Over the last week I have had a couple incredible God moments.  You know the moment, the hair on your arms stands at attention and your entire body tingles like that one strangely interesting “5 Gum” commercial where the guy is laying on a bazillion marbles in an abnormally large booming subwoofer. It’s a little like that with the addition of some tightness of the throat and jaw as a result of getting choked up and refusing to ball like 3^rd grade school girl after finding out her future husband from High School Musical 17 is actually a 38 year old man with a wife and 3 kids.  You know, that kind of moment.  The kind of moment where you know God is there, don’t get me wrong God is always present.  However there are defiantly those God moments like described above where God is all over whatever activity is taking place. 

This first “5 Gum Commercial Moment” occurred last Thursday at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.  It was absolutely incredible, I was overjoyed and flabbergasted almost speechless, but then God reminded me of a little story in the book of 1 Samuel.  This was such an experience I don’t want to jip anyone out of any of the details so I am going to save this story for its own post.  Just a little teaser..

Any-who, the “5 Gum Commercial Moment” I would like to share this evening occurred yesterday after our 12:00 service @ The Gathering.  You see June 29, 2008 was a day we had set up for our baptism service.  Over the previous weeks I had a chance to sit down and speak with a few of our KIDZPLAYCE kids and their decisions to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior and follow Him in believers baptism.  I was absolutely blown away by how much these kids new and understood about baptism.  I am quickly learning to never underestimate the things that these kids soak up while they are around us, whether it be at church, when we visit at school or while we are on trips or outings.  These kids are watching us, every move we make, everything we say and just when we think they are not paying a lick of attention to us, they hit us with some deep stuff we discussed 8 months ago.  We need to make sure we are showing these kids our Christ…always!

Now back to this “moment” yesterday.  I had the great honor to partake in my first ever baptism service.  I was no longer the dunkie, I had now become the dunker.  Now I know there is nothing special about the water or the baptismal pool, but yesterday there was something holy about being in that baptismal.  I went to the baptism service expecting to partake in 3 or 4 of the kid’s baptisms and by the end of the service I had the privilege of baptizing 15 kids.  15!  I could not believer my eyes when I saw all of these kids lined up waiting to follow the example of Christ Jesus and proclaim His name without shame.  It was most defiantly a holy “5 Gum Commercial Moment”, the nervousness, loss of words, the choking up and watery eyes, all of it holy.  Incredible. Mind-boggling.  Another level.

I say this all the time, I do not deserve any of this, God has so blessed my life in every aspect.  I wake up each day wondering why me, but each day I pray and ask, God use me.  I believe He has, is and will continue to use me as a vessel for His Kingdom as long as I stay faithful and continue to pray that I be used whenever, however and wherever. 

He longs to use each of us for something, allow Him to use His tools.

out

Yo son, let me just start this off by saying that Father’s Day is so much more stinkin’ awesome when you are actually a father.  Add another day to my calendar where I get cards and gifts and I am a happy camper.  I pretty much racked up this past weekend.  Saturday was my 23rd Birthday, I got to hang out all morning with Baby K while mommy took and passed her last Praxis tests, she is finally finished, at the end of 5 years she finished up with her masters degree, all while getting married and having a kid.  She is most likely a superhero or something and I am so proud of her.

Getting back to my birthday day, later that night Rachel and Baby K surprised me at church with a birthday cake and we had a mini snack time birthday extravaganza with the KIDZPLAYCE crew.  Also I got me a new Kelty hiking bag with a special pocket for a kid up to 40lbs.  Its a pretty sweet bag and I got an awesome deal on it down at the local Mast General Store. (greatest store ever)  And last but not least I got bamboozled and then suckered Rachel into falling for the Banjo Minnow infomercial.  That’s right I got the whole 110 piece set and a DVD for $19.95, I can’t wait to get out on the river and let the Banjo Minnows fly.  I hope these things work or else infomercials will be ruined for me forever.

On Sunday I woke up to my first ever Father’s Day.  It was such an awesome feeling, I got a bangorang(adjective used in the movie Hook staring Robin Williams meaning cool, awesome or off the chain) glittery fluffy white princess cat card from Baby Kennedy, a Bass Pro Shop gift card from my mom and a priceless gift from Rachel.  You see last week she learned how to do all this cool stuff on a Mac so she decided to make me the greatest gift ever.  She made an awesome DVD of a bunch of pics of Kennedy and I set in motion to a real sad daddy daughter song.  I cried.  It really opened my eyes to how blessed I am.  It is truly unbelievable how much God has blessed my life, and I deserve none of it.  I thank him everyday for every hour He gives me to spend with Rachel and our new baby girl. 

thank you Lord.

 I love you Dad happy Father’s Day.

What up world!?  Man the last two Wednesdays have been a blast!  Last week Rachel and I finally got to hang out, we left baby Kennedy with Grandma Harrison for a few hours. Man, I bet Grandma hated that. (sarcasticness)  Any-who Rachel and I went and hung out at S.W.A.T’s Schools Out at Spin City evening down in Pigeon Forge.  It brought back so many memories, the good ole’ skating rink, backward skating (not possible for me), reverse skating (I survived) and my favorite….COUPLE Skate, which was off the chain.  Dudes I have not skated in like 10 years and I just knew that I was gonna break my tail bone or one of someone else’s bones.  But as it turns out I did not even fall one time, by the end of the night I was a master roller blader, minus a few off balance moments and the whole thing about not knowing how to stop myself without hitting the wall.  But by far the greatest sight of the night had to have been Mr. Pastor Scott holding on to the side for dear life, I love that man, and by the end of the night he was skating around like Apolo Anton Ohno, sept for on roller skates instead of extra long ice skates.  To wrap it all up the night was awesome, the S.W.A.T band did an amazing job and Joey had a killer message, there were no broken bones and my wife was HOT out there on her skates. 

Word to the wise, after removing your publicly used skates after 2 hot hours of skating do not, I repeat, DO NOT inhale, you could die.  Those skates smelled like hot corn chips smothered in pig fat.  Just some advice from one who experienced this exact incident.

Now on to KIDZPLAYCE and this awesome Wednesday.  We had our first McFlick today (a $1 movie and some Mickey D’s for lunch).  We went and saw The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything, pretty good flick if you ask me, then we made our way over to the McDonald’s for some snackage.  We had 19 Kids for our first McFlick, no one got lost and we got a couple compliments on how well behaved our group was.  Huge plus in my book.  I haven’t had so much fun at a McDonalds in a long time, all the kids got some Kung-Fu Panda action figures in their happy meals and there was like a Kung-Fu Royal Rumble going down, it was great.  These kids are the best, and our volunteers are even better.  I cannot wait until our next outing.  I am truly blessed to be in this position and share my life with these kids. 

I Love this Junk.

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