Sending up Shoots - Part I

"That's not a real word!" she exclaimed, setting her Diet Pepsi back down on the table with a sudden plop. "Crapulous? Come on! There's no way that's a real word."

John smiled. "You going to challenge it?" he asked. "I'm warning you, though. I just got that word on my word calendar a couple of days ago. Trust me," he added, with a villainous gleam in his eye.

Yea, trust you, she thought. She loved John more than life, even waiting anxiously for him to pop the question, but trust him? In a game? "I don't think so," she said.

Sliding the Webster's toward her, he watched as she flipped the cover open and thumbed quickly toward the C's. "Are you sure?" he said, baiting her. "You'll be sorry!"

The sound of his patronizing tone grated her nerves like 40-grit sandpaper. She hated it more than anything she could think of, but it was worse during competition. John had this air of superiority slathered all over his 6 foot 1 inch frame and it never ceased to make her feel like she was trying to catch a greased pig.

"Crap!" she said as finger fell upon the word. She could feel her one remaining nerve twitch. "It's no fun playing Scrabble with you," she whined.

"Why? Because I'm so devastatingly handsome?" he asked, smacking his hands together and leaning over for a kiss.

She peered at him through slatted eyes and paused ever so briefly before leaning over to reciprocate. "No," she muttered. "It's because you're so smug."

Though nearly imperceptible, John noticed the slight hesitation and it pierced him like an ancient sword. She wasn't the first to slight him in such a manner, but that whole series of unfortunate events had taken years to be excised from his heart. Now he felt the pain again like an aching fire.

He had searched his soul on countless occasions, hunting for the right words to tell her about his past. He'd wanted to confess the foul deed to her a thousand times, but the courage always seeped away before he could get the secret out.

"What is it, John?" she'd ask him quietly in some of their most intimate moments. It was like she was looking through him with a magnifying glass, examining every dark corner of his existence. She always had that way about her. Though never intrusive, she could get to the real subject of the matter with amazing alacrity.

"It's nothing," he found himself muttering on more than one occasion. "Really, it's nothing. I'm fine."

Tonight, peering anxiously for rescue out the back window of his studio apartment, John could see the Empire State Building glowing like a lighthouse warning lost souls on a foggy evening. She cuddled up next to him, letting her hand rest on his and accidentally spilling half of the Scrabble tiles on the floor.

"It's beautiful tonight, isn't it?" she said, looking toward the radiant monolith.

John sighed. "It's always beautiful," he replied, looking deeply into her soft blue eyes. "Always."


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Coming soon - Part II

Gainesville National League All-Stars

Pictures from the game at Coles, won 3-2 by Gainesville.

A Moment to Boast

I hope you will be patient with me if I brag just a little bit.

See, I have the two best kids there could ever be. Sure, they give us fits from time to time (afterall, they are pre-teens), but by and large they are exemplary. They help some around the house (and when I say "some", I mean some), they do well in school and they're both about the most talented kids I've ever known.

That's what I want to brag about.

Hannah has been dancing since she was 4-years old with a dance organization over in Manassas. Her teacher, Miss Lisa, is a terrific teacher and very patient. Hannah loves her. When she got into the 4th grade she was eligible to dance on company, so she tried out and made it.

Every year, though, the girls (and a sprinkle of boys) have to audition for the company again. Nothing is guaranteed. If you were on company last year, it may give you a brownie point or two, but it does not mean you'll make it if there are more talented and dedicated dancers.

Hannah tried out for it again this year and made it. She starts those practices next week (I think). It means more parades and other competitions this fall and winter, and we can't wait. I'm so proud of her.

Jacob, on the other hand, wants nothing to do with dance. His big thing has always been baseball. He's played on a team at least twice a year since he was five, whether it was machine pitch or boy pitch (he skipped t-ball). He's played a lot of ball.

He got elected to the All-Star team in the American league three years ago. It was his first year of eligibility and we were thrilled for him. He got elected the two following years, too, both in the AL.

This year we took him off of that AL team and put him back into the draft. He got drafted onto the Braves in the National League, and now he's been elected to the NL All-Star team. Not many kids can say they've played for both. I'm very proud of him, too.

Actually, to say that I'm proud of my kids is an injustice. I don't know what the right word is, but proud doesn't touch it.

Know what, though? I'm not proud of them solely because they made the dance company or because they made the All-Star team. I'm proud of them because of the way they live. I'm proud of them for never giving up. When others told them they weren't good enough, they basically just said, "Oh, really? Watch this!"

I'm proud of them for not being quitters. I'm proud of them for how hard they try in school and other endeavors. I'm proud of them because they don't lie, cheat or steal. And I'm proud of them because they are trying to live right.

I'm just plain proud of them for being who they are.

I've got some danged good kids.

Now if they could just be a little more respectful to their mother, I'd almost expect them to be saint-ified.

Ok, well, maybe that's going just a tad too far.

They are such little demons sometimes.

The Dumbing of America and the Demise of Baseball

You know what? I've finally figured out why football has replaced baseball as the most watched game in the United States. I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier because it's oh so very simple.

Simply put, it's because this nation has turned into a country full of dolts.

I know. Harsh statement, right? Don't get me wrong. I like football. It's not my favorite game (that spot will always be reserved for the real National Pastime), but I do like it.

In fact, I was at every single football game in Cougar Stadium in 1984 when BYU won the National Championship. I loved those games. It was exciting, I admit it.

I'm not saying, either, that football fans are dolts. Quite to the contrary. I think some of them are quite brilliant and talented people. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that there are a lot of baseball fans who ARE dolts. There's one in every crowd, as the old saying goes.

For me, though, there is still nothing like a good old baseball game on a warm summer's night. I love sitting in the stands, eating dogs and even keeping score. I love the smell of a baseball, the feeling of dirt on my pants and the sound a wooden bat makes when it solidly hits a speeding ball. No sound in football, or any other sport for that matter, can compare to that. The only one that even comes close is the sound of a small, white, dimpled ball dropping into the bottom of the cup. It's close, but still, it's no cigar.

Nuances in baseball abound. Catcher getting signals from manager. Pitcher getting signals from catcher. Coaches getting signals from manager. Batter and runners getting signals from coaches. To sit and watch, from the dugout or from the stands or even from the field, it's intellectually stimulating. Will the runner go? What pitch will be thrown? Will the batter bunt? Where does the fielder go if the ball is hit to him? There are a million things to consider, and it all takes less than a couple of seconds.

You've got to be quick on your intellectual feet in a baseball game. Fielders have to constantly think about the play they will make if the ball is hit their way. Pitchers and catchers have to constantly think about pitches and their locations. Runners have to constantly think about what they'll do when the ball is hit. Do they take an extra base? Do they steal?

Drag bunt? Hit and run? Run and hit? Fair or foul? Delayed steal? Double play? Change up or curve? Pitch out?

It's a thinking man's game.

I'll go to my grave insisting that baseball, to be truly appreciated, has to be thought about. It was made to be slow.

Today, though, most people aren't slow. We drive fast to get from here to there. We sleep 5 or 6 hours a night because there's too much to do. We play video games all day long and have nothing but instant gratification.

I know one guy at work who is at his desk every single day before I get there at 7:30am and he's there when I leave at night just after 4. He won't take a day off when he's sick because he says there's "too much to do," so he comes in and tries to infect the lot of us. As far as I know, the man lives at the office. I'm all for dedication, believe me, but there's such a thing as going too far. The man has bags under his eyes, for Pete's sake.

Every day I hear on the news that so-and-so was killed in a car accident because he was going too fast.

I talk to parents who work 60-70 hours a week and hardly ever get to see their kids because they get home from work too late.

I hear about homes in which both parents work and leave their kids to a nanny or even to fend for themselves.

I hear about people who lose their temper in line at the grocery store because it's taking too long.

I heard yesterday about a guy driving down the Interstate who was the victim of road rage. Someone ran into his car with a motorcycle, for heaven's sake, because he slowed them down! Tore his rear view mirror off and left a big scratch down the side. A motorcycle!! Seriously?

We've become a nation of do-it-in-a-hurry, gotta-get-it-done now, winning-is-the-only-thing dolts. There's no time anymore for sitting and reading a paperback novel, studying and pondering the scriptures or just listening to good music. We don't go and visit our neighbors, we don't go and visit grandma and we don't write letters, unless they are sent via email.

Baseball is slow. It's counter to the way America is nowadays. We all move at the same pace at which football moves. Fast-paced. Breakneck speed. Put your head down and plow through the line.

Just a word of warning here before I close.

Watch out football.

One of these days the country is going to be going faster than you, too, and then you won't be the most watched sport in America anymore.

We'll all be hockey fans instead.

Serendipi-dog

I stumbled upon web site this morning that included someone's idea of the 100 most beautiful words in the English language. My brother, Marc, is an etymologist and quite the grammarian. I have never considered myself such, though I love to learn new words. But I thought it might be fun to write a blog with as many of these "beautiful" words as I can, along the lines of Cat in the Hat. Following is my attempt. See if you can pick out the "beautiful" words. At the end I'll tell you how many I actually used.

One word of warning - BEWARE the red herrings! I have included other words I like, though they are not included in the list of the 100 most "beautiful" words.

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I have never been an ailurophile. I've never even had a ripple, not one scintilla of affinity for the animals, though I was an erstwhile owner about 10 years ago. They were minx's, though, with no tails. The two of them, named Skeeter and Midnight, were born in a rabbit hutch and were wild as bucks. We got them just after they were born, but they beleaguered our home with their endless scratching. So much to my wife's chagrin, our ephemeral proprietorship ended.

If the truth be told, I was imbued by my parents with much higher regard for dogs. Not only are dogs much more becoming to me, they're just a lot friendlier. Sure, I'm a little inured, since I've owned dogs since I was just more than 7-years old.

Shortly after Kelly and I were married we bought our first dog. His name was Slider. He was a comely dog, the conflation of a German Shepherd and a Beagle, and I actually cared about him for a time.

But being the spawn of those two lines of canine pedigree, he was the shedin'-est dog I've ever known. It didn't take long before he was my nemesis, The Riddler to my Batman, the Kryptonite to my Clark Kent. The efflorescence of our friendship faded quickly, as Mother's Day flowers in a dry vase.

Slider was with us for 14 years, but as with all things, he grew old. He became desultory and languid. His lassitude turned to indolent lethargy, and he began marking his demesne, both inside and outside the house. Good times with him became fugacious, and I could tell that he longed for the halcyon days of his youth when he would gambol uncaringly among the daisies in the park across the street from our condominium.

Slider died on a Friday morning. They told us at the vets office that they would cremate him and sprinkle his ashes in a bucolic atmosphere out in Strasburg where he could run and play with abandon for eternity.

The kids, of course, were woebegone with grief. The imbroglio we experienced in our family after Slider died was labyrinthine. One day I was the bad guy for not liking the poor dog and the next it was Kelly, because she took him to the vet that day. Neither of us were winners in the minds of our children.

So Kelly and I talked about a new dog, one that could be an inside dog, one that the kids could walk and take care of.

It turns out that we've had that dulcet little pooch for a week today. Her name is Charlie, the mixture of a Bichon Frise and a Poodle. A Bichon-Poo. Her effervescent ebullience is contagious, and though she's still in her very incipient growing stages and is a relative ingénue, she seems to be a panacea for all things wrong in our home. She is a lot of work, no doubt, but her enthusiasm calms the heart of even this savage beast. She's already brought a lot of felicity to our tiny bungalow and is the cynosure of all the neighbors. We've got dog-sitters lined up from now to eternity.

Interesting thing is that we were actually just looking around for another dog. But the epiphany hit me this morning. It's been serendipitous. We actually found a lot of cure while we were looking for a dog.

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I used 35 of the "beautiful" words in this blog. How many did you pick out? Leave me a comment!

My Bucket List

OK. For some reason I've been inspired.

Whether it was the trip to Costa Rica, the trip back, or whatever, I've been inspired to improve my life. I want to be so much better. It really shouldn't be that hard. Little improvements along the way make for big improvements at the end. Heck, some would say I'm not really that good anyway, so ANYTHING would be an improvement.

I can't say I disagree all that much.

I tried to do a little bit of research on the subject, and so did the requisite clicking around the Internet. What I found was that most people today are making bucket lists.

You know what a bucket list is...a list of the stuff you want to do before you kick the bucket. Though I've heard of them, I've never really worked on mine. Today, however, I thought it might not be a bad idea to jot down a few ideas.

So, here's the start. It's just a draft, so it will be improved over the next few months.

1 - Read more good books and watch less television.
2 - Do better in my Church calling, whatever it might be.
3 - Be able to retire...it doesn't matter when, since right now it doesn't look like I'll be able to do it AT ALL.
4 - Jump out of an airplane.
5 - Climb a large mountain, like Everest (ok, not Everest, but a large mountain)
6 - Cycle 100 miles in less than 7 hours.
7 - Run five 5k races, with my son, in 2011.
8 - Do a triathlon, even if it's a mini.
9 - Have better food storage in my home.
10 - Write a book that someone will actually read.
11 - Go to the new Yankee Stadium.
12 -

You know what? The more I think about it, the more I realize that I've already done a lot of the things I want to do.

I went on a mission.

I got married.

I had children.

I went to Europe.

I traveled by train.

I flew an airplane.

I flew IN an airplane.

I went skiing in Utah (Greatest snow on earth).

I have relaxed on the beach in Hawaii.

For the most part, I'm happy with my life. Would I change anything? Maybe, but there are very few choices I've made over the years with which I am dissatisfied. For the most part, I'm comfortable in my own skin.

If I really think closely about it, there's only one thing on my bucket list, and it's something I work on every single day. I pray for it. I think about it. I practice it. I really, really try to do it.

I just want to be a good husband and father.

Nothing more, nothing less.

If I never get to run a triathlon, so be it, if my wife and kids are happy.

No Everest? I'm fine with that, if they are satisfied.

Never jump out of an airplane? OK.

When I die, you can write what you want on my tombstone. But if my wife and my kids can say that I was the best husband and father they could have had, everything else will have just been gravy.

Swimming with the Dolphins

"They're over there!"

Josh pointed astern at a white-hulled boat about a mile away. "We just got a call from that boat over there," he said, his voice betraying his obvious excitement. "They said the dolphins are all around them!"

Josh was our captain for the day, a transplanted Washingtonian who'd married a Costa Rican woman, had a son and built his own house on the edge of the rainforest just a few miles out of Puerto Jimenez. He'd traded in his software engineering hat for one that was equally farmer, boat captain and tour guide.

"What kind of dolphins are they?" someone asked.

Josh smiled knowingly. "These will be the Spotted Dolphins. There is a pod of about 300 of them that lives in the Golfo Dulce. There are no predators for them, so the pod just gets bigger and bigger."

Tino, our boat helm, turned the rudder toward the other boat and gunned the motor. The hull lurched out of the water and sped toward the dolphin pod, spraying water from both sides and creating a large wake behind it.

Jacob and Hannah were in the air chairs, two belted seats at the front of the boat that hung out over the water. Buckling yourself into the seat and leaning into the oncoming breeze gave you a definite sense of flying across the water. There was nothing between you and the gulf but a couple feet of speeding air.

Everyone on our boat saw the dolphins when we were still several hundred feet away from the other. They were jumping and swimming all around it, frolicking playfully with each other and showing off for the eco-tourists who had paid their way into the observation seats.

"You should all go to the front of the boat," cried Josh. "They'll swim right in front of us and all around us!"

None of us had ever seen anything like what we saw next. What seemed like hundreds of Spotted Dolphins had converged on our vessel and were jumping and swimming on every side. Taking turns, they swam, some with babies no longer than Hannah is tall, directly in front of our speeding boat. Others would jump out of the water and then disappear beneath the glistening gulf.

"They always jump twice," said Josh. "They like to be on camera, so they give you a warning and then they jump again."

Scanning the water I saw one jump only about 20 feet from the boat. Focusing my camera on the general area, I quickly snapped a picture when he flew through the air again.

After watching the dolphins play for nearly 20 minutes, Josh said it was time to go. "We have an appointment with the preserve for 9 o'clock," he said, "so we've got to get going."

After spending a couple of hours at the preserve (which is another story all its own), we got back onto the boat with Josh and Tino. "This is going to be the most fun you will have on this tour," he said. "Does anyone want to swim with the dolphins?"

Looking around I saw that everyone in the boat had raised his hand. I raised mine, too.

"Tino and I invented this sport a couple of years ago," Josh continued. "It's called wake-boarding and it's really, really fun."

Wake-boarding consists of a long rope attached to the boat on one end, and on the other, a large piece of wood with two hand-holds sawed into it. There was one rope and board combination on each back corner of the boat. Two "swimmers" jumped into the water at a time and held onto the boards. Once secured, the "swimmers" are towed behind the boat at about 1300 rpms. If the "swimmer" points the front of the board into the water he will dive down as far as 15 feet.
Bryan and Heather went first and then it was my turn. Jacob and I both jumped into the water, I grabbed one rope and he grabbed the other. Once we had a good grip on the boards and had assured that our masks were good and tight, Tino gave her some gas and we started speeding through the water.

I wanted to go down immediately, so, pointing the front of the board into the water, I took a deep breath and dived until my ears started to hurt. The first thing I noticed was that it was eerily quiet and peaceful beneath the surface. I felt like I was flying through the water, but I saw no dolphins on my first dive.

Angling the front of the board toward the surface, I felt like one of the dolphins for which I was searching. I crested the top of the water and came out up to my waist.

I looked over at Jacob and laughed. He was doing great and had even dived down a time or two in the time it took me to go down once.

I had readjusted and tightened my swim trunks before jumping in the water, but they were still starting to sag dangerously. I let go of the board with my left hand and tugged at them gingerly. They were all right. It just felt like they were falling down. Just in case, however, I bent my knees so in case they did come off I wouldn't lose them in the 800 feet of water below me.

Another gulp of air and a big smile later, I was again diving down into the big, deep dark. There still were no dolphins around me that I could see, although when I came up Josh was pointing all around me. Another gulp and down I went.

I probably dived down about ten times, all with no results. Every time I came up I saw Jacob coming up, too, a big smile on his face. I learned later that he never saw any dolphins. He just thought it was fun to swim almost effortlessly.

One last time I dived into the darkness, when, almost immediately after going beneath the surface, I heard the high-pitched voice of a Bottlenose dolphin. Scanning beneath me, I finally saw it off to my right side. Marveling at the ease with which it glided through the water, I held my breath until it swam in another direction.

My turn was over, but as they pulled the rope toward the boat, I kept my mask in the water, just in case. I'm glad I did. I saw the most poisonous snake in the world only about 30 feet below me, wiggling and snaking its way toward the inky blackness. It was a yellow sea snake, and found that I was happy it was that far away.

I also saw a moray eel just before I got back into the boat. It, too, was about 30 feet below me, wending its way into the deep.

Kelly and Hannah both took their turns and then it was back to port. Shaking Josh's hand while disembarking from his boat, I said, "This has been the best, Josh. Thank you."

He smiled and shook his head. "Yup. It is the best, isn't it? That's why I came down here and never left. I love it."

Costa Rica 2011

The plane touched down at 12:40am on Wednesday, May 25th. After riding the train back to the main terminal, we claimed our baggage and waited for the van that would take us home. It was just a few minutes before 2am when we finally arrived. The kids went to bed immediately, having to arise only five hours later for school. Kelly retired shortly after them, and I followed a couple of minutes later, after checking all of the doors and feeding the fish.

It was a terrific vacation. Zip lining, swimming with dolphins, a second death march, poison dart frogs and four different kinds of monkeys. We did it all, and it was incredible. I'll write more about our trip in the coming days, but for now, please enjoy some photos from Costa Rica.

A Terribly Bitter Pill

I took my first PMP class a little less than two years ago. PMP, for the uninitiated, stands for Project Management Professional. It's the gold standard for Project Managers, which I am.

I sat in that class at Learning Tree International and thought to myself, "What in the heck is this guy talking about?" It hadn't been too long before that I'd never even heard of the PMP credential. I'd never knowingly put any of PMI's (Project Management Institute) principles into practice, and though I had been a Project Manager for more than 10 years, I sat in that class with the most bewildered look on my face and a sense of being lost in a vast new world.

I felt exactly the same way yesterday as I sat for my PMP exam. What in the heck am I doing here? What language are these questions written in? What in the world are they asking me?

I read every question at least twice, and most of them I read five or six times. Two hundred questions and four hours of sheer torture. To say the least, it did not go like I'd hoped it would.

I was not prepared sufficiently for this exam. I'd probably answered a couple thousand practice questions in my meager preparations, but none of them were used on this exam and none of them were anything like the questions I had to answer yesterday. It made me feel like I'd been told to study my Spanish because I was going to be tested on it, only to have the exam written in French. It was awful.

The very first question should have been a signal to me that I was not going to carry the day. I don't remember exactly what the question was, but I do remember that I had no idea of the answer. I sat, literally, for five minutes staring at the computer screen, only to guess in the end. It was a common theme throughout the day. I probably guessed on a majority of the questions, and now I know that guessed wrong on most of them.

As I look back now, I'm not surprised that I failed. But as I sat there and saw the word "FAIL" come up on the screen, it made me feel like a loser. That one word was screaming, "You stink! You'll never pass this exam! Ba ha ha ha ha ha!!!"

I felt the blood rise from my toes and quickly disperse throughout my whole body. Every corpuscle in my body was filled to its maximum capacity and I almost felt like passing out. I felt horrible, like a 112-pound palooka getting into the ring for the first time, only to look up and see Mohammad Ali in the other corner.

I clicked the End Exam button with 1:12 left. I'd reviewed all of my answers and thought I had a pretty good shot at passing. Then the word FAIL popped up and I felt like I'd let everyone in my life down. Five hundred dollars right down the tubes.

Failure comes in many different flavors. This failure was especially hard for me to chew up and swallow. It was very, very bitter. But swallow I have, and now I'm moving on to the next big thing. Oh, I'll take the exam again, and I'll pass the danged thing. I am just looking ahead, instead of back.

I memorize scripture as a "hobby". I guess it's more of a life's venture than it is a hobby, but I do it every morning for about an hour. I don't know how many I've memorized, but it's a lot. I start when I get in the shower, and I quit when I get to work. It kind of sets the table for the whole day. I've been doing it for about 12 years.

Currently, I am memorizing one from Romans 8:28-31. Yesterday, as I was getting ready, verse 31 stuck in my head. I was especially nervous about the exam, so it had special significance to me. It reads, "If God be with us, who can be against us?"

That one verse really hit me and the nervous feeling I had just went away. I was confident. I was ready!

Well, not quite.

As I stood in the shower this morning, the warm water washing away yesterday's dirt and pain, I was reviewing the same four verses. Today, the first verse stuck in my head instead of the fourth. The verse reads, "For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose."

I love God! I have been called according to His purpose! This will all work out in the end. I don't know if it's God will that I go down this road, but I'm confident that He's going to leave that decision to me. I think He is happy to know that I am trying to better myself.

I also know that bumps and bruises, such as this one, will make me stronger in the end, and will actually give me a reference point somewhere in the future. Who knows but that I'll be able to help someone with their problem, just because I failed and can understand what the pill tastes like?

The next time will be different. I'm going to give it the very best I have. I know how to study now. I know what to study. And maybe that's one of the things I'm supposed to learn from all this. I didn't know the material like I should have. Next time will be different.

And the next pill I have to swallow regarding this will be made entirely out of sugar...nice and sweet.

My Most Prized Possessions

In my home I have a small, fireproof safe that my brother Marc gave my family for Christmas several years ago. In it we keep all of our important documents, like our marriage license, a letter my dad wrote me before he died, and a host of other important possessions. There's nothing in there that cost us a lot of money, just birth certificates and such like that that we don't want to lose. They are important for life and they're important to me.

I also have a few other possessions that are really dear to my heart. One is a small, red Swiss Army knife my brother Eric gave me when we went to Europe together. I love my brother, and the fact that he would buy me a Swiss Army knife, in Switzerland no less, and have my name engraved on it, touches me deeply. I've misplaced it several times, which caused no small anxiety in my soul. Luckily, I've found it each time and now I carry it with me everywhere I go.

I also have an old key ring that my dad used to carry around that's made out of a buffalo head nickel. My dad was always one of my best friends and it means a lot to me that he owned this key ring and carried it around in his own pocket. It resides in my small "stuff" drawer in my dresser.

Another of my most prized possessions is a 12-string guitar my mom and dad bought me while I was going to school at BYU. It has a gorgeous cherry neck and a beautiful tone that makes me happy when I play it. I toted it back and forth from home to school every year, except once when the airline wouldn't let me take it on the plane. I missed it terribly that year. It's in my computer/music room and I love to go down there and play it.

There are a few other things I'd try to save in an emergency, such as my bike, a 50-cent piece that was given to me by a student I once had, and a couple of poems and drawings my kids have made for me over the years. They all hold a small, sentimental place in my heart because the people who either once owned them or gave them to me mean a lot to me. Again, there's nothing that cost me a lot of money, but these things hold certain importance to me because of who gave them to me or how I got them.

I'm sure everyone has things like this. Granted, they are only things, but they still mean a lot to us and we'd actually risk life and limb for some of them. Some, like our important documents, we keep in a lock box for safe keeping. Others are kept in safe deposit boxes and we trust the banks to keep them safe for us. Others we keep in a different safe place.

All of these things, though, compared to the actual people I got them from, mean absolutely nothing. In the event of a fire or other emergency in my home, I'd run back through the blaze to save my wife, my son and my daughter and think nary once about the other stuff. I wouldn't think twice about it. Sure, it would hurt a little bit if I lost the stuff, but if I lost those people it would be the most devastating thing in my life. I'd gladly sacrifice my own life for these people, but I'd let the possessions burn. I'm sure it's that way with most people.

Our Heavenly Father loved (and loves) His Son more than anything. The scriptures call Jesus His "Only Begotten Son" and His "Beloved Son". Think about how much you love your own son (or daughter) and then multiply that by a God's love. He was the chosen Savior, prophesied of for centuries. He was the Creator of the world who worked side by side with His Father in the effort to bring to pass "the immortality and eternal life of man." The world was made by Him and for Him. So, you can imagine how Heavenly Father felt when it came time for the Atonement and the Crucifixion.

I'm sure there was a lot of pain associated with those two critical events, not only here on earth, but in the heavens. It could not have been an easy thing for Heavenly Father to watch, though He knew, of course, the eventual outcome and its eternal ramifications. I don't pretend to know what He felt, but parents, even Eternal Ones, I'm sure, never like to see their children suffer. But suffer He did, more than any human being had ever or will ever suffer again. So much so, in fact, that the scriptures say He "trembled because of pain," and bled at every pore and would that He "might not drink the bitter cup and shrink."

And yet, despite all of that excruciating pain and seeing His Beloved Son suffer so unbelievably, Heavenly Father chose to run back into that burning house and save you and me, leaving His Only Begotten Son inside to suffer and die. As precious and unblemished and beloved as that Son was, He saved you and me instead.

I consider myself akin to a dust bunny under the bed of life. Compared to the Redeemer of the world, I am an insignificant speck, a very unprofitable servant. The thought that he would save me, a proud and sometimes arrogant, foolish, lazy man, makes me shake my head and weep.

But I also realize why He made that choice. It's because we're family. He is my Father. For better or for worse, He loves me. And so does Jesus. Me. Me! Even me.

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world, though Him, might be saved." - John 3:16, 17