Holy Crapness is a term that spontaneously erupted from Faith’s mouth the other night.  I have now added it to my vocabulary and I called dibs on using it for a blog post title.

I want to share a little bit here about how God is working in my life and specifically how he uses my marriage.  Faith and I have been married a little over 5 years now and I am excited to say that after buying a home, becoming parents twice, surviving 4 years of Youth Ministry, changing churches and finding healing, our marriage is stronger than ever.  We have had rough spots and adjustments, but I have to give credit the true source of power and love in our relationship, Jesus.  When we were married we had an understanding with each other that there are 3 people in this marriage and Jesus being the third is what holds everything together.  Jesus is number 1 and each of us are number 2.

We were both good at following Jesus on our own, but it has been a learning experience to follow him together.  Faith’s spiritual health affects me and my spiritual health affects her.

“A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”  Ecclesiastes 4:12 b

We have made new breakthroughs in our one relationship with God recently and have discovered some very cool things that have lead to what I am calling ‘Holy Crapness Moments.’  We both spend personal time with Jesus in prayer and we have been reading the same parts of the Bible together, but individually.  We sometimes discuss things that we read depending on what time allows and we share prayer requests with each other.  We share about our different ministries and what God is teaching us individually.  This is all really cool and good stuff, but God is starting to make bigtime connections between us spiritually that I never expected.

In my personal prayer time I pray about a lot of things and ask God for direction regularly.  My prayer time is not always as regular as I want it to be, but that is another blog post.  Anyways, I don’t always share everything from my prayer time with Faith.  Recently we were sharing with each other things that God is teaching us and showing us and Faith brought up some things that she was afraid to share with me because they were so outrageously cool and God sized that it scared her a bit.  After she had shared with me these things, I made it even scarier by sharing with her that what she was telling me was sort of a answer and direction to some big things that I have been praying about.  It seriously is blowing my mind even now thinking about it.

This is a whole new way that I am finding to work and communicate with God and I get to share that with my favorite person on this planet.  HOLY CRAPNESS people!!!!!  I love it!!!!

Saturday marked my 30th Birthday.  I spent the weekend receiving condolences from my older friends and allowing my younger friends to call me old man.  It was nice to see some people who I haven’t seen in a while and share stories of times that we have spent together.

Reminiscing about the past can be fun, but it is definitely not my focus.  My past is what it is and has helped to shape me into the person that I am today.  I try to remember what I have learned from previous experiences in order to help me with future endeavors.

I am always looking for what is next.  I like to upgrade my computer to the latest and greatest even if there are risks for bugs.  I want to play with the new shiny objects and learn about them through experimentation and failure.  How can I use new technology to help at my church or in my home?  How can I use this to connect with more people with similar interests?  What is the next step in my career, for my family, in my ministry?  How can I prepare for what is coming?

I don’t always have answers and I won’t always be prepared.  But I am looking forward to great things that God is going to do with me as long as I don’t get in the way too much.  I think that my 30′s are going to be exciting and full of many new adventures.  I hope to take you along with me through this blog.  Are you ready for some adventure?

Here is Red’s new video for The Death of Me from the new Innocence and Instict Album available in stores now.

RED – DEATH OF ME from INNOCENCE & INSTINCT on Vimeo.

Let me start by saying that I have felt very bitter in regards to how the soon to be former UC president Nancy Zimpher handled the Bob Huggins ousting.  There is no doubt that Zimpher brought great changes to my Alma Mater and I have a great respect for what she was trying to and did accomplish as the President of the University of Cincinnati.

Unfortunately, my impressions of Zimpher were severely skewed with the force out of Huggins from his contract with UC.  Backing up just a little bit, I want to revisit the DUI incident that was the beginning of the end.  When that news broke and the video released, I was very disappointed in our coach.  I assumed at that moment that he would be relieved of his position because this is not what anyone wants to see from the head basketball coach.  It would have been better to let him go then as opposed to what they put the program through for the next several years.

Because of that incident, I believe that Zimpher and the University had decided that they would allow Huggins’ contract to expire as a way of getting rid of him without having to fire him and pay him for what they owed him on his contract.  Unfortunately the decision to not renew his contract completely torpedoed recruiting.  Huggins could no longer guarantee that he would be around 4 years from now, so athletes were picking other schools with coaches in a more stable position.  When the power struggle finally forced Huggins out, UC played under the direction of Andy Kennedy with a very shorthanded team because of recruiting struggles.  By the end of that season our active roster was only 9 players.  They played a lot of minutes and with a lot of heart.  It was an exciting team to watch because despite all of the problems that they faced, they were competitive and managed to get an NIT bid.

Not making the NCAA tournament was a big disappointment when you have been there every year for over a decade, but it was a big accomplishment for that team.  UC had a couple of home games for the NIT before making the trip to NYC for the rest of the tournament.  Coincidentally the final NIT game that UC would play at home became another controversy when UC suspended 2 senior basketball players for academic ineligibility.  They waited until game time to make the announcement so the tickets to the game were sold and UC was all but guaranteed to lose this game with only 7 players.  UC got their money for that home game  and officially buried the program hoping that all of the controversy would go with it.

The next day they hired Mick Cronin as the new head coach.  I like Mick Cronin, but this was a very confusing pick to me.  The University wanted to hire a coach who would help to clean up the program.  They didn’t want thugs to play for our school anymore.  So they went and hired one of Huggins’ best recruiters ever.  They said they didn’t want Jr. College transfers anymore.  But in order to rebuild the basketball program that they effectively flushed down the toilet, Cronin recruited JUCOS.

I definitely believe that there was something more personal going on there that we don’t know about.  I still get all worked up about it when I think of how everything went down.  I went from a rabid fan who schedule life around the basketball schedule to a fair weather fan.  It makes me sick.  I have followed them, but I have not supported financially beyond my current financial obligations to the University.  I do not own 1 single piece of UC apparel with the new logo on it.  I couldn’t identify all of the players on the team if I tried right now.

But I feel that it is no coincidence that UC basketball has been on the rise lately.  Zimpher has been a virus to the program now that she is on her way out, the numbness is starting to wear off.  I am beginning to make efforts to follow each game again, only it sucks that we never seem to be on TV anymore.

I am calling on all of the Huggins Bearcat faithful to take heart as we move out of this dark period of UC basketball.  I hope UC sells out every game after Zimpher is gone.  There is nothing that can be done to go back and fix it all.  I must forgive her because she is a sinner just like me.  But forgetfullness will be much harder for me.  I wish her well, but I feel sorry for SUNY if they have a basketball program.

I am turning 30 years old 10 days from now.  All that I want for my birthday is the glorious awesome that is called the Flip MinoHD Camcorder.  It is the smallest HD camcorder in existence.  I currently use an older Sony HandyCam that still uses tape to record.  This requires a lot of work getting video from the camera to the computer and into a format that can be used online or for making DVDs.  This gift would greatly improve my video capability and would increase the frequency with which you would see video of my adorable children on this blog.  The cost of the camera is only $230.  If everyone pulls their money together then we can make it happen.  If you don’t have money then I need you to pray really hard because its all God’s anyways and he is the Great Provider.  You can also come and join me for my 30th Birthday Weekend Extravaganza.  See you later and hopefully I will be sharing some sweet HD video here soon.