kylegilbert

Yesterday, I thought it would be interesting to get a haircut, and once I made that decision, I proceeded to go all out and get it colored as well. I’ve always wanted to do bright red, so this was very exciting for me.

Today, we also visited the Great Wall and also the 2008 Olympic Park. What an amazing day! I’ll post a few pics tomorrow.

I’m really pumped about a trip that I’m taking with several friends later this week.  More details to follow later.

Living in a house with two little children, this seems to happen to me all the time. I’ll take off my shoes at the end of the day to find this sort of surprise.

What did I ever do without kids?

I don’t know if Mr. Wizard was into  microscopes, but I’m sure he would love this little hand-held device that I bought for my daughter’s birthday last weekend.

It’s called the Bionic Eye, and it’s made by Eye Clops.  It plugs into your TV, and it has zoom levels of 100x, 200x, and 400x.  The best part: it only costs about $30.

Below you can watch a video of me testing out the microscope.

Even if my daughter doesn’t end up playing with it much, I’m going to get hours of fun from this thing.

If you happen to know of anything that’s especially cool to look at under a microscope, please tell me about it.

Yesterday’s post was difficult to write. It’s challenging to take a hard look at your own struggles and then put them into writing. The reason I did it is because making progress in that area was at the top of my personal growth plan for the year, and I believe that as I expose my struggle to the light, God will continue to change my heart and mold me into the likeness of His Son.

It is such an amazing and freeing thing to know that through Jesus, not only do I find forgiveness for my sins, but I also get to watch as God redeems even the broken places of my life. Through Christ, I have nothing to hide. I don’t have to pretend that I’m perfect. Even my biggest struggles are no match for the cross and God’s power to make things new.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I really struggle to be an encouragement to my wife.  Honestly, that’s a bit of an understatement.  The reality is that she is the one who gets the dark side of my systematic and critical thinking.  As you can probably imagine, she finds it very discouraging.  Without intending to, I often deflate her with my words.

This is really hard to write.  Of all the things I hate about my flesh, this is probably the part I hate most.

“So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” – Romans 7:21-24 (NIV)

The Apostle Paul continues that passage to say that his deliverance comes through Jesus Christ.  Like Paul, through Jesus, I’m beginning to find victory in this area – learning that I don’t need to be less of a critical thinker.  Just the opposite.  I need to apply my critical thinking to understand how important it is for me to be my wife’s primary source of encouragement.

I’m curious to get some feedback on something.  When you’re making a purchasing decision (electronics, appliances, tools, etc.),  do you go with the name brand or not?  Do you think that there is extra quality/value in the brand, or do you go with the less expensive option when things appear to be equal?

(The photo above might be a little clue on the way I tend to lean on this.)

As I’ve mentioned before, Keri and I don’t own a TV.  It’s a decision that we made on purpose to help keep the lines of communication open in our home.  But even without a television, there are still so many things that try to pull the two of us apart from one another.  Whether it’s my wife’s desire to read her favorite blogs after an exhausting day with our kids or my efforts to manage freelance website & graphics projects, life has a way of trying to bring emotional distance between the two of us.

To combat this natural tendency in our relationship, we introduced a new nightly ritual into our schedule a couple of weeks ago.  Once we get the kids in bed and the house set back in order, we’ve committed to spend at least 20 minutes sitting on the couch together without distractions – just talking about the day and snuggling.  My personal goal is to begin our couch time with a few minutes of encouraging my wife and building her up – something that I’m ashamed to say I have neglected for the past ten years of marriage (more on this later).

In just these two weeks, I can already tell that God is helping us break down some barriers that were beginning to creep up between us.

(As an aside, I find it ironic that all the stock photography I looked at showed computers pulling families together for some fun family time.  Really?  I’m not saying that it’s not possible, but there’s no way that’s the norm.)