I’m Dreaming

    Yep that's right. I have a dream, not so grand as Martin Luther King Jr.'s, for this dream is only for my family. In another week, my beautiful wife and I will be taking it easy. Sure we will still be driving most of the day, but we will be driving through the Appalachians and the Carolinas to arrive at our destination: Tybee Island, GA. We made plans for this trip a year ago and have been eagerly anticipating the trip, but the time is near. Our time will be spent at a little Bed and Breakfast, on the beach, an old lighthouse and a few other touristy things, not to mention a few eateries we plan on taking in as we romance each other for a few days, without the distraction of our four little ones.

    This trip is in honor of our tenth anniversary, which occurred on May 8. That day was spent by me working on a final, BreAnna taking the two youngest out to play, capped off with our small group coming over for our regular meeting. We are going to pick our oldest two up from school on Tuesday and drive to my parents'. They will take control of the four of them for our little excursion and we will begin our long, almost 14 hr drive, to our destination. We won't have the money for a hotel that night, so we will stay in our van and try to get some rest in there for a few hours. Whenever we wake, we will drive some more and should arrive at our destination between 3 and 5 pm depending on how much sleep we get and how fast we are she is driving. We will hopefully make it in time to be on a sunset cruise out on the ocean. We will spend 2 nights at the B&B and then head back around noon the next day, stopping off somewhere near Nashville, TN to spend a night in a hotel. Then it's off to pick up the kiddos, stay a few days with my parents, celebrate the birthdays of my brothers-in-law, and rest up a little from the driving, before we BreAnna drives us back home.

    I can't wait to spend a romantic time with my gal on the beach.

    One more week!!

Done. . .For Now

It's that wonderful feeling at the end of a semester, when all your assignments are turned in and the final has been taken. The sudden bliss of having a weight lifted off your shoulders . . . SO NOW WHAT???

The thing that has been driving you day to day is done and you look to the horizon and you see nothing. At least if I was working, I would have something else to look forward to, but being unemployed and not being able land a job that would feed my family, I seem stuck. Though my current situation is not even close, I feel as though I'm Israel, wandering the desert, eating the same thing every day, and sometimes longing to be back where I was. The strange thing is that whatever comes next, I am excited about it and so I wait with great expectation. Unfortunately, this is of little to no comfort for my wife, encourages laziness in myself, and it doesn't help me to lead my family somewhere. Fortunately, it is time to reflect and major on the basics, get life in order, get my family in order, and lead them towards God.

More to come later . . .

The Ordination

I thought it was about time that I write about my ordination experience. It was a great time with family and the church that has been supporting my family while in seminary. Evidence was shown of God's grace and his sovereignty over all things and I am still, a week and a half out, blown away by it all. God's providence never ceases to amaze me.
Sunday morning began with me preaching, the pastor wanted me to preach for 2 reasons: 1. he had never heard me preach and didn't know me that well, since he came after I had left for seminary and 2. he wanted some of the newer members of the congregation to see my heart for the Gospel. For my text I chose Ezekiel 36:22-32, and I had been struggling with this passage because there is so much in it. The church likes 15-20 minute sermons, and that tends to be the length of time I preach for, but not this time. No one knows for sure, and I do not look at the clock, but I think it was about 30 minutes. I was confident, relaxed and believe I preached the Gospel clearly, I hope the Lord was magnified by what I said. The service ended at about noon and so I got to spend about an hour and a half around family for lunch and then had to be back at the church by 2pm for the council.
The Ordination council is basically a time for asking the guy being ordained any question they want. The questions were theological, relational, personal and practical in nature. I was fortunate to have only ten people on the council, and most of them people I had known for awhile. I count it a special privilege to have had my grandpa on the council, who was ordained as a deacon in 1954 and has raised his family to follow Christ. My friend Matt, who gave the ordination message, was also there and said that I was very gracious in my answers. It was one of the first times I had been questioned like that, and I again felt confident and strengthened by the grace of God. Fortunately, the vote was unanimous to ordain me, which I believe to be another sign of God's calling into ministry.
At 3 pm, the ordination service began and I feel the Lord was glorified by the things said during the service. BreAnna and I were very encouraged by the prayers and love displayed to us. Matt's sermon went beautifully hand in hand with mine earlier that morning, a thing which we did not coordinate. His sermon was on Colossians 1:15-20, and according to him he shortened his sermon a little, but it wouldn't have mattered, the sermon was excellent, he preached the gospel clearly and he is a good preacher. We were blessed by his sermon.
Afterward, there was a reception for us. After all we're baptist, food has to be in there somewhere. I didn't get to talk with many people and could barely hear the ones I did talk with, but it was encouraging to see so many gathered together.
Praise God for his blessings and the power of his word. May his word continue to go forth and never come back void. Thank you for all your prayers.

Busy then Busier

Well, we knew that it would be a busy week this week. This is the week before my ordination. I have a sermon to write, school work to do for the week, a paper for which this and next are the week to get my resources, gotta get both cars cleaned out and oil changes done, have an interview on Skype this afternoon, had to get a suit to the dry cleaners and then...... It happened...... I was making sure that everything was out of my suit pockets, when I noticed it...... a hole in the knee. I know I did not fall in my suit, its just been hanging in my closet for about a month or so. I took my pants off the hanger and started looking closer at them and found holes all over the suit, not just the pants but in the jacket as well. I tried to recall wearing it and being near a fire, but I've never worn it near a fire. As Charlie Brown would say: "ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

Yesterday began the inevitable run around town looking for a suit. Let me just say one thing about clothes shopping: I have my wife dress me. She knows what I look good in, I trust her opinion on these things implicitly and at some point in the break down of it all I just don't care. I know the thoughts, I think them too: What!? you don't care what you look like? No, not really. I know people judge you on the way you look, I do it to, and I know its wrong, but it really doesn't matter to me what people think of me by the way I dress. It is not those opinions that we look for in valuable friendships and building community anyway. The opinions that we want were the ones they will think while we are interacting with them and after they're gone. Thoughts such as "That's a really nice guy." "That guy really loves the Lord." "I had him pegged all wrong." Now don't get me wrong. I like to look good, especially for my wife (which is why I have her dress me). As long as she thinks I look good (and that is something that I can see in her eyes) I know I look good.

I digress, we bought a suit last night after much searching, which looks good, but we are going out to a couple more stores today to check things out and see if we can't find a better deal.

It should be interesting as we close this week out and things begin to come together. I know I am having fun this week and trusting in God... BIG TIME...

Just a snippit to catch you up

Ok, it is finally time that I updated my blog, what do you think? I find that this is one of the most difficult things that I have to do. Forcing one’s self to write is a difficult task and is not for the faint of heart. I am currently unemployed and so you would figure that I have plenty of time to do all of the things that my heart desires, only writing is not one of them. My biggest desire is to find a way to support my family. I have been looking to secular employment and it leaves a sour feeling in my stomach just to think about working outside of the church, and so perhaps that’s God given, or perhaps, I am working for the wrong reason and not for the glory of God. Yet my heart’s desire is to minister full time, to have nothing else on my plate but ministry. Yes, I am a husband and a father and no, I cannot forsake those roles in my life, but for the past ten years, I have had to divide my time between, husband, father, employee, student, and ministry within the church. Just to cut one of those out would be nice. It would also be nice to be able to directly apply my education to what I am doing 24/7. Oh I long for that day.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, my ordination is coming up in about a week and a half, I am supposed to preach that morning, be questioned that afternoon and then, Lord-willing ordained into the ministry. This is going to be a day that takes everything out of me and so if you find the time and remember to do so, please pray for me. I am extremely excited about this time in my life and cannot wait (though I’m going too) for what God has planned for me in ministry. I will write more on this later (hopefully sooner though), but God is really teaching me several lessons in this time of my life and it is amazing to see his blessing and watch care over my family and me.

"And Again I say Rejoice"

What better time of year is there to reflect on what this year has brought us? As I reflect on the reason we have a Christmas, indeed the reason we have a New Year or time at all for that matter, I am reminded of one thing: myself and my problems are small. That's right, indeed they are insignificant to the surpassing grace and majesty of our great God, who before time predestined us to the purpose of knowing, glorifying and enjoying Him. Are my problems things that must be dealt with? Certainly! but not to consume my time so that I miss the grace and mercy God has provided through them.
I am learning a very important lesson in rejoicing in all circumstances. As my wife stated in her blog, we have a lot to be thankful for this year. I have thought and thought about what to write and even attempted to do so about the many things that have happened to us this year, and I'll save that for my journal, but I am in no position to complain, which is what I would be doing. Instead of complaining I have focused my attention on rejoicing in Christ and what he accomplished, by putting on flesh, remaining God and yet still man, living and dying in perfect obedience, and finally rising from death heralding the salvation of man through him.
There is truly hope in these thoughts. Yes, my family's situation looks grim for now, but if God has brought all things together to accomplish salvation for those who would believe, why would I not hope that he will get us out of this dark period? Whether it be to live somewhere else or to die and be with him I rejoice.
I praise God for the blessings he has given us, even testing my family and those relationships to forge us in to the people he has called us to be in him.

A brief snippit

Good evening! It's time for another wonderful blog by Micah Fowler. It's been a long time and I know all of my fans (okay so its actually just 1 fan) have been patiently waiting for me to write another blog. Life has been crazy, which is pretty much normal around here. I have been moping around a lot and am in need of some quality sleep and for some reason that is just not happening these days. For a brief update on life, here goes nothing.
Our good old friend Mr. Black Mold, who was given his eviction notice last month, appears to have come back. BreAnna and I (actually BreAnna more than I) are fed up and are looking at new apartments online, but aren't finding much in our price range, which is next to nothing. This problem leads to another issue, I've been posting my resume and praying about a better job for a little while now. E-max is a good company, but is not doing well economically. In fact, the owner is no longer taking a salary, the top execs have taken a 25% pay cut, and at least 3 people are being let-go. Fortunately, my job has a bit of security, because my department is the only one bringing in a constant revenue stream. Wheeeeee! Another fun aspect of all this is that our office is rearranging itself: consolidating from 4 floors to 2, so that the other two floors can be rented out as apartments. What this all means is that all the trash and junk from those two floors needs to find a new home on the other floors. Not fun, but that is work life for now.