Thursday, February 24, 2011

Something I Have to Come to Grips With...

This thing all things devours:
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays kings, ruins towns,
And beats high mountains down.

~The Hobbit~

Monday, February 21, 2011

Whistler

So my butt-bone is sore, my thighs and calves burn, my wrists ache, and my neck hurts! But oh was it worth it! Whistler was amazing, even despite my not so amazing snowboard skills. The mountain doesn't even compare to what I've ridden on the east Coast (obviously), I just wish I was able to go for longer. I'd say my snowboarding skills are improving some, we stuck in a group for most of the time so it was kind of hard to go at my own skill level, I even got to snow-plow down a few black runs. I took a few small jumps and landed a couple, so that was pretty tight, but the other peeps in the group were way better than me. Anyways, I'd say it probably was on of the most awesome Sundays I've ever had while being at Fountainview.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Football!

Circumstances seem to eat me up sometimes. I feel that if I'm not in complete control of my circumstances, than I am being used by them. As if circumstance had some will of its own, some hidden ulterior motive, and it needs to exploit me to fulfill it. Now the trick to not being exploited is figuring out what that motive is, but this is normally quite difficult. And finally, when you get to the end of this circumstance, you find out that you have, unknowingly, helped the motive along the whole time. I guess that's why I'm gonna just have to trust that God's will is that motive. He says that "...all things work together for good to them that love God..." (Romans 8:28) and I'm gonna have to hold on to that.
Secrets are also incredibly annoying at times, but only when you don't know what's going on...

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Love Goes On

Fortunes fail and disappear,
Like castles in the sand.
Power spoils and causes fear,
But yields to stronger hands.
Fame lasts for a moment,
Then, in a moment, it is gone. 
Oh, but love, love goes on.

Fried Chicken

Don't you hate being in a situation where you have said or done something that you really wish you hadn't. Despite "good intentions", it's impossible to change what is already there and you are forced to watch helplessly and hope that things don't snowball out of control. On top of feeling totally helpless, you also get the wonderful, reassuring feeling that the effects of this action are all your fault. Your only hope is to throw out as many excuses as you can to try and redeem your motives, but this method is about as effective as trying to stop an avalanche with a shovel. And sometimes even what you expect to happen changes from what you feel will happen. Expectations can certainly be very different from reality, and when these expectations aren't fulfilled and something totally different happens, then you have the element of surprise come flying at your face. Anyways... just some random thoughts.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Tour

This weekend I've become aware of my total dependence on digital media and entertainment. On Friday, as I was in my room making sure I had everything for our two day tour, I realized that I had left my iPod down in my locker at the school building. When I went to pick it up I saw that, to my horror, it had absolutely no battery life. What was I to do? I faced a crazy long bus ride with absolutely no music! Thinking fast, I dashed off to the studio to "borrow" a splitter so I could share Logan's iPod. Feeling quite proud of myself, I headed for the bus. But when I boarded, I realized that because some guys had stayed behind, every one could have two seats to themselves. Now normally I would be happy about this because it's nice to have more room to stretch out in, but this time it was different. Since nobody was sitting beside me, I was completely iPodless. With nothing else to do, I stretched out on my seat and tried to get some sleep. This was a task in itself because I didn't have any earbuds to block out the general bus chatter, but eventually I managed to catch a few winks. After waking up, my mind wandered aimlessly from subject to subject (you can think of some pretty crazy stuff on a bus ride) until my dean (Jordan) turned around from the seat in front of me and started up a conversation. We talked about stuff (*cough cough*) for the rest of the trip. 
It was then that I realized how much I really didn't need my iPod. Although it is nice to have some music once in a while, I was forgetting about more important things like quality conversation. For the rest of the  tour I was able to read, think, and actually build my mind instead of having different music artist's propaganda loaded messages shoveled into my brain. And by the way, do you know how hard it is to actually think about something without your mind wandering to a different subject? It's ubber hard! I could probably start thinking about something deep like salvation and two minutes later be thinking about Goldfish crackers... It's pretty sad. But it's something I gotta pray about and work on! I learned some crazy stuff from Help In Daily Living, check it out. "The trials of one are not the trials of another, the duties that one finds light are to another most difficult and perplexing" (pg. 23). Sometimes it's hard for me to understand why I struggle with things that don't even effect others, but each one of us has our own battle to fight and that's why I can't depend on others and must depend wholly on Christ. Here's another one "Those who decline the struggle lose the strength and joy of victory" (pg. 28). Wow, 'nuff said. Anyways it has been a revelatory weekend.

Friday, February 4, 2011

The Least of These

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. (Matthew 25:40)


We can only love Christ as much as we love the person we like the least.