Kevin DeShazo | life in slow motion

Five thoughts/things/stuff from the week.  Five little bits of sweet heavenly goodness.  On Friday.  The Friday Five.

1.  Oklahoma State running back Kendall Hunter currently leads the nation in rushing. He only played 2 quarters of football.  Dang. (and yes, I realize it was against Washington State. Still.)

2.  If you’re not following the Compassion Bloggers in Guatemala, do.  Now.  If nothing else, read this from Ann Voskamp.  Grab a Kleenex first.  Or an entire box of them.

3.  It’s scary that Terry Jones is the pastor of a church, but scarier that people actually attend his church.

4.  If I am ever in the market for a mobile home, I am going to call Cullman Liquidation. Or maybe I won’t.  They won’t care. (Thanks Matt for this gem)

5. I’m a Ray Lewis fan (other than that whole murder accusation thing), but this is awful.  Just awful.

Bonus:
I know it’s the Friday Five, but I have to include this bit of glory:

Happy Friday boys and girls.

Four years ago today I got lucky.  Four seconds ago I got your attention.  On September 9, 2006 I got to marry my best friend.  In the last four years we have grown.  We have been challenged.  We’ve gone on adventures.  We’ve had a son.  We’ve started businesses.  We’ve been stressed.  We’ve cried.  We’ve laughed (a lot).

We love to travel, and have been lucky enough to venture out to St Thomas (honeymoon – a place we highly recommend), Germany, France, Huntington Beach, Hawaii and Los Angeles.  We have a crazy little boy of our own, and sponsor a beautiful Ethopian boy through Compassion.  We’ve started our own businesses (if you haven’t checked out/booked her for pictures, what in the world are you waiting on?) and cheered each other on to pursue our passions.  We have a dog that we believe speaks in a British accent.  We’ve lead small groups, and been lead by some incredible leaders.

We switched from PC to Mac.  From way too many cable channels and DVR to no cable and Netflix/Hulu (it saved money, but we don’t miss cable at all – except during football/basketball season).  From the city to the suburbs (and now trying to get back to the city).  From large churches to small churches.

Through typing this, I’ve realized that we apparently like change.  More than that, we like each other.  A lot.  We enjoy each other’s company, whether it is dinner and a movie, or just lounging on the couch.  Through each change, each decision, each struggle, each celebration, each milestone, we have loved.  She’s the rock of it all.  She pushes me.  Inspires me.  Encourages me.  Puts up with me.  Believes in me.  She’s the best mother on the planet (outside of my own) and has done a magnificent job with our beautiful son.  She gives me high-fives (she hates high-fives – I know, who hates high-fives??).  She interprets my weird words.  I’ll say something like “flip the scrizzer,” and she correctly turns on the garbage disposal.  She’s good.  Too good for me.  And she has been since the day I met her, when we exchanged the most awkward 5 minute handshake of all time (a story for another day).

And I love her.  Four years in, we have had some incredibly rich experiences.  The fun news is that we still have a lifetime still to go.

Happy Anniversary to my beautiful bride!

It’s raining here in OKC.  By raining, I mean a torrential downpour.  By torrential downpour, I mean that an ark should be arriving any minute now to pick up my family and take us to Texas – because let’s be honest, nothing will ever destroy Texas.  Thank you Tropical Storm Hermine.  But it’s all good.  Why?  Because, by God, we’ve got Gary England.  The best weatherman this side of the Atlantic.  Gary is a bit famous around here.  He was even in the movie Twister – his acting is guaranteed to be better than Bill Paxton’s.  How good is Gary?  You can trust him with your life:

Thanks John for reminding me of this powerful drama.

In a battle of weathermen, mine wins. Hands down.

On to Luke 16.  Solid stuff from Dewey this morning.  Here we go:

1.  Our life is a God-given stewardship.  We are to be shrewd with it.  Resourceful with it.  Generous with it.

2.  Character is established in the little things.

3.  It isn’t “if” money fails, it’s “when” money fails.  Intense.  Divided loyalty is unacceptable.

4. 143 million orphans in the world.  236 million American “Christians.”  If 6% of those adopted a child, there would be no more orphans in Africa.  No more kids at risk of HIV, Malaria, malnutrition.  That isn’t ok.

5.  Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding in things in life that don’t really matter. – Francis Chan in Crazy Love

Solid Sunday.  How was yours?

It’s here.

Boone Pickens Stadium.  Kendall Hunter.  Brandon Weeden.

Cowboy Football. Gameday. Orange Power.

Five things/thoughts/stuff from the week.  On Friday.  The Friday Five.

1.  Barry Sanders’ son plays HS football in OKC.  His school was on TV last night.  121yds rushing on 13 carries.  A 73yd punt return.  An 86yd kick-off return for a TD.  If he doesn’t go to Oklahoma State, I’m quitting.

2.  This is one of the funniest things I’ve seen: If historical events had Facebook statuses

3.  God is a ridiculous artist.  Don’t believe me?  Go look at some of these pictures of OKC after last night’s storm. Breathtaking stuff.

4.  I watched this video with Francis Chan and Mark Driscoll (and some other guy).  I’m convinced more and more every day that Chan has it figured out.  Love what he’s doing.

5.  Come Thou Fount.  Mumford & Sons.  Beautiful.

Go enjoy yourself some college football this weekend!

It’s here.  Game week.  The beginning of NCAA Football.  Holy motherload of goodness.  Like sweet manna from heaven, game after game after heavenly game will air from now until January.  Empty Saturdays are now full.  The Monday morning wonderings of, “What am I going to do this weekend?” are answered with a grateful, “Oh that’s right, I’m going to consume myself with God’s gift to the fall season.  I’m going to sit, butt firmly planted in the couch, and stare at 47″ of HD goodness.  With my son.”  This is what I’m excited about.

So my predictions for my beloved Oklahoma State Cowboys are this:

I think we start off 3-0.  Let’s be honest, if we don’t start off 3-0, panic and severe depression will set in.  Week 4 brings Texas A&M.  I think A&M is highly overrated, though they have a legit QB.  I think we beat A&M, in Stillwater.  Next up are Louisiana-Lafayette and Texas Tech.  Both wins.  I’m sorry, but if you think Tommy Tuberville is going to come in and do what Mike Leach did, in year one, sorry.  Not going to happen.  That leaves us 6-0 heading into Nebraska – another team I think is highly overrated.  You lost Suh, who was an absolute monster.  And I might as well be starting at QB with my 18 month old son starting at WR.  They will have a solid D, but I think we dominate them in Stillwater, followed by Ws over K State and Baylor.  The Texas game?  Should be our first L of the season.  Yes they are reloading, but it’s Texas.  9-1.  Kansas is a win and, as much as I hate to say it, we will probably lose to OU, finishing up at 10-2, 3rd in the Big XII South.  Ambitious?  Maybe.  The only games I think we could slip up would be the A&M game and maybe, maybe the Nebraska game.

I think our offense is going to be solid.  As long as the WRs can catch the ball, we’ll be good.  Weeden will have no problem finding open receivers and getting the ball to them.  With Holgorsen at the helm, this offense could be everything we thought it could be under Gundy a few years back…and more.  Defense should continue to improve and be quite a bit faster than previous years.  That’s not saying it will be a top 20 defense, but it should do enough to contain our opponents while we hang 35+ a game on them.  Kendall Hunter will be a machine – and a heisman candidate.  Brandon Weeden will be Big XII Newcomer of the Year – if that even is an award.

So there’s my pick.  10-2.  I’ll be disappointed with anything under 8 wins.

Who is your team?  What are your predictions for the year?

Hanging out in Luke 15 for the final week.  A short sermon from Ben, but a solid one.  Some notes/thoughts:

1.  The Father himself loves me.  Jesus is enough to satisfy my heart.  The Spirit gives me everything I need.  A simple, powerful prayer I need to remember/recite daily.  Puts every moment into perspective.

2.  Rather than The Prodigal Son (which no text actually calls it), the story should be called The Prodigal God.  Prodigal is defined as recklessly extravagant (dictionary.com).  Which is exactly what the father in the story (and God in real life) has done for us.

3.  I need to read Tim Keller’s “The Prodigal God.”

4.  Reckless, ridiculous amounts of grace for wayward children.  The only reasonable response to this is to “celebrate and be glad.”

And so we did. With the Fat Calf Bash. Burgers & Baptisms in downtown OKC. (Note Gabe’s whining in video.  Apparently not a fan of celebrating baptisms.)

Here we go.  5 things/thoughts/stuff from this week.   Hope you had a great one.

1.  Being a Cardinals fan is not fun right now. Back to back losses to the Pirates (yes, they still have a team), followed up by a loss to the Nationals?  It’s August, boys.  Effing play like it.

2.  Less than a week before college football kicks off.  Holy motherload.

3.  Seth Godin is a genius.  But he’s also Seth Godin.  Too many people are going to try to be like him.  And fail.

4.  Seriously?

5.  I question the validity of this, but I don’t question it’s awesomeness.

Happy Friday, kids.

Hey O

I hate that this letter needs to be written, but there’s something going on.  Something horrible.  I started noticing it a few years back, but it seems to be gaining ground.  And before it gets too late, I have to write you an apology.  Not for my crimes, but for the crimes of my brothers and sisters.  You see, they are leaving you out.  Abandoning you.  Moving on without you.  Replacing you with none other than your keyboard-neighbor P.  I know, it hurts.  It makes no sense.  But it’s everywhere.  Statements like:

I just got pwned by my inbox.

I’m about to pwn this bike ride.

Man, I’m so out of shape.  Got pwned at my soccer game tonight.

At first I thought they were typos.  I mean, you and P are right next to each other on the standard QWERTY keyboard.  Innocent mistake, I thought.  Then it happened again.  And again.  And again.  And I threw up a little.  Now, I cringe every time I see it.  Really, I do.  And I feel sorry for you, O.  I’ve looked for your crime and found nothing.  It’s one thing to occasionally throw out an LOL, ROFL, or shortcut the word “for” with the number 4 when trying to fit an exceptional message into 140 short characters.  Those are natural.  Nobody sees “If u care about the devastation in Haiti, do something. 4 donations, go to this website. Tell ur friends. Oh, & hide ur kids, hide ur wife” and wonders to themself, “ur?  Is that Greek? I took Spanish. Everybody took Spanish!! Greek wasn’t even an option!”  Seriously though, your to “ur” isn’t bad.  But own to “pwn” doesn’t jive. Where did this come from?

I did some research.  By research I mean the interwebs.  By interwebs I mean WikiPedia.  The origin?  Online gaming.  Specifically, some game called Counter-Strike.  Apparently, after killing your opponent, somebody thought it was intimidating to tell them that they “just got pwned!”  Scary, I know.  Look O, I’m all for gaming, so I can’t hate.  Personally, I’m always up for a game of Madden or Tiger Woods.  Mario Kart Wii?  Let’s do this thing.  But let’s not get out of control to the point where we create our own language and try to spread it across the world, alienating 20% of the vowels.

Don’t worry, O.  I’m here for you.
I won’t let you get replaced.
I won’t let you be forgotten.
I won’t let P own you.

Sincerely

Kevin
Fan of the letter O