guess who’s back, back again?

wow has it really been since july that i posted last?  wow may i say a ton has happened in the subsequent six months!

1. went to El Salvador and had a wonderful spiritual experience with some awesome missionaries from the orchard, incredible kids at the El Shalom Childerens home, and none other than God himself. i’ll have a follow up post on that in time to come.

2.  continued to grow in Christ.

3. oh and i did a small thing… i bought a house!!! nice little big home in De Kalb. 

well battery is running low on the old laptop here so i’ll update a bit more later!

what a blessing

July 5th, Amy brought her son Tyler to the Orchard’s Saturday night worship service. I was helping lead worship, after the service completed I walked back to Wahabu Land (children’s ministry) with amy to get Ty.

while we were waiting in line i was talking to Loudene Hodge (mother of our pastor Scott Hodge). i thanked her for sponsoring me on my trip to El Salvador. she had asked me how my fundraising was going. i told her that my friend’s parent’s church was sending $250, and with that i’ll be about $50 to 100 short on my goal.

at this point a gentlemen i never met before named Scott Jones, spoke up asking how much i needed. i told him. he didn’t even think twice and asked his wife for their checkbook.

this was such a blessing, Thank God for the Orchard and all the folks who call it home. I love you guys!!!!

what to do when there’s nothing to do.

i’m at a point in my job where i have a lot of free time. not that i’m complaining, it’s just i’m a workhorse who tends to feel useless during downtime.

take this morning, for example: i “manage” five guys. this morning from 9 to 11 each of them has time blocked off in their schedule to go through their folders and “scrub” them. this means that they are give 2 hours of free time to remove any irrelevantinformation from their folders, what they should be doing anyway. so this means i have until at least noon before i can go into the field and do my job as a trainer.  i hate downtime.  the worst part about having  a late start day, is that i will have a late evening tonight. i guess i shouldn’t complain, but i’ve been enjoying my evenings off, it’s been nice.

i need to start getting into the gym again. i’ve been really lazy and have put the weight back on again. it’s kinda depressing.  i suppose that this is a perfect oppertunity to use this “downtime” but i’m just not motivated to do it. any suggestions? i’ve been praying for motivation, but it’s not really working. maybe God is telling me to get off my duff and make an effort for myself……

carnie wilson

week # mumble

ok so i haven’t made it to the gym for quite some time now. laziness and the job being 2 main factors. i’d go maybe once a week or not at all.

now i have my new position at work i’m going to hit it hard again. i’m praying that i can stay the course and keep going on a regular basis. i hit the eliptical machine for a half hour today. found out there has been a regime change at the gym, and my useless trainer and his boss were both let go. they may be crediting me with 6 sessions due to my trainer missing at least that many with me.

weighed in at 202.5 up 4.5 since the last weigh in where i was exicted i’d broken the 200 lbs barrier. here we go again. wish me luck!

chris farley

the gay thing

i’ve been wrestling with the whole concept of the Church/God vs. Homosexuality for quite some time.  i’ve journaled about this- i’m not one to share my journal entries, so this is a “new” entrie so to speak.

as many of you may or may not know, i grew up in a gay household. my mother is a lesbian and her partner is too (obviously).  they were together for 16 years, from the time i was starting school to when i started college. they didn’t atted the gay pride parades (they thought that they were distasteful), they didn’t flaunt their sexuality,  there weren’t any public displays of affection, no outward talk of being Gay or what it meant to be gay. when i was young i just knew i had 2 women who loved me and would take care of me no matter what.  which is more than i can say about some friends who had a normal ‘nuclear families’.

then  i hear about God, i hear rev. Phelps. i hear GOD HATES FAGS. and that being GAY was a slight against God. i thought God was all loving, i thought God forgave.  i thought a lot of things. which is one of the reasons i had turned away.

i know in the OT God spoke out against homosexuality, and it was one of the reasons that Soddom and Gemmorah was destroyed (never mind the rape, murder and all the other stuff going on there God HATED FAGS right?) the thing that always got me is in the NT, Christ Jesus never spoke out about it. at least not in my translation (NIV). i’ve heard arguments that Christ spoke about many things that didn’t make it into the Bible. well, that may be true, but we only have what is in the Word. the rest is conjecture. as a follower of Christ, i believe in the Greatest commandments. “Love the Lord with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. and Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” pretty good huh? doesn’t say anything about hating FAGS now does it.

then the governement tries, and has passed laws (mostly on the state level) ammending what ‘marriage’ is and what it isn’t. “marriage is the union between One MAN and One WOMAN” pat robertson said. but when i read my Bible, i see that King David who was a man after God’s heart had MANY WIVES AND CONCUBINES?! so did Moses, and many other Biblical figures. so where did that change?

 who decided that it’s ok to still hate or discriminate against one yet condemn another? who decides which OT laws are ok to follow and which ones are ok to leave by the wayside? this i believe is where Christ came in and regulated. He didn’t throw out all of the Laws Moses put down charged from God, He just highlighted the ones that were most importatnt. God is God, He can and has changed His mind on things, it’s His perogative. i mean, come on, He’s God, He can pretty much do what He wants.

my thing is, love is love no matter what shape it manifests itself in. maybe i’m wrong. but i think that God does forgive, He does want us to follow His son, He does want us to find our mate.

i had a theory that in the OT days, Homosexuality was a blight because God needed us to populate the earth. well how populous does the earth need to be? many people think the earth is overpopulated enough as it is. there are billions on billions of people here, more than our resources can handle.

so maybe, just maybe, God programmed in us- certain folks who had no reason to procreate. maybe, just maybe, God ingrained a ‘gay gene’ into our DNA. which brings me to another point- i have many gay friends. all who claim to have known they were gay well before the age of starting to be interested in the opposite sex. one close friend said she always preferred to play sports and with toy cars to playing house and with barbies.  there is something deeper going on here. so entertain this thought:

if being gay is a ‘choice’, why would someone choose a lifestyle that would bring on hatred, contempt, separation from family, bigotry, and violence- just to be a contrarian, to be different. doesn’t make sense does it?

it’s like asking a black guy why he chose to be black? it isn’t a choice. it is just how God made him, isn’t it?

i entertain you to think about these questions i’ve brought up. please feel free to comment, but please be respectful- i will delete any hatespeech. so please if you have any further insight, i’d love to hear your thoughts.

peace.

r~ 

gymclass heroes

just got back from the gym. its the first time i’ve seriously gone in about 2 weeks. i’ve been lazy, discouraged since my trainer is a flake, and have been travelling a lot lately. i did some simple lifting, now my arms are jello. kinda twitchy. 

the good thing is, i haven’t gained any weight since my last weigh in. still a solid 200. which is good. my diet hasn’t changed so that’s helped. but i seriously can use to get diciplined again.

keep me in yr prayers that i can get back into full swing again. i can do this, i just need God’s help, and a bit of motivation!

stuck in a hotel in the middle of nowhere, IN

well, the ice is coming down. i’ve never heard of a highway getting shut down in IL before but aparently in Indiana it is something that happens.

maybe i’m spoiled because in the Chicago area we have what is known as rocksalt, plow trucks, and emergency management. in indianapolis, not so much. so as i sit waiting for my ride  to get here to take me to work, i’ve curled up around a nice book, a bottle of the cleanest of tap water, and a simple dream. that tomorrow my flight won’t be cancelled and i get back home and away from this horrid state!

anyway, thanks to everyone for their kind words yesterday. i  was in a bit of a state (not indiana).

in the terminal with neil diamond

i’m at the O’Hare Chili’s. neil diamond is on. that is inconsequential.

 i’m alone.

i had a tough discussion with Shaz last night. life is getting harder. i’m trying to understand how to go from an R/NC-17 rated life to a more G/PG life. especially where it comes to my love life. when one has lived a life of physical and emotional impurity, how does one go about getting it back? how can one shift from 5th to 1st without dropping the clutch and ruining the transmission?

 this is where i’m at right now. my clutch is grinding, and i can smell it’s metallic heat. it’ll only be a matter of time before the bolts fall off and i have no more forward motion.

i’ve equated aspects of relationships to love. sex=love, lust=love, drugs+lust+sex= love= a big depraved mess. no matter how the equation adds up it always ended in tragedy.  how do i purify myself to be able to move past all those false emotions, find the real theorem, the real equation. how do i discern the givens from the falsehoods. how do i find the righteous path to true love, Godly love. to my ‘one’?

i came to the realization last night that i don’t feel like i’m ready for marriage yet, despite everything i have thought and felt before. emotionally, and financially- i’m drained. i don’t want to bring that into a marriage. spiritually, i’m still an infant. although i’m growing in my faith daily, i’m nowhere prepared to be the spiritual leader of a home, of a family. i have a ton of growing to do. where do i go from here? if i’m not ready to for marriage, do i have any business dating? how do i get to know someone if i am unable to stop myself from becoming emotionally attached?

my Lord Jesus,

i’m searching for an answer.  God please come, please show me what you want for me. show me the way. teach me. allow me to grow to be more like You. allow me to be who you intended me to be. if i have to be alone, so be it. that will be what has to be done, if only to do it right by you.

my God, my Lord, my Shepard. in your Son’s name- Amen

random acts of senseless violence

today at NIU 6 people were brutally murdered by a senior who was a coward. this saddens me as every college/high school shooting does. it doesn’t surprise me it happened at NIU, i mean this can happen anywhere. the saddest part is that these poor students were just trying to get their education. they started their day like any other student does; breakfast, class, class, lunch, possibly some study. never in their hungry minds did they expect to leave the university in a body bag.

i don’t understand why or how people feel they can turn to guns instead of using their heads to solve their issues. i mean is life so bad that turning to violence and killing random people is the only answer? i feel bad if i squash a bug, i could never imagine what it could be like to take a human life. this staggers my imagination. i can’t get my head around it.

it makes me wish that people would realize that God loves them even though they feel noone else does. i pray that when people feel this way (to turn to violence) that they turn to God instead. so they may find their peace, their center.

Lord, our father in Heaven,

i pray that You are with the familys of the victims. i pray that You heal their families, stand with them and keep them strong in the face of such tragedy. i pray that You are there to console their friends, and the student body. i pray that in the future, hurt and lost souls should turn to You instead of the metal of the gun. i pray that You, in your infinate wisdom, will show them the way. that they are loved, that no matter how horrible life is here on earth- there is more to life than what we see around us.

i also pray for the shooter. i pray for his family, that they are able to forgive him. i pray that although he took the cowardly way out, and escaped judgement of this world, that You shall judge him accordingly- with Love.

i pray these things in your Son’s name,

amen

Week #2

not as sore starting this week out. weighed in at 202. not too shabby. working hard, my trainer says i’m making progress, but there’s still a ways to go.