I’ve been sitting in a study on the book of James for a while now at my church. The beginning of James talks about the followers of Christ going through trials and temptations. James begins:

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” – James 1:2-5

“Consider it pure joy…”? What? How can I find joy in facing trials? Well, the answer to that lies in the fact that God is sovereign and that He allows us to go through hard times and trials in order to perfect our faith. Of course I’m no theologian so take that with a grain of salt; it’s just my understanding at this point in time. Anyway, whenever we are going through hard times it is often extremely difficult to see any benefit, to see how this could possibly work out for our good (“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” – Romans 8:28). I was recently pondering this and  came up with a real life parallel that helps me to gain a little perspective on the topic.

My oldest daughter had to have oral surgery at the beginning of this year. She had some issues with her permanent teeth not coming in that could not be resolved any other way according to multiple dental professionals. My daughter, understandably, was terrified of having to go through this. She would have be “put under” for the procedure and have strange doctors and nurses operating on her without me or my wife present. From her perspective I can see that this was just too much to have to handle. There should have been another way to fix her teeth. We could have waited a little longer, we could have seen more dentists, anything but this. Isn’t that how we respond to trials in our life? Doesn’t it often feel like too much to handle?

From my perspective, this was a necessary surgery for my daughter. There were no other alternatives that would be effective. We had done the research and talked to all the right people. This had to be done. Not only that but we could see the benefit of doing so. Even if my daughter had to go through a traumatic experience and some pain, it was only temporary and would produce a lot of good in her life. Now if we can see like that for our children, how much more so can God see what we are going through and the benefit that it will produce in our life?

Finally, one more perspective that dawned on me is that of my own broken heart. It hurt me to see the fear in my daughter’s eyes as they gave her the gas and shots to make her go to sleep. It hurt me even more to have to leave after she was sleeping and know that the doctor was about to cut on my baby girl. It hurt me when I drove home and my wife held our daughter in her arms in the backseat of the van as she cried softly the whole way home. I absolutely hated to see my little girl have to go through that. Do you think God may feel that way about us? How much more does He love us than we love our children? I believe in some ways God may allow Himself to also hurt for us whenever we must walk through tough times.

Have you had to watch your child(ren) go through hard times? Are you yourself going through a hard time? Talk to God the Father and let Him know how much you are hurting. He loves you more than anyone ever could and He does care about the fact that you do not like the current circumstance. He has also promised that He will never leave us or forsake us.

My birthday is fast approaching (Feb 4) and I’ve already been questioned about what I want for my birthday. My reply was the same as it is for most things birthday or Christmas related, “I don’t want anything.” For the most part I get what I want, if I can afford it and it is a priority to me. So there isn’t much that I really need in the way of “stuff”. I had this idea last year, but I wasn’t quick enough to respond. So this year I would like to supply a list of alternate birthday gifts that anyone can get for me in lieu of “stuff”.

The Gift of Charity

Instead of giving me things that I don’t need or may not like or may like but could really do without, I would like to request that anyone wanting to buy me something for my birthday donate to a charitable cause. Here is a list of charities (mostly Christian based) that allow you to give the gift of donations.

The Voice of the Martyrs – this organization (persecution.com)  does not necessarily have any “gift of donation” or “gift card” options, but it is a very noteworthy cause. They are an inter-denominational Christian organization dedicated to assisting the persecuted church worldwide. Did you know that it is illegal to possess a Bible in many countries? Did you know many Christians worldwide must worship God, pray and read the Bible in secrecy? Did you know that Christians are killed for their faith today!? Consider giving to this cause to be the “hands and feet” of Christ and assist these brothers and sisters around the globe.

MustHaveGifts.org is a Christian organization in the UK that provides charity gifts by supplying real world needs to people in need all over the world. Some examples are Mosquito Nets to prevent Malaria, Scholarships to help educate children in Cambodia or vaccinations for people in Somalia. Don’t you think that these people could use your dollars instead of me?

Present Aid (presentaid.org) is another organization like MustHaveGifts that provides real world needs. Some examples of gifts they provide are a goat for a family, help pay a community doctor’s salary or meals for malnourished children.

TisBest Philanthropy is another provider of “gift cards” for charity. They are not specifically Christian but have “faith based” charities that you can donate to.

Send A Cow is a Christian charity that helps families and communities in Africa by providing education in farming and livestock care and providing essentials for growing crops and even livestock.

JustGive.org – this website has a pretty extensive list of charities that you can donate to. They are not specifically Christian, but they have Christian organizations listed. They provide gift cards and allow you to pick from several designs and either send an E-Card or print a card to send. They also have a Charity Wedding Registry which is a pretty cool idea.

Personal Charities

No, I don’t personally maintain, administer or benefit from the following charities but they are close to my heart.

Aarons Hands – This is actually a very good friend of mine that I’ve known since high school. She had aspirations early on of becoming a doctor, which I’m confident she could have been, but God had something different in store for her. Now she is a part of the Thrive Africa ministry who’s goal is to disciple believers, equip leaders and strengthen the Church in South Africa. She doesn’t have any “gift” type options but I’d be very appreciative of any donations you made to her ministry.

Laura Holmes – This is another dear friend of ours who ministers in Africa, in the country of Lesotho. I don’t have a website for her but you could contact Grace Community Church for instructions on donating to her ministry, which would also be greatly appreciated.

Summary

Well, I guess that’s a good enough birthday list for this year! The point is… give towards a great cause, not just to fatten my pockets or add stuff to my already swelling office. Not only that, but you can take these ideas and extend them to giving for your own family and friends.

NOTE: Some of the above charities are in the UK and the amounts listed on their sites are in GBP (British Pounds), so make sure you do the conversion to know exactly how much you are giving.

1. Work on my relationship with God

Matthew 6:33 says, “But seek first his kindgom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Do I really seek God first in my daily life? I can answer a resounding, “no!” The bible says to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.” How well do I do this in my life? I don’t think I do it very well at all. So how do I plan on improving this situation?

1. Ask God’s help. I can really do nothing outside of His will, grace and guidance. So that is the first step.
2. Reading God’s Word. My wife and some of her friends did a “read the Bible in a year” program last year. I am going to follow along with them this year as a discipline to get myself into God’s Word more every day.
3. Scripture memorization. This is a rollover from last year. I basically want to finish that resolution and memorize the Farewell Discourse in the Gospel of John (John 13:31 – John 17:26).
4. Daily prayer. This should go without saying, but so often there are other things that I fill my life with instead of talking to the creator of the universe.

2. Work on my relationship with my wife

The most important person to me on this entire planet is my wife. She is my mate, my best friend, my comfort… I am entirely in love with her. Yet so often I allow that relationship to become just another “thing” in my life. I’m not entirely sure how I am going to tackle this one so I’ll have to do some prayer, research and brainstorming. The end result is this… I want to love my wife as Christ loves the church. That is how I am commanded to love my wife in the bible (Ephesians 5:25-27).

3. Be consistent with my children’s music training

I have started (many times now) to teach my older two children piano. I really want to get on track with this and invest the time and energy to give my children a solid musical foundation. It has been a large and positive part of my life and I want to give them the best opportunity to make it a part of their lives.

4. Run a marathon

I trained last year and ran my first half-marathon. This is the year of the full marathon! … I hope. I have found an 18 week training program that I think matches with my schedule and style and I really believe that if I work hard I can obtain this goal. Not only has running been a great source of achievement in my life these last few years, but it is also a large source of fitness.

5. Pay off debts

The slog through the mud of debt continues. And while it continues I am in bondage to the creditors and am unable to invest into the kingdom of God as I would really like to. I keep making this resolution every year, but every year I get closer and closer. I’m sure I won’t be entirely debt free at the end of 2010 (unless God performs a miracle), but I would at least like to eliminate everything except for my student loans and one car payment (yeah, we don’t have a mortgage… renters still).

So that’s it for this year. Just five, but I think they are five fairly large goals. I tried to center my resolutions this year (at least the first two) around the priorities that I would like to have in my life. We’ll see how it goes!

Click the image to view the entire photo gallery

This past weekend, Saturday, November 28, 2009 to be exact, I ran in (and completed!) the Kaiser Realty Coastal 1/2 Marathon. This was one of the major landmarks in my #1 New Year’s Resolution of 2009 and I am extremely satisfied to have made the goal.

Early Start

It was a very early morning; we got the kids up and in the van and headed over to Orange Beach, AL around 5:30 AM arriving at the sport complex around 6:45 AM. The weather was perfect; partly cloudy and in the 50′s (Farenheit). The event was very well organized so it was easy checking in and getting everything I needed (time chip, racing bib, schwag packet [promotion stuff... NOT marijuana], etc). Of course there were only just over 300 entrants pre-registered and I believe the total ended up being around four hundred and change, so it wasn’t extremely crowded. There were actual bathrooms to be used instead of porta-potties; that was a plus.

The Run

The run overall was a really nice one. Most of it was on paved nature trails and provided a really beautiful backdrop to distract from the grind of running over 13 miles. There was also a portion run along the coast that offered a change. The run went about as usual for an average person; I passed some people and some people passed me. There were some groups that kept together and held conversations and then there were some loners. There were the quiet types and then there were the very encouraging, vocal types. Everyone was friendly.

I did really well during the run and felt great. The part that was really difficult was just after the ten mile marker. That’s when I really started to work. After the eleven mile marker my legs and arms went all numb and tingley… that’s probably not a good sign. Finally, seeing the Finish line ahead and hearing the cheers of the crowd waiting I dragged it in ready to pass out from exhaustion. It was the longest run I’ve ever done and I really had to work for it at the end.

Results!

I finished the half marathon in 2 hours 5 minutes and 56 seconds according to the official results. I was actually aiming for at least 2 hours and 10 minutes so I beat my target time by 5 minutes! So for a half marathon (13.1 miles) that would make my average pace about 9 minutes and 37 seconds per mile. That’s great for me, though I know it’s not all that fast.

But here is some news! I received a “Thanks for Running” email from the organizers and they said that they accidentally misplaced one of the turnaround markers between mile 10 and mile 11 and we actually ran about 13.5 miles. WHAT!? Well, that changes things a little. That would actually make my average pace about 9 minutes and 20 seconds per mile. Yeah, yeah… I know it’s not a big difference but it means a lot to me.

Done

My in-laws came out to support me and so after the awards ceremony we all headed out to eat. We ended up at Cosmos in Orange Beach for some very well cooked seafood. I was feeling pretty miserable at that point so I probably didn’t make for great lunch conversation, but I was very glad for the company of my family. It meant a lot for them to have traveled out over an hour to watch me run, especially since my father in-law is still recovering from a shoulder surgery this past week. My wife drove home… and I slept. It was a good day.

Verse 1
What hope we hold this starlit night
a King is born in Bethlehem
Our journey long, we seek the light
that leads to the hallowed manger ground

Verse 2
What fear we felt in the silent age
four hundred years can he be found
But broken by a baby’s cry
rejoice in the hallowed manger ground

Chorus
Emmanuel, Emmanuel
God incarnate here to dwell
Emmanuel, Emmanuel
Praise His name Emmanuel

Verse 3
The son of God, here, born to bleed
a crown of thorns would pierce His brow
And we beheld this offering, exalted now, the King of kings
Praise God for the hallowed manger ground

And here is a YouTube video with the music, some nice pictures and the lyrics embedded as well. Enjoy!

* Click through to the site if you cannot see the video above

Happy Thanksgiving! For today I wanted to just take a second and list out five things that I am extremely thankful for this year.

1) Jesus Christ and Salvation

First and foremost I am thankful that the creator of the universe calls me His son. John 1:12 says, “Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” So how can you become a child of God as well?  John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” All you have to do is believe that and ask and He will call you his son (or daughter) as well. All it takes is a little bit of faith, which Hebrews 11:6 says is this: a) believe that God exists and b) that he rewards those who earnestly seek Him.

2) My Wife

I am extremely thankful for my wife who is my best friend, my partner, my life mate, my soul mate, my better half… the list could go on. I consider myself the luckiest man on Earth to be married to such an awesome woman. Not only is she drop-dead gorgeous and sexy, but she is kind, gentle, helpful and a great mother to my children. She basically runs our household and keeps me organized. I really would be lost without her in so many ways.

3) My Children

I have three totally great children. My oldest daughter is ten followed by a seven year old boy (who is JUST like me) and a little three (and a half) year old girl. I’m probably a little partial to my own children, but I think that they are very well behaved, respectful and loving. I love my kids!

4) My Church

God has placed us into a really great church. It’s not a mega church with a huge budget and high production for worship and all the flashy stuff that some (me) would like. What it does have though is really awesome people who genuinely love each other and truly display the body of Christ to one another, the community and the world. I’ve connected with some good friends there who I trust. The pastor is an excellent teacher of God’s Word and he is very personable. Of course this may all be because Grace Community Church is where God has placed me during this time and there is no better place to be than in the will of God.

5) My Job

I am currently employed at Columbia Southern University, a completely online college, where I am a senior software engineer. The company is owned by a really great Christian family and it shows. They really care about their employees and strive for what is best for the students and the employees. Not only that but the executive staff listens to the judgment of the I.T. staff and genuinely desires to do what is the best for the company. I also work with a really great group of people, some of whom I would call very close friends. In such hard economic times I am really blessed to have such a great job.

What Are You Thankful For?

Can you name a few things that you are thankful for this year? this day? this life?

Well, it is Wednesday before the big race and I’m getting mentally and physically prepared. I ran a quick 2 miles yesterday and will do the same today just to stay loose, but no running after today. I want to be fully recovered and rested before the half marathon.

The bad thing is my son just got sick this week with some sort of stomach virus, which the doctor’s office is saying lasts around 5 days… swell. My wife has officially quarantined me from interacting much with him to prevent my getting sick before race day. Not only that but I’m eating multi-vitamins, vitamin C and Airborne like it was candy.

Also, we are looking forward to Thanksgiving with the family though I’m not sure how that is going to work with my son being sick. I guess we’ll see.

I’m not sure any of you remember my hair braiding incident earlier this year, but it really got me to thinking about hair styles and more importantly… experimenting with mine. I have a long standing agreement with a good friend of mine that before I cut my hair short the next time I will wear a mullet for at least a week and be sure to go into the office of wherever it is I work for at least one meeting. The corn-rows got me to thinking about another style that I want to try out before I cut off the length (from the front) of my hair. Why not dread locks?

Dread Locks Research

The first thing that I needed to do was some research. I found this site, which had explanations of all of the commonly held myths about dread locks (i.e. “you can’t wash your hair”, “you are going to stink”, “it’ll destroy your hair”). That wasn’t my only resource but it gave me a good starting point. I quickly found out that not only was I eligible to dread my hair as a white dude with straight hair, but there was a ton of information on exactly how to do it. There are quite a few different methods.

Next I found a good place for the supplies I’d need to get the job done. DreadHeadHQ has not only videos and tutorials on how to dread your hair but they have products to do it as well. I went ahead and sprung for the Ultra Dread Kit, which arrived yesterday! Of course, if you read my post from yesterday you’ll know that I have to run a half marathon this coming Saturday, November 28, 2009. So I will NOT be dreading my hair this week. And actually my wife is going to be doing most of the work.

Reactions

This is somewhat of a funny topic and a little confusing to me personally. I first started talking about dreading my hair right after the corn row incident. From that point to now the reactions of most people I tell is almost the same, “Don’t do it!!!” I mean coworkers, friends, family… all just about the same reaction. Some more adamant than others. I could understand this from my wife because she is married to me and has to live with me, but I’m not real sure I understand it from other people. Is it because I just look so dashingly handsome now that they don’t want me to change? lol – yeah right!

Well, to all those neigh-sayers I say this, “it’s just hair!” It’s not like I’m converting to Islam or something. It’s not even a body piercing or something that would affect me permanently… it’s hair. If I don’t like it I can just cut it off and start over. So relax and get used to the soon-to-be new me, because it is going to happen and hopefully before Christmas.

January 1st of this year I posted a fairly aggressive list of New Year’s Resolutions. So how did I do? Well, I’ve only really succeeded at one of the resolutions. I guess that is better than none, right? It is now coming to the close of the year 2009 so I figured I’d list them all out again and see what happened.

1. Running / Training

STATUS: SUCCESS

For this resolution I had several sub-goals. They were:

1. Run the 15k portion of the Pensacola Double Bridge Run – DONE!
2. Run in a half-marathon – I’m actually registered and ready to run in the Kaiser Realty Coastal 1/2 Marathon this saturday (November 28, 2009). I’ve trained very hard for this and am ready. I did have a running partner, my father in law, who unfortunately is having some medical problems which will prevent him from running with me. I know he is going to get back to it quickly though and we’ll soon be running together again. I’ll post my results next week!
3. Train to run in a marathon for 2010 – I had hoped to already be past the half marathon at this point, but I’m fully confident that I’ll be able to run in a marathon next year. The Pensacola Marathon has been moved to November so I may be picking another one that is in the first half of the year. We’ll see.

2. Scripture Memorization

STATUS: FAILURE
I had a fairly lofty goal of memorizing the entire Gospel of John. Later in the year I had actually modified this goal of memorizing just the portion of John that is commonly held as Jesus’s Farewell Discourse (John 13:31 – John 17:26). So how did I do? Terrible. I had memorized most of John 14 before the start of the New Year, but haven’t only made it to that entire chapter… and that is a bit rusty. So is there any hope? I believe I might be able to get another chapter (15) under my belt if I really get to it, but I seriously doubt I could manage the entire section. That’s OK, though, I’m still forging ahead even if at a snails pace.

3. Obtain my 2nd degree black belt in TaeKwonDo

STATUS: FAILURE
I got as far as contacting my old studio and inquiring about times and cost. I don’t really have the finances in order to be able to drop money into something that I’m not going to stick with and I don’t think I would have devoted the time into this that I needed to. So… maybe next year!

4. Try to write a book

STATUS: FAILURE
LOL – that’s about all I have to say. Attempted? No. Going to? Probably not.

5. Pay Off Debts

STATUS: FAILURE
Well, we made some really good progress in the first part of the year and paid of a couple of our debts. Yay! However, the second half of the year (following the flooding of our old house and subsequent search for new headquarters) has gone miserably. Not only have I not made progress towards this goal, I’ve gone pretty behind on several of the debts and am feeling like a terrible failure at anything having to do with finances at the moment. At this point the only thing I’m holding on to is the hope of another decent income tax return to get our heads above water again. Sigh

6. Improve Church Website

STATUS: FAILURE
The site is pretty much the same as it was. No work done, no time, no effort. Again… sigh.

7. Learn entire 48 Tai Chi form

STATUS: FAILURE
Well, I learned about the first 12 steps but that’s about it. This went the path of so many other resolutions and just fizzled out after a month or so. I could conceivably knock this one out before the end of the year, but that would take a pretty focused effort which I doubt will happen.

8. Increase Quality/Quantity of Blogging

STATUS: FAILURE
I’ll go ahead and “sigh” at the beginning on this one. I’ve actually done severely worse this year than previously. Let’s look at some numbers on just the main two of my blogs (Technology Site and Family Site (this one)).

franzone.com

Total posts in 2007 = 285
Total posts in 2008 = 182
Total posts in 2009 (to date) = 37

family.franzone.com

Total posts in 2007 = 43
Total posts in 2008 = 37
Total posts in 2009 (to date) = 12

Wow… not only fail, but epic fail! There’s no way I could catch up on this one, but I can at least try to start making regular posts. Why? Hmmm… I’ll have to get back to you on that one.

9. Journal

STATUS: FAILURE
LOL – I probably made one or two journal entries. Oh well, I just don’t think I’m the journaling type.

10. Build Something!

STATUS: FAILURE
Yeah, I’ve still got a huge list of TO-DO items that have had no love. Maybe next year.

11. Resolutions/Goal Tracking

STATUS: FAILURE
This one kind of goes hand in hand with #8 above, so it is an obvious fail.

So What Now?

Well, holiday season is about to be in full swing so I don’t think any of these will get much love except for my running which I’m pretty adamant about. I may make a few feeble attempts to take some steps on a couple of them before the end of year, but that’s about it. Will I set more resolutions for next year? I’ll have to get back to you on that one too. I know I’ll at least keep #1!

I wore it all the next day. It made my run on Saturday very enjoyable; the wind cooled my head nicely and I didn’t have to worry about hair sticking to my neck. I even attended a birthday party for someone at our church. It was fun seeing the mixed reactions and surprised looks on faces when people saw me.

Of course my silky, smooth (white people) hair didn’t want to hold it that long. It was already starting to droop a bit on the sides and in back at the end of Saturday. Mix that with the fact that I absolutely have to wash my hair every day and it was a foregone conclusion that it had to come out. The results of that were equally as humorous as you can see below. One word… poof!