Experience or Belief?

In the business of life, it's easy to become somewhat robotic about what we do. I read something that was kinda like throwing a stick into the spokes of a bike while it's coasting down a hill. In Leonard Sweet's new book, The Gospel According To Starbucks, he said,

"The basic question of life is this: is God a reality to be experienced or a belief to be remembered? "

I have experienced God in my life, around my life, and through my life! But if I am honest, sometimes I coast on past experiences, and can coast pretty far between experiences. Or, maybe just keep my experiences internalized without sharing them.

Most dangerous of all, I will find myself not sharing them or experiencing them with my children! Not intentionally, or for any reason. It's just that we often keep our spirituality to ourselves. It's us and God. But if we want our children to have a better chance at knowing God, experiencing God, and pursuing God as they grow, than we have to be intentional about living out our experiences with God in front of them.

I think I try so hard to protect my boys from so many of the emotions and experiences that I have in life because I want them to be sheltered from the pains of life for as long as possible. In doing so, I have to be careful to not let them not experience life, and more importantly, spirituality through me! The most important calling I have in life is to my family! And I must allow them into my experiences spiritually.

This statement by Sweet has reminded me that I need to first, be more intentional about my faith being experiential and not purely philosophical; and second, sharing that experiential faith with my family!

Memorial Day Weekend

WOW!!! What a BLAST!

We had such a fun weekend with our family! The guest included:

The Battersons (Mark, Lora, Parker, Summer, & Siah)
The Schmidgalls East (Joel, Nina, Ella)

The events included:

Wiffle-ball Golf
Rained out neighborhood BBQ
Getting Massages from the Kids for Money
Watching The Greatest TV Scene Ever Shown
Looking at Italy pics
The Worlds Most Amazing Water Fight
Child Labor Car Washes

The Food included:

French Toast, Bacon, and Omlettes
BBQ Ribs
Burgers
Chedderwurst
Baked Beans & Pasta Salad
Chips & Worlds Greatest Dip
Oreo Cookie Cake/Pie
Peanut Butter & Choco Pie
Home made Ice Cream

The Memories: PRICELESS

We are so blessed to have such a wonderful family! I wish Mom and Amanda and Matt could have been there too.

The Perfect Parent

Trying to process some thoughts in my head lately regarding parenting and image and perceived perfection. My kids are at the age where they LOVE to play with Dad, hang with Dad, throw the frisbee with Dad, wrestle with Dad, and just about do anything with Dad. And they seem to think that Dad can do no wrong (unless we are arguing about bed-time, no more snacks, etc.). When I tell them I love them, they always come back and say "I love you more!". I love being a super-hero at home!

Problem is, one of these days real soon, they will realize Dad can do wrong, and does. I'm so far from perfect, and make plenty of mistakes on a regular basis. I really want to communicate my humanness in a way that sets a high standard, but also makes room for our struggles and mistakes and failures. Faith, God, sin, sinlessness, failure, perfection, character, beyond-reproach, church, Christianity, life, prayer, spirituality, life! I still haven't found the balance personally, and so I struggle with how to pass along the balance to my kids as they approach their "young men" years. I don't want them to be disillusioned.

On one hand, I know that simply being aware of these issues part of the battle. I also know that a certain percentage of the battle is purely dependant on their choices & decisions as they get older, and I cannot control that part at all. But whatever that other percentage is that I can control by my actions and words and life, I want to do my best at it! I want to give my children the best opportunity possible to succeed spiritually first, emotionally second, and the rest will come.

Being a good parent, and giving your children a chance to succeed in life has a lot to do with being a good person in as many aspects of life as possible. It's about accepting people and accepting yourself. It's about being able to laugh at yourself. It's about loving, and being loved. It's about sacrifice. And it's about connecting with God! It's not about doing all of these in a perfect way ... it's just about pursuing each of them to the best of your ability!

I love Sammy and Noah! I hope and pray that I can be real enough with them and myself that the world is a better place because of our lives! But most importantly, I hope and pray that they experience and know the God of their father, and their father's father!

TEAM SCHMIDGALL

Yesterday was one of the most fun and productive days we've had in a long time. Usually we have one or the other: fun or productive! But yesterday was BOTH!

We got this new gazebo for our back porch. As with anything like that, we had to assemble it! I usually, or should I say always, dislike assembling projects b/c I always mess them up. That being said, I am way too cheap to pay someone else to do it. So ... the assembling process began.

Since it was Mothers Day, and Mom wanted it assembled ASAP, we (actually she) decided we would do it together as a family, and it was amazing! Carrie worked on unpacking everything from the tightly wrapped packaging and tape that covered every single piece. Noah and Sammy screwed together all the parts needing to be screwed together. And I read the directions and got everything ready for the next step each time. We were a machine!

What would have normally taken 2 or 3 hours for me to assemble, dis-assemble to fix my mistakes, and than re-assemble again correctly, only took TEAM SCHMIDGALL about 1 hour from start to finish! And the result was GREAT! I need to get a picture, but almost our entire back porch is now under roof with our new Gazebo! It was so nice that we had Mother's Day dinner (grilled filet mignon, baby red potato's, fresh strawberrys, and fresh baked bread) under the gazebo!

Maybe TEAM SCHMIDGALL has a future in NASCAR!

Anyway, I need to get an actual picture of ours cause it looks better (of course), but here is the picture from the store:

I am definitely going to be using TEAM SCHMIDGALL on future assembly projects!

Way to go team!

Some New Stuff

Had to post a couple pictures of what we've been up to lately! Me and the boys took a camping trip on their spring break! Jellystone Park! Both Noah and Sammy tried chopping firewood for the first time, we stayed in a cabin, and did some hiking!

Also built our first fort together! Sammy has been BUGGIN to build a fort, so Sammy and I collected scrap wood from some of the local construction sites, and got to work building the fort. Noah helped on the last day with the completion, and it's a pretty sweet fort! You'll have to see Sammy's blog to check it out!

Noah also turned the BIG 10! Double Digits Baby!!! Got his first cell phone, and has actually already upgraded, thanks to craigslist.com.

Soccer is going good too. Both Noah and Sammy have won all their games but one!
Oh ya, Sammy also lost one of his FRONT TOOF's!


Just posting some updates!

I'm Allergic!

Hurt my shoulder playing basketball about 3 months ago. Went to the doc, and he wanted to have an MRI done, along with an arthrogram. Looked up arthrogram online, and here is what it said:

RISKS:
Infection
Pain
Hematoma

MATERIALS:
22G 3 ½” needle
25G 1 ½” needle
5 cc syringe with lidocaine for skin anesthesia
20 cc syringe with combination of 1% lidocaine
Omnipaque 300
Gadolinium contrast (if performing MRI)


Do you know why the needle has to be 3 ½” long? It's b/c they have to stick it through all your muscles, tendons, ligaments, skin, more muscles :-) and more skin, etc ... and actually into your shoulder joint (see that space between the arm bone and shoulder) to inject a dye! I'm talkin, the needle has to get all the way into that space right there!!! And to tell you the truth, I think the needle they used on me was closer to 3 feet long!

Well, when they did the arthrogram on Monday, this is when I discovered the first thing I am allergic to: PAIN! YOUCH!!!! That hurt!!!

After that, I decided no matter what the results, no surgery for me! I'm hoping the cure for my shoulder is to get a daily massage!!!

Raising a Modern Day Knight

I've had this book for probably 6 or 7 years. First got it and read it around the time Sammy was born. But now that my boys are getting older, it has some new meaning! It's probably one of the best books I've read on parenting, and especially on raising boys.

One of my favorite quotes is The Knights Code, by Alfred Tennyson:

"Live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow the King"

Simple. Short. Straight to the point! I want to teach this! More importantly though, I want to do better at living it!!!