Eric and Leslie’s Family Blog

In the midst of July Texas heat, we all know and say the same prayer. All the beauty of Spring starts to give way to the brown scorched look as the grass, flowers, and even the weeds curl toward the Earth attempting to escape the torturous heat. We count the number of 3-digit days almost so we can be proud of how many we survive!

And then God answers our prayers.

Sometimes it starts slowly, but sometimes it comes in such a fury, full of thundering claps and bolts of lightning, that it scares us. We’ve asked for relief from the heat and salvation for our lawns by way of God’s gift of revitalization. We don’t like to be teased with cooler temperatures, sun deflecting clouds, or a good morning dew. Give us the real deal – replenish us, rejuvenate us, soak us to the core, give us life again!

But it doesn’t always happen that way. Sometimes we wake up at 6:30 in the morning, step to the front door to get the morning paper and sigh a breath of relief as we see the cloud cover. The gray day surely means a break in the hellish temperatures and electric bills. And then we step out into the world only to be hit in the face with humidity so heavy it might as well have been a ton of bricks falling on our hope for relief, and we wonder – ‘it’s all here, I see the clouds, I feel the moisture in the air, where is the real stuff?’

And we endure yet another day – praying once again for God to provide.

Eventually, finally, it comes – God provides the relief we so desperately needed. It seems as if it is only a matter of moments and life springs back into our world. The grass leaps toward the sky, the flowers stretch out their blooms as if an offering of thanksgiving for new life, and we breathe in the refreshing coolness and fragrance of hope.

Our passion and thanksgiving for God’s gift is genuine. We smile at the refreshing drops on our windshields and the soggy and drenched lawns.

Then it begins to get old and our prayers change. We start to tell God that we’ve had enough rejuvenation. It starts to get impractical. The lawn grew too much – now it needs to be mowed and we can’t do that until it dries out. The commute to work gets longer as the flooded streets slow down the flow of life. And the weeds start to take over the beautiful flowers in our gardens. We’ve had enough of God’s answer to our original prayers.

I can’t imagine how amazingly patient God is with us. We fervently ask for God’s involvement in our lives – but only until it becomes impractical. We ask for God’s grace to fall down on us – to replenish us, rejuvenate us, soak us to the core, and give us life again! But when God provides it for us sometimes it scares us, sometimes it hits us like a ton of bricks, and sometimes it grows the weeds along with the flowers-and after a while, we’ve had enough and we think we’d rather brave the heat again-and God wonders – ‘which do they want? The richness of life soaked with my Grace or the desolate dryness of my absence?’

And you thought I was talking about rain!

Blessings,

Eric

Wow— It’s been while since we’ve been on here.

Our latest adventure was another camping trip. This time we went to Yogi Bears Jellystone Park in Waller, Texas (by Houston). For those of you that like to camp and have kiddos we have found the Jellystone Parks to be great. They have alot of activities at the parks for the kids and adults alike, and they seem to be in pretty good shape. This particular park had a big pool and a ‘waterpark’ area with water slides and spraying water etc. There was a picnic basket on the top of the slides and about every 15 mins it would tip and dump GALLONS of water down back into the pool. Thankfully they had a whistle that blew before it would dump. Noah was not a fan of the dumping at all, so if were in the pool he would climb out as fast as he could, get crouched down and wait for the water to dump. If we were anywhere else in the park in view of the water, he would assume the squatting position and wait for the water to dump before resuming whatever it was he was doing…it was pretty funny actually. This park also had a little miniature golf that he absolutely LOVED. Not so sure were his love for golfing came from but he had a blast…think we went golfing once a day at least if not more. (check out the picture gallery for pics from our trip)

As a result of this trip we decided it was time to get a new camper. We had inherited Eric’s parents old one that has some quirks and not alot of space inside. After getting stuck in the camper for a day due to rain we learned that it wasn’t going to work any more with Noah. A couple weeks after getting home from the trip we went shopping and are now proud owners of a new camper with lots of space. If anyone else enjoys camping let us know, we would love to go with friends sometime!

Noah has finally figured out how to ride his tricycle. We got him the bike for his birthday (5 months ago). I thought he would have picked up on in right away, but guess it took a little longer than expected. Oh well…he is now an official bike rider.

our little bike rider

still going

check him out!

The past year has been interesting for me because of my diabetic diagnosis. I had to go sit through classes with nurses and nutritionist to learn about my condition and how to better deal with things for the rest of my life. The most difficult thing has been re-learning how to eat. For the longest time I seemed to feel like I was starving all the time, but after a while things got a little easier. I had created a new habit and following my diabetic diet hasn’t been difficult at all.

It’s a little like the challenge that is being a Christian. We go to church and Sunday school. We participate in the service projects and we make our pledge to the annual budget. We look back on our lives and we see the ups and downs – those places where the passion for Jesus burned – and those places where we were drowning in doubt.

As we make our way toward Easter this Lent season, many of us have made attempts to give up something as a way of sacrifice to prepare us for the mystery and miracle of Jesus’ death and resurrection. This time of year we all hear the conversations about giving up drinking Cokes or eating meat. Some people refrain from foul language or…dare I say it…spend their 40 days without visiting Facebook or Myspace….GASP!

So what’s the point of all of this ‘giving up’ stuff? I’ll tell you what it is – it’s a diet, only this time you aren’t trying to lose weight, control your cholesterol, or keep your blood sugar level down. Think of all of the different kinds of diets that are out there on the market. Maybe you’re thinking of the Atkins diet, Jenny Craig, the Fat Smash Diet (yes, there is such a thing), or Jared the Subway guy. What is it that every single one of these diets has in common?

Yes, they all do work for some people – Yes, they all fail for some people.

But the one thing about diets that most people miss, no matter what it’s approach or catchy name, is that every diet tries to achieve its goals by helping you create a new habit – one that will last you your whole life. You know what I’m talking about if you every tried a diet – lost some weight – but weren’t able to keep the weight off!

The same thing goes for Lent every year. We try to find a new, creative, catchy “Jesus Diet” that will somehow give us that burning passion for the Lord that we all crave. The only problem is that Lent only lasts 40 days, and even worse, our attention span doesn’t last near that amount of time.

This is one of the hardest things we face as Christians. We struggle with the day-to-day expressions and practices of our faith. We struggle with the how and where when it comes to being Christian. We know what to do on Sundays. We have our worship service we attend. We have our Sunday school class we attend. Some of us even have our committees or our bible study groups we attend – but still we struggle with the stuff in between Sunday mornings.

Our Jesus diets work – they really do. But do we let them create life-long habits? In my case, it was the threat of a life cut short because of my physical condition that helped motivate me to create a new habit.

God isn’t going to threaten us to motivate us to be more Christian. God did, however, give us free will – the ability to choose how to live our lives – so that when we do start that “Jesus Diet” it can become more than a quick fix. It becomes a habit that changes even the stuff between Sunday mornings.

Blessings,

Eric

You’d never guess who finally pee pee’d in the potty…NOAH!! YAY!! This would actually be the 2nd time in the past week, so guess the potty training is officially beginning. Guess that means we have to be more diligent in getting him on the potty now huh?. He’s so funny sitting on the potty. I’ve told him to ’squeeze out the pee pee’, so he sits there bouncing on the toilet saying ‘come on pee pee, come on pee pee’! It’s so cute. So begins the potty training process…early stages anyways!

There are a lot of things that I have come to believe will never change because of my career choice. A few of those things include the fact that I’m destined to always receive ‘religious’ birthday cards, people try not to use swear words around me, and people will ask me how I was called into the ministry.

I enjoy telling people how God first called me into ministry. I don’t go around offering the story because I don’t want to be make it a bigger deal than it really was, but I do believe it as an amazing moment when I was at a crossroads and God made sure I made the right choice (only because I had ignored the call so many other times before, though).

I’m not going to share it here because, honestly, you may not be that interested, but I did recently have another moment of calling that puts me in the situation I’m in now. The day after coming home from a four day trip to Sherman with the sr. high youth for a weekend retreat, I received an email asking for volunteers to help the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance set up a ‘Volunteer Village’ to help continue the recovery effort from hurricanes Katrina, Ike & Gustav. Before I knew it I had already spoken to my wife, to Dr. Hogg & arranged for my mother to come down to help with Noah. Before I could even say ‘NO’ God had paved the way for me to spend a week in Port Neches, Texas building platforms, setting up ‘pods’, and putting up giant dining tents and other structures to aid in the continued recovery effort.

I’m not trying to make a big deal about the fact that I’m doing this work, but that God can call us at any moment. Coming off a long weekend away from my family, the last thing I wanted was to turn around and be gone for a whole other week. I miss my morning hugs from Noah! But when God calls we need to respond. I don’t even think I can encourage you to try to be prepared because I think the only thing God asks of us is to be willing to respond. God will call us when God needs us, and like in my situation, God prepared the way for me to be here in Port Neches long before I was called. My calendar was fairly clear, my mom was able to come down on short notice to help take care of my son, and my employer gave me permission to be gone for a week.

When God needs us God will pave the way to make it possible for us to respond!

I’m still in the middle of that trip to Port Neches, and it’s nothing short of frustrating hard work, but it has been a great experience. Who knows, maybe God will call again and I’ll be back down here sometime soon with some of you, only next time I’ll be here to stay in the village instead of building it.

Blessings,

Eric

Hold on a second, I’m counting..1..2..3..4…..5..oh 6! Yeah, I think that’s about right. I think I have 6 bibles, and that’s not counting the pew bible I keep on my shelf in case I need to look up the page number for print in the bulletin.

If I look back and try to figure out why I have so many I can’t really remember why. I’m sure I had an excuse to buy a new one, or maybe I had high hopes that THIS one would be the one that would help me get on track with my daily reading. Uhhh, nope, that didn’t work! I have the NIV, NRSV, and the NKJV. I’ve even recently found myself out shopping YET AGAIN for another one because I “need” one for preaching. At least that’s what I tried to convince myself of. I’m sure I really just wanted an excuse to go shopping and to spend money, and buying a bible made me feel better about it. How American of me!

While I was out shopping, a salesman came up to help me choose from the myriad options there are to choose from. There is the study edition, the student edition, the archaeological edition, the women’s edition, the married edition, the single’s edition, the teen edition, the teen girl edition, the preteen edition, the graduate edition, the children’s edition – I can go on, but I think you get the idea.

So how many do you have? How many different versions do you have? Can you remember where and why you got them all? I can’t, but I do know that I had great intentions each time I spent another $60.00 on the HOLY BIBLE!

I think it’s a good witness to others to see my bibles out on the table, all worn and obviously used. It’s like the expensive weight system that’s set up in my garage. Every once in a while I’ll go out and shuffle the 45 lb weights around and dust off the saw dust to convince myself there is a purpose to keeping it around. I sometimes do the same thing with my bibles – move it around on the coffee table, crinkle up a couple pages, drop it in the mud, and underline a few random verses so it looks like I actually use it.

As I sit here and look at the frayed edges of my Oxford Annotated NRSV Bible – It sure looks good sitting here on my desk. I’m sure all of you think I spend the majority of my time deep in the Word because my bible keeps me company at all times.

I’ve got a few extra minutes this morning, maybe I’ll do something different today. Maybe I’ll crack this thing open and see what God’s doing.

Blessings,

Eric

The Highlights of the year for the Varnon Family:

Mountains. Noah and I joined Eric this summer when he took the Junior High kids to San Isabel, Colorado for summer camp. We all enjoyed a week in the mountains, the fresh air and the majestic views that God has created. The Varnon clan all went as well so it was good family time too.

Eric has been at Westminster Presbyterian Church for just over a year now. He is serving as the Director of Christian Education and Youth Ministry.

Richard. Yep, Eric’s younger brother moved in with us in October as he gets adjusted to life in fort worth.

Return to Spearman. In August we went back to Spearman for a few days for more family time. We were also able to be a part of Taylor’s (Eric’s niece) back to school events and attend her Open House.

Youth. Eric has stayed very busy with the Youth activities this year. Along with the 3 camps this summer, he has taken them on many weekend adventures. One of his favorite trips this year was the Mystery Trip where he took a group of kids to Kansas for a Christian music concert.

Camping. We took our family vacation in November and headed down to Jellystone Park for 5 days (just north of San Antonio) . Noah learned all about Yogi Bear and fell in love with him! We took some day trips into San Antonio and went to the River Walk and The Alamo.

Horned Frogs, Go TCU! We attended a few of the TCU home football games this year. Noah went too and loved all the action and entertainment.

Random stuff: Noah has mastered the WII. He LOVES ‘feet jammies’…hence the picture! Noah transitioned to a ‘Big Boy’ bed this summer. Noah is talking so well that I can carry on a more intelligent conversation with him than with Eric.

In July we went to Georgetown to spend some time with the Biesheuvel Family. All the siblings were home at the same time over the 4^th. It doesn’t happen often so it was nice to all be together for a short time.

School. Noah started ‘school’ at the Early Learning Place Preschool at our church. He loves playing with the other kids and doing art. He can say his ABC’s (forgetting the Z) and count to 10 (without the #2).

Toddler. Noah turned 2 years old in October. We had a party at the house for him with both sets of Grandparents here and his buddy Reese from church. Backyard Bash with Bubbles, Balls and Balloons was the theme.

Me. I continue working at Cook Children’s Medical Center on the Post Surgical/Endocrine Floor. I work as Charge nurse most days but do still enjoy the sporadic times that I get to work as a staff nurse and actually interact with the patients and families versus being the problem solver and conflict negotiator all day.

A new addition. My sister, Carmen, had her second child, Nathan, in February. I was able to go to Virginia and spend a couple days with the Law family and get to see the precious little guy.

Seasons Greetings and a Happy New Year to all!!< >< >< >< ><–>

I lived through the same teenage years that we all face. I did everything I could to annoy my parents and, of course, they were the absolutely most embarrassing and intrusive parents of them all! I had more than my share of public “I love you’s” and “ah, man, my-friends-are-watching-hugs.” I also got a few of those “you’ll understand one day” speeches that more often than not were received with a smug roll of the eyes or a shoulder-shrug and disdain filled response of “whatever, mom.”

And then, all of a sudden, you get smacked upside the head with an “oh, wow, today is that day. She was right, I do get it…finally!” So, mom and dad, if you happen to read this – thanks – and sorry for the “whatevers”.

One of those days was definitely the day Noah was born. I finally started to understand what my mom was feeling when she asked for hugs. Leslie has to keep the baby lotion nearby to keep Noah’s cheeks from getting raw from all the daddy kisses. It’s especially bad when I haven’t shaved in a couple of days. He’s pretty good at letting me mess with him – he has, however, dealt with it from day one. He pretty much just ignores me or greets me with a wave of the hand and a barrage of ‘no daddy no daddy no daddy nooooo daddyyyyyy!’

You really don’t understand how much your family loves you until you have children of your own. You really do lose a sense of self preservation and you focus on that child’s needs 100%. I, like all of you who have children, will die before I let anything harm my child. Our love for our children is stronger than anything. Our greatest fear is of losing that beloved child, and we would do anything to prevent it.

If the love for our children makes us self-sacrificial we have to believe that this is the nature of love in general. So our love for our brothers, sisters, parents, spouse and friends should drive us to the same instinctual self-sacrifice, right? It makes sense to me – and it definitely is easier said than done!

And what of our love for Jesus Christ? Do we have a love so deep for Jesus Christ that we give up our lives to live as He calls us? It sure is what we are asked to do. Again, it’s easier said than done, and it’s probably even more difficult than loving your siblings. Why? I don’t think it’s because God isn’t physically present or because our siblings are easier to love – I think it has a lot to do with the fact that God promises to love us no matter what we think, say, or do.

In fact, I think we sometimes lean on God’s promise to unconditionally love us too much – and we believe it so strongly that we take advantage of it. Dietrich Bonheoffer (theologian from WWII time period) called it ‘cheap grace.’ He didn’t mean to say that God’s grace is cheap, but that we sometimes treat it as though it’s so cheap we can use it as an excuse to live our lives as we want instead of how God intends and, more specifically, how God has called us.

Isn’t this the daily battle we face? When it comes to our children, our greatest fear is losing them. This drives us to sacrifice ourselves out of love to make sure that never happens. When it comes to our God, we are given a promise that we can never fall out of God’s favor! There is absolutely no way we can lose God’s love.

So does God’s promise make it easy to cheapen grace? Maybe it does – but maybe it also gives us a much deeper reason to become what God desires!

blessings,

Eric

We finally got the Christmas tree out.  Eric and I decided that it would be better if we got the tree out and lights strung while Noah was asleep, then have him help decorate it the next day.  So 10:00 Thursday night we started getting everything together.  No problems with the tree…but the lights on the other hand.   We had so many problems with the ones we had last year, we ditched those and bought new ones.  The problem with those you might ask?  There were 2 strands of motion lights that were the exact same brand and bought at the same time.  However they didn’t do the same motion, so trying to get the tree to look somewhat uniform was a pain in the behind.  Half of the tree would be blinking, while the other half was on the chasing setting.  So got new ones last year, no problem.  Well Tuesday night the drama of the Christmas lights continued.  Plugged in the first set and every 3rd light wasn’t working.  So began the process of finding the burnt out bulb.  Found that one without a problem, got it replaced and moved on to the next strand.  Plugged that one in and everyother light was out.   The feeling of frustration continues!  Eric went through the whole strand and couldn’t find the problem bulb.  As he was doing that, I hung the first strand of lights.  Oh well we were thinking…the bottom half of the tree will just have every other light out.  Got all the lights on and plugged it in…you wouldn’t believe what happened…the first strand started acting up again.  So now our tree had every other light all the way down not working.  The lighting is alittle pathetic but there was no way I was going to take them all off and string the lights again!

It’s nice and decorated now and can hardly tell the light situation…except those of us that know the drama of the lights   Noah surprisingly did great helping put the ornaments on.  He kept hanging everything on the same branch, but oh well…mommy moved them as he put them on

Noah also found some bell ornaments, began shaking them and singing jingle bells.   Tried to catch it on video, but can’t figure out how to put a video on here.  Check out the picture gallery for Christmas related pictures!