I DON’T HATE YOU.  I HATE THE FACT THAT YOU HATE ME.

YOU WANT TO KNOW THE TRUTH?  MY PAST IS HAUNTING ME EVERY DAY. 

They called me broken, worthless, and a shame
They called me wasted, used up, and chained
But You made me Your child
And You called me Your own
Now they can call me
But they’ve got to use my new name 
                                                       -”New Name” by Todd Agnew

BUT YOU WANT TO KNOW THE INTERESTING THING?  I’m not that man anymore.  Jesus made me his own, and he’s given me a new name.  The name Israel (which means struggles with God).  Because that’s who I am in Christ.  The one that wrestles with God to know him more, the one who thirsts for a blessing.

That God is not tame.  He’s not controllable.  He’s wild and free, and that He releases that in us as His people, when we let Him.  Think of it like that scene in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe where Mr. Tumnus the faun tells Lucy “We mustn’t press him.  After all, he’s not a tame lion.”

When we give ourselves to Him totally, He makes us untamable, wild, and reckless worshipers, healers of people. According to Mary Harris Jones, “I am not a humanitarian.  I am a hell raiser.”  

This verse of scripture stuck out at me during all of this. “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.” (Matt. 11:12  NIV). Another word for forceful might be ‘violent’ or ‘wild’.

The other part of the vision God gave me is this:  He’s coming.  He’s getting ready to pour out His presence and His righteousness on this land, this people.  Belton, TX is about to be rocked to the core.  It reminded me of a song by Skillet, “Energy”:

You’re a silent rage.

You’re a hurricane.

You are everything I cannot see and can’t explain.

You’re an enigma,

Wrapped in a mystery.

Everywhere I go I can’t escape your energy.

Thank you to all the servicemen and women who risk their lives daily for our safety. You’re my heroes. You sacrifice yourselves daily so we can believe what we choose, and more importantly,  so we can argue about it. Be thankful we don’t live in a place where we can’t question authority from time to time.

And thank You Jesus, for making the ultimate sacrifice to break the chains around our hearts.  You’re the ultimate hero.

1.) manage to cut your ear shaving?

2.) wake up and try to squeeze your toothbrush out on your toothpaste?

3.) get lost in your own shower, and as a consequence try and get out through the drain?

4.) tried to insert your cell phone into the keyhole in your car and try to start the engine?

5.) put your underwear on backwards?

6.) gotten a nice pink shirt for a family member only to find out later it’s a maternity shirt?

Then this plan is just for you! You can choose a plan for 100 minutes a month, just right for those peaple that are just a little ditzy once in a while, 500 minutes a month if you put liquid soap in a dish washer, and 1000 minutes if you are a happy-go-lucky person that uses up their minutes and text messages in the first week of the month.

*Roll over charges apply.*

That being said, it’s always funny when it happens to someone else.

For a lot of us the older we get the less important our birthdays become to us.  I remember when I was a little boy my family had a cookout in the back yard with hot dogs and hamburgers and I got a package of Star Wars micro-machines (which I still have by the way).  It was a special time.

For another birthday a few years later my mom and I went out to the movies together, which is something that we do even now, so it’s really nice bonding time for us.

Fast forward to the present.  This past year I got to spend my birthday with my girlfriend who I’m terribly in love with.  But you know the thing I remember most about my birthday this past year?  It was the last time we were together as a couple.  It was the last time I got to hold her in my arms.

Now this is the girl that for Valentine’s Day gave me a dandelion because she thought I was special. And the funny thing is she didn’t know that dandelions are weeds, but I still liked the gift because it showed me she had the same feelings for me that I had for her.

A month later we went to the Spring Formal at school together, and I stopped on the way up to campus to pick her up so that I could pick a flower for her.  She was a stunner in her dress, and we tried putting the flower in her hair for and added decoration, but it wouldn’t stay up no matter how many ties we put in her hair.

Over the summer I got really sick, and she came over to my house to feed me chicken noodle soup.

A few days after my birthday though, we had decided that we were going in different directions.  But the thing I remember most from this is all the good things that we shared when we were together.  Every smile, every laugh, every kiss.  She always encouraged me to do my best and to just be happy with who I am, which I am.

But the thing that hurts is that I’m still in love with her. Now tell me God, how am I supposed to feel about her? How am I supposed to feel about life?

I guess that being broken is a common theme in life.

And I really do hope she finds happiness, even if it’s not with me.

(1.) Google

(2.) Wikipedia

That’s right.  I google everything, then I check it with wikipedia.  Wikipedia is scary.  Anyone can post to that site, so would think that a lot of people just post things that couldn’t be true.  Right?

WRONG!

What’s scary is how accurate that wikipedia really is.  Information reaches the public on wikipedia almost immediately, sometimes before it actually happens.  As I’m writing this the date for today is July 7, 2009.  The details of Michael Jackson’s Memorial service, which happened today in Los Angeles, are already on wikipedia.com.

The secret to wisdom is not just knowing a lot of stuff, though that doesn’t hurt.  The secret is knowing where to look for stuff you don’t know.

My former roomate, Thomas Umstattd, is a teacher in the truest sense of the word.  Whenever I had a question, especially one about technology, he would never give me a straight answer.  He would always, and I do mean always, ask me “Have you checked google yet?”

“Thomas, what’s the HTML command for font size?”

“Have you asked google yet?”

“Thomas, where can I find tutorials for Photoshop?”

“Have you checked google yet?”

“Thomas, do we have a hammer anywhere in the house?”

“Try google.”  (I actually did experience that.)

The fact is after awhile I was getting frustrated but then I started trying google.  Especially how-to things.  Google excels in that.  For example, I’ve queried google about “How to write a good press release?” and I came up with a list of different websites and articles about that very topic.  One of my favorites that came up was www.prweb.com.

I’ve also found all sorts of German and Russian recipes thanks to this wonderous search engine because I really like to cook and show off my skill for my family and my girlfriend.

I had a question about how much a paintball gun would cost me and I got another list of reliable sites to help in my search.

What Thomas did for me is he didn’t give me a fish.  He taught me how to fish.

It says in the Bible in the book of Proverbs “if you give a man a fish you feed him for a day.  If you teach a man how to fish,you feed him for a lifetime.”

So really I just have to find a way to deal with it.

The answer is simple:  I’m saving the world, one taco at a time.

By day I’m a mild-mannered college student, but at night I’m Taco Salad Man, a dark hero who protects the innocent with an array of weapons, such as my dual sour cream and guacamole guns, name tag that doubles as a recording device, my grappling hook belt (still working the kinks out of that one), slip resistant shoes, and of course my knowledge of every Jackie Chan movie ever made.

Other fast food companies cringe in fear of my burritos as they can produce a deadly gas when eaten.

I’m still trying to convince my manager to let me have a signal, sort of like Batman’s only a bell instead of a bat, but so far she won’t.

I trust that all of my readers will keep my identity safe as Macdonald’s spies can be everywhere.

It only numbs the pain for a little while.  It doesn’t actually fix what’s causing the pain.  That’s for your body to deal with.

I had to learn this lesson last night when I decided to hit a wall instead of an unpleasant coworker.

Now hitting that wall didn’t solve the problem.  It just gave me a couple seconds of emotional satisfaction and still left a mess to clean up because I almost broke my hand doing it.  My manager let me clock out so I could go to the hospital and have it checked out.

In retrospect, I’m glad I felt the shooting pain when I hit the wall because withoug that pain the lesson wouldn’t have been driven all the way home.

Here’s the lesson: I let my coworker get under my skin and I let the wall beat me.

The asprin temporarily numbed it, but the pain let’s me know that I’m still alive.  The sadness I’m feeling right now is proof that my heart is still here, it’s just broken.

But sometimes I feel like I’m so far away from the people and the things that matter the most to me.

This is my 1989 Dodge Ram Charger.  My family has had her for over 10 years, and I just wanted to share a little about my relationship with her.

You’ll notice that the right fender, hood, and grill are all different from the rest of the vehicle.  Those are really just battle scars.  In October of 2007 I was coming home from a Halloween party, dressed as the Punisher, and I managed to hit a deer at about 70 mph.

The reason I say battle scars is because the truck took the brunt of the impact and saved my life that night.  She protected me.  In something smaller I would have been hurt badly, but i actually walked away without a scratch.  And amazingly I still managed to drive home that night.

These are my student parking stickers from Temple College.  I’m reminded of all the trips to school in my Charger, of all the Life Group meetings I had after class, of the rides I gave my friends to campus just to hang out.

And she was right there waiting for me every day.

She was affectionately called “The Beast” by my friends and coworkers.

I miss the roar of her V-8 engine when I hit the starter button.  I miss the oil leaks and holes in the radiator that my step-dad and I had to fix.

I miss the time I got to work on her and the way it brought me closer to my family.