Oh So Rediculously Sappy In A Fantastic Kind Of Way

ILOVEMYWIFE!!!...and I want the whole world to know it....thank you for your time.

Please Pray

Shelley Hundley is one of our leaders here at IHOP. On Monday her brother Joel Hundley kidnapped his three young children and took them to El Salvador. They are in serious danger, he is not able to take care of them. The youngest is only 10 months old and is still breast feeding. You can watch an interview with Shelley here.

During this last conference every time I saw Shelley the first words out of her mouth were "Pray for Allen Hood" so now let's hold her, Brittany and of course the children's mother and Joel's wife Heather up in prayer. This is a very urgent cry for justice, please pray.

Irony

I have an incredible amount of trouble with the microsoft website. Maybe it's because I'm a firefoxer and i hate IE, but I am telling you I can never navigate the beast that is microsoft.com. Also, the website inevitably freezes to the point where I have to restart my whole computer not to mention that the entirety of the time that I have been writing this post I have been waiting for a link to load.

Give me Steve Jobs or give me death.

Thanks for the Memories

Engagement pictures...

Taken by the one and only Jordan Vanderplate...

At our most beloved castle.

Rumor has it that the vine street castle is being torn down to make way for some new apartments/condos. This makes my heart sad. I've had some amazing times at that place and I would list it among the places where Jesse and I fell in love.

One fun story from the castle was one night it was gross and rainy but still at around 1am we all wandered from the Blue Room over to explore. The evening included the boys dropping Katie after poorly executing their master plan to get us in our heels down from one level of the castle to another. Jesse walking across a rotting beam 2 stories off of the ground, Brandon assuring Katie and I that they had a great plan and an overall feeling that scary people lurked around every corner. Anyone else want to be nastalgic in the wake of tragedy?

Bring on the naked church Dancers

I read an article today based on some census statistics. It stated that the number of unmarried people cohabiting went up 92% from 1990 to 2000. This brings the number of unmarried cohabitating couples in this country above the number of people that are married. A good chunk of the cohabitators say that they really have no plans to get married and think that it's just too old fashioned.

Is this terrifying to anyone else? Not only does this mean that people aren't willing to commit to eachother but it also means that the number of people in this country who are blatantly cool with rockin' immorality like Ben Fold's takes on the suburbs is staggering. All I can say is way to go David Wilerson, you're on the ball.

Recently I was talking with a friend who told me that he didn't vote this past November and wasn't planning on it any time soon. I told him he was stupid, but his rebuttle was interesting. He told me that he was tired of America being mistaken for a God-fearing nation and his responsibilty was to rightly represent Christ and not voting was one of his ways to do it. Based on other statistics it is definite that at least some of these people cohabitating name the name of Jesus and probably go to church every Sunday. Woe to the deception that preaches another Jesus and says it's a service to the Body, the Bride, those who call good evil and evil good. Those who say that living with someone who isn't your wife or your husband is pleasing in the sight of the Lord. Allen Hood once said that "the fear of the Lord is like petting a lion", that nervous excitement that pushes you to go a little further even though you might die.

Jesus, today extend Your gracioussness to us once again and give us the gift of the fear of the Lord. For jealousy is a Husband's fury and in the day of vengeance He will not spare although you offer Him many bribes for your life. Pr. 6:34-35

For Grandma Catherine

This past Sunday Jesse's beloved Grandma Catherine passed away. Jesse along with Josh and James flew to LA yesterday morning for her funeral. She was freakin' awesome. As I've stated before I would have married Jesse simply to be related to her. She was in a league of her own and was unashamed about who she was. GC made me feel like I belonged in the fam from the first time she met me, it was so sweet and made a potentially horribly awkard situation fun.

Thanks Grandma for making me feel like I was always part of the fam, thanks for never taking any of Jamsie's crap and thanks for locking yourself in the car at Josh and Steffie's wedding, we still laugh about that all the time. We love you and you are greatly missed.

Oh the Grammy's

I love music. Music is something that matters to me more than most things. I love it. I love real, good raw, rough music. I have a passion for it, but something that I absolutely hate is the Grammy's.

In a desperate attempt to recapture music lovers' attention the Grammy's gave The Police a gazillion dollars to reunite and open the show with none other than "Roxanne". I still didn't watch. That's right, it's that bad. The Grammy's are so lame I would guess that it's the only thing that you can get on TV in the first layer of hell.

Even worse, they made it about politics and handed the Chicks every award they could for taking on the man. Dude, you might think that you're really stickin' it to the president by bashing him but the truth is is that even though you took home a bunch of trophies he still got re-elected, so looks like your little rampage didn't even really actually matter because the people who vote on whether or not you get little statues are the people who never would have voted for him in the first place.

We'll file this under things that don't really matter, just spouting random thoughts.

Kaiser Sosa and Identity Theft

I've spent fragments of the last few days three feet from Stephen Baldwin...it's been awkward. I don't really know what to do with it.

Every now and then ya just gotta...

It's freezing here and basically every where else so I thought I'd post some rockin' wedding pictures to make us all want the beach so bad we'd claw our own eyes out.

Enjoy

Where I come from that just ain't right...

Here at IHOP things happen fast. People fall in love quickly, they get married quickly and they have children quickly. However, this is not the case for everyone. I get asked if I am pregnant probably a minimum of twice a week. My parents have never even brought it up, Jesse's parents have never asked, every stand up comedian on the continent knows that this question is not one that should ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever didn't have enough evers memorized be asked. So, today my question is why do people here find it totally okay to ask?

Things to ponder:
-I've lost a little weight over the last few months and I'm really starting to feel good about and in my body, when someone asks me if I'm pregnant the first thing it does is shatter my self-confidence.
-It's a really REALLY personal thing, when it happens, we'll tell you.
-We're not ready. We're waiting, this concept seems foreign to some, but it's just the truth, we are. There is nothing wrong, we do want kids someday, but that day is very very far away.

So the next time that your inspired to ask a newly married person if they are pregnant try to reflect on what you would want if it was you or your wife. We do allot of things without thinking about how they make others feel to satisfy our own curiousities but I'm telling you, it doesn't do good things for the people your asking.

Good night, and good luck.

I've found my Comfort

Recently, I've been extremely uneasy. The reality of the end-times has been hitting me lately, with the president of Iran being a serious Mahdist and Israel nearly nuking Tehran it's hard to ignore the signs that the we are in serious times. Recently the urgency had been hitting me, as you know it does, but this time I had no comfort. I knew that Jesus was returning but, before that the saints along with the rest of the world are going to be handed over to satan...this is cause for disturbance. Since I've been so stirred I've been reading many things. I've tried to stay informed about the Sunni-Shiite crisis in Iraq within which the US may be aiding in the largest genocide the earth has ever seen as well as the growing possibility of nuclear exchange between Iran and Israel. In the wake of my disturbance I decided to read something that I knew would although be terrifying hopefully bring me peace, so I have become a student of the end of the age. Most recently, I've been enveloped with my old buddy Daniel. This is where I found comfort.

Daniel 7 verses 13 and 14 was just what I needed: "I was watching in the night visions, and behold One like the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him, then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and His kingdom the one which shall not be destroyed."

Jesus is coming, He isn't going to leave us in ruins, it is His objective to return to the planet and once and for all make manifest in the natural the destruction of the works of the devil which was brought to fullness by the cross. These are still grave times, but I have found my comfort and I am coming up leaning.