Yesterday I woke up feeling pretty terrible, and I spent most of the day shivering while wrapped up in a fleece blanket. But before that, we managed to take a visit to see some newborn lambs at the farm where Keri’s sister works.
Just for the record, baby lambs are even more cute than you might think.
For Christmas, we decided to mix things up a bit. Before my parents arrived on the 26th, we traveled with Keri’s family to South Carolina and rented a house on the beach for a few days.
It was pretty cold, but Nathan (A.K.A. Great Gorilla) and I managed to get in the ocean for a few minutes.
Just a few weeks before Christmas, my mom was diagnosed with colon cancer. At this point, they still don’t know the stage or extent of the cancer, but it seems that she will be undergoing surgery in the very near future.
Fortunately, the news didn’t disrupt their trip to Knoxville, and we had a great time together during the time they were here (including a trip to Biltmore).
We would really appreciate your prayers for my mom and dad – for wisdom in their decisions and healing in her body.
It’s a little bit difficult to tell from the photo, but at my request, my daughter took the time out of her playing at Chick-fil-A to wipe her brother’s nose.
What did people ever do without camera phones to capture these moments?
Thanks, Keri, for the great pic! As much as I love being a dad, being your husband is even better.
As I’ve mentioned before, Keri and I don’t own a TV. It’s a decision that we made on purpose to help keep the lines of communication open in our home. But even without a television, there are still so many things that try to pull the two of us apart from one another. Whether it’s my wife’s desire to read her favorite blogs after an exhausting day with our kids or my efforts to manage freelance website & graphics projects, life has a way of trying to bring emotional distance between the two of us.
To combat this natural tendency in our relationship, we introduced a new nightly ritual into our schedule a couple of weeks ago. Once we get the kids in bed and the house set back in order, we’ve committed to spend at least 20 minutes sitting on the couch together without distractions – just talking about the day and snuggling. My personal goal is to begin our couch time with a few minutes of encouraging my wife and building her up – something that I’m ashamed to say I have neglected for the past ten years of marriage (more on this later).
In just these two weeks, I can already tell that God is helping us break down some barriers that were beginning to creep up between us.
(As an aside, I find it ironic that all the stock photography I looked at showed computers pulling families together for some fun family time. Really? I’m not saying that it’s not possible, but there’s no way that’s the norm.)
There are several people in my life that I consider to be my heroes for various reasons, but ever since college the first person who always comes to mind when I hear the word “hero” is my Grandmomma, Dorothy Willingham.
Today, my dad called to let me know that she passed away – stepping out of this world an into the next.
This was a complete shock to me (she did have a major stroke almost a year ago, but since then she’s been working hard to regain mobility and speech). In fact, when I talked to her on the phone yesterday, she was having a great day – telling me that she was going to try to walk down the aisle in my brother’s wedding in June. Despite the shock, I’ve still had a tremendous sense of peace (with sadness), as Keri and I have talked about her today.
She was an amazing woman. Here are a few of the reasons Dorothy Willingham is my hero:
Thank God for people like Dorothy Willingham who are faithful to the end and who show us how to live. Until we are reunited, we will miss her tremendously.
