Just like at the beginning of a new year, the beginning of my summer gives me a chance to consider how the first few five months have gone, and recalibrate my trajectory if I've gone a bit off track. While it was a successful Spring semester, I do wish I would have spent more time with God. Those of you who know me know that at the end of my ...
So there was this one time where I really liked a particular girl. It was way back in 2005. She was all wrong for me, but I still wanted it to work, and gave it my all because I thought it just might. I would be sweet and endearing and thoughtful. I would demonstrate in meaningful ways how much I cared about her and her family. I would put in ...
When I look back upon my life, I realize that the most unproductive thing I can do is to fear the future. And yet, I have done it. I mean, we all have done it. We just want life turn out a certain way, and we pour ourselves out to make that happen, and don't want our blood, sweat, and tears to be wasted. And so we spend even more ...
To start the new year off right, I’m reading Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts and it’s teaching me a lot about counting my blessings on a daily basis, and how that directly produces joy in life. I will probably blog about the book when I am done because I’m finding it life-changing, but for now I want to write about something else that the book prompted within me. Ann is ...
So, one of the stories in the Bible that has struck and always stayed with me is from 1 Chronicles 21:1 (and from 2 Samuel 24:1). Basically, God had ended a three-year famine, and David’s kingdom was thriving. His nemesis Saul was dead, and he had recently crushed the Philistines, Moabites, and Ammonites, and he was pummeling any enemies that went up against him. And everything was going along quite ...
Every summer, I go to summer camp. And I've been doing this for years. To be honest, things are a little different now that I am an adult in that I don't go as a camper, but as a volunteer or counselor or leader or helper (depending on the camp). Back in the day, though, I loved going to camps every summer - with my church, with 4H, at the ...
In my last entry, I talked about how sometimes we are just unstable, and it’s not a fun place to be because it makes everything seem so vague and confusing and even arbitrary. When we are unstable, it feels like we are slowly going blind, or slowly losing our mind. Sometimes it is just life being life, but sometimes it is really our own fault. And I guess it stems ...
I have been thinking a lot recently about being unstable. What seems to cause me to be unstable? Well, it’s going back and forth on things in my mind. So I’m not single-minded, I’m double-minded. And I am realizing I hate being double-minded and I hate being unstable, because it feels like nothing is right and I’ve completely lost focus from what matters. It’s like, I really want to be ...
I've been thinking a lot recently how people have dreams, and they even feel those dreams are from God...and they let other people know about their dreams, and have full faith for them, and wait for them, but it just doesn't happen. Well, it at least hasn't happened yet. And it makes me think about David, and how in his poems and writings, he asks God repeatedly to not let ...
I've been thinking how well-intentioned people, in reference to having a particular outlook toward an event, or experience, or even life in general, say "Expect the best, but prepare for the worst." Expect the best. Okay. But prepare for the worst. Um. Okay. I've decided I hate that line. It sounds good, it sounds conciliatory and maybe even soothing. But it's so neutral, it's so...antiseptic. It's so weak, honestly. At ...