"You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, whose thoughts are fixed on you! - Isaiah 26:3 (NLT)

I love my wife.  I thought of this this morning when I woke up and realized how amazing she is.  She compliments me so well that I have no idea how I lived my life without her. (other than foolishly)

I love the team that I work with @ Fellowship.  They are great guys who want to see God use our church to connect and lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.  I just had lunch with 4 of the 5 and was reminded how much I love what I do.

I love my close friends.  Many of whom I can call at a moments notice if I need advice or just someone to talk to, and they are real and solid.  I won’t name them all, but you know who you are.

I love my family.  My dad and mom and sisters and extended family who have all given me solid encouragement to fall in love with God and have a good time doing it!

When you put all these people together, not in an actual physical space, but in a special place in my mind, and I begin to realize how God has blessed me in my life, and is growing me everyday by helping me get rid of the junk and see the beautiful parts of who He has made me to be – His “divine guidance” – an incredible wave of peace comes over me.

And I see that I’m right where I need to be.

I’m quite proud of my dad.

He made his town paper this last week because he travelled with a group from his church to Hong Kong to share his faith.  Here’s the big write up from December 8th.

Check out this message my dad preached at our church on November 30th.  It’s the first message on the page, and it starts (unfortunately) two minutes after it “starts”.

When was the last time you were “in the paper”?

Thanksgiving with my small group - November 20, 2008

May this holiday not only remind you of our responsibility to be thankful, but make you more thankful than you already are.  I’m thankful for:

My God.
My wife, Carie.
My church family.
My family (including my friends.).

To you, for being a part of my community.

The day is upon us.  The day that we are so thankful, we stuff ourselves silly and watch the Lions lose again.  Besides turkey…

What’s your favorite Thanksgiving food?

Today is Veterans Day.  The above pictures are two of the veterans I will celebrate today. They have been influential in my life and have given a lot for our freedom.
My grandfather (shown above with Carie, my grandma Amy, and myself), Frank Holman sailed in the Navy during WWII, and Steve MacArthur (shown here at Gillette Stadium) has been in Germany, Cuba, and Iraq during his 8 years in the US Army and the National Guard.
These guys deserve my thanks!

Who are you celebrating today?

A shameless attempt at capturing your attention.  This post is about relationships, not P.B., though I do mention it.

Occasionally things go unchecked…specifically in the form of relationships.  Stuff gets busy and next thing you know, those you love and care about the most get the shaft when it comes to time with you.
Think of all the things that need your attention:
Your spouse.
Your kids.
Your church.
Your extended family.
Your work.
Your friends.
Your finances.
Your extra curricular activities.

And by the time it’s all said and done, a lot of the time we are spread thin and time with the wife or the husband is almost non-existent. I don’t mean time as in, “Good morning honey, here’s your breakfast”or “I took the trash out, gotta run.”  I mean quality time with you and your spouse.  If you’re single, I mean quality time with the ones who you love the most and who love to pour out their lives into you.

Last night Carie and I returned home from a visit to visit Carie’s dad, and we realized we hadn’t spent enough time with just the two of us.  So I shut off my phone around 6:30 pm and we hung out, talked, watched some TV (Prison Break 3 represent), did a little cooking together, and focused on one another.  It was one of the best nights I’ve had this summer, and I’ve had several good ones.  But the truth is, we needed this time.  Busy had become a buzz word for our lives, and though I’m big on relationships, my relationship with Carie is the most important.

So how are you feeling with the status of that all-important earthly relationship?  Bring it back and check things out.  This cannot be left unchecked for long, or this is detrimental to the relationship.  Check yourself today.  When was the last time I spent good quality time with that person or those people I love the most?

You may be surprised by the answer.

To find out what to, click here for one of my favorite posts.

Last night Carie and I drove with Carie’s sister Jessica to Enfield Ct. where Carie’s dad Tom is staying for the week because of work.  We took the opportunity to go to the Olive Garden, and enjoy an amazing meal.  I was hungry.
One of the more interesting things that happened while we were there happened with Jessica.  She’s a waitress at Via’s Italian Table in Worcester, and so she’s very particular when she goes into another restaurant.  During the course of the evening, she ordered 4 different drinks (not just at Olive Garden, but also at Starbucks):
Red Wine
Bottled water
Cappacino
Cappacino

As you can imagine, her bill was up there, but on to the point of the story.
First of all, our waitress was new and there were some pretty awkward moments throughout the evening.  Like we would ask her a question and she wouldn’t know the answer (this happened several times), or we would ask her for something and she would forget (this happened two times).

I didn’t mind so much, but the last straw for Jessica was when her cappacino didn’t have any foam.  yes feel free to read that sentence again.  No Cappacino.  As you probably know, there are worse things to happen in life and we all had a laugh at the expense of Jessica because it appeared she was taking this personal.  Later on we had to go to Starbucks in order to get a real Cappacino with foam!

I write all this because it makes me think about how much I have as an American, and how I need to treat people who serve me in some way with respect.  I know I’m paying for service, but bad servers not withstanding, I need to treat everyone I come across like I would want to be treated.

Serve first, eat second.

Check out this post.

In this post, Susan commented that she “really enjoyed the discussion.”

Last night, a lady in our church got this bright idea to invite some of her friends to an inpromptu potluck grill out (aka barbeque, cookout, shindig, etc…).  This week Carie is away taking a class for AP Spanish certification (or certificacion, if you please), and so I popped over to the house of the fam having the grill out and we had a great time eating and chatting and enjoying one another’s company.  Four or five families took the family up on her offer and community was built – just like that.

Now in the process, Susan shared something that was she was going to be going through on Thursday and it led to this pretty intense, 2008 style discussion where everyone chimed in and gave their opinion (their were a wide variety of opinions by the way) using Scripture, real life circumstances, and stories of what people around us have gone through considering this subject.

In the end, I was able to see about 4 different opinions to a really hard topic and appreciate why several people in my church think and believe certain things about life.  And I wonder what would happen if more people decided to give away their nights to a community of friends and acquaintences in an effort to get to know people more, rather than sitting in front of a tv or working on the lawn. (2 things I didn’t say in this statement:  1.  Sitting in front of a tv is wrong.  2.  Working on the lawn is wrong.  Thank you)  Would our lives change for the better or worse?  Would you feel stifled with too much community or could you use a bit more, even with your friends?

Would you, like me, feel stuffed like Thanksgiving after 2 pieces of chicken and an interesting couscous dish?

So I’d like to thank my friends (4 different life groups in our church represented) who took a step with me and in the spur of the moment decided they could use a night with friends.  I sure could because I miss Carie a lot!

This post was specifically written for Randy Elrod’s Watercooler Wednesday!

This weekend my wonderful wife Carie turns another year older.  I’ll let you say “happy birthday” to her and allow her to reveal her age if she wishes.  But I will say this:  She is remarkable and I love spending each day of my life married to her!

Happy Birthday Carie Marie Holman!
Your turn.

I’m writing today because tomorrow Carie and I will be away for a day celebrating our anniversary.  So please try to write comments on all my other blogs I’ve written over the last 8 months.  I’m skipping lunch for this post.

Yesterday I was going to meet my beautiful wife for dinner because she had to stay at school for a late meeting.  The penalty of this is that I have to meet her half way at Barbers Crossing in Sterling, MA.  Yummy! 

So on the way there, I received a call from Clay, who told me about this amazing opportunity he was doing to put up a new web site and blog – one that I think might become famous over the next few months.  He was pumped about it, and quite frankly I don’t blame him. He then made me pumped when he told me that his family would be visiting the Holmans in Massachusetts in late July.  So when the site officially goes up, I will share it here at martyholman.com, even though Jeff is not going to like it very much.

Next Brandon called me from texas.  Brandon was also in my wedding (Clay was the best man) and served with me here at the FC for a number of years.  It has always been Brandon’s dream to work at a church full time, and leave it up to him to fulfill that dream in a big way!  He was on cloud 9 when we talked and I am so happy for him.  he really has worked hard to be a good leader in the church.  A shout out to the Whittalls please!

Next I called up Lonnie, my former lead pastor, who was also jumping from the rafters” (is that a quote?).  He told me about a message he preached at his church, and the fruit of the message was that several people commited themselves to following Christ and be baptized. Since this is one of the main things the church should be doing, I celebrated with him.  He also told me my uncle (his pastor now) told him it was “the best evangelistic message I have ever heard preached.”  I’m guessing that after 30 years of ministry that’s saying a little something.

I am proud to call each of these guys my close friends, and think that as a community we should celebrate with them, so on the count of 3:  1…..2….

3!