Now to Resurrect This Thing

As my wife pointed out to me, I have not posted a blog entry in almost four years. I have been married for 2 years and 2 months to Mia, a lovely woman from Torrance, CA. We have a 2 month old daughter by birth, a 2 and a half year old that we are fostering, and a 11 month old that we are fostering. They are all girls. We even have a dog that is a girl. To say that I am outnumbered is no small stretch. It will be interesting to see what this next year brings as life could get more complicated or it could stay the same. I am currently studying for my Security + certification exam which I will take February 15. After that I will start to refocus on the CCNA, CCNA Voice, CCNP, and because I am a glutton for punishment I also want to study to get certified as an ethical hacker. That is my goal, but we will see how that goes.

I Read a Book

Today I finished reading the book Each for the Other by Bryan Chapell and I have to admit that it was an awesome book even though I have no girl in mind, so it was a little different. I learned a lot and even have new material to present when people challenge Christianity's treatment of women. An important thing for me to keep in mind is that when a wife is called to submit to her husband she is submitting to him as an example of her love for God. She is not submitting to the abuse that will take place in the relationship, which is something to consider. A lot of people think that Christianity belittles women by making them lower than their husbands, but it is very important to realize that man needed a helpmate so God created woman out of the rib of man. With the understanding that woman is a helpmate it is important that the husband does not belittle his wife. Women are supposed to be seen as an important part of the home, not just the one that cares for the kids while the husband is away. While women do usually have a better instinct for taking care of the kids this task falls just as much on the husband. I do not like to think that my father belittles my mother or discourages her from doing things freely. The husband can abuse his wife just as much by not letting her do things as he can by allowing her to do anything she wants. This goes the same with the husband, though, keeping in mind the ultimate purpose of a marriage, and that is to bring focus to God.
A few days ago someone told me that they value their other half as a parent, but have discouraged them from going on to get more education. I do not actually think that this fits with a Christian understanding of marriage. If someone is being looked at just for their parental abilities you are denying that person their true identity as a person of God. Perhaps I am wrong about this, but it just seems to me that allowing your spouse to be seen as more than just a parent will help them to discover their true identity as a Christian.

My Parents

This past weekend one of my friends preached on 1 Samuel 8, which was my final text that I prepared a sermon on at WSC before I was excused from the Masters program. I was talking to him about this text and I remembered what my illustration for that text was. If you do not have a Bible near you 1 Samuel 8 is where Israel asks God to give them a king even though they have a very valient king and ruler in God. The middle section of this text reads as such: 6 But when they said, "Give us a king to lead us," this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the LORD. 7 And the LORD told him: "Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. 8 As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. 9 Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do."

When I was young, as is the case with most kids, they think their parents are really bad people and they wish that they had different parents because they see what those other kids have. This was my illustration for the text. You have a child who sees what other kids have and wants to be a child of those parents, not recognizing that your own parents have given up so much for you. This illustration, following the text, lays out how much you have to give up if you want to be a child of another parent instead. Those other parents have their own flaws and in the text we see what the flaws of those other "parents" are. What you end up realizing is that your original parents are the people for you and you, hopefully, have a good relationship with them when you grow up.

From about the time I was 13 or 14 I realized how special my parents really were. They guarded me from so much stuff because they loved me so much. Sure, I didn't get my license on my 16th birthday, but instead got it the last week of July that year. I graduated from high school, I even graduated from college,twice, and without my parents urging I would have never started college in the first place. My parents are an encouragement to me. Neither one of them went beyond high school, but that didn't mean that their children shouldn't push themselves. My brother has a doctorate and my sister has a bachelors, along with me being somewhere in between having at least attempted masters studies. It took me a long time to actually realize my illustration, but I realized it. Just as we have a father in Heaven who gave up his Son to save us from all of our sins we have Earthly parents who give up so much for us, or at least my parents did and still do.

More of Me

So, I had some brilliant thoughts but once I opened this page I forgot them.
Anyways, this past week went well. I had to switch over our email system and there was a threat that we could lose email for 48 to 72 hours. That is a lot of time when you are talking about some people that receive 50-100 messages per day. I am glad to report that the total downtime was 6 minutes. Yes, 6 minutes. I was excited about this because it means we lost very little.
This past weekend after updating all the computers on campus I went home and pretty much just vegged. I watched the movie "Dan in Real Life" and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was much more of a serious movie than a comedy. Perhaps it was just the mood that I was in. Saturday night I watched Disney's "The Kid" which is also a movie more made for families with small children than single 26 year old men. What can I say, I enjoy kids movies more than R-rated movies. I always have and I always will.
I found out on Sunday that one of my grandpa's sisters died, which means that that family has two remaining members, a sister in the San Francisco area and a step-brother in Kentucky.
I am going to a baseball game on Friday night in Lake Elsinore which should be fun. If you haven't realized it by now I could care less what two teams are playing a sport, if the tickets are cheap and I like the game they are playing I will go see it. This Friday I got seats in the first row right behind home plate, so I hope it is a good view. I have not sat there before, but it should be better for fireworks afterwords since they shoot the fireworks off from behind a building in left field.
Oh well, I will come up with more serious subjects to talk about.

The Things I Think About

At the funeral for my grandfather the pastor made the comment and I heard it from many other people, that my grandfather was still so young when he died. He was 81 years old and had great-grandchildren. Yes, 81 is not equivalent to 100, but 81 is a lot closer to a full life than 18 is. Our years on this earth are numbered and there is nothing that we can actually do about it. I always tend to say "God will take us home when our work on this earth is done". When we have nothing further to prove on this earth it is our time to go home.

This brings me to my second thought, the wonder that we have with health food. I wonder what people 100 years ago worried about. Now we have people wanting to live forever on this earth so they are promoting food that is raised with no hormones or is allowed to eat whatever it wants. If we told people that lived 100 years ago that we were going to eat only organic would they just look at us like we were crazy? Of course, it is possible that they would not have to think about those things because there were no chemicals. I don't honestly know.

Like today on a lazy day, what did people used to do on days when they had nothing else to do? I have grown up with television, so I tend to turn to television when I get bored. But before television what did people do? Perhaps they actually talked to each other?

Am I actually saying that I want to live in a different time period? Not really, but I just wonder how things were different. For instance, yet again, we have the internet. The internet has changed how we do a lot of things. The internet puts us in direct contact with people all the way around the world in an instant. We can successfully find out news on the internet before people in those countries may know about it. This can be a problem, though, since there truly is no privacy anymore. Yet again, just something that I was thinking about.

An Update

I just noticed that it has been two months since I updated my blog. The last post that I had was regarding the loss of my grandfather. Therefore, that is where this one will pick up from.
I went back to Illinois for the funeral. I knew that the time would be coming, so I was kind of anticipating it. I think it was really good for my mom to have all her children back home. It is always hard to lose people in life, but if you are surrounded by people you love and who love you I think the pain is lessened. The time at home was good, but was sad based on the circumstances.
The pastor at New Life has started a new series on the book of Hebrews. Some of the sermons hit me really hard and they don't hit other people at all. It is amazing that that can actually happen. With the College and Career group at NL we are going through The PeaceMaker still and it is causing me to do a lot of thinking. Do I really have a list of people that I am utterly trying to avoid at all costs? I tend to think not, but there are always those people that we don't consider that we have hurt. I will try to think harder about this in the future. This past week we went through a chapter about confronting your brother. It is interesting to see reactions when you confront someone because a lot of time they become standoffish. This should not be the behavior we are to take, though. If I have done something wrong I want someone to tell me. However, I guess, most people are not like this and they think that you are personally attacking them if you want to resolve an issue. I think it is just human nature.
The last thing that really comes to mind is what all surrounds the death of my grandpa. I have to applaud my mother for maintaining her composure through this all. She has done most of the cleaning out of the house but really has nothing to show for it. One day the rest of my family showed up and pretty much took everything they wanted, no matter if it was actually on their lists or not. I am realizing that greed reigns supreme in this world. I got a set of pots out of the deal, but that was it. My dad went to repair the garage door the other day and couldn't do it because all the ladders and all the tools were gone. We learned how much my grandpa's car collection (5 cars from the 50's and 60's) was worth and I was quite shocked. However, not all the cars are allowed to be sold because one of my aunts wants two of the cars. Message to people reading this blog: Word your will strongly to avoid having greed reign supreme!

He's Gone

I received a phone call at exactly six pm on Sunday night from my mom telling me that my grandfather had died. I cannot really find it in me to shed tears. When I first found out that he was on hospice I cried a lot, but just thinking about all this, I can't really cry. One of his doctors wanted to put him on some medication so that he wouldn't have a stroke and die from that, but he had already been told that his cancer spread, so his response was "I am either going to die from the cancer or die from a stroke." He realized that his fight was over. He realized that God had determined his days were drawing to a close. I was not there in the last few days, but when I talked to my mom I could hear the pain that was going on. I could hear the immense pain and it didn't sound good. 
Harry Zeilenga lived almost 82 years on this earth. It would have been his birthday in about two weeks. He was a solid believer in the truth of Jesus Christ, though, so I know where he is now. He wanted to go to his true home and now he is there. I rejoice!
I got to talk to him one last time a couple of weeks ago right after he got released from the hospital and he sounded like the same old grandpa. He asked me how the weather was and I told him that it was gorgeous out here. Then I told him that I would definitely miss him, but how I rejoiced knowing that he knew where he was going. 
I would call my mom every single morning after this point just to find out how things were going. Some days were alright, but towards the end he grew restless. I could tell yesterday that it was probably going to be the day, just because it sounded so bad on the phone. My brother flew back on Saturday and took care of my grandpa for a few hours just so that my mom could have a little bit of a break. That means that I am the only grandchild not in Chicago, but I will soon be joining the family. 
I always figured that I would be the one conducting this funeral service, but that is not to be. I cannot recall at the moment all the songs that are to be sung at this funeral, but I do recall the song "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" which was penned by a young African American blues pianist after learning of the death of his wife and newborn son. 
For some reason these lyrics just came to mind from the song "There Is a Redeemer": 
When I stand in glory,
I will see his face,
And there Ill serve my king forever,
In that holy place.

Thank you oh my father,
For giving us your son,
And leaving your spirit,
til the work on earth is done.