Dark Roads

I read my friends blog today and I wish I had read it a while ago cause her influence on my thoughts through her blog probably would have saved me from a dark road a while ago. I have made mistakes just like everyone else does. However, my recent mistakes might have had more of a toll on my spiritual life than I really ever could have seen coming. I went above and beyond anything I would have thought I was capable of my freshman year of high school. People have told me all my life to live in the world but not of the world by not of the world. That advice is completely useless if after saying that you leave me in a dark corner and say find your way out. You aren't helping. Taking a passive role in a persons life and saying oh everyone has to make those mistakes once in their life that's how they truly learn. If I here anyone say again I am going to hit them in the face. If you truly care about a person you will do anything you can to stop them and keep them from doing something they will regret. Oh, and looking the other way isn't truly caring for someone either. I don't blame people for letting me make several big mistakes. But after the mistakes I have made I can't just sit back and watch people I care about make the same ones. The whole "its their life let them live it" That's bullshit and the people who say that are just trying to cop out of having to confront someone for what they were doing. I don't want this to seem like a rant about how people should hold others accountable because it isn't. I believe that it's the responsibility of the someone who is making a poor decision to check themselves, rather than rely on others to hold them accountable. But please hold one another accountable cause its to late when you hear that your friend is dead from a drug overdose or pregnant or whatever poor decision they are making.

Growing up is scary, growing apart is even scarier.

Mission Trip Overview:

I know this is a little late but I have been enjoying my relaxing summer so I am sorry.

This year the CBC youth group went to the Apache reservation in Arizona to build homes for the families living there. The over all theme that week in my opinion was its not wrong its just different. This idea was drilled into the group from the start. We were told that the Apache were shy and that we shouldn't expect much of a welcoming from the families of the homes we were working on. the next day we started work and just like they said we didn't see any of the apache's other than the ones who were working with Amor and helping us out on the sites making sure that we did everything the correct way.

The homes that we were building were very different from the ones in Mexico considering the fact that we had to go by USA building codes. Which resulted in the first day being quite a bit of trial and error. The next day we went back to our sites finished up the foundation then returned to camp to start building the walls which would then be taken back to the sites to be put up. While half the group was building walls the other half was in a riverbed digging out rocks for a different project the owners were trying to complete. the third day one of our sites went back to put up the walls that had been built on the second day while the rest finished making more walls and moving rocks. On the fourth day the site that had been building walls for the last two days went back to their site and put up the walls while the other site started on the roof.

Earning It...

I must admit that I have been disappointed in myself over the past couple of years. My parents have tried to instill the values of hard work and doing everything to the best of my ability throughout my life. For the most part they succeeded and I do tend to work hard on the things I care about. However I want that to extend past the things I care about to everything I do. I want to earn what I am given. The life I have lived thus far is a life of mediocrity and disappointment in my own eyes. I want to go beyond the expected in my life and do what I believe I can do and what I believe is the right thing to do. I want to EARN the time I have on this earth not to please my peers but to please God and myself. But how can I do that without being motivated about what I do with my time. How can I motivate myself to do the things that must be done. I have been getting better, but it goes beyond what I can do for myself. Behavior management doesn't work for me because my inner voice has a tendency to distract me or belittle what I am doing with my time. I can not do this on my own it is not a matter of opinion it is a fact because believe me I have been trying to do it on my own for 3 years. To go beyond where I am now I believe that trusting in God is my only option. I wish I had come to this realization a long time before hand.

this is my 2 cents

words on pages

I hear people say the author could not have put that much into what they were writing. My English teacher is going beyond what the author ment. I can understand their feelings because it does seem hard to believe that everything in a book, that makes sense when you think of it as only a story. When you turn the story into the author pouring out their hearts onto pages expressing everything that makes them a person. That's when it becomes easy to see a meaning beneath the words. "This is for you... everytime I write everytine I open my eyes I am cutting out a part of myself to give to you" (anis mojgani). So why do people struggle with the idea that when a writer talks about a character having a problem he couldn't have been talking about a greater problem that he sees in the world.

this is my 2 cents

Formulas and poetry...

I have been reading Donald Miller's book Searching for God Knows What. In this book so far the one thing I have gotten out of it is the fact that God is not as easy as a formula but is a complex being that cannot be explained in mere words or illustrated accurately with a pencil or paintbrush. That his glory goes beyond anything describable by man. No matter how beautiful the painting or the words that try to describe the most powerful being in the entire universe that are attempts to describe and understand him are feeble and laughable at best. “I wondered if when we take Christian theology out of the context of its narrative, when we ignore the poetry in which it is presented, when we turn it into formulas to help us achieve the American dream, we lose it’s meaning entirely, and the ideas become fodder for the head but have no impact on the way we live our lives or think about God. This is, perhaps, why people are so hostile toward religion.” (Donald Miller pg. 58 Searching for God Knows What).

Turning God into a formula or routine is the most disgraceful thing in my mind that we as followers of Christ can do to him, we take all his emotion and remove it when we tell him I just need to say this, then believe this, then act this way. This idea takes away in emotion that God has for us and without emotion all of it is pointless. If God was emotionless there would have been no need for him to send his son to die the most excruciating death known to man, or for him send anyone to hell, there would be no need for mercy, punishment, grace, love, justice, joy, righteousness, or anger. Emotions are what makes the God of the Bible different from any other religion. The gods of other religions say do this or you die live this way or you die. My God says I want to save you because I love you and I don't want any of my children to have to experience eternal damnation. The Bible uses these subtle poems in its text that can be easily overlooked but allow for the greatest insight into Gods emotions and personality.

Poetry is a way to express emotion beyond common words through the way it flows or describes an emotion in a way that a person can understand and feel a connection to. Poetry creates a feeling that other literature cannot because there is emotion behind it that can inspire. Poetry is not just 4 lines a stanza and 3 stanzas granted that can be equally raw or deep if written with passion, or poetry that has a ton of hidden messages. I am talking about music and the poetry that comes right out and says what it means. That when read causes people to stop and think because it has truly had an impact, the poetry that when read or heard is so profound that you have to take a step back read it again and think how does this change what I believe about who I am or who God is.

this is my 2 cents

Focus...

God gives us so many opportunities to experience Him and how many times do we pass these opportunities up thinking I am too busy or I can do it later. Why do we justify this thinking? Why do I put off what should be the most important thing in my life to do the things that make me happy in the short term but bring me no real gratification in the end? The idea that I pass up these experiences kills me, that I may ignore the person who loves me enough to die for my sins, that I can go about my day ignoring God for this reason or that. Because I don't want to take a look at my life or see where I messed up. What keeps me from dedicating my life solely for Him and nothing more?

this is my 2 cents

Perserverance...

Perserverance an idea that is truly foreign to me. My generation is known for seeking instant gratification. God gives us trials and tribulations where we must learn to perservere. As I go through these things I hope to see God in new and fascinating ways. I look back at the rough patches in my life and I see God in the people I was with and in the things that helped me through those times. But at the time I had trouble picking out these things that are so evident to me now. I was and still am in a dark place in my life; I know I need god to get through this and I try and rely on him but its hard, I pray that god will give me the strength to make it through these tough times. Help me present myself in a manner that glorifies God and allows me to reach my 6th grade guys each weak; that I can show them a little bit of how much god loves them.

this is my 2 cents