When God reminded me of Romans 7, I was struggling. Seemed like every day I was calling out to Jesus for help against an evil I didn’t want to deal with and I didn’t understand why it was there at all. Then this verse, Romans 7: 21-25, showed up like an urgent text within my head and I breathed a little easier. Right there at work I stopped what I was doing, my emotions a mess, my heart off beat from the battles within me, and I prayed to Jesus.

This moment, simple and cute, made me smile. My wife asked me what was so funny, as she had noticed my childish grin. I told her it was just something you don’t usually see or read in romance stories. There we were in our living room during quiet time after the kids’ lunch, and we were eating our anniversary meal at our kids table with Arena happy as a puppy being given fries and sips of mom’s soda. The entire scene just felt good, wholesome, and real.

In less than a week, I decided to tell my wife that I can’t share her, and she can only have women friends, even on games. You can probably guess how well that went down. If you can’t guess, don’t worry, I’ll tell you. A three-day argument that almost destroyed us was the result.

Christians do not get a free ride down some easy lane or paved path. This year alone I paid off a loan, reduced another, and thought I was about to have some extra income. My home insurance jumped up and I could only find one other that was slightly cheaper. Thought I’d saved the family $300 a month, turns out the money gets to go somewhere else anyways. Life of escrow, if you know it, you feel my pain.

Rainy’s parents, my fairly awesome in-laws, like to give us marriage devotionals each year. So far we’ve tried them and set them down after a few nights trying to read them. This year seemed to be going the same way until I tried a different tactic. Rainy loves getting letters from me, so I thought I’d try reading one of our devotional books one day at a time and leave my thoughts written down along the pages for Rainy.

My questioning isn’t if Jesus loves me or not. My questioning is am I wasting time writing these journal entries and chasing after our business? Is this the path I should be going, or am I being a fool? Should I turn around, try something else? Why do I ask this, because I haven’t seen Jesus move on either of these paths except within myself.

On this subject I’m on both ends of the parenting life. My previous journal entry spoke of being grounded by my newborn, and that’s true. Rainy and I are proud yet tired parents of a little girl, Ember, who turned 4 months old today. We’re also parents of two daughters in their twenties and now parents of their own baby girls. Our family ain’t small, and there’s a lot of estrogen flooding the branches these years. With older kids that turn adults there’s a new part of parenting I’m learning, being forgotten, and it sucks.

We knew the first weeks would be the hardest on us. We weren’t wrong. I will tell anyone that the first five months are the most difficult, and I still believe it. The truth is, children are a blessing from God, but blessings from God aren’t always easy. Babies all the way up to grown adults, are still your children and your blessing from God. They will always need you; they’ll just need you in different ways.

     Catching Up: So, my previous article, Journal Entry 28, was about communing with Jesus and ended on a high note about Jesus speaking to me through these three songs in a way that was amazing and brought me tears of joy. I also ended that article with a tid bit about praising and running to Jesus even in the rough times like when my child decided that very next day to flush wads of wipes down the toilet. This is the article about that next day and those wipes.

There are people who will disagree with me on this, but we can speak to Jesus. Now, I would love for Jesus to show up with a witty smile on his face knowing he’s about to shock and awe me with a knocking at my front door. That would be incredible. This is not what I’m talking about when I mean speaking with Jesus. I’m referring to inward communion with Jesus through prayer and communication. My teacher in this is John Eldredge, a great author, who, has spent most of his adult life teaching others how to communion with Jesus. But, like I said, some people are going to buck at the idea of Jesus speaking to us, yet, I will tell my story from my experience and let those who want to hear, listen.

“God, what the heck?” I was on hold with my insurance company, and I wanted to punch a hole through my desk. More likely I’d break my hand, so probably good I didn’t try. Every call I made, each person I spoke to, a dead end. Finally, I gave up the fight for the night and told myself to try again tomorrow. But I was still angry with God, angry that he let this happen and held us down, AGAIN. God, being God, dropped a rescue line down for me within my own fuming fires.

“Remember,” I smiled, trying to not be too serious. “We’re saved by grace. It’s by grace, not us.” She paused and for a moment seemed to take in my words. With that I jokingly added that neither of us were perfect, so thank Jesus we have grace. Then, I left the room to continue on my rounds.

Today I went back to work. Today I missed my morning silliness with my toddlers. Today I missed spending the morning with my wife and being able to help her with our newborn. Today I missed holding my newborn, Ember, and being able to spend so much more time with her. Today I missed a family gathering around the living room with my in-laws, sis, and our family for most of the early day. I came home at the end of it, tired, barely able to keep my eyes open. Today I went back to work, because, that’s what my family requires of me, but I didn’t want to go.

By the title you can probably guess this journal entry is about our daughter. Ember, now 2 days old, has entered the wild place of Earth. This is another blessing from God, and thank you Jesus, she is healthy. Mom is well, she needed a couple pints of blood, but besides that, everything is good with her and she’s on the several weeks long path of healing and getting her body back to normal. Rainy told me she’s just happy to have no more tubes or IV’s stuck to her.

Ever had a song, movie, poem, painting or even a moment in a piece of clip art or video game story catch your heart and make you pause? I have. These moments are time stoppers for me. Not that I stop time, that would be interesting, but that I pause while time moves around me. These moments, these pieces of expressive art, act like warm light inviting me to see beyond the darkness that seems to keep rallying around me in this broken world.

The scary part is that bad things, evil, true evil, happens to people, even our loved one’s. Sometimes we're their and we have the chance to stop it, yet, there will be times we won't be there. I have two grown daughters that are out in the world, and I pray and hope for them, but I'm not there to protect them. God is, and, as I told my son, sometimes, for reasons I don't truly understand, God allows evil to happen to us.

I’m a geek, especially when it comes to strategy based games. Civilization VII just came out, and I snatched it up the moment I could. It’s basically a giant strategy game that spans the dawn of time up to the modern age. You take control of a single kingdom that starts out tiny, and you, through many decisions and challenges, build a legacy. With one settler it all begins.

        God plays a strategy game with all of us. He started with Adam, added Eve, and here we are thousands of years later. Me being the geek that I am, I get amazed at the idea of the moves God had to do to get me here where I am today.

I’ll jump into this admitting I don’t understand. Probably not a great way to start an article, but it’s the truth that I’m trying to share here. Lately my mind has been bouncing around God’s creation, the how of it, and the why of it. God created us. I get that part. There is more than enough obvious proof that there is a being beyond time and creation that had to start all of this. Evolution and any other theory you throw at God, fails; because, every other theory tries to force a creation out of nothing. This is impossible no matter how much ‘time’ you throw at it. God, a being beyond time and creation, is the only answer, yet people will fight this.

Currently I’m going through Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlite Archive. He recently released book 5, and of course, I have to listen to book 1 – 4 all over again; before I listen to book 5.

Without giving out spoilers, I’m just going to say I was at a part in book 3 where advice was being given by a jovial, spry, old king to one of the main characters. During the part in the book a realization struck me and then came out of me without warning. The old king was giving advice and being kind yet bluntly honest, and a question went through my mind.

-  What about this scene tugs so hard on my heart? -

My wife is about a month and a couple weeks away from pushing out our 7th daughter, Ember. What can I say, God gave me pink sperm, so I have two boys and about to be 7 girls. Sadly, yet beautifully, we males of the house are greatly outnumbered. Even though we’re out numbered, I wouldn’t know a life worth living without being surrounded by my children. God has blessed this family in multitudes, and I am thankful.