saturday night / sunday morning

sometimes I just feel like...

maybe I'm not living in reality. and I've just got everyone fooled really well.

because when I say things, they make just enough sense. but only just enough.



most of the time, I'm the last one to find out that I don't know what I'm doing. I'm really grateful for the people the Lord's put in my life to help me figure things out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ELjc-RD2pI

monday 1

everybody's bad at dealing with discouragement.

when I'm discouraged, I'm bad at dealing with it. if I go to other people about it, sometimes I only get more discouraged.

sometimes I wake up early on a monday to get things done that I couldn't get done on a late sunday night and just feel like I can't take on the week, anymore.

things that count as science #1

There's a cup of grape juice on my book shelf that's been there since at LEAST monday. I'm going to put it on the very top of my shelf.

hopefully I'll find it again before I move out of here, for good.

I just wanna see what'll happen.

thoughts

in a strange twist of irony, I reminded a few young men a little while ago that we were adults.

11:27 PM

I've got some good friends

thoughts

so...

if I'm going to be tired anyway... I'm going to stay up and get ahead, tonight. I'm realizing (or I'm re-realizing) that just a little bit more effort can put you weeks ahead of schedule.

some notes

1. I left some grape juice on my book shelf for a couple of weeks. I went to pour it out tonight, but of course, I decided it'd be better to smell it first. It smelled like red wine. I poured it down the sink and the bathroom smelled like alcohol.

2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-lv8745InI

3. my dad likes John Mayer

4. Erin and I had a really great week end with my folks

warm waters

for me...

blogging can be one of my only outlets to be raw. to really let it out.

I've been working through whether or not that's a good thing... and consequently I'll hit points where I stop writing things for everyone to see and think about.

does it just bring the focus to me? to my problems, my thoughts, my intellect?

ultimately, does it glorify my God?


so I've thought about that a lot. am I just complaining? am I bagging on someone? do I have one specific person in mind when I write?



sometimes I can get a bit overwhelmed. it's good to have people to talk to about different things, and by God's grace I've had a lot more people in my life that have understood and cared about the things of the Lord and His people, who have really taken an interest in what's going on and where I'm at.

sometimes, though, I really need to cry. I really do. but where can I go to do that? I don't know.

you know why? because crying is weak. and I'm not supposed to be weak. my whole life I've been weak. physically weak, mentally weak, emotionally weak.

when I'm weak, who will follow me? when I'm weak, what does that say to the people who have put themselves under me? how does it trickle down? how is it conveyed? what gets lost in the translation? see, I'm just not good at faking it. I'm really not. so I'll hide out, I'll shut down, I'll waste time and let my mind wander.

I've been put in this situations where everything around me seems to be saying one thing but meaning another thing. where I need to rely on the strength of the Lord but I need to be strong, myself. being a man means standing on my own, standing on my own means I have the audacity to compete with God for His glory.



at this moment, it's my family. that's the thing that's really been weighing down on me. the biggest thing. but there are other things. things equally as large, or just as close. they're all tied together, I think. at the end of the day, the morning, the afternoon, the night, the week - I'm faced with everyway that I've failed to make the best of things, to meet all these standards and to slip into all these molds.

but sometimes I really, really just need to get on my face. just cry, and cry loudly. where can I go to do that? my room mate is asleep - he has a big week end of studying that starts after a good nights sleep that I really want him to have. there are freshman running around in the hall, and I'm not sure whether I'm paid to be the one to tell them my room mate is asleep so they need to keep it down, or if I'm supposed to be running around with them because I have some 'spiritual agenda.' if I retreat, if I take time to myself, some how it's 'sin' around here because I'm not contributing to the community. Yet, my great God and Savior retreated often into sweet communion with the Lord in solitudinal prayer.

can I go out to my car with out someone knocking on my window? that's great, I suppose. God bless everyone who cares - but sometimes that in and of itself is the issue - I just can't get away.




different things are important to me. different than the things that I feel like should be important to me, because I'm on SLS at the Master's College. I care about the lost, I think the school should be making a bigger impact. some people see those things. and so maybe I'm not crazy. but the truth is, I'm still stifled - I'm still staggering, I'm still kicked down and really feeling like giving up, sometimes.

does that scare you? that I want to give up? does it freak you out?

then who am I? am I the Christ? I'm not... I'm more like Him than I've ever been but I'm still so much further than I wish I was (in a practical sense).

I have a girlfriend that I can confide in for just a slice of the day, and some good friends that I've been able to pour in to more than I was able to last semester. even in all those blessed incidences that I've been graced with, it's still so limited...



I guess all that is to say: I appreciate the people who won't leave me in the dust when I go down in mourning. I appreciate the people in my life who have followed me, even after seeing me in the raw, bleeding all over the place and trying to hold all my pieces together. I appreciate the people who understand that I'm a sinner, that everyone's a sinner, that they're still willing to follow me because the Lord is the one who is at work in me and not myself.

I appreciate my girlfriend, my family, my best friends - all of this I've been graced with and I'm trying to just be satisfied. I just wish I could go somewhere and really be real. I wish there wasn't all this pressure, all the time.

art 1

so I made this. it didn't take that long, altogether, but I've been working on it for a while, now.

(actually I've been working on it since sunday night)

it came from two pictures:

getting by

I was telling erin, for a guy who never learned how to tie a tie I've been doing pretty good for myself...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQQr09Ja1zY

ohhh yeah.

(for the record, I watched it with out sound)

if Paul can say this...

"So I find it to be a law that when I want

to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I

delight in the law of God, in my inner being,

but I see in my members another law wag-

ing war against the law of my mind and mak-

ing me captive to the law of sin that dwells in

my members.

Wretched man that I am!

Who will deliver me from this body of death?

(then our hope is found in this)


Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our
Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God
with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the
law of sin.


There is therefore now no condemnation
for those whoa re in Christ jesus. For
the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in
Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

For God has done what the law, weakened
by the flesh, could not do. By sending His
own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for
sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order
that the righteous requirement of the law
might be fulfilled in us, who walk not accord-
ing to the flesh but according to the Spirit."