Prayer Changes Things

This post should be short.

Actually, the headline of the post should be all I need to write in order for you to get the point I’m trying to make. But a headline doesn’t tell the entire story, it just leads you to read the story.

Let me start by saying this, and it’s something that I’ve said to anyone who will listen, my wife saved my life almost 12 years ago. I’m not saying that because I have to or because the day I met her was the best day of my life or the generic way of saying she’s the most amazing person I’ve ever met.

That’s not at all what that means.

There’s a lot that people don’t know about me and I keep it that way for a reason. The only people that know almost everything there is to know about me are the people I keep within our inner circle of our family because those are the people who truly care about what’s on the inside and not just what I project to be true on the outside.

To make this post make sense you need to know at least a little internal background information on me so I can explain why prayer changes things.

Learning to Write Again

I love sports.

Actually, let me re-phrase that. I did love sports.

Don’t get me wrong, I will sit and watch college football or baseball or even a college basketball game now and again but my passion for sports in general has definitely faded over the last four to five years.

There’s really no reason for it, it’s just the way it happened. I used to use every weekend during college football season as the day I just sat and watched game after game after game after game. I love the sport and I love the college atmosphere no matter what sport it is and I prefer the college game over the professional with exception to baseball (Go Padres!)

But with being married almost ten years, come May 1 of this year, and two kids who are a blast to be around every day because of how different they both are, I find myself watching more of what the kids want to watch or doing what the kids want to do. By the end of the day both my wife and I are exhausted and we use the last two hours of the night getting ready for the next day whether that’s putting clothes out for the kids for the next day or pouring their milk for the next morning.

It’s hard to get back into the swing of what you used to be passionate about. Often times it’s hard to find the energy to pull out the laptop and come up with an original idea that’s in your head or one that you really want to talk about.

However, I don’t want this to be a post that’s all about sports, I wanted this to be all about learning how to write again after being away from doing so for so long, especially writing about the topic I’ve spent most of this post talking about.

If you give it a chance, read through the blog posts that I’ve done in the past. Most of them are over four years old but, at this point, I don’t feel any differently than I did four years ago. I still believe the same things, I still want the same things, and my faith is still exactly where it was then.

One thing has changed, though.

Being a parent makes you re-think all of the things you used to believe. I’m not talking about faith or your relationship with God, but things you used to believe about life in general.

You know those times, before you had kids, and you told people that you wouldn’t do it that way or you would do it this way or you want things done that way instead of this way?

While I’m proud that my wife and I have done most of what we said we wanted to do with our kids we have definitely let other things slide. Why? Because sometimes the things that you think are serious don’t seem all that serious or not all that big of a deal later on down the road. They’re still important, but they’re not as big as you once made them.

I wanted to re-learn how to write about the things that are important to me and important to our family. I wanted to re-learn how to write about what was in my head and what people could relate to.

The one thing I hated about writing about sports, it was all opinion based and while facts could play into that opinion you never got into something that people could relate to. Talking about the Dallas Cowboys, especially negatively, will irritate people quicker than calling them a name to their face. How is that relatable or how do you stay passionate about something like that?

I remember facing something while being a “sports writer.”

Let me take a quick step back and give you some perspective on what I wanted to do with my life about the time my wife and I got married.

I wanted to be in sports radio. It was my dream job. If there was one thing I wanted to do it was that and no matter how many people asked me the question of what my dream job was I always had the same answer.

But one moment changed all of that.

Someone on Twitter decided they didn’t like what I wrote about a specific sports topic so they decided not only to come after me but they wanted to take personal shots at my wife and, at the time, our four-month old daughter because we all know how well four-month old babies can defend themselves.

That was one of the reasons I stopped being passionate about sports and my dream job started to fade and become less and less important to me in the grand scheme of things.

I grew up as a fan who loved the game. I grew up whooping and hollering at every touchdown, every home run, I walked out of stadiums mad or frustrated with every loss and wondering how that could have happened like it did.

I miss that part of sports. I miss being a fan. I miss the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Having been in the sports media world for a few years, I went from being that fan to being the guy who watched a game in complete silence.

To the point it drove my mom, and some friends I grew up with, crazy.

I didn’t jump off the chair I was in when a big play happened, I didn’t yell at the television on a bad call, I didn’t shed a tear when my team lost a big game. I just stared at the television in silence and was always lost in thought, mostly about what happened to me that I would turn into someone so different.

Then I remembered, the change happened when I became a parent and I realized there were so many other important things in life than who won and who lost. There were more important things in my own life than talking about what team did what and why they can’t get a win to save their lives and why they should trade this guy or fire that guy.

Sports was no longer fun because what made me smile was the people who truly made me smile were those I came home to every day. It was my wife and it was, at the time, our daughter. Now, adding as second child to the mix, life became even more hectic and fun and scary and important and hard and rewarding.

I say all of this to tell you that I hope you can be patient with me as I figure out how to write again. I say all this to tell you that I hope you can relate to the things that I’m writing about or find something in your own life that some of these posts speak to. I also hope that you enjoy what’s here and you enjoy reading the thoughts that come out of my head.

They may not always make sense and, often times, they might seem ridiculous. But, at the end of the day, you continue to learn things every day. While you might forget how to ride a bike all you have to do is get on one again and it all comes back to you at one time.

It might seem clumsy at first, but eventually you’ll get there. So will I.

Who’s First, Who’s Not

I saw someone share an article on Facebook earlier today and I thought I’d give my response to it, mostly because the people commenting made me laugh and not for a good reason. Someone writes an article, gives their opinion, and all of a sudden they are the worst person in the world (just ask my buddy Shan Shariff).

If you want to read the article I’m referencing, you can find it here.

The article is written by a wife who talks about why her husband will always come before their children. Here are a few excerpts from this piece.

“The first year of our son’s life was the most difficult of our marriage to date and it is also the year I learned a very important lesson: My husband must always come before our children.”

First off, notice that she never said the words “my children aren’t important,” or “my children will receive far less attention than my husband.” She’s not trying to lessen the role of the wife and mother role in the home, she’s not trying to take us back to the 1950’s, but the amount of pissed off women in the comment section sure makes it seem that way.

Let me ask a simple question before I move on to another quote from this article. If this piece was written by a man instead of a woman and he talked about why his wife would always be more important than the kids, would we have as many pissed off comments? Or would people be nodding their heads like that’s the way it should be because it’s not the woman bowing to the man or [insert gasp here] making her husband important in the role of the home or in the role of a wife?

It’s just a question, answer it honestly. I don’t mind a debate here so don’t assume I’m trying to say something by asking a question. Should the husband make the wife more important than the kids but the wife shouldn’t do the same? Just trying to clarify.

Passions and Dreams

When I was growing up, I always thought dreams were something we had when we were sleeping and never something that was a goal in my life. I never thought I would wake up from a “dream” and say to myself, “I really would like to do that some day.” More than likely it was because my dreams were so off the wall unrealistic that I would never really say that to myself.

But as I got older I began to realize that having dreams was about more than just what you remembered from waking up after a long, or short, night’s sleep. I began to realize that having dreams was more about having and setting goals for yourself. It was about something that was realistic in your own mind and in your own heart, something that was reachable and something that you would love to be able to accomplish in the future.

For me, my dreams had always paralleled with what I was passionate about.

Twice a Year

Two times a year my wife, Kerri, and I get to be part of a ministry that we love and one that is near and dear to our hearts. Maybe one day we’ll be doing this more than twice a year but, for now, the anticipation for both times of the year is incredible because what we’ve seen happen to not only our marriage but other marriages who have gone through this particular weekend.

The name? Encounter. Marriage. Weekend.

Simply put? It’s a weekend to encounter God within your own marriage. There’s nothing quite like God moving not only inside yourself but in your spouse at the very same time. There’s nothing quite like having that intimate moment with God when he grabs you both by the heart and doesn’t let go. That one moment in time where everything changes.

Come expecting everything and anything.

Something About Texas

There’s something about Texas. No, really.

When I was growing up in the great state of California, there was always this draw to Texas even when I was a kid. I’ve always had family who lived here in the DFW metroplex and I would visit them on occasion. It was out in the country, the nights were filled with starry skies, crickets and bullfrogs. Well, that is if a passing thunderstorm wasn’t shaking the entire house.

There was always something about Texas.

In late February of 2008, I received a phone call from a friend of mine who was a district manager for the company I now work for. “Todd, I’ve got a job that opened up in the Dallas area and it’s yours if you want it.”

When you get a phone call like that you take the time to think long and hard about it and that’s exactly what I did. I talked to friends, I talked to family, and I searched my own heart. Did I want to leave everything I’ve ever known to make that move? Did I want to leave the comfortable confines of southern California, where I was living at the time, the perfect weather, the Sunday afternoons taking in a San Diego Padres’ game at Petco Park, and the weekends spent strolling around one of my favorite stops, Seaport Village, for severe weather, 100 degree summers, snow and chilling temperatures during the winter?

There was just something about Texas.

Married Friends

I tend to write too much so hopefully I can make this one short and sweet.

One of the things I’ve learned about being married is the friends that we keep and those that continue to encourage our marriage, walk things out with us, and pray for us and over us if we ever end up needing it.

That’s the thing about being married. You were never meant to walk things out alone regardless of whether you had a spouse or if you were single. You were always meant to have friends who were there for the both of you because they knew exactly what you had been going through. They’ve either been through it before or they had great advice on the steps to take to handle whatever you were going through.

It’s the one thing that I’m thankful for. We have great friends who are always there for us no matter when we call and they always encourage us no matter what we’re going through. I remember one couple praying over us before our daughter was born and giving us a prophetic word. There’s nothing like that, I promise you.

If you’re brand new to a city or church, find a small group in your area to get into. That might be the best way to get to know other couples who share the same faith and share the same ideals as you and your spouse. Find those other couples who can befriend you and let you know that you aren’t alone in this thing call life and this thing called marriage.

No. It isn’t easy to be married. If everyone could use the Staples ‘EASY’ button, everyone would get married and no one would ever go through a divorce. God created marriage to be a compromise, He created it to be worked on, He created it to constantly change and evolve.

So find those friends who will walk alongside you and will always be there for your marriage no matter what’s going on. They won’t ever condemn you if, or when, you make a mistake, and they’ll always be there for an encouraging word or just an ear to listen.

That’s the greatest blessing our married friends have given to Kerri and I.

Not the Time to Look Back

Seven years ago I made the decision to leave California, the only place I had called home through my 26 years of living, and take a job here in Texas where the only people I knew were two cousins and my uncle and aunt. I didn’t have friends here, I didn’t know where I was going to live, I didn’t know how I was going to handle the move, and I didn’t know what my life was going to become.

You know who did? God.

I thought I moved here for a job. What God knew, that I didn’t, was that I was moving here to meet the love of my life, my best friend, and my wife, and five years into our marriage we would add a beautiful baby girl, our daughter Hannah, to the mix.

I came to take a job. I ended up with something even more incredible.

Serve, Serve, Serve

I have to thank a good friend of mine for the title but I will have to admit that those were words that I needed to hear.

For those of you who have been through the pregnancy phase, especially you husbands, you know there are odd times of the day where your wife craves one thing or another. She wants this, that, or the other and she doesn’t want to leave the house which means it leaves you having to go either somewhere down the street or possibly to unreasonable distances to get whatever she wants at that particular time.

Normally, we’d be able to talk her out of that craving if she wasn’t pregnant. We’d tell her that we’re tired or we really don’t want to drive that far or in the worst circumstances, “it’s 2 o’clock in the morning, why are you waking me up for pickles and milk?”

But, as I mentioned earlier, during this phase, especially the last few weeks to the finish line, you know your wife isn’t comfortable and is more irritable than ever before. It’s not her fault, it’s entirely the baby’s fault for making her uncomfortable no matter what side she sleeps on at night or what position she shifts herself into on the bed at any given time during the night. Not to say you should hold that over your child even after they go to college, but after a dozen or more 1am trips to whatever store you might have to go to, I would think you’d be ready to hold anything over anyone at that point if only to make yourself feel better.

The Finish Line in Sight

For those who have been through this journey I don’t have to tell you how it goes, what you’re going to experience, or how you’re going to feel. I imagine everyone goes through the last few weeks of a pregnancy different and the day your child is born, whether it’s your first, second, or fourth, feels different from what anyone else has ever experienced.

With that said, we know just how close we are to meeting our sweet baby girl and the nerves, at least for me personally, are running on a level I don’t think I’ve ever experienced before.

We spent a rainy Sunday finally putting the baby monitors in her room as well as in ours since she’ll be sleeping in our room for at least the first few months before she transitions to her crib. Not to say she’ll be sleeping in our bed because I can tell you that absolutely will not be happening outside of her being fed or perhaps if we’re watching in a movie in bed before we call it a night. Outside of that, she’ll be in her crib or in the pack-n-play that’s on my wife’s side of the bed.

What we’re going through right now is a lot of prayer that our daughter comes on her own and won’t give us the option to induce her which is very much in play if that doesn’t happen. There are so many thoughts that run through your mind because of what you hear as far as pitocin is concerned and how hard it makes things on the mother-to-be. They say the contractions are harder, they say the labor is harder, and they say the pain is far worse than going into labor naturally.