Jess and I both love the Fall!  The cooler days are definitely welcome, and the NM State Fair, Balloon Fiesta, and other fun holidays are just around the corner.  Jonathan started Kindergarten a few weeks ago.  Yes, my eldest is in school.  Seems like a rather significant milestone.  He’s doing well and enjoying it so far.  Benjamin turned 4 at the end of July, and I was able to take him to the Grand Canyon for the day to visit some friends of mine from college that were in AZ, visiting from Germany.  I hadn’t seen them since our marriage over 7 years ago, so Benjamin and I drove out there and spent the night with my cousins and then toured the South Rim with my friends for the day before driving home that evening.  It was a fun, whirlwind of a trip.  And our little Sarah continues to be a joy and delight!  She turns 1 year old in less than 2 weeks.  What a year it’s been.

This also marks my first blog entry from our beautiful new 24″ iMac!  Yes, we made the switch to the dark side  Now that they have Intel chips inside them, not to mention a superior OS IMHO, we made our move and aren’t looking back.  It’s been wonderful to say the least!  Everything just works great all the time and is easy to use.  And PhotoBooth and iPhoto alone were worth the switch.  But then you add on a sweet email interface and Safari and easy navigation…

My wonderful parents and several friends came over yesterday to help us on several projects around the house.  We painted our entry way and pulled up the old, smelly carpet.  And they assembled a new desk for our iMac that looks nicer and fits in the corner of the living room better.  We also just had fun hanging out.  My good friend JD Quinn captured this awesome shot of my mom and daughter:

OK, it’s way late, and I have to work tomorrow, but I upgraded a couple WordPress plugins (including WordBook to publish this to FB) and got inspired to write a quick entry.

Loving life all the time!  Thank you God for the abundant life you have given us through Jesus Christ  Good night morning.

My wife and I had just watched a very powerful documentary/video about a young lady named Niki Ochenski who was miraculously healed.  It’s online, and here’s a brief description:
“In this video you will hear the story of Niki Ochenski’s strange illness. No matter what the doctors called it, the disease made an invalid out of an otherwise normal teenaged girl, wasting her body for 5 long years. Finally, it began pushing her to the very brink of death. On November 15, 2000 Andrew Wommack came to Niki’s home church, the Shepherd’s House in Lewisville, TX. His teaching that night sparked a remarkable change in Niki, a change that resulted in a dramatic miracle of healing. In this video, we invite you to enter Niki’s home and witness this miracle in the words of those who were there to see it.”

If you can take the time to watch the video, I would highly recommend it.  I was moved to tears over the powerful story.  I was encouraged and amazed at the miracle God did in her life, but the thing that really caught my attention was the depth of Niki’s relationship with God.  She actually knows Jesus intimately (one of, if not the main purpose and joys of the Christian life), and that comes through very clearly in her testimony.  I was convicted, in a good but very challenging way, about how nonchalantly I’ve been seeking the Lord recently due to how busy I’ve been.  That’s my excuse anyway.  But life is always busy, and we make time for what is important to us.

When someone asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was, he replied, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”  The greatest man who has ever lived on earth said that loving God and loving people is what real life is all about.  Yep!  It’s so true, and I’ve tasted of that life to varying degrees for over 25 years now.  But I don’t want to just taste it anymore; I want to drink it in deeply on a daily basis.  It’s not a matter of earning brownie points with God.  I can’t do anything to make him love me any more or any less, and I’m already completely accepted by God through faith in Jesus Christ - totally by his grace (unmerited favor) and not by any “good” works I’ve done.  That’s the Good News - we don’t have to be good enough for God!  Jesus took care of that.

So why seek to know the God of the universe on a personal and intimate level?  Because he loves me and wants to hang out with me in an ongoing, life-giving relationship.  When most people think of eternal life, they think of spending eternity in Heaven - or something like that in most cases.  That’s definitely part of it, but again, Jesus had a rather shockingly simple definition of what eternal life is, and I value his opinion more than anyone else’s - as recorded by his disciple John: “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”

I have eternal life now because I know God, but like any relationship, I can get to know him better by spending more time with him.  I’ve been married almost 7 years now, and I know my wife very well, but I’m still learning some new things about her and falling even more deeply in love with her - as I spend more time with her.  It’s the same with God.  I don’t pray and read the Bible and go to church so that God will accept me, but because he already has and so that I can get to know him better.

I could go on and on about the goodness of God, but I need to go to sleep, so I’ll wrap this up by explaining my Tweet.  There’s a passage in the Bible that says:

Surely my soul remembers
And is bowed down within me.
This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.
The LORD’S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I have hope in Him.”
The LORD is good to those who wait for Him,
To the person who seeks Him.

After I prayed last night and asked God to forgive me and help me to seek him more whole-heartedly, I looked down at my watch for the first time in an hour, and it was exactly 12:00 and roughly 25 seconds.  It was a new morning! It was as if God was saying, “Of course you’re forgiven, and I will help you know me better because that’s what I want too.”  I was overjoyed and decided to send the quick update to FaceBook via Twitter before going to bed with a great sense of peace - I love modern technology :)  So there’s the story.

Just for the fun of it, a picture from Friday - one of our first evening walks outside as a family this season!

This one goes back a few years

Next, and I’m 11 days late on this one, but my awesome brother just hit the big 25 - a quarter century :)  I so admire my brother and his relationship with his family, friends, and God.  He was recently accepted into the sheriff’s academy where he’s been undergoing the civilian version of boot camp for the last few weeks, and he’s doing well and will no doubt be be a huge asset to our community in this new role in a few months.  As I mentioned, he loves the Lord, and recently started a blog to share some of the music he’s written and engage people in dialogue about spiritual issues many of us face.  One of my favorite’s is actually a duet with my niece called “Voice of the Father“.  The lyrics are powerful, it’s a great song in general, and his daughter made her debut appearance :)  Highly recommend it for any parents out there!  Kyle, I love you and am so proud of you, bro!

Kyle throwing Benjamin in the air over Christmas - he loved it!

Lastly, my little angel is half a year old today!  I can’t believe it’s been 6 months since she was born.  She has been such a delight and joy!  The world is already a better place because she’s here, and I know that will only continue to become more true as she grows up.  Sarah, thank you for filling our lives with such joy! And thank you Jesus for entrusting her and her wonderful big brothers into our hands for a few years.

Sittin on the counter in her Bumbo seat

For those not on Facebook, we got a really fun video of Jonathan making Sarah laugh this last Saturday.  Our boys can make her laugh more than anyone else.

My dad is an amazing man of God and such a blessing to my whole family, our church, and our community.  He has faithfully loved my mom for over 31 years which has given my brother and sister and I such stability and an example to follow.  My dad is one of the greatest examples in the area of purity and integrity as well.  He and my mom have been teaching the premarital classes through our church and discipling young couples for probably a decade now.  And as a Christian counselor, he dedicates his time to helping families and individuals work through some really tough stuff with great patience, wisdom, and a passion to see them walk in true freedom and victory.  And lest you think he’s perfect from this description, he’s not.  But even when he has messed up, he’s been an example to us by genuinely apologizing to either my mom or one of us or whatever the situation called for, and that kind of humility is so rare in a man.  He can fix ANYTHING, has helped my drywall the inside of my house, taught me how to change the breakpads and oil on my car, taken me hunting and fishing, supported me in band and tennis in high school, and in so many other ways said with his actions, “I believe in you.  You can do anything, and I’ll love you just the same whether you succeed or not.”  As my earthly father, he has so consistantly demonstrated unconditional love to me, that it has been easy to receive love from my heavenly Father.  That’s the greatest legacy he’s left us - a genuine, deep relationship with and faith in Jesus Christ.

This is a fun picture of my parents with our 3 kids and our niece and nephew from a family photo shoot last November:

Nana & Umpah with their grandkids

It was hilarious watching the moms trying to get all their kids to smile at the same time:

My boys are really into playing super heroes right now.  Jess and I get asked multiple times per day which super hero we want to be from a list of choices including Spiderman, Superman, Batman, Robin Hood, Luke Skywalker, and other Jedi warriors and a few others - including Simba (Lion King) for Benjamin.  I let the boys get matching Ironman shoes yesterday with soles that light up, so guess who has been the favorite since then.  They needed new shoes, the price was right at PayLess, and they love them :)  They haven’t even seen those movies (besides a few previews and cartoon versions), but they just know somehow.  Ah, I remember those days.  But for me it was He-Man and the ThunderCats.

Well, there’s something in the heart of every boy that wants to be great and save the world.  There’s something in every man’s heart that seeks significance and to know that they have what it takes.  Thank you for passing true greatness on to us, Dad.  You’re my greatest hero, and I love you!

Then two Saturdays ago we gave Sarah her first solid food.  Actually “solid food” is not quite an appropriate description.  Rice mush cereal is a little better And yes, someone is still having a hard time remembering what year it is.

Then last Friday I got home and noticed some pretty bling bling on my little girls’ ears.  Yep, Jess took her to get her ears pierced while the boys were at their Friday Fun Day preschool.  Let’s just say Daddy is smitten

My little Isotopes fans…

The boys are often out by the time we get home from a late night at Nana and Umpah’s or church.  Ah, to be able to sleep like a child.

The apostle John put it this way in 1 John 4, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son [the 1st Christmas] as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.”

I know, many people who claim to know God aren’t very loving, and that’s unfortunate.  That passage goes on to say “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.”  It’s sad that the most loving being in the universe gets such a bad rap from people who misrepresent him.  To my brothers and sisters in Christ, let’s remember the greatest commandment Jesus left us with from Mark 12 as we move into a new year: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.”  To those reading this who have been hurt by myself or another Christian, I apologize for living a lie and not accurately reflecting the kindness and goodness of God which leads people to repentance.

As I reflected on the last couple weeks, I just had to start with remembering WHY we celebrate Christmas.  He is the reason that I got to take time off of work and spend it with my family, that many stores and homes around town have such festive decorations and lights on them, that TJ and Cammy and Kenny got to come down here from Colorado for a couple weeks, that Benjamin and Jonathan dressed up in red and sang in front of the church, that my family all pitched in to buy a Wii, that my boys can now be real Jedi’s since they have “real” light sabers, etc.  Jesus is the reason for the season!

Yes, Christmas started for us on Sunday, December 21st with the boys singing in the childrens Christmas choir at church that morning.  We had been practicing the two songs they sang for the previous month, and they got to shine that morning:

Our boys and their friends singing at church with their good friends Asha and Dallas between them

We got em on video too:

That was also the day we got to see TJ, Cammy, and Kenny.  Kyle and Leah recently built, bought, and moved into a new home on the west side of Albuquerque a bit closer to family.  So we all gathered at their place for the afternoon.  The kids got to open their presents from Nana and Umpah then, and the Wii was definitely the highlight!

The boys loved the Wii boxing.

Jonathan put his whole body into it!  We laughed at him so much, but it didn’t seem to bother him, because he knocked out and beat everyone he played.  I’m serious, I don’t know if it’s the speed he hit with or what, but neither TJ or I could beat him, no matter how hard or sophisticated we tried to box.

On Christmas Eve we went to the Candlelight Service at our church, and it was fabulous!  Jess had been practicing the Christmas music with the choir for over a month, and it was glorious.  She did great and looked dazzling!  Since my parents were running the overheads and a camera and Jess was on stage with the choir, I had all three of our kiddos with me.  Thankfully our friends Courtney and Andrew were there helping me with them, but the only picture I got was from my cell phone at the end when some of the guys came out dressed up with top hats, canes, and jackets and did a really fun choreographed dance with some of the ladies.  It was such a beautiful evening!

Candlelight Service

And speaking of my beautiful girls…

Christmas Angels

We had a wonderful Christmas morning at home with just the 5 of us.  The boys actually let us sleep in til around 7:30, and then we had the yummy toutlerre (French meat pie) that Jess makes every Christmas which has been a tradition of her French Canadian side of the family for a long time.  Then the boys got to open their stockings and presents.  It was so fun!  We made them wait to the end before they could open their main presents from Jess and I, and we captured the thrill of the moment:

My little Jedi knight

They have had so much fun with them over the last week We decided to let them take their light sabers to Nana and Umpah’s that afternoon with the understanding that they would have to share with their cousin Kenny.  To everyone’s delight, we found that Kenny had recieved a sword that made real sword sounds when it was swung or hit things.  Needless to say, there were some fierce battles, but no one last any fingers.

Kyle and Leah spent the afternoon with us with their beautiful 6 month old daughter Lilly, and we got some precious pictures of all 5 of the cousins.  There are more pictures online at http://picasaweb.google.com/jcwoods1/Christmas_2008.

Cousins

Jess and I asked if we could spend the night there, and all five of us ended up staying there through Sunday evening. The boys had so much fun playing together, and we enjoyed the time with TJ and Cammy. TJ and I took our boys to Hoots Party Zone on Friday morning and met up with my friend Chris and his son Lincoln so they could all play on the inflatable toys and jungle gym.  The parents get to play for free, and we did

That night the adults stayed up and watched “The Nativity Story“.  It’s a fabulous presentation of what it might have really been like for Mary and Joseph living under brutal Roman power.  It does a good job portraying how scandalous it must have been for a young teenage girl to show up pregnant while betrothed to another man.  It also made me realize that it’s no Sunday afternoon stroll to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem with a woman in her last trimester of pregnancy.  Whether you believe Jesus was the Son of God or not, it’s well worth seeing this well-produced movie ($35M budget) that depicts one of the greatest events in history.  You can watch the last 6 minutes of it here.

By Saturday the 3 boys were all needing a bit of a break from each other, so Jess took Jonathan and Benjamin to the Albuquerque Aquarium.  Jess and I have been fighting off severe soar throats since last Saturday, but we’ve both been on antibiotics for a couple days now and are feeling better thankfully.  It has been a wonderful Christmas for our family in Albuquerque, and I pray that you have a wonderful New Year!

Polly Baker, thank you for opening up your home to Jessica and Jackie on that Sunday evening and showing that movie and sharing the Good News with Jessica - again.  I’m thankful for servants of God like you who live out your faith and love people enough to tell them about the amazing free gift of God’s love that is available to anyone who will receive it.  Our lives would not be the same without you.  You literally changed eternity.  And yet, as you would agree, you were just one of the people along the way that God used as He drew Jessica near to Himself.  Thank you for letting him use you!

Jessica, mi amor, may Jesus always be your first love!

Woods Family at the 2008 Balloon Fiesta

Thankfully, we were able to get some breakfast and warm up inside the Intel corporate tent.  For anyone who’s never been to the balloon fiesta, it’s quite an experience - especially with young children who are enthralled with all the sights and sounds and action! I took around 145 pictures in less than 2 hours, but I only uploaded 74 of them :)  It’s hard to take a bad picture.  If you’re interested, they’re online at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jcwoods1/BalloonFiesta2008.  Most of the ones with some of us in them are toward the beginning.

Even Jonathan took a good shot:

Jonathan's picture

Bernice arrived at the end of the balloon fiesta 5 years ago, but since Jonathan had been born the day before, she didn’t make it out to the fiesta.  That was remedied today:

Memere and Jonathan

I got a fun one of Jess, Benjamin, and Sarah after we got home too.  Ben delights in his little sister and frequently kisses her on the head:

Ben Kissing His Little Sister

The boys and I rode the Rail Runner down to Los Lunas yesterday.  Mark Essenmacher picked us up at the train station, and we had a fun time with his family for a few hours before returning home.  The Rail Runner is scheduled to connect to Santa Fe by the end of this year.  That will be a huge win for commuters - and tourists.  The boys loved that we could go faster than the vehicles on the road - at least part of the time.  It was $3 for all of us for the day.

Riding the Train

The day before that we went geocaching and chased each other and jack rabbits around for a couple hours.

Our 14th find

This is what a sabbatical is all about :)  Praise God for this amazing time with my family!!!  Anyway, after getting up at 4:45 AM this morning, I’m ready to hit the hay.