It is so clear

Sometimes god seems like he is far away or distant from you. Sometimes god seems so close to you that you can feel him. No matter how far or near god seems he is always with you. That happened to me the morning of December 26. You see my wife and I had our daughter, Josephine Noelle Cook, born at 3:25 a.m. the day after Christmas. Baby and mommy are healthy and happy. We consider Josephine as our Christmas present from god. That is why she has the middle name Noelle. Christine and I are in our forties and didn't plan on having children. We both have also been married before and didn't think we would do that again. As we know, it is not what we have planned for our lives, it is what god has planned for us. He has blessed us in so many ways and I want to thank him. It is a good thing that we have a patient god, just like a good father, because he needed a lot of patience with me. As I said before, sometimes god is so close to you that you can feel his breath. After Josephine was born and mommy and her were resting I went home. When I got into my car the song the first noel was playing on the radio. At that moment I knew Josephine Noelle Cook is part of his plan and what a blessing he gives us. I sat and cried and thanked my father god for the awesome Christmas present he has given our family. The gift of life.

After The Storm

The North East coast got hit by Blizzard "Albert" this weekend. It didn't start snowing until after dark. Our children anticipated the storm all day on Saturday. They had both fallen asleep before the snow started flying. It was very windy and stormy throughout the night. No matter how hard the wind whistled or the snow blew it did not wake them. It was as if they were being watched over. They looked like little angels in their beds. Imagine their amazement when they woke up and saw a foot of freshly fallen snow on the ground. They were very patient in waiting until the snowstorm stopped. We got out of the house in the early afternoon to go out and play. What a ball they had. We had a snowball fight and went sledding around the yard. The kids made snow angels. After we finished playing we came inside and had hot chocolate together as a family. It was as if all the waiting made things that much better.

The Ginger Bread House That Never Was

Well, another great weekend we spent time as a family trying to build a Gingerbread house. Oh Boy!!! It all started Friday night when we tried to put together a kit house. The kids helped getting the gingerbread walls and roof all ready while I worked on the frosting that was supposed to work like cement. You probably already guesed, when we put the house together it did not stay together. It was like a house built with no foundation. As soon as we took our hands off the walls they fell like a brick. So I decided we could keep them together with toothpicks. Toothpicks don't work when the gingerbread walls are like cinderblocks. Everytime I got the toothpick in a little bit it broke off. So we decided we would look up a gingerbread recipe and bake our own walls and roof. It smelled good when it came out of the oven but, when we went to pick up the gingerbread panels they fell apart. The kids did enjoy eating it with milk. When all was said and done the gingerbread house never got built, but as a family we had a lot of fun.

The Wisdom and Love of a Four Year Old

I think I may have learned something from my four year old son this weekend. My son, Landon, told me on Friday that he loved me more than God loves me. We play a game by telling each other how much we love one another. It usually starts with me telling him I love him to the moon and back and then he tells me he loves me all around the earth. He must have been thinking things through while he was at his mothers for the week, because of the bat he told me he loved me more than god loves me. All weekend I explained to him that no one can love more than god loves us. I thought he understood, until it was almost time for him and his sister to go back to their mother's. He told me Daddy, I still love you more than god does. Thinking about that I learned that maybe we should love each other like God loves us. Through the eyes of a four year old.

Happy Holiday's what happened to Merry Christmas

Thanksgiving is over let the holiday rush begin. I had another article accepted and published on Ezine Articles. During Thanksgiving dinner with my family I got to thinking how blessed I am and what the holidays are really about. I contemplated on how life was like the day after 9/11 and that is where the idea for this article came from. We really came together as a nation on that day, I am sure there wasn't a church with an empty seat on Sunday. This brings me to the holidays. One thing that bothers me is how we greet each other during the holidays. I understand most people don't know what you celebrate, whether you are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or any other kind of religion out there. I am a Christian, Christmas is the celebration of the birth of my savior, Jesus Christ. I hope you don't get offended when I say Merry Christmas. I won't get offended if you say Happy Chanuka or Happy Kwanza. I probably will invite you to church on Sunday with me though.

Merry Christmas and God Bless

Jon and Christine Cook

ThanksGiving

Today is Thanksgiving. Like many Americans I woke up very early to get the turkey in the oven. I started my day at 5:30. It was quiet this morning as, my wife, Christine got to sleep a little. I am so glad for this because she is eight and a half months pregnant. I was teasing hear that I thought she had the turkey in her belly. She teased me right back. I think it is important in a marraige to have humor with each other. Anyways, I digress. This Thanksgiving my four year old, landon and my six year old, Elizabeth are at their mothers. We are going to pick them up around 4:00 so that is when we will have our thanksgiving dinner as a family. It was 24 years ago today that I had my last dinner with my family in the house I grew up in. The day after Thanksgiving, twenty four years ago, we woke up to smoke in the house. The stove, from cooking turkey the day before, had short circuited and caused the house to burn down. Me, being a typical 17 year old, was devastated at what we had lost. My father was thankful that our family had made it out alive and we were well. It was a lesson that took me some time to learn. It is not our material things that, although nice to have, we should give thanks to god for. We should thank him for our health, freedom, family, to be able to love and be loved, and most importantly for having him. lord, on this day and every day let me thank you for all that you have given me and my family. Amen.

What God Gives You

I never thought at the age of 41 I would be a daddy again. But that is what the lord is giving us. When I think about how much joy my daughter and son have given me, I realize what a blessing god is putting on our plate. I also never thought I would be building a website, especially a Christian website. It is a lot of work, more than I thought it would be. But that is one of the jobs the lord has given me to do. If My Bros Got My Back Brings just one person closer to him it will be all worth it. I am in the process of building pages for Christian churches by state so that if someone is looking for a place to worship in their area they can find it. I have been going to the library a lot and must have 5 or six different books on building websites and creating blogs. The library is such a great place to find information. On the weekends I usually bring the kids with me and they do enjoy it so. I always loved to read and am hoping they take after me in this aspect. If anyone has a Christian church with a website by all means forward it to me and I will add it to the directory. Thank you and Bless you. Jon and Christine Cook

Old Cedar Chest

The other morning I was looking at a cedar chest my father had made me that was in my daughter's room. It is over twenty years old and the cedar lining on the inside still smells fresh. The ceder on the inside is about 1/8" thick. Most people don't realize cedar chests are usually only lined with a thin layer of the cedar wood because of the cost of the boards. Also, when building a cedar chest or closest you don't coat the wood with any preservatives like a urethane. The wood needs to breathe, this is how you get the pungent smell of the cedar.

My dad made the outer part of the chest of pine boards from our camp we had in Deer field Massachusetts. when I was a kid. He cut down the pine trees himself and had them made into boards at the local saw mill. I can remember, at our camp, him cutting the trees down and the great crashing sound they made when they landed on the forest floor. The road to our camp was a long dirt road with allot of potholes and boulders sticking out here and there. He had to have a cherry-picker come to pick up the logs to bring them to the sawmill. For those of you that don't know what a cherry picker is, it is a big truck that has sort of a grappling arm on it to pull the trees out and stack them on the trailer. Finally when the logs arrived at the saw mill I got to watch them cut the lumber lengthwise. What a thrill for a 10 year old boy. The smell of the different kinds of fresh cut trees is something I remember each fall when you can here chainsaws running. Finally, my dad, brought the fresh cut lumber home. We have a barn at my moms house where he planed the pine boards, sanded them down, and made a fine piece of pine furniture.

I would like to pass it on to one of the kids when they get older and have them pass it on to one of theirs. I will tell the story to them about how their grandfather, by hand made that cedar chest. Every family should have a piece of heirloom furniture, something that is haded down from generation to generation. I think it will be all the more touching and special that my great grand children will know their great, great, grand father made this cut the trees down, pulled them out of the woods, had them rough cut at a sawmill, planed them himself and built this chest with allot of hard work, determination, and love.

I know if the cedar ever loses its smell all you have to do is sand it down and it will come right back. The outside of the pine board part of the chest is scarred and nicked from years of use. It has been moved from house to house, upstairs, downstairs. It is fairly large so not only did it get banged around from moving it, it also put a couple holes in some walls. I know I can sand it down and refinish the pine very easily to make it look new. But, I think I will leave it the way it is.

It reminds me of my father, a little nicked and scarred from years of use, Been banged around a bit, but the best father a son could ever have had.

New Blog Site

This is our first blog for our Christian website www.mybrosgotmyback.com.

We are new at blogging so we pray you bear with us.

Thursday night Christine was coughing bad and had an earache, so I took her to the hospital. By the way I should tell you that my wife, Christine, is 33 weeks pregnant, so we are watching her and our baby's health closely. The doctor's office was already closed, as is the usual case when you get sick. Kind of like always getting the excruciating toothache in the middle of the night on the weekend or a holiday when you can't find a dentist that is open and your diet will have to consist of aspirin and ambesol until Monday morning.

We get to the hospital and they make Christine wear a face mask like she has Sars or the Swine Flu. Every one in the hospital is looking behind their shoulders at this beautiful pregnant woman with a mask on, probably wondering if they should stay away or ask if she is alright.

I was amazed, usually when you go to the hospital it is at least a two hour wait just to fill out the insurance papers. We were in and out with a prescription for an ear infection in less than 45 minutes. Thank you to the professional people at the Middle town hospital and Jesus of course.

This brings me to the focus of our Christian website we are developing together.

Although having an earache and getting it diagnosed and treated for some may not seem like an act of god, to us it is.

On the way home we gave thanks that Christine is going to feel better and be healthy along with our daughter on the way. We know Jesus is their for us all the time. He is our brother, and he has our back for big things, like guiding us to him in times of despair, to healing an earache.

We also believe that it should be fun to be a Christian. I always make sure to let god know when I am going to church to get his earplugs in. This is because my singing is not the best in the world. But he knows that already, just like he knows everything else. So, I think he he just laughs it off.

Anyways, I have my daughter and son for the weekend. My son. Landon, woke up at 5:30and wants to play Mario Kart with daddy, That's another story I will save for another day.


Thank you for following our blog and if you would like to check out our Christian website it is www.mybrosgotmyback.com. Please understand we are just starting to develop it so the lay out and graphics are not the best yet, but in gods time it will get there.

Thank you and bless you.

Jon and Christine Cook