God is really cool.

Today one of my best friends made a big decision she's been struggling to make for a few weeks. You have no idea how exciting it is to see how God worked in that decision...and to know that it wasn't really her thought processes at all that was the turning point - but completely and utterly God's hand that did all the work. It was definitely awesome and I'm so super pumped to hear the relief in her voice and to know that there is a huge weight now off her shoulders. Wow...exciting. It's kinda crazy how God can teach you things. Even through things that aren't your struggles or difficulties. God has shown me a lot and taught me a lot through a situation that wasn't even my own. Superb.

I think I am about to go drive around and watch the sunset....and perhaps try to snag a few good pictures of it while I'm out there. Clemson sunsets are absolutely beautiful - so I'm going to try to catch as many as I can, and truly enjoy them before I have to go.

A thought to depart with:

"The Kingdom belongs to people who aren't trying to look good or impress anybody, even themselves. They are not plotting how they can call attention to themselves, worrying about how their actions will be interpreted or wondering if they will get gold stars for their behavior."

Let me know your thoughts on that if you will - I have mine, but also talk myself in circles sometimes concerning it. Perhaps I'll share mine some other time, but now the sunset calls....

I can't think of a title for this one.

Alot has been going on lately, it seems. I wish I could have posted more, but I just never seemed to sit down and write. Funny, huh? I mean, what do I really do with all of my time? It is occupied somehow, that's for sure. Now I can't remember what all I had to say, but I'll recap some nice things that have occurred as of late.

This past week was good. I worked 4 of the 5 days, and the day I didn't work I went shopping in Commerce with my mom. She's pretty awesome. She does things like put my favorite gum in packages that she sends up for me to find. And she bought me some clothes...that was nice.

I saw the sunrise some this week - and the one morning I was going to deliberately watch it rise, and completely focus on Christ, and the beauty of His creation, and His might and majesty it was AMAZING. There was bright pink just pouring over the trees, then the sun came up slowly but surely, as it always does, and it was just incredible. God is cool like that...I feel like He knew I was going to be watching and was going to try to completely glorify Him that morning - and He was like, "check this out...this is amazing...and I think you are even more amazing than this sunrise." It was nice.

So, I start school in Charleston exactly one month from today. CRAZY.

I got to have a bikini dance party in my room this week with Carla and Leslie...it was hillarious and wonderful. Ah, the memories. Then we all laid on the beds and fell asleep. Also that day, there was a bird in our house. Yep...INSIDE our house. We had to open the windows upstairs b/c the air conditioner had to thaw out....and yea, a bird wanted to come in and hangout w/ us apparently. I saw it, and kinda screamed a lil', and it flapped its way on outside again. Life at 1396 is always interesting, I tell you. Live birds and the sort. Oh yea, and there was also some kind of varmot outside this week...maybe a groundhog or something, standing on it's hind legs in our driveway. It was HUGE....at least 3 feet tall when standing erect. I drove up, and seriously thought it was a statute in our driveway and someone was playing a joke on us. Then it got on all 4's and scurried under Meghan's car...then Laynes....then waddled on back into the bushes. I laughed real hard at that, too. It was an interesting greeter to come home to after work.

We had a tornado at work on Friday. I had to sit in the hall for an hour w/ my class...it was hailing, and the power was off and on, and it was nuts at ole Pickens High School. Don't worry though, folks....all is well, and I am safe.

This weekend has been great. I had a hot date last night with Mr. Grant Turner. We went to Meghan and Matt's wedding shower, then to downtown greenville to hangout for a little while with Sleeve and Danny. It was a good time. Today I got to sit down and talk about life with one of the most amazing people in the world, Brianne Siciliano. I always love every second of that - and of course it was incredible today as always. Then I got to eat Arby's and Sullivan's desert with my wonderful roomate Erin Mathis....which is always a pleasure. Then I got to go hangout downtown with a fun bunch of folks, including the two mentioned previous, and Lindsay Koeper, and PJ, and Zach and Sean, and some other super cool people.

I have had some really good reflection time today. Some time to think. To deliberate. To listen. To give advice. To love. It's been nice. Really nice. I have the greatest friends ever. I'm not ready to leave them.

Well, I'm off to bed...
Goodnight...
PEACE.

ouch.

I don't feel so hot.
Do you ever feel like someone has a really tight grip around your brain and they won't stop squeezing? Yea, that's the feeling I have right now. Yikes.
Bri had the same headache tonight.
We went to Greenville - me and Bri and Lindsay.
I love those girls. I really do. They are absolutely wonderful, in every sense of the word.
I'm sitting in my pajamas now. With the overhead light off and a dim lamp on, with Patty Griffin playing quietly in the background. It's relaxing.
I'm about to lay in my bed and read some more of the "Ragamuffin Gospel" until I fall asleep.
I may only get through 1 page. I'm sleepy.
My eyes are getting heavy.
Goodnight to all.

"In the middle of the night
The world turns with all of it's might
A little diamond colored blue."
-Patty G.

life is good.

Today is absolutely beautiful. I'm sitting now in my room with the windows open, looking at the sunlight beaming through, and feeling the nice breeze...while listening to a few tunes, of course. NICE.

I walked around campus today for the first time all semester. It was weird. I didn't feel like a student. I guess it's because I'm not. I went to do some scholarship stuff, and had to go use a computer lab, as well as get a teacher recommendation - so off to campus I went. I walked from Sirrine over to Bracket - where I saw my friend Margaret, who was one of my best friends in High School, but whom I rarely see since we've come to college - and I saw my buddy PJ. I got to chat with them both for awhile, which is always a pleasure. Then off to Edwards I trekked. To be such a familiar walk, it seemed strangely unfamiliar. I felt out of place for some reason.
As soon as I walked in the door of edwards though, it was like I was home again. I know it's weird - but it's true. I spent so much of the past two years in that building, that as soon as the doors opened, and the smell surrounded me, it felt normal again. It was nice.

I am going to miss this campus. It's close to perfect here. I drove past Bowman and of course, there were hundreds of people playing soccer and frisbee and football and volleyball. I walked under the shade trees behind Fort Hill. I thought about my time here - and how I will be leaving in less than a month. It's crazy to think. In ways I feel like I've already left, but parts of me don't want to let go.

I don't want to let go of the people who have made my time here so wonderful. I don't want to let go the amazing spring days, or the football games. I don't want to let go of the many weekday nights I've spent on the intramural fields playing the things I love with all of my best friends and teamates for 4 years whom I've come to know so well. I don't want to let go of the serenity this place offers me. The beauty. The peace.

I love it here, but I know it's time to go. I'm ready to start something new - be in a new place - meet new people - start over again. Yea, I'm a little nervous - but I'm excited all at the same time. I am a much different person leaving, than I was 4 years ago when I came in. That makes me excited. I have found myself...for the most part. I know more now what makes my heart beat. What really matters to me in life. I have become more open minded. I have learned what love really is...or well, I think. Honestly, I don't remember much from the books I've read or the classes I've taken - but to me, that's not what's important in life. I've tried to love God, and love people. I've tried lived life to the full and I've taken the time to enjoy it. It's too short to not do those things.

Actually, I'm going to go do that now. You should too. Go outside. Breathe the air, smell the grass, look at the blue sky, listen to the birds. Let the wind brush your cheeks, and be reminded of God's grace. Be thankful. Be content. Be still. Be joyful. And enjoy life.

Much love...

things that make you go hmmm...and things that don't.

I saw the movie Hotel Rwanda the other night. It was really good. Pretty thought provoking, and emotionally wrenching. I highly recommend that you see it if you haven't - and if you haven't here's a small synopsis:

Paul Rusesabagina, a Hutu hotel manager married to a Tutsis woman housed and saved over a thousand Tutsis refugees during their struggle against the Hutu militia in Rwanda. In 1994, some of the worst atrocities in the history of mankind took place in the country of Rwanda--and in an era of high-speed communication and round the clock news, the events went almost unnoticed by the rest of the world. In only three months, one million people were brutally murdered.

Sad. Very very sad.

Some people were leaving the movie mad at the UN, and at the United States and all of the "white countries" for not doing anything to help. And yes, I agree - more help should have been sent sooner, and these people should not have been overlooked due to the fact that it was a poor, 'insignificant' country. People were saying things such as - "man, seeing things like this makes me hate America because we think we're all high and mighty, and don't do anything to help those who have no significance or value to us...blah blah blah blah."

And this is, in my opinion a semi-true statement. But SEMI, is the key prefix there. To be honest, most of these people who I heard saying this are the same people who are saying that we shouldn't be in a war with Iraq right now because we're putting our troops in danger, and we have no business being over there, and they're saying "who are we to think that we can just go over there and destroy their country and 'take it over' blah blah blah." Well, to these people I say this: Think about what you are saying.

You are angered that we did nothing to help the people of Rwanda who were so helpless themselves, yet when we use force to help the Iraqi's who are being oppressed and killed by a threatening and dangerous leader, you get all pissy. Not only were we trying to save the country of Iraq, and free their people, we were trying to unarm a force that was a potential threat to the rest of the world. I just don't get it. Why is war so opposed sometimes, and then people see an atrocity like this made a little more glamorous and heroic by Hollywood (not that his real-life actions weren't heroic b/c they DEFINITELY were), and we somehow get these anti-American sentiments that we are a country that does nothing to help people. I understand that a lot of people believe that there were more alterior motives to going to war than to just plain and simple help people - and who knows - maybe there were (ok there probably were), but the fact of the matter is that we have helped liberate a people who's lives were being made miserable by a sick man named Saddam...and that is good. We as a country aren't purely monsterous. Our troops are doing good things. Our troops are saving lives. Perhaps millions. Perhaps we are stopping a movie from being made 10 years from now that tells of a monsterous Iraqi leader who slowly but surely destroyed pieces of the world.

I dunno...just some thoughts that made me go hmmmmm....

But yea, it's a really good movie. Eye opening that's for sure. It makes me wonder why we seem to never hear about these things that go on in other parts of the world. There are pages and pages and pages in the newspaper about Tiger Woods when he wins the Master's and there are weeks upon weeks of coverage of the Pope when he dies (not trying to be disrespectful here, b/c I know it's a pretty huge deal), but, seriously - a MILLION people were slaughtered and I heard nothing about it (granted I was only 11 and probably wouldn't have noticed it anyways - but you'd think I'd have learned about it in history or something). It makes me realize yet again how much control the media has. How limited my knowledge is without "credible" news sources. How much of the media is strictly political? WAY too much of it is.

Ahhh, politics. How senseless they are. I see the point in them, yet don't all at the same time. I see the benefits of it, and I see the perverseness of it all at the same time. I see the corruptness, and the flaws, and I see the heroism and the positive things it serves.

I could never be a politician. Political debates are one thing that I may discuss in a later blog. This one seems to be getting kind of long. I didn't mean for it to get all political - or to be completely about a touchy subject like war - but hey, my fingers just typed out what my brain was spittin' out.

Any comments?

On a lighter note - don't you love how you can see certain people or hangout with them or talk to them for a few minutes and just instantly get in an amazingly wonderful mood? I wonder why that is? I love it.

Oh, and if anyone works for a video game company, you should consider putting Carla and I in mortal combat video games, because tonight we put on play fights in our room and jumped from bed to bed in slow motion and stuff for a good 20 minutes, and were seriously AMAZING. Or we were really bad, but it was super funny (I seriously almost peed in my pants 3 times) and a good time was had by all.

It's been a great day...and a great night hanging out with great people (such as ALL of my roomates, yes all of them at one time, and L. Tate, and Brianne Siciliano)...and yea. Life is good. People make me smile.

Love to all.

Here goes...

Well, I've decided to create a blog. I've had one before, but it seemed to die pretty quickly. I make no promises with this one either, but perhaps a few posts will be made here and there.

I will admit, I'm not one to openly share my personal thoughts or feelings with people, so who knows what this will be full of, but I guess we'll soon find out. And when I say "we'll" I mean, myself and anyone who may happen to stumble across this and care to take the time to read it.

So yea, here goes...

I hope you enjoy your time spent inside this little mind.