T-Rex doesn't want to be fed, he wants to hunt!

Oh frick! Carver look out behind you little dude!!!



(Photo courtesy of Miss America, paleontologist laureate)

Freedom is Free (100th Post!)

I was going to save my 100th post until I could use it to tell you that I successfully defended my thesis. I changed my mind. Over the last few days or so I have been feeling a pretty substantial amount of pressure while thinking win, win as I envision walking across the stage at my graduation. By substantial amount I mean it has been occupying my mind almost entirely. So, God gave me quite a freeing word this morning. I wrote it down on an index card at work. Here it is.

"If I do not successfully finish my thesis this semester, or ever, if I do not become a PA, or own a brewery, or a farm, if I never own a home or write a book, if I never have an audience, I will have been made in the image of God, I will have had His breath breathed into me to give me life. I will have discovered His kindness, His sacrifice for me, His forgiveness, His faithfulness, and His Holy Spirit that brings the Kingdom of God to us."

We do not have to be spiritually subject to the characteristics of the world that are broken. In view of the glory of God and His righteousness to us, I am convinced that our momentary troubles, however terrible they may be, are not worthy to even be compared to the goodness that is to come.

Update: "I saw the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken."

Pigpen takes a bath

One of my favorite parts about the weekend is that Carver still wakes up at 6:30 or 7:00, even though the rest of the world is sleeping in. This is also not my favorite part sometimes, but I really delight in being the one that gets up with him. We're both big time morning people. Much of this may have something to do with the reocurring theme of the act of drinking coffee making me feel real awesome about things. Anyway, this morning Carver gave me two unsolicited kisses, and that made me feel like the king of the castle. Right now his head is in a big plastic pitcher from the pantry and he's yelling. The hearing test lady from the hospital when he was born would be disappointed. She recommends wearing ear plugs like 8 hours a day or something.

So I haven't gone about earning my masters degree in the most orthodox way, so far. I could write a book on how this whole thing has gone, but about two months ago I wasn't sure if I'd ever finish. Now I think I'll have my initial draft, ready to defend, sent to my committee by this Wednesday. I honestly don't know what it will feel like to not have this thing hanging over my head anymore. I don't remember the last time I had the feeling of not having something enormous hanging over my head. Sometimes I would compare it to the dust cloud around pig pen, but instead of dust its residue of academic shame and pressure. Doesn't that just sound terrible? Wow. Well, in any case, I AM SO FREAKING CLOSE TO BEING DONE!!! I will bet anyone $83,000 that the day I finish I will be the happiest guy in America. Anyone.

So anyway, seeing as how I'm a morning person and I have about 60-80 hours of work to accomplish, it would probably be prudent for me to go write...not blog. Maybe next time I post I'll be getting ready to defend my research. When I started this blog I think I was about a year into it. Crazy huh?

Oh, I just remembered what my original reason was for blogging this morning. So Carver, Valerie and I have been sick. Some kind of sore throat, congestion, etc. type thing. Naturally Carver did not sleep great because he's sick. At 5-something this morning I went into his room to give him his pacifier (he had been crying), and the neighbors are tapping on the other side of his wall, like, "Hey 1 year old, you're keeping us up...please quit crying." Before they tapped I was about half asleep. Immediately I woke up completely and thought, who in the world knocks on the wall to get a baby to stop crying? Definitely my least favorite thing about apartment living is worrying about noise and neighbors.

Aubrey Michelle

I am now an uncle of three! I have an (almost) 11 year old niece whose smile is just like my sister’s, a 6 and a half year old nephew who I want to go on adventures with every day, and a brand new, beautiful, eight and a half pound niece who was just born last night. Her name is Aubrey and I love her. I hardly know her, but half of her is the most incredible man I know other than my dad and the other half is my faithful, honest, and beautiful sister-in-law, Natalie, who seemed to harness the redemption of labor and delivery for womankind with her strength, confidence, and peacefulness through the whole thing. I can’t even express how proud I am to be family with these three.

Guinea Pig

I am not up at 4:55AM because of my one year old, or rowdy neighbors, or insomnia. I am up because I would rate the pain level in my shoulder at 99 out of 100. As many of you may know, I am a sucker for giving back to science via being a guinea pig for research trials involving humans...and a sucker for the cash it pays. Among others, I have earned $300 for taking one dose of a diabetic medication (I am not diabetic) that had not yet been tested on humans, or a placebo. $200 for taking laxatives, or a placebo. $1,000 for going a month without and vitamin B6 and eating only bagels, jello, buttered pasta, and egg burritos for the whole month. And now I am being paid $160 to take part in a shoulder pain study. Day one they run me through these pain tolerance tests, and then have me work out my dominant shoulder until it is totally fatigued. Then the next four days I do the same pain tolerance tests. It turns out somewhere between 36 and 48 hours after the shoulder workout you experience the worst muscle soreness you've ever felt. And that's saying a lot considering I had rabdomyolysis about 2 months ago from trying to keep up with my brothers-in-law in a workout of push-ups and pull-ups. So, now I am awake because the pain is keeping me up. Did I mention I can't stretch or take any anti-inflamatories?
Sorry for the griping. I had to tell someone, and I didn't want to wake up Val. The good news is that I have been in the control group for all of these studies, which means I don't have diabetes, constipation, a B6 deficiency, or shoulder surgery.

Of goods and sundry

Well for starters, its Friday! This weekend is what is being called by many "man weekend". A bunch of us are headed to Chase's farm house to ride 4-wheelers, play football like B. Favre and his friends in the Wrangler commercials, and shoot clay pigeons...plus I told Danny I'm going to shoot him with bird shot from a fare distance away. I missed this weekend last year. Well, I wouldn't say I missed it exactly, but I wasn't there. Carver was just a week old at the time.

By the way, Chase lives in The Sudan working for Samaritan's Purse. We get him for just a couple weeks a year...otherwise he'd have to pay taxes.

So for an update to my last post, all seeds of bitterness towards said employer have been burnt up in a fire. Now it is spring flowers. He makes all things new indeed. Amen and amen!

In other news, I am on a campaign to not feel older than my age anymore. I have been doing crossfit endurance workouts on a somewhat regular basis, and I am JACKED AND PUMPED ABOUT GETTING JACKED AND PUMPED BRO! AMIRITE?! POUND IT BRO!

And to really make this one of the most random posts ever, my 2010 list of goals, in no particular order...

- Run a half marathon or an Olympic length tri-athlon,
- get excellent marks in PA school,
- finish my thesis (this is by May),
- have normal cholesterol levels,
- and turn a couple-o-haploids into one diploid IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN BRO!!! (FIST POUNDS HIS BUDDY WHILE ADJUSTING HIS NERDY LABORATORY SPECTACLES).

Life...or...Why I need the Gospel

The Gospel is hard. Or at least I should say, if the gospel means suffering with Christ, and allowing Christ to suffer for other people, then the gospel is hard. Over the last couple weeks I have been treated pretty poorly at work, and at least from my perspective have not been communicated with well or respectfully and have been somewhat misrepresented to the powers that be. At the same time I was cut to 20 hours because of "cut backs". The hardest part is not that we are missing half my income, but that if I am to live a life worthy of the gospel of Christ, I am supposed to forgive them. I'm supposed to let the perfect Messiah suffer in their place. If I don't, surely I don't deserve His suffering in my place.
The most striking realization I've had of this came Saturday night. Carver has been sick and was up almost the entire night, unconsolably crying. At one point I got so frustrated that I had to just set him down in his crib and walk away. I was extremely frustrated with a one year old who cannot control how he feels when he gets sick or his perspective on when the symptoms will end. If I can get that angry with my incredible, perfect son, I need the gospel more than any of you.
The gospel does not come down to making wrongs right, it comes down to the unjust being completely justified. This is why the world has a problem with the gospel. It does not fit well in our current system.