Palmer Charles

I am a blessed man. As my family grows, I see more and more how graciously God navigates and guides us through seasons. Through each transition I am more overwhelmed and thankful for His generosity to me. First, God entrusted me with the most beautiful woman and Godly wife that I could ever hope to be partnered with. Then, two years later our lives were rocked with the addition of little Gabriella. As we prepared to ease ourselves into the terrible two's our lives were rocked yet again with the anticipation of another little one! Just when we thought we were gaining some traction and perceived "control" over our lives, God gently reminded us again that He is in control and has incredible things in mind.

Palmer Charles was born a week before his due date early on a Saturday morning on March 31. What an indescribable experience to go through with my Jenna. After nine months of restless sleep and lots of back-rubs the day came when we miraculously witnessed the split second moment of a person joining us in the world. It truly is indescribable, the formation of a beating heart inside the womb, then the few flutters of movement which gradually turn into visible kicks: undeniable evidence of life that only our Creator can give.

God wasn't lying when he said there would be pain in childbirth. I praise God numerous times everyday that I am not a woman and childbirth is a perfect example of this! It's so humbling watching Jenna willingly experience the pain of childbirth for the health and good of our baby. Jenna sweetly says that there is now way she could go through childbirth without me, but really all I do time contractions, hold her, breathe with her and whisper encouragement into her ear. Inside I'm gritting my teeth and wondering how much more of this I can handle before I yell, "Give my son the juice!"

The most humbling moment came after Jenna had been in intense active labor for several hours and had transitioned into the large jetted tub at the birthing center. The warm water worked like magic and allowed her a few seconds of relief between contractions. I knelt by her side holding a wet cloth on her head and letting her squeeze my hand. I timed contractions and constantly told her how proud of her I felt. As the contractions came on so quickly it was easy for both of us to feel out of control which is the toughest part of natural childbirth: purposefully losing control and letting the mother's body do what it was created to do!

As the contractions came on strongly and quickly Jenna felt overcome by them and even our Lamaze breathing began to lose it's effectiveness. In Jenna's worst moment of feeling completely out of control she simply cried out in prayer, "Lord help me, I can't do this on my own!"

Do you know how badly I want to be the one who cares for my wife and assures her that no matter what she can rely on me and I can carry her burdens? I wish I could describe how humbling it was to watch my wife intentionally experience pain and as it became harder than she could take her true colors showed and she went to her Rock. I hope that in my worst moment that I would turn to my Creator. Jenna taught me an invaluable lesson in this moment: in our hardest trials, cry out the Lord. Our suffering may not even be for our benefit (although in God's sovereignty we know that all things are). He might be doing a work in us for everyone else to witness. We don't know if our midwives were believers but they stood back and watched us labor together, and saw Jenna turn unashamedly turn to her God. I know they saw something different in my wife.

Although those intense minutes seemed like hours they ended just like that. Jenna told the midwife she felt like she needed to push and in a few short minutes we heard a baby cry and Palmer was placed on Jenna's chest. We both cried.

After the cord stopped pulsing giving little Palmer the last of his needed blood supply from Jenna, I told the midwife that I'm not the guy who needed to cut the cord, there are medical professionals for that. She laughed and generously stood in the gap for me.

The next few hours were perfect, we held our baby (Jenna) and slept (me), and our midwife bustled around our room cleaning up, taking temperatures and vitals from both mom and baby and let us rest. Within a few hours Jenna's strength had returned and after a quick picture with our midwife were on our way home.

Before:



After:









Although Pro-Life isn't an intentional theme of this blog, it's the most obvious message that Palmer's beating little heart shouts more loudly than I can. Palmer was a person from the moment he was conceived. God saw his unformed body. (Psalm 139). He will be inconvenient, expensive, and cause all kinds of trouble but He is made in the image of God and it's my privilege and honor to be called his dad and introduce him to his Heavenly Father. It's not our decision to avoid the 9 month pregnancy that his little life required, or to decide whether or not that little fertilized egg should have a chance, or a matter of women's rights. It's about a little person that God chose to breathe life into. It is worth it, all of it. I'm so glad my parents thought the same way about me.

Thank you God for Palmer Charles.

Seasons

This is Cash.



I've owned him for the past eight years. This is me roping off of him in high school.



My alter-ego is Jim Craig from The Man from Snowy River and I actually grew up wanting to be a large animal vet. God had other things in mind and I've held on to my horse pretty tightly. "Necessary Endings" by Henry Cloud is a book that I've been processing through and selling Cash was an opportunity to practice the reality of endings that Cloud speaks of. For whatever reason I don't let go of things very well and unfortunately for me, letting go of things is a part of life. As we read in Ecclesiastes, "there is a time for everything."

I'm a slow processor and am bad at "metabolizing" a past experience to learn from it as Cloud writes, end it, and move on to the next season. My goal is to preach about and shine a light on the things HE is doing in my life because HE is so intricately involved in every aspect of my life and I want His evidence to be known. (The point of this blog). This is me writing and metabolizing the reality that I don't always know what He is doing or what I'm supposed to learn. If you've spent any considerable time talking with me or reading my blog you know that most of the lessons I've learned in life and the metaphors in my vocabulary came from working with horses. This means I've either graduated, given up my credibility, or need to find new material for my metaphors.

Providing for and leading a family requires sacrifice and being a Christian requires giving up our lives - losing our lives to gain Christ. I know families and Christians who are literally losing their lives for Christ and sacrificing much; my loss seems small in comparison. I am thankful for God's patience as I even give up my horses to Him. Cash went to a great home on a huge ranch with other horses to a great guy who will love him, use him and eventually retire him. (Horse talk for shoot him. Just kidding, I promise I'm not that calloused, this is normal in processing endings, I read about it.)

Anyway, here's to twenty years of being a cowboy. I'm not giving up my spurs just yet. (I can't find them).



Now does anyone want to buy a horse trailer?

Cowboy Collin

Our Little Girl

My camera has been on a sabbatical for too long. I pulled it out of the case and snapped a few pic of our quickly growing up daughter before my battery died...that's what happens when it isn't used more frequently. I get it, I get it.

I was sitting on the floor, following her around snapping pictures of her and she wandered over to the side table and sneakily grabbed my iPhone which she refers to as, "Baby." Perhaps we are sending the wrong message. After flipping open the case she began to scroll through my aps saying, "Peekersh, peekersh, peekersh," and nodding incessantly. She wanted to look at pictures of herself.



After I took her precious away from her to somehow discourage her extreme vanity she trundled over to the bench she stands on where she waves good-bye to me when I leave for work.



She then proceeded to blow me a kiss and say, "A-you!" (I love you).



There is some profound parenting lesson and experience in the middle of this that I haven't quite wrapped my mind around, but I'm thankful for these moments and the "peekersh" to remember them by which probably isn't helping the whole vanity thing.

That's okay. I'll toughen up tomorrow.

Or maybe the next day.

Think About It

Honesty time, I frequent Facebook often. I was a Facebooker before you could upload photo albums and it was restricted to colleges, and remain of the sect that thinks it should still be that way. This is actually quite dumb to say because as an adult well out of college I wouldn't even be allowed on Facebook. How about a spoon full of that sugar. Anyway, as we've traveled the nation and lived in numerous places we've developed many relationships that I thoroughly enjoy keeping up with and Facebook is a convenient, albeit contrived and sometimes shallow, window into their world.

I'm also the type that reads links that people share - if it's important enough for your status, it must be important enough to read and I find myself gleaning all kinds of valuable insight and wisdom from places like Huffington Post as well as very strange YouTube videos. Quite frequently, however, I run across a gem worth mentioning. I want to share a few with you, not necessarily due to the content of all of them.

Leaders differentiate from followers in lots of ways. One way I see among my circle is that followers tend to "jump on the bandwagon" pretty quickly. In Christian circles we see this pretty blatantly as trends come and go. There are many prominent leaders who come up with a catchy new way to think about our Christianity, or a niche topic like money and relationships and followers are quick to buy into their new way to think about it.

I'm preaching to myself here, because I honestly have fallen into this trap many times myself, and as I mature and grow in my faith I want to stand strong against the devil's attacks which we all know too well are often disguised.

John Piper and the Desiring God camp are a tremendous wealth of Biblical insight and have championed and I might venture to say, "popularized" reformed theology. I ran across this post on their blog by David Mathis entitled "Parents, Beware: Proverbs Are Not Promises."

Feel free to read the whole thing, it's not very long, but this is the first Desiring God material that I've read and honestly disagree with. Mathis states that we might reject the prosperity gospel as it applies to finances, but buy into the idea that if we follow a list of rules in the Bible there will be a specific outcome which he highlights here in the form of relationships.

He mentions a few Proverbs that offer a direct outcome if certain actions are taken, Prov 22:6, "Raise up a child in the way He should go and in the end he will not depart from it," and many others that sound a lot like promises. He cautions readers of the Proverbs to not read them as promises:

Now, we need to be clear here. The proverbs commend certain paths to family members because they reflect the ways God ordinarily distributes his blessings. But ordinarily does not mean necessarily. Excellent wives have good reason to expect honor from their husbands and children. Fathers with integrity often enjoy seeing God’s blessings on their children. Parents who train their children in the fear of the Lord follow the path that frequently brings children to saving faith.

But excellent wives, faithful husbands, and conscientious parents often endure terrible hardship in their homes because proverbs are not promises. They are adages that direct us toward general principles that must be applied carefully in a fallen world where life is always somewhat out of kilter.

As the books of Job and Ecclesiastes illustrate so vividly, we misconstrue the Word of God when we treat proverbs as if they were divine promises.

What? Most of the Proverbs are if-then statements which by definition are promises. If we can't trust that when God said, "do something, and this will be the outcome." Then we have some serious faith and belief issues.

It is true that following the letter of the law to achieve a desired outcome is not possible. This is not because the letter of the law is wrong, it's because we are people. Imperfect, sinful people. Mathis states that excellent wives, and faithful husbands will have terrible hardship. This isn't because Proverbs is wrong, it's because as people we aren't capable of being excellent, completely righteous people 100% of the time. It's not possible. My challenge is not the legitimacy of a God inspired promise, but in my ability to be perfect. Were I capable of raising my children perfectly in the way that they should go so in the end they would not depart from it, I believe that because the Bible says so there is a great chance that in the end my children won't depart from it.

The reality of our humanity is a huge humility pill we all need to swallow. I'm not perfect. I have already made numerous mistakes raising sweet Gabby and will continue to make many more even as I prayerfully strive to be the best dad I can be. It will only be by the Lord's grace that she won't depart from the Way as she's older, not because I did anything right. The flaw in Mathis' writing is not the Proverbs, it's in his view of man. This really surprises me coming from a Reformed Calvinist. Mathis' statement sounds like a "mulligan" for parents. "You can try really hard and be a perfect parent, but the Proverbs lied, your kid might end up a failure. Good luck." The problem is not the Proverb, the problem is me.

I feel like I'm on a rant and I apologize for that. I know that the scripture can stand for itself. It's lasted thousands of years without me defending it, but when I stake my life on these principles and find hope in my dark and discouraging hours, it angers me when trend-setting, spiritual leaders minimize and belittle the Word of God.

Psalm 119:114 is my thankful prayer.

"Your promises have been thoroughly tested, and your servant loves them."

Here's my point: Read and believe the Truth first. This is our filter and the lens with which everything that comes toward us must pass through. 1 Thessalonians 5:21 says,

"Test everything. Hold on to the good."

No matter the source, whether it be from me, your pastor, a good book. Test it. Let's hold on to those promises!

Gabby's First Snow Day

Jenna said I'm not allowed to call it "baby-sitting" when it's your own child. Since I'm not really sure what else to call it, we'll leave it that for the time being. This afternoon while Jen was at one of her routine pre-natal visits I had some Gabby time. It finally warmed up enough to try out the old sled and the pictures tell you more than I can.

"Yes, Gabby snow is cold. Now leave your gloves on and hold on."



She finally figured it out and I think she started having fun.

No More Dreaded Mondays

Appropriate, I guess, that it happened to be a Monday that I post this! At the recommendation from a good friend, bass player and entrepreneur, Doug Price, I read this book.



Dan Miller is a speaker, career coach and successful businessman who shares his philosophy and thoughts on finding personal fulfillment in your work. He came from an ultra-conservative background and has experienced life with very little and learned how to cultivate wealth. I enjoyed reading and learning about financial success from a Biblical perspective which I feel is rare. (Apart from Dave Ramsey who's main push is getting out of debt). I agree with Dan:

A lot of us hold on to the primitive religious belief that poverty and self-sacrifice are pleasing to God. And many of the nonreligious among us as well have fallen victim to the belief that poverty is inevitable because there's not enough to go around. Too many good people are ashamed of wanting much for fear they may deprive others of having their needs met. But as I see it, the reverse is true. The best way to help the poor is to reduce their numbers by not being one of them.

He reminds Christians that it's not money that is evil, it's the LOVE of money that is evil and serving money instead of Christ is wrong. His biggest push throughout the book is to change people's thinking and help them see that they aren't trapped. I can definitely relate to being in a job that I felt trapped in because it was provision, and a means to an end. He says that America is full of opportunity for passionate, talented individuals who are doing their jobs well. By finding and doing what you're passionate about, provision and wealth will simply follow because people are always willing to invest and partner with individuals who are passionate about their jobs. This is convicting. He asks the question,

Who really is the slave of money, the person who is doing something he or she loves and in the process making $250,000 a year? No, it's the person who, each day, goes to a job he or she hates, just for the money - there's the person who has made money his or her god. There's the person who focuses on and loves money.

His point is not that all of us should be rich and make fortune finding our life goal, His encouragement is that we can find fulfillment, joy and passion in our jobs by using the gifts and talents He's already given us. He promises provision for His children already, we just need to have the faith that the provision comes from Him and not stay in a situation because of perceived job security. Doing what we're passionate about that consequently makes money and trusting the Lord for His provision is the only real job security.

In today's traditional workplace, security is an illusion. when you are working for a company, your fate is in the hands of one person - your boss (or, even worse, the shareholders and executives who see you as fixed overhead, not a person). A decision by one person, one who might not even know your name, can put you out on the street. But in your own business, if you are selling hot dogs on the street corner, everyone of your customers would have to fire you before you're out of business. If you are selling products on eBay, you have 222 million potential customers from all over the world - having one who doesn't like you or your product does not put you out of business.

As General Douglas MacArthur said, "Security is the ability to produce." Your security is in knowing clearly what it is that you do well and then doing that with excellence.

I feel like this is a boring blog post, I do apologize for that. This book is $7 on Amazon and I think you'll really be inspired by it. I appreciate having my mind opened and my perspective widened, I also like knowing that I'm not trapped and that I always have options, it's my choice!

Christmas Legacy

So I went digging around in my memory box again today. New Years Eve tends to have that effect on me. There are so many cool moments in my box that I want to share with you, I kind of hope 2012 isn't the end of it. That's selfish, sorry.

I shared with you my apprehension for Christmas this year and the encouragement I preached to myself to maintain the gospel-centricity of Christmas over the return to old feelings and memories of what Christmas used to be. Well it happened (Christmas) and I just wanted to touch base with you on the other side of it.

Jenna made the rounds waking everyone up, even Gabby who Murphy's Law would have it was actually sleeping in (my Christmas present). We crawled out of bed and watched Jenna and Mindy open Gabby's Christmas presents.

Here are a few favorites:











I'm growing up. That should probably be the correct title of this blog. I'm reminded by that as I pull out photographs of a childhood Christmas from my memory box.





I think I'm six years old here and I remember this Christmas well. Mom and Dad did their very best to make Christmas special for us every year and succeeded. They didn't always spend tons of money, but what they gave us was always full of thought. Here I'm opening a set of tools and a tool box. I still have this tool box, it's sitting in my closet holding some music gear. I still have the saw, hammer and a few clamps from this tool set. Each one has come in handy in the last twenty years, building my little house, helping friends with projects.

I think about the term legacy often these days. I've been given a tremendous responsibility and gift from my Heavenly Father to raise and impact some precious souls in my life. Gabby is probably too young to remember this Christmas, but I'm looking forward to next. I'm looking forward to getting to know her and our little son who's name I still don't know. I want to know them well enough to equip them and give them the tools they need for their future the way my parents did for me.

My parents didn't just give me tools, they gave me insight into how a young man grows and develops. I'm thankful for the moments as a parent when I feel equipped, they don't come often and when they do I relish them, just like I relish this Christmas.

Happy Birthday Dad

My dad turned 54 a few days ago (sorry dad, the cat's out of the bag). As normal I'm a few days late acknowledging it. I use the excuse that I like to stretch the celebration out, but most people see right through that.

I've learned a ton from my dad.

He taught me how to use my hands and build stuff, how to be my own man and not have to pay other guys to do what I can do myself. He taught me how to use a saw and hammer nails, he showed me a love for the smell of sawdust and fresh drywall.



He showed me that there's a farmer inside of every man and that there's nothing quite like sitting on a tractor thinking about life.



He showed me that wearing Cahartt wasn't a redneck fashion statement, but a necessity. If you were cold after that, grunt and work harder.



He taught me a love for animals. A dog really is a man's best friend and that horses can teach you more about life than any person.



I love you, Dad. Thanks for investing so much into my life and teaching me the importance of having integrity and how to be a man.

Christmas Memories

We're slowly working through our second Michiana winter. If you've ever experienced lake effect snow then you know exactly what I mean by "working through." Being from Colorado Jenna and I scoffed when locals or other survivors tried to prepare us. Before the ice age last year I asked one of our office staff members if the snow sticks around all year. I received a short blank stare and then immediate peels of laughter from her and everyone who overheard my dumb question. That was not the first time I thought to myself, "Where in the world are we?"

Evidently there is a thirty square-mile section of land on the south-eastern tip of Lake Michigan that gets the brunt of all of Lake Michigan's fury and South Bend, IN sits right in the middle of it. It's like Lake Michigan has some serious emotional baggage and choses to take it all out on South Bend. Maybe it's mad because it gets all of Chicago's pollution first, or maybe because it's farthest from the ocean, I really have no idea. Either way, we get to experience Lake Michigan's yearly winter temper tantrum in all it's glory. If you have a two year-old you understand what I'm saying. If you have a two year-old and live in South Bend you probably need drugs and counseling. I'll give you some numbers.

Anyway, last year even the locals said the winter was bad. This year, however, we are nearly to Christmas and we've only had but a dusting. I'm thrilled! No, ecstatic! Ironically, in Nashville we nostalgically pined about a White Christmas when we we cruised around in our two-wheel-drive air conditioning, and now I'm attempting jumping jacks while bundled up in Carhartt in my F-150 that I contemplated leaving chains on all last year. Funny how seasons change.

With all the talk about snow and Christmas I am reminded of my childhood. Granted, the old memories often get sweeter with time, but I had to dig out a few pictures of Colorado winters to see if the sky was as blue as I remembered. Turns out my memory's pretty good.



I have albums and shoe boxes full of photographs that my dad took of us growing up. As a professional photographer he beautifully captured almost every important moment and season of our lives growing up. In a memory and tradition filled season like the one we're in I find myself thoughtfully thumbing through those albums and boxes. It's like I'm looking for something. I still haven't found it, but what I am finding is quite simple - I'm growing up. I get to be Santa now. (Sorry kids). I get to establish traditions and memories for my family.

My parents divorced a little over a year ago after thirty years of marriage and in seasons like this I find myself emotionally trying to pick up pieces. What I also see in a box of pictures is broken promises, forgotten memories, an incomplete legacy.

While we were singing Christmas carols in church this morning I was challenged by this: Christmas cannot be only about memories, traditions, and nostalgia. We must maintain the gospel-centricity of Christmas. Christ didn't come to fit into the clever rhymes of our carols, He came to save the world. When I remember this I'm embarrassed that I make it about my childhood memories and that I feel let down by my parents, and honestly that I complain about the weather and always want what I don't have.

There's a greater picture being painted that I want to have eyes to see. Just like the grey lake effect skies clouds my memory of brilliant blue sky, I won't let my own memories make me forget about Christmas.

I'm going to go drink some egg-nog now.

Everyone Needs a Cabin

I was looking for a photograph in my LightRoom library the other day and ran across this picture I took last March when we were home in Colorado.



I grew up sharing a room with my older brother and by the time I turned fourteen I decided I needed my own room. Even though we didn't have an extra bedroom in our house, in a moment of ungrateful, junior high attitude I felt like my Dad needed to do something about it and get me my own room. In addition to many life skills, probably the three main character qualities that my dad stressed during my childhood were, responsibility, integrity and obedience and he never missed an opportunity to instill these principles. This scenario was no exception and I remember him looking at me for a second with this perplexed look and then said, "Ok. I tell you what: if you want your own room you can build it." After a few days of feeling like my feelings weren't validated I decided that I would do just that. Build my own room.

I know well the two opinions on John Eldridge and have read many of his books. While some argue his theology and Biblical basis, I've found that he has some wise insight to the way a man thinks. In "The Way of The Wild Heart," a book he wrote as a follow up to, "Wild at Heart," he explains the stages of manhood and says that young men need to be allowed to be "king" and rule over something in their lives. He says that young men will learn about life, natural consequences and responsibility through owning pets, building forts, getting hurt, having a place that is all their own. I'm glad my parents understood this principle and gave me numerous opportunities to take on great responsibility. This is one of the biggest reasons my parents advocated homeschooling and wanted us to learn valuable, practical life lessons.

Anyway, my dad is an artist, creative, and an excellent carpenter and I grew up constantly building and rebuilding projects of various sizes. We had recently rebuilt a deck and my dad said I could have all of the old redwood scrap. After spending a few months drawing up plans (I can't find them, otherwise I would show one to you!) I showed them to my dad, picked a corner of our five acre lot as far from the barn and house as possible and went to work.

Over a process of more than two years I proceeded to build my little house funded from left over material from local developments and whatever I couldn't find, I bought myself using money I earned at dinner music gigs I played piano at throughout Colorado Springs. I insulated, wired and drywalled this the entire 96 square feet and believe it or not spent many nights in it. I heated it with a small antique wood stove that now holds my printer in my studio.

God uses everything in our life for a reason. Even though I was in junior high and this was not whatsoever a life changing event, I ran into a closed door when my dad said I couldn't have my own room. I remember being mad and upset, but what came out of my sweating, bleeding, applying myself, spending much time, money and energy was a lifeskill I don't think I could have learned any other way. I'm thinking now of the mountains in my life now that I really just would rather give up on and say it's not worth it. Is it really not worth it, or is this just a cabin waiting to be built?

This is my Dad's cabin that he built with his brothers in the mountains of Colorado. Every man should have one. There's your challenge: what's the cabin in your life? Go build it.