“A VALENTINE GIFT FOR PAM”

Pam is my wife and my most special Valentine!

I would love to tell you about Pam’s gift, but you may tell her.  The hardest part for me in giving gifts for birthdays, Christmas, Valentine Day, etc., is I just get too excited.  I ordered Pam’s gift a week ago and it arrived on Monday.   I left it in my office because if I take it home I won’t be able to resist the temptation to give it early.

Would you like to know what it is?  Well, I can’t tell you because you may let the “cat out of the bag.”  Even though the excitement I have about giving gifts is tremendous, I can keep a secret.

Last July, Lyndsey, my daughter, called and put in her order for her Christmas present.  If you think this is pretty early for a Christmas list, you’ll understand when I tell you what it was.  My hobby is woodworking and it relaxes me and gives me great pleasure to use my God-given talents to create something that will bring joy to the recipient.

Lyndsey wanted a media center, so she e-mailed me a picture of the one she had selected.  I went to the web-site to try to get all the details and measurements, etc.  The part that is most exciting to me is converting these details into the plan for the project.  I began drawing plans and then buying the materials for this Christmas gift.  The reason July was not too early is that I planned on taking the gift to her on Thanksgiving.  This is an item that is not to easy to ship.  So Pam and I planned on loading it in the Escalade, leaving enough room for a few clothes and the necessities for Thanksgiving.  Of course, when we go to Kansas City to visit, I always have to load up my tools because there is usually a few projects that Lyndsey has added to her “TO DO LIST” for Dad.

We have taken Christmas gifts to Kansas City the last three years on our Thanksgivin holiday.  This is a lot easier than shipping.  You may not believe this, but Lyndsey really doesn’t mind having some of her Christmas gifts a month early.  It’s true.

This post is really not about Pam’s Valentine gift or Lyndsey’s media center Christmas gift.  It’s about the great pleasure I receive in giving something that will bring joy to each of them.  If this gives me such great pleasure as a husband and father, I can only imagine how God feels when he gives his children the gift of salvation.  When I thought of this, the only thing I could really say was WOW!  Salvation was not something I could ever earn…it was truly a gift.

Each day I step “out of my box” and look back in and see the gifts that I receive each day.  That brings another “WOW!”  It doesn’t take me long to realize that God wants a relationship with me just like the relationship I have with my family. 

So, I really can’t tell you about Pam’s gift today.  You will have to wait until after Valentine Day.  It’s a secret that I can keep.  But, there is one gift that I will gladly share with you.  God’s gift to each of us is no secret and I will gladly share that with you.

Added:  2/12/10

Rusty and Connie are our dear friends and faithful Longhorn baseball fans from San Antonio.  The seats are across the aisle from ours.  Rusty requested pictures of Lyndsey’s media center, so I’ll see if my computer can do what I tell it to do.  It’s a little different from the late 50’s when I was working with punch cards to record data.  I’ve come a long, long way.  Well, here goes, I hope the images magically appear below (or somewhere on the post. 
Another note, Connie will have back surgery next Tuesday, so your prayers will be appreciated.

Well, miracles do happen!  First I had no images, then I had 6 images, then I had 9 images……………Hallelujah!  NOW  I HAVE ONLY THREE!

The media center is 64″ wide, 19″ high, and 19 1/2 ” deep.  It is made from Poplar wood with four coats of Poly and then hand rubbed with rottenstone , mineral oil, and 0000 steel wool.