Truth and Grace Above All Else

Precision counts Making of a masterpiece...sort of About a year ago I was talking with one of my cousins about what he was doing those days. Somehow we got on the topic of hobbies and what hobby he was investing the most time in recently. We discussed a couple different things until he brought up something that caught my attention: precision spinning tops. These are not your ten cents spinning tops that you get at the arcade though, no, these are works of art in their own right. These tops will spin for upwards of fifteen minutes and some go even longer then that. I asked my cousin what it cost to acquire such a precisely made piece of art. He kind of chuckled and told me that most of these tops go for a few hundred dollars each. My mouth fell agape and I thought, "How in the world can someone justify spending that much on what is the equivalent of the adult version of what you owned as a child?". I was hooked though. I wanted to learn more about these simple yet elega...

Under Water Sharks in the water If you were to ask my mom how much I enjoy being in the water, she would say something to the effect of, "He is a fish.". Needless to say, I love swimming and being in the water on a hot summer day. I loved the water so much that one time I spent a little to much time in my backyard pool one afternoon. I ended up with a lobster red back and could not sleep on my back for two days. That was not fun, but that is not the story I came here to tell you today. The story that I want to tell you is about how my innocent game of playing a shark nearly ended tragically.  During my teenage years, I took every opportunity to go on little trips with my church's youth group. One of my favorite trips during the end of the summer was going to a water park for the day. Being the fish that I am, this was a blast for me. It also let me release my inner kid while I was splashing friends left and right. As a group, we would typically go on the wat...