A Time to Reflect

It is truly incredible how many resources are out there right at our fingertips, even just a mouse click away. Recently my beautiful girl has been reading blogs online and then passing along that I should read some of them. Specifically Bethany Dillon and her sister Kate McDonald. Bethany’s is cute and exciting but I feel like Kate has been through a lot more.

http://bethanydillon.wordpress.com/

http://katemcdonald.wordpress.com/

Emily had already filled me in on the details of what has been going on in Kate’s life. Emily told me that she had just gone through a divorce with a music artist I had really enjoyed. So with my sadness I approached her writings. And no, my sadness was not just because I had lost an artist. My sadness was mournful. I was sad that their marriage hadn’t worked. I was just blue.

But as I read I didn’t find a broken or mourning woman. I found someone who was free to let God be her lover. Someone who was free to live. I’m not advocating divorce by any means but what I found was not what I expected. Kate shared stories of being a single mother and stories of her sister Beth and Beth’s husband Shane. An incredible amount of joy and peace was flowing out of this woman who had been through so much.

God really does work things together for good. Everytime I think about what she wrote I can feel that well rising up inside of me. That joy disguised as sadness. The thankfulness disguised as watery eyes. I reflect on the beautiful friend and lover God has so graciously given me. The way her eyes glisten and glimmer when she looks at me. The strength we give each other when we are weak. Kate’s words poured through my soul and put a divine spotlight on something I rarely see. GOD WORKS ALL THINGS TOGETHER FOR GOOD!!!

The second half of that verse is very vital. “For those who love him and are called according to his purpose.” Seeing a small glimpse into the life that Kate has lived I can see that verse is so true for her. I know it is for my life with Emily. It can be for you too!

10 Days Anywhere Is Enough

It’s enough to make you appreciate how much you miss home. Orlando is great and all but I really miss my friends and my guitar. I can’t wait to go home and play those strings until my fingers ache from their unfamiliarity. And I miss all my friends. We travel back to Brockport tomorrow. And then Tuesday, Gabe Lydia and I all start back to school. That gives us Monday to hang out with our friends before we go back. I missed a lot while we were here. I missed Emily’s 19^th birthday on the 21^st. I missed the first 2 weeks that Laurel came to my church. I missed the first cornerstone meeting for BASIC. Lots of stuff I really wanted to do. I still wouldn’t trade this week for anything. I am really thankful for this vacation. God blessed us with great weather, and more importantly we bonded as a family. We have an entire week of memories. I can’t even believe that my parents were able to keep it a secret from all three of us. I mean it isn’t much of a surprise that they were able to keep it from me but from Gabe and Lydia. I think I said this before but I am so happy that my parent have been loving and caring for us and each other all 25 years of their marriage. The fact that they didn’t mind spending their anniversary with us just shows you how much we mean to them. I just hope God blesses them for how well they done. I also hope that they will know that they mean just as much, if not more, to us. See you all soon, Later Everyone

EPCOT.. Experimental Planned Community Of Tomorrow

Today we explored EPCOT and the world showcase. Once again the family had us run over to the newest ride to get fast pass tickets. The newest ride is entitled Soarin’. It was pretty cool. It give they simulated feeling of handgliding over vast landscapes and cities. All this is being displayed to you on a huge vision filling screen. There was even a synthetic breeze. The ride we did while waiting for our Fastpasses on Soarin’ was GM’s Test Track. It was just as amazing as I remember it last time. The acceleration test, speed test.. all amazing and hair raising. After Test track we went on over to Mission Space by HP. That ride was amazing. G forces and twists and spins. I really felt like I was in a space ship. I’m surprised there was only a 5 minute wait time. We also went through the world showcases. We went to the Canada show and the Norway show. We weren’t able to stay for illuminations though. The last ride we did before we left was the spaceship earth. A nice slow ride that lets you sit there and rest. The cast member who helped us get to the handicapped entrance was pretty funny. His name was Gary and he really enjoyed picking on Lydia. She loved it though. Gary kept on whispering to people about Lydia and by the time we got on everyone knew her name. It made her blush and smile. It was cute.

Today was my parents’ 25^th anniversary so we left the park at about 3 so they could go out to dinner. They had a great day. I love my parents so much. Sometimes I take them for granted. But I should always remember how many people didn’t grow up with 2 parents in the house. Someone was always there to take care of us. I continue to pray every day that I will be even a fraction of the parent that my dad was.

Later Everyone

Jesus’ Blood

Never ever fails me. It has never failed me and I know it never will. God has given me a great talent, guitar. I don’t think I’ve ever told you how much I love playing my guitar. Tonight I think I played for at least an hour straight. The best part about it is that I get to use it to praise God. Now that I am part of Mr. Vanhooft’s worship I have a constant stream of music flowing into my notebook. I have three all time favorite songs. Yes all three of them are slow but all three of them really touch me and move me closer to Him. Jesus’ Blood, Holy of Holies, and Let it Rain. Let it Rain is probably the newest of all three. The lyrics go like this:

Let it Rain

Let it Rain

Open the Floodgates of Heaven

Thos same lines just keep repeating over and over. I’ll try to put these song up on my music MySpace so you can hear them. This song reflects the desire of my heart for God to just pour out all his power upon me and everything around me so I can bask in His glory. The second song, Holy of Holies, Is a mixture of Let it Rain and Jesus Blood. The chorus goes like this:

Take me into the Holy of Holies

Take me in by the blood of the Lamb

Take me in to the Holy of Holies

Take the coal, cleanse my lips, here I am

In this song I am asking God to bring me in to his presence so he can cleanse me and make me new again so that I can worship Him with my whole heart un blackened by my sin. And some of you may be skeptical. You may be thinking, “Yeah right like would wipe all my sins away just like that.” Every time you sincerely ask God, He will clean the slate and make you whole again to do his will. Jesus’ Blood goes like this:

Jesus’ blood never fails me (3X)

Jesus’ blood, Jesus’ blood

This song is telling it like it is. Jesus died on the the cross and shed His blood for me and you. Every time I remember that it brings me great joy to know that in doing so God will always be there to catch me in his open arms. By way of the cross we have been re-connected to God. This doesn’t mean bad things won’t happen to me. They happen a lot. But by the blood of Christ I am forgiven and have been given passage to heaven.

I hope you can get as much out of these three simple songs as I did. God Bless you. Later Everyone.

New Page and a Grad Party

Another wonderful day in the neighborhood. Lol, oops I forgot this isn’t Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. So today was kind of a boring day. I got up around 11 and then went to work at 3. I have good and bad news from the library. First the bad news, Ethan Cornell is leaving us. Ethan has been working there 2 years now right alongside me. I believe his 2 years was sometime in May. He is a very diligent worker and an even better friend. There are a few things in particular which I will always remember about working with Ethan. Rubber bands, Biking, and video gaming. Ethan had a profound infatuation with the box of rubber bands. Before his shift began or after his shift ended he always picked up a rubber band and either shot it at you, or used it to aim at the numerous cubbies in the back room. Ethan was a biker for sure. Not like a motorcycler a cyclist. From his last tally I believe he told me he has like 3 or 4 bicycles. And he frequently used them as transport to the library. My favorite thing that we would discuss is video games. Wii, Xbox 360, Zelda, Halo 3, you name it we discussed it. We even tried to outdo each other with our Zelda apparel. Ethan It has been a great pleasure working with you. I hope you enjoy your next job. I will always remember you. The good news is that I believe we have hired an excellent new page. David Anderson. He seems like a very level-headed, diligent kid. From what I’ve seen so far he is pretty good at shelving books as well. Good luck to you David.

This evening I saw my favorite people in the whole entire world. Laurel Reisig and Sarah Haller. I just feel so full of joy even when I just type their names. I’m sure I’ve said this before but I love them. Sarah can bring a smile to my face no matter what is going on and Laurel has a fount of infinite wisdom inside her. Those 2 will be my lifelong friends. I trust them with anything and everything in my life. And thanks for walking me out to my car Sarah. How can I not talk abouit why I saw them. We all went to Rachel Stoikovic’s graduation party. Rachel and Laurel and I don’t know who else, are graduating this year and Laurel is coming to BROCKPORT!!! Yay, I’m so excited. Rachel thank you so much for throwing an excellent party. God bless ya.

That is about it for tonight. Later Everyone.

Happy Father’s Day

So today was father’s day for all those of you who do nothing except read blogs all day. In the spirit of this wondrous day, I think I’m gonna honor my dad even more than I did in my family post. Obviously the most important thing he has done in my life is introduce me to Jesus. What else is cool about my dad… let’s see, everything! One thing my dad loves to do and is very good at is using the grill. Today he insisted on cooking dinner and he want to cook beef tenderloin on the grill, IT was SO good. I still think I prefer a good London broil over the tenderloin but it was still really good. Over fifteen years ago my dad built me a huge tree house in the backyard. And as a testament to his ability to engineer something it still stands today. Sadly we’ve grown out of it though. Gabe and I have plans to refurbish it and I sure hope we do because that would be so cool. Also, he taught me how to treat girls. He told what it was appropriate to do and what wasn’t appropriate to do.

He also taught me how to have lots of fun by using harmless ways to frighten people. He taught me how to be very sneaky. I scare my co-workers and for the longest time I didn’t understand why, until one day he came in and he scared the living daylights out of me by stealing my cart of books while I was working. I thought I had lost an entire cart of books and low and behold there he was chuckling standing right next to my cart on the other side of the Library. He really taught me how to have fun and to enjoy the person that God made me to be. He taught me how to be strong and stand up for myself and how to respect someone who was in authority. He really has taught me what it means to be a perfect father. Thanks Dad

Later everyone

Work, work, work… it seems like all I do

Ahh, another wonderful God-given day. I woke up at 9:40 today to hear those wonderful birds chirping through my window. Sadly though, today wasn’t all too productive. I did get to go to lunch with my mom though. She was scrapbooking with the neighbor until noon. When she got home we went out to arby’s for some grub.

Yes something remotely exciting did happen today. I paid for my plane flight to Baton Rouge, LA. I am so excited for this retreat. About 4 years ago our church took a group of 15 people down to Baton Rouge for the Radical by Nature Youth Conference. It was radonkulous. One of the preachers, Joel Stockstill, invented that word while we were down there. God really changed my life. It was my freshman or sophomore year in high school and it just opened my eyes to the way I should be living my life. Bottom line, my life has never been the same. On June 17, Chad, Becca, Joy Giardino, Anna Dupre and I are going back to Baton Rouge for this year’s conference, “The Storm”. I can’t wait!!!

What else… At work I had a page scheduling meeting. Yeah not too exciting. Unfortunately we found out that two, if not three, pages are leaving the library in the next 3 months. Kinda scary, considering one of my duties as senior page is to train all the new pages. That means that I could possibly be training all of them at the same time. At least one of the other pages is staying. Thank you so much Kyrie. =)

Pages of the Past

My employment at the BSL has been pretty positive, I’ve really enjoyed my time there. I started working there in February 2006 so I’ve been working there 2 years and almost 4 months. I’ve seen pages come and I’ve even seen pages go. Sam, Kate, Nicole, Colin, Kara, Emily, and Josh I had so much fun working with you guys. Getting to know you was the best part. Sam, I still remember my first day at work when Chris was running through all the rules with me. You popped your head into the break room and gave me a friendly, “Helloo” and then you disappeared as quickly as you had appeared. Kate, It was always a great pleasure working with you. I really appreciated your humility. You showed me that even though I was new to the job, I could take as much time as I needed to get acquainted with stuff. Driver’s Ed was a Blast!! Nicole, you were the page I looked up to. I was always in awe of how efficient and effective you were at getting your work done. I remember not being able to wait until I could do what you could. Colin, well we didn’t work together for very long, all I can say is that the answering machine still has the button with the red lips around it. Haha. Kara, you were the first page I ever trained. I was nervous as could be that I would mess up. You made it fun though. I know you never did like closing either, those darned handicapped switches. =P Emily, soo much fun to work with. You were able to make the job so much fun. I still remember the first time I saw you punch your time card. You got over it though. Thanks for all the great times.  I wish you hadn’t left as abruptly as you had but I always had fun working with you. And my greatest ally in the fight for Christianity, Josh. Dude, every day you worked with me I felt as though I grew closer to God. Whether you taught me humility or an end-time prophesy I always had a great time. You are and always will be my brother in Christ.

Interesting tangent for the day. Well I’ll post again tomorrow, maybe I’ll write about all the clerks and librarians who’ve left in my time. Anywho I’ll be here tomorrow.