my celeb look-a-likes

--...and...--

23

ok so today i turn 23 today and i thought it good to reflect alittle bit on life and where ive been and what ive done and why the heck was i born and why i am still alive. how did i make it this far, 23 years of life and atleast one more day to live. God has been merciful to me. almost every year switchfoot puts out a new cd and on each one jon foreman, their frontman and songwriter, always seems to write a song on his birthday, each one seems to be really profound and reflective on life. i was listening to the one i think he wrote for his 23rd, its:

"economy of mercy"-

There's just two ways to lose yourself in this life
And neither way is safe
In my dreams I see visions of the future
But today we have today
And where will I find You?
Where will I find You?

In the economy of mercy
I am a poor and begging man
In the currency of grace
Is where my song begins
In the colors of Your goodness
In the scars that mark Your skin
In the currency of grace
Is where my song begins

These carbon shells
These fragile dusty frames
House canvases of souls
We are bruised and broken masterpieces
But we did not paint ourselves
And where will I find You?

Where was I when the world was made?
Where was I?

I'm lost with You here
Yes, I'm lost with You near
I'm lost with You here
You knew my name when the world was made


-------------------


wow:
We are bruised and broken masterpieces
But we did not paint ourselves

-

In the economy of mercy
I am a poor and begging man
In the currency of grace
Is where my song begins

i love the way foreman writes, we are bruised and broken masterpieces... we are not perfect, we are made in the image of God the perfect creator, he is gracious, merciful to us in our jacked-up state. do we deserve to continue living, i dont think so, but God grants us one more day, one more year in his currency of grace - we cannot survive alone in our own currency of materialism and individualism. it is God that we need, that we cling to for sustinance. lets not put him on the back shelf one more year. why are we so comfortable in our dangerous state of denying Christ or making little his sacrifice in our lives, for our lives. each of us on the edge of death must realize and accept his mercy and grace and sacrifice for us. our time here is short and frail, tho we see a lifetime as 70-100 yrs. lets start seeing it as one day, in the scheme of eternity or even one second in they eyes of our Father. perspective.

look who has brown hair now... thought id try something different

manhattan, kansas

well i had a little bit of an extended weekend. as i often do. so i thought id shoot up to the little apple to hang out with some old friends from the ol' college years. man i cant believe that im really not in college anymore. and that theres a whole world that i was apart of that goes on with out me, weird. its easy to think of things as being the same as when you leave them as if they didnt exist while you were gone or that they just were paused for the last several months but- they havent. anyways - im excited to hang with people here and all that - like having awkward interactions with people that i didnt really know but i kinda did. ya know... anyways -late

fishing

well i went fishing with my dad today. we went to cheaney lake and there was pretty much nobody there. it was nice and calm, very rare for that lake. we didnt really catch anything... my dad did catch one about 3inch fish. you know one of those when you set the hook and the fish flies up out of the water and in to the boat... so pretty much skunked but it was nice out there. gotst some pics hur.

hey im still alive

in the living room

so ive probably lost all of my fan base because i havent posted in such a long time.. oh well


heres my latest adventure. so my uncle has a 30' sail boat up in michigan, my dad was planning on going and i had some time off and was able to get rid of some of my shifts at the bucks and tagged along.. we left thursday night at about 8pm and drove till we couldnt anymore then slept at a truck stop and finished the drive the next day.. we spent 3nights sleeping on the boat and going from one port to the next. we left saugatuck, mi and went north to muskegon, then back south to grand haven, then back to saugatuck on the last day. it was so fun. it was kinda like camping except on a boat. its a whole new world of gagets and gear and terms. anyways... here are some pictures of the trip.

boooring

you know how when you sit around for days and days and do absolutely nothing?.?.? well probably not - but i do. im almost at the point where i cant stand it anymore. i sure thought that this time would be great for reading the WORD and playing guitar but i havent done much of either of those. its the curse of the tv i didnt get channels in my dorm room so i never watched it, ever, but now at home, where there is nobody around all day, it fills a large part of my jobless-time. lots of people say it must be nice to not have a job but its not always that way - work is a strange thing. it is definitely one of those love/hate things. when you have it you wish you could quit and when you dont have a job for awhile you wish you had one. if all of my friends didnt have to work either it wouldnt be bad but dang it - there's this stupid thing called capitalism. oh well.

so the end of my boredom is at hand. tomorrow. tomorrow i start a job at starbucks!! 12:00pm. i will now become........... a barista - one who serves and makes coffee - basically ill have my masters in coffee. its the new me "so i can say that thats the way that i used to be" (j.m.). who ever said you had to go to graduate school to get your masters -ha i beat the system again.

it will be nice to have some of my time filled with something - some structure, tho it'll only be a few hours at least at first.

the search continues

well after a long week of waiting the results are in........ and it seems that i need to keep looking for a job.
grace community church's elders decided that it would be better to hire someone that was alittle more known among their congregation.
i thought i was the only person that they were looking at to lead the music this summer but it turns out that they had wanted another guy to do it all along but he wasnt available to lead until, i guess, this last week and so i waited a whole extra week wondering what was happening when all along it seems that they were looking and hoping for this other guy to become available.
well its ok, life goes on.. im not devistated or anything, it just means i have to start looking for a job and thatll probably be kind of hard to find something because i dont think ill be in wichita much after this summer (i would like to move to denver,co around late summer/early fall) and also i dont want to have to work nights and weekends... so i dont know what will happen with my summer - still. i guess ill start looking and applying different places...

where is GOD leading me??????
i guess only He knows...............................................................................

but for now i will be attending all of my friends' weddings and playing some songs in a few of them and going boating whenever i can!

its official!

The grades are in -------and--------- i PASS!!!



i really thought i was going to get a C or D in some of my classes... dang i worked the system or something... 4Bs and 1A... SWEET


- still waiting on newton... its about 4 days later than i thought i would hear from them.......................

graduation

(i already posted this on myspace but this is my new blog page... so)

well now i am a kansas state university GRADUATE! i made it. this weekend last weekend in manhattan was pretty crazy. i had to finish checking people out of their rooms for the summer. and saturday was graduation. i walked and it was sooooo boring. i had to be at the arena at 730 am (way too early) then i stood in a line next to some people i knew, thankfully, for an hour and around 830 we finally walked down on to the basketball court and sat down and we were there for 2 hours listening to people reading names and speaches and the like... i almost fell asleep, talk about riviting. then my row stood up and we walked up to the front and they read my name (and even pronounced it right), gave me an empty diploma folder and went and sat back down. we didnt get to throw our hats or anything - pretty lame-o.

but then in the afternoon i had a reception at my aunt and uncle's house. that was pretty good, most of my good friends showed up which was good to see them all once more before i left kstate for good.. but dang - im going to miss them all alot. im not sure about this whole growing up thing. growing up means leaving people behind i guess, there isnt anything i can do about that. hopefully ill see them all again sometime.

now this deal in Newton that i wrote about last time... im still waiting to hear from them. i recieved an email last week from them saying that they would get in contact with me sometime this week so i am waiting. ill write again letting you know if i got the worship leader position at grace community.

oh.. hey i got a wireless router for my parents house... holler. now i can go anywhere and be on the internet!! this is pretty AWESOME... and i can share my itunes with my parents computer up stairs and listen to it upstairs too.. pretty sweet - i love technology...

heres some proof: