Look at Jesus

The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. 

— Hebrews 1:3 (NIV)

Have you ever wished you knew what God the Father was like? You know, how, what, and who He loves? Whether or not he really loves, or even likes you? I have.

I have found myself several times in my life wondering what God thought of me. I have, at times, doubted his love for me. How could he love someone like me? I am a mess, a wreck, a wretch. There is just one problem with thinking about God in this light: The Bible.

All we need to do is look at what the Gospel teaches us about ourselves and about God's love for us. As I read the passage above, the thing that struck me is the reality that if we want to know what God is like, if we want to know what, who, and how he loves us, then all we need to do is look to Jesus. 

In Jesus we see just how much God loves us. YOU are Loved. Did you know that? Look at who Jesus went to in the Gospels. It was the lost, broken, and rejected. Jesus went to the failures, the ones who knew how screwed up they were, and he offered them Grace. FREE and AMAZING GRACE. This amazes me and causes me to worship God.

How about you? Have you looked at Jesus lately?

Merry Christmas 2011

It's Christmas Eve

This is SO GOOD! It's my new favorite Christmas song and video. It's Dustin Kensrue's new one. Enjoy.

The Elisha Foundation

Let me tell you something about our family. Our family has a big heart for children with "special needs" and the families who love and raise them. There is something so wonderful -- so intrinsically beautiful and innocent -- about a child with special needs. I could go on and on about this, but I will save that for a later date.

For now, I want to highlight an amazing ministry, The Elisha Foundation (TEF), out of Bend, OR. TEF is a non-profit organization serving children and families dealing with special needs. This is a video that talks a little bit about their heart and they do. I encourage you to check it out. Enjoy.

I Am Weak.

Days like this remind me of how extremely wicked, selfish, broken, and in need of God's grace I truly am. I am not even close to the man, the husband, or the father I want to be.

Thank you, Jesus, for loving me even though I am unloving and unlovable. I am humbled and broken.

I get angry, frustrated, and bitter towards the people I love all to quickly . . . and it makes me sick. I want to be, and hope to be, and cry out to be a better man. Not because I should be . . . but because it breaks my heart that I am not. Jesus has loved me so ridiculously and, yet, my love is weak and does not reflect the grace I have been shown.

Thank you, Jesus, for loving me even though I am unloving and unlovable. Please teach me and overwhelm me with your Grace.

Dinner Is Served

The Heck House has been cooking Dairy Free for about four years now. Eli and Wyatt both can not tolerate having any dairy (this includes butter, cheese, etc. most people forget those little things). When they have dairy their skin gets rashes, their stomachs hurt, and they turn into the whiniest little monsters you ever did not care to meet in your life. 

Over the last few months, though, we have decided to take out wheat and gluten as well. We are still have some issues Eli's body, so we have been researching different diets and adding things in. 

In the past, Taneesha and I have continued to eat dairy even though the two boys cannot. Recently, though, we have been noticing a lot of our own issues regarding our diet. In light of this, as well as trying to build healthier lifestyles, we are all, as a family, committing to eating well. We are slowing adding in only dairy, wheat, and gluten free foods and drinks. This is not easy, but it is also not as hard to do as you think. We have been able to find a lot of foods we can eat that are still, surprisingly, amazing tasting!

This was tonights main attraction: Chicken Breasts with Cherries and Kale. This was super good  and super quick and easy! We got the recipe from a website called Elana's Pantry, which has become a wonderful resource for our family. The recipes or EASY and taste AMAZING. 

Some may be wondering what our kids think about all of this. Surprisingly, they are doing really well with it and have been eating and enjoying most everything we have made so far. 

This will be hard, we know, but we are trying to be intentional about how we live and what we eat and what we teach our kids in doing this. We see that changes need to be made in our lifestyles and our diets. This is just one step closer to reflecting good stewardship of our bodies and health. We want to WORSHIP Jesus in all we do. Even in how and what we eat.

Emma Love

Two months old today. It goes by so fast.

A New Song by Mumford & Sons

Check out the new song: “Ghosts” by Mumford and Sons:

Reformation Day & Halloween Festivities

One thing that is nice about being in Oregon is that we get to experience a truly Fall season. In California, on the Central Coast, we experienced this season in theory, but never quite in actuality. There is just not enough trees back home. All of that to say, we enjoy celebrating our Fall holidays in the Heck House. Though we don't really get all into the whole Halloween thing, we do like to redeem the parts of this time that we can (here is a good article on the topic of Christians and Halloween if you wish to check it out). We also like to include a little shout out to our Reformation forefathers. The pictures that follow are a display of a little bit it the Heck House Festivities.

 Let the carving of the guts begin.

Dad, cutting the tops off of our of our pumpkins so the Punks can get to the guts. 

(We like to enjoy the roasted seeds)

Lukas' creation 

Wyatt's creation (okay...so he needed a little help)

Eli's creation

The Reformation Celebration!

Charles Spurgeon

Martin Luther

 Jonathan Edwards

The Reformationists!

(Maybe we should start a band?)

Graceyn, the Sleeping Angel

Here is Graceyn; she fell asleep while holding tightly to the sacred Costco receipt. The privilege of being the one to hand the Costco receipt to the attendant as we are exiting the building is one that is highly sought after in our family  Graceyn was proud to be the one granted the opportunity this morning. She held her receipt with the little pink heart on it with pride. Then, she continued to grasp it tightly as she fell asleep on the way home.

Kids are awesome.

A Picture Worth A Thousand Words

This boy is one happy camper. How can you look at him and not smile? Oh yeah, and he has Down Syndrome.

Kids Are Awesome

There are times, and this was one of them, that I really enjoy being a dad. 

 Eli and Graceyn enjoying a good book.

Miss Graceyn on a Fall Day

 Smile!

 No....with your eyes open, silly girl.

A Walk In the Park

The other day we are all able to get out and go for a walk to the park. I love it when we get a chance to hang out together as a family. Enjoy.

 The boys, showing off their mini-gourds.

All snug and ready to go.

 Pink little diaper booty.

Peek-a-Boo!

Pre-Fall Weather

We are in full Fall weather. It is getting colder and colder each day. These pictures, however, where taken before the cold weather settled in. These are some pictures of Graceyn and Wyatt playing together in the backyard. They are getting so big so fast. Enjoy.

Sisters

When we found out that Emma Love was, in fact, going to be a girl we were very excited. We wanted, in light of the previous situation (3 older brothers), Graceyn to have a sister. I had a brother growing up and that was fun for me. Taneesha, though, only had a brother and always wished she could have had a sister too. There just seems to be a special bond that sisters have, and we wanted that for Graceyn.

Now that Emma is here, we can already see how much fun they are going to have together. I (we) look forward to seeing them grow up together and to get closer to one another. They will need to bond together if they are ever going to have a chance to hold their own with their 3 brothers in the house.

Here is a few pictures of the little girlies hanging out together.

 Can you spot the real baby?

 Smile!

Fun With Tents

So, the other day it was raining so I decided to get out the littler kids' tent for them to play in. I figured Wyatt and Graceyn would think it was fun. After setting it up, I went into the kitchen to start getting lunch ready. A few minutes later I heard them all laughing and talking together and thought I would peek in to see what was up. This is what I saw:

 Here it is . . . the tiny little tent.

 Here they are . . . four of them . . . crammed into the little tent.

 If you are wondering, Lukas has the doll because he was holding it for Graceyn while she was drinking her Rice Milk.

The kids crack me up.