In Korea, once a baby reaches his/her 100th day of life the parents celebrate this big occasion. In the old days, the infant mortality rate for babies under 3 months was high...so when your child reached 100 days it was something to shout about. The Baek-il is a sign that the baby will live a long and healthy life. This is somethings that's still celebrated. So on this 100th day...we celebrate our little song bird Ava...Mommy and daddy and your big bro Micah can't wait to see all the amazing things you'll do in your life. We love you!
Family
June 19, 2011
June 18, 2011
The BEST Dad's Day gift ever
With all my personal dreams and aspirations there's nothing more important to me than my family accomplishing God's plans together. To be a DAD is to fulfill one of the greatest callings in life.
March 11, 2011
Our Little Bird...full of life :)
Want to introduce our newest addition to the Hesterly home... AVA ELIZABETH. She's absolutely beautiful. I found these birds from Blue Skies (downtown Chattanooga, TN) and have them hanging in her room above her crib. I thought they were perfect since Ava means "little bird." My wife is doing good and trying to catch up on much needed sleep. We'll I think I might go join her for a brief moment of shut eye. Welcome to the world Ava! I know your wings will take you on amazing adventures. We'll be cheering you on!
March 01, 2011
Weigh the Cost...
Every so often, God reminds me about keeping the important things in my life important. That's easier to say than to accomplish becasue, I don't know about you, but my life can get pretty busy with all kinds of things that seem to be important. The reality is...I wear all kinds of hats and it's hard to juggle life at times. I'm a husband, dad, brother, uncle, friend, generational ministries pastor, student pastor, mentor, graphic designer (a not very good one), website updater guy, blogger, athlete, learner, when buzz lightyear's helmet comes off fixer person, etc. Where do I give most of my time to? How can you create balance when things are often lop-sided? To me, all these areas are important and they're important to those I help, counsel, play with and give my life to.
My wife, Erin, has always been a great voice of reality in my life. Where I think, I can always come to some compromise and make everyone happy...she voices it's not possible and it's not healthy to try to be that kind of person (sounds a lot like my dad...love ya man!). Another voice that God uses to speak things in my life has been my students @ NUNATION. Sometimes it's what they say in reponse to a message, but a lot of times it's when we're just hanging out talking about life and then they surprise me by something they say or something they did. And it makes me think, "Hey, that was pretty awesome. There's a lot of wisdom in what they just said, or spiritual maturity in what they just did." I had a student come tell me recently that he's decided to not play a sport this spring. It's not that he doen't like the sport any more. It's just not his focus. To me, to make a decision like that shows maturity. I'm quite certain that this decision was hard and took time to make. What my student was doing was weighing the cost. He took a moment to examine his life and saw areas that needed focus and saw things he could do without. Made the call and his life became a little more lighter.
Keeping the important things in life important is a daily choice to keep your priorites in check. I'm sure I'll have days when my priorities will gets out of whack, but it's my heart's desire to see my relationshp with my family, friends and students stay at the top and in balance. It's about weighing the cost...understanding where I put my focus helps me to know where and what I'm willing to sacrifice in order to achieve what's most important in my life.
(For those wondering where God is...he's in everything I do. The driving force in seeing my relationships grow. God is not a priority...he's at the very center of who I am.)
January 03, 2011
Seek the Kingdom
Matthew 6:33- "Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need."
One of the new things we are doing as a staff this year @ City Church is taking one day each month (away from the office, our normal,expected duties of the day) and spend it with God...connecting with Him and listening for His voice. Purposefully devoting one day to God. What I love about this is how each of us will spend this day differently. Because the reality is, God chooses to speak to us in unique ways and the means we connect with Him will equally vary.
As I was driving to my first location this morning this passage found in Matthew really stuck out to me. I must have read this scripture hundreds of times, but this morning it took on a whole new light. Let's set the tone here...Jesus is talking to his disciples and everyone else that's around him on this mountain side. I'm not sure how long he's been there teaching, but he's rockin out these spiritual truths like no one else has before. He's closing up some profound words on storing up treasure that will last forever, talk about birds, food, flowers, clothes and how we don't need to worry about them because the God who feeds the birds and clothes the lilies will do the same and more for us...His creation!
Then Jesus says, "Seek the Kingdom!" What comes to your mind when you hear that? Anything...at all?
For me, I find huge implications in this. When we begin to seek, look, search for God we begin to develop a God perspective or another way you could say it...develop a Kingdom mindset. We begin to notice the God things happening around us. I think sometimes we fail to see the important things going on. There's a lot taking place each day. Distracting things that will take your focus off God and put it else where. I want to challenge you to seek after God each day. Let this become a habit as we begin 2011. You'll be surprised at first when things begin to change, but after time you'll realize that God is faithful and true to those who belong to Him. Be on the look out where He's working in you, your family, at work, in your situation. Anticipate God to do the amazing in your life. As you give each day your best, you can expect with great confidence that God will give His best.
January 19, 2010
November 26, 2009
August 03, 2009
June 15, 2009
Fort Myers Beach
My first family vacation!
May 10, 2009
Mother's Day
Today was such a great day for Erin because we got to celebrate her being a mom. So being her first one EVER, Micah and I wanted to get her something nice. We got her the Ultra HD Flip camcorder. It's way sweet. So simple a caveman could use it...hehe. So I thought it would be cool if Erin would share a few highlights of being a mom these these past 4 months...
[So like, EVERYTHING
The poopy diapers, drool and spit-up are all worth it because he's worth it
His smiles make my day
I love snuggling with him because he's so warm and cuddly
He makes me experience a whole new range of emotions that I never thought I had
I love him more than I ever thought I had the capacity to love anyone
Thanks babe for sharing. I love you two mucho mucho!
Happy Mother's Day!
Hesterly Danny
I'm a student pastor, married to a red headed doctor and dad of a handsome little boy and beautiful little girl.
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