Yes, He Made It!

Victoria and I recently traveled to Quantico Virginia to participate in Darren’s United States Marine Corps (USMC) Officer Candidate School (OCS) Graduation and Commissioning Ceremony.






On Monday we attended Family Day activities and were able to spend most of the day with Darren.



Tuesday morning was the OCS Graduation.  



Some of Darren’s friends from the Dayton area also attended.



Tuesday afternoon was the Commissioning Ceremony at the National Museum of the Marine Corps.



At the end of the ceremony we had the privilege of pinning his Second Lieutenant bars on him.  



After the Commissioning Ceremony we headed for home and left Second Lieutenant Darren Strickland to check into The Basic School (TBS) Tuesday afternoon.

Darren plans to be home for Thanksgiving and then return to Quantico for The Basic School (TBS) which starts Monday, December 1st.

Do you know your Secret Name?

One of the unexpected highlights from attending the recent Igniting Souls Conference was being given my Secret Name.  What is a Secret Name?  Have I joined a cult?  No, Your Secret Name is the name granted to you by the One who made you.  In his book Your Secret Name: Discovering Who God Created You to Be author Kary Oberbrunner calls us to stop accepting the world’s labels and start wrestling with God to discover our true identity.

During the Friday evening session Kary Oberbrunner and David Branderhorst led us through an exercise where we listed our given names.  Our given names are the names we inherit while living life in this world.  Some of mine are Son, Barak, Child of God, Babe (just to Victoria), Provider, and Not Enough.  It’s the last one that stood out to me as we went through the exercise of reviewing our given names and choosing the ones that have held us back in life.

One of the most important points of the session was that you and I can never outperform our own self-image.  Did you get that?  Our self-image limits our performance!

Another important point from the session was that you and I won’t find Eden (the place where we can live in a state of happiness) by what we DO or who we KNOW.  Don’t we often tend to try to find our worth by what we DO or who we KNOW?

As Kary and David related the story of Jacob wrestling with God (see Genesis 32:22-31) the practical application really hit home for me.  You see, we make a choice in every situation, every day, whether we are going to choose our way -or- God’s way.

At the end of the session as I sat and listened to live worship music and waited on the small still voice of God I heard Him whisper my Secret Name…Redeemed.





Would you like to learn your Secret Name?

Congratulations Kayla!

Congratulations to my favorite daughter, Kayla Strickland, who has been offered a full time position with Addgene in Cambridge (Boston) MA.  Her next challenge is to find a place to live in the 7th most expensive city in the US!

UPDATE: Kayla has secured an apartment in Dorchester MA. She begins her new job Oct 14th.