Upstream Swimming

10 Ways Pregnancy Crushed My Dignity: Part 5 - Incontinence

2012-02-08T10:13:00.000-08:00

If you haven't yet read the intro to this series, you should do so before reading on for some context. As almost any pregnant lady can confirm, you pee absurdly often when you are pregnant. Before I became pregnant, I prided myself on my ability to hold my bladder for ridiculously long periods of time (which, by the way, I can no longer do after giving birth to a baby). However, while

10 Ways Pregnancy Crushed My Dignity: Part 4 - Mourning Sickness

2012-02-06T09:43:00.000-08:00

If you haven't yet read the intro to this series, you should do so before reading on for some context. No, I did not misspell "morning" sickness - I just think the word mourning is a much more appropriate term after vomiting well over 50 times while pregnant. "Mourning" also fits much better because there is nothing exclusively "morning" about morning sickness. I was nauseous in the morning

10 Ways Pregnancy Crushed My Dignity: Parts 2 & 3 - Appetite and Weight Gain

2012-01-30T09:23:00.000-08:00

If you haven't yet read the intro to this series, you should do so before reading on for some context. Before continuing, I'd like to reemphasize that my pregnancy was particularly difficult. Every woman's pregnancy is different; I am just sharing my personal experience. I thought I'd reiterate that point because my mom read my first two posts and is fearful that by my 10th post, all

10 Ways Pregnancy Crushed My Dignity: Part 1 - Constipation

2012-01-23T10:00:00.000-08:00

If you haven't yet read the intro to this series, you should do so first before reading on for some context. Constipation is one of those less talked about, lovely side effects of pregnancy. Due to loss of appetite and nausea, I was very limited on the foods I could handle in the beginning of my pregnancy, so I wasn't getting nearly as much fiber as I needed. Despite my best efforts to eat a

10 Ways Pregnancy Crushed My Dignity

2012-01-23T09:36:00.000-08:00

My pregnancy with Caleb was really hard. It certainly could have been worse, but in my mind there's no denying that the crappy-ness level of it was approximately a 8.257 out of 10. At my first appointment, the Dr. found an ovarian cyst bigger than my uterus during the ultrasound. This caused concern, because if the cyst were to grow, it could have ruptured and become a life-threatening scenario

Brian Welch Leaves Korn For a Better Life

2012-01-19T13:40:00.000-08:00

I love his story!

What is Gossip? Maybe Not What You Think

2012-01-17T10:15:00.000-08:00

Gossip is a subject I've been meditating on for awhile now. I truly desire to please the Lord and encourage others with my tongue, but there are times I utterly fail. As I began thinking more about gossip, I realized that I couldn't come up with a great definition for it. I want to address the sin of gossip in my life, but it's difficult to do so without really even knowing what it is and is

Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus Part 2

2012-01-14T15:55:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I posted a video that’s been going viral on facebook called “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus.” I liked the video, and it was clear to me that the artist was not speaking about religion in general, but false religion, empty religion, legalism, hypocrisy, and rule-following. However, later in the day, I read an interesting article critiquing the video and how some of the words/points

Why I Hate (False) Religion, But Love Jesus

2012-01-13T09:09:00.000-08:00

A Culture of Isolation?

2012-01-11T10:02:00.000-08:00

Two weekends ago we made Christmas cookies for our neighbs. That's neighbors in Santa Barbara language. By the way - complete tangent - I JUST discovered that the term "the hood" comes from the word neighborhood...my annoying habit of shortening words led me to this eye-opening revelation. Genius! Oh also, did you know that the medicine "tums" is the baby talk way of saying tummy? Just

Jesus Wants the Rose

2012-01-09T09:32:00.000-08:00

Loved this...spot on.

Caleb's Birth Story: Rated PG-13 for Language, Nudity, and Drugs :)

2012-01-05T12:01:00.000-08:00

We realize this is 8 months after the fact, but better late than never right!? Before giving birth, we didn't read many birth stories (not sure why, I guess they just weren't in any books we read), but in retrospect we wish we had so we would have had a better idea as to what to expect (and not just medical facts or what they tell you in the birthing classes). It would have been nice to read more

Who Knows How to Raise a Baby? No One.

2012-01-03T14:45:00.000-08:00

I think I am finally realizing that no one knows how to raise a baby...even the "experts" all disagree with one another on the majority of baby-related topics. Ugh! This is a disheartening realization to someone who really wants to figure out how to do everything well and "right." It's also frustrating when you have been told from day 1 your baby is too small and not eating well enough, and now I

2011

2012-01-01T14:41:00.000-08:00

‎2011 was a stressful and busy year. Difficult pregnancy and recovery, job change, far geographical relocation, lived out of a hotel room for a month-and-a-half with a newborn, bought a house, and my sister got married. However, as I was reflecting on the year last night, I realized that while each of these things were stressful and hard in certain ways, each and every one of them was a huge

Jesus Came Out a Birth Canal Too

2011-12-16T11:10:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately I haven't found many videos on Christ's birth that do it much justice, but I think this is one video that does a good job and I like that it is creative and uses poetry to get the message across. Many people think of Christ's birth as this lovely, peaceful, purely joyous event, when in actuality, it was not. It's funny how we tend to romanticize Jesus' birth when in fact there

A Good Reminder

2011-12-07T16:31:00.000-08:00

Many people have already seen this video at this point, but I think it's a great video to watch every year as a reminder to remember what Christmas is really about and to get us thinking about others rather than ourselves. Oh and I know I've abandoned this blog for a long time but I really miss and enjoy blogging and am going to start posting again! :)

New Caleb Videos Months 5-7

2011-12-05T22:17:00.000-08:00

Fun Videos from Caleb's first 4 months!

2011-09-01T16:01:00.000-07:00

Who's askin' whom?

2010-07-23T22:37:00.000-07:00

I have to laugh at how backwards we often get things. Jesus was constantly dealing with how mixed-up many of our common assumptions are. Most people in His day thought that if you were rich, then God must favor you (and many people still believe this). So when He said that it was difficult for a rich man to enter heaven...His disciples pretty much freaked out. They were still following the "rich

My sister's going to Haiti!

2010-04-07T00:55:00.000-07:00

My older sister Sharon is going to help out with the disaster relief effort in Haiti and I couldn't be more proud of her/excited for her trip! She will be traveling with a team of friends from her church from May 14th – 22nd to the neighborhood of La Saline in Port-au-Prince to complete clean-up and construction projects for the Kingdom Kids Orphanage, which was damaged during the recent

Salva Vida

2010-04-06T00:41:00.000-07:00

Salva Vida means "lifesaver" in Spanish. It also happens to be the name of the most common beer in Honduras. It was interesting, because everywhere I traveled in Honduras...Salva Vida was available, however in all those places, if I had tried to drink the tap water I would have become sick. It seems like they should have called their bottled water Salva Vida, but I guess clean beer made it to

Flying to Honduras Tonight!

2010-03-11T22:07:00.000-08:00

Water from Cornerstone Church on Vimeo. Water is life, and because we have no water, life is miserable. -a voice from Kenya Right now, almost a billion people on the planet don't have access to safe, clean drinking water. That's one in eight of us. Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of all sickness and disease, and kill more people every year than all forms of violence,

Melissa's Story

2010-03-10T02:45:00.000-08:00

Maybe it's a female thing, because I know this video doesn't have the same effect on Sean as it does on me...but seriously, I tear up every time I watch it...and if you know me well, you know I don't tear up often. It's just that every time the video hits the 4:33 point, I just lose it. This skit is such a beautiful picture of what Jesus did for us on the cross and the hardships he endured just

Kingdom of Couches

2010-03-02T23:39:00.000-08:00

I like this video because it got me thinking about how we spend our time. I started researching and I found something that boggled my mind so bad I just had to write about it. In 2009 the Nielsen rating system found that the average American was watching almost 5 hours of television per day. Um ok wait a second. When they say that is the average, that means about half of us are watching MORE

72% and 5 Things We've Learned While Raising Support

2010-02-21T00:09:00.000-08:00

Since many of you reading this are supporters of our ministry, I am sure you are interested to hear about our progress towards our goal of getting onto campus! We are currently at 72% of our monthly goal...SO close to 3/4 of the way there!!! We are definitely in the tail-end of support raising and are praying and hoping to be finished with our financial support by the summer. Right now our

It's funny, but seriously.

2010-02-13T00:30:00.001-08:00

Ok, if you didn't figure it out yet... we think this guy Francis Chan is pretty awesome. I mean how can somebody be so funny while making such challenging and powerful statements? It's a gift I guess:

Half-Conscious and Hilarious

2010-02-13T00:00:00.000-08:00

The other day I woke up early (well earlier than normal) to answer a phone call. Melissa is, well, lets just say a heavy sleeper but I was pretty loud. (You know, if you talk a little louder it sounds like you have been awake for more than 35 seconds.) During the conversation she kept rolling over making frustrated huffs and snorts... shooting me an occasional dirty look. So when I climbed back

Wedding Dance Video

2010-02-12T23:47:00.000-08:00

We were married on Sept 1st, 2007 and we surprised our guests with a dance we choreographed ourselves! We would also like to note that this was before the "baby got back" couple who went on the Ellen show... enjoy!

3 Videos Portraying Why I Love the Austin Stone So Much

2010-02-10T22:49:00.000-08:00

I came across the Austin Stone Church (a church in Austin, TX) fairly randomly and fell in love with it instantly. Their vision is to be a "church for the city"...meaning that their church is not meant to simply be a social club or the like but to actively work for the redemption of the city by meeting various needs of people in Austin. This church is truly an "outward-focused" church rather than

A Supremely Important Decision

2010-02-10T01:32:00.000-08:00

We have often been asked by supporters of our ministry if Campus Crusade is allowed to operate freely on U.S. college campuses. We have always responded yes, because one of the great aspects of American universities is the emphasis on protecting the free exchange of all kinds of ideas. Sadly, this reality may be forever changed for Christians. On April 20th, the Supreme Court will be hearing

Hello World

2010-01-14T00:58:00.003-08:00

This is our first blog post and we're writing it together. Honestly, we never thought that we would ever be "bloggers" but we feel like God has been doing a lot of amazing things in our lives lately and we thought it would be fun to share those things with you as they develop. As we have been going through this "support raising" season, God has been teaching, challenging, and growing us in the