Family News and Prayer

I haven't gotten around to posting about this yet, so here goes....

Back in December, my Dad caught pneumonia. As is procedure, they took him in to get a chest x-ray. What they found was very startling; there was a five-inch growth in the cavity between his lungs. We rushed to the hospital for a CT scan, which was sent to the radiologist. We were very scared; our first thought was that Dad had lung cancer (even though he has never smoked), which is %98 fatal.

To make a long story short, he after a biopsy and PET scan, he was diagnosed with Stage 4 lymphoma.
He began Chemotherapy Thursday, and will have it every two weeks for six months, then possibly Radiation.

Please pray for my Father, that he would be healed of this, and for our family, as we adjust to Dad's sickness. The doctors have said that the Chemo will likely make him too weak to work more than a half-day, even from home, so myself and my older brothers will be undertaking some of the business work.

I know that God will not give us more than we can bear, and that all the trials are in order to test our strength, and I pray that He will let us learn all we can during this ordeal, and draw us closer as a family.

~The Two Young Men

You're SUPPOSED TO BE ENCOURAGING ME TO BUY THE STINKIN' ALBUM!!!!!

I was kindof surfing iTunes, so to speak... I was given a $15 iTunes gift card for Christmas, and I was looking for some songs by my favorite artists.

I usually read the album reviews for any album I'm interested in, but I've found quite a few official reviews on iTunes that didn't make me want to buy the album. Here's one for the Phillips, Craig & Dean album Top of my Lungs

"Christian Pop music carries with it twin dangers, and each is kindof a mirror image of the other: one danger is the risk of falling into saccharine sweetness; the other is the risk of treating sacred things in a casual, flip manner. For both of those reasons, pop songs about sin and redemption tend to succeed best when they focus on the Sinner, not the Savior -- in a pop context, you have to sing about Christ in general terms so as to not sound disrespectful, whereas you can sing about yourself in the kind of gritty detail that tends to make a song compelling. So how do Phillips, Craig, & Dean walk that particular tightrope? Pretty well, which shouldn't be a surprise, since they've now been doing it for about 16 years. On Top Of My Lungs, their sound is based in sturdy folk-rock, and when it fails sonically, it's usually because producer Nathan Nockels couldn't resist throwing in that dang string section where it doesn't belong (most egregiously on the slightly syrupy title track and the equally over-sweet "Saved the Day"). When it fails lyrically, it's because they sound too offhanded about their Lord ("That's my Lord"). Not surprisingly, they succeed best when they rock out about the path of salvation ("One Way") and about their own religious commitment ("For Your Glory"). Overall, Not bad at all. "

WHAT?!?!?!?!? These things may be true, but they don't make me want to buy the album. I enjoy PCD, but this honestly doesn't sound like a good album. and I know it's to the contrary, because I've listened to this entire album. * NOTE, if YOU WANT SOMEONE TO BUY THE ALBUM, MAKE IT SOUND LIKE A GOOD ALBUM!!! Whomever wrote that review pretty much failed.

Seriously, you're supposed to try and make the person reading the review WANT to buy the album.

~The Two Young Men

Man in a Manger

So.... first, let me say, Merry Christmas!

We all know of the picture painted in our minds of the nativity of our Lord Jesus, a baby in a manger.

We see Mary, seemingly non-exhausted, sitting by a manger. Joseph stands in the background, a small smile on his stoic countenance. The manger is well lit by a warm glow. The shepherds kneel in awe at the baby in the cradle, and a small line of lambs stumble behind them on thin legs. A donkey peers over Joseph's shoulder; you could swear that he's grinning.

It is a nice picture, but it is NOT the point of Christmas. Christmas isn't about Christ's birth, it's about a Savior coming to earth to save us. The awe in the shepherd's eyes isn't due to the fact that there is a baby in a manger- they have seen many babies in their lifetimes. Their wonder is at the Savior, God come to earth to save them.

We are all guilty of making Christmas about the baby- it is much more fun to tell of a special baby than to tell of His now grown body hanging on a cross in our place. We all have heard the first part of Handel's "Messiah", but few have heard the second half, dealing with the death and resurrection of Christ.
We celebrate Christmas with a month of fun- we decorate our entire house, bake cookies, host and attend parties, put up trees in our living rooms, carol in our neighborhoods...
But we are lucky to even give Easter more than a passing thought, maybe attending the sunrise service at church, or spend a day off.

But it is not the baby in a manger that is our salvation- it is the man on the cross. They are the same, Christ, but the fact that a baby is born will not save us. That the Son of God would die a horrible and agonizing death in our place WILL.
The baby is special because of His mission on earth. The Christmas story is not about a baby. It is the first chapter in the story that culminates on Easter Sunday, when Christ rises from the dead, taking it's pain for us, and enabling us to enjoy eternal life.

It is no simple baby in the manger. It is a Man. The Son of God. The Savior of the World. Our King and Lord.

We need to remember that Christmas is not the climax of the story- it is merely the beginning.
We celebrate Christmas not because of Christ's birth, but because he came to earth to save us.

A beast.... Vanquished

I have reason to celebrate!

I have Vanquished the Monster of NaNoWriMo (that's a fancy phrase for: "I OOOWWWNNNEED").

National Novel Writing Month, shortened to NaNoWriMo, is a challenge to write fifty thousand words of fiction in the month of November.

I clocked in at 8:52 AM, on November 30th, with 50,002 words. Immediately, I felt relieved, and glad to be done, but by that afternoon, I was wishing that it was still going on. I had time to do stuff without feeling guilty about my wordcount. wow. But I felt REALLY bored.

I'm glad to have taken this challenge head on, and won, and I plan to finish the current draft of my novel, Found, by late January.

I'd like to give a shout-out to my friends who also won, and a bigger one to my friends who tried, and did not finish. It is better to have tried, and failed than to have not tried at all.

I'd especially like to praise my older brother, who also writes on this blog. He just began writing fiction in September, and participated in NaNo. His AP classes and extra homework made it extremely difficult to write, but he still posted upwards of 15k, and never gave up. you've been a great help to me; having another writer of fiction in the house to talk to. Next year is yours to conquer!

And I would like to thank above all, my family, who understood that I wasn't going to be doing much other than writing, my parents, who went out of their way to encourage me and give me extra time to write, and my God, without whom this wouldn't have ever been possible.

Protection is important

So.... I saw the highlights from Green Bay's NFL win over the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving. Late in the first quarter, Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers threw a 68 yard pass to Donald Driver, setting up a touchdown.

watch highlights here: (the play is at 00:24)

http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-game-highlights/09000d5d81484e1f/Packers-vs-Lions-highlights

I noticed that Aaron Rodgers had ages of time to pass. To me, it seemed that he had enough time to drop back, eat a sandwich, grab a bottle of water, and then throw. Any quarterback can make a big play if they are given enough time. I replayed it, and counted, and A-Rod had eight entire seconds before the first Lions defender came close to him. In my opinion, that long pass belonged to the Packers offensive linemen as much as to the other members of the team.
(sidenote, I DO realize that the Lion's defense kinda stinks, and that the Packers offensive line has been less than stellar this season, but it was a good example.)

Human nature makes us pay attention to those who get glory; the quarterback, a star wide receiver, or the kicker who kicks a 53- yard field goal to win the game.
However, the glory belongs to every member of the team; the linemen and the fullback who blocked, the guy who snapped for the field goal.
I've heard it said that it's hard to throw a touchdown pass when you're lying on the ground with a three hundred pound defender on top of you, and I believe it.

A coach once said that the worst thing America has done to the game of football was to start putting the player's names on the back of their jerseys. On the field, it doesn't matter whether you're Peyton Manning, or his left guard. All that matters is that they're both Colts.

As my own Coach Provan has said many times, "It takes eleven men to win a football game. you won't win if one man isn't doing his job."

The application of this in our Christian walk? All parts of the ministry are important. For every Billy Graham, there are thousands of men who prepare for the crusade. Not all of us can be pastors, missionaries, or lead the worship at church. Those who watch the young children, pray for the missionaries, or prepare the fellowship meal are just as important.

There are no names on our jerseys, other than the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Let's get out on the field of battle, and win the world for him!

Rebellious Characters

At the moment, I am participating in NANOWRIMO, as I mentioned earlier.

Yesterday, I reached a point where I needed to write an action scene, but my characters didn't want to. As other writer's of fiction know, your characters will take on a life of their own, and sometimes, they just want to spend it doing nothing.
No, they do not want to leap off the couch and go rescue someone, they just want to sit around. And they won't even talk while they sit around. (which would at least help with the word count)

Anyway, as I sat and tried to write, my main character wouldn't cooperate. I had a plan for the novel, but he didn't want to help. I needed him to rescue a minor character from a painful death of torment, yet he wouldn't do anything.

In my frustration, a thought crossed my mind. maybe this is how our God feels. He created us, and breathed life into us, yet we refuse to obey, much less even talk to him.
I created my characters, without me, they would not even exist, yet they refuse to. I could destroy them with a stroke of my pen or a word typed on my laptop, but I don't. I love them so much that I don't delete my file and instantly kill them, I let them live on.
They rebel against me, and my plan for their lives, yet I let them live through my love.

Our God created and sustains us, yet we rebel against him. We disobey his commands, refuse to talk to him, and do not return the love he shows us. He could kill us all with a word, yet he continues to love us.

Let us not be rebellious characters in the Great Story God is writing. We need to listen to his instructions, follow his commands, and return the love he shows us by letting us live on.

~ The Two Young Men

(P.S, The original Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley is a great allegory with a similar theme. The creation rebels against the very hand that made him.)

Running to the Light

I apologize for the lack of recent posts. Things have been very busy here. With both of us participating in NANOWRIMO (National Novel Writing Month), where you have to write 50k words onto your novel during the month of November, we've been spending almost all our time writing novels, not blog posts.


Anyway, on occasion we listen to a band named Runrig. It is a six-piece Celtic Rock band, founded in 1973. It's music is typically rock oriented, while the lyrics are drawn from folk roots.

My favorite of their many songs is one called Running to the Light






The lyrics:

Running round the sacred mountain
The rushing stream
Feel the power
In everything
By the water. where the air is clear
Surrender everything

Old hearts grow younger again
They promise bring
The greenest. plants are tender
They're full of sap in spring
Empty the places of the mind
Running to the light
Running to the light

Those who stride too far too soon
Will not hold pace
Only the calm
Will win the race
Through the forest, the sea of mountain pine
Surrender everything

Only those who
Greatness see in little things
Worthy are the simple
They're happy in their ways
Self will wither out of sight
Running to the light
Running to the light

Arise soul
Soar above the singing river
Go lying down
Into the ground
Quickened by the stream
When all is said and done
The race moves on

Running, running



To me, the song speaks of the last moments before someone's death. When a dear family friend died in an accident, this song meant a lot. Though death is the end of our life on earth, to those of us who believe, it is merely the beginning of a new life, in which there will be no pain, no sorrow, no suffering, and no death.

1 Corinthians 9:24 says "Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it." (NKJV).

Our life is a competition, a battle, and Paul describes it as a race. We cannot let death halt us. Though we die, the race goes on. "Quickened by the stream // When all is said and done // The race goes on"

A note: Laurel Clark, an astronaut on the US Space Shuttle Columbia was a great fan of Runrig, and brought two CDs to space with her, including "The Stamping Ground". Running to the Light was used as the wake up call for the seven astronauts who would later die in a tragic accident on re-entry over Texas.


So, brothers and sisters, let us run our race in a manner that we may obtain the prize

~The Two Young Men