A Great Easter Story!

Prepare to laugh.. I have to set up this story with a little history first. Last week we allowed Audrey to bUy some gold fish with money that she has earned from us and her Grandparents. We bought 3 gold fish from wal mart for 28 cents a piece!! Audrey took great care of them for 4 days making sure they were fed on a regular precise schedule. On Wednesday night she accidently dumped all of the food and Melissa swept it up on Thursday with the sweeper not thinking it was all the food we had. Long story short the fish starved!!! Melissa got up and flushed one Friday morning and then flushed another around 1:00. We traveled to Wal-mart and got 3 replacements.. When we returned the 3 and final (of the originals) was floating and Melissa took it to the toilet. It was then that I heard a scream from upstairs from my wife saying "Aaron it's alive!!!!" I ran upstairs and there it was, the fish that was flushed at 1:00 was swimming around with renewed vigor for life! Unbelievable!! It was flushed from an UPSTAIRS TOILET and made its way back?? So that is the story about Lazarus the Gold Fish.

SIDE NOTE: THE STUFF FLOATING IN THE TOILET IS FISH FOOD!! WE USED IT TO BRING LAZARUS BACK TO THE TOP SO WE COULD GET HIM OUT!!

Alarm Clock

So this morning I wake up for work at the usual 7:00 a.m. I shower and get all ready and the whole time I am thinking "man it is dark outside." I subdue these thoughts because of the rain and just think it is a dark morning. As I am going down stairs I notice that my senses are not rushed by the wonderful smell of Blue Mountain Coffee. We have a coffee pot that can be programmed to make coffee at the same time every morning. Anyway, I get to the coffee pot and I am pulling it out to see if there is water in it, and then I look at the clock and it says 6:30. My chin hits the counter (figure of speech) and all I can do is laugh!!!!

You see what had happened is my Atomic Clock had ran back another hour for daylight savings time. When they started changing the days around that start daylight savings time they messed up my wonderful clock! Just a funny story this morning!!

More Jamaica!!

This is a video (Shot side ways :)) of one of our Jamaican friends singing one of the many Jamaican songs he knows. Eli is a great entertainer and an even better singer. Eli sings for most of the teams when they come down and was nice enough to make a special appearance for us on Monday night. He has written many of his own songs including one he calls "Through the Father's Eyes." Which is responsible for the name of my blog!! Very powerful song and I am hoping to get it online soon so I can share it with all of you.

O yeah and if you watch long enough you see my daughter and her bad habit!!!

Making Friends

Our concerns about the kids have all went away. Braylon is feeling a 100% better this morning after a pretty good nights sleep and Audrey is making friends like it is nobody's business. Yesterday we went to visit a house that CSI may be purchasing and on the way we saw some kids playing in the yard and immediately Audrey wanted to get out and play. I told her no and she cried! We went on up to the house and looked around and she kept saying I want to go play with those kids. I being the softy I am finally caved and we left everyone at the house and walked down to meet the kids. It took 30 seconds and my daughter was laughing and playing, and going down a steep hill on a little car!!! Needless to say my daughter has no fear of people and sees no barriers. The result is the picture above.

What a trip!!

After approximately 12 hours of travel we made it!! Let me say the kids were great!! I could not have asked for more. Here are some pictures from the flight. Melissa and I will be posting pictures throughout the trip.

OUT OF THE COUNTRY!!

Tomorrow morning the Black Family will be leaving the Indianapolis Int'l airport at 9:00 am bound for Montego Bay, Jamaica. Between my blog and Melissa's Blog you should be able to stay up to date on our trip. We will both try to make an effort to make a couple of posts between soaking up the rays :).

Perspective on Heaven and Hell

What are your thoughts on Heaven and Hell?

Amazing How God Keeps Us In Check!!

After having a great day with my family yesterday, I was brought to frustration last night as we tried to get some sleep. For the past week or week and a half we have all been fighting colds and you know what this does to your kids when they try to sleep. Between Coughing, Throwing Up, Crying, and then the guilt I have when I am laying in bed while my wonder wife sits up with Braylon I find a little shut eye.

Through all of this there has been a couple times that I have just wished they were old enough to sleep in their own beds and not in ours. Then I hear this song by Darius Rucker on the radio, and quickly I am reminded to be careful what I wish for. O how HE humble me when I need it most. Melissa, Braylon, And Audrey I love you guys!!!!!

8 Days until Departure

In just 8 days my family and I will be headed to Jamaica Man!! We are really excited to spend sometime together. I charish every moment I have with my family and I really cannot wait to see how they react to the Jamaican people. God is Good All The Time!!

Jamaica!!

In less than 2 weeks Melissa and I will be traveling to Jamiaca!!! We are traveling with Ron Oren and other staff members that run CSI. We will be going for some RNR and more importanlty on some fact finding. Melissa and I have always thought about being full time missions and this experience will give us an oppurtunity to see what that would look like. Not sure where or when we will go, but we believe God has missions planned for our future.

It also helps that it will be 85% everyday we are there :)

OJ Said What??

"The day you take complete responsibility for yourself, the day you stop making any excuses, thats the day you start to the top."-OJ Simpson

How ironic is this quote... As some of you may have noticed everyday I have a sports quote of the day and today was this one. I just thought it was interesting that OJ would have made such a statement. Does the quote "Practice What You Preach" ring a bell O.J.

I'M BACK

WOOOOOHOOOOOOOOO!!!!
I survived my very first basketball sectional at home. Let me tell you I have a good excuse for not posting in the past week in a half. :) Everything went great. I had a lot of wonderful people help me pull this tournament off and I am so thankful that I have people in my life that have my back and are there when I call.

Anyway I got to work outside tonight and go for a walk with my wonderful family and I am a rejuvinated happy man !

O YEAH WE ALSO WON THE TOURNAMENT AND WILL BE PLAYING THIS SATURDAY AT FRANKFORT. 10:00 am against conference foe Daleville. Tickets will be onsale tomorrow...

Rush Hour!!

Today we took Braylon down for a Doctors appointment in Indy (everything turned out just fine, Thank God!!) and started heading home at 4:30. Which happens to be the start of rush hour!!! It takes one trip to Indy for me to remember how happy I am to be in rural randolph county 2 miles from my job. One of the many blessings I forget everyday!

Isaiah 45:22

The blessings from God actually make us lose track of him. I am reading the devotional "My Utmost For His Highest" with my wife and today I read about how God's blessings put strains on our relationships with him and one another. I have never really thought of it in this way but, how true!! God blesses us with: Loving spouses, beautiful children, jobs, money, houses, cars, toys, and much much more!!! What do we allow to take away from our relationshiop with him: all of the above!! God says "Look to me, and be saved" (Isaiah 45:22). This does not sound like an option. We must look to HIM, and BE GREATFUL always.

Just to say it publicly.. I could not do what I do with out the wonderful wife God has given me. I am so happy to have someone in my life that Loves God, and lives to Glorify His Name. Thank You Babe!!

Forgiveness

What does true forgiveness really look like? Fortunately enough for me I got to experience the true meaning of forgiveness at church today. With out giving any names let me explain. A couple of weeks ago me and another church member had a difference at one of our ball games. It was not a confrontational difference but it was one that placed a void, and some awkardiness between us. Today after church this person came up to me and said "hey, I just wanted you to know there is no hard feelings between us." We gave each other a hug and I know we are back where we used to be. I will give him a lot of credit for taking the steps to talk to me, and for that I will always have a great amount of respect for this man.

Forgiveness is saying sorry and being able to walk away from the conversation with a smile on your face knowing that you did everything in your power to make things right!

GO BEARS!!

Our girls basketball team won the Sectional on Saturday at Tri, and our boys played a great game against the Marion Giants Last night. I enjoy watching our kids succeed, but even more so I enjoy watching them learn lessons of life. We have a great coaching staff at Monroe Central and I feel blessed to work with the people I do.

Its a great time to be a BEAR!!!

James 1:22

"Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says."

It seems so easy! But why do we fall short? Why do we make excuses?

The reason is because we cannot die to ourself. We continue to listen to the world. My hope and prayer is that I can faithfully step out and do what God is asking me to do. I need to position myself so he can use me to further His kingdom.

Name Change

I got a great idea for our name change. How about "THE CHURCH." Think about not only is it biblical but how many times have you been evangelizing and someone said "o you go to that Church" or "your a Church goer." No you can answer I go to THE CHURCH. (Kind of like "The Ohio State University" or "The University of Florida."

Plus how many passages in the bible talk about "The Church"?

Matthew 18:17If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

Acts 11:22News of this reached the ears of the church at Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch.

Acts 15:4When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and elders, to whom they reported everything God had done through them.

Plus many more!!

Going Going Gone!!

Going Going Gone!!

Well the wind storm slowed down this post last night, but here it is. I am so happy to see the 13" of snow we had dissappear. Snow is nice for a couple of days but dealing with it week after week gets old.

The meteorologist in me predicts no more "major" snow fall this winter. But like any good meteorologist I will get paid for being right 50% of the time :).

Sports fans with a sense of humor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF_Z4UqzmKs
For whatever reason I could not get this video on my blog so I posted the link so you can check it out. This is a video of my highschool basketball coach and good friend playing in a CHARITY basketball game. If you know him or played for him you will not be surprised to see what happens. The lady he swats is a elementary teacher that stands about 5' tall and has never played a game of basketball in her life.

Absolutely hillarious.

Audrey Sleeping on Her Bible

So I get home yesterday and Melissa had taken some great pictures like she does about 2 times a week. She showed me this picture and I knew I had to share. Audrey loves the bible that Pastor Kris gave her during her dedication 2 weeks ago. She has opened up this unwaivering love for God and it makes me realize how weak my love is for HIM. The way she gets excited when you read her Bible stories, sing worship songs, or pray is unbelievable. We all need to have the same excitment about God that my 2 1/2 year old daughter does!!!!!

2 1/2 Year Old Sledding

I wanted to share this yesterday but I did not get around to it. On Saturday I took Audrey sledding down at Richmond. I went with her my mom and dad, and my four nephews. The day started off with my dad or I going down the big hill with her. After 2 trips with me she wanted nothing to do with it. She looked at my nephews and realized they were going down the hill by themselves and that is what she wanted to do. Let me remind you she is 2 1/2 (going on 10)!!!! I will post some pictures later but my little girl was going down this BIG hill by herself and as fast as you can possibly go on a sled. Naturally I was scared but she loved it. You could here her laugh from the top of the hill. WE had a blast :).

Pictures to come.

Day in my life!!!

I know there are many people in this world that think being an AD consists of sitting on a wall and watching ball games. WRONG!!! Let me walk you throgh a little bit of my day.
10:00 am I called Burris and let them know we had to cancel the ball game for tonight.
10:05 I drove Melissa and Braylon over to the Dr (Braylon has RSV, and an ear infection :( )
10:40-11:45 Called 5 officials to let them know our game was cancelled. Cancelled a re-schedule Girls game, and the re-scheduled that same game (Confusing I know)
1:00-3:00- Re scheduled burris game, Scheduled a game against Marion (Thats right class 4A #4 Marion Giants), Cancelled and Re-scheduled officials for these games.

On top of all that I had approximately 60 texts, 4 Voice Mails at school, and 8 other voicemails on my cell phone..

What a day!! To be quite honest I am not even sure if I remember all the changes that I made today. I hope I wrote them down correctly. Anyway I just wanted to give you some idea what a day looks like for me when the weather does not go how we would like it to..

Looking Through HIS Eyes: They are just games!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Unchartered Territory

So I was thinking it was time for me to get on board with my FFC friends. It turns out I used to consider myself pretty tech savy and now that I have entered the Blog world that has changed!! I have a long way to go but I must say I am excited to have a place to put my thoughts online for all to see.. Anyway we will see how this goes in the future but I will do my best to keep up with it :).