getting ahead of the game

I kind of feel like a fish out of water or a person just in over their head. Which ever one you prefer. I feel like if one thing isn't bothering me it's something else. When school slows down for just a second I flashback to whats at home and how I haven't seen it in over a month. I think how much my family needs me and how much I need them. I feel like I'm not doing enough and that I'm just away enjoying my life. Truth is I want to be home, I can't wait for Thanksgiving, I can't wait to be surrounded with those I love and that love me unconditionally. I can't wait to see the smiles, I can't wait to hear the pain, and have even more of a reason to celebrate that we can get through it together. The memories that wait with cleaning out a house that sits empty but full of stuff and memories. The hardest part is that I'm leaving my childhood and growing up to an adult.

For years I've never known what I want to do. I know that I want to be in the sports arena. I've picked a place that can get me there and it feels so right. It also scares me to death. Every where I go I here about long hours and all the work you have to put in. As I get older things that never popped into my head are starting to make an appearance. The fact that if I end up in this arena am I going to be able to have a family? Will I be able to enjoy the holidays with my friends and family or will I be forced to be at work? With everything else accounted for who says I can even have a family? Knowing that God has a plan for me doesn't settle my heart. The fear of the unknown is scary. Knowing the something is so right but not completely trusting it makes it feel so wrong.

So much is running through my head. Who is going to be around in a couple of years? What am I going to be doing? Who will I be? Am I making all the right moves and choices right now or am I looking out too much for me? My mind doesn't stop. If its not school or my friends or how to make up for the mistakes I've made its the future, its the problems I can't fix. I know I'm getting ahead of the game. I know these are questions that God already has the answers to but at the same time my heart is burrdened, hurt, and worst of all fearful.

finding what matters

AFter this summer I was high on life, high on God, and did want to do anything but glorify his kingdom. Nothing else made sense. I didn't understand why other people didn't see that and why this reality of not living every second for him was acceptable. Its called reality, where we get caught up in the things that don't matter. Those things like school, job, money, sometimes even people, or the materalistic things that don't matter. We get hurt, we question why things happen and why people do the things they do. We call people out without knowing the circumstances. We see our brothers and sisters struggling but are too scared to care. We are too worried and too caught up in our own world to see into somebody elses.

I cared about other people this summer. I care about other people now. My God is still the same God. However, I've come down from this high and am looking for the person that loved harder than I could imagine, that served according to the Word and the Word alone, that lived for the smile of an innocent child, and feared God. I'm looking for the things that matter, the people, the lost, the hurt, I'm looking to go Beyond Infinity and into the world. The hardest part is finding not who you were but you want to be.

thankful

It's been a little over a month since I've been home last. For some that seems normal but for me its not. I think it would be ok except for the fact that I know I'm not going home for another 2.5 weeks, Thanksgiving. I was driving back to my apartment last night and it just hit me. How thankful I should be for what I have and whom I've become. So many things get in the way of my gratefulness. We so often see what we don't have or see what hurts instead of what we should rejoice in. The fact that we have a God that is so merciful and full of grace. Something that we, as humans find it so hard to give. We are not God but trying to live like God is a daily struggle.

I have been worried about what was in my life and how it slowly seems to be disappearing. I've been lost in this state of confusion. I wonder why I do what I do for the people that I do it for. Then I realized that I was raised right. Although my immediate family doesn't have many rags to riches stories my family as a whole does. My mom's parents giving up everything they have, and what little they had to serve in Africa. My dad's parents serving the community around in them in more ways than I know and can explain. God has big plans for me and that scares me. He has big plans for all of us. The thing is that I just want to be half the person my ancestors have been. I want to do what God has in store for me. My prayer is that I can get past my own selfish desires and do what I love, serve. I love seeing the smile that comes from little things in life. However, I hate doing things and then being turned on. However, living a life like Christ that shouldn't bother me. My prayer is that I don't do it for me but for Christ and what that bigger picture is.

I'm thankful that my parents have let me be the person I am. I'm thankful for the hearts I've been raised around. I love my life even though it has some bumps and rocky roads. The friends that are thankful and my family that never quits, and the God that is always forgiving makes everything okay and completely worth it all.

Dear Couch

I love you, really I do. Sometimes you are too much for me. You're great when I want to relax and watch movies or football. Today however, our relationship has been too long. I'm tired of you. I know I ignored you all week because of school work but I'd really like it if you would just let me go out and enjoy my weekend. I promise I'll make it up to you. Too much time with you makes me feel lonely and left out. I don't like that feeling. We are best friends but I need socialization. I know you've had help this time with your friend sickness but you have to let go now. I'd like to go out and make memories if you wouldn't mind. Thank you.

Act

A Changing Time

This summer I feel in love with Acts. It ripped open my mind with things that needed to be done. It was a part of the Rocking of my world that God did. Acts calls us to be a body of christ, it calls us to share the gospel with everyone we come into contact with, it calls us to take care of one another and encourage each other. How much of that are we really doing? Are competeing as churches instead of working together? Don't we live in a me world? The challenging question for Christians is that if one of us loses a job and one says it is our responsiblity to take care of them so they won't lose their job or go hungry, who's with me? How many of us would say, I'm in?

This is a problem in the world is that we are worried about numbers. We are worried about who is coming in, instead of what is being learned. When I found a conflict between ministries I found competition and frusteration. What I needed to find that it didn't matter as long as they were hearing God. Thats all it matters, no matter where it may be.

We are called to Act like God did, after all you may be the only Bible some people read. When a deacon at a church worships with someone that doesn't fit the sterotype of the church crowd instead of kicking him out, it makes an impact. Who are we spending our time with? Other Christians in a comfortable world or those who are dead and need life in Christ?

What kind of impact can we make though if our fellow brothers and sisters are not there for encouragement, for fellowship, for prayer? We are a team working for God. We are no longer alive but God is alive in us. We are His hands, His feet, made to His work.

A Changing Time

Sometimes things change

Things have never been so different in my life from previous experiences. I came back from camp and didn't realize how much my life had changed. I look at everything from a different perspective. Being a part of Team 2 changed my life dramatically. Not just because of camp but because I really realized what it meant to say that God is number 1. I finally realized what it means to take the Word to all the Nations. God is a big deal. God is a savior, my savior.

I am back on campus and was excited to see everybody, excited to make a difference in freshman's lives. I had kind of built myself up over the top with reading books about discpleship and community. I ready irresisitble revolution followed by crazy love. I started thinking pretty radical and people thought I was crazy sometimes I thought I was crazy myself. I stepped back to realize that I wasn't radical, what was radical was God and His Word.

People are different, life is different, events are different, living is different, I'm different. Some things will always remain the same but passion for God and sharing His love and what He has done in your life is big, huge and the most important thing you can do. I no longer understand how people, especially people who claim to be Christians can't/don't buy into that.

Sissy

In life we run across people who make a difference in our lives or the ones around us. Sometimse we are fortunate to have these people around for long periods of time, sometimes its only for a couple of minutes. Many people have made a difference in my life, one man made a difference in my life for 4 years.

I was luck to have known Sissy. I was lucky to have been coached by him. He is a man that I respected a lot not because of his knowledge of his game but also his attitude towards the players. For four years struggled through softball. Between my coach and some of the players emotions ate at me. Sissy was the person that gave me the courage to keep going. He knew what the love of the game was and He's the one that convinced me to fight the better fight. Sissy retired my junior year but he was still around.

After being done with high school and softball for two years I still saw Sissy on occasion. When I worked at Kroger's he would come in and ask me about life and what was going on. He always had words of encouragement to offer. Before I left this summer I saw him at Walgreens two days before I left and He told me that I was going to do great things. Two days ago I saw Sissy walking down the street, this time it was just a little wave and a smile, nothing more, nothing less. Sissy made a difference and now as I sit ready to go back to school, wishing time away, living a busy life. I find that I will not longer see Sissy around or find those words of encouragement from a man of great wisdom and character.

RIP Sissy, I love you and will always miss you