an overdue update (plus a book giveaway!)

My wife’s more popular than me.

I’ve been a terrible blogger this week. While my wife has been updating her blog on a daily basis, I’ve struggled to even blog twice. My wife has become a rather popular blogger. Blog fame is such an odd thing to me.

Funny story.

The other day I was out around town when a very kind woman stopped me.

“Uh, excuse me,” she said, “Are you Matthew?”

Being the narcissist that I am, I figured she had read one of my books. So I smiled brightly. and said, “Yep, that’s me.” And then I prepared for her to compliment my writing. I know that makes me sound pathetic, and I don’t always assume everything is about me, but I’m human and on that day I just assumed.

“It’s so very nice to meet you,” she said, “I read your wife’s blog! I just love it. Your baby is so cute, and your wife is just adorable. I don’t mean to be a lurker, but I thought it was you and I thought I’d say hello. I promise I don’t do this sort of thing too often.”

She was so nice.

But as the very nice lady gushed about my wife’s blog for a few seconds, I was laughing on the inside (btw: what does laughing on the inside actually mean?) as she told me how she discovered Jessica’s blog. I wasn’t laughing at at her of course. But at myself for being so sure that she had “recognized” me. I called Jessica on the way home and we had a good laugh at that.

Jessica and Elias are in Wisconsin until Saturday visiting the great grandparents. This is the first grand baby on Jessica’s side of the family, so I know that her parents (Nana and Poppa) were quite ecstatic about having more time with little Elias.

Here’s a quick update on a few things….

Pants!

First, the following picture of me is from last weekend’s Echo Conference. I’m not sure who took it or I would give them credit. The one thing I took away from this photo was that I must throw away those jeans. It looks like I’m wearing something Daphne would run around in when she was solving mysteries on Scooby Doo. Seriously. I had no idea that those pants looked like that from afar. The sad thing is, they’re my favorite pair of jeans. Gosh, now I sound like Daphne. Jeepers! (And yes, I know that it was Thelma or Velma–whatever her name was–who said “jeepers!”)

Maybe it’s just the way I was standing. Or perhaps it’s the angle. Anyway, like I wrote last week, I had an awesome time at Echo. It was the first chance that I had to read portions of churched out loud in front of a decent-sized audience. The response was bigger and better than I would have ever expected. It was seriously a shot-in-the-arm for me. (No, I don’t support the use of recreational drugs.) But the audience’s reaction was very encouraging for sure.

Tour stuff

As I told you a few months ago, I’ve been invited to participate in the “Lord Save Us” Tour (formerly called the “Lord Save Us From Your Followers” Tour. I think that’s what it was called.) Anyway, I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to be apart of this event. I can’t share too many details as of yet, but the stuff we’re dreaming up for this live experience I think is going to be amazing, creative, and hilarious. Seriously, if all of it comes together (and even if it doesn’t), I think it’s got the potential to be a very entertaining (even inspiring) evening.

And I’m excited to announce that plans for the tour are very much underway. In fact, the website for the tour just went live yesterday! Please check it out here. Let me know what you think.

The lineup includes Dan Merchant, Scott Phillips, and myself. Dan and Scott are two of the most creative people I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside. In addition to that, they are both hilarious and thoughtful, too.

If you’d like to help us get the word out about the tour, you might consider putting a banner up on your blog or myspace page. If you’re interested in helping get the word out, click here.

To book the tour into a college, church, or your local fish fry, go here.

OK, I have more I could write about, but I have to do other things now. My wife left me a to-do list to complete by the time she gets home.

Giveaway

Oh, I almost forgot… one more thing… and I know I’ve just given you twenty different places to go already…. but I have two books that I’d like to give away.

The first one is a children’s book called, are you ready for this… When God Created My Toes. (I suppose God has a toe factory somewhere.) Anyway, Jessica read it to Elias and he just stared at her with a blank look on his face. However, he does that a good bit, even when I’m singing Amy Grant songs to him with a British accent. He just stares. Anyway, When God Created My Toes isn’t the most exciting children’s book around, I must be honest. But it’s also not the worst. I’d give it three stars out of five. Maybe it was just me, but I just sort of thought some of the rhymes were a bit blah. But maybe I was over-thinking it. That certainly happens on occasion.

Anyway, now that I’ve set this book up so nicely, would you like win a copy for your kid(s)? Maybe a baby shower gift? You could even donate it to the nursery at your place of worship! I should add that the illustrations are kind of cute. And the message is nice. And you’ll learn what was going on when God created your toes! I want to know what he was doing when he made my spleen. I’m being serious! Now that would be an exciting children’s book.

OK, now for the second book… it’s called The Sacred Echo by Margaret Feinberg. I’ve known Margaret for a few years now and the one thing that always comes to mind when I think of her is that she is kind. She’s also a great writer and a very passionate storyteller. I think her kindness is hard to miss in her writing. And it’s not in a showy way at all–if that was true I would have said she’s nice. There’s a difference between being kind and being nice. Reading Margaret’s thoughts about life and God feels as though you’ve spent an entire evening with her at a quaint coffee shop sipping on a cup of Old Gray (not to be confused with Grey Goose) and listening to stories that always seem timeless. There’s a warmth in her writing that I find comforting, like hanging out with a friend who knows you inside and out.

The Sacred Echo is about listening for God. And in Margaret’s ponderings about the work of God, you meet a good number of her friends along the way, those who have helped shape her belief that God is constantly moving and making himself known in our realities.

It’s a good book.

HERE’S HOW TO WIN:

All you have to do is leave a comment with your name as well as the title of your favorite book (or one of them anyway), and let’s make it one that has been written in the last 20 years. On Monday I’ll randomly select two names. The first name will win When God Made My Toes and the second name will win The Sacred Echo. I’ll announce the names of the winners on my blog by noon on Monday! Good luck.

Oh, and tell your friends about the giveaway…

Sorry this blog is so long.

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