m e a d o w l a r k

Today we went to a really cool tour at the Carnton House which is the burial ground of many confederate soldiers who were killed in the civil war battle of Franklin. One of the bloodiest in Civil War history. I love civil war stuff, so to say the least I enjoyed it… except the docent who was boarder-line creepy. She was a bit obsessed with the amount of amputations and blood stains that apparently occurred at the Carnton house which was used as a field hospital for many of the wounded soldiers. She kind of freaked me out. I would not want to be alone with her at any time. I got the sense that she would love to show you her own personal collection of hack saws.

The moral of this blog is don’t ever be alone with a civil war docent who is obsessed with amputations.

- Bill (still have all 4 limbs)

I’m not a big blogger, matter of fact, I would probably be considered a “non-blogger”. I sort of stare at the screen and have no idea what to write about. So I am staring and still nothing is coming to me. So here I go…

I have for many years wanted to live with a greater sense of purpose. I have driven myself in my career, fitness, reading (not very well), and just about anything I throw myself into. Put me in a game of Monopoly and I want to conquer! I am willing to give it my all to win or achieve… and all these things to better myself with hopes that one day I may be someone that achieved something with my life. It used to be dreaming to be a baseball player when I was young. I would play for hours by myself in the backyard as a kid and pretend to pitch to the entire line-up of the SF Giants. I knew everyone of them in the line-up, along with their jersey numbers. Those were the days of BOBBY Bonds, Wilie Mays, Willie McCovey, Tito Fuentes, Jim Davenport, Juan Marichel, etc. I would day-dream of striking everyone of them out as one-man opposing team. I was awesome and always won. Well, obviously those dreams didn’t come true. Years later and many dreams in-between, it turned to being a great designer. Well, I ended up working for one ( a designer that I mentored under in San Francisco), about a year out of college and found myself the co-recipient of a gold award at the San Francisco Art Director’s club annual design show. The strange thing was, it was one of the lowest points in my life. It was no longer the pipe dream of a kid throwing a baseball against a brick wall, it was real and right there before me. Yet I found myself disappointed and wondering why I wasn’t feeling so wonderful. What was the purpose of it all and what did it actually achieve? Thus begun my search for purpose. Many years since, I have discovered that the purpose of my life is not to relish in my own glory—or the pursuit of it, but to reflect the glory and wonder of THE Designer of the Universe—and of my life. I believe God has been so good to me and has blessed me beyond anything I could ever have asked for and imagined. I could not even attempted to design my life better. A beautiful wife of whom I prayer literally 7 years for—along with an instant family growing to 4 wonderful children. I am so proud of all of them and relish the days of them growing up. I still remember the many “theme nights”. The kid’s favorite was always “obstacle night”, where we would actually create an obstacle course in the house and every child even pinned racing numbers on their shirts. It was exhausting but fun. But my favorite was “Movie Night”. We all loved Disney movies—except Laura—she hated anything with scary stuff in it. But I would embrace the chance to hold her and protect her from those wicked characters. She especially did not like Ursula from “The Little Mermaid”. Even though I have managed to screw quite a few things up along the way, God has turned many of my mistakes into his expressions of forgiveness and grace. I now believe that I have been created for a purpose which is simply to honor the ONE who gave me life. Sounds so “un-great”, I know. But really it’s quite incredible. I have this crazy theory about glory… I believe we all desire it because we were actually designed for it. We wear logos, drive nice cars, buy nice clothes, obtain job titles, etc. with the hopes of associating and sharing with the glory they represent. While there is nothing wrong with these, and they can be quite enjoyable, they just don’t seem to satisfy our deepest cravings for significance, identity and pursuit of glory. Haven’t we all dreamed as some moment of fame? Air guitar? Scoring a last second touch-down? Singing in front of a crowd? What’s your dream of glory? Our dreams of glory may vary but they exist for us all. I still dream of glory, but I know that they only glory that will be lasting will be the glory that honors the great God who crafted me for His purposes through His son Jesus Christ.

Well, I told you it was hard for me to blog. - Bill