More Blog about weakness.

This is a title stolen from my buddy, Jim Powell ....sorta
Contrary to his post, when I am weak, my DESIRE is to blog more, to get people to read the thoughts going through this myopic heart and mind. I feel like I work through issues better if people know about them. Many people are different. For instance, my mom eats when she gets upset. I, on the other hand, do not. When I was kicked out of my house, I ate one meal in 3 days. I just get sick and food does not look good to me. This week, after the Sunday issue that popped up, I ate lunch Sunday and lunch Monday. That's it. I often joke that a great way to lose weight is to have problems in my life.

So here I blog, my version of "starving" myself. Tell me everything will be ok.

Struggles or Steps to the Cross?

What is a struggle in your life?

What does it make you become?
Recently I told someone that I feel like my life is just one struggle after another... and I really believed it at the time. But then, this person tried to explain to me that these things aren't struggles but rather steps that I will be taking every day of my life, which will lead me right where I belong, right at the foot of the cross. There I have no excuse, no argument, no defense, no hiding my past from everyone around me.

Lord, don't let me out of your hands. Keep me where I belong and right where YOU want me.

Day #5

Day #5: A leader's Courage Deuteronomy 31

Here's what I learned today.

Courage isn't an absence of fear. It's doing what your afraid to do.

Courage is making things rights, not just smoothing things over. The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and adversity. -Martin Luther King Jr.

Courage is contagious.- Billy Graham

Lord, help me to be courages and not to fear, but to remember you are in control of everything

4 days with God.

I get it. I get why the bible is so important in the life of a Christian. For the past 4 days, I have spent time in the word. Something Christians do on a normal day right? Not this one...until now. I think of these past 4 days as "wow I'm doing great" but rather to say "wow, I've done so BAD at obeying God". Alas, I've seen failure again in a knew way. And it's good to see. As I do my personal devotions, I'm going through Leadership Promises for every Day. Great book by the way!
So anyway, as I have read what the book says, here have been my prayers,


1. Lord, help me to accept change and not get angry at it. Which I do all the time.
2. Lord, help me to lead by serving.
3. Lord, help me to be responsible and to be willing to give others the chance to also make their own responsible decisions. I prefer to control situations instead of letting others make choices.
4. Help me Lord to have a strategy. Help Cornerstone as well as we embark on a church plant, give those in charge a strategy that ONLY you control.



God will make these prayers come true, know matter how much I may fight it at times.

Philippians 1:6
For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

What a day, learing about God's grace and the honesty of good friends.

Today has been such an interesting day. It started out with sadness,depression, anger towards God, anger towards my church. But now the day has a whole new meaning. I love my friends so much. Thank you for the encouragement. I'm gonna call a couple of them out, not by name, by what they said, which changes how I've viewed this whole situation. First I heard this from a friend late yesterday.

But I am worried about you, or at least I would be if I wasn't convinced that God loves you and has you right where you need to be, in the circle of his arms held so tight.

I thank you my friend, thank you for caring, thank you for being real and telling me how it is! that statement helped me get through the past 36 hours.

Then I spent part of today with another good friend. I told him that I feel like every time I get through one struggle, its another thing. He then explained to me how

it's not a struggle after another struggle but instead steps to get closer to Jesus at the foot of the cross.

That was also so AMAZING to hear, that I need to be on my knees, at the cross. In my life, I've always preferred to try to work through my issues alone, and to have a friend tell me something like that was just amazing. This friend knows the power of Christ love, and knows how much it changes everything. That's just what I need!

And then yet again, another bit of wisdom.

God is not picking on you. Years from now, you’ll look back and think, “Wow, what a fool I was.”. And you’ll see progress (1 Peter 2:4-5).

Oh THANK YOU, so awesome to hear. I never thought I'd be happy to have someone tell me that I will look at my life and say I was a fool, but coming from someone who is honest when speaking, and always keeping Christ at the center of everything, It was so great to hear. I'll say it now, What a fool I am, what A fool I have been, and I'm sure I will continue to be one, though hopefully with God's grace, I will not be a fool. Thank you Lord for trials, for they teach me of your redeeming Grace and love, and the love of the friends I have around me. Thank you for the next month. Give me patience through these step to the cross.

What does Leadership mean?

Like all of my post, this one was thought out. I usually get an idea of something and then chew on it for a few days. Well this was an idea from Friday which I thought over, and it became more real as I prayed for the high schoolers and that ministry at C3. And thus this thought came into my head. And of course, everything has changed as of yesterday. I feel like I am fighting the judicial system again, except this time it's MY CHURCH. It's frustrating and I feel vulnerable. But that doesn't matter at this point, because I can't change the past.
But about the post:

Here is my thought. I have been considering (wait till my mom sees this) dying my hair again with about 3 times the blonde as before, and the possibility of an earing. But here's the thing. If I were to be in a leadership role of any kind, I don't think its a good idea because most parents would not want their child to do either. So, as someone who is looked up to by high schoolers, I just think its a bad idea to have an appearance that high school parents wouldn't approve of. Does that mean I won't do it at some point? No. But it does mean that before I do either, I'm gonna see how the actions I take might affect both those I am leading, and their parents.

Thought #2 Movies.

I have gone to two different movies with high school guys from the church, neither of which I would say I would not recommend to other Christians. But heres a thought, I have recently begun to look up what is going to be in a movie before I go with any of the high school guys. Why? Because I don't want any of their parents to question my judgement in taking younger people to movies and what is age appropriate. In fact, I was supposed to go to a movie with some of the guys (which didn't work out partially because I had school to finish to send in ASAP, partially because of the events that transpired after church). But the thing is , this time it was different. I told one high schooler that before we went to a movie, I needed to check what they say on screen it about it. I also said that they needed their parents approval on any particular movie before I would go with them.

I never thought these issues were as important as I found out they were once I was around people who were younger than me. I'm glad I can finally see it, but maybe my time has run out?

I hate what I'm feeling right now. Sadly though, it's not going to go away anytime soon.

I'm a mess right now

Right now I'm upset. I'm broken, I've taken most of the day to let the tears out. I feel worse then when I had no home. Has this really happened? I liked the idea of life on paper that my buddy Jim mentioned. Unfortunately for me, my life on paper is depressing, sad, and just further realization to the truth that you can't leave your past behind. Everything I want to do has been taken away from me. Now I'm no longer serving where I feel called. Maybe I'm not called to do this, maybe I'm not called to this church the way I thought I was. OR, maybe this just means this is right where I'm called to be. I don't even know what I'm talking about, but I do know that my life which was once personal between me, one person I trust, and my family, has become something that has been, or will be revealed to a handful of people, if not more. Does this mean people trust me less? I think it does. Check that, I know it does. People don't trust me. What they don't understand is I'm not the person I once was. People saw me upset. A friend from just called and asked if I was ok, because I wasn't myself after church.

No, I'm not ok, and no I'm not the same person.
Tears and no words have replaced the smile that is always on my face.
It's not going to go away right away either. I need some time to figure my life on paper out, and where it leaves me.


I've been called to serve, I know I have. And yet, for the first time in my life, today I was told "no"

I wish I could say something

This post has been thought about for a while, and I was going to post it soon. Then today I saw a friend's blog and it just made me once again consider this: I am always there to tell a joke, and to try and listen, but I never have anything to say. I remember 7 months ago, I had a friend ( A part of C3) who was obviously hurting. I told him that I didn't have much to say, but if he needed to talk to someone, I would listen. I truly want to hear people's struggles and pray for them and give them advice when I can, but here's the problem and the main idea of this post which has been in my mind for a while: I am not good at giving advice. I would love to have the right thing to say to help people and let them know how much I care and that I am there for them if they need anything, but I just don't have the right words to say. I've had so many friends who helped me through tough situations. I just want to FOR ONCE be able to give some advice. I feel like my words are instead worthless and don't mean anything to anyone. It hurts inside, because I know how much THEY hurt inside, and I don't know how to help. IT leaves me speechless

When you finally see love around you

Wow.

Today it finally hit me.

ya know, eventually you see all your friends getting engaged and married and start to wonder "What about me"


Today was my day. I was looking at all of these former friends of mine from high school when I traveled the country debating. And I saw 3 friends who have been married in the last 6 months and 2 who are recently engaged. and these are all people between 19-21 years old

Does this mean they got married/engaged to fast or does it mean I've wasted a lot of time?

Valentine's Day

19 years old

19 years of being single.

19 worthless Valentine's days

and yet, I'm not unhappy.

I can live with where I'm at right now

Sure I'd like that to change, sure it gets frustrating at times. But I know I'm right where God wants me, and that's enough.

deja vu

I think people need to know this. I get Deja Vu. I have had it before and it happen again last night. I was listening to Jim's sermon on Jesus walking on water which I missed a few weeks ago and heard the term Deja Vu in it. this has nothing to do with the sermon, but with Deja Vu itself. I've had it and last night at The High School Youth group, it happened again. Mike was saying something, which i can not recall right now, but he said something and I remembered being there, with those 4 high schoolers, with Mike sitting in that same living room, before. It freaked me out. The whole thing freaks me out. I have these dreams, which I don't think of as awkward or important, and then... I see it in real life. Same place, same people, same situation. I know that people say Deja Vu is just you going faster than your mind and you think your seeing it twice, but that IS NOT what happens with me. I really dream it, and then see it. I don't know how or why, but its happened about 20 times that I can remember and twice in the last 4 weeks.

I don't know what to think about it.

the need of the culture around us

Yesterday I was in NYC for a few hours, and was just so suprised at all the terrible things I saw there. It wasn't like I've never been there before, but yesterday I just saw a different city. Yesterday I saw a city that was just wicked and sick, which was interesting because the sermon We heard yesterday from Jim was from Mark 7.

9And he said to them: "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe^[c] your own traditions! 10For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother,'^[d] and, 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.'^[e] 11But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban' (that is, a gift devoted to God), 12then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. 13Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that."

14Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. 15Nothing outside a man can make him 'unclean' by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him 'unclean.' "^[f]

17After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. 18"Are you so dull?" he asked. "Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him 'unclean'? 19For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body." (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods "clean.")

20He went on: "What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.' 21For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.' "

I'll discuss the actual sermon in another post this week, but its just interesting that I read this and then saw much of it in NYC. Its not just there though, its In the Lehigh Valley and everywhere else to. Now I am starting to understand the point of a church plant....

Isn't that the problem?

Yesterday I drove past a church on the way to school, and a sign outside said "If you don't live it,you probably don't believe it." It was a really good question and one that I have asked myself lately, and yet it was also a big "duh". If I don't spend time reading the bible, if I don't love my family and have a heart to serve NO MATTER where I am, do I really believe in those things? I know the answers, now I just need to show everyone that I believe

A recent search

A resent google for "pornography" led to my blog. First off, whoever you are... bad idea...seriously. Second off, I'm glad you didn't find what you were looking for on my blog. 3rd of all, I hope you had a chance to read through some of my post. Have a great day