What Have You Been Doing Lately?

Well, to answer that question. I haven't been up to too much. I've been working at Spectrum Health Distribution Center since the beginning of June and I really like it there. I work for an amazing company, with some really great people. I've been getting ready to go back to school since we've got less than two weeks until classes start again. (Possibly more to come on that topic). I recently started to do Power 90 in an attempt at being healthy/getting in shape. Other than that, most of my time has been spent with friends and family (specifically one special person in particular). But enough about me, now on to the real reason for the title.

As some of you may know, "What Have You Been Doing Lately?" is the name of a song by one of my favorite bands, Relient K. I'm allowed to listen to music where I work, so I do so frequently. This song came on the other day and it really hit me and got me thinking. Some of the lyrics that really stand out to me come in at the bridge;

"Pardon me while I throw up. I guess some people never grow up. 
What happened to the salvation you claimed? It breaks my heart to see how much you've changed."

Whenever I hear these words in the song,  immediately start to think of people in my life who I've seen this happen to. It truly does break my heart to see how much some of my friends have changed. But then I started to think about it more, and realized this is an even bigger problem than just people changing from who they used to be. 
(I know this is probably one of the things people have heard over and over again, but I've just had it on my mind for a while and felt like I should share my view on it). This is part of the reason why our society has such a negative stereotype of Christians. They call us hypocrites, and I can't say I completely disagree. There are so many people out there who claim to be Christians, but don't show it in the way they act. Now, I don't want to seem judgmental. Don't get me wrong, I'm not without my vices (and I'm sure some of my friends could easily point them out to you), but I'm trying. I just see people who one day are standing up in church professing their faith in Christ, and the next weekend are out partying, drinking, and having sex. 


I think what needs to happen is a revival of the faith. Those who claim to be Christians ought to re-examine Christ's teaching in the Bible. I'm talking about actually reading it for yourself and truly learning how Christ wanted us to live. After all, isn't that exactly what being a Christian is all about? Being a follower of Christ?

Death and Relationships

~~~Sorry it's a couple days later than anticipated. I had a couple things come up and I wasn't able to finish it until now. Heck, it still isn't completely finished, but I hope you enjoy it anyway. ~~~


Yup. I'm going to do it. I'm going to attempt to give my take on two very controversial topics. You might wonder why I would combine these two things. Well, I'm not entirely sure. But as some of you know, I've recently been watching How I Met Your Mother. Relationships are a very large part of that show. But I'm going to come back to that. I'm going to start with the more morbid of the two topics, which also comes up in the show (though I'm going to try to not ruin anything for those of you who haven't seen it).

Death. Many of us don't want to think about it. It's a real part of our lives, though. Everybody experiences it at one point or another. I personally have had three encounters that I can remember.

My aunt passed away when I was 13. We were never very close. She had been fighting a long battle with cancer and her passing was, in a way, expected. I can't remember why it was that I didn't go to the funeral, I only remember not going. It was a  little weird not seeing her at family events - like Thanksgiving - anymore, yet we also knew that she was, for lack of a less cliche term, in a better place. She was without pain in the presence of our Lord and Savior. In a note that she left for my cousins she put things so plain and simply, "Don’t be unhappy. I will be very happy in a wonderful place...."

The second time was a very different story. I was invited to a weekend experience called Teens Encountering Christ. When I got there, I knew maybe two or three people. My friend Emily ran up and gave me a big hug when I walked through the door. Pulling on my arm she said, "Come on, you've got to meet Henry." And that's how I was introduced to Henry Jacob Ditmar, the fifth. 3 months later, I was working the next TEC weekend, when we received the news that Henry had been in a car accident and had gone to be with God. The atmosphere of the weekend was completely different from that moment on. There was a lot of hugging, a LOT of crying, and a lot of consoling.

My third experience was similar. Similar in the fact that some would say he was far too young to be taken from us. But different as well. You see, I did not personally know Joel Koning. His death still greatly impacted my life. He was a very good friend to many of my very good friends. One thing I learned was that people cope with things in many different ways. I remember one night soon after, I got a call, or a text, from a friend asking if she could come over so we could talk. I said sure. I wasn't sure what we'd talk about, since I was expecting she'd want to talk about Joel and I didn't know much about him. But instead she just wanted to talk. So, we talked. I can't remember what it was that we talked about, but I do remember her asking that we talk about anything else. She had just been constantly asked about him and whether she was alright, and she told me she just needed to talk about something else. So that's what I did for her.

Through these events in life, and the episode of HIMYM "Last Words", I've come to realize something. You never know when something you say could be your last words to someone. You don't know what the last impression you have on someone will be. And that's where my two topics tie together. Relationships are formed every single day. You create a relationship with every person you ever meet. But what that relationship actually turns out to be is completely up to you.  My question to end one topic as we begin the next is this; You want your last words and actions to be good memories for your friends and family, but do the other people in your life deserve any less?

The majority of people you meet will be nothing more than that, just acquaintances. But a lot of people will be so much more. Our lives are built on relationships. Not just boyfriend/girlfriend relationships, but our relationships with our family, our friends and even our teachers and mentors. I'm going to focus on the typical boyfriend/girlfriend relationship, though much of this is applicable to almost any relationship. First off, I'm going to start by saying this is completely my opinion, and I'm sure lots of people have other opinions. I'm not saying my way is right and everyone else is wrong, I'm simply giving my perspective.

My main view on dating is this: You date as a means of finding your future spouse. And that's it. To me it makes absolutely no sense for you to date someone you can't see yourself married to. If you can think of a good reason to stay with someone you couldn't marry, I'd love to hear it. That being said, I'm going to go into a bunch of random thoughts on relationships. Some of this may sound incredibly elementary, but I'm going to say it anyway. In no particular order, here we go...
1. Never change who you are for somebody else. You shouldn't have to be someone you aren't in order to gain the acceptance of another person. Especially in a dating situation. By pretending to be someone you aren't you'll only end up being unhappy and one (or both) of you will end up getting hurt.
2. It's possible to be friends with your exes. The problems come from immaturity or one person still having feelings for the other. Don't get me wrong, in many situations, you'll still care about them. But if part of your thought process in being friends is "Hey, if I'm a good enough friend, she might realize she wants to date again." you should probably give it a little more time before being friends.
3. Fighting isn't necessarily a bad thing. Well, I should clarify... Arguing isn't necessarily a bad thing. If you're physically fighting, you may want to re-examine the relationship. But an occasional spat can actually be healthy in a relationship, especially when the alternative is refusing to acknowledge the issues.

I'm going to leave you with this; one of my exes is now my best friend. We didn't date for long, but after we broke up we quit talking. After a while we started talking again, only to realize the reason we hadn't talked was that each of us thought the other was mad. So, more often than not, talking about things is your best option. And though she's my best friend now, she knows that someday she'll have to relinquish that position to a wonderful woman who God puts into my life.

That's going to be it for now, I'd kind of like to just publish this and get it out there so I can get your thoughts on it. I might come back and edit it in a couple days. But if you have any specific questions I'd love to try (key word being try) to answer them. Leave some sweet comments and I'll come back and edit the post in response.

Ten Years

I've had a pretty interesting weekend.
Friday night after work, Dan came over. See, we had decided we wanted to go to Steak'n'Shake to try their new breakfast. Somehow, we came to the conclusion that the only way it would work was if one of us stayed over and we left early in the morning. Since my parents were on their return from Boston with my dad's new toy, we decided to just hang out at my house. For some inexplicable reason, we decided to just stay up all night. Well, I made it all the way through the night, but Dan crashed for a couple hours around 4:30. Then it was off to SnS for some delicious eats. Before we left, we had a few interesting encounters while chatting in the parking lot.

When I got home, I realized I was not in the least bit tired, and for some crazy reason I felt the desire to run. So, I put on my tennis shoes and took off. Now, I'm not much of a runner (as pretty much all of you know), so it was more of a run/walk/run/walk/run... Pretty soon after I left I realized just how hot and muggy of a day it was turning out to be. The beanie I had been wearing quickly left my head and found it's way to my pocket. Somewhere toward the end of my "run" I decided the shirt had to go too. Unfortunately, it doesn't fit in my pocket as easily as my hat. So, I ended up finishing off the run with my shirt hanging out of the back of my shorts. I probably looked like I had a tail. A really odd tail.

That wasn't the most embarrassing thing I did this weekend though. Nope. Not at all. Kenzie came home from her week long mission trip in New Jersey. Being the nerd that I am, I decided to make a fool of myself in front of all the people she was on the trip with and I showed up to pick her up dressed as Clark Kent/Superman. Yeah. I'm a nerd.

Now onto something a little more serious.
(Disclaimer: I make the assumption that my readers are Christian as I'm pretty sure the only people who read this are my friends. If by some chance you have come across my blog by some other manner and you are not a Christian, I apologize for the assumption.)

So, today on TV there was a commercial for "The Doctors" and on it they said "Who here wants to look 10 years younger?". Now, I know what they mean and all, but for me that would be really odd. That's over half my age. And yes, it puts a funny picture in your head, thinking "If I looked like I were 9 years old tomorrow..." But it also got me thinking about some more serious stuff. Like the fact that I've already been on this earth for nearly two decades. How weird is that? But more than that, it made me think about the future. About the next ten years. I mean if you are truly honest with yourself, where do you want to be in ten years? Or more so, where do you think you WILL be? Will you have a degree? How about a job? A career? Who will you be friends with? What about marriage? Children?
For me, I'd really like to have a nice job and be settled down. Maybe have a kid or two. Or a dog. I hope I'll still be friends with my current friends. I can't imagine what life would be like without some of them. But the truth is, a lot can change in ten years. And a lot of that is completely out of our control. I guess, simply put, we just have to "Let go and let God." We need to give ourselves completely to him.
  "I know You're God and all... and You're all knowing and all seeing and you see our lives beyond the limits of time, but I just feel like I can handle this part of my life myself."
Sounds pretty stupid if you ask me. But we all say it. Maybe not so bluntly, but by not fully giving ourselves to Him it's exactly what we're saying. I do it too, don't get me wrong. I just feel like if we all try to give God a little more control in our lives, it will be a lot easier.

This doesn't mean that we have to pray about every decision in our lives and not act until we hear from God. But pray for his guidance in your decisions. And when you make choices, ask yourself if the choice you made is glorifying to Him. I know you probably hear that quite a bit, but really think about it. If someone who didn't know you at all based their entire perception of you off that one decision, what would they think of you? And what if they then found out that you were a Christian, and then associated your actions with God? The truth is, it happens quite often. I've heard stories of people who were completely turned off from the Christian faith because of the way that just one person, who bears the Christian name, presented their self.

Well, my thoughts are getting kind of scattered, and this post is getting kind of long, so I think I'll wrap it up.
Three final things before I go.

1. This is kind of hypocritical as I don't follow it much myself but I'm working on it. Comments. They're great. Not only just for feedback and criticism (which I always welcome), but they also just let you know that people are actually reading what you have to say. So even short little quips are awesome to get.
2. I've been finding it kind of hard to come up with topics (as most of them come to me when I have no time to write), so any suggestions on what to write about will be seriously considered, and most likely attempted.
3. I don't have a three. I thought I did, but now there's nothing. But I'd just rather not go back and change the "three" to a "two". So, I guess I do have a "three". I basically just write whatever comes to my mind and don't do too much editing. So I apologize for random tangents and for writing that is "all over the place".

Fore!

Well, I'm sort of just in the mood to write, so I figured we'd take a shot at round two of this. I had a topic that I really wanted to write on, but it's a tough one to do and today gave me a different idea as well. So, even though I was hoping to devote this second post to the topic of regrets and past decisions, I think I'll just save that for later. Part of the reason is that I think most of what I want to say about regrets has been told to nearly everyone for almost their whole entire life (or at least since they've reached the point that they might have made some poor decisions).
Anyway, I've had a pretty good weekend. I had a great bunch of friends over yesterday for burgers, swimming, games and movies, and I really just had a great day. This morning we had a guest preacher, Rev. Mary Hulst, the chaplain at Calvin College. She had a very interesting sermon about all the different religions and how each has their own ways of being "made righteous", but the main point was how Christianity is different in that it's only through God's grace that we are saved. That it's His gift that brings us into righteousness. And I'm not entirely sure if it was just that I've heard the message so many times, or if it was just her style of delivering the message, but I honestly was having a difficult time paying attention. I still heard everything she had to say, and understood the meaning behind her message, but my focus wasn't really where it ought to have been. And I really don't like that.
Well, I might come back to that, but moving on... After a wonderful lunch and a few hours of reading/passing out in the sun out back, I ended up spending the night playing a total of 23 holes of disc golf with Dan and Zac. Now, I've only gone a few times, and I'll admit that it shows, but I feel like overall today wasn't a bad day for me. Then after disc golf, with a TBell break for supper, Dan and I ended up back at his house, where we played a nice game of Settlers with Greg. And after a good couple hours of that and an interesting chat, I headed home. That is why I started writing this at 1 A.M. (and I apologize if that causes it to be a little incoherent).
But on my way home, I was thinking over the happenings of the day and I sort of realized something. It may be that I'm just tired, but in a way disc golf can actually be a pretty good analogy for life. Now you're probably thinking, "Hey, wait a minute. Where exactly are you going with this??", but hear me out , this sort of makes sense. At least to me it does. When your discing - or even regular old golfing for that matter - there's a bunch of "holes" you try to reach, in as few throws as possible. Well, I see this as sort of like how in life we have a list of goals for ourselves that we try to accomplish in the most efficient way possible. But sometimes things just don't go as planned... Your throw doesn't go quite as far as you wanted it to, or maybe it even goes in completely the wrong direction. Sometimes you blame it on other things - I mean, it can't be your fault, right? - It would have been the perfect throw, but the disc just slipped a little early or if only that tree wasn't there you'd have a perfect lie. And we do this in our lives, too. So often, we try to pin our own shortcomings off on some other factor or person. We want to just start over, or sometimes just skip the hole completely. But in disc, you don't do that (with the exception of the occasional mulligan). You just shrug it off, go find your disc, and try extra hard on your next throw to make up for lost distance.
Alright, maybe that wasn't such a great analogy. To be honest, I really just wanted to make a semi-philosophical  post involving disc golf. But hey, it kind of worked and maybe you'll actually get something out of it.
Well, it's late, this post is getting long, and I kind of agreed to help Cari with landscaping at her grandmother's house tomorrow. So, I'm off to bed, but I'll leave you with one last thing. I've kind of gotten caught up with watching the show How I Met Your Mother lately and I've actually been getting quite a lot out of it. So, look forward to a possible future post about one or more episodes. And I may also throw in some random references from here on out, too.

Ta ta for now and may you all have a blessed evening (all 3.5 of you).

Mazes

   Yes, I have decided to join the blogging world, too. The title's kind of lame, but that may change. I think there's always been a small part of me that wished to do something like this, but a large part of my decision actually comes from the inspiration of a great friend. My friend Zac Baker, whom most of you will probably know, recently began blogging as well, and I've really enjoyed reading his perspective on things. He has some pretty awesome posts so far, so you should check them out here. My posts will be similar in nature to his; meaning they will simply be the random thoughts that come to mind. I can't say I'll be very consistent on posting, or even be consistent on consistency, probably having sporadic periods of blogging overload interrupted by vast droughts of nothingness. Also, I'd like to apologize in advance for any tangents that may be gone off on. I'm planning on not really planning. I'm just going to let my mind wander and let that flow down to my fingers. So, if it gets laboriously long and tangential, I apologize. If you can stick with it through that, I commend you.

   Now, the reason I decided to start this on this particular day, rather than any other, is that I came across a web comic my friends and I peruse on occasion. I'd seen this specific "strip" a few times before, but only today had it had the effect that it did. This will probably make a lot more sense if I start off by showing it to you, so here you go; Clicky-Clicky. When I saw this today, at first I just thought to myself what I thought every other time, "Ahhh, he's trying to say that we go through life from the moment we're born to the day we die and it's up to us to make the decisions that define what that looks like. We can make our lives as simple as we want - a straight shot from birth to death without much excitement on the way - or we can take twists and turns and create a somewhat chaotic, yet oddly beautiful, design of our lives." But then I started to realize something. It's not completely up to us to "fill in our maze" as Dante puts it, but rather it is a collective work, a collaboration, of our own choices, as well as those of the many people who come into our lives. Even if you wanted to have that simple, straight shot to the end kind of life, it's not really up to you. Every person we interact with has a profound impact on our lives. And sometimes when we're making a portion of our maze it just comes to a dead end. We feel like there's nothing left to do. We feel trapped. But then other people come along and help you open a new door, if you will. You can get out of that long empty corridor to nothingness and keep moving. And sometimes, when the best kinds of people come into your life, they open up a path into their own maze. And your mazes join together, and they truly become a part of your life and you a part of theirs.

   But one of the best parts about it is that God is always watching over the process. He's going to make sure that our mazes don't end up completely in dead ends. He'll always provide a way through to keep moving on. He guides our choices, and those of our friends, family, coworkers, figures of authority, and all others with whom we interact, so that our lives can bring glory to Him. I guess it just changes the way I look at everyday situations.

  Well, I feel like I could continually write on this topic, but alas the time has come for me to wrap this up. It's getting long and I have a mother calling me to do housework. So, farewell for now. And please, let the comments, good and bad, pour in like a monsoon.