The things a 9-year-old thinks about

The other day, Janet was helping Matt with his homework.

Nate and I were in the kitchen, when we heard Matt say matter-of-factly, "If everybody dies, I get the Gamecube."

My Boy

I remember the day Josh was born. I was excited to be a dad. I was so completely in love with my sweet pregnant wife. Her strength and courage amazed me. (And they still do, by the way.) In the synapses of my brain, the realization that life would never be the same had materialized. But it was still a bit hazy. I knew we had much still to learn as first-time parents. In my youthful exuberance, none of that seemed to matter.

As the labor grew more and more intense, I knew the time was growing nearer when I would come face to face with my own child. However, nothing could have prepared me for that moment.

As they wrapped Josh up and handed him to Janet, I cannot describe the feeling that washed over me. A boy. My boy. A connection to God's plan. Something that reached so completely beyond that place, that moment. It reached into eternity. Father to son.

******

Last week, as I sat restlessly at work knowing that Josh's mission call was waiting at home, images of Josh as a little boy kept flashing through my mind. Soccer games. His first Primary talk. Days at the lake. Road trips. Skinned knees. Birthdays and family parties.

So many shared moments. Moments woven together by that connection that began the day he was born.

When Josh arrived home and got out of his car, I was struck by the man my boy had become.

It didn't really matter what words were printed on the letter that he opened that night. There was that sweet assurance of my boy's place in God's plan. A trust in God's loving hands and His gentle ways of shaping and guiding our lives.

He read the words. A call from a prophet.

I felt again a moment that reached beyond that time and place. A connection to eternity.

The Paradox of Life

Just had to share this thought from my morning reading. C.S. Lewis was not only wise, but so powerfully articulate.

God is the only comfort, He is also the supreme terror: the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from. ... the Christian religion is, in the long run, a thing of unspeakable comfort. But it does not begin in comfort; it begins in the dismay I have been describing, and it is no use at all trying to go on to that comfort without first going through that dismay. In religion, as in war and everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth—only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair. –C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Thanks Jesse for getting me to finally read this book.

Thanks everyone for your encouragement with my Ward Conference talk. It's less than 48 hours away. I do finally know what I'm talking about. Still deciding exactly what I'm going to say.

I'll bet you thought this post was going to be about Jimmer

Well, the whole nation seems to be consumed with Jimmer-mania. And admittedly, we've been a little obsessed at our home too.

But truthfully, my thoughts this morning have been completely consumed by one thing. And it's not basketball or how incredibly well my Cougars have been playing. Nope, not Jimmer. Just one thing. It's kind of a big thing. An important thing.

But here's the deal. I don't know what the thing is.

I'm obsessed with it. Ponder about it. Spend mornings and late into the night thinking about it. But I still don't know what it is.

In two weeks, it will be Ward Conference. I have to speak. And I have no idea what I'm going to talk about.

There. Now you know.

I guess it's not really fair to say, I have no idea. That's not really the trouble. It's that I have a multitude of ideas. Really good ideas. Unfortunately, these really good ideas have yet to come together in any kind of cohesive plan. Just scattered principles as if tossed about on the wind.

Guess I could give twelve two-minute talks. Yeah, that would be great.

Maybe I should just tell stories about Jimmer. :-)

Spending Time with My Own Thoughts

So a couple of months ago, I bought a used car. The stereo had been stolen out of it. The guy who sold it to me had purchased a replacement stereo but had not installed it yet. Of course, the wiring job required to install it turned out to be more complicated than expected. As a result, I've been driving my car for a couple of months with no stereo.

My commute is about 20 minutes or so. At first, it seemed sooo boring. I experimented with listening to my iPod, but something seems unsafe about having headphones in while driving. And I think it might be illegal.

Anyway, my point is, I've been spending more time in quiet solitude. And it's kind of nice. Just me and my thoughts. We have conversations. Sometimes those conversations turn into prayers. Sometimes they turn into plans. Sometimes they turn into creativity and sometimes we just quietly coexist not really needing to say anything at all.

It turns out, I would highly recommend it. Give it a try the next time you're heading somewhere in the car alone. Turn everything off. And spend some time with your own thoughts. You might like it too. :-)

***

"We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and private: and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship." –C.S. Lewis

Small Victories in Perspective

So, at the beginning of 2007, I was inspired by a phrase sent to me in an email from my mother. It was, "To succeed at what is easy is a small victory."

That inspiring phrase drove me to consider a return to college at 39 years old. I earned my MBA in two years while hardly pausing to take a breath. It was a difficult, exciting, time-consuming, enlightening, frustrating, friendship-building, confidence-testing, and at-times-tedious experience. When I walked across that stage and was handed my diploma, I felt that I had indeed won a meaningful victory.

It is now 4 years later. Life is as busy as ever. My kids are growing up so fast. My schedule is loaded.

As I reflect on that phrase that inspired me to take on as something as daunting as a graduate degree, I find a completely different motivation in my life.

I find that today, I'm longing for small victories. I recognize now more than ever before that the small daily battles are the pivot points around which our entire lives revolve. Small victories. Everyday victories. The little choices that make the big differences. The moments in which we define ourselves ... and our lives.

May you have a year of small victories.

Healthy America?

OK, a weird thing to choose to post about, but hey, it is my blog.

Welcome to the new future of healthcare in America.

You now live in a country where you are required by law to have health insurance. Well unless you can't afford it. Then the government will buy it for you. Or if you're not poor, you can choose to pay a penalty instead of getting coverage. What is this penalty that will be "forcing" 32 million Americans to purchase health insurance? A whopping $95 in 2014. It grows to $695 by 2018.

$695? Seriously. That won't even buy health insurance for my family for one month. It's madness. For all of the chest-pounding and back-slapping, it doesn't solve anything. It certainly doesn't fix what is wrong with our healthcare system.

Oh, yeah, and now health insurance companies can't refuse to cover you AND they are not free to decide what to charge you. They must offer you "affordable" coverage. Not based on your risk. Not based on what they decide makes them a viable business. But instead on some government definition of affordable.

If you are a small business, the heart and soul of the American economy, the engine that generates the vast majority of jobs in this country, watch out. If you have more than 50 employees, you are required by law to provide health insurance for your employees. According to msnbc (hardly a bastion of conservative journalism), this requirement will likely eliminate an additional 1.6 million jobs in the country.

Every economist in the world will tell you that increasing tax burdens (and make no mistake about it, this is a new form of taxation) during an economic downturn will prolong the downturn and delay recovery.

Here was my healthcare reform wish list:

1. Separate health insurance from employment
Nope, not included. In fact, this fundamental flaw that in many ways is at the heart of consumers not acting like consumers, is now required by law.

2. Require (as California has done) all healthcare providers to publish a price list for services provided.
Maybe it's in the massive 2000+ page bill, but if it is, no one is yet talking about it.

3. Separate catastrophic healthcare insurance coverage from health maintenance coverage.
Nope, instead of recognizing that one of the fundamental problems with the healthcare system is that "insurance" is being asked to do things insurance was never designed to do, this bill perpetuates the status quo in so many ways. No real change except that we the tax payers have a new deficit legacy to pass on to our children's children.

4. Medical liability limits and reforms.
Nope, going to the doctor is still an entry in the malpractice lawsuit lottery.

5. Allow health insurance companies to compete across state lines.
Nope. Further evidence that special interests and lobbyist rule Washington and this bill was not actually in the best interest of consumers, but of the businesses that were originally the "bad guys."


Thomas Paine: Governement, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.