When my daughter was little, I took her on a company-paid trip to the Bahamas. My wife had to work and I had won a trip as a sales incentive, so Shelly and Daddy hit the road together. It was fun. We built lots of great memories until the day the elevator broke. Actually, that was a good day also, but it started on a scary note. The elevator had been acting funny for a couple of days when suddenly, it stopped between floors. We waited and buzzed the buzzer, but to no avail. Despite my fervent prayers, I felt claustrophobia setting in. Still, I tried to remain calm to keep my daughter from freaking-out. After a few minutes, I pushed the door open to see where we were and noticed that the floo

As kids, we loved the local carnival. It came to town once a year in July and it was a true highlight in our lives. It had all the classic rides and attractions including a house of mirrors. I remember the house of mirrors because one day I decided to harass my cousin Wade by pretending to attack him when he, my other cousin Tom, and I were the only ones in the place. In case you’ve never been in one of these, you walk through a maze and are surrounded by mirrors each step of the way. Some are normal mirror images and other are distorted. But because you are looking at yourself and others all around you, it’s easy to get disoriented. You typically see dozens of images of the others in the ma

I remember visiting my Father in law in Canada and having a "boating mishap." We were launching the boat at the lake and it seemed to be taking on water. We bailed and bailed and bailed...only to find that we weren't keeping up with what seemed like a significant leak. We pulled it back up on shore and found the problem. It wasn't a leak...it was an error. We had left the plug out at the back of the boat near the outboard motor. It floated much better once we put that plug back in. We felt silly, but relieved that it wasn't something more serious. I was thinking about this recently because of the expression, "What floats your boat?" We ask this of people to find out what motivates them to t

An annual source of neighborhood entertainment, my exterior decorating ritual is a laugh a minute. Neighbors line up chairs or just peer through their living room windows to see me hang off the ladder, sometimes fall off the ladder, get tangled in chords, etc. Of course I typically pick the coldest day of the year. It’s often raining or icing with wind gusts of over 50 MPH preferred. The coup de grace is when I flip the switch and, inevitably, one section of the hundreds of lights I’ve strung goes dark. Then it’s the disassembly process and reconfiguration nightmare trying to find out why those particular lights don’t work. Ultimately, I’ll often stuff that section in the gutter and restrin

One of my favorite childhood memories goes back to when I was only 3-4 years old. I used to get up, grab a blanket, and curl-up next to the shower tub while my dad was having a hot morning shower. We had a space heater in the bathroom so I’d have that on one side of me and the steam from the shower on the other. Wrapped in the blanket, I felt warm, safe, secure…it was awesome. Sometimes, I’d fall asleep again only to wake up when my Dad shut off the water. It was a safe place, a secure place, a place where I felt close to my Father. Interestingly, I now find that when I'm stressed or worried, the shower is my personal sanctuary. It's where I instinctively go to pray and listen for God's voic