Nothing quite like getting what you deserve...
Turns out that there's a speed trap up right by where 177 Highway (i.e. Bill Snyder Memorial Highway). It also turns out that you should pay attention to speeding signs instead of fiddling with your radio and looking at the cars around you. Luckly, the officer was quite kind and respectful -- and beyond that gracious and gave me a far lesser ticket than I deserved. Turns out grace can be found in the most unlikely of places. So here's to you officer. Thanks for both ruining my day and reminding me of the goodness of grace all at the same time.
Overall, it's a pretty good thing that I got my ticket. Well... except that my insurance will probably get way more expensive and I owe the state of Kansas $126.00. But, I got the rest of my hour drive to reflect on how this small example of somewhat painful grace is a small reflection of the grace that I receive every second of every minute of my life. I deserve a lot more than the small (probably non-existent) "hard knocks" I think I get all the time. And to think, God's grace doesn't even cost $126 dollars. It only requires the surrender of "my" life...
But then again, it's also the only place that I can find life as it's meant to be. It's kind of a strange, beautiful paradox. Now maybe if I could learn to express the gratefulness I expressed to a cop for granted grace that saved me a few bucks to the God who's granted a grace far more costly and beautiful.
But I guess that brings me back to giving up the mud pies that I like to play in for a wonderful holiday by the sea (thanks C.S. Lewis...).
It's my prayer that we could all learn to live in the fullness of life that grace offers to us... and more than that to be 1/2 as thankful for it as we ought to be. How easily that's lost in the hustle and bustle of work and accidentally going 20 over in 45 mile and hour zone on 177. How easy I forget. Luckily, God throws me cops who only write me tickets for 10 over when I deserve a bigger one. Reflections of the goodness of God's grace can be found all around. I just need to slow the heck down and see them.
Praise be to the God of Redemption who pours out grace on mud caked little boys like me who want so much to be like Him but just loose site when the mud covers our eyes. Praise to the God of Restoration who pulls us out of the mud and slowly washes all the mud of so that we can turn into a reflection of Something far more beautiful so that others can see the beauty of who Redemption is and find completion there. Praise Him.
Monday, May 07, 2007
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Happy Birthday Eli...
Today's Eli's first birthday. It's crazy how fast a year's gone by. It's pretty fun thought... I've watched that little guy go from a fragile premie to a crazy little guy with a personality all his own. While Eli was a bit of an unexpected joy, every day I realize a bit more how perfect God's timing was in giving him to us. That kid just gets to be more and more fun every day. Eli's birthday probably means more to me and his mom than it does to him... but we had a lot of fun. Me and him went out to lunch at McDonalds. That kid pounded back a whole milkshake and a half an order of fries. It's his favorite lunch... Don't worry, he NEVER gets to eat that normally. But it was fun birthday lunchtime. I love that we're our own family and can kinda make up things like birthday traditions as we go along. Happy 1st Eli.
Anyways... here's a few fun photos. One from day 1 and one from today. Scroll down to the post below for some fun pictures of Eli having at his birthday party cake.
Cheers!
Anyways... here's a few fun photos. One from day 1 and one from today. Scroll down to the post below for some fun pictures of Eli having at his birthday party cake.
Cheers!
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Eli's First Birthday Party...
We had Eli's first birthday party this weekend. It was tons of fun. I love my kid. The real deal is Thursday... I can hardly believe it's been a year already. Wow.
Anyways, here's a picture of Eli two fisting his cake. Messier more fun photos coming soon... stay tuned.
KP
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
The end of an era...
Today marks the last day of Kevin Porter's employment at the Bluestem Bistro. It's quite a sad day. But, as well as they treat me here at the Bluestem... coffee shops just don't pay the bills for a soon to be family four. So, I'm hanging up my apron...
After spending two weeks training my replacement... tomorow is my full time first day at Century Business Systems. It's bittersweet... but a part of life.
So here's to you Bluestem. Thanks for the fun ride.
After spending two weeks training my replacement... tomorow is my full time first day at Century Business Systems. It's bittersweet... but a part of life.
So here's to you Bluestem. Thanks for the fun ride.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Chipmunk face!
That's right folks, I look like a chipmunk. I got my wisdom teeth surgically removed yesterday and now my lower jaw is swollen. But, if I had to have it done I pretty much picked the best time ever. We got our new couch delievered yesterday AND the NCAA tournament started. Best timing ever. Now if these dang pain pills would just start working like they're supposed to. They're just making me loopy, yet the pain remains.
If you're bored and want to watch Basketball, come on over. Erine is gone all day and it's just me and the tourney here. Bring some KFC mashed potatoes. It's all I can eat right now...
Pictures to follow.
If you're bored and want to watch Basketball, come on over. Erine is gone all day and it's just me and the tourney here. Bring some KFC mashed potatoes. It's all I can eat right now...
Pictures to follow.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
This is phenominally funny.
| Comedian doing a funny skit over hot pockets and how bad they are. Really funny. Also takes cheap shots at NASCAR. Also funny. | |
Breaking the silence...
What a crazy months it's been for the Porter's...
We started raising support to go to Botswana and were blessed by how quickly it poured in. Then we found out Er is with child. Which was quite exciting and joyful and yet at the same time quite a confusing thing. After counsel and prayer felt that God changed the timing of us leaving for Botwana to an undisclosed time in the future (hopefully not too distant) even though my heart and dreams still are there, not here. Spent several weeks falling in love with and becoming excited about this new life growing in my wife's womb. I've been running the Bluestem by myself as my boss has been gone the better part of the last 3 weeks as his father in law was very ill and subsequently passed. It's way too much work for one person. Then Er quite nearly miscarried. Apparently the placenta tore. After a long week of not knowing if our child would live or die we were both relieved and blessed to see that our babies heart beat is stronger than ever and that the placenta completely healed itself. Erine does have quite a large cist that causes her a lot of pain and will have to be removed (for the babies sake) if it grows much more, but the doctor is hopeful that it will shrink itself of the next few weeks. But praise God that both wife and baby are fine. Erine just has to take it easy for the next while (i.e. 9 months) and God willing everything will be just fine.
Needless to say, we could use a vacation.
It's a strange thing to go through so much as once. I pretty quickly figured out that I had two choices. I could be angry at God, frustrated with Him seemingly being unjust to me. And that's kinda where I was for a good while. He was after all in control of what was going on. It wasn't beyond Him to have let us discover the blessing of our pregnancy before we sent out support letters to everyone we know. Or to have prevented all the hardships of this pregnancy that had already shaken my world and my plans around so much. But he didn't. This is what He wanted for us to endure. And frankly, it just didn't seem fair to me. In a lot of ways, it still doesn't. I certianly have no understanding of it. But, that was a pretty stupid place to be. In all of my feeling sorry for myself, I began to doubt who God was. More than that, I kind of fell into this pit of unintentional self worship. After all, in my deepest parts I genuinely felt that my well being was more important than how God was moving. Eventually, I moved past that a bit. I stopped feeling so sorry for myself and kinda moved into this apathy. I knew who God was and what He was doing was going to somehow be glory to Himself. But I really just didn't care. I was tired and hurting and just didn't give a care about any of this stuff outside of myself. Which was an equally terrible place to be.
Fortunately, God is faithful to His promises even when I'm not faithful to Him. Since then, I'm in the process of trying to move to choice number two: I could put trust in the fact that God is who He says He is. I've kinda come to a the conclusion that if the goodness of God is dependent on the well being of Kevin then this world is destined to miserable place. I thought about Jacob having to wait so long for his promised son and then being asked to sacrifice him. Clearly his faith was in who God was not in what God was asking/allowing to happen - because Jacob was going to go through with it. I'm sure he was none to excited about it. But because He knew the value and joy of following after God because of who He is, he was willing to endure it. Or Joseph who had a whole lifetime of hardship (compared with my 3 or 4 weeks) who still considered God worth following because of who He was... not because of what was going on around Him. And the list goes on. Not that I have half of the faith of these sorts of men and women... but I am learning how to be more like that. Because despite what God is doing/allowing in my life. He is good. He's faithful. He's gracious. He's slow to anger and quick to love. His mercy is so abundant that my mind could never wrap it's self around it, even if I spend my whole life trying. He is just. I know these things are true. And even when things in my life don't seem (emphasis on seem) to reflect that to be true I have to remember esentially the whole history of this fallen planet where He has continually shown that be to true. Over and over and over. His nature is good and loving, even when what He gives me to endure hurts so very much. So I can trust that His plans are as well. For some purpose, seen or unseen God has given us the joy of enduring this all. And it's okay, because we'll be better off for it. Already God has taught me so much about Himself and about faith. And even though my dream is a little farther down the road now, I have a wonderful blessing on the way that I wouldn't trade away for even my wildest dream. God really is good to us. Praise Him for it.
KP
We started raising support to go to Botswana and were blessed by how quickly it poured in. Then we found out Er is with child. Which was quite exciting and joyful and yet at the same time quite a confusing thing. After counsel and prayer felt that God changed the timing of us leaving for Botwana to an undisclosed time in the future (hopefully not too distant) even though my heart and dreams still are there, not here. Spent several weeks falling in love with and becoming excited about this new life growing in my wife's womb. I've been running the Bluestem by myself as my boss has been gone the better part of the last 3 weeks as his father in law was very ill and subsequently passed. It's way too much work for one person. Then Er quite nearly miscarried. Apparently the placenta tore. After a long week of not knowing if our child would live or die we were both relieved and blessed to see that our babies heart beat is stronger than ever and that the placenta completely healed itself. Erine does have quite a large cist that causes her a lot of pain and will have to be removed (for the babies sake) if it grows much more, but the doctor is hopeful that it will shrink itself of the next few weeks. But praise God that both wife and baby are fine. Erine just has to take it easy for the next while (i.e. 9 months) and God willing everything will be just fine.
Needless to say, we could use a vacation.
It's a strange thing to go through so much as once. I pretty quickly figured out that I had two choices. I could be angry at God, frustrated with Him seemingly being unjust to me. And that's kinda where I was for a good while. He was after all in control of what was going on. It wasn't beyond Him to have let us discover the blessing of our pregnancy before we sent out support letters to everyone we know. Or to have prevented all the hardships of this pregnancy that had already shaken my world and my plans around so much. But he didn't. This is what He wanted for us to endure. And frankly, it just didn't seem fair to me. In a lot of ways, it still doesn't. I certianly have no understanding of it. But, that was a pretty stupid place to be. In all of my feeling sorry for myself, I began to doubt who God was. More than that, I kind of fell into this pit of unintentional self worship. After all, in my deepest parts I genuinely felt that my well being was more important than how God was moving. Eventually, I moved past that a bit. I stopped feeling so sorry for myself and kinda moved into this apathy. I knew who God was and what He was doing was going to somehow be glory to Himself. But I really just didn't care. I was tired and hurting and just didn't give a care about any of this stuff outside of myself. Which was an equally terrible place to be.
Fortunately, God is faithful to His promises even when I'm not faithful to Him. Since then, I'm in the process of trying to move to choice number two: I could put trust in the fact that God is who He says He is. I've kinda come to a the conclusion that if the goodness of God is dependent on the well being of Kevin then this world is destined to miserable place. I thought about Jacob having to wait so long for his promised son and then being asked to sacrifice him. Clearly his faith was in who God was not in what God was asking/allowing to happen - because Jacob was going to go through with it. I'm sure he was none to excited about it. But because He knew the value and joy of following after God because of who He is, he was willing to endure it. Or Joseph who had a whole lifetime of hardship (compared with my 3 or 4 weeks) who still considered God worth following because of who He was... not because of what was going on around Him. And the list goes on. Not that I have half of the faith of these sorts of men and women... but I am learning how to be more like that. Because despite what God is doing/allowing in my life. He is good. He's faithful. He's gracious. He's slow to anger and quick to love. His mercy is so abundant that my mind could never wrap it's self around it, even if I spend my whole life trying. He is just. I know these things are true. And even when things in my life don't seem (emphasis on seem) to reflect that to be true I have to remember esentially the whole history of this fallen planet where He has continually shown that be to true. Over and over and over. His nature is good and loving, even when what He gives me to endure hurts so very much. So I can trust that His plans are as well. For some purpose, seen or unseen God has given us the joy of enduring this all. And it's okay, because we'll be better off for it. Already God has taught me so much about Himself and about faith. And even though my dream is a little farther down the road now, I have a wonderful blessing on the way that I wouldn't trade away for even my wildest dream. God really is good to us. Praise Him for it.
KP
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