Blessings {3 of 3}

December 11, 2009

When our youngest daughter was born we were concerned about her squeaky voice. We asked the doctors, a couple of different pediatricians as we moved from Tx to Wi. Every time we asked about it, we got the same answer, “nothing is wrong, she just needs to grow into it.”

Then at her 4 year check up earlier this year, our family doctor said, “well her pronunciation is a little less than I would like. Let’s schedule a few speech therapy sessions.”   At the first speech therapy session the therapist made some interesting statements and requested that we see a ENT. After a few days we saw the ENT and the speech therapist concerns were confirmed.

She had a completely paralyzed right vocal cord, and it was causing some polyps on the left side. The paralyzed vocal cord is what caused her muffled or squeaky voice, and the polyps make pronunciation of words difficult. The doctor said with some therapy we can make the 1 cord strong enough to make up for the problem, and maybe over time (long time — maybe years) the paralyzed side could gain some strength.

After 6 weeks of therapy the ENT reevaluated my daughter and was concerned not much progress had been made. Some improvement, but not the desired strengthening of the good vocal cord. So we rescheduled out another 6 weeks. During that 6 week period my daughter was only able to see the therapist 2 times due to issues arising on both sides of the fence, the therapist and our family happenings (birth of a third child).

So the other day, my daughter and I ventured into the ENT’s office. After a brief wait and discussion, he wanted to scope her throat again. She was a trooper and did all the things he asked while having a tub and camera stuck through her nose and down into her throat. When he got done, he asked if he could go look at his charts and if I minded waiting. Of course, I said no problem and waiting patiently for a few moments.

When he came back, he said, “I had to go look at my chart, because I wanted to make sure I looked at the correct vocal cord. The right one was the paralyzed cord, and I had hoped over years it would be corrected. The vocal cord has full function and is working as if there had never been any damage at all! In addition, there are no polyps on either cord!

He also said he was amazed at the quality of her voice, and that no more visits with him or therapy required! Praise God! Not only that, but many people have been mentioning how much better her voice sounds. I personally believe she was healed, because of her recent passion to worship God in singing on Sundays and around the house all week. She loves to worship and sing, and I believe God honored that passion with a full restoration.

The doctor did say that there was no medical reason for the improvement!

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Blessings {2 of 3}

December 8, 2009

Saturday Morning I got up early and ran up to the church building to make sure the part I ordered for my wireless microphone fixed the problem, and set up a Christmas tree.

While I was there, I decided to spend sometime in prayer for our service on Sunday morning. During that time I recorded myself to test our new recording system {which worked amazingly}. Once I was done I got everything cleaned up and ready to go.

While I was setting up and cleaning up, before and after my prayer time, I had been listening to a new jazz CD I purchased Friday night called, “Sunrise” by Helen Exner.  So as I was leaving I threw everything in the car and said out loud. God I wish I could listen to this CD in the van. I wish this stupid thing (CD player in Van) worked. So I reached over and hit the eject button.

Flash back: It was a snowy December evening in 2006, and the family was leaving a white elephant gift exchange. While at the party someone gave me a CD that I wanted to listen to on the way home. I jumped in the car, after getting the kids situated and shoved the CD in the player. What I did not do is take the CD out that was already in there. From that point on the CD player would not play, would not eject, and honestly made no noise whatsoever.

Present day: So I reached over and hit the eject button, I did it out of futility and not hope or expectation. Something happened at that moment that was so unexpected, it shocked me. The CD player made a grinding noise, and suddenly the CD popped out.  To say that I was shocked, would be an understatement. I was astonished and immediately praised God for such a simple blessing.

The rest of the weekend, I drove around and listened to CD’s in the car with great joy! Ashlee was also astonished, and said “what did you finally hit that button enough times?” “NO” I said, “I told God I wished the stupid thing would work, and you know what, He was concerned with the little thing that was bothering me.” For some reason today, he chose to do something about it!

Ever had anything that was not a major concern or a make it or break it need that God choose to answer at an unexpected time? If you do, please share with us in the comments.

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Blessings {1 of 3}

December 7, 2009

Well this week I wanted to share a few things that have been amazing blessings in our family! I will post all three of them this week.

On Monday night we decided it was time for the kiddos to head off to bed. So they ran to brush teeth, get PJs on, and then scuttled across the stairs to their bedroom. After a few moments of discussion it was decided that my wife would tuck them in, since I was holding the new baby. {Usually, I tuck them in}

My wife came back to the living room after being gone for a little while saying that the kids room smelled a little odd. I said, I would check on in a few moments. One thing led to another and it was finally time for bed around midnight. Needless to say, I never went and checked on the girls.

My wife went down with the little one while I washed a couple of items to bring down for bed. That is when my wife called out, “Kevin, you might want to come down here.” “In a minute babe” was my response. “I think you should come NOW!” called Ashlee. So I went running down the stairs, skipping the last couple. When I got down there, my wife said she smelt the same smell in the laundry room, but no longer in he kids room. So I smelled around, checked somethings out with no luck of smelling or seeing anything.

After a few moments of web research I found our electric company’s 24-hour hot-line. My wife kept saying it smelled like propane when she thought about it. So we decided we better get it checked out. Around 1 AM the technician rolled into the driveway, and boy, he did not look all that happy!

When he came in, he was very polite and asked what we were concerned about. He slowly made his way around my girls room and laundry room with a machine that I could only describe as the PKE (Psycho Kinetic Energy) Meter that Kenner carried around in the GHOSTBUSTERS Movie.

He said, I am not getting much, until he leaned over by the hot water heater, and BOOM. The thing went off and sounded like the tornado siren was in my laundry room! The thing started flashing red, buzzing, chiming, and all kinds of stuff. He slowly stepped back and with the most Kenner look of seriousness {sorry if you have never seen Ghostbusters} said, “you’re going to have to get that fixed.”

My first reaction. “DUH, I kind of figured that one out!” Of course, I did not say that though, I said, “Man, I am so glad you came.” “I am too, let me go to my truck I will be right back, ” he said as he ran up the stairs. Fifteen minutes later he returned with good and bad news.

“The good news is that your pipes need replaced alone with the valves and since I have no other calls and it is 2 AM, I am going to fix them. You normally would have to have an emergency call, but I am up and no reason to wake someone else up. The bad news is that the line outside also has a leak. So I will replace that one too!” he said almost excitedly.

He worked, and worked for the next two hours. Finally, finishing around 4:15. He brought in cookies & a cook book (no kidding) as a thank you for me ALLOWING him to FIX my problem. {Can you say, I was very THANKFUL!} Then he explained that all the pipes in our house was not replaced and resealed, as well as the ones outside. When discussing with him, the WE Energies guys are not supposed to do this type of work, due to volume, and taking work away from contractors. The work he did on our house was around $1000 worth of work. He cleaned and inspected parts on the heater, replaced the pipes outside, painted the pipes to coordinate and protect them, then he replaced all the pipes and valves on the inside of my house. Not to mention the cost of an overnight emergency call to a technician.

So all in all, our house is not going to blow up, our heater is clean and efficient, and all pipes are repaired. Final outcome, that weird smell my wife kept smelling is no longer a problem in the house!

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Transitions 3 of 3

November 25, 2009

Over the past month I have been sharing about transitions in our life. The reality that we must understand is that change happens every single day in our lives. That change is situational, and affects in many ways. Transitions however is the inner process of how we deal with the change.

The one change that has happened recently in my life, that has definitely affected my daily life is the birth of our first son! The little man as I find myself calling him often is my third child. I have two daughters who are wonderful, smart, a great joy, and inspiring. With that said, adding a third child to our home has impacted it in a profound way!

The change begin to occur with the surprise that my wife was pregnant (read more here).  Then on Friday, November 13th, my wife gave birth to our little one. The change definitely created a new situation in our house. We had not had diapers or formula for a couple of years, and now we have those items upstairs and downstairs, in the car, and in a bag to carry around.

The situation changed, but now we are in the midst of transition. We are trying to balance spending time taking care of our newborn, and spending time with our two older girls. Making sure that we keep all the baby items clean, and allowing our girls feel like they are participating in caring for him. For those of you with multiple kids, you will understand this change, for those of you who were like me before, I did not. Honestly, I thought I got it, but having the 2nd made me understand the difference in dealing with multiples over a single child. It did not prepare me for the age gap that our children are now. It is a blessing, but it definitely is requiring a transition.

This change and transition, I welcome as a major BLESSING!

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Transitions {2 of 3}

November 17, 2009

Over the last couple of weeks I have been sharing about the various transitions going on in my life. Today I want to share a little about my personal transitions.

1. The largest transition was the birth of our new baby boy! Our son was born this past Friday, and it has already transitioned several things in our home. More will come I am sure, as our family continues to transition to having a baby in the house, and a boy at that!

2. The other major transition in my personal life is the GYM!

I know what many of you maybe thinking: “The last thing I want to hear about is another loosing weight or working out”. In reality that is not what I want to talk about.  My goal is to lose weight, and my goals are to be healthier for my 3 children and my beautiful wife! The reason I wanted to share about this transition in my life is because it has begun to transform many of my views about my health, my ability to accomplish my goals, and what I am going to do about it.

You see for years I was frustrated with my health situation, and finally God asked me a life changing question one morning while I was praying about it.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING ABOUT IT?” — You see that question can be applied to so many areas of our lives. I realized that for years I complained about it, and talked about it with people, yet I was doing nothing about it!  So the GYM for me has been about doing something about the areas of my life that I was frustrated with, and taking the outcomes into my own hands.

The last thing I wanted to make a statement about is that heading the GYM has made me feel great! I absolutely love the feeling of getting a hard workout in, then showering and getting ready for my day. My attitude is better, my energy is up, and my outlook is a little lighter. The unfortunate result is I find myself being tired earlier in the evening, however that is probably a good thing too!

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More Transitions {1 of 3}

November 10, 2009

As I mentioned last week in my blog transitions I have been pondering, studying, and seeking God on the many transitions in my life.

Here are few more insights into what I have done:

1. Preaching: How can I transition my preaching so that I honor God, and I honor all those men who have gone before me that I have the privilege of proclaiming the Word of God!

1.a. What is my purpose in preaching each week?

One way that I addressed the 1. was through attending a Summit Ministries International conference in October called “Preaching the Word with Power and Anointing”. It was an amazing opportunity to hear some domestic and international leaders speak on the art, opportunity, and reverence of preaching.

In addition, I have began planning and preparing a preaching calendar well in advance, got 2010 done {praying over it}, and working on graphics, props, and media support for those already. This will allow me and our worship team to be more creative in our approach and give the presentation of the Gospel the preparation, respect, and admiration that it deserves.

That brings me to 1.a.
I really prayed and focused on why am I preaching week after week. I finally determined that the reason I am preaching each week is to help grow healthy believers who are passionately seeking and nurturing a relationship with Jesus Christ and becoming more Kingdom minded believers. This reason includes introducing unbelivears, unchurched, and dechurched to the freedom that comes with living in the Kingdom. A secondary, yet vitally important part of my preaching includes preparing and training up the saints for the work of ministry.

One of the things, I have been working on for a couple of months, and feel I am finally beginning to start being effective is giving away those things that others can do, and probably do better than I do.

This weekend, for the first time ever, I showed up to pray, worship, and preach then simply went home. I did no set-up, no prep work, and no clean up or tear down. It was freeing moment for me.

If your asking why I mention this on my blog, I just thought it might share a little insight into how important I find our weekly time together at Overflow.

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Transitions

November 3, 2009

Over the last several weeks God has really been speaking to me about transitions.  As I began to process the things in which Father was speaking to me, I began to realize that transition was happening all around me. Our family, our church, and many ways with me personally.

Our family:

My wife is due with our third child in one week from today. Our youngest has been out of diapers for a couple of years, so this will definitely be a major transitions. Diapers and formula will once again be common place in my home. This is a major transition.

Our Church:

Since October began our churches changes have kept pace with falling of leaves here in Wisconsin.  Earlier this month I attended the SMI Conference Summit Ministries International Leadership Conference in Lubbock, Texas. The conference was on Preaching the Word with power and anointing. It was an amazing conference that not only confirmed several of the transitions that God has been laying on my heart, but it also ignited a fire for a new level of creativity and ingenuity.

Through processing the things I learned and gleaned from that conference our church is in the process of transitioning how we handle several processes. We are looking at how our presentation software is used in our services, how our Life Group guides are distributed and followed up on. I have been working on my preaching by transitioning my preparation process and my format/style.

There are more transitions that we are working on, and those of you who are Overflowers will get to see them in the coming weeks.

Personally:

In many ways this the hardest of the three to deal with and make sure the transition is smooth. In early October I joined a local gym and have been working our regularly for almost a month now. The working out is wonderful, and I love the refreshed feeling that I have as I head to the office.

In addition, to working out I have focused on my eating. I am by no means perfect, but the 5 fruits & vegetables in addition to watching the amount I eat. I am eating about 50% less than I did 6 to 8 weeks ago.

Those are the MAJOR transitions in my life right now, any new ones in your life?

P.S. my blog is now at kevinjbradford.com

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5 things I wish I had known when I got married!

May 11, 2009

# 5 I wish my new wife and I had known to check our baggage at the church before we got married!

Some of you maybe thinking, what is he talking about? The truth is that each one of us enters every new relationship with baggage. We have past hurts, past victories, past activities, and many other items that create baggage.

When we enter that relationship sometimes we treat or react to the new relationship based on baggage from the previous situation or relationship. My wife and I both had baggage.

I am going to be honest with you! We did not have a lot baggage that was too severe, but what we did have made for a few rough times in our first couple of years of marriage. She would act or react based on past experiences, and I would do the same. One of the areas of my baggage dealt with my parents relationship and how I perceived at times the marriage relationship should be dealt with.

Please hear me on this, I am not saying that my parents relationship was bad, but I had made assumptions, right or wrong, and then tried to play out that situation in my own marriage, when in fact our marriage is very different from my parents!

When someone walks down the isle today, it is absolutely important that these people are able to do the following things whole-heartedly:

1. Check your baggage of past hurts at the door!
2. Check your baggage of personal agenda’s at the door! {Must now think of each other}
3. Check your baggage of my “my parents” or “my mom” did it this way! {Men this is a hard one, you love your mom!}
4. Check your baggage of past relationships at the door!
5. Check your baggage of how marriage should work at the door! {This will be learned the next year or two!}
6. Check your baggage of how your husband / wife should be once we are married! {dealt with this a lot in counseling!}

I want to be very clear! These are simply things I have learned in my marriage, and in doing marriage counseling over the last several years. It is by no means a complete list, but it is the list I wish I had known or been told when I was first married!

In the last 5 posts, I have touched on just a few things I wish I had known! Not all of them were problems for me and my wife, but had I known them, I could have made better choices along the way, or maybe I could have helped us one way or another!

One thing is for sure! I love my wife, and I am excited to be celebrating 10 years of being married to her later this summer! Since she is pregnant with our third, we will not be taking the trip we had hoped or purchasing the new bed room furniture (our goals for year 10), but we will be celebrating TEN years of GOD bringing us closer together and further along in HIM! I am thankful for my wife, and the fact God has allowed me to be so blessed to have a wife that after ten years, some hard and a few harder, that we are more in love now, and living the best days of our life so far!

One thing I know for sure! The best days of our marriage are yet ahead!

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5 Things I Wish I knew When I Got Married!

May 8, 2009

Sorry I missed Thursday’s post. I ran over in my prayer and study time, and ended up not having enough time to post. So I will post #4 now, and then #5 on Monday.

#4 That the path that we are on, will take us where it is going, not where we intend to go!

This is a principle that I have known for a while, and was spoken to me a lot when I was being discipled by my pastor in Texas.

If you are on a walking path where are you going? To whereever that path leads! It does not matter if you want to walk to the park area, if the path leads to the baseball fields and you stay on the path you will end up at the baseball fields.

You see if you get up this morning and you want to go North to Canada for the weekend, but you get onto US Highway 41 South bound you will not be heading to Canada. Your intensions maybe to go to Canada, but your path is leading to Texas!

I have driven cross country atleast one a year for about the last 10 years, most years multiple trips have occurred. I cannot tell  you the number of times I have gotten onto I-44 going west, when I was trying to go East. Yes, sometimes it is that easy to see we are on the wrong path.

Othertimes, like when I drive in DFW I occassionaly get onto 121 south, instead of north, because the exit is the same, and then it splits. Not living there I have made the mistake a couple of times, and then had to be told I was going the wrong way, or realizing it when I did not recognize the stores.

You see sometimes it is difficult to know which path will lead us to where we intend to go.

To paraphrase Andy Stanly, “you will only go where the path you are on will take you, no matter your intensions!” I recently listened to his Principle of the Path leadership podcast (you should download it). It put a lot detail to what I had already realized, but did not know how to communicate well.

At this point, Ashlee and I have meetings or long discussions once in a while to make sure we are on the same page, and going the same direction.

The last one was in March, and we made some hard decisions, along with some fun ones. The fruit of that meeting has been amazing! We know we are on the same page, and moving in the same direction. In addition, the communication is great in those areas, because we know we are on board.

Question to Ponder: If everyone in your church is on a plane to LA, are you on that plane or are you on a plane to Alanta? {Famous Qoute from Brandon Honeycutt}

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5 things I wish I had known when I got married!

May 6, 2009

#3 Make sure your money, especially credit is working for you!

One of the greatest mistakes that Ashlee and I made as a young couple was not monitoring the type of credit we had, and how to make it work for us. In addition, we did not know a lot of about investing and did not pay much attention.

In all reality, we both have a very good knowledge base built around both, but thought it would come, and the time woul d be okay. We had a few credit cards,  and some medical debt. Not much different than the average American right?

Most American’s today carry a substantial amount of debt including: credit cards, cars, boats, credit cards, medical debt, and all other sorts of responsibilities. The problem with financial burdens such as debt is that it becomes very easy to be weighed down with life. I often say when preaching that we want to see those in debt be set free, and to live a life not burdened with life.

Early in our marriage, we were burdened with life. Too much debt, not enough income, and trying to live a little larger than we should.  I have heard good biblical teaching on finances state that “it is not how much you make, but how you manage it.” I think it is true in 99% of cases. At times it was definitely true for us, and at other times we had nothing to manage. Even in those times we could have made a lot of different choices that would have allowed us to manage our money.

Furthermore, we spent those early years spending every dime we made to keep on keeping on, if you know what I mean. We did not save or invest a lot. If I had it to do over again, I would have invested a little more into 401ks and a lot more into a Roth IRA before we had children, and could afford to save more.

The overall take away is that I wish I had known that credit should always work for you, and your money should be working for you. Neither credit nor money should be working against you!

Too many couples today are drowning in debt, and credit cards with no real end in sight! I personally have a little credit card debt that I acquired to help build a credit score, since we had no debt for five years. We are using the credit to our advantage.

My goal for 2009 & 2010 is to pay off all debt except for our home. Then in 2011 I want to start a 3 year plan to reduce our mortgage to 25% of the original purchase price. It would allow me to have paid off my 30 year mortgage in 7 years.

Now that I am smarter went to business school, and grew up a little through a few hard knocks in my finances and marriage, I think that I am finally making my credit and money work for me, instead of against me!

Check back tomorrow for “understanding your path”

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