Happy Birthday Catherine!......

Today is my wife Catherine's birthday! And I want everyone to know how much I love her. To say that she is a blessing to my life and to the lives of our kids and those who know her would be an understatement. She is my queen!

Catherine has been on spring break this week and combined with her parents being in town, she has been able to do a lot of gardening, as in getting our vegetable garden planted. So, for her birthday I wanted to get her a pair of "garden clogs". Being the procrastinator that I am, (or maybe I'm just hopelessly forgetful), I went to buy her a pair last night. I went to Lowes to find some but had no such luck. Similarly I had no luck finding a pair at Wal-Mart. So, it looks like I'm either going to have to find some online or someplace else. If anyone knows where I can find a pair, please let me know.

I'm not functioning very well this morning. I've been riding a lot these past few weeks and I consistently don't get enough sleep. So, now the lack of quality sleep is starting to catch up with me. Eleven O' Clock is when I usually go to bed. I would go to bed earlier, but after the kids are in bed is the only time during the day that Catherine and I can have some "down" time.

5a.m. is when I usually drag myself out of bed, make some coffee, and spend some quiet time listening to worship music and reading my bible or whatever book I may be reading at the time. It used to be that I would get up at 4:30a.m. to do this, but it seems that I've been having a harder and harder time doing this.

It used to be that I would allow things like not getting enough "quality" time with my Heavenly Father affect me. But, I've come to learn that He loves me whether I spend 2hrs with Him or 2minutes. I remember all to well the mornings that I would over sleep and only get to spend 5minutes or so pursuing the Father and how I would feel that I had disappointed Him with not spending enough time reading my bible. I realize now that that thought process comes from a place of not understanding the character of my Heavenly Father. He loves me regardless! He loves us regardless!

I remember one morning oversleeping. This was after I had had some breakthrough in the area of understanding my Heavenly Fathers heart for me. I was disappointed that I wasn't going to be able to spend as much time pursuing God the way that I like too. However, on this particular morning the Lord reminded me of what David said in Psalm 87:10 "A single day in your courts is better than a thousand anywhere else!" So, since then, I always remind myself of this Psalm when I oversleep on some weekday morning. It's been very freeing.

Sometimes, no most of the time, I go back and read what I have written and think to myself, "does this make sense to anybody but myself? Is this even coherent?". I don't know......I'm much better at riding a bike than I am at writing. But, I'll give it a shot in hopes that I can have an impact on somebody's life if not just my own...........