Most of the time when I say “I love you” I think I really mean, “I’m try to convince myself to love you.

So I’m up at 2 o’clock in the morning with my last week full week of summer before me. Luckily I only have to work a couple days this week, at a job that I kinda like a lot.

It’s so much to take in. Honestly this summer was a rocky one. I am being completely honest when I say they were times where I didn’t know where I would be next week, and who would be there.
I got to meet some amazing foreign college age students for a week and to sit at a round table with people from 5 different nations, was an amazing experience. But after that leaving that to never look back was hard, but necessary.
Being on a family vacation with someone who doesn’t want you there, but enjoying the heck out of it anyway.
Counseling at a camp, receiving counselor of the week for a second year in a row and having the honor baptizing a new close relationship and baptizing a old friendship and having the opportunity to carry some amazing friendships out of that week.
Having a job that I love dropped into my lap, just by volunteering.
Unfortunately, falling off a cliff into some pretty big sin, and dealing with the current trying to get out of it.
Having a person who is suppose to care about you try to pull the rug up from under you and leave you on your bare butt when they do it. Having them say the worse things about you and not automatically fighting for your innocents reacting but thinking and deciding not to react so you won’t be dragged in more. Worse, having someone else to you feel so apathetic and deceived about it they see no repercussions from supporting that persons decision. From that having to rally prayers from everyone who cares about you, and seeing that light outshine all darkness. Best of all, seeing God keep that path set. I can truly say my faith was tested this summer with that situation. In some of the worse hours all I knew that if I lost everything, I still had Jesus, and sometimes thats the farthest I could see.
At least now I have some more of the tools to cut that person out and a lot of the poison they brung with them.
Going to having a nice bit of comfort room involving funds, to being on a strict budget. But it’s not to bad, just thinking ahead.
Being with my second family, spending lots of time with them.

Passing out after work.
65 cent wing nights.
Road trip to ocean city.
Treating a bro to steak.
Batman opening day.
Painting rooms.
Loving family giving gas when needed.
Setting up for a sweet 16.
Talking to friends 100s of miles away on a weekly basis.
Celebrating a 3 year olds birthday in a beach house.
Aunties relating to you.
Napping over Grandmas house.
Tubing down a lazy river with amazing kids.
Finishing Mockingjay and Perks of being a wallflower.
Going to a horse farm at midnight…barefoot.
Baking cookies with a five year old.
Teaching teens how to drive.
Getting mom and grandma kick butt phones for mothers day.
Seeing teenagers grow up into amazing men and women.
Spending countless hours with my mom doing everything and nothing.

In life we sometimes expect momentous events to change our lives and the way we live our lives. I can say every little thing on this list changed me in a way. And there is no way I could have planned any of this even months in advance. Though there were some dark nights, the light outshines every ounce of those bitter moments. God is amazing and he never let me down for a second. I am truly thankful for these last 3 months. Though I am sad to see them end, I know with a God like mine there’s better coming…so in the mean time I am ok with being blinded I trust my savior and best friend. So for this last week, I am going to do what I know I’m suppose to do and Trust that every loose end will be tied just the way it is meant to be. Though I’m not one to be very public about saying this, I really want to say thank you God and I truly love you.

It not cause I’m a nice Guy, it’s for you.

It’s really when you have your back up against the wall and your mind just seems out of wack, that you start to see all the things you really have. All the treasures of everyday life, all the people who really love you and who you really love. You notice all the little things that can make you happy. You see how God is sustaining you through it all. And from all this even when all of your vision is blind and it seems nowhere to turn, there is Hope that there will be a good day soon.

I respect people who can speak from things that they know. Not things they were merely taught. Maybe its the fact that I’m partially skeptical of what people tell me believe, or the fact I am told what I should believe on a daily basis. Over the years I’ve just realize the world is a very very large place (and tomorrow I will realize just a little how much bigger it is) how can I just take someone little idea of what it should be and possibly comprehend it when it has no factual backing, not even from the creator of the idea him or herself. When a person experiences something there is little you can do to argue to convince the person it actually didn’t happen, because when all the words are said and every argument is put forth the fact is that, what happened, happened, and there is no way to change that fact.

Maybe its me being around so many religious people daily who claim the same thing (Not to sound like im throwing the first stone, I am a religious person myself). Theres so many Ideas of what one passage of scripture means or what it could possibly mean. There are so many ideas that people force themselves into believing something that has been taken so out of context and cannot possibly be true.

One thing I want to do with my life is experience the scripture, The Bible, with my life. I want to make it in my character. I want to know Jesus Christ on an intimate level. I don’t just want to study these things and take them for granted as truth, I want to live my life in such a way that I know it is such. I don’t want to learn that I worship a loving God, I want to know it for a fact and be able to express it to others not only through my own words but through my actions. I believe we just don’t learn the Bible so when something does something thats in out opinion ethically wrong we can throw the Bible at them, I believe that we use it to learn to love and correct others to lead them to a better path for themselves not just for what we think is better for them. In every area of my life I want to be in peace with the Lord, and that means there are going to be a lot of rough edges and some bad days. But in the end, its not going to be for my benefit, but in the process of losing myself I will be where I originally meant to be, with my creator.