here's to many many more

This week Jessica & I celebrated our 14th Wedding Anniversary. I am such a blessed man to have had the privilege of sharing this journey with her as my bride! There have been many good times and there have been some challenging times but she has been been by my side thru it all. I love Jessica more than words could ever express! She is a wonderful friend, amazing wife and incredible mom. Here's to many many more years together! Keep holding on - I'm sure the ride is gonna be a blast along the way!

Duathlon

So on the Sept. 19th I did my first ever competition w/running / biking. I didn't start out to compete in anything .... just to lose some weight BUT then it happened....I saw my friend Erin Martin compete in a triathlon and I got a charge watching the event. That was it....I got home and started looking @ events I thought I might be able to do as a "rookie." I came across the Hidden Springs Duathlon which initially looked hard but then as I talked w/Jessica she wanted to do it as well. So we decided to register as a team where I would run the first leg of 3.1 miles and then ride the bike 11.4 & Jessica would take the last 3.1 running leg. Well...that was the "plan"...but....literally the week prior to the event Jessica got bronchitis really bad so she wasn't able to run @ all. She was SOOOO disappointed. I was so bummed for her! I can't even describe the "emotion" I felt...it was pretty cool....feeling the satisfaction of completing something like that. Can't wait to do it again next year!! Now Jessica, Makenzie & I are going to do the 5k Boise to Barber. Woo Hoo!!

what a great role model marriage for the kids

I came across this article and loved it! Although it's not "my story" - it is my hope that this is what my kids will see in my marriage w/my Jess! Enjoy the read....

Our daughter recently gave us a very fine compliment. Discussing her day over dinner one night, she reported that her high school “Issues” class was studying marriage. The teacher had told the students that a successful marriage has three elements: friendship, intimacy and passion.

“That’s you guys,” she said, looking toward her father and me. “I raised my hand,” she continued, “because I had lots of examples to share.”

I was thrilled, both because of the compliment, and because she has been observing what her parents are trying to teach to her and to her brothers. My first, greatest, and longest lasting joy in life is my husband.

My children, of course, are my heart. They are as much a part of me as an arm or leg. Their joys are my joys; their sorrows are my sorrows (generally multiplied by a factor of two) and their fears are my fears (generally multiplied by a factor of ten). But my husband is the source of most of the good things in my life, and has been for more than the past 30 years.

As the “Issues” teacher said, the basis of a successful marriage is friendship. According to the late, great Ann Landers, “Love is friendship that has caught fire.” That is indeed what happened in our case. We met sophomore year of college as part of a large group living in the same dorm. When I started making my interest known, it was his fear for our valued friendship that made him hesitate. However, after throwing myself at him (there is no more glamorous way to describe it), I wore down his resistance.

Yet as our relationship grew, the friendship remained at the very core. He has been at my side through medical school, residency, work, the births of four children, the struggles we have shared with our children over their challenges, not to mention countless Little League games, Back-to-School nights, and dance recitals. Eight years ago when I stepped out of the MRI scanner and told him that I had brain tumor, his first words were, “I wish it were me.”

There is no one I would rather be with, talk to, read with, or watch football with. We are about a micron apart on the political spectrum, but have managed to have countless heated discussions about it, nonetheless.

Intimacy is also a vital quality for a successful marriage. I can share anything with my husband, including every fear and every embarrassment. He is always in my corner. I can also expect good advice. Although I’d like to tell you that he agrees with everything I do, the truth is a bit different. He’s not afraid to gently chide me, or counsel me to approach a situation differently. He’s a much nicer person than I am; in fact, he’s the nicest person I know, so that makes his advice and criticism easier to take.

There are additional components beyond the three that the “Issues” teacher discussed. Commitment and compromise are vital. A lifetime together involves a lot of momentous decisions, and the ability to compromise is necessary to smooth the way. For example, my husband thought he wanted two children, and I wanted four. So we compromised on four and he is very happy that we did.

That issue aside, there have been a lot of compromises: about careers, about work hours, about whose needs will be met when. If you can’t compromise, a marriage can be sunk. And when compromise seems very distant, commitment to the relationship, to making sure that everything works out, and to hanging on even when it seems like it might not, can tide you over to better times.

Everyone knows about the passion part of marriage. What I didn’t know 30 years ago was that the passion only increases. The boy I married because I liked, loved and was attracted to him is now the man who held my hand in labor, who tenderly nurtured our children, who supported me through my personal crises and who has become a respected and admired professional. I still like him, I certainly love him, and I am more attracted to him than ever, but even that does not adequately express the passion I feel for him more than 30 years after he captured my heart.

I am the luckiest woman alive, and I know it. He made all of my dreams come true, including the most the most important one. He showed me that true love is real.

The lyrics from the old standard, I Remember You, convey my feelings best:

When my life is through,
And the angels ask me to recall
The thrill of them all.
I will tell them I remember you.

Even before birth, you were known and loved by Love itself

Saw this in today's paper - had to share it!

I'm nobody! Who are you?Are you-nobody-too?Then there's a pair of us?Don't tell! They'd advertise - you know.

EMILY DICKINSON


I'm fond of Emily Dickinson, that strange and solitary person whose poems reflect an intense desire for obscurity. Her anonymity can be construed as humility - it should not concern us at all that people do not know us - but for some, a retiring nature is grounded in a profound sense of insecurity and a deep dislike for oneself: "I'm someone to be kept out of sight."

Perhaps you're like that: wondering why God ever made you, longing to be someone else. But is it not better to be what God has chosen to make you?

"For to have been thought about -born in God's thoughts -and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest, most precious thing in all thinking. Is it not?" (George MacDonald).

David elaborates the same thought in the 139th Psalm, describing himself in utero as God's special creation, pondering "this awesome being that is me!"

"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful (Hebrew: awesome!). I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth (his mother's womb), your eyes saw my unformed body (fetus). All the days ordained for me were written in your book (the blueprint for me) before one of them came to be."

Do you realize that you have been thought about and uniquely handcrafted by God? You are one of a kind, woven together according to a divine template, intricately "embroidered" (David's word) in your mother's womb, a creation that that has no parallel in the universe. "How is it that you came to be you? God thought about you, and so you grew."

Long before you were born, you existed in God's thoughts. Long before your parents loved or neglected you, your peers admired or rejected you, your teachers, colleagues, and employers encouraged or disheartened you, you were known and loved by Love itself. God saw you and took delight in you. He gazed at what he had made and was glad. He loved it and said, "It is good!"

And someday, if you give yourself to God, you too will begin to love what he has made, and will forget the self you now abhor. If you could but see yourself now as you will someday be - a lustrous, exquisitely beautiful, immortal being - you would be stupefied.

I think that is why, at least in part, God allowed his disciples to see his glory on the Mount of Transfiguration. One early church father, the Venerable Bede, thought so: "By his loving foresight he (Jesus) prepared them (the disciples) to endure adversity bravely by allowing them to taste for a short time the contemplation of their (own) everlasting glory (beauty)" (Quoted by Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica 3a, 38).

So, there is unimaginable splendor ahead, but even now, the love of God is at work in you to transform unsightliness into the inexpressible beauty of holiness.

"What once was hurt; what once was friction;

"What left a mark, no longer sting.

"For Grace makes beauty out of ugly things" (U2, "Grace").

The Love that fills the Earth with lovely things is making you lovely. It is beginning now. It will go on forever, for there is no end to infinite love.

David and Carolyn Roper co-direct Idaho Mountain Ministries, a ministry of clergy care. David is the author of 14 books. The most recent is "Teach Us To Number Our Days." His musings are at http://davidroper.blogspot.com/

get your game on

Not that anyone ever reads this anymore...or ever did for that matter....but it's been awhile since I've posted anything here. Lately I discovered how unhappy I really was with myself so I kicked my big butt into gear. As of today's post I have lost 21.4 lbs and have made a complete lifestyle change. I have been eating more often and am choosing much better foods. I have also been running up to 2.5 miles @ a time (until I broke me toes) and in the past two weeks have been bike riding. I've gotten up to 8 miles on a single ride but am gonna be increasing that regularly. I've had my moments when I've not wanted to get out of bed & go but not once have I I said, "Man that sucked - I wish I hadn't done that" after I finish a run / ride. It keeps me going. Jess and I will be competing in a duathlon this September where she will run 3.1 miles, I will ride 11.4 miles and then she will finish the last run for another 3.1 miles. Feeling great lately!! Hoping to drop some more lbs as well....to be continued....

just some recent photos

I've been out of the blogging world for awhile as you can see. Thought I could atleast get some recent photos on here....

Loss & Regret

There are two types of regret = regret of action and regret of inaction. In the past 3 months I have four friends who have lost a loved one. It's been sobering having conversations with them and simply realizing how truly blessed I am. My heart hurts for them and I AUTHENTICALLY hope they grieve well! Hold fast to those close to you!!

1 a: deep distress, sadness, or regret especially for the loss of someone or something loved b: resultant unhappy or unpleasant state
2: a cause of grief or sadness
3: a display of grief or sadness

synonyms sorrow , grief , anguish , woe , regret mean distress of mind. sorrow implies a sense of loss or a sense of guilt and remorse, grief implies poignant sorrow for an immediate cause; anguish suggests torturing grief or dread; woe is deep or inconsolable grief or misery; regret implies pain caused by deep disappointment, fruitless longing, or unavailing remorse