Archive for October, 2009
Baby Bedding
Many of you may know already how expensive it is to purchase crib bedding sets. I was shocked when I saw it costs nearly $200 for such a small amount of fabric when you can buy an entire “bed in a box” for a queen or king sized bed for under $100! I guess we have to pay extra for cuteness eh? *wink*
Well, my darling Melissa and I had picked out our bedding for the room. It’s a set called “Go Car Go” which has the most adorable picture of a car as you see below.
The whole bedroom set
At Melissa’s first baby shower, her mom, Theresa, had a special cake made with the same “Beep Beep Car” on it…
Beep Beep Cake
Some wonderful family members had offered to purchase it for us but at the time of the baby shower, the item was sold out from Target.comwhere we have our registry. So, in an effort to still get the set that Melissa had her heart set on, I did some research and found a seller on eBay who had 5 sets available for sale. The family members purchased the bed set and we figured we’d get it in a couple weeks. Well, 2 and a half weeks passed and no bedding set. On Friday, my mother-in-law gets an email from the seller saying that “eBay didn’t notify us of the sale until today and we’ve already sold out of this item, it is back-ordered until Nov 30th.” Now first of all, eBay doesn’t “forget” to notify a seller. I’ve been selling on eBay for 8 years and never once have they not notified me of a sale. The problem is that they either missed the email or someone dropped the ball.
Well, suffice to say that did not sit well with either of us. Melissa especially had a hard time with it because, bless her heart, she wants to have the room ready for the baby. I don’t blame her. Walking into the “nursery” right now is kind of discouraging because it is just an empty room with a stroller, car seat, and some random baby gifts on the floor – oh and a bookshelf in the corner. Every single item that we’ve ordered for the equipping of the baby’s room has had some kind of delay or problem. This was like the “straw that broke the camel’s back” as Melissa explained. We both have a need to feel like we are ready to receive Caleb into this world and call it whatever you like, but to us, it means a lot to have that room ready. I could dive into all the other “issues” we’ve had with delays in shipments and orders not being placed etc, but suffice to say, Thursday was very discouraging.
But, as with all the storms in life – there is always something to be grateful for and that is what we have to keep our eyes on. In the story of the storm on the Sea of Galilee when Jesus calmed the winds and the waves, was Jesus concerned or worried? I mean, good grief, when the storm was raging around them, Jesus was sound asleep in the boat without a care in the world. His disciples woke him saying “Master, we are going to drown! DO SOMETHING!” (heavily paraphrased). Jesus scolded them for their lack of faith and spoke three words to the storm “Peace! Be Still!”. And all was quiet. Stop, wait a second… Why did Jesus say they lacked faith? If you and I were on a rickety boat in the middle of a huge storm, wouldn’t we have the same fear? Of course! But isn’t that what we are all in at many different times in our lives? Big or small, the storms of life can rock our world, our faith, and our emotions. And yet, Jesus says to us, “Oh you of little faith!” Why? Because Jesus is always with us, he promises to never leave or forsake us! Read Romans 8 today. No matter what - Jesus is always with us and will always – ALWAYS love us. I wrote a song many years ago which was inspired by a plaque I saw even that many more years before that. The chorus goes, “Sometimes he calms the storm, and other times, he calms his child…” We can’t always believe that God will calm every storm in our lives. If he did, we’d never learn anything. It’s through the trials and tribulations of life that he refines us with his refining fire. More often than not, he will calm his children and walk with them through the storm. But he says “fear not! For I am always with you, even until the end of the age!”
So no matter how big or small your storm – remember to take courage and faith that Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith. When we trust in him, there is no fear, no doubt, and no worry. I know I sure could use less worry in my life! I need to surrender myself to him more each day, learning to trust and to lean every bit on him. I’m in the same “boat” with everyone else. Even though this was a small storm, we still need to turn to Him in everything. Because he will either calm the storm or he will calm us… his children.
On Submission
So Kingdom Mamma posted these vlogs on her blog the other day and wow, there is some pretty awesome wisdom in there. I wanted to share it with my readers. Thanks for the work you guys do!
Stains and other Mishaps Part 2
God is so good! He even cares about the sparrows or in our case, our stained carpet. I know it’s not super spiritual and you may ask yourself how I could draw a lesson from something as seemingly inconsequential as a stained carpet, but it’s possible! I mean, to us, because we rent our home, we can’t just get away with stains. We have to fix them or get hit with huge charges when we leave. After a series of mishaps and disappointments over the past couple days, it seemed the enemy was determined to thwart our plans at saving money as we build our nursery for Caleb’s arrival. At home this evening, I decided to Google a way to remove wood stain from carpet. Assuming my search would be futile, I searched half-hearted and was surprised by the first result that showed up. It stated that using (prepare yourself) WD-40 on the carpet would remove the stains. I was incredulous as I thought to myself how silly it sounded. As stupid as it sounded I decided to try it anyway. I figured I had nothing to lose considering that I had huge black spots on my carpet! You can’t do much worse than what was already there so I sprayed a small amount of the WD-40 on a small black spot, waited for a few seconds and then rubbed at it with a white cloth. When I pulled the cloth away from the carpet, I saw nothing – that is to say the stain was gone! I laughed almost in disbelief. I called Melissa over and asked her to watch me do it to another spot in case I was just seeing things. Over the course of the next several minutes we were laughing hysterically and ended up video taping ourselves removing a stain as we would giggle and spray a bit of WD-40 on a black stain, rub it out, and then use a great cleaner called Folex that you can find at Wal-Mart to remove the WD-40 from the carpet. In less than 20 minutes, we had removed half of the stains caused by my accident in “Stains and Other Mishaps“. (Much better than losing our deposit on the rental or spending hundreds to have it cleaned professionally!) Below you’ll find our video of removing the stains but before you watch that, listen to how I believe God works in our lives.
See, so often I find myself getting discouraged at things that are seemingly outside my control. Things that I don’t even consider to take to the Lord in prayer because I feel they are too inconsequential to Him. But I am reminded, as I mentioned earlier, of Matthew 10:29-31 (NLT) when Jesus said, “…not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.” And I realized yet again that God was reminding me that his love for me is so great that he actually does care about the “little” things like stained carpet and some of our other misadventures! So don’t ever believe that God doesn’t care about the little things because he does. He watches out for us in so many ways. His love is all encompassing, his concern and care for us is infinite, and he always works the best for those who love him and are called according to His purpose.
Love you all, enjoy the little How-to!
Stains and other Mishaps
So I know that I’ve posted several deeper topics recently and I was going to continue doing so until something happened Sunday morning that I had to blog about. The back story to this blog is that we’ve been finding ways to equip the nursery for as little out-of-pocket expense as possible. I have this old chest-of-drawers that I used when I was younger that was still at my parent’s house. I decided that instead of buying new furniture for the baby’s room, why not re-use things we already own. Great idea! Only one problem… it was painted slathered with that fake stone “flecking” that you can spray on. It was white with teal accents and our baby room has dark woods and brown and blue! “Hmmm” I thought to myself. We could strip off the paint and stain the wood dark! Wow, we could save so much money this way!
Saturday, Alejandro and I spent the entire morning stripping off the thick and icky paint. We successfully managed to remove all the remaining vestiges of the paint and sand it down to reveal the beautiful grain of the natural wood. After that adventure, Melissa and I decided to go out and purchase the stain we wanted to try at Sherwin-Williams (who happened to be having a great sale at the time!) So we took the stain home and I got a drawer out of the dresser and set to staining the front. It was already after 6pm when I finished so it was too late to wait the recommended 6 hours before applying a second coat so we decided to wait until Sunday morning.
I got up Sunday morning ready to finish the first drawer and see how it would come out. Icarried the drawer outside on our back patio and went back inside to grab the quart sized can of wood stain and the tools I needed. As I stepped out onto the patio something happened. I don’t know how to describe what transpired in the next 500 milliseconds, but suddenly, without warning, the can of wood stain decided to dislodge itself from my hand and drop in slow motion to the ground. I’m not sure what happened first. The sound of the sealed top of the can of stain popping off followed by the sickening gush of liquid stain freed from captivity at last – or the sound of my shriek as I realized I was doomed.
I often mention how time seems to slow down for me. Well, yet again, time seemed to slow down to a snails pace as I saw the lid of the can pop off and a full 32 ounces of wood stain splash out of it’s holding cell into the morning light – splashing onto my legs, onto the siding of my house, onto the sliding glass door… oh wait, the sliding glass door was open… onto the carpet inside the house, onto the dining room table, onto my nice shoes next to the couch, missing the couch, and finally coming to rest on the linoleum in our kitchen 10 feet away.
As time sped up again, I looked around at the disaster that befell me. I realized that with one tiny accident, I had just taken what was supposed to be a money saving plan and turned it into a money draining plan! Well Dave Ramsey, how do you suggest I fix this one? 
So if any of you have any brilliant ideas on how to remove dried wood STAIN from carpet without melting the carpet fibers, I’d love to hear about it!
But in the end, I must be thankful to the Lord because it did not get on our nice couch nor did it damage the table or chairs. Only the carpet… and the leopard spots I am now sporting on my ankles.
So the moral of this story is how proud I was of my wife in the midst of this crisis. Instead of yelling or getting angry or upset like she could have, she instead chose to remain calm and tell me that it was all going to be ok and that it was only an accident. She lovingly gave me space to seethe at the stupidity of the moment and helped to calm me down as I wanted to go stuff my 6′ 7″ frame into that quart can of stain to hide from the embarrassment. I thought, “Who are you and what have you done with my wife…” and then I realized. This was my wife – acting in Christ’s love and understanding. What an awesome way to end a stupid accident. Thank you honey. For you love and your support. I love you!
A Prayer for Marriages
Why do marriages fail? Why does the church have a higher divorce rate than the world? How can we be a witness and testimony to those around us if we are in worse shape than those we are trying to share the love of God with? I mean, as a Christian, I’m often saddened by the lack of character of the men I see around me. (Yes, I count myself in with those of us who have had a multitude of mistakes and failures.) I’m not talking about everyone or anyone that is reading this blog, but I see it on the news, I hear about it from friends, and I can sense it as a spirit of abandonment and selfishness that hangs in the air around so many men. The problem is evident in the world around us, but it’s just as evident or even more so now in the church around us. Wake up! The institution of marriage is not failing because it’s out-dated or antiquated, but it is failing because more and more men are simply giving up. Ladies, I believe that you are of equal value, importance, and have amazing gifts and insight and wisdom to bring to any marriage so don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. But with the absence of godly and sacrificial male leadership, the institution of marriage crumbles. It’s because so many of us do not stand up and take our God-given responsibilities seriously. We stand on the sidelines and watch as we grant the enemy free access to our families and our marriages. “Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” (Ephesians 5:14 NIV)
I have much more to share on this topic, but I wanted to just say that I believe that we have a duty as men to stand up and take our place as the heads of our household. And I don’t mean being dominant and controlling. I mean, we shouldn’t shirk from our responsibilities to be self-sacrificing and loving leaders. That means placing your wife and your children’t needs above your own (yes, your wife’s needs come above all else). It means believing the best about your wife and praying for her every single day. It means believing the best about your children and praying for them every single day. It means standing in victory over addictions like pornography by holding yourself accountable with other men and especially your wife! It means crucifying your own selfish nature on the cross every day. And it means speaking words of life to your family every day.
The following is a woman’s perspective prayer for marriages. It was written by a friend of a friend, Kingdom Momma. She wrote this back in January and I had to share it here. It blessed me so much that I had to share it. I hope it blesses you as much as it blessed me.
Perfect God and vastly creative Heavenly Father, I come to you in desire of your perfect will for marriage. I beg you to turn our hearts to you and teach us to love the things that you love. Separate us from our selfishness, and give us the grace to lay down our lives for each other.
Give wives the great strength to be women. Teach us to pray with fervency and to speak with gentleness. Teach us to love our husbands as men and to truly understand what they need. Show us how to suffer in silence and how to stand and fight. Comfort us when our husbands fail us, and never let their failures cause us to doubt your goodness and love. Keep our soft hearts soft, and soften them where they’re hard. And help us to weigh your Spirit in us far above our fleshly desires.
Give our husbands the strength to be men. Grow them up in the warrior power of your Holy Spirit. Reveal the true manliness of commitment and protection to their bloodied and used souls. Heal their broken hearts, and be the father and shepherd to their boyishness. Turn their hearts wholly to their wives, and teach them to love with selfless abandon.
Give married couples the strength to fight. Teach us to fight fair, and teach us to fight for the things worth fighting for. Make us one in body, mind, and spirit, that we may truly reflect your son and His bride. Protect that precious picture through everything that we do. Make us selfless and tender, forgiving and kind, and always slow to anger.
Protect us from offense and temptation. Teach us to speak your words, and to speak them often. Give us time to spend with one another and remove distraction and worry from our minds. Let us return to romance, pure and holy, childlike and fun.
Bless us, heal us, and restore us by the power of your incredible name. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Written by Kingdom Momma (http://www.kingdomtwindom.com/2009/01/my-prayer-for-marriage.html)
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On Becoming Daddy
Colorado Springs, Colorado