Happy Valentines Day, My Love

Recovering! ...and redeeming the time.

Dear children,

Last week was kind of a bum week.

I was down with another sinus infection and didn’t get anything done for the first half of the week. I didn’t even go to work.

By Thursday, I was feeling better and trying to play catch up from the previous three days. We did manage to FINALLY get the Christmas decorations taken down, which is something I had been trying to plan time for weeks earlier without success.

The good news is that I managed to get all of the Christmas boxes out of my office and can now work in my office again without feeling claustrophobic. Consequently, I felt very productive, from Friday on, even though I still had to miss an interview on Saturday.

After being sick for three days, it was good to get to play with all of you again. Mostly, we just wrestled and tried to tickle each other, but I did set up Elijah’s Garfield game that he got for Christmas and teach him how to play it—it’s a computer game that needed all kinds of updated drivers before it would work.

Elijah LOVES his new Garfield game and played it so much on the first day that I didn’t let him play it again until Saturday night. He needed a lot of help, at times, but he learned the basic game play fairly quickly.

I went to the Kauffman’s Friday night and visited with them again. I was encouraged to see that T.J. had helped his mom out a lot during the week and a greater overall maturity in the way he looked at life.

On Saturday, I completed the fourth message in a series that I am working on, called Sanctification By Faith. This was an important message in the series, because it brought out some of the history on the rift with various views of sanctification and the fact that many Christians spend too much time dissecting scripture and attempting to define its various experiences until there isn’t any more life in them and they become purely intellectually dogma rather than a life changing force that effects every part of the human experience.

As much as I love the study of God’s Word, I hope that you will never get so caught up in studying that it only affects your intellect and not your heart. Always remember that the Word is GOD BREATHED, and if the Spirit does not breath it into you in such a way that you can feel it’s life-giving power, you’ve missed the very point of studying at all.

Always let God draw you to Himself, through your reading of His Word. Jesus told his disciples, “the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life.” (John 6:63). When you touch those words, you are touching Him. When you read them, they ought to enter into your heart and feed your soul. Understanding will result from that. Be careful not to try to reverse the process, or it will not affect you at all.

Changes in the way that we think always result from changes that the Spirit effects in our hearts, as we receive and believe the Word of the Lord—as it brings our soul into living and abiding contact with Him.

I love you children so much, and I so want to be a good father to you. The Lord has really been working on me and taking me deeper in my relationship with Him.

As of late, I am learning things about being a better husband, which I know will ultimately affect every one of you, as your mother and I enjoy a deeper and sweeter intimacy with one another—the kind of intimacy that the Lord desires to have with each of us. I am trusting God that I will be a good example to you in this.

I’m also learning to write more things down—to “gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.” (John 6:12) I think it no coincidence that this verse is found in the same chapter as John 6:63.

Sunday was Super Bowl Sunday. The Patriots lost an undefeated season in the last 30 seconds of the game. Let that be a lesson to each of you. The Apostle Paul said, “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:12-14)

We did get together as a church and watch the Super Bowl—not because we’re all that into football but because I’m all for anything that brings us together outside of the usual church setting and permits me the opportunity to bring out an object lesson or two. It was a lot of fun, and we laughed at many of the commercials (by far, the highlight of any Super Bowl).

My editor also told me to write a column about my ice rescue training experience, in Rollins Bay, but I’ll save the details of that for my next letter.

It’s good to be feeling better and able to enjoy my family again.

Love,

Dad.

To Rebekah, With Love - Happy Birthday, Baby!

Dear Rebekah,

I apologize for having been so busy yesterday morning getting my articles done for the newspaper and for not feeling well because of the sinus infection. I hope that your birthday turned out good in spite of this.

I did want to write you a brief letter—something I wanted to do yesterday but must settle for today—to tell you how much I you mean to me. It is my hope that the old saying remains true and that it’s “better late than never.”

I won’t bore you with all of the sappy things that I could say and would probably be inclined to say, but I want you to know that I think you are beautiful. Every day, I look at you and remember how my I love your eyes and your long, dark hair, and how your smile fills me up inside and makes me love you even more.

Every night, I curl up next to you and remember how fortunate I am to have someone like you to share both my waking moments and my sleeping ones with. I am happy.

I am married to the woman I want to be next to when I laugh, when I fight to do what’s right, when I grieve, when I’m on a spiritual high, when our children are having the best time of their young lives, when I eventually have to let go and let them begin a life of their own, when I experience the irrepressible joy of becoming a grandparent—and satisfaction of getting even with our children—as well as when I find myself old and facing my final days of life in this world.

You are a gift from God, and I treasure you.

I also love your cooking. …and how good you are at helping Elijah get his school done or letting the children help you bake or fix dinner.

Proverbs 31:28 - Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.

Happy Birthday, Baby!

I love you.

And I thank God for another year of living life to the fullest with you at my side.

Your Loving Husband,

Jacob