This evening’s Bible Study went better than last. At the time, the news of Northland’s compromise was still fresh on my mind and took me away from full concentration on the message. I’ll admit that speaking about the husband-wife relationship from Ephesians 5 is challenging no matter what has been happening during the week. Thankfully, I was able to focus better this week and came away with a good study for husbands from the latter part of the chapter.

However, it was especially interesting speaking to a group of children and adults and being the only husband in the room. And yet, the passage still had great application for all of us because of Paul’s repeated reference to Christ’s love for the church. His example of nourishing and cherishing all believers is something all of us can follow whether male or female, married or not.

In the back of the hymnal, Hymns of Grace and Glory, I found a good hymn for the family. The title is “O Give Us Homes” and is sung to the tune Finlandia. You may remember the tune better as “Be Still My Soul.” The text of the song is a good reminder of our goal in Christian families.

O give us homes built firm upon the Savior,
Where Christ is Head, and Counselor and Guide;
Where ev’ry child is taught His love and favor
And gives his heart to Christ, the crucified:
How sweet to know that tho’ his footsteps waver
His faithful Lord is walking by his side!

O give us homes with godly fathers, mothers,
Who always place their hope and trust in Him;
Whose tender patience turmoil never bothers,
Whose calm and courage trouble cannot dim;
A home where each finds joy in serving others,
And love still shines, tho’ days be dark and grim.

O give us homes where Christ is Lord and Master,
The Bible read, the precious hymns still sung;
Where prayer comes first in peace or in disaster,
And praise is natural speech to ev’ry tongue;
Where mountains move before a faith that’s vaster,
And Christ sufficient is for old and young.

O Lord, our God, our homes are Thine forever!
We trust to Thee their problems, toil, and care;
Their bonds of love no enemy can sever
If Thou art always Lord and Master there:
Be Thou the center of our least endeavor:
Be Thou our Guest, our hearts and homes to share.

Two men arrived on our doorstep today with an interesting proposition. Having noticed the Century home plaque on the front of our house, they wanted permission to dig up the old pit toilets in search of old glass bottles. They even agreed to split anything they found with us. I was a bit leery about two strangers digging in my back yard, but gave them my permission. I guess it was the archaeologist in me.

Look what they found! They unearthed three separate pottery jugs (in pieces), a piece of a Civil War era plate, a bottle of Citrate of Magnesia, and various other shards of pottery and glass. I’m glad we let them do it. It turned out to be quite interesting. And hopefully, we’ll be able to piece together one or more of the jars. Pretty cool.

Then the kids got home from school and a new campaign began. They will all shower tonight. Everyone!

I was going through some old file folders and found this at the top of an invoice. The picture is Jefferson when he was about 7 months old. Back then we were living in Niagara, Wisconsin and were as poor as … well … as poor as married college students. That lack of income led to creative ways of making extra money and eventually led to the creation of Redhead Computers.

After moving back to Ohio, we continued the business just to keep track of taxes on Sharon’s jewelry business and my Audio Adventure CD sales. But when things got busy, it became a hassle to keep up with. So we “liquidated” the business a few years ago. Regardless, that picture still makes me smile.

Last night, the teens from our church were invisited to a progressive dinner at the homes of several of our elders and our pastor. The teens seemed to enjoy the food, fun, and fellowship. Several people dressed up in funny costumes. We had a two geeks with taped glasses, a car mechanic with grease covered skin, twins in pink striped outfits, someone dressed as duct-tape Caleb, an M&M girl, and none other than Mr. Buckeye Mullet himself.

Pastor Scheiderer ended the evening with a short devotional that fit the moment. Having noted the various costumes worn by the teens, he spoke about wearing the mask of hypocrisy. It’s easy for teens (or any of us) to put on a show by doing what’s expected when what God really wants is our heart. That was a good reminder and one that we have been discussing in youth group recently.

My current demo vehicle at the dealership has been a 2005 Volvo XC90 with seating for five. And since we needed a bigger vehicle to transport kids to each home, my manager gave me permission to drive a 2007 Chevy Tahoe for the weekend. That was the perfect vehicle as we were able to transport seven with plenty of elbow room. Thanks, Steve!

There I was this morning in the main office, eyeing the bagels some kind soul had brought to work. What a thoughtful person! I love bagels … especially when they’re warm with a touch of butter. But there was no tub of butter available today. Instead, there were three small tubs of cream cheese. The one that caught my eye looked like strawberry flavored cream cheese. Ooh la la! I had brought in bagels a few weeks back along with a strawbeery tub of cream cheese. So, I knew how good that could be. Add to that the already good taste of the blueberry bagel I had instinctively grabbed. Mm Mmmm….

After spreading the cream cheese on both sides of the bagel, I smashed them together before taking a big bite. Mm Mmmm … hmmm? That wasn’t quite what I was expecting. Was that bacon flavored? What was that? Oh … yuck! I didn’t know they made that flavor! Take it from me. From now on, I’ll read the label first. Blueberry bagels and salmon flavored cream cheese just don’t go together!

And they did!

Jefferson’s Pack had the privilege of marching the flags to the 50 yard line at the Harvey-Riverside game Friday evening. It was quite impressive to see the boys standing at attention while the National Anthem was sung accompanied by the band. And they continued to hold the flags during the singing of Riverside’s school anthem. Pretty cool for a kid to be able to do things like that.

Sharon and I scraped another 6 rows of siding, then primed and painted them. I’m telling you, that was tiring and took a lot of work. But it’s paying off with a house that looks much better. And to boot, I finally installed the gutter on the back porch’s (mostly) flat roof. And whadya know, as long as I position the camera right, the house look pretty good!