Got nuthin'

I have been pondering today's topic for some time now. To be honest, I still have no idea what to talk about. So I am going to bore you with a short discussion about my classes this semester. I am taking BioChemistry, Physics, and some weird American Woman in History and Literature or something like that. It's lots of fun. Maybe I will write more later, but I kinda have a busy day ahead of me. Tonight I'm going to be practicing my dance number for the Mr. GCU contest. Wahoo. I do so love to get up in front of people and make a fool out of myself. As they say in show business, hopefully I break a leg...

A friendly little reminiscing

First off, I just want to say that I have started working on my future "Laugh Out Loud Monday" posts. Woowee have I got some doozies for you. They are absolutely hilarious. I am so excited for Monday to come around now just so I can start posting them. I know, I just said I can't wait for Monday. It's a little weird to me too. Secondly, today's post is a little long. Sorry. But it has a point. And you'll have to keep reading to see what it is.

I was reflecting on this past semester and I couldn't help but praise God. One of the biggest concerns I had for this past semester was that my support group was mostly gone. My mentors had all moved away and my brother had moved back home. These were the people that I went to when I had problems or needed to bounce ideas off of. This semester I was down to Jamie as my main support. Don't take that wrong, Jamie is amazing and has been wonderfully supportive. In fact, I probably wouldn't have made it without her. But I like to surround myself with people who will back me up when push comes to shove, and I had lost my surroundings.

But God provided. First off, he brought a replacement brother into my life. Now, no one can replace Matty, when you live with someone for 18 years, you kinda develop a few bonds. But, God brought someone to fill that void of brother/ good friend. He brought me another Matt. Matt Rummel is also an RA this year in the dorms and he is my age. He has been someone I can talk to and hang out with and feel comfortable knowing that he will watch my back and protect me, just as I will do the same for him.

Secondly, God brought me some great new sisters. I used to have five. I won't get into why I needed new sisters, but basically, there is a 60% chance that if you meet one of my old sisters, you will wish you hadn't. But that's a story for another day. Mackenzie, Shalyn and Nicole have become my new sisters. Mac and Shalyn were given to me by Canyon. They are also RAs and the three of us were paired up as "brother/sister halls". This means that we are just supposed to do some activities together with our halls, I guess so that the guys and girls are able to meet and hang out in fun ways. We have also become sort of a support group for each other. We meet once a week with the main intent being to plan events. We also have a secondary agenda and that is to listen to each other and encourage. Sometimes there are things that happen as an RA that you feel that no one else will understand what you are feeling. But other RAs know. So it has been good to talk with them.

Then there's Nicole. She and I adopted each other at the beginning of the fall semester in 2004. She is on the Bodybuilder leadership team with me and she works in Res Life. So I get to work with her a lot. She roomed with my real sister (one of the good ones) our freshmen year, so she knows a lot about my family and through talks with her, I have been able to hear a lot about her family. We both come from way different backgrounds, but we still seem to be able to understand each other real well. Our families have gone through some pretty crazy stuff in the past couple of years and it has been good to know someone else has weird problems too.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of the wonderful people in my life. But these are some of the friends who I have become close with over the past semester. They have kept me encouraged and out of trouble. I thought last semester was going to be scary. Instead it turned out to be great. God really knows how to come through. He brought people into my life that I wouldn't have necessarily picked out for myself. But he knew exactly what I needed, and then went above and beyond. If you don't worship the God I do, I truly am sorry. My whole life is a testimony of how good God can be to a wretched sinner. Every day I am so thankful for the gift of salvation he has given me.

Right in the Mickey!

Every job has it's hazards. I still crack up every time I see this picture. Happy Tuesday everyone. And if any crazed, costumed characters come to attack you, you know what to do...

Sola scriptura

I suppose it's about time to reveal the new themed day that I have been promising. Starting next week, Monday will be joke day. The criteria for the jokes is that I have to have laughed out loud after reading them. Since Monday is usually the worst day of the week, I'm hoping that this will improve Monday's reputation. We'll see.

Today's thought is a little melancholy. Last night as Jame and I were sitting in church I began thinking about what I wanted out of a church. At one time, Oneplace seemed to fill that desire. But now, I'm not so sure. I want a church that has great people who are madly in love with the God of the universe and loving towards each other. Oneplace seems to have plenty of those. I want a church that has a great and amazing worship time where people joyfully and intentionally praise and worship the God of the universe. Oneplace does an amazing job of that. I also want a church that preaches about God from the Bible, where the Bible is at least one of the main texts used in the service. There was a time when Oneplace did that. But the past couple of times have not been that way and there doesn't seem to be hope for the immediate future. The pastor has good, relevant things to say. But I want to hear him talk about the Bible. I want to hear his opinions but not so much so that they outweigh the impact of the scripture.

So the question becomes, at what point do I say this is not the place for me and it's time to begin looking for a new church home? I don't know. It's not that I dislike the church. But with all the pouring out of myself that I have done and will do this semester, I need a place that will pour into me. If the law of the Lord is truly my heart's delight, then I want the church to be able to help me delight in it. I'm not sure what the answer is right now, but I crave your prayers for wisdom.

Love languages speak out

For some reason, this past week I had to fill out a form and one of the questions was, "What is your love language?" I think it was some questionnaire or something. I don't remember. But the question stuck out at me because I wasn't quite sure. I went online to look for them and here they are:
1. Words of Affirmation
2. Receiving Gifts
3. Quality Time
4. Acts of Service
5. Physical Touch
According to the site, these are the five main categories by which a person will feel most loved. For example, when some people are given gifts, they feel really loved by the person who gave the gift. But a hug or an encouraging word won't have the same effect. I'm sure they still appreciate it, but for that person, their love language is the key to their heart.

I'm pretty sure my love language is "acts of service." When someone does something for me that I know they went out of their way to do, or it required some sort of sacrifice, then that really touches my heart. Last night my folks drove up to Canyon to visit me. That was really special. My parents have an extremely busy life running their school and right now is the end of the semester for them, so things are especially crazy. So last night when they drove up to GCU to take me out to dinner, I felt really loved. It really meant a lot to me.

Then I got to thinking- How much more should I love Jesus for what he did for me? He performed the ultimate act of service for me. He went out of his way by becoming a man and living here on earth. And then when the time was right, he sacrificed himself so I that I could truly live. God speaks my love language. That's pretty cool. I never really thought about it like that before, but God is incredibly amazing to love me the way that I like to be loved. It's an amazing love and it is more than enough for me.

Welcome back old friend

So, yeah. I took an extended Christmas vacation from blogging. Well, I'm back now and better than ever. We have a pretty exciting line-up of blogs coming up this semester. But since I don't want to ruin the surprise, I'm not going to tell you what they are right now. You will just have to read regularly to see what I have to say. I will let you in on one secret though, Picture Tuesday will be continuing. Wahoo.

Today is the first day of school for Canyon. Most of my guys have moved back in already and it's pretty sad - there just aren't a lot of them left. I think we lost between a fourth and a third of the guys living in the dorms and we only had one new one move in. Now, I'm no business major, but if Grand Canyon loses more students than it brings in, it doesn't sound like a very good business model. Call me weird, but inflow should always exceed outflow in my book. But I guess the powers that be have some crazy master plan to make the school bigger that somehow includes losing a lot of students. I don't understand it. But I guess that's why I'm still a student and they're the businessmen.

I'm glad to be back y'all. I missed you. Don't worry, I'll see you tomorrow. You can count on it.

A ghost town full of life

Tuesday was the last day of finals at Grand Canyon. A lot of people had finished up earlier, but there were still a few stragglers taking tests yesterday. But now that finals are over, the dorms have emptied out, save for a few lonely souls. It feels a lot like a ghost town. You can see evidence of people once being here, but they just aren't around any more. It's kinda sad. But it's also pretty cool.

Last night, after SALT, the ten or twelve of us who remained, decided to play hide and go seek. It was close to 11:30 and open hall had ended about an hour and a half earlier. But since three of us were RA's, we decided it would be okay. Mostly it was a game of scaring people as they walked down the pitch black hallway, but it was still a lot of fun. Afterwards we all went and hung out in the lobby and played board games for a while. After a few sleepy heads went to bed, a couple of girls decided they needed ice cream, so Big John and I went to QT with them as their bodyguards.

The whole point of that story is to setup this - when weird circumstances happen, walls come down and people get closer. The dorms were empty, and those of us who were left definitely felt lonely and almost left out. We had to stay behind a little while longer while we envied those who got to go home early. I got to hang out with a couple of people that I don't normally spend time with last night, and it was fun. We became a group with loneliness as our common bond. And it was enough. In some sense, I think each of us would have rather been at home, spending Christmas with out family. But I know that I wouldn't have given up that time for anything. There were some new friendships formed last night and some old ones made stronger because we were all alone together. And it was a good thing.

They say old friends take a long time to grow. I figure that in a couple of years I will be needing some old friends to rely on and so I guess now is a good time to start making some new ones. You never know when they will come in handy.