Last night was Childress’ Jingle Bell 5k run. Thirty-eight people showed up to run. About a month ago, I told my friend Kirby that I thought it would be fun to run the race in a Santa suit. He told me if I’d do the Santa suit, he’d dress up like an elf.

The coolest part was during the run there were kids screaming as I ran by, “MOM, SANTA CLAUS JUST RAN BY OUR HOUSE!” I don’t know how many times I hollered “Merry Christmas” and “Ho Ho Ho,” but it was quite a few. One driver who didn’t yield to me and made me stop, made my naughty list.

It was a fun run that I didn’t take to serious when it came to how fast I finished. I do have a new appreciation for the Big Guy in the red suit that somehow delivers presents to everyone in the world’s hottest suit!

Here are a couple of pictures. You can find more info and pictures here and here.

(Pre-race) Kirby was the biggest elf anyone had ever seen.

(Post-race) Q, myself and Ryan. I was SO glad to take that beard off. I could finally breath!

I have fond memories of Thanksgivings long ago. Here are 3 things I remember when I was a kid…

• Smelling the food cooking all day and thinking, “Are we EVER going to get to eat?”

• I DO NOT like giblet gravy or pumpkin pie, but I LOVE cranberry sauce. As a kid, Thanksgiving was the only time of year that I was allowed to put a HUGE glob of sugary jelly on my plate, then eat it with a fork and no one gave me flack about it? That, I thought, was a great reason to give thanks.

• And finally, Thanksgiving meant the start of the Christmas season. We could beg mom all we wanted, but the tree didn’t go up until after Thanksgiving.

I’d love to know, what do you remember about the Thanksgivings you had as a child?

We got to put the tree up early this past weekend because Taylor was home. YEA!

“Marriage should be honored by everyone, and husband and wife should keep their marriage pure…” Hebrews 13:4

Most of the time I write a post, I get some comments and a few days later the post is forgotten. But, there are times when you touch a nerve on a topic and the post seems to grow and take a life of it’s own.

Over a month ago I did a post on “Men and Sex” and how husband’s deal with sexual temptation. I talked about how important it is that wives help in fulfilling their husband’s sexual needs and how pornography is unhealthy in marriage. That post still continues to get tons of daily visitors and it also continues to get comments, something that usually doesn’t happen with old posts.

The biggest nerve that I touched with that post is the idea that pornography in marriage is unhealthy. For the past 4 weeks my email inbox has been full of letters from people who have had their marriages damaged by pornography. I was asked by the writer of the following email to please share with others her story about the dangers of pornography in marriage. Here it is …

Trey,

I just want to say thank you for your recent posts on pornography. I greatly appreciate the woman in your most recent post on this subject, without even trying she has encouraged me to stand and not be afraid to speak out against it.

Thank you for the insightful posts you put on your blog. I appreciate the view point you provide your readers.

(Comment of the Day: Charlie said…
I ve been there and Ill never go back!!! I have had it in my marriage and it nearly destroyed my life and a marriage for 10 years . If you really call yourself a man,a husband, a father,most of all CHRISTIAN then you need to stop ,before it destroys your soul .Think about how it affects our children,if you have daughters like I do , those girls involved in porn, they are someone’s else’s daughters. And our sons, they treat women based on our example. Where’s our integrity?Great post!!

I was tagged to share some “eights” about myself. So, here you go: 8 Favorite TV Shows: SportCenter Survivor CSI – Las Vegas Dallas Cowboys Football & Texas Rangers Baseball Amazing Race America’s Funniest Videos Spongebob Squarepants Seinfeld reruns 8 Favorite Restaurants: Taco Villa Der Wienerschnitzel Saltgrass Tacos Garcia Anything Chinese Vinson Cafe Carinos Anyplace [...]

Taylor came home last night for Thanksgiving break. It was sure good to see my kid. We’re excited that he’s going to be around the next 9 days. Besides bringing 52 loads of dirty laundry for his mother, he also brought another AIMer with him that wasn’t going to be able to go home because [...]

You may be thinking that my life as a minister is pretty dull, but I have to tell you, you’re way off on that thought. It can be a roller-coaster thrill ride at times. It’s the little things that take place every day that make it exciting. Here’s an example… A while back, I went [...]

I try to make the local nursing home a stop for me on Monday’s. The people in the home are beautiful people, but my heart always hurts for them. They’ve reached a point in their life that they can no longer live by themselves and must have someone else take care of them. Yesterday I [...]

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Many think because of my position as a minister that I never struggle with the common things they struggle with. Somehow many believe ministers are spiritual super-beings who can defeat Satan with their mighty sermons and bible knowledge. Let me set those people straight. I am no spiritual superhero. I am not exempt from the [...]

WHAT I LEARNED… This course provided two of the biggest hills I’ve ever seen in my entire life. These were Mount Sinai sized hills. I’m thrilled they put off the start time until 9 a.m. to give it time to warm up. It was just above freezing when the race started. I was excited to [...]

Two words: Painfully realistic! (Comment of the Day: Anonymous said… “There was a lot of truth to that spot. Especially the part about drawing attention to new comers and making then fill out all the paperwork. My wife and I will never fill out those visiter cards because if we don’t like the message the [...]

I still remember the day Cooper learned to climb up on the top bunk of the bunk-beds all by himself. I had rounded the corner and there he sat, grinning from ear to ear. “How did you get up there?” I asked him. I believe his answer was, “I climbeded.” I reminded him he wasn’t [...]

Here are some of my favorite quotes from other bloggers who have tried to sum up last night’s presidential election… My son kind of stunned me with this thought: “Just think, Daddy, it was only 50 years ago that black people weren’t even allowed to vote in some places.” Whatever you think of Barack Obama’s [...]

Why is it that when I pull into the drive up at the bank I get behind the person who is slower than molasses going uphill in January? Just recently I pulled in behind a person who was obviously trying to refinance his home through the drive up window. That little drawer went in and [...]

I’ve got to have an anatomy discussion with my 7 year old son. He told me a couple of nights ago when his stomach was hurting, “Dad, it’ll be okay, it’s just my ovaries.” I didn’t know he even knew the word “ovaries.” It’s been a few weeks since we’ve seen Taylor, our oldest. He’d [...]

I am a man and I love it. I don’t wear pink. I don’t own a sweater vest. I don’t listen to Clay Aiken, and I don’t like to chit-chat on the phone. I am a man. I love the smell of diesel, the smell of a new set of tires and the smell of [...]

Halloween was a big event around my house when I was a kid. It meant two things: dressing up to get candy and Christmas was right around the corner. We didn’t get a lot of candy growing up, so we couldn’t wait to start knocking on doors in the neighborhood. When it came to costumes [...]

Holy Smokes, did this ever hit home!!!

Nothing is funnier to me that being able to laugh at yourself or what you do. I have an arsenal of preacher jokes, but here is one of the ones that is at the top of my favorites list… Three ministers and their wives were on a cruise. A tidal wave came up and swamped [...]

I laughed and laughed when I saw this… In case you forgot, “this” was the original.

Last week I did a post on “Sex and Men,” (read it here) and the difficulties of staying pure in your marriage. While the post dealt more about men staying pure, a nerve was touched when I mentioned pornography in marriage. I received countless emails from people shouting the dangers of pornography in marriage from [...]

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God has put me in some sticky situations that have left me a little concerned about my life … I’ve ridden public transportation in a foreign country. I’ve had military police with machine guns, in a foreign country, board my bus to find out who I was. I’ve run at night through parts of Mexico [...]

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Big news story, “Pastors to Preach Politics from the Pulpit.” Me? I’ll be preaching Christ this Sunday!

Here are a few things I found really interesting this week. Click on the “this” to check them out. This was a great article on Men and Sex! Ever wonder which Presidential candidates are the best and worst charitable givers? Me too, you might find “this” interesting. I know I did. Pornography brings in more [...]