I couldn't come up with a clever title

Is there anything better than coming home from a camping trip and having the woman you love, waiting to greet you with open arms? Definitely not. I was thinking about how great it was to come home this weekend and to find Jamie waiting for me, and I started pondering how awesome it will be when I die and I am welcomed into heaven. Now that will be wonderful. I'm so excited to finally meet Jesus face to face.

For those of you wanting the second half of the proposal to be posted, I'm sorry. I will try and post it on Wednesday. Tomorrow, of course, is Picture Tuesday and this is today's post, so the next available day is Wednesday. That's the plan for now. Enjoy your Halloween, this is the one night where it is okay to take candy from strangers, make it count.

This is just embarrassing

We had a hall event last night. My hall and my two sister halls went on a photo scavenger hunt. We gave them a list of things, like "give a stranger a noogie" or "everybody searching frantically for a 'lost' contact", and then had them take pictures of them. The three of us RA's disguised ourselves and became part of the hunt ourselves. Lots of points were given if you took a picture with one of the RA's. Although it was a lot of fun, I don't believe I will ever try on my costume again. Yes, that's me in the pink.


Afterwards, everyone came back to the banquet hall where we had ice cream and watched a slide show of all the pictures. It was pretty funny. Here are some funny ones:






Have a great weekend everybody.

Even All-State winners need help from the Big Guy

Volleyball season starts tonight for intramurals. I was a late pick-up for the team that I am on, but boy are they glad to have me. Does anyone else remember when the high school volleyball team that I captained took third place in the tournament? I do. (If anyone brings up the fact that there were only three teams in the league, you will be in a lot of trouble. That isn't an important detail.) I don't really know who all is on my team except for Jamie, but between the two of us, we bring a lot of experience to the squad. I'm predicting another fantastic, mind-blowing season.

On a more somber note, I had to sit and talk with one of my guys about some bad stuff that he had been doing. That was really scary for me. I tried to get a hold of him all day just so I could get it out of the way. Every time before I would go down to his room, I would pray a desperate prayer to God first because I know how insufficient I am. After praying, I would feel enough courage to go down and knock on the door. Five times that afternoon he wasn't home. The suspense was killing me. I finally ran into him at 9:30 last night. I was so nervous, I'm pretty sure I was shaking. I hate to confront people. We talked for about 20 minutes. God gave me strength and a conviction behind my words that I didn't think was possible. I think I was able to draw a hard line with him and yet still reassure him that I still love him because God wants me to and he's in my hall and that I will continue to pray for him. A lot of his excuses were pretty funny and I actually had to fight to not laugh at what he saying.

So God really came through for me last night. Again. He still hasn't failed me. Ever. When will I ever learn? Maybe I will ponder that as I ride the pine tonight during our volleyball game...

It's Tuesday, take a number

I'm feeling a lot better today. No more aching body, no more extreme sleepiness, just a little runny nose; so I guess I'm not quite up to 100% yet. But if you need anything, take a number and enjoy your Tuesday.

Making a list, checking it twice

Jamie and I have begun to create our guest list for the wedding. We have to go through all the people we know and decide if we can put them on the list. You would think that this would be fairly simple. Now I know how Santa Claus must feel every Christmas creating his list. It's not easy. We just don't have room to invite everyone. It would be much easier if we could just do a Naughty or Nice list.

The rest of the wedding stuff is progressing smoothly. We have a great place picked out for the ceremony. It's on a grassy hill right by a lake. Jamie is working on picking out colors for the wedding, trying to decide on her father-daughter dance song, picking out a wedding dress and all the hundreds of other things she does and right now my only job is to pick out the groomsmen. I'm a little overwhelmed by that.

I have RA dutying to do, passing out fliers, confronting people with issues, discussing alcohol, you know, the usual. But afterward I will get back to the really hard stuff of picking the guests. Santa, if you're reading this, keep up the hard work. I feel your anguish big guy.

Troubles in River City

For some reason I am unable to publish my latest post. That's why there hasn't been anything today so far. As soon as I can, I will have today's post up and readible. Until then, enjoy this little link. Have a great rest of the day.

Why do I have to be the bad cop?

I had to write up my first guy yesterday. That's the one thing I don't like about being an RA. I don't like policing the hall. I don't like the confrontation and I don't like the hurt feeling and I definitely don't like to see people get in trouble. But it had to be done. It was really disappointing. It was a guy I really like and it was hard for me to do, but it was alcohol related and I have to take a strong stand against that. My RD is gone for the weekend which means, in some sense, that I'm alone in this until he comes back (Res Life has been very supportive and so has my brother RA, but Ronnie is the one I would go to for advice on how to handle the situation). So I'm left to blaze my own trail on this one. I think I'm going to go talk to him today and tell him that what he did was wrong and very disappointing, but also remind him that I still love him and will continue to pray for him. Pray for God to give me wisdom as I deal with this situation. I have no idea what I'm doing.

(Just a little side note, I love that the cop on the right can barely keep the smile off of his face...)

The beginning of the beginning of the rest of our lives

Okay, so here's how the engagement thing went down. On Saturday, October 15th, Jamie and I went back home to visit our folks. We stopped at her house first and talked with her mom for a while before heading over to my house. Same thing. We hung out and talked to my folks for a little while. Around 3:30, I dropped Jame back off at her house and then I went back home to get started with the set up.

When my grandma arrived, we took everything over to the school and began to haul everything up the roof. This was very difficult. Most of the stuff was pretty heavy and the only way up was a tall ladder. We got everything up on the roof around 5 and then we left for AJ's to pick up some food. After we got the food, we brought that up to the roof too and then I left my mum and grandma to finish setting everything up while I went and got Jamie.

The whole afternoon my heart had been constantly racing, and it only got faster as I drove to her house. It's amazing she didn't know anything was up. We got back to my house around 6:30 and I suggested that we take a little walk. The sun had just gone down, so there was still some light left in sky. When I suggested that we go up to the roof of the school to look at the night sky, she quickly agreed. It took all of my effort to not run over there but to rather walk calmly and patiently.

When we got to the school, we found one of the gates open (imagine that) and then started to make our way over to the cafeteria. We saw a light on in the cafeteria so we paused to see if anybody was there. Just then, we saw my grandma through the window. Since Jame thought we were sneaking in, I pretended that we needed to leave because we didn't want anyone to know we were there. I made some comment about how it seemed weird that my grandma would be working so late on a Saturday night (My grandma does indeed work at the school so it wasn't too weird to see her working, it was just that it was late). I suggested that we keep walking around the neighborhood a little more and then come back and try again. Maybe my grandma was about to leave.

When we came back the second time, the lights were off and Grandma was gone. So we crept through the darkness to the cafeteria door, which had also been conveniently left unlocked. Once inside, we made our way to the ladder up to the roof and climbed up...

(More to come later on today I hope, but maybe tomorrow)

Rainy Tuesday

For those of you who live in Phoenix, enjoy a beautiful rainy day. Everyone else, well, you can have a good day too.

Jamie has got some new bling

In case you haven't heard yet, I asked Jamie to marry me on Saturday night. The proposal went perfectly thanks to tons of help from my mum, my grandma and Phatty. She said yes, praise God, so that made everything even better. The date has been set for May 13th, 2006. Wahoo. Maybe on Wednesday I'll write out the story of how it all happened. I've posted this pic before, but here's a pic of us, the future Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Ihms.

Button mashing, inconsiderate, no good jerk

So yeah. I decided not to talk about God's faithfulness in my life today. Don't be mad though. I haven't cancelled that post, I just thought it would fit better on Monday. If you disagree, wait 'till Monday's post and then leave a comment about how wrong I was to delay talking about how good God is to me.

Anyway, today's post has to do with being a good roommate. Sometimes I'm not. You see, last night my roommate came home from Campus Crusade over at ASU and waltzed into my room. Being the wonderful roommate that I am, I continued to mash buttons as I played a video game on my XBOX. I did manage a "Hey. How was it?" But for some odd reason, I was truly more interested in that video game than in my relationship with my roommate. Kinda pathetic. Jon sat down next to me and started to tell me about his night. I responded with the appropriate grunts and nods, but I wasn't really listening. It wasn't until later, as I lay in bed thinking, that I remembered some of the stuff he said. Whoah nelly. He and I are going to have a talk later today. I can tell you that. (It's a good talk. Don't worry). So anyway, Jon, if you ever read this, I'm sorry. I'm a jerk.


And on that happy note, have a great Thursday everyone.

Now with stress free goodness

I just got back with hanging out with one of my favorite guys in the whole world. And as we talked, he mentioned that he has a couple of tests coming up and he's a little stressed about it. That got me thinking: I'm taking 16 credits this semester but for the most part, school has provided me with very little stress. In fact, it hasn't even made my life very busy or hectic. Isn't God good? He has given me a ton of extra time to put into ministering to the students on campus without my school work suffering. Even better is that I stay busy, which I like to do, but I don't have much stress to accompany all that, which would eventually lead to burnout. So even though I pull 15 hour work days, I don't have to bring too much of it home with me. I think a large part of why things seem to be going so well is because I'm learning to trust God to be faithful in everything. But, more on that tomorrow, right now I need to sleep. I'm running on less than 5 hours of sleep right now.

That's just shocking

Happy Tuesday everyone.

Praise God for Potts

I finally have a mentor. Some of you may know of my frustration in not having anyone pouring into my life this semester. All my profs from last semester are gone, my Bible study leader moved to Oklahoma and I just started going to a new church where I don't know anybody but Jamie. So I have been feeling quite alone as far as spiritual wisdom is concerned. As a leader on campus, I am constantly pouring myself into people, but I have had no one to pour into me. Finally, in desperation, I called up a man who has an amazing gift for speaking and is very godly, but who before yesterday, couldn't have picked me out of a crowd of 20.

I am so excited that he said yes. It was kind of backwards, me asking and him accepting. Kinda like the girl proposing to the guy. But he said yes all the same. His name is Chris Potts and he has taught at SALT, our metro Phoenix ministry, and spoke at our Bible study leadership retreat this summer. He seemed genuinely excited to mentor me, so I think this will be a great opportunity for both of us. For me to learn, and for him to impart some of his amazing wisdom. Praise God for answered prayers.

We have a winner (hopefully)

Praise God! Jamie and I have finally found a church. We think. We have only been once and we loved it. But we are going to keep our minds open just in case that was a weird week. So anyway, the church is called Oneplace and is in the middle of the Arts District in downtown Phoenix. It caters mostly to artists and so the building doubles as an art gallery on First Fridays.

Nearly everyone in the church is younger, mostly college-aged and ranging up to early 30's I'd say. The worship was passionate and well put together. The sermon was biblically based and the theology seemed sound. The people were friendly and the atmosphere was pleasant. We think we have found our new home. Keep praying.

No parking

Tuesday = Pictures!

Happy update

Thanks for the prayers everyone. Jamie and I are back on track. We have had a rough couple of days but God is good. He has blessed me with such a wonderful girlfriend who has forgiven me and loves me despite my weaknesses. It will take some work to continue on, but we are both committed to this. God willing, we'll make it.

To stupidity and beyond

"Only two things are infinite - the universe and human stupidity," Einstein once remarked, "and I'm not sure about the former." I'm living proof of the latter. Without going into the gory details, let's just say that Jamie and I had an argument last night; one that left me wondering if I had thrown away the love of the most wonderful woman in the world. It was one of those arguments where I started off angry and hurt and ended with her walking off in tears. Those of you who know me know that one of the things I hate most is to see a woman cry, even more so to make a woman cry. But when it's the love of my life that I have made cry, well that's the worst feeling in the world. If you were to look on her AIM profile, it still says, "Ben is my hero!" After last night, I'm surprised that it's still there. If I were her, that's probably the first thing I would have gotten rid of. My hero status is definitely about to be revoked.

So why am I airing my dirty laundry? Because I could use some serious prayer. I have been praying that God would smite me. But you could pray for healing in the relationship, if there's anything salvageable there. And maybe that my stupidity would reach a limit.