day no. 13,218 continued... putting another year to bed

Enjoy your last day on earth 2014.

I'm sure you'll go down swinging, true to character.

"Nobody puts 2014 in corner!"

Rest assured 2014, I've got a feeling your whole family is goin' down!

day no. 13,218: teeny, tiny 8 bit warriors

My son, Atticus, built this the other day:

and to answer your question, "No," he has never even seen this...

although, that's coming soon enough. 

Crazy, right?

Atticus invented the Zelda sword without ever having seen it!

Kudos my grasshopper.

I remember spending an entire summer as a kid playing The Legend of Zelda on NES.  Fun times.  No internet. No cheats. No nothing. I remember using standard 8 1/2 x 11 paper to create a map of each screen. Then scotch tape to piece it all together. Then I remember Nintendo Magazine coming out and having cheats and codes and what not to help you.  At that point, we had pretty much everything figured out, but it was fun to discover a few more tricks, but also a little disappointing that now every slacker  10 year old who could convince his or her parents to buy a $3 magazine would have the same intel it took me and Nathan Helwig an ENTIRE summer to acquire. But they didn't have the fun we had.

So until the day my little 8 bit warriors get the joy of saving Zelda themselves, it will suffice to watch them sharpen their skills in real life.

Atticus appears to have given the 8 bit Zelda sword to Finneas and fashioned for hiimself an 8 bit shiv of sorts.  That, I hope, he never sees in real life. Eva!

Lastly, another adorbs pic of Finneas and his trusty, clunky 8 bit sword.

day no. 13,217: the whole nine yards

Paige wanted to do the Whole 30 diet.

She wanted a partner in crime.

Today begins Day 1 of the Whole 30.

Don't tell Dr. Pepper.

I don't think he'd understand.

He's a lot like my achy, breaky heart in that regard.

day no. 13,216: partial sin and full condemnation

James 2:9-11

⁹ But if you show favoritism, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. ¹⁰ For whoever keeps the entire law, yet fails in one point, is guilty of breaking it all. ¹¹ For He who said, Do not commit adultery, also said, Do not murder. So if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you are a lawbreaker.

Have you thought about that?

Favoritism is a sin.

It is the sin of murder.

Partiality is hate which is murder which is violation of God's ENTIRE Law.

Stick that in your prejudice and smoke it.

day no. 13,213: drothers‏

“All battles are fought by scared men who’d rather be someplace else.”  ~ John Wayne

If I had my drothers, I would never do anything hard or scary.

Turns out I don't care much for difficulty or fear.

But the battle must be fought and it will be fought by scared men dying to themselves in order to fight the good fight.

Sometimes I'd rather be somewhere else doing something different.

Most of the times that I stay and fight I'm glad I did.

I have NEVER regretted the hard, scary things that accompany faith and faithfulness in Jesus.

day no. 13,212: m'rry christmas classic

day no. 13,211: in and out among the ordinary things‏

My dead friend Oswald helped me put into words something I have observed in myself and in those around me.

 

"The key to missionary devotion means being attached to nothing and no one saving Our Lord Himself, not being detached from things externally. Our Lord was amazingly in and out among ordinary things; His detachment was on the inside towards God. External detachment is often an indication of a secret vital attachment to the things we keep away from externally."

 

I can remember vehemently opposing certain things that I was inwardly, secretly struggling to resist.  I would distance myself from them externally because inwardly I was so intimate with them.  The outward ascetic coated an inward insatient.

 

Sometimes people who outwardly walk far from the line, inwardly tip-toe dangerously close to it in their thoughts.

 

The real thing is being inwardly detached and outwardly involved in the world.

 

The real thing is being inwardly devoted to Jesus and outwardly serving Him in whatever circumstances arrive.