Give More Presence

By Jeremy White
The Christmas season has come again and time to get frustrated because you don’t know what to buy for others. Time to receive gifts that you probably don’t want or need and will re-wrap them for next yearJ Americans spend 450 Billion on Christmas when 10 Billion would solve the World’s drinking problem. 5 million people die every year due to starvation, that’s about 30,273 per day! And yet, we are more concerned that we get that present this year we wanted. I remember when I was in my older teens and the morning of Christmas Day I read the Christmas story before we opened presents and then when I realized I didn’t get some of the things I wanted it put me in a bad mood. I was ungrateful for all the things that my parents had already done for me and was letting my selfishness get in the way.

If this season is all about Jesus then who cares about the presents. It has taken me 30 years to finally believe and live this. I am the most blessed man in the world as I have a relationship with my savior, a loving wife, a beautiful healthy baby, a roof over my head, family and friends to celebrate life with and a job I’m honored to have. What if you told your loved ones that you don’t want to receive anything for Christmas this year or just one less gift? What if you asked them to put that money to help build a water well in a third world country, to buy blankets for the homeless, to help a family in need with bare essentials or to buy Bibles for missionaries to give to those that have never had one before? To be able to give we can’t be so concerned about receiving. I don’t want to make people feel guilty, I just want us to take inventory of where our heart is. The greatest gift we can give anyone is our presence, not presents.

Check the websites below to see how you can give back:
http://www.adventconspiracy.org/
http://gfa.org/

Grapevine Christmas Parade of Lights, thanks for taking the pic Jacks!

Graydon's first game watching the Buckeyes beat the Wolverines, something he could get used to:)

Graydon loves his peas

Jailbreak

Decorating for Christmas

Graydon was a big help decorating the tree for Christmas this year. He LOVED the lights and could not stop staring at them and saying "oooOOooohhh"!
This expression cracks me up every time!

This was just after a bath...love the mohawk!

A Worldview of Thankfulness by John Fischer

The worst moment for an atheist comes when he is really thankful and has no one to thank. -(Author unknown)

You don't care if you get the important seat at the table when you are overcome with gratitude at simply being invited to the dinner. You don't put heavy weights on other people's shoulders when you are thankful that God has lightened your own load. You are not obsessed with what other people think of you when you are overwhelmed with the fact that God is thinking about you all the time. You don't demand respect when you are thankful for your place. You don't have to hide your own sin when you are already thankful for God's forgiveness.

You don't have to protect your image when you are already number one with God. You don't have to condemn other people's blindness when it's only the grace of God that has allowed you to see. You don't have to try for the highest place when you are already grateful for whatever place you were given. You don't have to make a show of spirituality when you are thankful for having received the Spirit. You don't have to clothe yourself in holy robes when you have been already clothed in righteousness. (Or as a friend of mine used to say, "Why be cute when you're already beautiful?") You don't have to be full of yourself when you are thankful that God has filled you up with Himself.

Fellowship in the Gospel

Here's a writing from Oswald Chambers I came across the other day that was pretty impactful, so I wanted to share it with all of you.

ODB RADIO: | Download
READ:

. . . fellow laborer in the gospel of Christ . . . —1 Thessalonians 3:2

After sanctification, it is difficult to state what your purpose in life is, because God has moved you into His purpose through the Holy Spirit. He is using you now for His purposes throughout the world as He used His Son for the purpose of our salvation. If you seek great things for yourself, thinking, "God has called me for this and for that," you barricade God from using you. As long as you maintain your own personal interests and ambitions, you cannot be completely aligned or identified with God’s interests. This can only be accomplished by giving up all of your personal plans once and for all, and by allowing God to take you directly into His purpose for the world. Your understanding of your ways must also be surrendered, because they are now the ways of the Lord.

I must learn that the purpose of my life belongs to God, not me. God is using me from His great personal perspective, and all He asks of me is that I trust Him. I should never say, "Lord, this causes me such heartache." To talk that way makes me a stumbling block. When I stop telling God what I want, He can freely work His will in me without any hindrance. He can crush me, exalt me, or do anything else He chooses. He simply asks me to have absolute faith in Him and His goodness. Self-pity is of the devil, and if I wallow in it I cannot be used by God for His purpose in the world. Doing this creates for me my own cozy "world within the world," and God will not be allowed to move me from it because of my fear of being "frost-bitten."

My first time on a swing and I loved it for about 3 minutes

Graydon celebrating with Mommy and Daddy on their 3 year Anniversary at Pinecove

Pickin some pumpkins

The outfit that Grandma White gave Graydon only lasted for about 5 minutes before he ripped it off. He's still our little pumpkin though:)

Jump! Jump!

ARMY crawling

Sweet Potato and I shut my mouth

A Broken Flapper and Scratched Cell Phone

By Jeremy White

God has a wonderful way of teaching us lessons in the simplest of ways. My wife and I drink a ton of water and use our Brita Filter more than anything else in our house. I was getting the filter out of the fridge a couple of weeks ago when the lid fell off, hit the floor and broke the flapper. This incident put me in a bad mood for several minutes. My wife knew I was frustrated and after some time asked if I was still upset that the flapper had broke, which I embarrassingly admitted that I was. I couldn’t believe how upset I got over a broken flapper and how I had to use two hands to pour my water instead of one now. There are people around the world that would love to have clean drinking water whenever they wanted and yet I get hung up on a broken flapper. Now when I pour water I am reminded about being grateful, which is lesson 1.

Lesson 2 was the new cell phone I recently got in, which I kept the protective plastic layer on. I can be hard on phones whether dropping or scratching them so thought I would try and leave it on as long as possible. I had the plastic film on the phone for several weeks until it started to unravel a bit, so I took it off. The next day I was moving some dead branches from my backyard through the side fence to the curb. I was squeezing through the fence with a large pile of branches when I heard a big scratch. Wondering what the sound was, I look and saw that I had rubbed my phone that was clipped to my belt across the brick of my house. This mistake caused a scratch the size of Texas on the front screen which I was not pleased with. I took my frustration out on the branches crunching a big pile into small sticks.

Unfortunately, the scratched cell phone put me in a bad mood all the way through dinner, but also made me realize how much I love the material things of this world. Now every time I look at my cell phone I see a big scratch, but am reminded to keep my eyes fixed on the eternal, which was lesson 2. What simple lessons is God trying to teach you right now and are you really learning them? I am amazed at how God can use things like a broken flapper and a scratched cell phone to teach me so much. May God give you a reminder today of what He wants you to learn.

Darin and Mandy's wedding

The White Family

This is the most recent family picture that Sabrina took when we went back to Ohio about a month ago. For those familiar with Burton, we are outside the log cabin in the square in good old downtown Burton.

My God is so Big

This is one of Graydon's favorite songs. He was a bit distracted by the camera so his reaction wasn't quite as big as it usually is.

Sabrina's Photography booth at our local Fall Festival. Pray that there would be some good contacts made.

Two bottom teeth have arrived just before I turned 7 months old!

Graydon with Aunt Chrissy
















Graydon's first taste of Fall up north in Ohio, where the leaves actually change colors unlike Texas:)

Graydon's baby dedication at our church. Frankie a close friend of the family came out from Las Cruces, NM for a visit.

Graydon supports our troops! Wearing his Grandpa and Great Grandpa White's Army dog tags.

This is a bit old but still cute

We've gotten behind in posting...

This is a recent picture of Jeremy and & Graydon from our trip to Ohio a couple weeks ago. The other picture of G-man in his car seat is just cute!

Six Months Old already, where does the time go?

Graydon is six months! Can you believe it?! We can't. Sabrina took his six month pictures last week, here is a sneak peak at one of our favorites. Click the link to check out her blog at DefiningGracePhoto.com and scroll down a bit to see more pictures from this photo shoot.

Kissing Mommy

Graydon loves to give mommy big wet kisses. Most of the time he thinks its pretty funny and cracks himself up. Daddy just got the tail end of this "make out" session!

Graydon & Mommy

Thanks so much to my friend Shauna of Vision Yard Studios for taking this picture of us.

Trip to New Mexico

I, (Sabrina), went to Albuquerque NM for a long weekend for my annual "BFF" reunion with my three best friends from college. As you can see three out of the four of us have new babies (all boys). Mariah was very gracious to host all of us and all our baby gear for the weekend. From left to right we have Shauna with baby Simon, Mariah, Bryn with baby Keenan, and me with baby Graydon. Below is a picture of the three boys on the couch and below that are a couple pictures of Graydons first time in a pool!! He enjoyed it but was pretty mellow because it was very close to nap time when we went for our swim. The weekend was much needed and it was great to see my girls and be back in New Mexico!

It's been a long summer, so the elders gave me the week off. Sabrina, Graydon and I went to a Cowboy Church not too far from where we live. It was certainly cowboy, from the boots, hats, music, horses, and even the 10 commandments:)

Graydon in his cowboy boots ready to head to the cowboy church

Graydon's new popsicle

Taking a hike with the fam

Block party at our house, we had 55 of our neighbors stop by and had a great time getting to know them

















Daddy and baby g taking a nap

The Giving Tree and Turning 30

I just talked to my mom this morning and she was telling me that the big old apple tree in our backyard had finally fallen over. It had been rotted within for years after putting up a good fight. Every year that tree would bare hundreds of apples that my sister and I grudgingly picked up a lot of the time. My mom would always yell at me since I thought it was more fun to throw them across the yard and try to get them over the fence than to just pick them up and put them into old paper grocery bags. I usually got about half of the apples over the fence and my mom would mow over the other half that didn’t cross that green chain linked fence. That tree provided us shade from the hot summer sun, held up a hammock that we used to swing on, was our canopy for more parties than I can remember and now is firewood for an Amish guy down the street to keep his family warm in the winter. I think of the book “The Giving Tree” that was read to me as a boy and now I read it to my boy. I can only help but think of the greatest giver of all in God everytime I read that story.

As I turned 30 last month I was reminded at all that has been given and entrusted to me. I have wonderful friends and people in my life that have helped shape me into the man I am today. I have lived all over the country and experienced so much is such a short amount of time. I know there is still a lot of growth to come, but am grateful at what my life looks like today. I have served a faithful God even though I have not always reciprocated that faithfulness. Wherever you find yourself today no matter how young or old you are, take a step back and be grateful. God the giver of life wants you to know how special you are. Some of you may feel like an old apple tree that may look good on the outside, but you are rotting within. Some of you have already fallen over and everything has been exposed, what a great opportunity to realize where your trust and hope is fully lying in. There is a maker that can give you life like you have never experienced before now and forever, will you call out to Him today?

Daddy's little Cowboy

Graydon's first pair of cowboy boots. Thanks Aunt Kristen and Uncle George!

Look what I can do

International Youth Convention in San Antonio

Our little Texan
















Getting a picture by the Riverwalk in downtown San Antonio



















Graydon at his first Christian Concert at IYC. Don't worry Grandparents, he had earplugs in and those big set of headphones on so he didn't even flinch at the noise.