May vision of You be the death of me.

Click HERE!

brookjames — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 16:39:13 +0000

If you still happen to visit this site for some reason, you shouldn’t.

So instead…

CLICK HERE!

Filed under: Random

A Quick Blog Nap

brookjames — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 08:00:12 +0000

Today I am letting the blog take a quick blog nap. I am moving from using WordPress.com to WordPress.org and hosting my own site and stuff. I’m pretty excited about all the things it frees me up to do (potentially…once I figure it out). So, if you are seeing this, I might not be awake yet since it is my day off. Also, it might be because the blog didn’t actually need to be “down for scheduled maintenance” after all. I’m still holding out hope for that one. Hopefully it won’t be down for long. So, if you aren’t seeing this then…well…you aren’t seeing this and we will see you soon!

Posted in Random Tagged: Blogging, Scheduled Maintenance, Wordpress.com, Wordpress.org

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

brookjames — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 08:00:30 +0000

With the coming of our Christmas gifts to each other, KK and I are going to be redoing our blogs. I want to be able to create a blog that is very user friendly, creative and unique. Unfortunately with my lack of coding skills I don’t know that the last one will be very possible. At least it won’t be the 20 cookie cutter templates that WordPress offers on their site. So here are my questions to you!

What blogs have you seen or read recently that had something really cool I should consider incorporating into my new blog? (Of course all of it is contingent on me being able to figure out what the heck I’m doing!)
What parts of my current blog are annoying (other than the blog posts themselves)?
What parts do you like?

Comments here would be beneficial for your own sake!

Posted in Help Tagged: Blogging, Christmas, Christmas Presents

Do You Really Love Him More?

brookjames — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 08:00:20 +0000

As many of you know Matt Chandler, pastor of The Village Church in Dallas, recently had a seizure and had to have surgery to remove a tumor on his brain. As of right now, he is still in recovery but has been moved out of the ICU. Before he went in for his surgery he recorded a video message for everyone that, true to form, had some great thoughts in it. He sees this situation as an opportunity to show that even in the difficult times, God is still more enough. But the biggest thing that hammered me is that as this surgery is taking place and his life could easily end. He would miss out on so much, but still, he loves God more.

That is an amazing thought. It’s a tough question. Do you love God more than everything else? The easy answer is yes, but is that really true? It made me sit back and think. And if I’m being truly honest with God,

Do I love Him more than I do my wife who I can’t imagine being without?
Do I love Him more than growing old with her?
Do I love Him more than I do my baby girl who despite not having met her yet, I would quickly give my life for?
Do I love Him more than my desire to see her grow up and walk her down the isle one day?

I love my wife. I love my baby girl. And I love God. But sometimes it hurts to be honest. I wanna love Him more than anything and everything. My own selfishness holds me back from that. So be honest. Take some time today and ask yourself that question. Do you love Him more than ______?

Posted in Hmmm..., My Baby Girl, Semi Serious In Nature, Spiritual Tagged: Honesty, Matt Chandler, My Baby Girl, My Wife, The Village Church

Santa: A Christmas Nightmare

brookjames — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:00:12 +0000

There is just something about Santa. When you are little you are terrified of the really large guy with a weird red suit and way too much white hair. So you are mad at your parents for making you sit on the weird guy’s lap. Then you get older and you find out he supplies you will presents once a year. Now you love him. Then you grow up a little more and find out everyone has been lying to you all your life and now you are mad at your parents again! It seems like parents would get much farther if they started all the Santa conversations with “once upon a time” and then tell the kids that just like that Santa thing, you are either on the Naughty List or the Nice List and anything we give you as a celebration of Jesus’ birth will be from real people. But no. Let’s go with the elaborate scheme that automatically chalks one up against us.

I don’t understand. Why do we put our kids through this obvious torture? Tradition? If it was tradition for me to punch your kid in the face and your kid didn’t like it would you keep putting your kid through that just because the pictures were funny? Doubtful. (Some of you are thinking deep down inside that it might just be worth it for those pictures.) And really who wants to let the random dude that got cut from ZZ Top, missed out on Halloween and has to wait a couple more months to weird his costume? Hey kids! Let’s all get dressed up and go take pictures with the fat guy in red that rules an entire race of elves (that look an awful lot like you) and forces them to work year ’round for him in the North Pole Sweat Shop! It’ll be great!

Look at the faces of theses kids! They aren’t hoping to be on the Nice List. They are hoping to not be on the Dead List! This year let’s give the kids a break! Let them see the “beloved” Santa from a distance this year!

For those of you that still haven’t had enough of the faces, check out Sketchysantas.

Posted in Funny, Hmmm..., Parenting, Random Tagged: Christmas, Funny Pictures, Kids, Kids Scared Of Santa, North Pole Sweat Shop, Santa, SketchySantas.com, The Naughty List, The Nice List

Blog Plastic Surgery

brookjames — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 08:00:48 +0000

The wife and I have decided that for Christmas we are going to give each other the gift of blog freedom and facelifts! Yeah, that might sound lame, but we are also trying out this saving money for a baby thing. So what we are planning on doing is taking our blogs off of the WordPress.com site and start using the WordPress.org self hosting software. We don’t really know what we are doing, but we know that we will have more control over our blogs which is a good thing!

What I understand right now is that I have to have the ability to host on my domain. Check. What we are giving each other for Christmas is the gift of doing this without the dumb ads from GoDaddy. So now if there are ads on the page it will be because we chose for them to be there. But there are a few things that I don’t understand.

Does self hosting HAVE to happen through the place you purchased the domain name?
Will I be able to work on my new blog template without it changing up my page or will I have to basically shut down the blog while I work on it?
Where is a good place to get really good WordPress templates for free or cheap?

Help!

Posted in Help, Hmmm..., Random Tagged: Blogging, Christmas, Christmas Presents, GoDaddy.com, Help, Self Hosting, Wordpress.com, Wordpress.org

Sunday Expectations

brookjames — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 08:00:38 +0000

Well we are back from vacation and back to normal life again! After playing catch up all week, Sunday has arrived and we are looking forward to some great things this week!

I dislocated my pinky finger on my left hand 12 days ago and I am expecting the guitar playing to be good and painful. (Ok, that one’s not a great thing to expect but it’s true.)
I am excited about the setlist for the day. Awesome Is The Lord Most High, Jesus Paid It All, From The Inside Out, and Jesus Saves. Can’t wait to worship through them all morning!
We dug through a ton of junk yesterday (still moving in a year later) and pulled out the Christmas decorations. I am definitely expecting those to go up today.
I know that God is going to work in some awesome ways tomorrow through all of our volunteer team! They seriously rock!

This is gonna be a great week. Follow His path and expect the Lord to do some great things in your life this week too!

Posted in Hmmm..., Music, Semi Serious In Nature Tagged: Christmas, Dislocated Finger, Setlist, Sunday Expectations, Volunteers, Worship

Time For A New Tattoo?

brookjames — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 08:00:40 +0000

(Mom, just go ahead and skip this blog post. It won’t be your favorite!)

So I have been thinking for quite some time now that I am ready for a new tattoo. I am not really sure what I would get if I went out tomorrow to get it. So it will still be a little while. Plus I would probably have to wait until after the baby comes so we can look at budgeting because I’m sure it would have to come out of my fun money. Maybe if I started playing poker again I could get a good one paid for real quick.

Anyway, I have three tattoos at the moment (outside of my right forearm, inside of both wrists). All Hebrew writing. I really don’t know what I wanna do with the next one. Here are some of the ideas that I have so far that I am kicking around. Of course whichever one I decided on I will somehow have to convince the wife to allow it. If it is good enough that she likes it then it won’t be near as hard.

Sleeve – I have always wanted to get a sleeve. KK isn’t convinced yet, but I’m still working on it. I don’t know what it would look like or incorporate yet because I’m not big on all the tribal, skull, naked chicks, Disney, spiderweb, etc. stuff.
Wedding Ring – I have wanted to get my wedding ring tattooed on ever since I got married. Again, I am not exactly sure what to do there. Do I get the Hebrew writing that is on my ring? Do I get something that we could both get?
Hand/Fingers – I have a couple ideas for hand or finger tattoos. I like the idea of Yahweh in Hebrew on my hand. That would have some cool thoughts and reasons behind it for me. I like the tattoo down the finger, too. Not Veritas and Aequitas like Boondock Saints, but something. A child’s name perhaps? But then do I need one for my wife too? What if I have lots of kids?
Neck – I like some of the neck stuff, but that one just seems like it might be a little harder to sell.

So many questions! So many ideas! I need to get someone creative, artsy and draw…y to help me create them. Someone should make a website for this. That could be a good idea. How about you? Got any ideas for me?

Posted in Help, Hmmm... Tagged: Art, Hebrew, Tattoos

The I Before He Rule

brookjames — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 08:00:40 +0000

Growing up we learn the “i before e” rule for basic, confusing English grammar. You know. ”I” before “e” except after “c” as in neighbor and weigh…or while eating curds and weigh…or unless your neighbor is gay…or something like that. It is the most confusing rule in our language. But we still have to learn it.

We as humans follow a different rule. The I Before He rule. I live for me and then God. We are human. We suck like that. But as we follow Christ we learn the opposite of that rule, that He comes first. Yet still we fight that battle all the time. We pray things like I need or give me… We sing songs that focused more on what we get out of the relationship. These things in and of themselves are not bad. If you know me, you know that I need prayer. I need Him to give me patience. I need a lot of things that I pray for. It’s not a bad thing to sing of the life I have because of Him. We should celebrate those things. But there is more to it!

It is so easy to get caught up in the things that we need or want or have that we forget to worship God because. We don’t deserve to be saved. We don’t deserve to be blessed by Him. We don’t deserve glory and honor. Sometimes we need to stop worrying about ourselves and worship Him. He is holy. The Creator of all things. God of mercy. Author of love. All-powerful God. Overwhelmingly more than my everything.

Posted in Hmmm..., Spiritual Tagged: Grammar, I Before E, I Before He, Rules

A Revelation Song

brookjames — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 08:00:12 +0000

This past weekend, my wife and I had the privilege of going to LifeChurch.tv in Edmond, OK. Of course we loved it. Marcy Priest led and as always did an amazing job. One of my favorite things is getting to hear other people lead worship. Not only is it a nice break to just be in the middle of it all sometimes instead of leading, but it’s also a great way to hear new songs. Marcy did a song called Revelation Song recorded by Kim Walker and written by Jennie Lee Riddle. Loved it! I have no idea how I haven’t heard it before. It’s such a great song. Then throw Kim Walker in the mix and it is freakin’ outstanding! My favorite part of the song is the driving bridge (surprise surprise) that simply says “Be my Everything“. I love it. How many times do we need God to be our everything? But how many times do we actually let Him be our everything.

Read the lyrics. Go get the song. Worship your Everything.

worthy is the Lamb who was slain
holy, holy is He
sing a new song to Him who sits on
heaven’s mercy seat

holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty
Who was and is and is to come
with all creation i sing praise to the King of Kings
You are my everything and i will adore You

clothed in rainbows of living color
flashes of lightning, rolls of thunder
blessing and honor, strength and glory and power be
to You the only Wise King

holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty
Who was and is and is to come
with all creation i sing praise to the King of Kings
You are my everything and i will adore You

filled with wonder, awestruck wonder
at the mention of Your name
Jesus, Your name is Power, Breath, and Living Water
such a marvelous mystery

holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty
Who was and is and is to come
with all creation i sing praise to the King of Kings
You are my everything and i will adore You

be my Everything, be my Everything
be my Everything, be my Everything

holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty
Who was and is and is to come
with all creation i sing praise to the King of Kings
You are my everything and i will adore You

Posted in Hmmm..., Music, Spiritual Tagged: Be My Everything, Jennie Lee Riddle, Kim Walker, LifeChurch.tv, Marcy Jackson, Marcy Priest, Revelation Song, Worship