Thursday, December 18, 2008

Baby Time!!!!

So it has been a while since I last blogged, but I have some big news, incase you haven’t heard….I’m going to be a daddy! I have known for quite a while now but have just gotten the opportunity to get on here and blog about it. We are ten weeks this week and it is such an incredible time.

Ashleigh and I were babysitting Tripp one night and we were just sitting on the couch playing with him, and Ash looked over at me and smiled. I said, “what are you smiling about”, and she said, “I can’t hold it in anymore”….not having any idea what she was talking about I asked, and she said, “look in the bag next to couch”. So I picked up this little white bag and looked inside. When I moved the tissue, there was some baby stuff that said stuff like I love my daddy, and stuff like that. It also had two positive pregnancy tests in it! Apparently my brain didn’t want to believe it, because I just kept saying, “are you serious? Are you serious? Are you serious?...it was quite hysterical.

So we kept everything a secret for about 3 weeks, because we wanted to wait until we were a little bit further along before we told anyone. But then the day came to finally tell our parents. So we first went to have Sunday lunch with my parents. After the meal we went over to her parents house, because Ashleigh hadn’t seen her mom in a couple of days, or at least that was our excuse. When we got there we started talking to Lori, and Ash’s sister Britt came in and told us that her and her boyfriend Chad had just finished their Christmas tree and they wanted us to come look at it. So we got Ash’s dad and we all went in to the bonus room to “look at the tree”. While we were just standing there, Ash handed her mom a bag, and said, “I found this for you the other day and it made me think of you”. Nobody really thought anything about so we just kept talking while Lori opened the bag. Inside was a mug that said something about grandchildren being precious. Lori looked at us and said, “Your not pregnant are you?”. We said, “yes”. She said “no your not”. And we said, “yes” and everyone got excited. There were hugs and tears. Everyone was so excited for us.

So after we left their house we went straight to my parents house. We came in and acted like I had left my wallet somewhere. Well my mom was in her sewing room upstairs, so before she came down, I hid our video camera in a corner in the kitchen because I knew when she found out she would be hysterical to watch. So when she came downstairs, I “found my wallet” and we went into the kitchen. I gave her my “Christmas list” and told her to look over it and see if it was “ok”. You have to understand that my mother hates my Christmas list every year. She will literally sit there and mark off things that she would “never buy for me”. So of course she looks at the list and starts to mark stuff off. Well she gets to the bottom of the first page and says, “James I’m not going to buy any of this crap”…well when she flipped to the next page it said, “baby stuff….a crib, diapers, Merry Christmas Grandmother”…well when she read it, she did exactly what I expected…she screamed….and screamed….and screamed….and screamed. I went to hug her and she went to Ashleigh. Pretty funny.

As funny as it was to watch her scream, it was really heartwarming to watch. She has wanted to be a grandmother….well basically since she found out she was adopting me.

So a couple of weeks went by and we had our first doctor’s appointment. It was so much fun. The anticipation and joy that was going on that day was overwhelming. We got to have our first ultrasound, and the doctor said everything looked great. We got to hear the little heartbeat which was at 178 beats per minute which they said was really strong. And that’s what made it real to me…to hear the little heartbeat and realize that my child is actually there and growing inside Ashleigh. It is still a little overwhelming, but you have no idea how excited I am and how thankful I am that God has given me this opportunity. To father a child and raise it, and to use the child as an opportunity to give glory to God. I just thank Him so much for it.

Ash’s morning sickness has been pretty bad. Pretty much 24 hours a day. She has good days and sometimes we are just thankful when she has a good couple of hours. As hard as it is on her, the doctor told us that her feeling sick is a good thing for the baby, so in our own little way we are thankful for her sickness.

I hope that you will all pray for us as we go through this experience. Pray for us to be prepared to the best of our abilities, pray for the health of the baby. Pray for Ashleigh and I, that we will prepare our hearts, our minds, our spirits, and just pray that we will be the parents we are meant to be. Our next appointment is December 31st. I will try to put up another blog after that just to give everyone updates.

Be an example.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Come Together

So I was listening to a pod cast from the pastor of Hillsong Sydney, Bryan Houston. He has a series of sermons about being in a “place of agreement”. Something that he said really spoke to me. He pointed out that as Christians, we may disagree with homosexuality, abortion, over consumption of alcohol, or whatever else. Yet when we go to sporting events we can all sit on a row full of people who are dealing with these kinds of sins or a variety of others, or people who don’t believe in Jesus in any shape, form, or fashion. We can stand and cheer with a Muslim or someone who practices Judaism or Buddhism. He even says, “If our team is really playing well, we may even hug or kiss, the man next to us.”

He says the reason we can do this at sporting events is because we are all focused on the same thing. We are focused on cheering for our team and trying to help encourage them to a victory. We are focused on a goal, we are focused on the victory.

If you are curious as to why the church is truly struggling in America right now, I have one of the answers. We aren’t focused on the goal, on the victory, on the prize, on Jesus.

I sing in our church choir, and honestly I get so sad when I look out in the congregation during worship songs. So many people are just coming to church because that’s what they are supposed to do. They come, they stand, they sit, they “listen” to a sermon, they stand, they sit, we pray, they leave. For so many “Christians”, that is just how it is for them, that is what they consider a relationship with Jesus to be. I will admit, there are weeks when I am like that. I’m tired, I’ve had a long week at work, and basically just feel dead, and don’t feel like coming to church. But the difference is, when I get there, I feel such peace and joy. I come to church and I become focused on Jesus, and what my goal in life is suppose to be, which is brining glory to Him.

Like I said, we come and stand, and act like we are singing, and have no expression of joy on our face and it is so sad. We will sing, “How Great is Our God”, and our faces will look like God just killed our favorite dog or cat.

Not only do we come to church and act dead, but then we come and just start these huge battles and arguments with people, that have no bearing on eternity. It is so sad, to see us be able to cheer for a football team with a Muslim, but cannot rejoice in the Lord, at church, with another Christian, because they said that they like hymns better than contemporary worship, or that they carpet in the sanctuary would have been better brown than red. We argue between “denominations”, which I think is one of dumbest things that our “religious system” ever came up with. I’m going to use sarcasm here, “OH, YOU HAD WATER SPRINKLED ON YOUR HEAD?! THEN YOU AREN’T A REAL CHRISTIAN BECAUSE YOU WEREN’T DUNKED!”… “WHAT YOU USE THE NIV, WELL THE KING JAMES IS THE ONLY “REAL” BIBLE, YOU AND YOUR CHURCH MUST REALLY NEED JESUS.”

What we need as a church is to come to a “place of agreement” with God and with each other. And not just in our home churches, but, dare I say it, other denominations. The church was supposed to be a body of believers focused on other thing, one prize, one God, one Jesus. As Christians, we have the greatest prize, the greatest victory, the greatest thing that we could ever receive in Jesus. If we want to see a difference in this world we need to come together.

One of my favorite Beatles songs is “Come Together”. That is exactly what we need to do, we need to come together, united as one body, one thought, one mind, one God, united as one, pouring our hearts out in Jesus’ name.

Be an example.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Blogging is Harder Than it Seems

Ok…So for me personally, there hasn’t been a whole lot of new stuff going on. However this week my church had its annual school release crusade. Ken Freeman came and spoke again this year. I think we have had him four or five times. To be honest, before he came, I wasn’t really looking forward to hearing him speak. It make it simple, I have heard him speak numerous times, so I have heard all of his stories to many times to count. So I was thinking its just going to be the same stuff again this year. But I was quite wrong. It was truly refreshing. We had well over 100 people give their lives to Christ, which is obviously an incredible total for less than a week.

It was so nice just to be able to go to a Christian event and for the most part, get away from the drama of this world, and everything surrounding it. I have been so caught up lately with the election and all the crap that goes with it. I work for a credit union so I have been around all the junk that has been going on with the economy and watching people who are truly struggling right now. I have seen people that actually work hard and are trying desperately to keep their lives going right now, and things just keep getting worse.

Ken talked last night about how people are looking for answers, answers to life’s though questions. He brought an actual door up on stage and talked about how people are looking for “a door”. A door they can walk through and find all those answers. He then made the comparison of the door to our hearts. About how Jesus stands at the door and knocks and wants to lead us to a new life if we will only allow Him. Earlier in the week Jake Gulledge, who led worship for us, sang a song that was really simple lyrically, but had much deeper meaning to it. It started with, “When I rise in the morning, just give me Jesus”. The song used the line “just give me Jesus”, repeatedly.

I haven’t been depending on Christ as much as I should lately. To be honest I have been in a real funk this week. Every night we went to the Crusade, I didn’t really want to go, but when I got there is was like, “why did I not want to come?”. I thought that basically I knew what was going to happen every night, and was being selfish with my time. I had the attitude of, “well I’m saved, why should I go?”. But it was about so much more than that. It was about a body of believers coming together and just sharing in the joy of Christ and the joy of seeing people come to Him and realizing how much they need Him. I haven’t been waking up in the morning and saying, “give me Jesus”. I have been waking up saying give me more sleep, give my Sportscenter, give me video games, give me FANTASY FOOTBALL. I know that both of my blogs so far have been pretty serious, and that is not usually how I am, but I started this blog so I could get some of these thoughts and feeling out there, and not keeping them bottled up inside. If you know me at all, then you know I am a really fun-loving guy, who is always wanting to have fun, and pretty much never be serious.

But like I said I have been struggling with some stuff lately. I think I finally figured out it was because I have not been waking up saying give me Jesus, give me the love of my wife, give me the Word of God, give me the joy of being able to share the love of Christ with someone. God gave me the greatest wife in the world, and I have taken that for granted WAY to much this week. She is an incredible woman not only in her looks, but with her heart, she loves God and she loves me, and I should always be able to find joy in that, because that is something God gave me to find His joy. I hope that anybody reading this, will take a quick lesson, and just start asking for Jesus, every morning, every night. No matter what we are doing, or how busy we are, we need to be asking for Jesus, and taking joy in His love.

I’m really not to sure what the overall point of this blog is other than what I have already said, and honestly I’m not to sure how to finish it. This blogging stuff is a lot harder than it seems! Be an example.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Love, Love, Love

Ok so I am not very good with words, and I don't even really know why I want to blog this all out, but I have some things on my heart and just need to get them out, so please finish this blog to the end before you just push it away. This all started yesterday morning when I was watching "The View" during my lunch break at work. I hate to even admit that I was remotely interested in this show, but I had to watch it because our antenna is awful and we only get a couple of stations. So basically it was either a clear picture of "The View" or watch The Price is Right with Drew Carrey and watch it skip every couple of seconds. Luckily I kept watching The View.

I say lucky because they were actually discussing an interesting topic. The guest for the day was Bill Maher from the HBO show Real Time with Bill Maher. I had seen him on TV before and thought that he was just a comedian who was just annoying and was constantly trying to be funny. When he first started talking, my assumption seemed to be correct. He kept making dumb jokes and was just being, plainly, stupid. It was really starting to bother me and then all of a sudden the topic switched to religion. Apparently Bill was an atheist and thought that anyone who basically believed in ANY religion was an idiot. He started to poke fun at the story of Noah, and wanted to know how anyone could believe that Noah lived to be 900 years old, or that he got two of every single creature on earth onto a boat he had built, and then convinced them all to have sex and repopulate the earth AFTER it was flooded for forty days. One of the hosts, Sherri Shepard, and yes I did look that up, I did not know who she was, began to shake her head yes to everything Bill was saying about the story(not that she agreed with him, but that she believed what he was saying WAS true). He then questioned her about it, and she said yes that she believed what he was saying was actually a factual story based on real events. Needless to say he did not agree with her. She then began to question him about a couple of things, asking him, “have you ever just talked to God, and asked God what he thinks”, which at the time I thought was pointless because the guy is obviously an atheist, why would he talk to God? He then replied, “the question is, did God talk to you?”, and went on to say that it was just a voice she was hearing in her head and not the actual God of the universe.

It is astonishing to me that people can still honestly say that they do not believe in God. I set down today and thought to myself, “what do people who don’t believe in the Bible see when they look at Christians.” After thinking about this question for a while I started to think about how to someone from the “outside” would look at Christians as basically a bunch of crazy people and hypocrites. People living to 900 years old, birth by a virgin, and all the other miraculous stories in the Bible, I guess to a point I could see how we could seem crazy. BUT…I don’t understand how people can not believe those stories and believe that our universe as massive and as glorious as it is, came together by some random chance, by some kind of chemicals combining at the right time and combusting into what is now our universe. One of the best comparisons I ever heard, was taking apart a watch, putting it in a brown paper bag, shaking the bag up and taking the watch out in a perfect working condition. Some people think it is not the same situation, but if you look at it closely it is. You are taking all of the necessary parts, putting them all together in a close area. The reason that it wouldn’t work is because there must be a creator, just like with the universe. There MUST be a perfect, holy, wonderful God who created all that we see.

I have a set of friends who just had some catastrophic happen in their lives just yesterday. I found out about their situation just a few hours after I had watched the interview with Bill Maher. What happened to my friends is something that I think most of us all fear. But the most surprising thing is how quickly they turned back to God, how quickly they leaned on our loving Savior and how they were able to take comfort and realize that even in their darkest hours, He is holding them in His hands. Does it make the situation easier? No…but, just from talking with my friend, I know that he has a peace about it. I have seen other people go through the same kind of situation who do not have a relationship with Christ, and things would go down hill quickly for them.

The fact of the matter is we must all be yearning for Christ. We must come to the realization that there IS a wonderful savior, who wants to be our comfort, our refuge, and wants to save us from an eternity in Hell. In a book by Rob Bell called Velvet Elvis, Rob says,
“The prophet Isaiah had a vision of heaven, and in his vision angels were shouting, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory." The Hebrew word for glory here is kavod, which means weight or significance.”
Rob goes on to talk about how the whole earth is full of the weight and significance of who God is. It is in this that we need to find our strength. In the fact that everywhere we go no matter what we are doing that the God that gave life to all of us is there, whether we want to admit it or not. That He was there when Noah build the ark and lived to be 900. He was there when Mary became pregnant as a virgin, when Jesus fed thousands of people with just a few fish and some bread. He is there when we sin and He is there when we don’t. He is there when someone near and dear to us passes away or when we are stricken with a horrible terminal disease. We must realize first and foremost that He loves us and sent Jesus to die for us.

The next part I learned best from my best friend. After we come to that realization we must take that fact, and love the world. Love the homosexuals, love the liars, love the people that do nothing but put you down, love the people who praise Allah and blow up buildings and buses. We are commanded to love the world period…no matter what…love, love, love. Christians get so concerned with making themselves look good and trying to figure out what makes THEM look like a better Christian, instead of getting REAL with themselves and with others. We are basically too caught up in ourselves. Jesus commanded us to go out and change the world. Not by bashing the sins, but by befriending someone who does not know Him, and then once that trust and friendship is gained, THEN sharing the great and wonderful story of Christ’s life and love. Not in a condemning way, but in a way that reflects Christ. We MUST remember to love. Be an example.

Me

So this is me. Not a lot to know. My name is James Waddell. I have a beautiful loving wife named Ashleigh. We got married June 30th, 2007 and just recently bought our first home in Halls. We have an awesome dog named Ollie, and I love the little man to death. I attend Fairview Baptist Church in Corryton and it is an awesome place for Christians to come together and love Jesus and celebrate him together. I already have my first blog ready which is really why I started this whole page, so I will let you guys learn a little more about me later. And please read to the end. I think there is a good message for all of us. Be an example.