David St. Romain on Nashville Star Finale

Nashville Star Season Finale

Thursday 9PM

USA Network

To follow up my first post about DSR on Nashville Star....

The voting is over, but tune in to support our hometown Nashville Star finalist.

Baton Rouge native David St. Romain is one of 3 Finalist.

DSR has been living his dream of entertaining crowds for many years. This opportunity of national coverage was a major breakthrough for his career and he is DEFINITELY making the most of the opportunity.

These are the 3 finalists. DSR, Zac Hacker & Angela Hacker. Zac & Angela are brother and sister and they are CRAZY talented. They are great people too and have become good friends with DSR. It'll be hard to cheer against them, but we want our hometown boy to win this one.

No matter what happens, this contest has provided a jump start to everyone's career. Congrats to all the contestants. I'm not a fan of country music, but watching the stories of these guys and gals, it became bearable during the show.

We're excited and looking forward to Thursday night.

Pics taken from the Nashville Star website.

Kevin Harvick sent me an email....

No, it ain't what you're thinking. I work for Shell Chemical in Geismar, LA. We got this mass company email about Kevin winning the Daytona 500. This is the first time in a long time Shell & Pennzoil has sponsored a car and it was pretty neat that we won the first race.

I don't like NASCAR. I'd rather take bamboo shoots under my fingernails that watch a whole race full of left hand turns. But, its neat that my employer had a winning car. We're doing a Fantasy NASCAR league at work, just for fun. 2 of my 4 drivers crashed out early in the race, but I'm still 4th out of 10.

Here's the celebration at victory lane. That's me on the far right. I'm standing right above the 'e' in "Victory Lane". Oh dang, its cut off!

UFC 69 - We got tickets - Houston here we come!!

UFC is heading to Houston, Texas and we have our tickets!

UFC 69: Shootout! is on April 7, 2007

at the Toyota Center!

Now, here's the deal. I was working on the day they made the event public and went on the website and saw the article on http://www.ufc.com/. So, I called up Brandi and said, "Guess what's coming to Houston?" She says, "What?" I said, "UFC!" She said, "Cool, let's go. Forget about Valentine's Day, forget about my birthday, let's go see the UFC in Houston!"

Her birthday is April 9th. I had a nice day at the spa for us for Valentine's Day, but nothing planned for her birthday. She gave it all up to spend several hours with me watching half naked men roll around trying to beat each other unconscious.

What a woman!

Great Marriage Resource right here in Baton Rouge

Roger D. Butner, PhD, LMFT is Christian marriage and family therapist here in Baton Rouge at the Baton Rouge Christian Counseling Center. He has a very good blog called Hope for Your Family. Very encouraging, interesting and helpful information.

I've read through several of his posts and really enjoy the spirit in which he writes. Good stuff.

I found him through Carole & Dean Turner's blog The Wardrobe and the White Tree blog. Dean & Carole go to HPC with us and have also experienced the wonderful world of adoption.

Authority

I'm a big fan of message boards. Family Life Forums is one of my favorites. They have good Marriage & Family threads that I learn from and sometimes get to share with & minister to people.

One thread got interesting. Without going into detail, it was about criticizing church leadership. I believe you are walking on thin ice if you choose to take this route. Specifically, the unbiblical route. Matthew 18 gives pretty clear direction on the best way to handle conflict resolution.

The safe bet is to always respect and honor the authority of our pastor or pastors! If we disagree with a decision that was made, we must give them the benefit of the doubt that they made the best decision with the information that they had. We must also have faith that they were led by God's Spirit! I realized once that if my opinion was truly important in the decision making process, than somebody would have invited me to the meeting. But, since I wasn't invited...........

What I think is most important is the spirit in which you handle the situation. Its pretty bold to assume our church leadership is just wrong without understanding the process of how they made the decision. Check this out:

James 3:16-18
For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

If we have a question, it should be asked gently to learn and better understand the decision making process. It should be asked in mercy to sow peace. We know when our spirits are right or wrong. When we ask a question in a self-seeking way to support and strengthen our critical spirit and enable confusion, then that's operating in the wrong spirit. If we ask questions to get understanding and re-establish peace and unity, then that's probably the right spirit.

Oh, by the way, we may want to be prepared to hear this answer, "It's really none of your business." OUCH! I guess that's the "willing to yield" part.

I'm not saying blindly follow. But, we need to make sure we check our spirits and have our ducks in a row before we go sowing seeds of division by challenging the authority of Christ's Church.

Psalm 51 - Restoration & Ministering

Psalm 51:9-13
9 Hide Your face from my sins, And blot out all my iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me away from Your presence, And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, And uphold me by Your generous Spirit. 13 Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, And sinners shall be converted to You.

I love the progression here. First, there is recognition & confession of sin with a humble heart. Then, a restoration and return to right standing with God. Then, the forgiven teaches others The Way and sinners are converted.

This is very encouraging to me, a transgressor who often misses the mark. When we are condemned by our sins, we are encouraged by the devil to run away from God, just as Adam and Eve did after The Fall. But, the Holy Spirit encourages us to return to God, then teach others with love and humility so that THEY TOO may experience God's Grace!

It's so easy to hide in our sins and leave the Battle Field, feeling as though we are inadequate and ill equipped to continue to fight. But, this scripture is an example that God can work through us and our imperfect ways to bring the lost to Christ.

I'm sure the devil HATES verses 12 & 13. Its funny how what Christ has done before we were sinners is forgotten by us and temporarily keeps us from getting back on the horse and continuing the work that God has called, equipped and annointed each of us to do.

Get up! Go and serve!

The Vision: Personal Finance

Do we have a vision for our future? Are we taking the necessary steps TODAY to ensure our needs are met TOMORROW or 30 years from now?

Here's an eye opening article on MSNBC entitled: "Personal savings drop to a 74-year low" It states that, "The Commerce Department reported Thursday that the savings rate for all of 2006 was a negative 1 percent, meaning that not only did people spend all the money they earned but they also dipped into savings or increased borrowing to finance purchases."

We will all get old. We'll all come to a point where we won't be able to work. Hopefully, we'll all come to a point where we have enough saved in retirement to have the option to not work and live off of what we saved. But, appearantly, the majority of Americans won't.

Have you ever asked, "How much will Social Security pay me when I'm eligible?" I have and it's not much. It was NEVER meant to support us, it was only meant to supplement our needs after retirement.

To me, this is a wake up call and it doesn't matter how old you are. MAKE A PLAN NOW!! The younger you are the better. If you are young, your new best friend should be "Compound Interest." Make a decsion RIGHT NOW to retire and grow old with DIGNITY.

I'm really excited, because in March, me and Brandi will go to Dave Ramsey's Financial Counselor Training and we'll be able to provide FREE Financial Counseling through the church to help people get to where they need to be. We've made great strides in our personal finaces over the last 2 years and we are now headed in the right direction. We'd love to share our story and help anyone who has questions about personal finances.

At HPC, they have a Crown Financial Ministries bible study, which is the same biblical principles that Dave Ramsey uses, just packaged differently. The class starts Feb. 11th, if you are interested. Check it out HERE.

Do something! Saving -1% per year is NOT a plan.