Bad Blogger

Not sure I like blogging that much. Not sure if I’ll continue doing it. I’m either going to make a decision to blog faithfully for a long stretch of time (one of the habit forming experiments) or I’m going to pull the plug.

Back in Action

The last two weeks have been rough.  This is the kind of thing I worried about when getting back into blogging.  Blogging is pretty low on my priority list right now — I want to do it but I also realize that the tyranny of the urgent pushes it aside pretty quickly.  The combination of Caitlin being in the hospital, my computer crashing and then just the amount of catch-up I had to do ended up being the downfall of blogging in the past week.

My desire is still there and I have a number of things that I’d like to blog on but I still have a few things that need to be dealt with before I hit it with any vigor.  Hoping to knock a bunch out today and then try to get back into some regular blogging practice.

My Mac is acting like a PC

Sorry to all you PC users out there for that comment but the other day my Mac blue screened.  While this was a common occurrence when I was using windows it has never been something I’ve had to face as a Mac user.  I’ve been without my computer for the past few days and I don’t like it one bit.  I’ve been having to share with the kids at home and they always seem to trump me.

Took it to the genius bar today and found out that my hard drive is bad.  Hopefully I have not lost important info.  I’ll find out at the end of the week.  Thankfully I’ve pilfered our tech computer.

Caitlin Update

Thanks to all who have been praying and offering to help while Caitlin’s been in the hospital.  We really appreciate your kindness.

During our service yesterday I shared with the church that I thought we were looking at a couple more days in the hospital but when we got home we had a message that she was being discharged.  During the morning she was able to progress in all of the areas they were looking for so they decided she could finish her recovery at home. We (especially Caitlin) are very excited to see her progression.

Again thanks for all your prayers.

It’s Always So Complicated

For those of you who are reading and praying — here’s a quick update.

Caitlin is doing very well on most fronts but not very well on one.  The good — everything seems to be healing well from the surgery.  Incision looks good, she’s responding well to the anti-biotics and is not in a lot of pain.  The bad — she’s experiencing an unusual amount of bleeding.  I guess normally when your appendix ruptures there is going to be some bleeding through the GI tract but in her case there’s more than normal.  The GI doctor’s say that the bleeding should have stopped by now and aren’t completely sure why it hasn’t.  They’ve run a number of tests and all the tests come back positively (as in good/what they want to see) but still no solution.  Right now they’re asking a lot about diet and types of vitamins, etc.  So they’re heading down a few trails and looking for some answers but nothing as of yet.

We covet your prayers for Caitlin.  As she said yesterday, “my body’s been through so much”.  When Caitlin was 4 she had cancer — Wilms Tumor.  She remembers just enough to know that none of this seems fair right now.

Great way to End 2007

This past Sunday we decided to try something a bit different for our worship service.  Instead of the normal worship band, 6/7 songs, 35/40 minute sermon, etc we had a time of celebration, remembering, prayer and food.

The Low-Down: we set up the cafeteria tables (one perk to being in a E.S. cafetorium) and had a common meal.  While the meal was going on we showed a slide show — year in review sort of thing.  We then opened it up for people to share some of the things that God has been teaching them this year.  I asked people to share either something God had taught them or to share a way they saw God work in them or through them this past year.

What was best about the time was that we at Crosscurrent don’t always do a great job of celebrating what God is doing in/through our community — this was an opportunity to do that.  I left very encouraged and heard a lot of similar feedback from others.  It was also a chance for prayer and support as a couple of people shared some of the difficult circumstances they are facing.

All in all it really was a great way to end 2007 and it seemed that God was very honored by the time and the church was spurred on.

Interesting Start to a New Year

On Sunday we were enjoying a nice afternoon after a good last service of 2007 — Today we’re in the Children’s Hospital of the Kings Daughter.

Reason: Emergency Appendectomy  for my 11 year old.

What started as “bug” like symptoms turned into unusual symptoms in about 24 hours.  So we took Caitlin down to CHKD and within about 6 hours she was on the operating table getting her perforated appendix removed.   She’s doing well but has quite a bit of discomfort from the surgery.

Roberts Family Christmas

Great time with the family on Christmas Day.  It was restful and fun.  Personally I needed a day where I stayed in the “p.j’s” until after lunch.  The kids had a blast and all received a couple of things they were really stoked about.  Love seeing the expressions on their faces when they open up something they are really excited about and something that really surprises them.

That afternoon we headed up to Williamsburg to visit my family and now we’re up in Northern VA with Aimee’s family.

All in all a good Christmas.

Christmas Services Recap

Well it took me a few days to muster up the energy to turn on the computer and post again.  This is one of the things that I was worried about when I re-started blogging — just didn’t know if I’d have the desire to post regularly or the topics.  However I do find myself wanting to throw some thoughts down on a regular basis but this time I did need a few days to decompress.

This past weekend we did two different services.  On Sunday morning we had a family worship service with all the kids involved.  We created a living room feel to it with couches, rugs, lamps, etc.  At one point we invited all of the kids that wanted to up to the stage to participated in singing the Christmas carols/hymns we were worshiping to.  The kids had been working on these songs in their classrooms so they were prepared to sing.  We had them sitting around the “living room” singing like in an old-fashioned Christmas movie.

We also showed a “man on the street” video that a guy in our church shot footage of — the street were our kids classrooms a couple weeks ago.  It was a cute video with some funny answers and at least a couple of my kids answered that Jesus was the reason that we celebrate Christmas.

Finally I had a group of 5th and 6th graders help me out with the message.  I set it up like a talk show and they were my expert witnesses.  They helped me tell the story of the Magi and then I closed it with a 10 minute monologue to try to pull some application on the theme of worship.  I had given these kids a couple of weeks to study the scripture and they had really done their homework.  They had pulled out some great insights from the text and I was glad to see that God had taught them some of the same things that he had shown me as well.  One of my favorite things was hearing how their parents had worked with them to study the passage. Hopefully all the families involved saw how easy it was to study the scriptures together.

Christmas Eve was solid as well.  I don’t always love Christmas Eve services because of the extra stress involved but I am always excited about the non-Christians that always show up at our services.  I didn’t feel like it was the greatest service and I was pretty un-happy with my message from a stylistic point of view.  But I did get the opportunity to preach the Gospel pretty boldly and am just trusting that God used it to draw men and women to himself. Also I was real proud of our worship team — they did a great job and the sound was really us.

Throwing Up a Prayer

For whoever is reading this — it would be great if you could throw up a prayer today for Cole Rollins.  He’s the two year old I mentioned was recently diagnosed with leukemia.  We’ll the other day he had a high fever so they had to bring him back into the hospital.  Through investigation they found he had some masses on his lung and heart and this morning discovered that it looks like meningitis.  This is extremely tough news.

I wish I knew more info but I do know he needs prayer. Thanks