MichaelDLilly.com

“Forgiveness is a lovely idea until you have something to forgive.”
~ CS Lewis

What forgiveness is not
Reccomended listening
Noel’s teaching:  OUCH!
Places to find Noel

Tags: Christianity, forgiveness, Riv Church.

4 years and 4 days ago I married the perfect woman for me.  4 years ago today one of my best friends was killed in a car accident.

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For years I have been strictly a photo guy.  August 1′st I get to try my hand at video.  I have checked out 2 Sony Handycam FX-1′s, and have commenced playing with them hoping to know enough to provide a decent product.  I don’t think my friends are expecting professional quality, but it sure would be nice to be able to deliver professional quality.  The only thing I have yet to iron out is getting good consistent sound to match up with the video, but I think we can make that happen.

Fingers crossed.

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Last night was my first night of training on the sound system @ Riv.  I don’t think I could have a better teacher.  E.ric Craft is pretty real about the fact that it doesn’t take a degree to run the thing: plug this into this, link it up in the computer, and LOOK AT ALL THESE BUTTONS!!!  And as a geek, well, I like buttons.  The only danger, is that each button can do about 3 different things, then multiply that by 2 because you are controlling the audio in the band’s monitors as well as the house.

Sum it u to say I think this is going to be a lot of fun.  I am just flat out excited to have found a way that I can put my shoulder against the harness and get to work at Riverview.

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I found this spawn of Satan hatching little ones before attempting to lay siege to my house.  The animals are against us my friends.  I suggest you sharpen your skills and get ready, you never know when they’ll come after you next.

Did I mention Di is deathly afraid of spiders?

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The last few weeks Noel has spoke on a indicators in your life that your focus was not where it was supposed to be (God).  One of the major indicators that he spoke of was contentment ( do you obsess over something, or are to totally cool if God took that thing away too).

Last night I was putting a window shaker style ac unit in my bedroom because I’m content not paying to replace my broken central air unit when something quite challenging happened to me.  You see, my wife and I strive to be somewhat of a minimalist, I just don’t want to accumulate junk in my life.  My bedroom consists of two night stands, two lamps, a bed, and a dresser.  Nothing else goes in my bedroom, because I don’t need anything else in my bedroom.  My family purchased Di and I a very nice dresser for a wedding gift, heirloom quality, good stuff…  Well, while being VERY careful trying to manage this ac unit, and being quite annoyed that it was dripping water every turn I made, I snagged this dresser with a corner of the ac unit.

I was instantly bummed that I had just hurt something that I liked, I was more frustrated that I hurt something Diana really liked.  I was bummed, but not in anyway tormented, but I was a little concerned what my bride would have to say…  And much to my liking, she shrugged and said “its all just stuff.”  This is not to say that we don’t care, and that she wasn’t disappointed, but more that we where not willing to let this be a “BIG” deal.

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At times I’m quiet, but those times, sadly, are becoming more and more infrequent.

A good friend of mine shot me an email, and prefaced it warning about how long the email was going to be, and that I could take my time responding (almost a challenge don’t you think).  Anyway, I tried to tactfully and thoughtfully respond to this friend’s email.  Afterwards I read through and sent my reply.  It wasn’t until I saw my reply  in sent form that I realized how much of a novel I had just written.

Friend’s email: 932 words, my reply: 2245 words….

So from here on out, I casually invite you to tell me to shut up when I ramble.

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So I think I have the 50th cold of the year.  It started in on me towards the end of the week, in part thanks to Smitty….  And in fairness, I fought it pretty hard….  But I think standing outside with Roxie waiting for RivRunners to start really kicked my butt.

I love my family, I love my friends, but I do not belong in this state…

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I snagged Pete‘s 50mm f1.8 @ the pancake dinner tonight and started playing with it.  I tossed a couple up on flickr, not many keepers considering I was just playing and trying to spend more time meeting and talking with people than messing with my camera….  Which I probably failed at, but hey I did meet some cool new people, including Carin (hope I spelled that right).   And Carin let me just say you probably get the most comments on you blog of any non pro blogger I’ve ever seen.  With some poking around I found her photography site, I love meeting photogs, and I love it more when they put their work online

I think of the hand full I shot, I think I like this one the most:

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Came home from life group to a huge pile in the dining room where Roxie had yacked what I thought was all of her dinner.  Di and I cleaned it all up and headed up to bed only to find another such pile and a half in the walk way upstairs.

Gross.

I came downstairs to eat and head off to work this morning only to find she had diariah and was puking bile downstairs while we slept.

Gross.

So my house is practically out of paper towel, and I am staying home from work to take my dog to the vet and most-likely rent a steam cleaner for my unfortunately off white carpet.  If only I could train her to stay on the linoleum  when she feels sick :-p

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