I heard a requote of a quote (what boils down to a RT of a tweet if you prefer Twitter speak) the other day.  The original quote (as far as I know it was the original) was from Billy Graham several years ago.

It’s the Holy Spirit’s job to convict, God’s job to judge and my job to love.

It just stuck with me all day.  How often do I spend my time trying to do the job of the Holy Spirit and God?  It is not a crazy thing for me to think I need to make them see how they are wrong or have judgmental thoughts or actions towards someone.  What is crazy is that I for some reason act like it is up to me.  Don’t worry, brookjames will let you know when you have screwed up.

I need to take the advice that I believe Billy would give.  It is your job to love.  Love my friends.  Love my enemies.  Love the girl that cut me off for no apparent reason and then flipped me off because she was a bad driver.  Love the waiter that has a terrible attitude and poor service.  Love the homeless guy that sits on the bench downtown with his laptop.  Love them all.

I need God to give me strength to love.  That’s my job.  Maybe I should do my job.

As we get farther and farther into this pregnancy, I am just learning all kinds of things. Things I never knew before.

• Did you know that there are a million different types of pacifiers? I didn’t. Just figured they were pretty much all the same.
• Did you know that they still make things that run on D batteries? I didn’t. Why have we not moved strictly to AA, AAA, watch batteries and car batteries?
• Did you know that elephants and giraffes are the most calming, soothing and entertaining animals for babies?  Me either!  I still am not sure I believe it, but if you look at anything the baby stores sell, it is covered in them!  That’s the only explanation I can come up with.  Must be true.
• Did you know that my wife loves to shop for clothes for our baby? Ok, I knew that one, too.

Not only am I learning new random things, I am also learning more about myself and God through this growing a baby thing.

When I got married I never thought it would be possible to love my wife more than I did that day.  But for many of you married people out there, you find out that you love your spouse more and more every day.  Weird, but very true.  Then this little baby starts growing.  It’s exciting!  I love that little girl!  But even though I have never met her or seen her little face I love her so much!  She’s my little baby girl!  I have only known her for about 23 weeks give or take, but every time I feel her moving around, kicking her momma, see her rolling around or just spend a few minutes talking to her, I love her even more.  I can’t imagine what it will be like when she actually shows up.

I love my wife.  I love my little baby.  I love them both more and more every day.  I would do anything I could to make their lives safer and easier.  I would give mine up for them.  But our God takes it to a much higher level!  No matter how much crap we do, how far we stray, how much we yell, He still loves us more than we can ever comprehend.  That’s pretty big.  Jesus loves and values us so much that He came and died for us.  He gave up chillin’ in heaven to put on his Middle Eastern dude suit and come down to fight for us.  He didn’t just come to see what would happen, He came knowing that His life would be taken for ours.  That’s pretty big.  Much bigger than my earthly, husband/daddy love.  More than our wives and our children, we should be falling in love with our God more and more every day.

Ah, Valentine’s Day.  Some mobster from the 1920′s named Mikey “One Eye” Valentino made the day famous somehow.  Not really sure how that all works out.  Anyway, it’s funny how we just set up certain “holidays” for certain things.  Valentine’s Day is to boost the sale of roses (also why women created the doghouse).  Labor Day is to remind us that we all have to work for the man.  Easter is Jesus coming back to life as a bunny and hiding all the eggs from everyone (yes I know that’s not what its about).  President’s Day is for…well I’m not really sure what that one is for.  We live in America.  If you don’t know that we have a president, then you probably shouldn’t be living here.  Anyway, today was Valentine’s Day.  I didn’t think we were going to have a V-Day this year, but since the stimulus package hasn’t quite been fully passed, I think President Obama decided to go ahead and have it to try to help out all the flower pickers in this rough economy!  Good thinking, boss!

These holidays always crack me up.  I never know what to think about them.  Personally,  I really don’t care (except for Easter just to set the record straight for those of that are actually concerned that I don’t know why we really celebrate Easter), but some people live for these days, I think.  A buddy of mine was Twittering today about how his wife is one of those that doesn’t care about V-Day.  Me on the other hand married a woman that is on the Live For These Days team.  And she isn’t joking around.  I can’t imagine what would happen if somehow I didn’t know it was V-Day (and apparently haven been out of the house since New Years Day or turned on the TV).  I would probably be sleeping on the couch (if I even got that much accommodation) and losing other privileges, too.  But, fortunately for me, I did know that the day was approaching and so I made plans accordingly.

This year we have been in a tight spot with the money (as I’m sure many others are as well) so we decided that we would put a good limit on spending on each other.  $15 was the chosen limit.  Well, that didn’t work well.  I know how much this day means to her so I had to break that.  Of course it really didn’t help that she had been going on and on about how if she could pull off her gift, I was really going to love it!  There isn’t much that I could come up with that costs $15 that I would just absolutely love so I figured she must be breaking the limit too.  Well, to make a long story short (which I’m sure she would fill you in on soon enough if you go here) we had gifts of a hat, an iPhone, tickets to see The Dan Band next week, a funny card, a card made from construction paper, markers and glue, a car wash, a dozen roses and cards.  Not only that but we decided to break the day into 2 hour segments in which one person chose what we did for 2 hours and then the other chose the next 2 hours (which was great because finally the day wasn’t only about the guy trying to go to extravagant means just to prove his love to her AND entertain her all day with no help.  That was fun too (and interesting).  So with all that we did gifts (under $15 of course), shopping, 2 malls, 2 Apple Stores, breakfast/lunch, I made her mad, we worked it out, the grocery store (which we are thrilled about and will be buying groceries here from now on), dinner and 2 movies.  Needless to say, I’m worn the crap out.

So with that in mind, I am going to bed.  I love her.  She loves me.  We love you.  Goodnight.

My iTunes mind is currently playing the renaissance fair version of the theme song from Family Guy.