Good Band Chat!!!

So tonight after band practice with Second Baptist the guys headed over to Sonic for some slushes and some conversation.  It was cool!  We were talking about whether music (good/bad--"Christian"/"Non-Christian") had influenced us.  The basic consensus--yes and no!  

First with the no.  One of the guys made the point that music is a gift from God.  The main difference between a Christian and Non-Christian musician is that one is thankful for the gift and the other is clueless as to the fact that they have a gift.  God blessed humans with this crazy thing called music but He also graced our population with minds that are creative.  Skyscrapers, art in the Louvre, a beautifully handcrafted desk (no, not just the one I'm typing on) are all things that God has given to people through their creativity.  It is the job of Christians to be thankful for that gift and to lead others to the same conclusion.  

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When people are given a plethora of choices when it comes to music, when they are not guided to the quality of good musicality, they just pick something that makes them feel.  Not feel good or bad--just feel.  People want to have the connection of feeling with others am I right?  When someone commits suicide, it's because they lost feeling and lost hope and a connection with their world around them, thus they end their connection to a "feelingless" society.   With music, if someone wants to feel happy or upbeat or just plain alive, they turn on the tunes, whether or not it is "good".  The point was also made that even before you've heard of an artist, people might say you remind them of that artist.  That is because music is a universal gift.  Reminiscent of the "nothing new under the sun" thought process.  While I totally agree with this, I have a slight twist on this which may cause a dilemma in your soul.

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When I was a sophomore in college, I decided to major in speech communications.  To this day, I still do not know why I did this.  I knew that I enjoyed it and I had a passion about almost every class that I took in this major.  At HBU, we had to have two majors so the second may come as a slight shocker.  I went from music to english to...Christianity (boring churchy answer I know).  I knew that God had called me into ministry of some sort, but I didn't know what kind of ministry.  I still struggle with that today, but I knew I needed to develop everything I could in order to be most useful to God.  

In Homiletics (preaching class), I learned how to research scripture, how to deliver a meaningful and power sermon, but also that different people have different ways of getting a message across.  Some of the students would be very factual, to the point of near boredom.  Others would be so funny that I would almost miss their point.  But the majority would have a passion for the scripture that they were preaching on.  This passion was displayed through their homilies either by the tone of their voice, choice of words, detail of research, or simply by the unashamed love of the Lord that shone brightly on their faces!  

I was reminded of this tonight in our chat that, while different genres of music may provide a different feel for a song or evoke a certain emotion, music is, in essence, an expression of passion.  Being exposed to different kinds of music may give you a varied background stylistically, however, the ultimate goal of music should not just be to give thanks to God for the gift, but to grab a hold of someone's passion and raw expression of this blessing!!

Next 4 years!!!

So the Medial School Nation wide match day was today. That is where you rank schools you interview at and they rank you and you...match. Victoia got her number 1 choice which was UT Houston! This means that no realtors will need to be notified that our house is for sale! We are thrilled that we are staying here and that she matched with a great school.

In other news, I remodeled the kitchen and my daughter will be born in a little over a month! Yeah, what other kinds of life change can we go through at once?!?

~Jody

Book Post

Here are a couple of excerpts from my book...that is no where NEAR finished!

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Being here next to my wife I wonder, how did I get here? How do we manage to have a decent relationship? Don’t get me wrong, we’ve had our battles and our down times, but currently, I am content. I have two jobs that provide me what I need to pay our bills. I often wonder what the financial circumstances of authors who write billions of good books or that author who writes a couple of amazing books happen to be. They always seem to write about their trips and adventures and how they used to have hard times. I am in the midst of my simple life and yet I find myself content. I go to a rather large church here in Houston, and I work in the music ministry and with that, the calling of my life, I realize my contentment. Is that enough? Is contentment what I have been placed on this earth to achieve?

John says in Revelation chapter three that we are not to be lukewarm Christians. This has been a struggle verse for me all of my life. Water in the time John was writing, just like today, was good when it was hot for the obvious reasons of cooking and killing bacteria--things my mother might think of. Practically growing up in my dad’s office in the church, I always thought it meant if you weren’t on fire for God, He would rather you not even be a Christian so you wouldn’t push people away from Christianity or lead them astray. They probably wouldn’t know such a churchy word like “astray” in the first place. I have come to realize that cold water can be a refreshing sense of newness on a hot summer day and a cool breeze in the humidity that I have come to loath in the heart of southeast Texas. God calls us to be either on fire Christians--telling everyone we know about Him--or cool refreshing Christians--cool breezes for people in a dry, mundane life. Where does me finding myself content with where I am in life come into play? I associate contentment more with complacency and a lukewarm lifestyle rather than what God has called me to--a courageous life of forgiveness and love.

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Like I was taught in church, meekness does not equal weakness. It is a simple ironic twist in understanding God’s desire for the molding of our hearts that the two words rhyme. If every young girl’s fantasy, other than becoming Hannah Montana’s best friend, is to be a princess, then I would guarantee that the little boy’s dream would be to ride his shining white horse to slay a dragon and save the princess. Either that or drive his awesome muscle car to the beach and save a dolphin while playing legos with his brothers, though that may have just been my dream. Imagine, if you will, the little boy’s massive white steed. A stallion of that size could do whatever it wants, but because of the bridle, or meekness, its power is controlled and used as the master requires. God desires for men to have power and strength, otherwise He would not have created muscles that can grow when they are pushed and torn, or gyms for that matter. Christ demonstrated the ultimate example of meekness on the cross. While He suffered and bled, at any moment He could have stretched his finger and wiped out half the globe and called thousands of angels down to escort Him from the cross. He chose to display meekness and expose his love and caring heart for His people.

The caring heart of a shepherd is also demonstrated when that lion or wolf comes to steal one of their sheep. They get out their sling and stones or staff and kill the beast before it even has the chance to think about their sheep. I knew you couldn’t wait for the display of manly brawn and the brute strength part. . . . . .

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Thus ends my excerpts. I wanted to end it before it got too exciting so you'd have to come back for more. I hope you enjoyed them and got something out of them. It is a book for guys (or whoever wants to read it) that looks at a few characters in the Bible to discover the tenderness, meekness, and the caring heart God wants us to have. I'll put more up for discussion later on.

~Jody

Oh wife...

...So Victoria is sick today. She had this major exam for the Medical Examiners Board something or anther but she got very sick this morning. I was super late to work and she had to lay in bed all day and miss her exam. She is doing better now, but it was touch-and-go for a while...and by touch-and-go, I mean she took naps. So other than that, normal day. I have a dentist appointment Thursday where I'll get 3 cavities jacked and 1 crown put in...blah! After that, we have a baby appointment on Friday. So pretty much that is the plan fr this week. That's all.

~Jody

8-10 weeks!?!?

Ok, so this is scary! My daughter might be sleepin (or not sleeping) in our home in 8-10 weeks. Her due date is April 30th which is 10 weeks from now, but the doctor said if things go well like they have been, he'll probably want her to come a couple of weeks early???

Emma, I can't wait for you to get here, but....am ready to be your father? Fathers do things like pray for their daughters--I do that. They read to them--I'm hardly read to myself! They sing to them--totally have that covered. They are old--I don't know about old but I just had a birthday. They worry about them--checkmark! It is amost completely unfathomable to think that soon I will be attending father-daughter events at church and school...WHAT?!? Is anyone else reading this? Father? I think deep down, I've always wanted to be a father, but now that I'm about to be one, I realize that fathers don't have a clue worth a crap what they're doing and the ones who think they do are probably the bad fathers who turn out girls with low self-esteems! Oh Lord, please let me be the kind of father she needs in order to see the kind of love that you provide your children so that she will fall in love with you before all else! Oh and don't even get me started on boys! She just better plan on staying single until I get crazy from being old or that I go blind so they can trick me into thinking that she just has a girl roommate one day and not a husband! Oh baby girl, I might not be ready to be a perfect daddy and I might not ever be, but i do know that I cant wait to meet you and to fall in love with my little baby from the moment our eyes meet! Your mommy and I love you and can't wait to hold you and raise you and show you God's love in our family!

~Jody


P.S. - My oldest brother and his wife just found out they are having a boy: Reeve Franklin Smith

It's a...

Little precious Girl! My wife and I are having a daughter on April 30th, 2009! That's fun to say. Her name is Emma Josephine Smith. I have felt her kick twice so far. Victoria has felt her PLENTY more than that. I tell Emma to kick her mommy any time that she is stressed out or upset. She is a good minder already! She woke Victoria up this morning by kicking her over and over. She was trying to tell her that she was ready to get up and play.

We are in San Antonio right now for yet another interview for residency for Victoria. It's fun to travel but I can't wait to get home and start putting stuff in her room and getting things started with preparing for her arrival in a few months. We have lots of awesome things already so we can't wait to get started with it. Other than our baby Emma, things are going well. I'm sitting in a La Quinta trying to keep myself occupied while Victoria is at a dinner with residents from UT San Antonio. Tomorrow is our 2 year Anniversary so that should be a good time spent on the Riverwalk!

~Jody

Hearts & Garages

So this past week has been fun for me.  It started off with an exciting time in the garage on Monday night.  I decided it was time to clean it up!  I figured since there was a small path from the back door to the garage door out to the cars in the driveway (not in the garage), that we needed more room in there.  I think that it is deep down because of the fact that the crib we bought on Craigslist was in the middle of the garage in pieces and that there was no room to put the guest room furniture in there.  Babies make you all organized and responsible, at least they get me to clean my garage so I can start to transition from having a 3 bedroom with one as an office to a 1 bedroom, 1 office and one toy/changing/baby clothes and not an actual room that a baby sleeps in room.

So yeah, I installed a pegboard that organized the garage very nicely as well as two more big plastic shelves that stored lots and lots.  I FINALLY threw away the entertainment center that I bought my sophomore year of college in my apartment.  It was just housing random tools and garage things and leaning and falling apart.  I was proud of it though.  I bought it let's see...6 years ago, it's been through 5-6 moves and I bought it for $70 from Wal-Mart.  I thought it was time to set it free and let the trash people take it.  So needless to say, the crib is nicely leaning against the wall in the garage, there is room for the bed from the guest room and the dresser and the floor is clean and BOTH cars are in it as well!  I'm so happy.

So that was Monday and Tuesday and then also on Tuesday as well as today, I had some fun with visits to the cardiologist.  I've had random chest pain and history of heart junk in my family and my heart rate used to be super fast for some reason.  Everything on Tuesday turned out fine.  I had to give blood that morning and today I had to leave work and go get an echocardiogram.  The tech said that I have a heart murmur but that was kind of normal.  The doctor will check all the numbers and things that the tech recorded and he'll get back to me about them.  I'm pretty sure everything is fine, just random pain from something in my chest region.

Oh, and Victoria is doing fine.  The sickness has been pretty constant.  As you can probably imagine, if there is no food in her tummy, there is no smile on her face!  That's when the nausea is the worst.  So I've had the joy of getting bedtime snacks almost every night after we're all tucked in and the lights are out.  I usually here a timid "..baby...i'm hungy..." (there is no 'r' in hungry on purpose...that's how it sounds).  So I've been fighting my flesh to say something harsh like "you know you get da' gum hungry every dang night, why don't you think to get something for yourself before you come in the bedroom?"  But, then I remember that she's super tired...it's just a vicious cycle that I am not used to.  Anywho, my love just walked in the door from Ben Taub Surgery ICU so I'm going to go say hello to her.  Peace!

~Jody