terrified sandwich closeup by Sakurako Kitsa

Growing up I was never afraid of the dark, or boogie men under my bed, or some secret monster world in my closet. I probably slept with a nightlight but it was only to watch the light bounce off the walls and ceiling. I’ve always liked and preferred a dark or dimly lit room to one full on with lights etc.

But there was something which would keep me up late at night, or freeze me in my tracks growing up. Death. I was terrified of it as a kid and I can vividly recall laying in bed going crazy thinking about how when I’m 33 I’ll have only maybe 40 to 60 more years to live!

Oh My Gosh!

This fear of death would follow me around and would sneak up on me here and there throughout life. It would cause me to really “live” life because I didn’t want to miss out on anything. It caused me to make some poor decisions and also probably kept me from truly enjoying some of my past.

This past Sunday my uncle Hursel passed away at the age of 89. He was probably one of my most favorite uncles on my mother’s side of the family. Uncle Hursel was a very godly man and had a very strong and tight relationship with Jesus. I never saw him without a bible and I think it was the only book he ever really read. He was a World War II Veteran, served on school boards, a deacon, active in the Mason’s and more.

When I learned of his death it hit me pretty hard, but not in the sense of sadness but in the sense of unexpected. I wasn’t sad he passed away. I knew he wasn’t doing well and had been battling skin cancer for quiet awhile. What really shook me though was my thoughts after I found out. After friends started to console me, offer their condolences and generally wanted to lift me up.

I didn’t need it. Death wasn’t scary anymore.

I was actually happy. My thoughts immediately turned to the idea that my uncle Hursel was going to spend Thanksgiving and more importantly Christmas with all his family who passed before him AND Jesus. I’ll admit I’m kind of jealous because you know they celebrate Christmas full on up in Heaven. In fact I often pretend Heaven is Christmas 24 / 7 but without the need for shopping or presents.

Death isn’t scary anymore because it’s not a fear of what I’ll lose. Death has become a celebration of what I’ll gain. I’m in no rush to get there, and God I’m sure has a lot for me to do before then. But I know this. When I do die, it’s going to be a party and no one is allowed to wear black.

Romans 6:9-11 – We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Related posts:

1. Wrinkles Are In

Opportunity by scottwills

Decisions. We make them everyday multiple times a day. Some are made quickly with little to no time spent evaluating the options, while others are pondered on and brewed over for days, weeks, maybe even months.

Everything we do comes as a direct result of the decisions we make.

Andy recently did a sermon on this very subject entitled “Your Move” and has written a book (which I’ve yet to read or even buy as of this blog post) entitled “The Principal of the Path” The basic theme of both of these great resources is that the decisions we make determine the path we will follow and every decision impacts our lives.

Every relationship we have and how we treat that relationship with our decisions is a direct reflection of us as a person.

The decision to date someone because we are lonely or don’t have “any better options”.
The decision to pursue the same person your best friend is pursing.
The decision to have an affair.
The decision to tell the boss we won’t do something out of moral obligation.
The decision to tell a family member they need help with an addiction.
The decision to have a tough conversation with a friend when no one else will.
The decision to clean out the basement and give it to good will instead of selling the stuff for a new TV.

All of these decisions say a lot about our character as a person. They are insights to ourselves which we probably don’t normally tell people but through our decisions and subsequent actions they speak volumes about our character.

I find that the longer I date someone, the longer I’m friends with someone, or the longer I work with someone, the more I begin to understand them. It’s important to have this time because it’s only over time that we see the true side of a person. It’s also for this very reason that I hate first impressions and feel bad for people who put so much stock in them.

No one knows themselves completely and more importantly no one is going to tell you everything about themselves. Therefore we have to experience people, in a variety of situations before we can truly understand them. We all have things we hide, things we are ashamed of, things which we don’t even realize we do. It’s only through our decisions that people can see and learn these things about us.

Over the past two years I’ve gotten to know a lot of people and I’ve been blessed to enjoy many seasons of life with them. With each experience I’ve learned more and more about the people in my life. These experiences have caused me to look at my past decisions and my current decisions to evaluate what kind of person I am portraying.

Are my decisions lining up with the person I’m trying to be every day?

That’s a hard question to ask yourself and it’s even harder when you start to dislike the answer. Anyone who reads that question and immediately answers yes isn’t looking deep enough. They aren’t looking at all their decisions in life but instead just looking at the ones they are comfortable looking at. I’m coming up on my 2 year anniversary for my big self-awareness kick and I can honestly say I still answer no to the above question.

We can always be better tomorrow then we were today.

There are times I experience jealousy which causes me to withdraw from people.
There are times I laugh at crude humor in the office knowing I don’t agree with it.
There are times when I see people being taken advantage of or being bullied and I still remain silent.
There are times when I want to scream and shake people and I refrain, while other times I shake too hard.

I’m not perfect I know this. I will never be exactly what or who someone needs me to be. I can only be the person I know to be.

I can only be.

My decisions will continue to reflect who I am even when I don’t admit to it. My decisions will show my struggle with self-confidence even when I boast I’m stronger. My decisions will show my desire to be in a relationship even when I claim I’m comfortable being single. My decisions will show just how much I’ve surrendered to God regardless of what I say or write.

My decisions are mine. They are scary. They are real. They are what define me.

Related posts:

1. Afraid Of The Dark? Nope Just Death!
2. When Is Convenient An Inconvenience

Wrinkle Resist by biblicone

I like wearing long sleeved buttoned down shirts and you can typically find me in the summer with the sleeves rolled up and in the winter I’ll add a sweater if I need to. I like how versatile a buttoned down shirt can be. I can wear it with shorts and be preppy, with ripped jeans to be rebellious or with dark jeans / slacks to be professional. Long sleeved shirts allow me to take on different persona’s with little work or effort.

But I hate to iron, with a passion.

So most of my shirts will either get a quick steam before being put on or I’ll just leave them wrinkled. Not massively wrinkled but they have that look, like I’ve been wearing them all day, even though the day just started.

This drives my mother crazy. She see it as sloppy and me not taking care of myself. She thinks I’m better than that and should iron them and look my best.

The problem is that when they are crisp and ironed and perfect it’s not me. It’s not me at my best. I am not perfect. I am not crisp. I am not that put together.

I’m wrinkled and I love it.

The hardest thing to be, is me. No one else can do it and even I screw it up from time to time, especially when I try to be something or someone else. When I’m in my wrinkled shirt I’m being me and life is easy. There is no question of my motives, no worries about my actions and no questioning of who I am.

I’ve noticed that I have a tendency to want to please people and I have a very real fear of disappointing others. This causes me to sometimes over react and run away. It causes me to lash out and attack, rather than to sit still, listen and just be.

This fear of disappointing people causes me to add starch to my shirts. It makes them stiff and they don’t allow me to move freely in them. Yes they “look sharp” but they are very uncomfortable. They cause me to grab at the collar because I feel like I’m choking, I want to loosen buttons because I cannot move or raise my arms. I’m afraid to do anything out of fear that I’ll get it wrinkled and lose the perfection.

I allow my emotions, my thoughts and my insecurities to layer on the starch of these shirts. I get to the point where I can’t move and I just react. I lash out and make people around me feel like crap. By the time I noticed what I have done, by the time I noticed all the starch build-up and taken the steps to “change shirts”, the damage is done.

It’s at this point I have to work really hard to repair my thoughtless actions.

I wish it was easy to just take off the starched shirt and replace it with a wrinkled shirt. But it’s not. I cannot just go into a dressing room and come out with my comfortably wrinkled shirt and expect everything to be good. If I keep on the starched shirt it will eventually turn wrinkled and as the starch loosens its grip the shirt becomes more and more comfortable. This however is why I’ve spent the past 2 years discovering myself, to stop waiting for the shirt to change but to change myself now, in the moment.

I have to change in front of these people, my people.

I have to remove the starched shirt and be vulnerable. I have to stand there and undo each button one by one.

A button for my stupid thoughts.

A button for my harsh actions.

A button for my lashing out.

A button because I raced to conclusions.

A button for thinking instead of seeing the truth.

With each button I have to admit my failure, admit my weakness and ask for forgiveness. It is only when I do this that I can start to put on the wrinkled shirt and leave behind the starched one.

Lucky for me I have people in my life who know the real me. People who know, this isn’t what is to be expected of me and they call me out on my actions. I am given the opportunity to change. I am allowed to throw away the stiff, starched shirt and return to my imperfect, wrinkled and comfortable shirt.

I don’t deserve grace like this.

None of us do.

But every single day of our lives, God gives us this grace. It’s not every day you get to see God in your friends but when you do it makes you realize just how amazing He and they are.

1 Timothy 1:14 – The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

No related posts.

zero gravity by auro

My thought, it was A-MAZE-ING!

It’s funny to think that a bunch of christian singles would be willing to show up at the beach for 3 days to talk about dating. That is exactly what happened though and not only did they show up, they showed off.

Almost 600 people showed up to find out what this whole datability thing was all about. We attended breakout sessions on sex & purity, honesty, self awareness and more. We had main session which challenged us to change how we viewed dating, how we viewed ourselves, and how we viewed those around us. We had speakers talk candidly about their past and showed us, that these amazing people of God, were no better than us and at one point had been just as messed up and broken.

I laughed, I cried, I sang, I worshiped, I tanned, I played, I talked, I learned, I taught. I did so much in 3 days that honestly my brain is still spinning from everything. I tried to sit down tonight to talk to a friend about my experiences and I either babbled on about oneness or sat there in silence not having a clue how to word what was in my head.

But it wasn’t just the content it was the people.

I got to ride down with a guy I barley knew and by the time we got to Destin I felt like this guy was a brother, not just in Christ but in life.

I volunteered on the host team and was blessed to be paired up with an amazing guy the first night and continued to volunteer with him throughout the weekend, until he forgot his duties on the last night . I worked alongside some amazing sister in Christ who were both beautiful on the outside but so much more on the inside.

I got to see a new side of a friend I’ve known for a few months, which I never had the opportunity to see before. We spent hours sitting outside watching the rain and just talking about life, struggles, hopes, dreams and our pasts. We invited others to sit down with us and continued to talk about these deeply personal issues without balking or batting an eye.

I was able to reconnect with friends I haven’t seen since my early days of Buckhead church and introduce them to some of my current crew.

I saw a buddy of mine who a year ago was looking to me for guidance become that same person to someone else who needed it. We prayed and hugged and laughed so much during the weekend that you’d think we had known each other for 18 years, not 18 months.

I saw people whom I’d never expect to be broken, crushed under the weight of their reality only to be lifted high with the grace, forgiveness, and mercy of Jesus. I saw these same people walk around with a new light, a new purpose and a heart which could scare away the evilest of people.

I had conversations on Sunday I thought I could only have at Starbucks. I had them during lunch on the patio, while waiting to serve on host team, after the service and more. Conversations about life and who I am everyday, talks about dating and the challenges we all face, realities of peoples perceptions and just how lost we all really are.

I walked around the entire resort never once battling my self confidence issues and after every session I felt myself becoming more and more assured of what I’m doing and who I am in Christ.

For the first time in my life I felt like I knew what I was doing and every communicator just affirmed this to me over and over again.

Finally I spent 11 hours driving home and while by the end it felt like 20 I got to spend it with two of the most amazing men in my life. We laughed and shared and challenged each other the whole way home.

So yea the weekend was amazing but really the future and what we gained from 3 days will continue to affect us, challenge us and lead us long after we’ve stopped dating. That to me is the MOST amazing part of the entire weekend, and something you can’t share with just words.

Related posts:

1. One Is NOT The Loneliest Number
2. Rejection, For The Love Of God Get Over It!