Road Trip… Heavens Teacup Pot Belly Pig

Happy Christmas Week Friends!

Church was so much fun yesterday! Then all afternoon Heaven, Emily and I googled our little fingers off, searching for Heavens one and only Christmas present this year. She’s been practicing her Bible College “Principles of Faith” skills all year… and once again, I am powerless under the influence of her amazing faith!

Just like the time she wanted her porky little pug and we told her no way… she prayed and confessed Ming-Me right into our home! No matter how hard we tried to keep our palace nice and quite with one tiny chihuahua guard dog, Heaven would not settle. She was polite and happy and absolutely irresistible!

I even remember one night about a year before Ming Me became a Balsamo… we were at a late night prayer meeting. To spruce things up that night, I purchased a big beach ball and had people come write their prayer requests on the ball with a sharpy marker. Then, after all the requests were written down, we threw the ball to each other. Every person who caught the ball had to look at the request they first noticed. Heaven was in that meeting and longing for one thing! My turn was up… and out of nowhere the ball was thrown to me! Guess what request my eyes first fell upon? Heaven had snuck up and written, “God, please tell my daddy to give me a Pug!” That put me in a real predicament! I must admit today, how happy I am that God answered Heavens prayer! Ming-Me Balsamo is an amazing young lady!

So, here we go again… Heaven has worked her magic once more! We are on our way to Kentucky to meet the pig lady… and if all goes well, we will add another creature to our family this afternoon!

Luke 18:1-8 says this, “One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up. 2 “There was a judge in a certain city,” he said, “who neither feared God nor cared about people. 3 A widow of that city came to him repeatedly, saying, ‘Give me justice in this dispute with my enemy.’ 4 The judge ignored her for a while, but finally he said to himself, ‘I don’t fear God or care about people, 5 but this woman is driving me crazy. I’m going to see that she gets justice, because she is wearing me out with her constant requests!’” 6 Then the Lord said, “Learn a lesson from this unjust judge. 7 Even he rendered a just decision in the end. So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly! But when the Son of Man^[a] returns, how many will he find on the earth who have faith?”

Faith moves mountains! Who knows how many good things in life are right now well within our reach… if we will learn to have the persistent faith of our teenage daughter?

That’s it for today… I will post pictures tomorrow. Oh God be with us! LOL

A Letter to Iraq

The Internet Hackers: Chica & Ming-Me (yes she is pink!)

It’s Wednesday Friends… Good Morning!

Sorry for the late blogging… my dogs unplugged the cable and I had to wait for Emily to wake up and troubleshoot the crises! She’s the hero and she wanted lots of applause, so here it is baby! You are my hero… you saved the day, my sexy tech savvy chick!

Yesterday, we mailed a letter to Iraq… to our dear friend, Charlie Mister. He is serving in the United States Army… and we miss him pretty badly. Charlie is an amazing young man! I’m so thankful for his sacrifice… for his love expressed toward my family and my fatherland! I believe that the greatest men and women of our land are serving in our military! I suppose that’s why I get so disgusted tolerating all the cowardice left wingest political chatter in our country. Me and my family support our military with passionate prayers several times a day! :)

Here’s a fact… our troops hang on the memories of the people they are protecting. They LIVE for letters and pictures… funny stories and announcements. They stream with tears of joy when new mail arrives!

So… sometime before Christmas, gather your family together and write a moving letter to one of our brave defenders! Believe me, this will make such a big difference!

Have a super day… I’ve already prayed you through to victory! Love you guys!

Wake up! It’s Black Friday!! O My Gosh!!!

Heaven & Me @ the Richmond 10K

Good morning frenzied shoppers…

My blog will be short this morning. For those of you who need more bloggage, please go back and read a few missed episodes. (I love comments)

Yesterday was so much fun… I have the best family! Ate way too much just like every Thanksgiving. But hey, its the only day of the year when we can EAT and EAT without feeling guilty. I am thankful for the 20,000 calories I consumed… they were all so very delicious!

I have a great shopping tip for all you black Friday shoppers…

It comes out of a speech I always give my daughter when she is going out. Since Heaven is so HYPER ACTIVE, from the time she was a toddler I’ve given her this speech several thousand times! Here’s the speech, “Heaven… pay attention to the way you are acting… and every once in a while ask yourself, “Heaven, am I being too hyper? Do I need to calm down?” Now that she is a teenager, we laugh as she recites that old speech back to me with absolute precision! Of course, these days I am using a different speech… the teenager version! LOL

So my speech to all you guys today… if you should find yourselves with a buggy brimming over… ”Blog Buddie, ask yourself, “Am I being too hyper? Have a lost control? Do I need to CALM DOWN?”

I guess what I’m saying is this. Please, don’t be HYPER like the rest of America and spend a bunch of money you don’t have. Yes, be kind and loving and express your gifts of love to family and friends. Just don’t go more overboard than you are capable of going. Be very careful not to get caught up in the heat of the moment… remember the speech and have a FANTASTIC FRIDAY!!

A Humbling Confession

Happy Morning Friends,

Wow, what a difference a day can make! This is longer than usual… and VERY WORTH all 5 minutes of your time. Today, I have the creativity of a thousand artist! You want to know why?

Because, after posting yesterday… I prayed myself through to a PROFOUND VICTORY! And how glad I am for it! As mentioned in that post, we had a fire break out on our church property Sat night and it burned our neighbors storage building down. So I spent all day Monday gathering information to figure out whether we were “at fault” or not. I humbly and embarrassingly confess to you guys that my heart was absolutely in the wrong place. Having never met these neighbors put me in great fear that if the fire originated by vandals on our property, then we may be liable for damages… and the cause of unbarable hostility on our northern border. 

I had an appointment with these neighbors yesterday morning not too long after posting my blog. So after leaving you guys, I went to my office and PRAYED LIKE THERE WAS NO TOMORROW. This was good except my prayers were so selfish at first. I prayed, “Oh God, please let these people be kind and please work this out FOR US.” Within a minute of this gibberish, my heart convicted me and my paridigm shifted. I saw a vision of this couple innocently toiling their land, carefully manicuring this “blessing” they had worked so hard to beautify. I SAW THIS TRIAL FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FENCE!

From this new vantage point, I started praying, “God, please give me the right kind of heart for these neighbors… help me to remove MYSELF from the center of this picture and show me how YOU feel about this fire.” I thought a minute about our church’s mission… about how our biggest desire is to BLESS our community. I thought about how fire had broken out on OUR property and harmed one of the precious families on our border. No kidding, I almost cried… this was such a moving experience for me.

So, they came into my office… and before they could say anything, I apologized in all sincerity and offered the strength of our entire church family to help them rebuild. They were an older couple, very kind natured. The wife began explaining how her husband had some kind of sickness that made it difficult for him to do physical labor… and that he started constucting this storage building 2 years ago… all by himself… a little bit at a time… and he had just finished it a few weeks ago.

As she was speaking, my eyes watered several times… the compassion that I received as I prayed for them prior to this meeting was reaching its crest… and I struggled so earnestly to maintain my composure. All I could think was, what if I had gone into that meeting self focused? What if I had not caught Gods heart just minutes prior to this divine moment? Something happened in my heart during that meeting that I will never forget!

As they were leaving, I asked if I could pray for them. While I prayed over this beautiful couple, my love for them just kept growing and growing. I prayed for God to heal the husbands body, restore their fortunes, bless their future, bless their children… and whatever else came to my mind. After the prayer, the wife said, “we have met you before… it was about 10 years ago at a home group bible study in Fishersville.” From memory, I said, “then you must know so and so” (people I met at that bible study who are now going to our church). She said, “of course we do… they are good friends of ours, in fact after they found out about the fire, they had us over to their house for dinner on Sunday night… to cheer us up!” And that explains why this church family was absent from bible college on Sunday night.

I have to wonder how much better life would be for us, if we could just see our trials from the other side of the fence? God forgive us for all the times we postured ourselves in defence when you we calling for us to posture in compassion. Selah.

Have a super thanksgiving… we love you guys and we are praying for you like crazy!!

Help! My Creativity is Hibernating…

Creativity Sleeping

Good Morning Everyone!

Wow, I woke up early today as usual… did my extravagant Bible reading routine… tried to have an extravagant prayer time… opened a blank blog page to start writing today’s exciting message… and realized that my creativity was still asleep! I mean, this is so scary… even with all the amazing things I read this morning and all the eventful things happening in my life these days… I am BLANK!

This only happens to me about once every few months… and I hate it! So, what now? Should I just come to grips with the fact that I may have to be like this until my creativity decides to come out of hibernation?

Why does our creativity just disappear on us like this… and in the moments we need to be most creative, we draw big fat blanks? Let’s look at my current creativity crises and see if we can work through this together. Yesterday was the suckiest day I’ve had for a while. All day long, one wierd circumstance after another… and Mondays are supposed to be my day of rest. Wait a minute… maybe this slump started before yesterday and I’m just now beginning to recognize it. On Sat night, apparently some vandals started a fire on our church property and burned a neighbors storage shed down… and that’s stressful! The only reason we have a church here in this community is to be a blessing… and when something like this happens it breaks my heart.

Church was ok on Sunday and Bible College was fair as well… I felt only slightly off my game. And then yesterday! Had a bad writing day… I think I ended up with minus 2 pages by nightfall! We went to dinner to pray over a church family’s business… and my prayer line felt like it had been DISCONNECTED! Ever been there?

Kent Henry (www.kenthenry.com) taught me years ago, that creativity killer number one is VOJ (the Voice of Judgement). When we feel like harmed our neighbors and they might not be thinking happy thoughts towards us, or we are carrying the guilt of some past sin, or we’re not happy with a few of our recent performances… these become the VOJ that chases our creativity into hibernation.

The happy part of this story is that we can rise above this at will! The Bible says in Romans 8:1, “There is therefore NO CONDEMNATION to those who are in Christ!” So right now, I SILENCE the VOJ over my life. I chose to spend the rest of my day soaring above the fear of people, self condemnation, and anything else that tries to sedate my creativity!

So, good morning CREATIVITY… RISE AND SHINE… get up sleepy head… its a beautiful day and you’re not going to spend it locked up in a dark room! (I know I’m so weird sometimes… but its fun… and it works!) I’m feeling better already!

Once I post this blog, I’m going to pray for all you guys to awaken your creativity just like I awoken mine. Have a super day… and don’t forget to be thankfull for 167 things before you go to bed tonight!

Goal: Say Thanks 1000 Times in 7 Days!

Good monday morning everyone!

I’m having laptop “issues” today, forcing me to post from my iphone. Hope it turns out ok!

Yesterday was another great Sunday… And I’m ready for another great week. Since it’s thanksgiving week… I’m cranking up my jubilation level and I’m going to celebrate my blessings all week! Want to join me?

Yeah, let’s try to live out the most THANKFUL week of our lives. I’m gonna be fanatical… giving thanks to God, my wife, my kids, my church, my pets, my family and friends…

All week I’m going to try to COUNT my blessings. I plan to tell everone I spend time with why I am thankful for them. I’m gonna be thankful for the weather, our nation, my life calling, my house and cars and things… Thankful for my health, my book being almost finished, our twelve Christmas trees and decorations… and for Emily making our house so beautiful!

Before the week is over… I will have said the words THANK YOU a thousand times! That’s the goal… 167 times a day for six more days, and I’m there. Won’t that be FUN?

1Thesselonians 5:18a (Amplified Version) “Thank [God] in everything [no matter what the circumstances may be, be thankful and give thanks]…“

Disinheritance: The Very Sad Story of Reuben

Happy Sunday World,

I woke up today at 4am, came into my family room, put on my earphones with some old Kent Henry Worship… and started my reading for today. I began in 1Chronicles… and when I hit chapter 5, my eyes were watering up at a sobering illumination.

I’m going to make this short and simple… so read with careful focus and you will be able to see what I saw. Ok… so, what I read in 2 Chronicles 5 simply explains something that happened in Genesis 35:22. In the background of this story, we have the legendary patriarchs of Israel… Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. One night, in an all night prayer session, God changes Jacobs name to “Israel” and he becomes the start up of the Israelite nation. 

Jacob (Israel) had twelve sons… and these twelve sons were to become the historical “twelve tribes of Israel.” So the list of the 12 tribes should read as follows: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Dan, Joseph, Benjamin, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. 

Reuben would have been listed FIRST because he was Israel’s oldest son! Reuben and his descednants were destined unprecedented renown… and it would have been so, except for what took place in Genesis 35:22. 

At the end of Jacobs life, he gathered his 12 sons so that he could give each one of them a prophecy and a blessing. Each of the 12 would receive their “blessing” except for Reuben. Let’s hear the reason straight from Jacob himself, “Come and listen, you sons of Jacob; listen to Israel, your father… Reuben, you are my oldest son, the child of my vigorous youth. You are first on the list of RANK and HONOR. But you are as unruly as the waves of the sea, and you will be first no longer. For you slept with one of my wives; you dishonored me in my own bed.” (Genesis 49:2-4NLT)

As history plays out, Reuben was taken off the list… and Joseph also bowed out, so his two sons Ephraim and Manasseh could fill these two openings. 

Don’t every forget the message of Reuben! If this man were a preacher in today’s world, he would be speaking one message: Don’t forfeit your inheritance! Not for anyone or anything… its not worth it! Guard your heart and watch your steps… for you are all destined for greatness, as long as you don’t fall prey to the spirit of “disinheritance!”    

Esau was disinherited over a bowl of stew… Judas Iscariot, over thirty pieces of silver! What’s your price? Everyone has a price. And hey, if you’ve already done a few stupid things with your life… repent and move on… we are living in the age of grace and God is merciful. I can’t promise you that every rippling effect will fade away… but I can assure you that God is a REDEEMER. He can help you make up for lost time and recover lost dreams!

I hope to see you guys today at www.DestinyFamilyCenter.com either in person or online… I’m praying for you often! Have a super Sunday!

Prayer Reveals the Heart

Our Angel Praying on Snowy Ground

Good snowy morning blog people…

Ok, so it’s not really a snowy morning… just a light dusting. I’m just doing with this ”light dusting” what Jesus did with the 5 loaves of bread and the 2 fishes. He lifted up the little bit that he HAD and he gave thanks… and miraculously, the little bit was MULTIPLIED a thousand times! So, I’m dancing over this dusting… confident that we will have a SNOWY WINTER!!! Woooot wooot… bring it on!

Last night, I listened to my kids while they prayed and realized something pretty significant. We can locate our HEART by listening to our prayers! I fell asleep with a great big smile on my face as I faded with the thoughts of my kids prayers! They prayed with such humility… asking God to heal hurting people we know, asking God to forgive their sins and help them to do right, asking God to wake them up today ALIVE, AWAKE, and FULL OF ENERGY… and a bunch of other great things. It was so much FUN!

I realized in those prayers… that I was being granted access into the center of their hearts… and it almost made me cry. (in a mans man kind of way of course) I realized that even though they can be very challenging as teenagers sometimes… that their LOVE for God is still strong! 

So, pay attention to your own prayers… and always keep a pulse on your own heart.

Before I go today, I want to ask you guys to pray for a young lady we know in Missouri. Her name is Jeniffer… and her and her husband we in a very bad car accident about 4 weeks ago… leaving them in very bad shape. Jennifer was thrown into labor and gave birth to her baby prematurely (all seems to be well with the baby). Her husband David has been hospitalized since the accident, taking quite a bit of time to recover from injuries. And the doctors are not optimistic about Jennifer’s recovery. Last week, she died and they resuscitated her… and today she remains unresponsive. I cannot imagine the thought of raising my children while my wife remains unresponsive for the rest of her life. My compassion reaches out to David and Jennifer Dierking in ways that I cannot put into words… thanks for praying with me that this family will see a miracle! We can make a difference… because history belongs to the intercessors! You can visit Jeniffers blog @  http://jennifersmiracle.blogspot.com/

Love you guys… have a Terrific Tuesday!! Still on your way to a perfect week!!

Marathon Journal & Message

Bike on Blocks

Emily @ Mile 2

Good morning my blog family of 5… We’re still growing!

Yesterday was a blast! Some really good quality time with Emily… don’t want to bore you guys… here’s a few highlights from the day.

1. Bike on Blocks:(check out this hilarious photo) Ok, so on our way to the starting line, we passed by this bike chained to a post just outside an apartment building. Some unlucky guy or gal parked their mode of transportation for the night, never suspecting that some creep would strip their wheels!

This reminded me of when I was a kid living in New York… it was a common thing to see a car up on blocks. In some areas of the city, we would even joke about getting stuck at a traffic light too long and having your car put up on blocks while you were behind the wheel! Even though I feel horrible for this poor fellow, I couldn’t stop myself from laughing OUT LOUD! (I did pray for things to work out)

2. The course was beautiful… and so was Emily! Check out the photos… my girl ran like the wind! Way to go EMILY!! Woooooohooooooooo! Wooot wooot… Oh yeah oh yeah!

The Message… I realized something about the two of us yesterday… I’m a crazy competitor and I run to BEAT PEOPLE… and Emily runs for the sheer pleasure of running! While I kept recalculating our pace about ever 30 seconds… Emily was thanking EVERY FAN for being there (even the dogs), she made friends with EVERY runner that said hello, she noticed EVERY beautiful landmark along the way, she even tried to stop SEVERAL times to talk a few runners into not quiting! I embarrassingly admit that I didn’t see a single landmark and I didn’t want to stop to talk anyone into continuing… I just kept a perfect tally of the people that we were PASSING!

This is the way we are in life as well… thats why we’re so perfect for each other! I make sure we’re driving towards a bunch of meaningful finish lines, while she makes sure we have fun along the way! Its a perfect mixture!! So, my prayer for my growing blog family today is that every one of you would find a few friends to compliment your strengths and weaknesses! We all have a few things about us that are really dangerous until they are MIXED with the other extreme… then we are balanced out and we do life the best it can be done!

Have a super Sunday… and if you’re not doing anything, come to Destiny Family Center. If you cant make it in person, tune in online @ www.destinyfamilycenter.com

Reading the Bible in 66 days…

Good morning my beautiful blog family of two (so far),

A few weeks ago, I was in my office praying out loud… asking God to give me influence over my nation… and I was crazy passionate about it. During this prayer, I kind of committed myself to somthing ridiculously challenging. I was like, “Oh God, I don’t care what I have to do… anything, just tell me and I will do it. If I have to read my bible from cover to cover every month for the next twelve months, I will do that!” (not in some kind of legalistic way… just to make myself more effective by getting to know him better)

Have you ever committed to anything that exaggerated before when praying? Every once in a while I say crazy things like this… and no matter how hard I try to forget they were spoken, they just keep driving me crazy until I act in some way. So, after much consideration, I decided to read my bible from cover to cover in 66 days… maybe sooner. I’m reading one whole book every day until I’m finished. Obviously Psalms will be a rough one… and the minor prophet books and many of the new testament books will be a breeze. 

So far, I have read a book a day for five days starting with Genesis… just finished the first five books. I’m having a blast and I’m bursting inside with new insight!! This morning, I read Deuteronomy (the final book of the Jewish Torah) and came across something I want to give you guys.

In chapter 17, Moses was talking to his fellow Israelites about the day when they would have a King just like all the other nations. In verses 18-20, Moses gave a crazy command for all future Kings: He told them to hand copy these first five books, then keep it with them always, and read it DAILY as long as they live!

Then Moses explains the FOUR REASONS this is so important.

1. That they may learn to fear the Lord by obeying all the terms of the law.

2. This regular reading would keep them from becoming proud and acting as if he is above his fellow citizens.

3. It would prevent them from turning awayfrom these command in the smallest way.

4. It would ensure that they and their decendants would reign for many generations!

Good stuff huh? I thought so… and now I have passed it on to you guys.

 

Personal news: Emily is running a half marathon in Richmond tomorrow… go speedy girl!! Looking forward to the road trip! I just finished page 190 of the book last night… getting closer every day!!

Ok… hope you guys have a most outstanding day… i just finished praying for you!

Thanks for being my blog family,

Chuck