I’m sure there have been many times in my life when I have just known.  Actually it’s getting late right now and I can’t think of any times, but still.  You know what I mean?  Those times when you can just feel it (whatever “it” may be)?  You can just feel it in your bones.  No, not like your grandpa sitting in his rocker on the porch feeling the weather changing.  With this whole pregnancy and not knowing the sex of the baby, I have heard this conversation over and over.  My wife just knows it’s a girl.  My sister knows it’s a girl.  One of my best friend’s wife, who I haven’t seen in several months, just knew it’s a girl.  Even the random lady on the street that we had never seen before knew that it was a girl.  Crazy.

Well, I have decided that this knowing is a girl thing.  I was at first thinking it was just a pregnancy thing, but then all the other girls started chiming in.  What I’m struggling to recall is a time that a guy said, “Oh, it’s a boy/girl. I just know it.”  That never happened.  Why is that?  Is there some sort of 6th sense that girls have that no matter if they have been pregnant or not, they can just tell?  Makes me wonder what else she may “just know”.

I don’t have it.  I may get that gut feeling for plenty of other things (I’m gonna get trips, the River is going to win the pot, the next note in the song, the words to the brand new song, the next play called, the interception coming, etc,) but this is just not an area that I just know about.  I just knew that the baby would be one or the other and that the doctor would fill me in when I needed to know.  That’s all I knew.  So what else am I going to find out after every female on the planet because I didn’t already “just know”?

This is our first pregnancy so we have all kinds of questions.  We are always having to read things (well she is doing the reading) or google things or call people.  Is this medicine ok?  Is this pain ok?  When can we do this?  When will the baby do this?  And on and on and on.  This is bound to happen.  Even someone who is very medical will still have questions surrounding their first pregnancy.  We are learning as we go and we are ok with that.  But occasionally we have those times when it just seems like there is too much that we don’t know.  How will we do this for the baby?  How will we keep the baby safe?  How will I know what to do if this happens?  And so on.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with the overwhelmed feeling.  As long as you don’t let it kill you then I think it could be a good thing.  You get overwhelmed because there is a lot that you don’t know so you go and research those things.  You get overwhelmed because there is a lot to do so you prioritize and get started.  But throughout the whole thing there are a few things that I just don’t question.  I don’t question that I love the baby.  I don’t question that I love my wife.  I don’t question that God is in control.  I may not always live like these things are not in question, but deep down inside I know the truth.

But there is one thing that I don’t ever question.  I don’t question at all the fact that my wife is/will be an excellent mother.  I have no doubts about that.  Yes there will be times that she will mess up.  After all, she isn’t perfect (just really close).  But even knowing that screw ups will happen, I know without a doubt that she will be a great mother.  She does/will love the baby.  She does/will care for the baby.  She does/will sacrifice for the baby.  Knowing this is huge.  It takes a lot of worries off my mind.  I know that my children will be loved.  I know that they won’t be neglected.  It is really awesome to not worry about those things.

Ever since I started blogging over a year ago, I really had the mindset of let’s just see what happens.  I started blogging thinking maybe I’ll blog, maybe I won’t.  Turns out I really enjoy this.  I like that there is ministry that can happen through it.  I like that it gives me a way to express myself since I stumble through my words and don’t say everything I want to when I speak out loud.  But recently I have really been debating taking my blog to another level.  I don’t know what kinda of blog traffic warrants something like that, but I think it would be cool to move this to being self hosted and get a template that is workable.  We’ll see.  The biggest thing I want to do is stay consistent.  I have been pretty consistent with a few blogs a week, but I have a new goal for myself.  I want to blog about something everyday.  Knowing me, they won’t all be spiritual and life changing, but I would really like to get into this a little more.  So there.  That’s my goal.

For you bloggers out there, what goals do you have?  Why are you blogging?

Well, it is officially a sad day here in Orange County.  Well, maybe that’s a little overstating, but still.  It has finally rained.  It has rained for a couple days now.  Wait, before you start getting things in a twist, let me clarify.  If this had happened in Oklahoma, people might have used their windshield wipers.  Here people have their wipers on full!  We don’t get much rain.  In fact, this is the first change of weather we have had since June.  I really don’t count some fog in the morning as a change in weather.  But for real, I don’t know that there has been any precipitation (that’s water from the sky for you ‘fornians that don’t get much of it and consequently don’t hear about it on the news) at all since at least June if not longer.

But, the sad day comes in when I had a few days in a row that there was rain and had to make the decision to put the top back on the Jeep.  It has been 5 months.  I have quite a shirt tan line now too.  But, unfortunately, as the water from the sky (or precipitation) has started appearing, I decided that they couple hours a day I spend in the Jeep shouldn’t be wet the whole time.  Poor Jeep.  Looked real good topless.

PS – Our rain looks nothing like the picture above.

That’s right.  The title says it all.  We are now 8 days from finding out if our baby is a boy or a girl.  Many of you have weighed in and made your guess, but finally we will know (unless the baby is being annoying and not wanting to show the world).  We have an ultrasound on the 20th and then the whole world will know (well maybe our world and not really the whole world)!

We are very excited!  The baby is growing to the point that we are starting to feel kicks!  I wanna know if we have a little Mia Hamm or Cristiano Ronaldo!  I wanna feel that powerful kick!  (See I can say that because it won’t keep me up at night or drive me crazy because it won’t stop kicking.)

Make sure you keep checking back to see what this kid is!

Well, I’m sitting here contemplating going to bed.  It’s just about 11 PM.  I haven’t been to bed prior to midnight in many years.  Yes, I know, I know.  That will all change in a few months.  Blah, blah, blah.  Well, until then I’m caught between a brick wall and a tough decision…or a rock and a hard place, whichever you like.  There is still an hour left to go before I keep my streak alive and I have to get up in five hours.  It’s not just that I wanna keep my streak alive, and I do, but my body isn’t ready for sleep yet.  Soon it will be but at the moment it isn’t.  Maybe I’ll just write this blog post until I’m sleepy.  At least it’s worthy of an awesome picture.

Anyway, without further rambling, five hours from now we will be starting week two in the theaters.  It starts in five hours because we have to setup church in the theaters.  It’s good stuff.  It’s way early in the morning, but it is worth it to reach out to people in a different way.  This week we got a ton accomplished so that the setup won’t take as long.  We have organized all the carts and will have them labeled in the morning.  We are storing things in a different way now so that we don’t have to continually move trailers back and forth.  I think that will cut down 30 minutes on both sides already!  So hopefully tomorrow will start a trend of everything getting quicker and smoother each week.

Not only are we now doing setup and teardown but we have launched our new and improved Host Team!  I have to say I’m pretty much a fan (and no, not because the Host Team leader is my wife).  We had so many Host Team members last week that were so excited about this new phase.  It was great to see their eyes light up as they got the chance to reach out to new people in a new community.  They are doing such an excellent job.  You will just have to come see it for yourself.

Thank you for all of you that have been praying for us, Kingsfield and the people we now have an opportunity to reach!  Please keep that up!  Oh, and don’t forget to keep praying for our little baby, too!

As we all know, the financial world is in a very big and flailing swan dive.  You know the kind.  It’s like when you were learning to dive and you had the normal dive down so now you want to try to do a cooler dive.  Enter the next step up dive: the swan dive.  The only thing is, you aren’t the best diver in the world so your swan dive is awkward, flapping, uncoordinated and heading for a rough landing.  Apparently that’s my picture of the dollar.  But the good thing is that if you keep working on that swan dive, eventually you start get it figured out.

Throughout the last few years as the market has come crashing down we have all started pinching pennies.  Our tips aren’t as big, our tithe is smaller, vacations are cut short, or we opt out of air conditioning for the oscillating fan because “it works just as well”.  I mean seriously.  Even if you have been smart about your finances the media isn’t going to let you forget.  The news is freaking out about it.  Every car commercial is practically begging you to buy a car by doing everything but making them actually affordable and reliable.  Yet, I think I am seeing a common trend.  I started actually noticing it recently in my own life and then realized that I’m not the only one.  We all do it.  We pay to do what we love.

We pay to do what we love.  Even during a massive recession we shell out the cash (or credit card used just like a debit card if you are us).  I started catching on to this whole thing when I realized that I love where I life.  I love my town.  I love my beach.  So I am willing to sacrifice the time and money to drive longer than I have sworn all my life I would do.  Another example in my life is paying for gas to go play basketball with the guys every week.  We only play for a couple hours but I drive 45 minutes to get there and still believe it is absolutely worth it.  But there is more than that.  We are trying to knock out our debt as the baby is on the way, yet still I love to treat my wife to the things that she enjoys.  Of course she is preggo so that tends to range from a frosty to steak to flowers to notes, but still.  I love to see her happy and excited and doing things she enjoys so out comes the wallet!

Think about your life.  I’m sure there is something that you love that you pay for.  Maybe it isn’t directly money, but your time or your energy.  We pay to do the things that we love.  We pay for Disneyland (well some of us do…others of us just don’t go there).  We pay for tanning.  We pay for hair coloring.  We pay for dog food.  We pay for poker.  We pay for concerts.  We pay for conferences.  I’m definitely not saying this stuff is bad by any means, but just stop and think for a minute.  What are you paying for?  Your life and your wallet speak the truth.  Don’t neglect the most important things you love (family, church, God) and blame the recession.  Get your priorities straight, stop wasting time and money, and pay for the things you love.

So right now there is a massive battle of the sexes going on.  In less than two weeks we will find out the sex of our baby!  So which one will win out?  My wife seems to think it will be a girl.  So therefore I have to choose boy if not only for the accumulated points I would receive if I were correct and the “mother’s intuition” was wrong.  We’ll see.

So you tell me!  Will we be having a warrior or will I be putting massive bows on this kids head?

I really want to write a new blog post right now, but my brain is screaming at me to go to sleep!  It’s been a long couple weeks and basketball finally started back up again and now my body is trying to play catch up.  I guess I should let it sleep.  Ok, fine.  No blog post for tonight.  You win.  You always do.

That’s why I come up here.

Over the past couple weeks or so I have posted a few different times about the move that was about to happen.  If you are a regular here at brookjames.com you have probably noticed that I haven’t written much in the past couple weeks.  Well, the move has happened…and is still happening.  Our church has gone from a permanent building to a portable church with setup and teardown every week.  We have changed cities (or towns…I’m not really sure what exactly the qualifications are for a city as opposed to a town).  Goodbye 45 Tesla.  Hello 27111 Aliso Creek Rd.  Goodbye Irvine.  Hello Aliso Viejo.

In preparation for the move and our first Sunday in the new location, my time and energy has been used elsewhere.  Unfortunately when all your time and energy is going in one direction, other things get neglected.  The blog was first up.  It wasn’t that I didn’t want to write.  It isn’t that I have had writer’s block and didn’t know what to say.  Priorities just had to be switched up for a bit.  But the other thing that got neglected was family life.

Now, up front let me tell you that I am a firm believer in sacrificing other things in order to spend time with the family.  This was just one of those weeks that things absolutely HAVE to get done.  You know when push comes to shove and if you don’t take the time to do it now, it will not happen and many things will suffer.  My time with my wife got cut into tiny pieces spaced out between packing, moving, websiting, “babysitting”, and many many other things.  I haven’t enjoyed that part if this.  I believe I did what I was supposed to, but I am definitely looking forward to making up for the past couple weeks with the wifey.

I am excited about the all new Kingsfield Church that is taking off, but I am also excited to have the past couple weeks completed so that I can turn my family life focus back to where it is supposed to be.  KK, get ready because I am gonna make up the past couple weeks to you.  Yes, even if that means I have get to suffer watch some girly movies.  Just don’t get mad when I laugh at the end instead of cry!