This is the End (the Doors)

This is my final blog. I'm done. I quit. I give up. I'm outta here! I won't be checking my messages on here and I won't be coming back on here. There's nothing good to say any more so I'm not going to say anything at all.
Fare thee well!

Don't Think Twice, it's Alright (by Bob Dylan)

Closure is a beautiful and painful thing. When people talk about experiencing a crossroads in life, I always picture a simple 4-way stop on a dirt road in the middle of a big, open prairie with a few random trees dispersed throughout. Unfortunately, life isn't always that clean and easy. Sometimes life's crossroads consist of a 20-way intersection mostly involving tons of high-speed traffic whizzing through! I recently got clobbered by a massive semi going well over the speed limit while attempting to maneuver the current crossroads I'm facing. I guess we'll just have to wait and see if this semi ever slows down and stops dragging me and if I'll be able to pick myself back up and make it through the intersection.

Broken (by Jack Johnson)

Well, it's been over a month since my last posting - and it'll probably be a while before my next. I'm sorry. Between work, school, relationships, and the whole shebang, life just feels a bit overwhelming and I'm still trying to figure out how I'm supposed to deal with it all. This blog is pretty far down on my list of priorities right now, so it's going to have to suffer the consequences of my current situation. That doesn't mean I'm abandoning it altogether - I'll still try to write in it once a week or so - but at the same time I wouldn't be surprised if a month or two goes by without anything from me. So, I just wanted to give that heads-up.

PEACE!

Not Saying Goodbye (by Edie Brickell)

My last two or three blogs have been short, heavy, and ambiguous. For that I am sorry. I've been suffering great heartache at the loss of an extremely special and loving relationship. It's bizarre how God grants us such wonderful gifts and then, in certain situations, takes them back from us. I'm struggling to understand all that is going on and how I'm supposed to process, manage, learn, and grow from all of this. I trust that God is strengthening my relationship with him through my weakness and sorrow. I can see that he is calling me to love him first and with all of my heart. For my entire life I have been learning to give all of who I am to God, save for one part - my relationships; he's finally calling me out and asking for this final piece of who I am. You'd think this would be a wonderful feeling - a feeling of release and peace that God is finally getting everything he deserves from me. If only it were that easy. If only the process was that beautiful. Like cleaning out a closet, sometimes you have to create an absolute disaster before you're able to start cleaning. I've been going through that disaster, and I will continue to sift through the wreckage for quite some time as I attempt to clean out my heart and my life, getting things in order to fully and completely hand it over to God. But I'm trying. The toughest lesson to learn seems to be how to truly give someone up to God without letting them out of your life. One thing's for sure - I'm not saying goodbye!

Tailspin (by The Jayhawks)

It's a lot easier to express myself during the down phases of my life when I live 10,000 miles away from everyone who reads this. I'm trying to figure out if life feels like it's going into a tailspin (a feeling I've experienced more than a handful of times in my life) or if it's simply run full-force into a thick, brick wall - but either way, things are less than ideal right now. The thing that sucks the most is that I'm not sure how to deal with it all, I'm very much not in a place where I want to talk about it, and I certainly don't want to pretend everything is hunky-dory. That makes it very difficult to write a blog. So, for now, please bare with me while I potentially go from week to week with little or nothing to say. I'll do my best to keep you posted and we'll see what turns up on here.

Tangled Up In Blue (by Bob Dylan)

Forgive me for not updating this in a couple of weeks. Things have been crazy at work, I just got sick, and frankly there's just too much going on inside my head and heart to write any of it down - at least in a public venue. So, for now, have a little patience with me please.

Judgement Day (by Jackie Greene)

Raise your hand if you hate terrorism. Raise your hand if you hate the death and destruction from planes crashing into buildings, car bombs, and suicide bombers. Raise your hand if you hate terrorists. Raise your hand if you hate Muslims. Raise your hand if you love Jesus. Keep in mind, you can't justifiably raise your hand for all of these - you have to choose.

I've been getting so many emails lately with pictures and stories and videos of these radical Muslims who have cried out for the blood of our leaders, our soldiers, and even us. Included in these emails are blatant expressions of hatred toward all Muslims - and most, if not all, of these emails have been sent to me by Christians. This absolutely breaks my heart! I understand that Jesus was asking something extremely difficult from us when he told us to love and pray for our enemies, but could we at least TRY to do what he commanded of us?!

Let me do another survey:
Raise your hand if you know of a Christian who has ever lied. Raise your hand if you know of a Christian who has ever committed adultery. Raise your hand if you know of a Christian who has ever passed judgement upon someone else. Raise your hand if you know of a Christian who has ever hated anyone. Unless you're lying to yourself (in which case, if you're a follower of Christ, you'd fall in the first category), you should have raised your hand for each and every one of these. In fact, if we go back into history we can even raise our hands at knowing Christians who have mercilessly slaughtered people (namely Muslims - how ironic!) in the name of Christ during the Crusades (and even more recently than that). So does that mean that Muslims and everyone else should disrespect the Bible? Does that mean that Christianity is a violent and hateful religion? Does that meant that Jesus preached messages of murder and war? NO! It means that people are dumb and do stupid things even when they're taught to love and respect others.

I'm ranting, that's obvious - sorry. It's just that it breaks my heart to no end when I hear people who supposedly are followers of Jesus Christ who jump onto the hilltops to tell the world how much they hate Muslims, terrorists, homosexuals, global warming advocates, Democrats, Communists, or anyone else for that matter. My challenge to all you "Christians" out there is to pick up your Bible every once in a while and try actually reading and living it!

Matthew 5:43-48
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the terrorists/Muslims/homosexuals/global warming advocates/Democrats/Communists/etc* do the same? . . . Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect."

*words in italics changed for cultural relevance