loveisgreaterthan[dot]com

if you pay attention to my twitter-feed, you’ll already know what i’m about to share.

at approximately 3am this (friday) morning, april 25th, my grandmother on my mom’s side passed away. it did not come as too much of a surprise, as the night before she was transferred from a hospital to hospice, however we weren’t expecting it as soon as it happened.

everyone in the family is doing as well as can be expected, some really well. i was scheduled to run switchers at the perrysburg campus of cedarcreek this weekend, but the leadership is being very generous and letting me skip out to be with my family.

in the midst of all the craziness that surrounds a death in the family, especially a grandmother of such a large family. she had four children, and between those four children (all of which are married) there are seven grandchildren, five of which are married, and i believe six great grandchildren. so in the midst of all those people, all those opinions, one thing stands out to me, and that is love.

of course there is love amongst the family, but it’s been incredible to watch those outside the family do whatever they can to step up and pitch in to help out. in my immediate family alone, we have been blessed by my mothers boss, who spent ten hours today cooking a ridiculous amount of food for my parents, so at the very least they wouldn’t have to worry about meals for the next few days. we have been blessed by an incredible outpouring of support from staff members at cedarcreek, as well as the volunteer team i lead and my parents serve on. we have been blessed by the willingness of a couple of cedarcreek musicians; lauren and jason, to come out on sunday night and play a few songs at the showing… this is after a grueling five service weekend with multiple run-through’s and rehearsals.

it’s just incredible to be a part of a few networks of people who are so willing to step up and say “how can i help?” moreover, it’s incredible to watch people just do things, without any expectation of repayment, just because they love and support you. i’m truly in awe.

it really is an honor for me to be in the company of such wonderful people. all of you have my warmest thanks and respect. i don’t really believe i can say it enough.

for me, today has been a grind. i’ll be the first to admit that death affects me much differently than most others. my role over the course of the next few days is less as a mourner, and more of a support figure for my mother and the rest of my family. i was an idiot and stayed up till 2am this morning, only to be awoke at 3:30am by a phone call from my father informing me that my grandmother had passed away.

ryanne and i crawled out of bed right then and headed into hospice. after a brief hour-ish long nap at my parents, i’ve been going non-stop the rest of the day. relying on a diet consisting of little else other than caffeine, sugar, and hot sauce (we ate at a mexican restaurant for lunch), i’m finally beginning to feel the events of the day start to catch up with me. it’s not even 8pm, but i’m starting to feel like it’s bedtime.

so, that’s where i’m headed. i just wanted to give you all a heads up if this blog goes quiet for a few days (although i believe i have at least one time-shifted blog post that i wrote earlier in the week going up sometime this weekend) of what is going on in my life at the moment. so, until things slow down a little (the funeral is monday morning), i’m not sure if much is going to be happening here.

grace & peace,
- joshua

i took a bit of flack about six months ago when i put a junky-car club sticker on the back of my ‘99 mitsibushi galant. at the time, the only thing wrong with the car with about 85,000 miles on it was all cosmetic stuff. missing all four hubcaps, no gas door, scratches, dings, dents, rust… that kind of stuff. people gave me crap, because;

• the galant wasn’t really in that bad of (mechanical) shape, and
• my other car is a 2004 toyota prius.

well, i’m happy to say that karma has finally reared its ugly head, and i can drive my junky-car club adorned galant with my head held high!

it all started last week when my passenger side front tire blew out on the expressway. i dropped it off at the shop to get a new tire, but i also mentioned to the nice gentleman behind the counter that the car had been making a high pitched whining noise. he said they’d take a look and let me know what the problem was. four hours later i get a phone call saying that the tire was fixed, but the whining noise was coming from a bad power steering pump that i needed to replace. the cost to fix would be nearly six hundred dollars. that nice gentleman was now in my head (unfairly) a real jerk.

today the galant is in the shop, and i just got a phone call. another nice gentleman tells me the power steering pump is now fixed, but the car still makes a good deal of whining. now the problem is in my air conditioner compressor, and that’s going to cost another $700 to fix. when the guy told me, i accidentally let loose a “holy crap!” over the phone. trust me, this was a far cry from the obscenities i was screaming about the man in my head. he quickly responded; “or, if you don’t care about having air conditioning, we can just remove the belt and it won’t make a peep.”

so, ladies and gentlemen, my clunker has nothing but god’s air conditioning for this summer… open windows. for those of you who gave me crap about my sticker… back off!

this is just a classic example of how “acting as if” can also be a bad thing….

more here…

i had a particular rough day at work yesterday. you can read about that in the post below this one… the rough day i had led me to want to take a long, relaxing drive home from the office. so, i made a great mix cd (that didn’t work), and headed out of the office.

as i was driving home, i was consumed with a variety of thoughts. i wondered why i felt the way i do about certain things… things like:

• what kind of idiots think it’s a good idea to film you and six of your girlfriends laying a brutal smackdown on another girl, a seven on one fight, to upload to youtube and myspace? oh, and the fight was over myspace…
• why do people complain about gas prices but drive like idiots?
• why is everyone in such a hurry?
• why do we as a country care so much about celebrity gossip?
• why does a family of three need a hummer to get groceries?
• why do people continue to buy things they cannot afford?

all these thoughts, soon led me to wonder why i’m different. why do i notice those things, and why do i care? am i totally pretentious for thinking i am different, and somewhat above all that? i don’t believe i am “enlightened” by any means, but do people realize they’re doing something silly when they’re doing it?

i sort of know the answer to that second question… because i am by no means perfect. i’ve done a lot of stupid things in my life, and i guess the answer is no; you don’t realize it’s stupid while you’re in the process of doing it.

i don’t know, just random thoughts in my head.

i’ve been searching for a good (free) wordpress theme for the last three days. last night, i was up till two am trying to find one. really, being a cheapskate sucks in this regard. i don’t want to pay for a theme when there are so many free ones available, but i don’t want to learn to do it myself either. and really, the “premium” themes that cost money, even they weren’t much to write home to mom about.

so, i’m back to trusty old “silverlight.” it really is a great theme, that i am now just starting to customize a little. i’ve added a background, changed the header, and am working on a few more enhancements over the course of the next few days.

but, for the most part… this is it (for now.) all that trouble, and i’m back where i started.

let me know what you think in the comments, please!

ps - if you live in or around the greater toledo area, be at any one of the cedarcreek campuses this weekend, and prepare to have your face rocked off. hard.

those stupid nose-crusties you get from blowing your nose so much your skin gets dry and rashy.

been through nearly two boxes of kleen-x in three days, i suppose i should have expected this. 

i am not going to lie… being sick is not nearly as bad when you have enough strength to at least sit upright and play world of warcraft. this is my cat tiny, helping me get three levels in one day (56-59).

i had an incredible stroke of divine intervention, where a volunteer who seldom serves anymore due to a crazy work schedule was suddenly able to fill in for me at church this weekend. so i stayed home today, and did little else other than rest, play world of warcraft, and eat/drink. i did manage to summon the strength to do some dishes for my wife. bless her soul, she’s been cleaning all by herself this week… it was the least i could do.

what do you do when you’re sick and stuck at home?

i really, really hate being sick. that, is me sick. can you tell i hate it?

somehow this week i managed to come down with some sort of head cold, that is also causing my entire body to ache something fierce.

i have to direct this weekend’s services, so i’m trying all i can to get better by tomorrow afternoon. it could be worse the, the reason i have to actually run switchers and direct this weekend is because my volunteer who was scheduled to do it has kidney stones… so i guess i can’t complain too much!