Tag: My Life

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TCAG Community Group Christmas Party

Last night we had our annual Greenbrier Community Group Christmas Party. Every year all of our Community Groups come together to have one massive party. This is one of the highlights of my year at the church. We have delicious food and a great time playing our “Pink and White Chinese Christmas Ornament Game” or whatever its called. If anyone leaves this party without slightly chuckling a little, its probably a sign you are suffering from massive depression and need serious psychological help 🙂 Here are 53 photos from last night…

Note: When you select the album below the slideshow will switch photos every 5 seconds, to see the caption, place your mouse pointer over the picture, to select individual pictures click the link “Show Picture List”

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And My Favorite…

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Comments?

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Happy Birthday to Me!!!

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Today I have been blessed with 28 healthy, wonderful, sometimes trying years of life. I am sure there are days I would keep and then there are days and decisions I would like to trade in, but my biggest regret is that these 10,220 days have gone by so fast! The older I get the more I realize that life is not about me, its about (as my friend Shane has phrased it) “Loving Jesus, loving others, and pursuing both!” Bottom line, its about Jesus and about people. Today, in recognition of the day I was given life, I am going to donate blood at a local blood drive to give three other people life, I thought that would be fitting for the day…

I know you all were going to Fed-Ex or UPS me a gift once you realized it was my birthday (insert sarcasm here), but instead of sending me gifts, I am asking that you honor me on my birthday by helping my friend Neely bring her daughter home, by buying a bag of coffee or an “Adoption Rock’s T-Shirt.” All profits go to pay for her child’s adoption. While you are there, pick up a couple of extras for late Christmas gifts 🙂 For information on purchasing the coffee CLICK HERE for information on purchasing a t-shirt CLICK HERE. Thank you for honoring me on my birthday by helping someone else!

Once you’ve purchased a bag of coffee or a t-shirt, I would love for you to leave a comment to let everyone know which one you bought so those who didn’t will feel guilty 🙂

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This May Hurt A Little…

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I am starting my blog move to WordPress.org – If you come to my blog by the address of http://www.nickcarnes.com and you can’t access the blog one day, go to http://www.nickcarnes.wordpress.com, as I will still be updating my blog here at .com until I get everything working. I am going to try and make a subdomain to build my site in, however I have never done that, and there is the potential for me to break something…so my hopes are not to break it, but it could happen!

When its all said and done, nickcarnes.com will be the domain forever going forward. Thank you for your patience with my move 🙂

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Perspectives

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I always find myself taking things in life for granted, or overlooking how blessed I am because of minor issues that I allow to be bigger than what they really are. I think when we start looking at things in their proper perspectives, we are able to see the truth of how blessed and how good many of us have it.

For instance, this morning I am standing in the kitchen drinking a glass of tea (the kind with no sugar in it) and taking my array of daily pills. We live in a small home (especially with 5 people) so the only place we can fit our cereal boxes are on top of the refrigerator. I just happened to look at them and think, “Wow, we have a lot of cereal!” But to really put things into perspective, we probably have more food just in cereal than many children do in a year in third world countries. Yet, my children will complain if they don’t get the cereal they like, or if we are out of their favorite kind. I wonder how excited the kids who barely have anything to eat would be to get just 1 box of cereal? I then got a little downtime (finally) today to go visit some other blogs, and I was given another perspective on my life…

The reason I have not had time to visit other blogs is because our stupid website hosting company (no names, 1&1) sent my wife’s domain name to be deleted instead of for transfer to another company, I guess that’s their way of saying, “We’ll show you to leave our company!” I spent a week and a half with their tech support, whom you cannot understand ( I think they are a mix of arabic and chinese) trying to get the domain name restored and transferred to the new company. Once that was complete, I have been trying to rebuild the site for her to get her business back up and running. My bed times this week have been, 1:30 am, 2:30 am, 3:40 am, and 3:50 am before getting up between 6:30 and 7:00ish to go to work. I thought my last couple of weeks were pretty bad, but then I was reminded of what my friends Dan and Stephanie Gould deal with constantly with one of their children, Jackson. They’ve been in the hospital 5 times since September due to a cesure condition their son has. Personally, I would take a crashed website and early mornings trying to fix it, than having to see my son helplessly deal with the issues Jackson does, and to have him subjexcted to the tests and the probes from the Hospitals. Dan and Stephanie are much stronger than me, and their story helps me realize that my life is not as bad as it may seem…it could always be worst! (I’m not saying they have a bad life, just that they are having to endure more than my situation with the website).

Join the Conversation: What helps you keep your life in proper perspective? How could the world be different if we all had the right focus?

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Hunting for Treasure

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I’ve been hunting for treasure lately. It’s amazing how much I’ve already found, its only been small amounts here or there, but the amazing thing is…the more smaller ‘pots of gold’ that I find the  the hungrier I get to find the big treasure chest!

This is where I have been lately…

My child, listen to what I say,  and treasure my commands.  2 Tune your ears to wisdom, and concentrate on understanding.  3 Cry out for insight, and ask for understanding.  4 Search for them as you would for silver; seek them like hidden treasures. 5 Then you will understand what it means to fear the Lord, and you will gain knowledge of God.  6 For the Lord grants wisdom! From his mouth come knowledge and understanding.  7 He grants a treasure of common sense to the honest. He is a shield to those who walk with integrity.  8 He guards the paths of the just and protects those who are faithful to him.  9 Then you will understand what is right, just, and fair,  and you will find the right way to go.  10 For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will fill you with joy.  11 Wise choices will watch over you. Understanding will keep you safe. 12 Wisdom will save you from evil people, from those those words are twisted… 16 Wisdom will save you from the immoral woman, from the seductive words of the promiscuous woman. Proverbs 2:1-11 (NLT)

I love this scripture, it challenges me everytime I read it…”Search for Wisdom, understanding, and insight like I would for silver or for hidden treasure.” I don’t do that…I have been lately, but I don’t want it to be a lately thing, I need it to be an everyday thing! The older I am getting (and yes it is happening…I found 3 grey hairs Saturday) the more I am realizing I need God’s wisdom, his understanding, and his insight. As a husband, a father, a Christ Follower, an employee, a church member, a citizen…you name it and I need wisdom to accomplish it or to lead in it. So I am on a treasure hunt for what I believe Solomon thought was the most valuable possession, Wisdom!

I love what scripture promises if we search for wisdom, my thought is, what if we searched for it like it was hidden treasure? I mean passionately, whole heartedly, recklessly sought after wisdom? That’s what I need to do!

[Wisdom] “I love all who love me.  Those who search will surely find me…For whoever finds me finds life and receives favor from the Lord.” Proverbs 8:17, 35 (NLT)

Join the Conversation: If you’ve learned one nugget of wisdom in your life that would benefit someone else, what would it be?