My dad just left about 5:45am this morning. We've had family here since about 10 days ago (when Andrea's dad, Gary, arrived before Christmas). It has been wonderful to see so much family! Andrea's brother, Greg, and her nephew, Jake, came over Christmas Eve and spent Christmas day with us.

Our living room looked like a war zone that morning :-) Wrapping paper & boxes everywhere! Kids got more toys than they can possibly play with right now. New Wii games topped the list (of which they have been playing quite a bit since Christmas day).

All in all it was a great Christmas week - family, wonderful food cooked by my beautiful wife, gift giving, gift receiving, football, relaxing, playing games with the kids, etc.

We'll have a couple of days with just our fam before Andrea's uncle, Edd, & his family, as well as Greg, come here for New Year's day. Greg is staying overnight with us so that we can watch the OU game on Wednesday night together.

After that? Packing, packing, packing...

The boys just informed me that it's snowing outside! Excitement filled the air as we ran out to the deck to have a look (with those annual dreams of having a white Christmas building in our heart). They were right - it was snowing! Just two days before Christmas!

I ran to grab my camera & shoot some video to post. The only problem? My camera couldn't see the snow. This is what Andrea & I have come to un-affectionately call "Tennessee Snow."

Don't get me wrong - it snows here, at least I think it does. That's what people tell me every time I sarcastically talk about the "Tennessee Snow" we had the other day. They're quick to inform me that it snows, just not incredibly often.

We've been here right at three years, and I can honestly say that it has snowed two or three times in that time span - I know because we took pictures of each occasion. Even then, we had an inch - maybe an inch and a half - and most, if not all, of it was melted by noon. I remember one of those times being so excited, helping the kids to get their snow clothes on/get the sled out, only to find that it was already beginning to melt before we made it outside!

I talked to my dad last night - they're getting hit with snow and had probably about 3" so far (likely more). That's real snow - the kind that sticks around for a couple of days, that makes you watch how you drive (if at all), and that you can actually use to have great snowball wars and build snow forts.

When the big ice storm came through the midwest a couple of weeks ago, Andrea & I were watching one of the major networks broadcasting live from Norman, OK, as people attempted to scrape sheets of ice from their windshields. We looked at each other, with fond memories, and said, "I remember that!" and proceeded to swap our "12" of snow" stories. We're pathetic, I know, and moving to Atlanta is certainly not going to help things any. :-)

A few things on my brain that in & of themselves probably don't deserve a full post...

I'm totally addicted to Guitar Hero III - I think this is a perfect game for me - maybe because it is so musical, don't know. All I know is that I find myself wanting to playing it more than I have wanted to play a game in a long time. Lots of fun!

I have "Barracuda" stuck in my head - GH3 side effect #1... I walk around with "da da-da-da da-da-da da-da-da da-da-da da-da-da da-da-da da-da-da da da" running through my brain ("Barracuda" by Heart from Little Queen). Andrea told me last night, "I wish you wouldn't play that game right before bed - I have "Slow Ride" [by Foghat] stuck in my head!"

I now evaluate songs based on how fun it would be to play them in Guitar Hero - GH3 side effect #2... It seems like I heard they would be introducing the ability to purchase/download additional tracks for the game. I think that would be incredible. Even better would be the ability to create your own tracks based on other songs (not necessarily ones they select for you). I'm sure that would be a royalties nightmare, but at the very least they should give you the ability to add songs that you own, create tracks for the game & play them (without sharing them).

Do not attempt to bring processed cheese spread on a plane - Just dropped of our friends, the Webbs, at the airport (they're traveling back to Hawaii, where they lived for 9 years, with all of their family for the holidays). He just messaged me and said that his mom attempted to bring Cheez Wiz on the plane and security confiscated it :-)

Andrea's dad arrives from Oklahoma tomorow to spend Christmas with us. I'm excited as we got some great seats to "A Tuna Christmas" - a two-man comedy that is SO funny! We got a chance to see it when we lived in Kansas, when it came through Tulsa at the Performing Arts Center there. This time around it is at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center downtown - and we've got third row seats! Ought to be a lot of fun.

Gary will be with us for nearly a week. Andrea's brother, Greg, and his son, Jake, will be coming over Christmas Eve & spending Christmas day with us as well. Then my dad is going to get to come out for a few days beginning on the 27th.

Then, it's back to the hectic business of getting ready to move again :-( We get a respite for a few days, at least.

We had some young adults over this past Saturday night. One of them asked me, "So, are you ready for the move?" I replied: "I'm ready for the new work that God has us doing there. I'm not ready for the move. I'm not ready for the leaving. I'm not ready for the starting over." The truth is - if God wasn't all over this deal we wouldn't be moving. Period.

Moving is a pain. It hasn't been long enough since our last move for me to forget that little fact. We have been exhausted over the last couple of months. First we did those odd jobs around the house that we've been meaning to do for the last three years and we just now are motivated enough to actually get them done (because we're having to sell our house). Then there's the cleaning, and the keeping clean, so you can show your house to potential sellers at the drop of a hat.

Now that we have a contract on the house, it's the "leave for most of the day" so a housing inspector can do a thorough evaluation on what works/doesn't work like it should (and stressing a little about the potential of how much repairs are going to cost us out of pocket, right around Christmas and two birthdays (Micah (Jan 17) & Andrea (Jan 18), with Josiah closely behind (Feb 2)).

It's making phone calls & meeting with potential movers to try & get accurate quotes on what $ it is going to take to get us out of this house & into our new one in GA. It's signing, initialing, dating, receiving, faxing, negotiating - house offers, mortgage pre-qualifications, loan agreements, inspection notices.

It's having to figure out how I'm going to be in two places at once come mid-January - beginning my job with GiANT, but being around some to finish up packing/loose ends, and then closing here one day & in Atlanta the next.

It's hating leaving friends and watching your children have to do the same. It's praying like crazy that God brings us those "one good friends" early on to make the move less difficult.

It's figuring out which roads to taking, knowing full well that you'll get lost several times in the process (I remember getting lost in East Nashville at least twice in the first several months we moved here). It's finding the grocery store, good restaurants, doctors/dentists/optometrists, hairdressers, etc.

Moving sucks. But God is good - He has either worked out every detail thus far, or giving us strength to persevere through them. The truth is that God is all over this decision and somehow that makes the things above a little more bearable - painful, all the same, but bearable.

UPDATE: Just realized that I was plagiarizing myself. Seems I blogged on this very subject back in June 2004 :-)

Just read a great article by Steve Brown. Steve is a speaker, author, seminary professor, etc. He posted this on his blog about 2-3 months ago. Relevant picked it up and ran it (in the following condensed format) in one of their newsletters...

THREE FREE SINS
by Steve Brown

I’m a fairly controversial teacher, and I’ve never quite understood that. There is a disconnect between how I think of myself and how others think of me. I see myself as a rather conservative, benign, old white guy who studies the Bible and attempts to tell people what it says. I try to do it so that people won’t get bored and can see the great heritage of truth Christians have (and pagans should want). Sometimes, in order to get people to listen, I do push the envelope a bit, but I’m just a teacher trying to deal with Truth in my life and teach it to others. That shouldn’t be controversial, right?

Wrong. People get really angry. Maybe there is something about me that just ticks people off.

Perhaps people want a guru who lives everything he teaches, and they get quite upset when I say that I don’t. The dumbest advice ever given to preachers is that they shouldn’t teach what they don’t live. What? If that were the standard, most preachers would preach only two 10-minute sermons a year … and then repent of one of them.

It could be that one can’t understand and rejoice in radical grace unless one first knows that one needs it. And so, in order to walk down the pedagogical road with me, one has to see one’s dirt, and some folks are more into being right than being His. Self-righteousness can be a horrible thing. (I know, I know. What I just wrote was quite self-righteous, and I will repent of it later.)

It could be that people are angry because what I teach is wrong. Could be. In fact, I think that 50 percent of what I teach is probably wrong—I just don’t know which 50 percent.

I don’t think there is anything I say that causes more people to be more upset than when I give away “three free sins.” Most people get upset because it seems that I’m taking sin too lightly. Maybe sometimes I do. They think that I don’t care about holiness and sanctification. Maybe sometimes that’s true. There are those who say that I encourage sin—but people seemed to be doing OK in that area before I came along.

I got an email about that the “three free sins” thing recently. The writer of it didn’t have a critical spirit; he was genuinely puzzled and concerned. He wrote that he liked my talk show, Steve Brown Etc., but that this “three free sins thing is going too far.” He added, “I pray that whoever receives this email will show it to Steve.”

First, I do hope the emailer’s faith grew with the answer to his prayer. I saw it. Second, this gentleman gets three free sins for having expressed his concern. Third, let me give you an explanation about “three free sins.”

The writer said in his email that I was giving permission for “murder, rape and drunkenness.” Well OK … but not really. While, as a pastor, I did say a number of times that there was nothing wrong with the Church that I couldn’t fix with a few funerals, I honestly don’t know any Christian who is looking for permission to murder anyone. I haven’t met any Christians who could hardly wait to be rapists or to get plastered. And that’s the point. Every Christian I know wants to be better than he or she is. There may be an exception to that, but I haven’t found one. In other words, most Christians aren’t getting any better, and sometimes they are getting worse—but they really want to be better.

Do you know why most Christians don’t get any better or why you don’t get any better? It’s because you’re doing it wrong! You are obsessed with sin, and your faith has become another “system of laws” whereby you feel guilty and try and try and try to do better. It doesn’t work, never has worked and never will work. Only really shallow people keep doing the same thing over and over again with the same result, thinking that the next time the result will be different. So stop it. You’re just making a mess out of it. People get better by obsessing on Jesus and His love … not by obsessing on their own sin and disobedience. That’s what the cross is about: a covering for sin. Not only that, the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to our account is a gift beyond measure assuring that God’s anger will never be directed at us again. (And, by the way, an obsession with sin may be the greatest form of pride. Frankly, it is quite narcissistic.)

Not only does the Christian get three free sins … Christians get unlimited free sins. I don’t know a better way to get people thinking about God’s unbelievable love and grace than by granting them what He has already granted. The gift one receives along with “three free sins” is the gift of an unbelievable, amazing and surprising faithfulness.

So, dear friend, you get the free sins. You can have more if you want them … but you probably won’t.

Steve Brown is a talk-show host, author of numerous books including A Scandalous Freedom, seminary professor and much-indemand speaker. Steve’s unique blend of orthodoxy and controversy, humor and profundity and a refusal to play religious games has set him apart as a seasoned representative of the biblical message of radical grace and freedom. Visit SteveBrownEtc.com to hang out with “The Old White Guy” and his friends.

Not quite two weeks with a sign in the yard & we already have a contract on our home here! God is so good! We've actually had it listed for about 4 weeks or so, but we only put a sign in the yard a couple of weeks ago after we had begun telling people about the move.

We had went down to Atlanta about two weeks ago on a house hunting trip & had actually made an offer (with contingency on our home selling) at that time.

So, barring something terrible happening with the home inspections it looks like we'll be moving at the end of January.

I'll be starting my new job at GiANT the week of the 14th and will have to head home on the weekends for the first couple of weeks, but I'll take that over having to make two mortgage payments any day!

We had some young adults over on Saturday night on a spur of the moment shin dig. Had a great time. Adam brought over Guitar Hero 2 & 3 for the PS2 and a couple of guitar controllers and we guitar battled throughout the night (amongst other things)!

I have been wanting to get the new version of the game for the Wii since I heard it was coming out. Saturday night pushed me over the brink and I wound up looking for a copy in stores on Sunday. 20+ phone calls later I found what has to be the last copy of GH3 on the shelves in Middle TN. I got lucky as this one was still at the customer service counter at Circuit City from someone returning it.

We spent the afternoon rocking! I'm going to have to grab a shot of Micah playing - it is great! Saturday night he would battle against some of the other kids that were here at the party and he kept dropping to his knees in class rock star fashion and really getting into it!

Now for the reason I haven't been posting much here for the last several weeks...

Well, for many of you this will come as no surprise as we've been about the business of sharing with many here in Nashville about our upcoming move. I wanted to post something here, though, to share with the rest of you what God is about in our lives right now. This journey has been a long one in a lot of respects and I don't want to bore you with all of the details, so I'll try my best to just bring out the big points.

Continue reading "We’re Moving!" »