Every year I grow more and more thankful for this woman.
Yes, I’m biased but it’s a great song, a solid video, and easily my favorite of their records. Check out Mine is Yours here.
I can still vividly remember the first time I flew into LA at night and saw the horizon to horizon lights. It’s so massive and beautiful it’s surreal. When you see all of those lights, think about how many people that is. Staggering.
The only bad thing about this video is the music so feel free to mute your computer while you watch it.
Reflections On Our Third Anniversary
Three years ago today, Kim and I rode our bicycles away from our wedding reception, down the street and around the corner to our house (which you can see at the end of the video above). Her dress was taped up to the bike so she could pedal and she rang her bell most of the ride home.
Three weeks later we stepped off of a plane in Mongolia and any liquids in my eyes and nose froze. We spent the first year and a half of our marriage in a Soviet-bloc apartment, seven hours from the capitol of Mongolia. Together, we taught English, the Bible, and ministered to and served students, disabled children, the local church, and YWAM-ers passing through.
We flew back from Mongolia on a Monday and were in Seattle on a Thursday for my final interviews at Mars Hill. We found a house on Saturday and flew back for time with our family on Sunday. Three weeks later we moved everything in our storage unit - many unopened wedding presents! - up to Seattle. In the year and a half since, together we’ve led a community group and ministered to and served singles, couples, students, strippers, families, neighbors…and now a daughter.
Here’s the point. When we first went to Mongolia, a wise, older friend corrected my focus on how “God would use me”, to how God would bless us by using us - that it’s not about me or us, but about a sovereign God who loves lavishly. Looking back over the past three years, that has been unreservedly true. We left Mongolia, and we live in Seattle, with a feeling of resounding and humbling thankfulness for the people God has put around us. Further, as we worked together not only were we blessed by those around us but we grew as a team, as ‘one’. All of that is grace.
More than anything or anyone else, Kim has been God’s greatest display of grace in my life. It has been amazing to watch her grow into an absolutely stunning wife, mom, and woman. She has a contagious joy in everything and with everyone. (I’m lucky because I get to be around her all the time!) She has also grown as a photographer. Every time she does a shoot I have a new ‘favorite’ picture. There is no one I trust more, no one whose opinion I value more. I’m so proud to call myself her husband and thankful for the years we’ve had together.
Here’s to three years together and the hope of many more.
Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life.
I’m thankful to my friend Jesse for showing me this and walking me through the art of it. Watch this once on full screen. Then watch it again, slowly. Notice the care taken with each shot. It is beautiful. (I’m going to need to watch the Thin Red Line again.)
The opening line stunning as well. “There are two ways through life: nature and grace.” That, my friends, is true.
Clark Little is a big wave surfer who made his name riding huge shorebreak. Now he takes pictures in the barrel - and gets some amazing ones at that. This video shows you how he does it. To see his work, visit his site, but here’s an example.
Kim and I saw him speak at the REI headquarters when he was in town. He was a really passionate, humble guy who loves what he gets to do. It was cool to see art related to Hawaiian surfing resonate to a packed room in the soggy Northwest…and it made me really, really miss Hawaii and the ocean.
