really have only a few weeks left to get things ready. The baby's room is still a "guest" room, the hospital bag is only halfway packed, and we need to make a final decision on a name! Time to get cracking!

Friends - I helped my good friend (and former pastor) Pat load up yesterday for a few hours. Tomorrow, they're moving to Indiana where Pat has taken a pretty cool position at Indiana Wesleyan University. They've been some of our closest friends over the years. We've shared ministry, frustrations, dreams, and vacations together. Pat and Alison had only been married a couple of years when they first stayed at our house on their first visit to Goergia, just like Amy and I at the time. And as they're leaving they have three kids, we're about to have our third.

We've known this was coming for long time, and we had already been serving God in separate ministries for over a year. But we're still sad to see them go. I just had this secret hope that something would pop up for them closer to Georgia! But they'll be close to their family, Pat will be close to Anderson University (where he's working on his doctorate), and the job at Indiana Wesleyan is really cool.

I hope God will direct our paths to cross again, but if not, we know that just means we'll have to wait just a bit longer to serve God together again.

Labels: church, life

I decided to start a new series of posts, just wrapping up every week the major things that have been going on in the past week. This is partly to just share with folks what's up with the Mooneys, but also because I often have smaller thoughts to share that just don't warrant an entire post.

Fourth of July - we hosted a big family event for the 4th. Took the kids out for fireworks afterward. They loved it! I also got to try to explain to McKenna what "Independence Day" means.

Worship - I got to play bass today for the first time in a LONG time. My bass is showing some neglect - it desperately needs new strings. I was asked to fill in today on bass at a church where I've been leading worship occasionally for the last couple of months. I had a blast!

Movies - we took the kids to see Ratatouille yesterday. They loved it, though it didn't keep their attention as much as some of the other Pixar movies do. It was Jeremiah's first time seeing a new big screen movie. Amy tried taking him to see a free movie last summer and it was an awful experience. But he did pretty well yesterday, especially considering the movie was almost two hours. And for those who are budget conscious, the AMC Theaters around here have all shows at $5 before noon on weekends.

I also saw Transformers last Monday. I was a big Transformers fan as a kid, and this movie did not disappoint. But I think even folks who weren't Transformers fans as kids would enjoy it. Just don't take your little kids to go see it - the violence wasn't bad, but there were a few jokes that were not appropriate.

And while this isn't news about the past week, I'm currently taking part in Conservative Rant, a political blog started by my good friend Andy. My goal is to contribute to that site once a week, but it'll probably only be twice a month for the next couple of months. My first post there was Why I’m Conservative (or, Why I’m Not Liberal) and my most recent post is How Pacifism Leads to War. I plan on using that site for most of my political-oriented posts from now on, but I'll mention them here from time to time.

Labels: church, life, movies, politics

Heath tagged me. This is supposed to be about five weird habits I have. So here goes.

Blogging - I enjoy blogging, and I have a lot of thoughts I want to share, but the weird part is I don't post nearly as often as I should. But you probably already knew that.

Commenting - I have a knack for posting snarky comments on other people's blogs. Right now, particularly Josh's. If I agree with someone a lot, I rarely comment. If I don't agree with someone at all, I usually stop reading. But if I am pretty close to agreeing with someone and just differ on key points, I end up commenting frequently. And yes, I tend to be that way in real life, too.

Technology - I have what is commonly known as "gear lust." I love new gadgets, technologies, software, etc. This applies to my passion for music (Line 6 rocks!), computers, gaming, and entertainment. Fortunately I have a wife who helps me rein all of that in and keep it sensible.

Coke - in the South we do not use the term "pop." Like Q-Tip, Band-Aid, and Kleenex, we say "Coke" around here to refer to any dark-colored carbonated beverage - except Pepsi, which many in the Atlanta area equate with poison. In any case, I drink a good bit of it. Probably too much. Whenever I get around to really trying to lose weight, I know I'll have to cut down. Probably doing that alone will help me lose a pound a week. Vanilla Coke is my favorite - which to my delight they just brought back!

Sinus - I've had sinus troubles for the last several years, including a sinus surgery a couple of years ago. Which helped things tremendously - I've had an average of two sinus infections a year since the surgery, down from about eight per year before that, and they're much less severe now when I do get them. But one way I keep it in check is to rinse my sinuses. I know it sounds weird, but it's actually quite refreshing, and really helps to keep everything moist and cleaned out. If you have sinus trouble I highly recommend it.

All right, so now is the part where I tag other people. So I'll pass the torch on to Josh, Pat, and Kevin. Don't worry guys, no pressure, nothing bad will happen if you don't pass it on.

Labels: life

I've not blogged about this yet, but it's no secret that we're expecting number three. McKenna and Jeremiah are very excited about it! We're at about 16 weeks, and we decided to try a 3D ultrasound. We found out tonight that we will be having a girl!


Our newest family member was camera shy, and didn't want to turn around and smile for the camera. Only towards the very end of our session did she turn around a little bit, but even then she kept her hands up over her head.

The session was nice. Not "free" like you get with the doctor, but they printed a lot of pictures, put them all onto disk for us, and burned a DVD of the entire session. Worth the money to me, really. And they recommend coming back at 27-33 weeks to really get the best pictures. We'll definitely do this again, and hopefully next time our little girl won't be as shy.

We're all looking forward to having her join us in September!

Labels: life

I got the news today that Grandma passed on into heaven. She had a stroke on Christmas, and never regained consciousness. I can't really do my Grandma justice with words, though my brother did a great job doing that - he's the writer, not me.

I remember fondly her 80th birthday celebration. I remember even more fondly her 90th birthday celebration. We were looking forward to her 100th birthday celebration, which she was only a couple of years away from. Still, it will be quite a celebration this weekend - as my dad said, few people have lived so well. She touched so many lives. Heaven will be that much better now that she's a part of it. I think that's part of the joy of heaven, after all.

I can mark this day of her passing with some pictures of her that I collected a couple of years ago when I lugged a scanner with me on a trip to West Virginia. Consider this the picture album to accompany Britt's post, Meet Virginia.


One of the earliest pictures I could find of her, with her friends Catherine and Sheffey. Grandma is the one on the left.


With some more friends. Again, Grandma is the one on the left.


With "the office girls." She's the one on the back row, on the right. Apparently, somebody once marked an "X" on this picture beside her so that we'd all know which one she was. Wouldn't surprise me if it was Grandma - somebody probably once asked her, so she probably marked it so people would be able to figure it out later. She was very practical in that sort of way.


Grandma with Fred Mooney, my paternal grandfather that I never knew, with my dad's two oldest siblings, Frieda and Gene. This was shortly after they moved back to West Virginia from Arizona, during the depression. After she and Fred got married, they went on a working honeymoon. They were in Arizona when the depression hit, and it took them years to work their way back home to West Virginia.


Grandma with Fred Mooney.


From left, Opal (a neighbor, I think), Grandma, my dad, and his closest brother, Doug. Dad was 12. Grandma had been a single mother since my dad was very young.


Grandma on her honeymoon with her high school sweetheart, the man I always knew as Grandpa. They got married not long after I was born.


This was the picture we always had of Grandma and Grandpa on our mantle at home. Nearly all of my childhood Christmases were spent in West Virginia. Not a Christmas goes by that I don't think of them.


This was the last picture Grandma had taken at a portrait studio, taken almost six years ago.


If my life is only lived with a tenth of her enthusiasm, joy, selflessness, and love for God, I'll consider myself a success. She was an inspiration to all who knew her, and lived her life to the fullest, all the way to Christmas Day, 2006. She was always on a mission to spread love and joy. May we strive to do the same.

Labels: life

We bought a house yesterday, and we're moving in a week. As some of you know, we've been wanting a ranch on a basement for years. Now it is happening!

We're all excited, especially the kids. Every time we've taken them over there, they talk about their rooms, where their beds are going to be, and what color they want their rooms.

Please be praying for us this week, as we have a LOT of packing and preparing to do before the big move. If anybody wants to come over one afternoon or evening this week and watch kids for a few hours while we pack, that would be very much appreciated!

This will also be the first time we use movers. We've been married nine years, and it's amazing how much heavy furniture and boxes of stuff you can accumulate in less than a decade. We're using the opportunity to get rid of a lot of stuff, but there's still a lot to move.

Labels: life

It's been a few weeks since I've posted about our transition, and I feel like it's time for me to open up about what's happened in the past two months.

The first Sunday after we had left Faith Community, we were ready to start visiting around. I had been wanting, for a couple of years, to take a few weeks off so I could just see what some other churches were doing. Being a worship leader doesn't really give you a lot of time to do that. But after we lost a couple of folks from our worship team a couple of years ago, it got harder to take some significant time off. (Quick note to other worship leaders reading this: take some time off! Go see what others are doing! If you put it off, it'll never happen!)

Then, my first Sunday of not having any commitments, one of our kids got sick. So we all stayed home. Bummer!

The next couple of Sundays were interesting. We visited a church in Loganville that I had heard good things about. Pretty solid doctrine, good musical style, and the church has been growing pretty steadily. The sermon was good. The main problem I had with it though, was that it was quite a "one-man show." Meaning, the pastor was also the worship leader. There was another guy who was playing guitar, and led singing on a couple of the songs, but the pastor led most of the singing and had a firm grip on the wheel. The pastor also kept talking about himself - what he wanted to do in Loganville, how he needed help doing what God wanted, etc. Overall, not necessarily a situation I'd want to put myself into...

The following Sunday, we were in Manhattan - I had been sent on a business trip, and Amy came along. We visited a church there that was pretty cool. Kind of like a North Point wanna-be (or whatever standard they would have used for themselves), only they weren't anywhere near 100% in their execution. But they had four services on Sunday in Manhattan (though their space was limited in seating to probably about 400, and on Sunday evening when we went there were about 150), and had just started a satellite campus in Jersey City.

At this point, though, I began questioning the whole approach. On our way up the elevator (yes, this church was in a ballroom on the 6th floor), there was a greeter and another visitor in there with us. Some things the visitor said made me think she just didn't know how to take all of this in, like she was quite skeptical. I'm not sure what brought her to that church that night (she was alone), but I kept thinking about how the entire production was probably failing to capture her spiritual imagination.

The music was pretty good by church standards, but she probably couldn't figure out why everyone was so excited - it wasn't nearly as good as anything you'd hear on the radio (the fact that they sound mix was off probably wan't helping). Besides, as "relevant" as the music style was (it was pretty much exactly what I would do), her preference in music was probably a bit more hip than anything they could have tried to accomplish. (Though their rendition of Switchfoot's "This is Your Life" was decent.)

The sermon was a good presentation about how God has a purpose for you (it was basically the outline of the Purpose-Driven Life), but there was very little about it that was mysterious. It was presented based on reason, with some humor mixed in. Typical sermon. I'm thinking, she's probably here to see if God shows up, and all we tend to do is put on a show and try to convince everyone that we're right and that we're talented. It started making me skeptical of the entire approach.

The following Sunday, we made plans to visit another church where some friends have been attending. It was one of the better ones we had visited. It was the first Sunday for the new pastor. The people were genuinely friendly, and the music was great (the only one of the three we visited that didn't incorporate a praise team - a big plus for me!).

But one thing was consistent with each of these visits to these churches (as well as a visit we had made to North Point several months ago): pretty much the only people we had any amount of conversation with was the person who greeted us at the door, and the people who were taking care of our kids. And in those conversations, we never really got to know them. There was simply no time - we had to get our kids in place, find a seat, and be ready for the "show" to start. It's kind of like how Amy doesn't consider going to a movie to be a real "date". We don't get to talk much. Was our experience visiting these churches really any different?

The bigger and more successful the church, the worse the problem becomes. So the very things that make a church grow (inspiring sermon and music) also create the problem where you simply won't get to know anybody when you walk in the door. Is this how we're supposed to disciple the nations?

So not only had I started to become skeptical of the presentational approach, it's starting to gnaw at me more, because there's no time for building relationships...

We'd been wanting to visit some house churches, but it's kind of hard to find them since they're not particularly visible and don't generally have websites. And most of the ones we're aware of don't offer any sort of child care, and as I've tried to point out to the people I know involved in house churches of that nature, when you hvae a two-year-old and a four-year-old, you'll understand why you need something different for young kids.

But while searching for churches in Snellville, Amy found a link on a church's website to a website for a house church that meets in Suwanee on Sunday nights. After looking at the site, and really connecting with the vision that was shared there, we decided to check it out the next evening.

That Sunday night we went to the house church in Suwanee. It was a completely different experience. Rather than sitting, listening and simply singing along, we participated. We got to know everyone else there. They were not satisfied with just asking our names and finding out where we lived. They wanted to hear our story. And we got to learn about their stories. And our stories intersected.

This particular night, there were ten adults in attendance. With a group that size, you have a completely separate dynamic. Nobody is there to see a show - everyone is there to worship and grow. You contribute to the discussion, and see where the Spirit leads. You can get a type of interaction in a group of ten that you could never get in a group of even fifty, much less two thousand.

As a worship leader, it's quite a different experience to lead worship for ten people that you are getting to know, as opposed to a hundred or more, where you know maybe a couple dozen of them, some more of them, you know their names, and the rest of them are just faces.

You simply can't walk into and out of a house church anonymously.

We had already been thinking about and considering house churches already. But being involved with this group for the past two months has made it clear to us that this is the direction God has been leading us. As I look back over my own blog, I see that I have been asking questions that are best answered in the context of house church.

Beyond our own experience, there are many reasons why I'm convinced that gathering in house churches is a superior approach. More on that to come - stay tuned.

Labels: church, house church, life

So kind of like Insha'Allah, there's a saying in the south: "Lord willin' and the creek don't rise." Today the creek rose.

We're currently on vacation at the beach with some friends, and as we got up this morning it was raining. So we chose a place for lunch, and got the kids ready (all four of them!) to head out.

We were leading the way. Turning out of the parking lot, it looked like this:


This was the view from the driver's perspective with the car as close to the street as possible. So now comes the question, what do you do? I inched out, and couldn't see anything, but there were no cars coming so I was OK. What's your other option? Back up six feet? Not much use:


Back up another six feet? Still no good:


Or back up about twenty feet? You can barely peek out:


It turns out our friends were not as lucky as we were: they waited, backed up until they could see through the trucks at least a little bit, and watched. No cars. So they pulled out. Turns out you can't see a Camaro very well when there are large trucks lined up along the street. The Camaro ended up hitting our friends' SUV.

They're all OK. The driver of the Camaro had an injured leg and was taken to the hospital. Both cars were towed - the Camaro was damaged pretty badly, our friends' car appeared drivable but it's being looked at to tell for sure. But now all eight of us are here with one car. The creek rose, indeed. Plans change. Life happens.

Everyone we've talked to here at the place we're staying have said they've had similar trouble about pulling out. We asked the police officer to get them to move their cars -- these were all guys parked there while working at a nearby construction site. The officer said he'd talk to the foreman, but I don't believe he did. Then when the cop pulled into the parking lot and tried to pull out, he almost got hit. (Funny, would he have written a ticket to himself for failure to yield?) Those cars were still there until about 4:30pm.

What would you do in a similar situation? We now know what we'll do when we pull out again -- someone will stand by the street and let us know when it's clear, and then we'll pull out, and wait for that person to get back in the car.

I also know what I'll be doing tomorrow if those trucks are parked in the same spot - calling the cops.

Labels: life

Enjoy some new pictures in the photo album. Here's a peek:

Labels: life

(This is Part 3 of a series on my experience with worship wars. To see a little bit of my background, see Part 1, and to read about my experience at Faith Community, see Part 2.)

I've spent my time riding the fence, defending both sides, but over the past couple of years I've decided something.

In a church, musical style is more like a language than anything else.

If you're a missionary, and you move into a foreign mission field, discovering how to share truth in that foreign language is vitally important to your success in that field. If you're already fluent in the language, you have a huge head start. If you're not fluent, then you'll spend most of your time, initially, learning the basics of the language.

When people suggest that the music we use in the church should be the same as what they grew up with forty, fifty, or sixty years ago, what they don't understand is that they're suggesting we share truth in a language nobody speaks anymore.

If someone suggested to the pastor that he preach his sermon in 50's slang, would anybody think twice about rejecting such a request? Of if someone suggested to the worship leader that we should use more 70's disco, would anybody think twice about rejecting such a request? Why, then, do we entertain thoughts about using a musical style that is every bit as irrelevant to our modern culture? It impedes our ability to communicate truth. Why use it?

Simply put, the only reasons churches choose to use traditional music is because that's the way the people in the church want it and that's the way it has always been done. Neither of those reasons have anything to do with reaching out to the community, to bringing Christ into the lives of people who have never known Him, and communicating truth in a language (music style) they can understand.

Paul specifically talked about this, in the context of speaking in tongues, when he said:

If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your mind? But if all prophesy, an unbeliever or outsider who enters is reproved by all and called to account by all. After the secrets of the unbeliever's heart are disclosed, that person will bow down before God and worship him, declaring, "God is really among you." (1 Corinthians 14:23-25, NRSV)

If I'm speaking in a foreign language, and you're an outsider and you can't understand a word I'm saying, you won't get it. We must be mindful of outsiders when we choose how we communicate truth in our gatherings. What most people don't understand is that when we choose to use hymns in a style that's 50 years old, we're only trying to appease and appeal to those in the church, or those who have grown up in other churches. We are completely ignoring Paul's direction to be mindful of the outsiders when designing our gatherings.

Some people would certainly choose a more modern style of music out of preference. But I believe that the vision God gave me six years ago, before it was popular to "modernize" hymns, was never about my own personal preference. It was always about relating truth in a way that people today can understand.

Any church that chooses to remain "traditional" is clearly misunderstanding their purpose in their community.

The answer doesn't have to be a rock band. We need different styles of music in different churches, without a doubt. If we lived about another half-hour further out from Atlanta, I'd suggest country music would be ideal in those areas. Every church does not have to be everything to everyone. But each church should focus on where God has called them, and how God has called them to communicate.

If there's going to be a war about music styles, it should be between country, rock, folk, jazz, reggae, or rap. Picking a music style that is irrelevant to outsiders should not be a part of the discussion.

I know that my musical talents and vision have a place in this day and age, in this type of a place. If, after six years, I'm still struggling to implement the vision God has given me, then it is time for me to admit that I'm the one who isn't in the right place.

Labels: church, life

(This is Part 2 of a series on my experience with worship wars. To see a little bit of my background, see Part 1.)

When we began attending Faith over six years ago, the music style had one foot heavily placed in the traditional camp, and one foot lightly placed in the 80's "praise and worship" camp. We started attending while Faith was still meeting in various places, but for our first year Faith was meeting in the elementary school. For that first year, I started playing bass. I really do enjoy playing bass when I get the chance.

As we got closer to moving into the new building, and as we hired our new lead pastor, I bought my first Martin acoustic guitar and started doing some leading in worship. We slowly began introducing some Passion songs and some other modern standards, as well as updating many of the hymns. We added drums within a couple of months of moving in, and worked towards a more modern approach. But we were never quite able to give up those feet in the traditional or praise and worship camps - too many people were too attached to it, both on and particularly off the stage.

It never seemed like much of a war, really, for us. Part of that was probably because I was just doing it, and enough people were willing to tolerate me doing it. That doesn't mean we didn't have our battles, though, and we got our share of complaints.

But the biggest problem we had was this - our direction was never clarified, or communicated. As I said, I was just doing what I wanted to do, whether or not anyone wanted me to do it. I was never THE leader, I just kind of worked my way in as one of two worship leaders, and there was always tension - we played both sides of the fence, between traditional and modern. As a result, few people were ever really happy.

I would try to do more hymns in a more modern style, but that simply wasn't what some people wanted - they wanted their hymns in an OLD style. Many would simply prefer that the drums would just go away, they were too loud. Others would just complain that it felt like a rock concert - a comment which, if it came from someone in my generation, would be a compliment. But you can tell when people say something like that and it isn't a compliment. Then there were the Sundays that we'd just do a little acoustic thing, and you'd have to tolerate the back-handed compliments when people that you knew hated what you normally did came and told you how much they LOVED the acoustic setting.

But meanwhile, visitors to the church were simply confused. If they loved traditional stuff, we had some of that, but then the modern stuff just turned them off. If they loved modern stuff, we had some of that, but the traditional stuff just turned them off.

As a result, if you attended a church like this, how much confidence would you have in inviting a friend? It'd have to be someone who liked a modern rock band, but could tolerate traditional styles as well. Or, it'd have to be someone who liked traditional church music, but could tolerate modern rock as well. Those people are few and far between.

Is it any wonder why the church hasn't really grown since moving into a building?

When it comes to getting musicians involved, the problem increases exponentially. The problems I've had recruiting and retaining musicians have been incredible. If we were solidly traditional, it wouldn't have been too much of a problem. If we were solidly modern, it would have been pretty easy. But trying to please everybody means that we please nobody, and musicians in particular aren't interested in that. If a musician is going to get involved, they want to play for people who will enjoy what they're doing. This is especially true if they're volunteers.

Basically, we never had a worship war - but we SHOULD have had one. Instead, we silently compromised. As a result, nobody knew what to expect. And few people were ever really excited about what we were doing.

In reality, I'm as much to blame for the problem as anyone else is. Part of my personality is that if something seems obvious to me, I just move forward without really asking permission. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that, but things would have worked much more smoothly if I had really explained why we needed to change, and gotten people on board with those changes.

But I was not the person to do that six years ago. My experience with worship leading was just beginning. I'm extremely grateful that I've had the opportunity to grow in that capacity over the last six years. But there was simply no way I could have done what needed to be done to really start the discussion that would have been required.

In many ways, the problems I experienced at Faith Community came from inexperienced leaders (including myself) trying to bring changes into a church that had been pretty much set in its ways for at least thirty years. The young leaders didn't know how to bring about changes in the right way, and the older congregation simply didn't know how to accept changes. In this case, I'm pretty sure everyone is to blame.

Labels: church, life

During my six years at Faith Community, I played an difficult role. Before I talk too much about that, though, I want to give a little background of where I was before Faith Community.

When we started attending Faith Community six years ago, I was 24, and for fifteen years had attended a sister church in Doraville. That church was failing, and we were down to around a dozen members. We worked towards selling the building to the Korean church that had been renting on Sunday afternoons (which had a thriving ministry, whereas ours was going nowhere).

For fifteen years, I had seen our pastor and worship leader supress their natural talents, and lead worship on Sunday mornings using a very traditional style - piano and organ. But on Sunday nights, they would just be themselves, and it was country gospel. And they were really good at it. Too good for the Atlanta suburbs, really, but when the Doraville church was planted in the 60's it was still on the edge of rural. But during the late 80's and 90's, it was smack dab in the middle of the suburbs.

It always bothered me that they never played guitar on Sunday mornings. This was not a rock band, mind you, this was just good old country pickin' and grinnin' kind of stuff. But it was awesome - heart-felt, incredibly talented, and very worshipful. As youth, Britt and I always tried to push for them to play more guitar on Sunday mornings, and to get a drum set to fill out the country sound - and we were even ready to learn how to play - but the response was always the same. It would be too much for the older folks, and they basically deserved to have a church home they could come to, where they could be comfortable.

It wasn't until we were at about 20 people, our pastor had moved to Alabama, and the piano player moved away, that the worship leader finally gave in and used his guitar to lead worship on Sunday mornings - simply because there was nothing else available. By that time, it was too little, way too late. I began my first movements into worship leading during those days, on the Sundays that our worship leader was out of town - which was a lot towards the end, as he eventually moved back to Tennessee for family reasons.

As we finished there, God gave me a vision of how I should proceed if we had started something new, or if we merged with Faith Community, which was something we were considering.

Why continue playing hymns in an old style? Why not play the same songs, and just play them in the style you're most natural with?

At the time, the "modern" worship movement was still building, and hadn't really appeared on my radar. I never cared much for the "praise and worship" movement of the 80's and early 90's. The songs were just, well, too cheesy for me. So it was obvious to me - continue playing hymns, just play them with a modern twist.

That was where I was, just as we were making the decision to join forces with Faith.

Labels: church, life

I'm not going to say that Comcast rules, since I've only been a customer of theirs for about seven hours, and of their internet service for only about thirty minutes. But I'll say this, at least they don't require you to have a home phone in order to provide you high-speed internet service, like your local phone company does. And the television service is a LOT better than what I was getting from BellSouth. BellSouth's digital channel guide looked like it was embedded EGA graphics or something. Only my fellow DOS geeks would have any clue of what that meant...

It's been a rough week without internet at the house, but we're all up and running now.

That makes our switch complete: no more Bellsouth for anything. Good riddance! We're now on Comcast for television and internet, and SunRocket for home phone. In case you've not heard of them, SunRocket is like Vonage, a voice-over-IP phone service, but it's a lot cheaper for all the same stuff. It rocks!

Labels: life, tech

The title says it all. We've decided to leave our church. I resigned from my leadership position last month, and this past Sunday was my last Sunday as a regular worship leader there.

For those of you who have been following this blog, this might not come as much of a surprise.

Over the past year I've become increasingly disillusioned with the way most churches approach ministry. It's not that churches are necessarily doing everything wrong, but I'm concerned that we're not putting the emphasis in the places where God wants us to.

In my specific situation, I've also become very concerned about the way my church has been repeating the same mistakes of the two churches that it was birthed from - churches that died because of those mistakes.

What I don't want to be is the kind of person who takes off from a church without really sharing the reasons for it. With my resignation, I also gave a letter to the leadership sharing some of my reasons. I'll also be talking a lot more about it in a few future posts.

But initially, I wanted to answer the question everyone has been asking: what are we going to do next?

The simple answer is: we don't know. What we do know is that God has given us a burden, and a vision, that will not be satisfied by just any other church. We don't know if that means we'll find something that will make sense with where God is calling us, or if we'll have to seek out other similarly disillusioned Christians and start something new. We do know, though, that there are a lot of others who are struggling with the same things that we are. Some of them read this blog regularly. But for us, we've decided to stop holding out for things to change, for things to improve. We've decided that it's time for us to be a part of something completely different.

We would appreciate your prayers. If you're interested in more detail behind my reasons for doing this, read some of my archives (you might have to back as far as August 2005), and also stay tuned. There's a lot more to come on this.

Labels: church, life

Once again the holidays have wrapped up, the credit card bills are paid, and the pictures have been updated. Here are some peeks, but click on any of the pictures to go and see a LOT more stuff. Enjoy!


The cowboy hat generated a lot of cute moments back in August, after McKenna got it at Madison's birthday party.


Two trips to the beach this year means... more beach pictures!


Pictures of McKenna outside always turn out awesome.


Here's our princess (Cinderella, actually), and our frog prince. ("Jeremiah was a bullfrog!")


This shot reminds me an awful lot of those pictures of Britt and I as kids with the same exact smile.

Labels: life

Last year I got really worn out on Christmas music. Three years ago, we incorporated Christmas music into our worship gatherings for three weeks. Two years ago, we incorporated Christmas music for four weeks. Last year, we incorporated Christmas music for FIVE weeks. It was way too much for my taste -- three weeks is a bit more like it. But I've been trying to figure out why it's too much for me.

Our church is a good blend of music, though we do lean more towards modern styles, since I tend to modernize most of the hymns we do - new chord arrangements, new choruses when they work, transitions, etc. In one aspect, Christmas music is almost entirely traditional - and it's traditional music that is very difficult to update. Still, some of the arrangements we've worked on are really cool. Overall I've decided that it's not the specific songs so much, really. There's something else that nags me more.

We're living in a society that's stripping the meaning not just out of Christmas, but out of every holiday throughout the year, religious or secular. Valentine's Day? Lust, roses, and candy. St. Patrick's Day? Getting drunk. Easter? Eggs, bunnies, and candy. Memorial Day, July 4th, and Labor Day? Cookouts and big movie releases. Halloween? More candy. Thanksgiving? Turkey. Christmas? Presents, more turkey, and more candy.

The distortion of Christmas is nearly complete. It has become more of a winter holiday than a Christian holiday. We focus more on presents, snowmen, evergreen trees, lights, etc., than we do anything else. Even our modern view of Santa is winterized and commercialized. It was a marketing image, popularly defined by Coca-Cola, in order to sell more soft drinks.

I think that what bugs me about using Christmas songs in worship is that by focusing on the songs so heavily, we bring everything else about Christmas into our worship gatherings. By focusing so much on Christmas inside of our churches, I think we tend to overshadow Christ with all the attention we give to Christmas.

For my part, even during Christmas, I try to use a balance of songs. Some specific Christmas carols (and even newer, non-secular Christmas songs), but also blending in songs that we do throughout the year about Christ, His sacrifice, the cross, and our commitment to him.

But this year, despite the fact that last year we did five weeks of gatherings that included Christmas songs, I had a few people from church tell me that they think we should do only Christmas songs during all five weeks of Advent.

Sometimes I wonder if people aren't more in infatuated with Christmas than they are in love with Christ.

Look, I love Christmas and everything. I'm certainly not a grinch. But I think it's theologically dangerous to put such a huge emphasis, for nearly a tenth of our year, on the birth of Christ. It's an event so important that only two of the gospels discuss it. Between the two, it only takes up three and a half chapters. The two accounts contradict each other a lot, it's hard to put a lot of faith in their accuracy -- pretty much the only points they have in common is that Mary was a virgin and that Jesus was born in Bethlehem!

Compare that with the importance of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, their importance in the gospels as wells the rest of the New Testament, and with how we celebrate those events today. Imagine if for five weeks we did songs like "Up From the Grave He Arose" and "Christ the Lord is Risen Today." We'd have a mutiny!

People have said to me, "we do Easter songs all year!" That's somewhat true. And we should. We should continue to sing songs about Christ's sacrifice and his redemptive work all throughout Christmas. While I certainly think the church should be flexible about when we hold our gatherings during Christmas (a whole different topic, especially this year when Christmas falls on Sunday), we should be inflexible when it comes to proclaiming who Christ is. The event that defines Jesus Christ is not the birth -- any universalist would think it was cool that a virgin gave birth to a child of the divine. The event that defines Jesus Christ is when He took the weight of our sins, died on a cross, and rose up again, victorious not over evil, but over death itself. For us to push aside that fact, and concentrate solely on Christ as a baby for five weeks, is losing sight of who He really is.

That's why I find it terribly important to incorporate songs about who Christ really is at Christmas time. If we don't, we do our worship a disservice. That's why I worked to make sure we inserted a couple of specific songs into our Christmas Eve service. Instead of ending with "Silent Night" during the candlelight time, I've added "Joyous Light," a modern rendition of the oldest hymn we have on record, "Phos Hilarion," or "Hail Gladdening Light." I'll leave you with those lyrics below as my final thought.

Hail Gladd'ning Light, Son so bright
Jesus Christ, end of night
Alleluia!

Hail Gladd'ning Light, Eternal Bright
In evening time, 'round us shine
Alleluia! Alleluia!

We hymn the Father, we hymn the Son
We hymn the Spirit, wholly Divine
No one more worthy of songs to be sung
To the Giver of Life, all glory is Thine

Hail Gladd'ning Light, such joyous Light!
O Brilliant Star, forever shine
Alleluia! Alleluia!

We hymn the Father, we hymn the Son
We hymn the Spirit, wholly Divine
No one more worthy of songs to be sung
To the Giver of Life, all glory is Thine

All glory to You, Lord

Labels: church, life

Tulsa - One of Tulsa's best-known ministers was attacked Sunday while giving the altar call. NewsChannel 8's Mark Bradshaw spoke with Billy Joe Daugherty of Victory Christian Center, who was almost knocked out in church.

Daugherty has preached in more than forty countries, many of them dangerous, third-world countries. And, he was in Russia last week. In all of his travels around the world, he has never been physically attacked. That all changed Sunday, in of all places, right in front of his own congregation at Victory Christian Center.

"Standing just like this, he went 'POW', and that knocked me back and I spun like that and he grabbed my coat."

It was an altar call Billy Joe Daugherty will never forget. The pastor is now sporting a black eye and stitches two days after the altercation at the altar that was caught on tape.

"I had been preaching on praise and Thanksgiving in every situation," he says. "And this guy walked forward. I thought he was coming to receive the Lord, but he had another plan."

Check out the full story, Victory Christian Center Pastor Attacked During Services. There's even a link to watch the video.

Labels: church, life

Anyone who knew me well as a kid would know what my three favorite toy franchises were -- Star Wars, Transformers, and GI Joe. (Our Legos served primarily as a way for us to build vehicles for all three of those, so those fit into all of them...)

Well, you can really tell who they're marketing these toys to now... us 30-year-old kids!


Star Wars Transformers! So Darth Vader becomes a TIE Fighter, Obi-Wan becomes a Jedi Starfighter, General Grevious becomes his wheel bike, and Luke Skywalker becomes an X-Wing Fighter. I'd say I was born in the wrong decade, because today's toys are so much cooler than they were when I was a kid, but if I was a kid today I'd probably think Transformers were goofy. Then again, most kids back in the day thought Transformers were goofy. But hey, it's all relative. Nothing was as goofy as The Tomorrow People. (And yes, mom, I'm officially sorry for having subjected you to that show... at least they never had Tomorrow People action figures!)

Labels: life

So I've been a little behind on pictures lately. Isn't it funny that we feel guilty about that, and let people give us guilt trips over that? I mean, did our parents fret over whether they took enough pictures for any particular month? Uh-oh! July only has eight pictures! I'm such an awful parent!

Well, today you have a plethora of new pictures of our kids to enjoy! Go to the albums page to see them all.

And now it's my turn to give a guilt trip -- if you have pictures of MY kids that you've haven't sent to me, SHAME ON YOU. Get off my website, e-mail me those pictures (full-size, please), and then you're allowed to come back and view my pictures.

Labels: life

Today was getting rough before we even left the house. We were headed to have dinner with Amy's uncle Bill. Amy's aunt died a little over a week ago, quite unexpectedly, and it has hit the family hard. We made dinner plans that included Amy's brother and his family, and another of Amy's aunts. Amy worked hard in the kitchen all day, and we left a little late, as usual, but we still managed to get out there pretty close to on time.

Unfortunately, one of the tea pitchers we had in the back turned over and spilled -- pouring about a third of a gallon of concentrated sweet tea all over the back of our three-month-old van. So when we got to Bill's, instead of me watching the kids while Amy got dinner set out, I was outside cleaning the car, hosing off the removable cargo bins, rushing to keep ants out of our stuff.

At one point after dinner, I was sitting at the breakfast bar, holding Jeremiah, trying to keep him from getting into everything. Before I realized it, he had grabbed a candle in a glass candlestick (and a big one at that, too), and it fell to the floor in a big crash, pieces going everywhere.

As we were preparing to leave, I got back outside and found ants all over the cargo bin - which had been left outside to dry, but I suppose hadn't been cleaned off as well as it needed. So I spent a few minutes getting a couple of dozen ants off of it as it began to rain. Eventually I figured I had gotten enough of them, and put it back into the car as Amy put Jeremiah in.

I went back inside to say goodbye, and as I got to the front door with McKenna, the windows of heaven opened up and there was a huge downpour. With the umbrella in the car (with ants likely in there, I figured), I just went on and put McKenna in the car, bucked her seat belt, closed the door, and hopped in, by which time the back of my shirt was soaking wet.

We pulled out of the neighborhood and onto Pleasant Hill, making our way slowly since the rain was pretty extreme and visibility was low. The traffic light at Pleasant Hill and Peachtree Industrial was out -- if you've ever had to honor a 4-way stop with three lanes of traffic each direction, I don't have to try to describe how frustrating that was. Obviously, people have very little courtesy in situations like that.

We turned left onto McClure Bridge Road to head through downtown Duluth, and the rain was just as bad as ever. I was watching the side of the road since the middle line was difficult to see, and keeping my speed pretty low, watching for big puddles and what not.

All of a sudden, I heard Amy scream "watch out!" Followed by one long, deafening, intense scream. I looked ahead to see a car in our lane, headed straight towards us. Either he had been going too fast and hydroplaned or simply couldn't see where he was going. Or possibly both. I was expecting him to swerve back into his lane at any moment -- but he didn't. At the last moment, I served onto the left side of the road and around him completely.

As I moved back into my lane, we could see behind us that the car had gotten back around to the correct side of the road and moved on. After I could hear again, Jeremiah was crying and McKenna was asking what was wrong.

Everyone in the Mooney clan knows this, but for those that don't, we were less than two miles away from the location of the wreck where I was seriously injured over fourteen years ago. God protected our family then -- and He protected my family tonight as well.

I was speechless for most of the drive home, kind of in a half daze. Except for when we were on Ga 120, nearing Satellite Blvd, and I see a guy in the middle of the road (it had just stopped raining), waving one of those little red batons. I slowed to stop, not knowing what was going on, and it was a cop, trying to stop traffic, to let a single car out of the Korean church. No police lights on or anything, just a guy in a vest waving a little red baton trying to get people to stop who are going 50 miles an hour downhill on wet roads. We were, of course, going much slower since I was still a bit shaken up, but traffic coming the other way (which had not been slammed by this storm yet) was not stopping, and this cop was getting angry. I bit my tongue and waited to be waved on, but after what we had gone through tonight I felt that this was downright silly. If he wanted people to stop, he should have been a little more conspicuous.

We made it the rest of the way home without incident, though we did pass by a wreck at Sugarloaf and Old Norcross that was halfway cleared. Other than that, McKenna wanted us to repeatedly explain to her what had happened when Mommy screamed. Three-year-olds want to know everything about the world around them.

So we got home, brought the kids in, and as I was unloading the car, I found a few more ants, of course. The kids are now in bed, the trash has been taken out, and we can still hear some distant thunder that keeps the adventure of this evening fresh in our minds.

Still wearing a damp t-shirt (from getting soaked nearly two hours ago now), events play out in my mind, as well as big "if's". If I had been going faster, if he had been going faster. If I had panicked. If he had gained control and swerved back into his lane as I was swerving around him. If there had been another car right behind me that might not have known what to do, either. If I had gone through that unexpected 4-way stop sooner, or later. If the light had been working. If I had chosen to take a different route (I almost did choose to avoid that road).

But most of all, what's going through my head is that now, as it was fourteen years ago - God has designs for us, and He is in control. And that no matter whether we escape without injury, survive with major injuries, live with life-long limitations, or die unexpectedly -- what is important is that God is honored above all else, and that we understand that our time here is limited and is to be valued like nothing else.

Labels: life

I want this. Someone buy it for me before I spend money on myself...


More great stuff at jesusisarebel.com.

Labels: life

The holidays are over, but now that the pictures are up and the bills are paid, they're really over! Jeremiah has given up the soldier-style crawl and has been doing the real thing, and yes, he's definitely one to get into everything. All that work two years ago putting cabinet locks up is really paying off now.

Jeremiah has two main words: "da da" and "dat" (that), and recently he's added "uh uh" (uh-oh).

December was a very busy month, with Christmas, a birthday, and a dedication!

Labels: life

These two kids just keep growing and growing! Jeremiah is growing up extremely fast! He's crawling (soldier-style) all over the place, and showing early signs of wanting to get into EVERYTHING. He definitely likes McKenna's toys better than his own. He's also sitting up extremely well and he's pulling himself up to standing in his crib. We figure he'll be the one to flip over the side.

He's also learned how to blabber recently, doing is la la la's and his da da da's. Every now and then it seems like he's trying to say "I love you" back to us, but since he's more successful with his fingers in his mouth, I figure he's probably just enjoying trying to communicate.

McKenna just keeps piling on more and more personality, picking up phrases recently like "that's so amazing! I cannot be