Ballin!

Just got home from playing basketball. As a matter of fact for the last two nights I just got back from playing basketball. haha I love ballin so much. I love the excitement of trying my hardest and winning. When try hard and loose it makes me want to win even more. It's funny, I was talking to Preston Tran the other day and we were saying how we want to keep getting together to play organized ball into our late 50's. That would be so amazing! I want to stay friends with these great group of guys and always have this escape from the grind of life. One or two nights a week we get to be kids again. Kids running as fast as we can back and forth and back and forth. Yelling, getting mad, hating the other team, and loving your team are all very freeing emotional expressions.

What's really great about playing nowadays is that we get to have something that's truly ours. It's not a league. We don't pay money to join. Our parents don't have to sign waivers for us to play or drive us to the games. We don't have to explain to anyone why we didn't play our best and we can feel good about boasting when we did our best. We decide if the games are going to be fun. It's up to us to make the environment fun and enjoyable. If every one's pissed off then that's the way we made it. When every ones having a blast that's when things are at their best!

Not only is it character building to create and maintain this band of brothers but it's great exercise. I've been playing basketball once a week since I was 17 years old. Despite having played through some pain this activity has kept me it great shape!

Alright i got to go ball right now. See ya!

byebye

peace

More Reading Please

Can the bible answer all the questions that I have?

Can I rely totally on what it says?

Can I ever fully understand what the bible says, means, and commands?

Can I really hear directly from God; without the direction of a pastor or elder?

Can I reach my full potential as a Christan, human, student, son, and friend without studying the bible?

Can I have an original thought or insight regarding scripture?

Can I fully believe pastoral insight into my life and the lives of others without the support of God's written word behind it?

Can I make a difference?

Can I speak the words of God like Peter; with power and authority?

Can my interpretation of the bible be respected?

Can I trust anything that doesn't line up with the bible?

Can I disregard anything in the bible?

Can the bible predict future events in my life?

Can I speak as the Oracles of God?

Can those who are not "educated" in scripture speak into my life regarding what the bible says?

....Can I find more time to read?

breath

i either want to live forever or die today
to live one life, i don't have what it takes

you could live your life over 100 times
and still feel robbed when you came to the end of the line

things look different now as time goes by
if you don't tell stories then you won't have to cry

i remember because i can't forget
you can't turn off what's stuck inside your head

bring me down
take me off my feet
i need your breath
cause it hurts when i breathe

help me jesus
i'm falling to pieces
i'm trying to get my life straight

help me god
i'm falling to hell
i need all your help
get me out of here

Times up! Put your pencils down

Life is short. So is this post.


This semester is going to have a lot of reflection in it.




Each day that I have difficult assignments due, career choices to make, and an internship to shave for I stop for a second and thinkpray...










"is this what i want to do for the rest of my life? is this what you(god) want me to do for the rest of my life?"

















I need to know. I think that it is very important.

Losing a brother or gaining a sister?

I’ve known my oldest brother Craig for 21 years. Over these years he’s changed. The earliest Craig that I remember used to organize his brothers and sister into lego building teams. (Side note: I LOVED LEGO SOOOO MUCH. Wish I still did!) He and my brother Dan used to get the blue and green pieces, leaving the yellow and red for my sister Michelle and I. The blue and the green were the cool colors. He used to build cars out of “pipe works,” which he would push the younger ones down the street in. I promise we reached speeds of 10-15 mph. Tree forts, wrestling in the front yard, capture the flag, freeze tag, and blind man’s bluff made up some of the greatest memories that I have of Craig, and of my childhood. That Craig I remember didn’t get lost over the years, but sometimes he’s hard to find.

After Craig found a good job(setting up tents), when he was 16 years old, he kind of started growing away from the family. His new job brought new friends and new priorities into his life. This isn’t a sad thing, because this is the way life works sometimes. Anyways…our family eventually moved down to Virginia, we had been living in New Jersey, Craig decided to stay in NJ and ended up growing even further away from the family.
After about a year or so of our family living in different states Craig moved down south! He hesitated at first, but he eventually grew right back into the swing of things with the family. This growing back together consisted of movie summer night parties with lots of family and friends and larger than life paintball battles. Putting it very literally, Craig (with the help of some of his brothers) pretty much created an amateur paintball league. Some Saturday mornings we’d have close to thirty people out there in that field in west Midlothian.

Around time of rejoining with the family, Craig started dating his fiancée, Caitlin.















I had been casual friends with Caitlin for a few years before her and my brother started dating, but not like great friends.

I realize this is really long for a blog….so….. pretty much now that Craig and Caitlin are engaged to be married I’ve grown very close to both. I basically have grown back together with Craig as a brother while growing closer with Caitlin as a sister. I’m very happy to have both back in my life and look forward to establishing the next generation of our family!

So instead of wondering whether or not I’m losing a brother or gaining a sister?....why can’t I be gaining both?

i'm gonna miss you

rainy days make me think about when i was younger.

i was just listening to jon foreman's song "learning how to die." when i was nine or ten i remember my dad talking to my mom about his getting his last will and testament written up. both of them talking about dying really scared me.

i've changed a little since then. i'm more at peace about the end.
something that seems to me a little scarier than death is growing apart from those who you share so much history with. do you remember the toy story movies? they deal with the thought of death and the difficulty of moving on. remember the scene in toy story 2 when jessie's owner grows older and looses interest in her dolls. jon foreman's song and scenes from movies like that makes me feel bad about the friends that i've grown apart from. it's a dreary feeling; like rain.

at the same time this feeling excites me. not because of what i might have grown apart from and lost, but i feel excited about making new memories and reliving past joys and excitements. it makes me happy to think about the past because i can always share the good feelings that i experienced then with those that i care about today.

i love it when it rains, you should too.