Another "Does this stuff only happen to me?" Tale...

I love to run. I would prefer running outside most of the time but my schedule and the crazy temperatures of Tucson in the summer force me to run on a treadmill at the gym most days. So my usual gym routine consists of watching trashy reality television shows on the little TV's attached to the treadmills to pass the time quickly and keep me from getting bored running in place for 30-40 minutes. So last week my alarm goes off at 4:15am, I hop out of bed, get dressed and head out the door to get my run on at the gym. I usually see the same people every morning which includes an older lady that tans way too much and an older guy that thinks he is 25 rather than 55 and wears some very interesting things. I also see the very sweet wife of the pastor of our church. I used to babysit their children when I was in college and really enjoy chatting with her some mornings while we run.

So, back to this certain morning at the gym. I walk in, fill up my water bottle, turn on my trashy television and begin my 4 mile journey. I notice the pastors wife walk in, wave and keep running. She takes a treadmill one away from mine and I think nothing of it. Then all of the sudden I notice a man getting on the treadmill next to mine. Ok, no big....HOLD UP! It is my pastor!!! All of the sudden I am very aware of the horrible trashy television I am watching and I change the channel to Fox News. He says hello, I say hello and I keep running. "I really need to stop watching this horrible stuff if I get this guilty with my pastor running on the treadmill next to mine" I think. Now, let me tell you that I am sure my pastor could care less what I am watching. He is a very kind man that probably thought nothing of it if he even noticed at all what I was watching. Then I think  " I wonder how the drama is unfolding on that horribly trashy reality show" and I change the channel back. Oh well- maybe I will give him a good sermon illustration one day. Hey, maybe I gave him a new show to check out...maybe.... Like I have asked before, does this stuff only happen to me?

My Husband the Dreamer

My husband has big dreams and little dreams and he has a lot of dreams. Some of them I laugh at. Like, he has this crazy dream of our house always being clean. Now to most of you that have been to our home and know us you probably think this is true of our home, but the clean my husband dreams for is beyond anything that is possible. Plus, we are parents to two boys and again, this makes the type of clean he strives for impossible. He also dreams of owning everything in REI. He got dangerously close last year and is well on his way this year but I am confident we will never own all of REI.

He has dreams of our backyard being done (he says a man who owns a landscaping company should probably have a landscaped backyard...) and dreams of many backpacking and camping trips with me, our boys and of course James. He want to backpack Kauai and the Grand Canyon, probably in the same year.... He wants to travel a lot of places, and that is a dream we share! He wants his business to grow and he wants to take care of me and our boys.

The dreams my husband has that impresses me the most though are his dreams for not only himself and our family but everyone he comes in contact with. He has talked to me a lot about this dream lately and I love the passion he holds in his voice when he talks about it. He wants it for his employee and his sons. He wants it for his sister and his friends. He wants it for everyone. He wants people to dream big with their lives and through their relationships with Christ have the confidence that they can do anything that they dream. He wants them to dream big for their marriages, dream big for their kids and dream big for their lives. He doesn't want you to have his dreams, he wants you to find your dream. He will look you right in the face and tell you, I want you to live the best life you can, I want you to live the biggest and the best. This doesn't mean you are the richest person or the most successful, this means that you are living out what you think is your best and excited to be living that life. This is my husband the dreamer.....

He shares this passion with his good friend James, and I think that they have such a heart for people and I am positive that they are going to influence people huge with their desire for people to want to want the best. I have been thinking about this all day and I am a very thankful wife to have a husband that has big dreams. I am also thankful that he has a friend that shares that vision.