Uneasy inner pain.

So it was a long long day at work today. The kids had parent teacher conferences today, as well as tomorrow. This means that I go in at 6:30AM till 8:45, then come back to work from 11:15 to 6. That is a long time with almost 4o little kids, and I love it, but it is just a long time with almost 40 little kids. Today was maid especially hard at 3:18PM. Dave (from Dave church) called me to inform me that Ben Schone had taken his life. I went to school with Ben, we were in the same Youth Group, and close way back when. We had a lot of mutual friends.Although I was not super close with Ben, as of recent years anyways. I am especially disturbed by this incident, not only because of the loss of life, but because of the dramatic impact it has had on the people closest to it. His father Mike, well he was an awesome individual. I remember him well from the growing up years. Always so extremely funny and friendly. I hurt for him, and the whole family. Please, let your prayers ring out for the Schone family.

R.I.P. Ben Schone

It was difficult to go through the rest of the day at work, well mostly because when you are around little kids, being happy is pretty necessary. I just try to include it as much as possible anyway. It was hard because I was so deeply in thought and hurting for the family.

Then I went to Young Life. I picked up Ray. I had been bringing Ray last year to Young Life, and he really loves it. It is such a sweet thing. Ray lives on the South side of town, and well I am just so happy I can reach out to him, and that he feels comfortable enough to call me and ask for a ride. This is when I picked him up from his house. Josh (YL area director) gave the talk tonight. It was a pretty good look into what sin is. It was based on the idea that sin is not something that is the physical outside materialization of the sin act, but is actually a much deeper all encompassing life style. He talked about how Jesus Christ did not come to make people stop doing the bad things in life, but he came to change their hearts which lead to the change in outsidey happenings. It was a really good talk, and in my brief talk with a few kids, it sounded like it went over really well.

P.S. I do have an update on Tom, I just have to let some time pass before I mention it. If you've been following the situation, please know there are positive things happening. Please pray that they continue and that God changes heart(s).

the Mer face

Early, early, early this morning I was awoken by my mom asking me to pray for my sister Merideth. It was maybe 4AM when my mom woke me up to tell me that Merideth had just gotten a DUI (her second) and that my dad was going down to bail her out at 6:30. My mom almost had a voice of optimism in her voice. She said to me, "maybe she will wake up this time, and realize that something has to change in her life." I prayed the prayer, I prayed it sincerely. I went back to sleep, and actually I think I dreamed about a pair of jeans that I asked my mom to fix a while back. And in the dream my mom came to me and handed me the jeans, she said, "these jeans can't be fixed." I responded and said, "but mom, you can use material from these old jeans, just sow them together and they will be fine." It ended like that. Now that I have had time to think about it. I don't think I had any kind of GREAT AWAKENING or voice from God talk to me in my dream, but I can draw together a correlation between the jeans and my sister. With some jeans, they get to a point where they can't be fixed any longer. The material wears out, and stitching new material that looks good, won't do anything to the material that is already bad, except buy it a little bit of time. With my sister, and my family has come to the conclusion that God has to reveal in her along with her accepting the call, to hand it over. It is very hard to see my sister go through stuff like this though. She was coming home from a bar, and turned the wrong way on a one way street. A cop saw that and quickly pulled her over. Poor Mer. I took a picture of my facial expression when I was in deep thought about her.I was at school all day studying my Elements of Law stuff. I did real good, and performed excellently on my online quiz's. I needed to get away. SO, I called my best friend and asked if I could stop buy for a bit while I waited for time to come closer to 7:45. I wanted to go see Doubt at the local IIT Cinema Center downtown. I get in for only $3. To my great surprise Jared wanted to accompany me. TWAS A GREAT THING!!See it, it is a great movie. I doubt you won't like it. God is good, but his love needs to abound in mercy, compassion, and generosity. I took that from the movie a bit. Phillip Seymore Hoffman is the BEST ACTOR EVER!!! I friggin love the way that guy acts.

gross disapointment

The title of Today's post could have been "The Matt Struggle" and made just as much sense to me. Today, my cousin Matt (who has been living with my parents & I since August) decided for whatever reasons that today was the day he would buy a car and "move on with life." He said that he had to do this for his independence and as a part of "being a man." Ever since Matt has moved in, he has been growing in leaps and bounds in Christ. Making new spiritual discoveries as well as connecting some of the dot's in his own life. He has gotten involved with an accountability group and just done really awesome things. The fact that he has been able to keep his job for as long as he has speaks wonders to where he has come from and where he wants to be. Well, today, I feel was a huge step backward. Ever since he started spending time with a guy from work, Matt has been....well changing. I have seen this change before in my own life and it is NO GOOD. His outlook on things has been changing, and he has been not prompted to be in the word, or even looking for God. Although he said he came to his decision after prayer and much contemplation, I don't believe him (I can't know for sure....). This is what it came down to. Matt decided it was time to buy a car. RIGHT NOW, he wanted it and made up his mind. A very extremely foolish decision, but the one he made. My mother, father and myself tried and tried to talk logic and common sense into him, but he was locking it all out. It seemed as though someone has planted this idea in his mind that he really needed to do this (new friends), he says it is all his own decision. He decided that he would go to a buy here/pay here and get himself a car. No matter how much they bent him over and screwed him, he was going to do this. No matter that in his past he has done this I think 3 times, and each time had to have his car repowed. He was going to do this and that was that. We tried to talk good God fearing logic into his head. But I am serious, he wouldn't have it. Although he says he wants accountability, and help, he was a closed door. It sucked so much to see that, and I know where it will most likely lead him.

So, he was going to have a guy from the car lot pick him up. But, I told him I would take him.I sat in there and listened to this guy take advantage of Matt. And watch a guy who can't save a penny blow everything he has worked so hard to get. It was painful to watch. It didn't have anything to do with all the time I have put into Matt, it had everything to do with me seeing that he is beginning to walk back down the road of destruction. One might say, "well it's only a car," but in Matt's case, it is so much more. It got to the point where I was so extremely frustrated and sad that I told him, "Matt, I am intensely disappointed, if you need me, please call." And that was that, he didn't come back home, and that is that.The day ended and it finally came down to this. I said, "well, what step do we take with Matt now?" We discussed that we need to love him. Love him unconditionally, and realize that we did everything that we could to impact him in Christ. That God is in control, and no matter where Matt's life goes from here, we are continue to impact him in love. That we are not to stand as individuals who will enable him to make or continue in bad decisions, but that we musn't ever give up, or just write him off. It kind of makes you "GULP" in your throat, because if you know Matt how I know Matt, you know the likely outcome. But, God is bigger than any of my preconceived notions of how things will go. I trust that this happened for a reason, and that I did everything I could. I am frustrated and sad, but that's okay. God is good, ohh yes, God is good.