Fellow Readers,
Oh, how it has been quite a while...I am sorry for such a delay. To tell you what has happened since my last post on here would just take days to read. So, I will not tell you anything that has happened... Okay, that would not be fair to all of you who have eagerly been fastened to the edge of your seats. I promise, I will do my very best to sum up, without lolling, what I have experienced in the last month and one half. I last left you at my grandmother leaving for Oregon until the new year. Well, she still is gone. Nothing has changed there. We miss her though! Not a very good start, I know, but lets get out the most un-interesting stuff out first. Another not-so-interesting thing would be my phone broke on the last week of school. The cool thing, though, is that my brother is getting a new phone; so, he graciously gave me his phone which-he likes to remind me-is valued at $400 still. It is in great shape and is pretty much what I would have got in May when I get an upgrade. So, it opens up my birthday present options for me. All-in-all, not a bad deal for me. In other news, the school year finally ended and I am currently enjoying a long awaited month off-not to rub it in to any of you fellow high school students/workers who only get 13 days off.
Exciting Stuff Since Last Entry:
After Thanksgiving, I bought myself a TV for my dorm. Needless to say, studying was definitely put off 'til the last possible moments after that. My roommate was extremely happy for this as well. When I walked in with the TV, his face mimicked that of a little child on Christmas morning. In fact, I recall mentioning something along the lines of, "Christmas came early Michael." Speaking of Christmas, I got a gift from one of my friends that made top five gifts of all times! It was a package of GIANT Reece's Cups! They were the biggest Reece's cups I have ever seen, each weighing a 1/2 of a pound. Words cannot describe how I felt about those. Other exciting things include: ....well not too much exciting stuff has happened since then. It has been a long month or so filled with constant stuff going on at school. I came out with my head above the water and not dropping my GPA too much, thankfully. OH! Something exciting that has happened: my siblings and some friends had a Mustachio Bachio With a Snazzio Touch, Christmas party last Friday night. A mustachio what?? Some of you might be wondering. Well, it was a Christmas party; but, rather than wearing the ever-so-popular ugly Christmas sweater(a craze that's sweeping the nation), we all dressed up in our fanciest of attire, and drank from wine and brandy glasses custom-made by our sister Ashlee(no alcohol was consumed or even near this party). The catch, however, was that everyone either had to grow a mustache, or wear a fake one. Pictures of this amazing party can be found on my facebook page. If you need a link to that, leave a comment following this post. It was a great, great night.
Okay, now the Message:
This may sound like the very standard, maybe boring, message that you always hear, but especially this time of year I feel like we need to really understand this. Every day is a gift from God. Every time something happens that renders a reaction from you resembling, "I can't believe this. This is amazing!!" or just anything awesome that happens; that is a gift from God. Even when you don't think it is something good, God will always take care of you. Every day is truly a blessing. But, are we giving thanks every day? I like to give thanks when I wake up in the morning by saying a quick prayer thanking Him for the day and just asking for everyone to stay safe in their travels and endeavors that day. And I also like to say thanks in my nightly prayer. I feel like staying safe through the day is something to be thankful for. This time of year, most people are expecting to wake up on Christmas day to open gifts, and that's awesome! I am not excluding myself from that. I can't wait 'til Sunday! (wow, so close!) But, what if we treated every day like Christmas? I mean, Christmas is a time when we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, right? Why limit it to Christmas day? We should celebrate the life of Jesus that is in our hearts, every day! All-in-all, let's not forget that every day is a blessing, and truly appreciate every opportunity we are given, and enjoy the time we get to spend with family. Merry Christmas yall!! Thanks for reading.
Signing off.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Sin WILL Not Weigh Me Down...But Halloween Candy Just Might!
Fellow Readers,
Hey there. How are ya'll doin'? I hope all is well. Halloween has come and gone, and now, onto Christmas! Wait, we are forgetting Thanksgiving! It seems that all stores, and a lot of people I know, are thinking about is Christmas. I work at Kirkland's and we literally had our Thanksgiving decorations on sale for 75% off the day of Halloween. Just sad, however, this meant that all the Halloween candy was on sale! You better believe I went out and snagged me some Reece's! Anyways, so tonight was the big "Family and Friends Day" at Kirkland's. This is a fun little debacle that Kirkland's puts on every year around this time as a "sneak peek" of their Christmas decor. The big kicker is it is technically invite only, and that invite gets you 25% off your entire purchase. The whole night-7:00-9:00 PM- there are door prizes and giveaways and all sorts of shenanigans and what nots. Well, my parents, and Ashlee and my grandma, decided-after I asked and suckered them into coming up here-to drive on up to Cookeville(I say up when referring to any place other than Hendersonville, even though Cookeville is directly east of the ole H-Vegas) and see the rest of the crew that go to school up here. It turned out to be a really fun little shebang, actually. This was the last time we, as in my brother and sis that go here with me, get to see the old broad before she leaves us for the holidays-all three of them(Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years)-to go out to Oregon to spend time with our family up there. Some of you may be a little shocked that I would call my grandmother an old broad, but that's the kind of relationship our family has; we make fun of her, she dishes it back out, we are just really close and call each other names and that sort of stuff and I am truly thankful to be so close with all of them. God has truly blessed me with a family that I get to call my best friends and hang out with them a ton and actually thoroughly enjoy hanging out with them. Anywho, back to the elderly lady. This will now be the second time ever that she has left us for the holidays(first being the year before last) and we are truly going to miss her. So she mustered up the energy to drag her butt up here to C-town and say goodbye to her grandchildren, and she surely didn't just pass on that nice little discount she was getting while she was here. My family managed to win three door prizes and Brittnee also managed to be the closest to guessing how many peppermints were in this gumball machine, so she got to take home that sweet lil' gem as well.
The Message:
With this blog, I have been covering sin mostly. When preaching-for lack of a better word-about sin, I can't just speak of it from the outside, or just from the Bible, I must speak from my own personal battles and experiences with sin. I can't just write scripture in this blog and what I think about it with no real life accounts, using the blog as pedestal or something of that nature. I am not without sin. No one is. If we say we are, we are lying. We repent our sins and are forgiven through Jesus Christ, who died to take on our sin. So, here we go. Of recently, I have been in a funk; well, more of a roller-coaster actually. The roller-coaster's name, Righteousness. It seems like I am just fluctuating between leading a good, Christian life and falling into the grasps of sin. I will feel good, reading my Bible, praying, talking with God, loving, really just livin' right, how we are supposed to. I would feel like people could meet me and just know there is something about me, that something being God. But, I've been building myself up on a faulty foundation. Have I been reading my Bible? Yes. But, have I really read it for growth and learning and understanding, or have I just read it to, well, just read it? The answer, sadly, leans towards the latter. I want to read it for all those things, but sometimes I find myself just trying to "get it done," cause that's what you're supposed to do right? Read your Bible everyday? Well, no actually. That is where I've been getting it wrong. You're not supposed to read it everyday; no, you are supposed to STUDY it everyday. Study. So many times-and I say this from me, but also from people who have told me this as well-we find ourselves thinking the first one, reading it. A lot of times, when I am reading out of it(not studying it) it is so easy to get distracted. Not like flat out distracted where I just stop reading it, but it can be as simple as starting to think of something while reading it, continuing to read, but not focus on the word I am reading. I am reading it with a sense of, "Hey, I have to read this chapter for the day, or however much I decided I was going to read, and then I am done." Well there is so many things wrong with that train of thought. First of all, we have the before-mentioned reading not studying mess going on. Secondly, it is almost as if it is a big ordeal to have to read, that I would be counting down the time 'til I am through reading it. Tres-ly(for those Spanish speakers out there), is it really that good to have a preset cap on how much you're going to read? It doesn't sound that good. When I do all this stuff, like I stated earlier, I am building myself on a faulty foundation. That faulty foundation begins to crack, and then the devil seeps into those cracks and starts to spread them 'til it finally breaks all the way. That is what the devil is doing 24/7. He is constantly trying to squeeze himself into any crack possible, anything to tempt us and try to break us. He is crafty, sneaky, venomous, and so many other things. He will put thing after thing in front of you, temptation after temptation. Eventually, if we have built ourselves up on a faulty foundation, he will succeed, and we will crack and fall into sin. I am not removed from this. My weakness, lust. Is this personal? Maybe so, but testimonies aren't just colored pretty and full of goodness all the time. The devil will bring back things from my past; dark times in my life where he previously won, such things as porn, and heavy lusting on every attractive girl I see, things done with a girl or whatever it may be. Why not? He knows I am weak there. I will pray about it and fight it off, but eventually, because I didn't really study what I read, I will break. I give into temptation. Then I am left in defeat. I just went down the big drop in the roller-coaster. I'm left there, wondering why? Why did I let him win? Why was I not strong enough. Well there is the reason why. I am not strong enough, not by myself. I find my strength in the Lord. With him, I am strong enough to defeat blow after blow from the devil. The problem lies when I don't lean on the Lord. When I don't start asking for the strength to overcome the temptation shoved in my face. So my message to you all is: Call on the Lord in everything you do. Call on Him when you are about to do something you've never done before. Call on Him when you are about to take a test, just ask for recollection of what you already have learned. Call on Him to just be with you. Call on Him for guidance. Call on Him for strength. Just call on Him. If we are constantly talking to God, the devil can't whisper in our ear like the snake he is. And if we STUDY our Bible, we will remember what we have read, learned, and we will recall it when the situation arises and we will conquer anything thrown our way. We cannot make it without Him. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."-Phillipians 4:13.
Thanks for reading.
Signing Off.
Hey there. How are ya'll doin'? I hope all is well. Halloween has come and gone, and now, onto Christmas! Wait, we are forgetting Thanksgiving! It seems that all stores, and a lot of people I know, are thinking about is Christmas. I work at Kirkland's and we literally had our Thanksgiving decorations on sale for 75% off the day of Halloween. Just sad, however, this meant that all the Halloween candy was on sale! You better believe I went out and snagged me some Reece's! Anyways, so tonight was the big "Family and Friends Day" at Kirkland's. This is a fun little debacle that Kirkland's puts on every year around this time as a "sneak peek" of their Christmas decor. The big kicker is it is technically invite only, and that invite gets you 25% off your entire purchase. The whole night-7:00-9:00 PM- there are door prizes and giveaways and all sorts of shenanigans and what nots. Well, my parents, and Ashlee and my grandma, decided-after I asked and suckered them into coming up here-to drive on up to Cookeville(I say up when referring to any place other than Hendersonville, even though Cookeville is directly east of the ole H-Vegas) and see the rest of the crew that go to school up here. It turned out to be a really fun little shebang, actually. This was the last time we, as in my brother and sis that go here with me, get to see the old broad before she leaves us for the holidays-all three of them(Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years)-to go out to Oregon to spend time with our family up there. Some of you may be a little shocked that I would call my grandmother an old broad, but that's the kind of relationship our family has; we make fun of her, she dishes it back out, we are just really close and call each other names and that sort of stuff and I am truly thankful to be so close with all of them. God has truly blessed me with a family that I get to call my best friends and hang out with them a ton and actually thoroughly enjoy hanging out with them. Anywho, back to the elderly lady. This will now be the second time ever that she has left us for the holidays(first being the year before last) and we are truly going to miss her. So she mustered up the energy to drag her butt up here to C-town and say goodbye to her grandchildren, and she surely didn't just pass on that nice little discount she was getting while she was here. My family managed to win three door prizes and Brittnee also managed to be the closest to guessing how many peppermints were in this gumball machine, so she got to take home that sweet lil' gem as well.
The Message:
With this blog, I have been covering sin mostly. When preaching-for lack of a better word-about sin, I can't just speak of it from the outside, or just from the Bible, I must speak from my own personal battles and experiences with sin. I can't just write scripture in this blog and what I think about it with no real life accounts, using the blog as pedestal or something of that nature. I am not without sin. No one is. If we say we are, we are lying. We repent our sins and are forgiven through Jesus Christ, who died to take on our sin. So, here we go. Of recently, I have been in a funk; well, more of a roller-coaster actually. The roller-coaster's name, Righteousness. It seems like I am just fluctuating between leading a good, Christian life and falling into the grasps of sin. I will feel good, reading my Bible, praying, talking with God, loving, really just livin' right, how we are supposed to. I would feel like people could meet me and just know there is something about me, that something being God. But, I've been building myself up on a faulty foundation. Have I been reading my Bible? Yes. But, have I really read it for growth and learning and understanding, or have I just read it to, well, just read it? The answer, sadly, leans towards the latter. I want to read it for all those things, but sometimes I find myself just trying to "get it done," cause that's what you're supposed to do right? Read your Bible everyday? Well, no actually. That is where I've been getting it wrong. You're not supposed to read it everyday; no, you are supposed to STUDY it everyday. Study. So many times-and I say this from me, but also from people who have told me this as well-we find ourselves thinking the first one, reading it. A lot of times, when I am reading out of it(not studying it) it is so easy to get distracted. Not like flat out distracted where I just stop reading it, but it can be as simple as starting to think of something while reading it, continuing to read, but not focus on the word I am reading. I am reading it with a sense of, "Hey, I have to read this chapter for the day, or however much I decided I was going to read, and then I am done." Well there is so many things wrong with that train of thought. First of all, we have the before-mentioned reading not studying mess going on. Secondly, it is almost as if it is a big ordeal to have to read, that I would be counting down the time 'til I am through reading it. Tres-ly(for those Spanish speakers out there), is it really that good to have a preset cap on how much you're going to read? It doesn't sound that good. When I do all this stuff, like I stated earlier, I am building myself on a faulty foundation. That faulty foundation begins to crack, and then the devil seeps into those cracks and starts to spread them 'til it finally breaks all the way. That is what the devil is doing 24/7. He is constantly trying to squeeze himself into any crack possible, anything to tempt us and try to break us. He is crafty, sneaky, venomous, and so many other things. He will put thing after thing in front of you, temptation after temptation. Eventually, if we have built ourselves up on a faulty foundation, he will succeed, and we will crack and fall into sin. I am not removed from this. My weakness, lust. Is this personal? Maybe so, but testimonies aren't just colored pretty and full of goodness all the time. The devil will bring back things from my past; dark times in my life where he previously won, such things as porn, and heavy lusting on every attractive girl I see, things done with a girl or whatever it may be. Why not? He knows I am weak there. I will pray about it and fight it off, but eventually, because I didn't really study what I read, I will break. I give into temptation. Then I am left in defeat. I just went down the big drop in the roller-coaster. I'm left there, wondering why? Why did I let him win? Why was I not strong enough. Well there is the reason why. I am not strong enough, not by myself. I find my strength in the Lord. With him, I am strong enough to defeat blow after blow from the devil. The problem lies when I don't lean on the Lord. When I don't start asking for the strength to overcome the temptation shoved in my face. So my message to you all is: Call on the Lord in everything you do. Call on Him when you are about to do something you've never done before. Call on Him when you are about to take a test, just ask for recollection of what you already have learned. Call on Him to just be with you. Call on Him for guidance. Call on Him for strength. Just call on Him. If we are constantly talking to God, the devil can't whisper in our ear like the snake he is. And if we STUDY our Bible, we will remember what we have read, learned, and we will recall it when the situation arises and we will conquer anything thrown our way. We cannot make it without Him. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."-Phillipians 4:13.
Thanks for reading.
Signing Off.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Goodbyes Can Be So Hard, But Welcome-backs Are Always Easy
Fellow Readers,
This past weekend-and also Monday and today-was totally awesome. It was packed all the way through. I got back home with my sis Thursday night and went to my grandma's house with my brother and sisters to just hang out. Yeah, that's right, we like to go hang out at our grandma's house for fun. I can't think of a thing I would rather like to do instead of that. So, that was my Thursday night; Friday night, was spent with my sis, Brittnee. We went gallivanting about Hendersonville-the Streets were closed so what I mean "about Hendersonville," I mean Glennbrook and Walmart. Of course we had to make a Target run, what better place to just go and mess around at? We then delighted in an oh-so-nutritious dinner from Sonic. Afterward, we made our way to Wally World to grab some dessert. We ended up getting little dollar-somethin containers of ice cream and a bag of movie theater popcorn to eat while watching a Redbox. We rented Arthur and were off back home to watch it. We enjoyed the movie and our delicious popcorn and ice creams, respectively, and it turns out that Arthur is actually a really good movie. Saturday, my brother and sisters and I-and two other friends-went to the Strides Against Breast Cancer five mile walk. It was a lot of fun and there were a TON of people there! It was good to see so much support out there. After the walk, we made our ways to San Antonio Taco Company(SATCO) downtown. We devoured a pretty solid lunch and then my bro and I headed over to my cousins house to just chill with a few stogies. While we were smoking, we decided to start a fire in the little fire pit we were sitting around. Well, every time the wind would blow, it would blow right in Brian's face. No matter where he moved, the smoke would just follow him, it was so funny. We got to kick it there for a while and really have some solid bonding time-it was great. Sunday, my sister and I went to a Civil War reenactment of the Battle of Franklin. Before the "battle" started, Ashlee and I perused around the whole place and I tried on some clothes and hats and then we made our way to where we were going to sit. The battle started really slow, and boring. For 45 minutes of constant, close-range shooting, maybe one guy died. Everyone around us, and ourselves included, all were sayin the same thing: 1500 shots and only one dead?? Then, it finally picked up and people started dying all over the place. Everyone started to enjoy it by then. After it ended, we made it back to my car. The journey begins... It took us an hour and a half to get out of the parking lot! And that was with people conducting it! It was so frustrating and annoying and it made us late to our party. That was our next activity, the family's murder mystery party as a going away party for our cousin Adam, who left for the Air Force today-please keep him in your prayers. The party was put on by our cousin Alysia(sister of Adam) and her husband Lee. It was a "Murder Among the Mateys" pirate-themed murder mystery party. They had there house decorated so well and everyone's costumes were amazing-we all made our own. It was SO much fun and just a really awesome time to spend with family. You're wondering who the murderer was? Well, it happened to be this guy right here. I played it off pretty well though, because only 2 people picked that it was me out of 16. After that we all said our "goodbyes" to our cousin and wished him well. Later that night, I went bowling and to steak and shake with a couple of friends-always a good time at the new Strike and Spare in Hendersonville. Monday was spent lounging around the house. Not a really packed day, but it did take up most of the day. Finally, today was spent lounging for a while and then watching the Deathly Hallows Part 1 with my bro and sis. That took a big chunk out of the day in its own, and was-and will always be-totally worth it. Can't wait to share that whole series with my kids someday. Then, we made our way back to school, only to come back for the weekend again. So that was my weekend/fall break summed up in a few words and lots of advertising for many companies.
Message:
Today's message is not necessarily one from the Word, but just one I want to share. Coming from a semi-large family of six, family is very important to me, as it should be to all. I could not do anything for the rest of my life, but spend time with my family and be perfectly happy. My brother and sis, Brittnee, both go to Tech with me, and Ashlee will be joining us next fall. So naturally, we spend a lot of time together on campus and have mostly the same friends. Well, when we are hanging out with them or tell them we were hanging out with each other, I always get, "Ya'll are so close. I wish my brother/sister and I were as close as you guys." My response to that is simply, puzzled. I don't know how not to be close with them. They are my brother and sister, I've only lived with them my whole life. And it hits me, that a lot of people really aren't as close with their siblings and families as we are with ours. This is not good people! There should be no reason why you shouldn't spend a ton of time with your family if you still live in the same state as them, let alone the same house as them. I am truly blessed to have a family I absolutely love to hang out with and have fun spending time with them. Anyways, I just feel like if you are not close with your siblings, try to spend a little more time with them. I am so thankful for my family and am so proud of my cousin and wish him the best. Thanks for reading.
Signing off.
This past weekend-and also Monday and today-was totally awesome. It was packed all the way through. I got back home with my sis Thursday night and went to my grandma's house with my brother and sisters to just hang out. Yeah, that's right, we like to go hang out at our grandma's house for fun. I can't think of a thing I would rather like to do instead of that. So, that was my Thursday night; Friday night, was spent with my sis, Brittnee. We went gallivanting about Hendersonville-the Streets were closed so what I mean "about Hendersonville," I mean Glennbrook and Walmart. Of course we had to make a Target run, what better place to just go and mess around at? We then delighted in an oh-so-nutritious dinner from Sonic. Afterward, we made our way to Wally World to grab some dessert. We ended up getting little dollar-somethin containers of ice cream and a bag of movie theater popcorn to eat while watching a Redbox. We rented Arthur and were off back home to watch it. We enjoyed the movie and our delicious popcorn and ice creams, respectively, and it turns out that Arthur is actually a really good movie. Saturday, my brother and sisters and I-and two other friends-went to the Strides Against Breast Cancer five mile walk. It was a lot of fun and there were a TON of people there! It was good to see so much support out there. After the walk, we made our ways to San Antonio Taco Company(SATCO) downtown. We devoured a pretty solid lunch and then my bro and I headed over to my cousins house to just chill with a few stogies. While we were smoking, we decided to start a fire in the little fire pit we were sitting around. Well, every time the wind would blow, it would blow right in Brian's face. No matter where he moved, the smoke would just follow him, it was so funny. We got to kick it there for a while and really have some solid bonding time-it was great. Sunday, my sister and I went to a Civil War reenactment of the Battle of Franklin. Before the "battle" started, Ashlee and I perused around the whole place and I tried on some clothes and hats and then we made our way to where we were going to sit. The battle started really slow, and boring. For 45 minutes of constant, close-range shooting, maybe one guy died. Everyone around us, and ourselves included, all were sayin the same thing: 1500 shots and only one dead?? Then, it finally picked up and people started dying all over the place. Everyone started to enjoy it by then. After it ended, we made it back to my car. The journey begins... It took us an hour and a half to get out of the parking lot! And that was with people conducting it! It was so frustrating and annoying and it made us late to our party. That was our next activity, the family's murder mystery party as a going away party for our cousin Adam, who left for the Air Force today-please keep him in your prayers. The party was put on by our cousin Alysia(sister of Adam) and her husband Lee. It was a "Murder Among the Mateys" pirate-themed murder mystery party. They had there house decorated so well and everyone's costumes were amazing-we all made our own. It was SO much fun and just a really awesome time to spend with family. You're wondering who the murderer was? Well, it happened to be this guy right here. I played it off pretty well though, because only 2 people picked that it was me out of 16. After that we all said our "goodbyes" to our cousin and wished him well. Later that night, I went bowling and to steak and shake with a couple of friends-always a good time at the new Strike and Spare in Hendersonville. Monday was spent lounging around the house. Not a really packed day, but it did take up most of the day. Finally, today was spent lounging for a while and then watching the Deathly Hallows Part 1 with my bro and sis. That took a big chunk out of the day in its own, and was-and will always be-totally worth it. Can't wait to share that whole series with my kids someday. Then, we made our way back to school, only to come back for the weekend again. So that was my weekend/fall break summed up in a few words and lots of advertising for many companies.
Message:
Today's message is not necessarily one from the Word, but just one I want to share. Coming from a semi-large family of six, family is very important to me, as it should be to all. I could not do anything for the rest of my life, but spend time with my family and be perfectly happy. My brother and sis, Brittnee, both go to Tech with me, and Ashlee will be joining us next fall. So naturally, we spend a lot of time together on campus and have mostly the same friends. Well, when we are hanging out with them or tell them we were hanging out with each other, I always get, "Ya'll are so close. I wish my brother/sister and I were as close as you guys." My response to that is simply, puzzled. I don't know how not to be close with them. They are my brother and sister, I've only lived with them my whole life. And it hits me, that a lot of people really aren't as close with their siblings and families as we are with ours. This is not good people! There should be no reason why you shouldn't spend a ton of time with your family if you still live in the same state as them, let alone the same house as them. I am truly blessed to have a family I absolutely love to hang out with and have fun spending time with them. Anyways, I just feel like if you are not close with your siblings, try to spend a little more time with them. I am so thankful for my family and am so proud of my cousin and wish him the best. Thanks for reading.
Signing off.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Hello There, My Friends.
Fellow Readers,
It has been TOO long. How have you all been? I hope everyone is doing good. I have been doing good, thank you for asking. So, you all are wondering: What have you been up to Andrew? I am so glad you all are so interested in my personal life. The truth is, I have been really busy as of late. School finally picked up. I had a test in all my classes in a span of a week and a half. How did you do Andrew? Well, I did pretty well on half of them. The other half...not so much. (Here comes some insight from the college student's perspective.) I have never been the one to study for, well pretty much anything ever. I know, ya'll are thinkin: how has he made it so far without ever studying and achieved such success in his schooling career? Good question, I guess you could say that I am what they call a "gifted" student. School has never been hard for me. It's okay, I'm allowed to brag, ITS MY BLOG! Anywho, test time comes around for these other half's and I take the usual course of action-not caring. I start to take my Differential Equations test(Diff EQ-upper level math class) and realize, "Dang, I have not a CLUE what is going on." The same thing ran through my mind while taking my Educational Psychology test. I understand the irony in that, being a potential educator, I should know that stuff. Well, it was a lot of material to cover and me being me, I did not study it. Anyways, I'm not here to ramble, I'm here for insight! So, test scores come back: 47/100 on the Diff EQ test...and a 34/50 on ED-PSY test(after 7 point curve...). Here's the insight: an equation I did learn from Diff EQ- Tough classes + no studying + not caring = college just got real. To those reading who will potentially have more tests, take it from someone who never studies; STUDY! The good that did come out of this, though, is that I will now study for those classes. Also, by the grace of God, my Diff EQ teacher decided to offer a, one-time only, re-test and I studied HARDCORE for that one and am awaiting my improved grade. Don't bank on this happening that often. Get a good grade the first time. So, what else has happened since our last convening...well, we got to celebrate another year of the world's GREATEST mom, and a person I am so proud to call madre. I will not mention the age of which this birthday was being celebrated for she would be very upset if I did-mainly because I always exaggerate it and say she's older to get on her nerves. It was a fantastic evening, and a delicious one at that! Love, love, LOVE our grandmother's pot-roast! Oh so delicious! On top of that, we had some of the world famous Birthday Frosting. No, we did not have that on top of the roast, I used that phrase meaning "in addition to." You have not lived until you have tried this Birthday Frosting-it's a secret recipe. Thanks to @ashlee_robinson for that by the way, she made the cake and frosting. Shout out, woot woot! It was an awesome night and am so blessed to have Gena in my life. Love ya ma! Other than that, nothing too major has gone on, just hangin out with friends and stayin busy. Oh, and "Psych" started back up tonight, so I am super stoked for that! So many great quotes already and so funny, and it's only been one episode!
The message:
Sin is all around us, plain and simple. Tough concept, I know, but seriously; we all know it's there. The problem, then, comes from us just accepting this. We accept that it is there, thus not trying to fight it. We don't fight temptation. We don't avoid lusting as an attractive man/woman walks by. We use provocative and cursive language without hesitation. We do all these things without hesitation. We have to avoid accepting it. We have to break the cycle. If this means we have to completely overhaul our lifestyles-who we hang out with, what we watch, what we listen to, etc- we have to do so. Jesus uses the parable of the sower: He says that when the seed was scattered, some of the seed fell into thorns and grew up and was choked out, and some seed fell in good soil and grew up to yield a crop a hundred times more than sown. Now the Bible then gives the meaning of this parable, but that's not all I take it as. Check this out: think of the seed as your being and you the sower. If you plant yourself in a group of sinners(e.g. thorns) after a while you will be choked out and die. However, if you plant yourself around people who are right with God and live their lives for Him, you will be yielded a hundred times more as when you planted yourself in that group. Make sense? Why make it harder on yourself by hanging out with people who do bad things and things you are trying not to do? I know it's not so easy to just drop your friends, but the Bible says, "If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off..." a bit drastic, but if you have to, drop your friends. I will probably be talking about sin on here a lot. It's just so relevant to, well, everyone. We all struggle with it, I struggle with it. College is a place filled with it. That is why we must stay in the word, and continue to pray throughout the day, keeping an open conversation going with the big guy upstairs. If we constantly are having our eyes fixed on God, we are closing the holes that sin can sneak in on. Thanks for reading.
Signing off.
It has been TOO long. How have you all been? I hope everyone is doing good. I have been doing good, thank you for asking. So, you all are wondering: What have you been up to Andrew? I am so glad you all are so interested in my personal life. The truth is, I have been really busy as of late. School finally picked up. I had a test in all my classes in a span of a week and a half. How did you do Andrew? Well, I did pretty well on half of them. The other half...not so much. (Here comes some insight from the college student's perspective.) I have never been the one to study for, well pretty much anything ever. I know, ya'll are thinkin: how has he made it so far without ever studying and achieved such success in his schooling career? Good question, I guess you could say that I am what they call a "gifted" student. School has never been hard for me. It's okay, I'm allowed to brag, ITS MY BLOG! Anywho, test time comes around for these other half's and I take the usual course of action-not caring. I start to take my Differential Equations test(Diff EQ-upper level math class) and realize, "Dang, I have not a CLUE what is going on." The same thing ran through my mind while taking my Educational Psychology test. I understand the irony in that, being a potential educator, I should know that stuff. Well, it was a lot of material to cover and me being me, I did not study it. Anyways, I'm not here to ramble, I'm here for insight! So, test scores come back: 47/100 on the Diff EQ test...and a 34/50 on ED-PSY test(after 7 point curve...). Here's the insight: an equation I did learn from Diff EQ- Tough classes + no studying + not caring = college just got real. To those reading who will potentially have more tests, take it from someone who never studies; STUDY! The good that did come out of this, though, is that I will now study for those classes. Also, by the grace of God, my Diff EQ teacher decided to offer a, one-time only, re-test and I studied HARDCORE for that one and am awaiting my improved grade. Don't bank on this happening that often. Get a good grade the first time. So, what else has happened since our last convening...well, we got to celebrate another year of the world's GREATEST mom, and a person I am so proud to call madre. I will not mention the age of which this birthday was being celebrated for she would be very upset if I did-mainly because I always exaggerate it and say she's older to get on her nerves. It was a fantastic evening, and a delicious one at that! Love, love, LOVE our grandmother's pot-roast! Oh so delicious! On top of that, we had some of the world famous Birthday Frosting. No, we did not have that on top of the roast, I used that phrase meaning "in addition to." You have not lived until you have tried this Birthday Frosting-it's a secret recipe. Thanks to @ashlee_robinson for that by the way, she made the cake and frosting. Shout out, woot woot! It was an awesome night and am so blessed to have Gena in my life. Love ya ma! Other than that, nothing too major has gone on, just hangin out with friends and stayin busy. Oh, and "Psych" started back up tonight, so I am super stoked for that! So many great quotes already and so funny, and it's only been one episode!
The message:
Sin is all around us, plain and simple. Tough concept, I know, but seriously; we all know it's there. The problem, then, comes from us just accepting this. We accept that it is there, thus not trying to fight it. We don't fight temptation. We don't avoid lusting as an attractive man/woman walks by. We use provocative and cursive language without hesitation. We do all these things without hesitation. We have to avoid accepting it. We have to break the cycle. If this means we have to completely overhaul our lifestyles-who we hang out with, what we watch, what we listen to, etc- we have to do so. Jesus uses the parable of the sower: He says that when the seed was scattered, some of the seed fell into thorns and grew up and was choked out, and some seed fell in good soil and grew up to yield a crop a hundred times more than sown. Now the Bible then gives the meaning of this parable, but that's not all I take it as. Check this out: think of the seed as your being and you the sower. If you plant yourself in a group of sinners(e.g. thorns) after a while you will be choked out and die. However, if you plant yourself around people who are right with God and live their lives for Him, you will be yielded a hundred times more as when you planted yourself in that group. Make sense? Why make it harder on yourself by hanging out with people who do bad things and things you are trying not to do? I know it's not so easy to just drop your friends, but the Bible says, "If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off..." a bit drastic, but if you have to, drop your friends. I will probably be talking about sin on here a lot. It's just so relevant to, well, everyone. We all struggle with it, I struggle with it. College is a place filled with it. That is why we must stay in the word, and continue to pray throughout the day, keeping an open conversation going with the big guy upstairs. If we constantly are having our eyes fixed on God, we are closing the holes that sin can sneak in on. Thanks for reading.
Signing off.
Monday, September 19, 2011
"We are just monkeying around!"
Fellow readers,
It has been a while my friends. It is good to be back on here; I missed you all(ironic, being as I do not know exactly who reads this and when they do read it). How have you been Andrew? You might ask. Thank you, I have actually been really great of late. Well, what have you been up to? That is a good question; I have just been hangin' out, you know. Enjoyin' the life of your average college-aged kid I suppose. I've been relishing the presence of friends, still reading the word, and going to classes and work here and there. That's really cool Andrew, did you do anything interesting this past weekend? That is another great question, pal. Yes, in fact I did do something rather fun and quirky this past weekend. It started out as your normal Friday, you could say; just the usual sleeping in, for me, until my 12:20 music appreciation class-only class of the day so not too tough of a day. After music, I indulged in the magnificently, well-prepared caf food. After that rather swanky meal, I moseyed on up to my dorm room and sat down and read some passages for the day. I kind of follow a Bible study plan-when I say "kind of," I really mean I use it for the order of the books to read; I mostly read as much as I can until I start to wonder off you could say. It varies everyday, but at some point in reading whether it be a chapter in or 10 chapters in, whatever it may be, there comes a time when I just cannot focus anymore and that is when I put 'er down. The way I see it, if I am not focused in it, I will get nothing out of it. Anywho, after reading and spending time on the computer or listening to music or playing on my iPad, or any combination of those things, I eventually venture off to dinner with my sister. After another lavishing meal, we...well this part eludes me at the moment, but we eventually end up in the main quad with one of our friends. At this point, we were left to ponder what to do for the night. Then, suddenly, it hits my sister, like a slap to the face with a fish, we should rent bicycles and ride them around campus. Rent bicycles? Yes, you read that correctly. At Tech, new this year, you can now rent bicycles between the hours of 7 AM through midnight. And these aren't just any bicycles, no these are straight up, legit cruisers! If you find yourself wondering what the heck a cruiser is, picture the old fashion, 50's-like bicycles that usually had the basket on the front with the huge, wide handlebars and it is a one-speed. Yeah, we were pumped! So, we go to one of the two dorms that you can rent these awesome machines from, and just to our luck, there were three left-perfect! We head outside to the bike racks with glimmer in our eyes and the whole "kid in the candy store" look on our faces. We get the bikes unlocked(one girl bike and two boys bikes, so my sis had to ride the other guys bike) and are about to hit the road. My bike's rear tire was flat and ripping of of the rim-I rode it anyways. My sister's seat on her's was hardly on and moved all over the place, but still rode pretty well. Our friend's bike had no flaws. We ride over to my car(parked at the dorm where we got the bikes) and got the tire pump out of my sweet road-side emergency kit. #thanksdadforthose. I pump up my tire and all looks well. I ride it for less than a minute and its popping off again. I proceed to chain it back up, and my sister's also, to then head over to the other dorm to see if there are any good ones there. As we walk up, three people are riding off with bikes leaving one girl bike left. So, my sister rents the girl one and they just-so-happened to have a wrench. Back to the other dorm again. I end up fixing the seat on my sister's original bike, and without further ado, we were riding. We rode all over campus and spent a little extra time riding in front of a camera that is connected to TTU's website for all who want to look at, can. Of course we called someone to look for us, ended up not seeing us however. After about an hour of riding, we returned the bikes and hit up the good ole T-Mart. If you are planning on going to Tech, this whole story is good for you, because you get to hear about some totally solid things to do on or around campus. The sole reason probably 85% of people who go to the T-Mart, go there to get the pizza rolls. These suckers are AMAZING. I know you're probably thinking of like Totino's Pizza rolls(TM) that come in your local grocery store's freezer section. No, these babies are like a big pizza slice with amazing crust rolled into a roll bigger than a fist. Like I stated right up there, amazing. After satisfying our hunger with the infamous pizza rolls, we headed back to the quad. We parked, and discussed what to do next. After some deliberations, we headed to the trunk of my car(you never know what you can find in there; I used to have an inflatable bull rider costume in there. Anyways, Brittnee and I knew that there were some baseball mitts in there and were hoping there would be a ball to) only to find no ball. However, I found a box of shoes that were our other sister's and she was giving them away. In this box of shoes, were a sweet pair of light-up shoes in mint condition. No, these were not kids shoes, our sister bought these as an adult. I asked what size shoe our friend wore and they were that exact size! This was perfect for what ended up in store for us afterward, because our friend only had flip-flops on. So, now comes the afterward. We were all hanging out at one of the benches in the quad, which is lined with numerous trees. Right next to the bench where we resided, was a grand, maple tree of some sorts just begging to be climbed. I head over to it and continued to climb on up it. Now, to preface this feat; I did P90X this summer, which vastly improved my abilities to climb this tree. After getting up there my sister and our friend tried to climb as well. They were too short to do so-not a stab in the back on them though, it could happen to anyone. We then, were determined to get them up in a tree. We scoured that whole quad until we found a tree suitable for their heights. Unfortunately, there was not any. This didn't stop them, however, for there were police blockades all around the quad(they are making it pedestrian only, so they have the roads blocked off from cars) perfect for a little step-stool if you will. After grabbing one of the blockades and butting it up against the tree, and also a little help from me, we all got up in the tree. It was a glorious and satisfying moment for us. We hung out in the tree for a little while then headed on. We eventually ended up chilling in another tree, coincidentally in the view of that same camera we rode the bikes in front of. This tree had a few good spots in it that if you lie in them correctly, you could hang out there for hours. After the tree climbing it was about 1:30 AM, thankfully, one of the best donut shops in town is two blocks from campus and is open 24 hours. Success! After having to buy a whole dozen(minimum purchase with a card is $5, got the dozen for 8 bucks-not bad at all) we headed back home for the night, completely satisfied with a very solid, very legit Friday night. The rest of the weekend was spent heading around town to various shops and spending time with the sis and friends and then on Sunday, spent the whole day watching football. Go Titans! It was a very gratifying weekend, to say the least.
Now, onto the message:
Today, I'm gonna talk about love. I know you're thinking, what does he know about love? He's only 19, he has no idea what he is talking about. Am I a master of love, a love doctor if you will? No. Have I ever felt like I was in love with someone? Yes, but things did not work out. I'm not sad about it, nor want a pity party over it, I am just saying, to me, and what I believe love is, I had it. Anyways, love is all around us. All the time people are falling in and out of love, even those we all thought would never fall in love with each other, do. Even those we thought would stay together forever, don't. As humans, love is always changing and is never anything 100% definite 'til we finally find that one. And even then it's still not 100%. But, there is one love that IS definite, and never changing, and that is the love God has for us. God loves us so much that He sent His only son to die for us, so that we would be without sin. I know this sounds like the standard, the classic message that everyone's heard before, but really, we need to keep hearing it. We need to understand His love for us. Because of His love, HE SENT HIS ONLY SON TO DIE FOR US! You cannot find that love with any other person on this Earth. No love can compare. It says in Romans 5, "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! For when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!" The way I interpret that is that even when we sinned, and did not have hearts for God, He sent Jesus to die for us. Even when we didn't love Him, He sent His son to die for us. And now that we do know Him, and do love Him, how much more will He do for us? So what do we do now? How do we demonstrate our love for God? It says later in Romans 13, "The commandments, 'Do not commit adultery,' 'Do not murder,' 'Do not steal,' 'Do not covet,' and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' Love does no harm to its neighbor." So to show our love for God, we must show love to each other. No matter who they are, if we like them or not, if we know them or not, if they have done something to us or not, regardless, we must love them. On the point of if they have done something to us or not, the scripture right before that says, "Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another...Do not repay anyone evil for evil...Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay,' says the Lord. On the contrary: 'if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.' Do not overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." I know that was long, but the message is perfect. Even if someone mistreats you in the worst way, you should still love them. You should never hate anyone, the Bible also says, "never hate anyone, if you feel hatred, pray for them..." something along those lines anyways. If we show God's love to them, we are building favor in the Lord and in doing so, He will give those people what they deserve and what only He alone should be able to do to them. It is not our right to do anything to them. So to sum everything up here, love everyone, and tell them about God's love. If we all just love each other, the world would be so much better(I know that's cliche, but it's true!). But don't love everyone just to make the world better, but for His word tells us so. Thanks for readin. Signing off
It has been a while my friends. It is good to be back on here; I missed you all(ironic, being as I do not know exactly who reads this and when they do read it). How have you been Andrew? You might ask. Thank you, I have actually been really great of late. Well, what have you been up to? That is a good question; I have just been hangin' out, you know. Enjoyin' the life of your average college-aged kid I suppose. I've been relishing the presence of friends, still reading the word, and going to classes and work here and there. That's really cool Andrew, did you do anything interesting this past weekend? That is another great question, pal. Yes, in fact I did do something rather fun and quirky this past weekend. It started out as your normal Friday, you could say; just the usual sleeping in, for me, until my 12:20 music appreciation class-only class of the day so not too tough of a day. After music, I indulged in the magnificently, well-prepared caf food. After that rather swanky meal, I moseyed on up to my dorm room and sat down and read some passages for the day. I kind of follow a Bible study plan-when I say "kind of," I really mean I use it for the order of the books to read; I mostly read as much as I can until I start to wonder off you could say. It varies everyday, but at some point in reading whether it be a chapter in or 10 chapters in, whatever it may be, there comes a time when I just cannot focus anymore and that is when I put 'er down. The way I see it, if I am not focused in it, I will get nothing out of it. Anywho, after reading and spending time on the computer or listening to music or playing on my iPad, or any combination of those things, I eventually venture off to dinner with my sister. After another lavishing meal, we...well this part eludes me at the moment, but we eventually end up in the main quad with one of our friends. At this point, we were left to ponder what to do for the night. Then, suddenly, it hits my sister, like a slap to the face with a fish, we should rent bicycles and ride them around campus. Rent bicycles? Yes, you read that correctly. At Tech, new this year, you can now rent bicycles between the hours of 7 AM through midnight. And these aren't just any bicycles, no these are straight up, legit cruisers! If you find yourself wondering what the heck a cruiser is, picture the old fashion, 50's-like bicycles that usually had the basket on the front with the huge, wide handlebars and it is a one-speed. Yeah, we were pumped! So, we go to one of the two dorms that you can rent these awesome machines from, and just to our luck, there were three left-perfect! We head outside to the bike racks with glimmer in our eyes and the whole "kid in the candy store" look on our faces. We get the bikes unlocked(one girl bike and two boys bikes, so my sis had to ride the other guys bike) and are about to hit the road. My bike's rear tire was flat and ripping of of the rim-I rode it anyways. My sister's seat on her's was hardly on and moved all over the place, but still rode pretty well. Our friend's bike had no flaws. We ride over to my car(parked at the dorm where we got the bikes) and got the tire pump out of my sweet road-side emergency kit. #thanksdadforthose. I pump up my tire and all looks well. I ride it for less than a minute and its popping off again. I proceed to chain it back up, and my sister's also, to then head over to the other dorm to see if there are any good ones there. As we walk up, three people are riding off with bikes leaving one girl bike left. So, my sister rents the girl one and they just-so-happened to have a wrench. Back to the other dorm again. I end up fixing the seat on my sister's original bike, and without further ado, we were riding. We rode all over campus and spent a little extra time riding in front of a camera that is connected to TTU's website for all who want to look at, can. Of course we called someone to look for us, ended up not seeing us however. After about an hour of riding, we returned the bikes and hit up the good ole T-Mart. If you are planning on going to Tech, this whole story is good for you, because you get to hear about some totally solid things to do on or around campus. The sole reason probably 85% of people who go to the T-Mart, go there to get the pizza rolls. These suckers are AMAZING. I know you're probably thinking of like Totino's Pizza rolls(TM) that come in your local grocery store's freezer section. No, these babies are like a big pizza slice with amazing crust rolled into a roll bigger than a fist. Like I stated right up there, amazing. After satisfying our hunger with the infamous pizza rolls, we headed back to the quad. We parked, and discussed what to do next. After some deliberations, we headed to the trunk of my car(you never know what you can find in there; I used to have an inflatable bull rider costume in there. Anyways, Brittnee and I knew that there were some baseball mitts in there and were hoping there would be a ball to) only to find no ball. However, I found a box of shoes that were our other sister's and she was giving them away. In this box of shoes, were a sweet pair of light-up shoes in mint condition. No, these were not kids shoes, our sister bought these as an adult. I asked what size shoe our friend wore and they were that exact size! This was perfect for what ended up in store for us afterward, because our friend only had flip-flops on. So, now comes the afterward. We were all hanging out at one of the benches in the quad, which is lined with numerous trees. Right next to the bench where we resided, was a grand, maple tree of some sorts just begging to be climbed. I head over to it and continued to climb on up it. Now, to preface this feat; I did P90X this summer, which vastly improved my abilities to climb this tree. After getting up there my sister and our friend tried to climb as well. They were too short to do so-not a stab in the back on them though, it could happen to anyone. We then, were determined to get them up in a tree. We scoured that whole quad until we found a tree suitable for their heights. Unfortunately, there was not any. This didn't stop them, however, for there were police blockades all around the quad(they are making it pedestrian only, so they have the roads blocked off from cars) perfect for a little step-stool if you will. After grabbing one of the blockades and butting it up against the tree, and also a little help from me, we all got up in the tree. It was a glorious and satisfying moment for us. We hung out in the tree for a little while then headed on. We eventually ended up chilling in another tree, coincidentally in the view of that same camera we rode the bikes in front of. This tree had a few good spots in it that if you lie in them correctly, you could hang out there for hours. After the tree climbing it was about 1:30 AM, thankfully, one of the best donut shops in town is two blocks from campus and is open 24 hours. Success! After having to buy a whole dozen(minimum purchase with a card is $5, got the dozen for 8 bucks-not bad at all) we headed back home for the night, completely satisfied with a very solid, very legit Friday night. The rest of the weekend was spent heading around town to various shops and spending time with the sis and friends and then on Sunday, spent the whole day watching football. Go Titans! It was a very gratifying weekend, to say the least.
Now, onto the message:
Today, I'm gonna talk about love. I know you're thinking, what does he know about love? He's only 19, he has no idea what he is talking about. Am I a master of love, a love doctor if you will? No. Have I ever felt like I was in love with someone? Yes, but things did not work out. I'm not sad about it, nor want a pity party over it, I am just saying, to me, and what I believe love is, I had it. Anyways, love is all around us. All the time people are falling in and out of love, even those we all thought would never fall in love with each other, do. Even those we thought would stay together forever, don't. As humans, love is always changing and is never anything 100% definite 'til we finally find that one. And even then it's still not 100%. But, there is one love that IS definite, and never changing, and that is the love God has for us. God loves us so much that He sent His only son to die for us, so that we would be without sin. I know this sounds like the standard, the classic message that everyone's heard before, but really, we need to keep hearing it. We need to understand His love for us. Because of His love, HE SENT HIS ONLY SON TO DIE FOR US! You cannot find that love with any other person on this Earth. No love can compare. It says in Romans 5, "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! For when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!" The way I interpret that is that even when we sinned, and did not have hearts for God, He sent Jesus to die for us. Even when we didn't love Him, He sent His son to die for us. And now that we do know Him, and do love Him, how much more will He do for us? So what do we do now? How do we demonstrate our love for God? It says later in Romans 13, "The commandments, 'Do not commit adultery,' 'Do not murder,' 'Do not steal,' 'Do not covet,' and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' Love does no harm to its neighbor." So to show our love for God, we must show love to each other. No matter who they are, if we like them or not, if we know them or not, if they have done something to us or not, regardless, we must love them. On the point of if they have done something to us or not, the scripture right before that says, "Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another...Do not repay anyone evil for evil...Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay,' says the Lord. On the contrary: 'if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.' Do not overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." I know that was long, but the message is perfect. Even if someone mistreats you in the worst way, you should still love them. You should never hate anyone, the Bible also says, "never hate anyone, if you feel hatred, pray for them..." something along those lines anyways. If we show God's love to them, we are building favor in the Lord and in doing so, He will give those people what they deserve and what only He alone should be able to do to them. It is not our right to do anything to them. So to sum everything up here, love everyone, and tell them about God's love. If we all just love each other, the world would be so much better(I know that's cliche, but it's true!). But don't love everyone just to make the world better, but for His word tells us so. Thanks for readin. Signing off
Sunday, September 4, 2011
"I have a technical degree in broadband networking..."
Fellow Readers,
I hope you all are enjoying your Labor Day Weekends, respectively. Mine has been pretty good so far, but unfortunately has to come to an end early for I have to go to work ON Labor Day in the morning. That's not so bad though, it's only for four hours, however, my current employer is located in Cookeville meaning I have to go back to school like any normal weekend. So much for the holiday. It's okay though, I'm not tryin' to put on any pitty-party or anything resembling such. From the time I last composed, nothing too big has happened. One of the main things that happened was the total awesomeness of Tech's Internet completely falling out for ehhh...about three days. Now, the Internet failing, that's not so much of a big deal I mean the Internet at our house fails every once and a while. But, this was the entire campus' Internet failing and not being fixed for THREE days. That must have been some problem to have the whole IT department working on it "around the clock" for three days. Yeah, that's one of the funny parts: while the Internet is NOT working, Tech decides to tell us they have the whole IT department working "around the clock" on fixing it via e-mail. How ironic is that? Oh yeah, we will all see that e-mail while our Internet is not working. Anywho, it is time for a little vocabulary lesson. Let us look at the name of the fine institution in which I call my scholarly home: Tennessee Technological University. Okay, begin lesson; Tennessee-the state in which this school reside-let's pass on the middle term for just a second and get back to that in the end, University-cooler name for college, well that is my definition for right now because the proper one is too long-now, we can cover the middle term, Technological-of or pertaining to technology. Now, how good does it look that a technological school can't solve a simple Internet problem faster than more than half of our school week, especially working around the clock?! One of these nights without Internet, I was walking back into my dorm to drop of my stuff and I ran into some kid I never had met before and we started talking about the Internet problem. This kid graduated high school in 2008, however, this is his first year of college. In his time after high school, he obtained three technical degrees, one being in broadband networking. I asked him if he could fix our problem for us to which his reply was, "I've tried to go to the IT department to offer my help but when I go up there they are all just sitting around." So much for working around the clock huh? The problem was finally fixed on Friday, just in time to go home and not use it. Since then, I've enjoyed a nice weekend of hanging out with my family and our extended family, the Godseys. Other than that, just the normal weekend.
For the word today, I do not have much. I am still reading and learning and will not necessarily have a word in every post. Stay tuned for the next post!
Thanks for reading. Signing off.
I hope you all are enjoying your Labor Day Weekends, respectively. Mine has been pretty good so far, but unfortunately has to come to an end early for I have to go to work ON Labor Day in the morning. That's not so bad though, it's only for four hours, however, my current employer is located in Cookeville meaning I have to go back to school like any normal weekend. So much for the holiday. It's okay though, I'm not tryin' to put on any pitty-party or anything resembling such. From the time I last composed, nothing too big has happened. One of the main things that happened was the total awesomeness of Tech's Internet completely falling out for ehhh...about three days. Now, the Internet failing, that's not so much of a big deal I mean the Internet at our house fails every once and a while. But, this was the entire campus' Internet failing and not being fixed for THREE days. That must have been some problem to have the whole IT department working on it "around the clock" for three days. Yeah, that's one of the funny parts: while the Internet is NOT working, Tech decides to tell us they have the whole IT department working "around the clock" on fixing it via e-mail. How ironic is that? Oh yeah, we will all see that e-mail while our Internet is not working. Anywho, it is time for a little vocabulary lesson. Let us look at the name of the fine institution in which I call my scholarly home: Tennessee Technological University. Okay, begin lesson; Tennessee-the state in which this school reside-let's pass on the middle term for just a second and get back to that in the end, University-cooler name for college, well that is my definition for right now because the proper one is too long-now, we can cover the middle term, Technological-of or pertaining to technology. Now, how good does it look that a technological school can't solve a simple Internet problem faster than more than half of our school week, especially working around the clock?! One of these nights without Internet, I was walking back into my dorm to drop of my stuff and I ran into some kid I never had met before and we started talking about the Internet problem. This kid graduated high school in 2008, however, this is his first year of college. In his time after high school, he obtained three technical degrees, one being in broadband networking. I asked him if he could fix our problem for us to which his reply was, "I've tried to go to the IT department to offer my help but when I go up there they are all just sitting around." So much for working around the clock huh? The problem was finally fixed on Friday, just in time to go home and not use it. Since then, I've enjoyed a nice weekend of hanging out with my family and our extended family, the Godseys. Other than that, just the normal weekend.
For the word today, I do not have much. I am still reading and learning and will not necessarily have a word in every post. Stay tuned for the next post!
Thanks for reading. Signing off.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
The Early Bird Gets the Worm
Fellow readers,
Today was my first day working up here in Cookeville, and I had to be at the store by nine. Well, like any normal human being would do, I set the good ole' cuckoo clock for about 8:14 or so. Did I mention in my first post about my roommate making noise early in the morning? It is very sad to say, but I spoke too soon. I don't even know why I am even distraught by this point about this, because it is like clockwork everyday since we moved in on Friday. When 7:15 rolls around, I am awoken to any kind of noise that can be made in a dorm room without using your mouth. So, today, at 7:15-a whole hour before the earliest I wanted to get up at-there was a nice, wholesome, smacking of a knee into a desk. Did this wake me up? You bet your bottom dollar it did. This was followed by a murmur of some sort that I was too haggard to care to figure out. Nevertheless, I was able to fall back into a nice slumber. For the next, ehhh...hour or so(maybe more, well probably more), my roommate left the room-to later re-enter-about five or six times. This would have been fine, but I am not too sure this kiddo understands exiting and entering quietly. He goes full guns a blazin' in and out locking the door behind him each and every time. You're probably wondering, why did we need to know that he locks the door every time he leaves when Andrew is still in there. Well for one, I think that is a little weird(insert a chuckle). I mean, it is not like I am going to just let someone walk in and steal all his stuff. But the main reason I mention such a tedious little thing is for the fact that when you lock the door, it makes a good bank vault sounding lockage. So, every time he would leave, I would wake up to the lock. Every time he would come back, I got to have a nice two-for-one special(unlocking is just as loud, if not louder). Now, I know what you all are thinking: "Man Andrew sure likes to use parenthesis and likes to think he can read minds." But, I like to be very descriptive in my writing so you all can get the full experience. Furthermore, I will not be complaining about my roommate in every single post. I just like to get the ball rolling here with a nice anecdotal experience to lighten the mood, you could say. The rest of my day today went like how a usual Tuesday should go for me this semester: I wake up, go to work as long as I can before I go to class; after my first class, grab some lunch around three then chill 'til my 4:30 class with my sis; get out of class and go eat dinner with the clan and friends; chill after dinner and hang out; and end the day with a nice run/workout at the fit with my broseph. This is also a nice mirror-image of my R-day as well. At some point in these days I will read my Bible and also pray throughout the day about anything that comes to mind. I like to think(and this also stems from a teaching from my youth pastor The Huff, shout-out also to exitseven youth group) that if you pray continuously throughout the day, you will be keeping a nice little convo with man upstairs. And as any nice dialogue goes, both parties will participate. What do I mean by this? Well, if you are keeping a good buzz session going with the Lord, you will find that He will speak to you as well. You will start to hear Him more and start to hear His directions He has for you. If you don't know what you want to do with your life right now(assuming you are college age) don't worry. Rather, start to pray about guidance and direction and just keep an open confabulation with God and just pray about anything you think of throughout the day that you want to pray about; and soon, you will begin to uncover the path He has set out for you. Coming into the final month of my summer between senior year of high school and first year of college, I had no definite decision on what I wanted to do with my life. I hadn't even decided on what college yet. I had some choices out there that I had thought of, but I never really had a plan, nor had I really felt strong enough about any of them to make a decision on it. To this point, I had prayed here and there about it, but never really consistently or full-heartedly. Once I finally began to say that I really needed to pray for this and just really seeked His guidance, I finally had a dream one night. Now, I'm not saying that He will always come to you in a dream or anything like that, but for me He did. I had this dream and long story short, I was here at Tech, ministering to people and i was wanting to be a high school principal. That next day, I enrolled at Tech and got accepted. But His voice didn't stop there: I began to just think of things about when I was a principal and started to really have a plan for myself. These thoughts came to me whenever, I had one while I was in the shower one day. He will talk to you whenever as long as you are talking with Him.
Thanks. Signing off.
Today was my first day working up here in Cookeville, and I had to be at the store by nine. Well, like any normal human being would do, I set the good ole' cuckoo clock for about 8:14 or so. Did I mention in my first post about my roommate making noise early in the morning? It is very sad to say, but I spoke too soon. I don't even know why I am even distraught by this point about this, because it is like clockwork everyday since we moved in on Friday. When 7:15 rolls around, I am awoken to any kind of noise that can be made in a dorm room without using your mouth. So, today, at 7:15-a whole hour before the earliest I wanted to get up at-there was a nice, wholesome, smacking of a knee into a desk. Did this wake me up? You bet your bottom dollar it did. This was followed by a murmur of some sort that I was too haggard to care to figure out. Nevertheless, I was able to fall back into a nice slumber. For the next, ehhh...hour or so(maybe more, well probably more), my roommate left the room-to later re-enter-about five or six times. This would have been fine, but I am not too sure this kiddo understands exiting and entering quietly. He goes full guns a blazin' in and out locking the door behind him each and every time. You're probably wondering, why did we need to know that he locks the door every time he leaves when Andrew is still in there. Well for one, I think that is a little weird(insert a chuckle). I mean, it is not like I am going to just let someone walk in and steal all his stuff. But the main reason I mention such a tedious little thing is for the fact that when you lock the door, it makes a good bank vault sounding lockage. So, every time he would leave, I would wake up to the lock. Every time he would come back, I got to have a nice two-for-one special(unlocking is just as loud, if not louder). Now, I know what you all are thinking: "Man Andrew sure likes to use parenthesis and likes to think he can read minds." But, I like to be very descriptive in my writing so you all can get the full experience. Furthermore, I will not be complaining about my roommate in every single post. I just like to get the ball rolling here with a nice anecdotal experience to lighten the mood, you could say. The rest of my day today went like how a usual Tuesday should go for me this semester: I wake up, go to work as long as I can before I go to class; after my first class, grab some lunch around three then chill 'til my 4:30 class with my sis; get out of class and go eat dinner with the clan and friends; chill after dinner and hang out; and end the day with a nice run/workout at the fit with my broseph. This is also a nice mirror-image of my R-day as well. At some point in these days I will read my Bible and also pray throughout the day about anything that comes to mind. I like to think(and this also stems from a teaching from my youth pastor The Huff, shout-out also to exitseven youth group) that if you pray continuously throughout the day, you will be keeping a nice little convo with man upstairs. And as any nice dialogue goes, both parties will participate. What do I mean by this? Well, if you are keeping a good buzz session going with the Lord, you will find that He will speak to you as well. You will start to hear Him more and start to hear His directions He has for you. If you don't know what you want to do with your life right now(assuming you are college age) don't worry. Rather, start to pray about guidance and direction and just keep an open confabulation with God and just pray about anything you think of throughout the day that you want to pray about; and soon, you will begin to uncover the path He has set out for you. Coming into the final month of my summer between senior year of high school and first year of college, I had no definite decision on what I wanted to do with my life. I hadn't even decided on what college yet. I had some choices out there that I had thought of, but I never really had a plan, nor had I really felt strong enough about any of them to make a decision on it. To this point, I had prayed here and there about it, but never really consistently or full-heartedly. Once I finally began to say that I really needed to pray for this and just really seeked His guidance, I finally had a dream one night. Now, I'm not saying that He will always come to you in a dream or anything like that, but for me He did. I had this dream and long story short, I was here at Tech, ministering to people and i was wanting to be a high school principal. That next day, I enrolled at Tech and got accepted. But His voice didn't stop there: I began to just think of things about when I was a principal and started to really have a plan for myself. These thoughts came to me whenever, I had one while I was in the shower one day. He will talk to you whenever as long as you are talking with Him.
Thanks. Signing off.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Day Uno
First blog ever...here it goes.
Today started out to the sound of my new roommate, to whom I know nothing about at all(#notmuchofatalker), rummaging through bags and the stuffing of closed-cell extruded polystryrene foam(a.k.a styrofoam) from his new printer back into its packaging. This went on for some time until he finally got it to fit in the box-only to lead to him setting up his new printer and hearing it go through an obscene amount of diagnostics tests to ensure of its capability to perform the day-to-day operations of the standard printer. A pretty snazzy new alarm eh? Well it worked, except for it going off three hours before I needed it to. So, I finally get out of bed-when I planned on-and checked my email just to see who is offering me what. Then, something detrimentally fantastic happened. An email from the professor of my only class on Mondays-more specifically, today being the first Monday, the first day of school-appeared in my inbox. Lone behold was it there none other than to tell me that my only class for today has been canceled. The detrimental part unfortunately is for her and her family for her son is very sick and was in the ER so please, everyone, PRAY for her and her family. Anyways, so there was no class for me today so I gleefully closed the lid to my laptop and jumped in the shower(roommate is still in room). After the daily hygiene routine, I come back to a locked dorm room. It is great to have a roommate who locks up so our stuff is not stolen, unfortunately he did not think about me not taking my key with me to the showers. Long story shortened, I end up in the main lobby of the dorm in my boxers only to find my roommate sitting there watching TV. #awesomemorning.
Moving on to the Word:
I later opened my Bible to read some passages for the day. I am currently in Romans and I read a passage from Romans 4. By this point in Romans, it is discussing righteousness and unrighteousness and the Law. It mentions throughout Romans 2:17-29 about knowing the Law and teaching it to others but sort of being a hypocrite, you could say. Romans 2:21"you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal?" The next couple of verses go through other contradictions. What I take from what this is saying is that a lot of times, we-as Christians-often times focus on sharing God's words with everyone else, that we forget to share it with ourselves. Are we any better than those who we are trying to minister to if we don't even follow what we are teaching? From a college student's perspective, college is a tough environment to try to minister to people. Heck, it's a really tough environment considering all of the things going on: clubs, partying, drinking, sex, the list goes on. With all that going on you tend to think, or at least I do, they're not going to want to listen to someone trying to tell them about living for God when they know a lot of the stuff they are doing is wrong. But besides ministering to others, it's hard to minister yourself. You have to deal with all of the previous mentioned things as well. And on top of that, you don't have your parents taking you to church to make you read your Bible or anything like that. With everything I have mentioned, you can get caught drifting, straying. That's sort of what this blog is about. How to stay strong in your faith no matter what environment you get in. I am fighting this battle. I am here, right now. The Bible says in Romans 3:23-25 "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." So if you are reading this and you are a college age student or soon going to be, have as much fun as you can at college, it's supposed to be fun. But, do not sacrifice your beliefs for fun, that's not the kind of fun you should be having. I look forward to continuing this journey with you all.(don't worry though, it will get better, I am still getting the ropes of putting it all in writing) Thanks. Signing off.
Today started out to the sound of my new roommate, to whom I know nothing about at all(#notmuchofatalker), rummaging through bags and the stuffing of closed-cell extruded polystryrene foam(a.k.a styrofoam) from his new printer back into its packaging. This went on for some time until he finally got it to fit in the box-only to lead to him setting up his new printer and hearing it go through an obscene amount of diagnostics tests to ensure of its capability to perform the day-to-day operations of the standard printer. A pretty snazzy new alarm eh? Well it worked, except for it going off three hours before I needed it to. So, I finally get out of bed-when I planned on-and checked my email just to see who is offering me what. Then, something detrimentally fantastic happened. An email from the professor of my only class on Mondays-more specifically, today being the first Monday, the first day of school-appeared in my inbox. Lone behold was it there none other than to tell me that my only class for today has been canceled. The detrimental part unfortunately is for her and her family for her son is very sick and was in the ER so please, everyone, PRAY for her and her family. Anyways, so there was no class for me today so I gleefully closed the lid to my laptop and jumped in the shower(roommate is still in room). After the daily hygiene routine, I come back to a locked dorm room. It is great to have a roommate who locks up so our stuff is not stolen, unfortunately he did not think about me not taking my key with me to the showers. Long story shortened, I end up in the main lobby of the dorm in my boxers only to find my roommate sitting there watching TV. #awesomemorning.
Moving on to the Word:
I later opened my Bible to read some passages for the day. I am currently in Romans and I read a passage from Romans 4. By this point in Romans, it is discussing righteousness and unrighteousness and the Law. It mentions throughout Romans 2:17-29 about knowing the Law and teaching it to others but sort of being a hypocrite, you could say. Romans 2:21"you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal?" The next couple of verses go through other contradictions. What I take from what this is saying is that a lot of times, we-as Christians-often times focus on sharing God's words with everyone else, that we forget to share it with ourselves. Are we any better than those who we are trying to minister to if we don't even follow what we are teaching? From a college student's perspective, college is a tough environment to try to minister to people. Heck, it's a really tough environment considering all of the things going on: clubs, partying, drinking, sex, the list goes on. With all that going on you tend to think, or at least I do, they're not going to want to listen to someone trying to tell them about living for God when they know a lot of the stuff they are doing is wrong. But besides ministering to others, it's hard to minister yourself. You have to deal with all of the previous mentioned things as well. And on top of that, you don't have your parents taking you to church to make you read your Bible or anything like that. With everything I have mentioned, you can get caught drifting, straying. That's sort of what this blog is about. How to stay strong in your faith no matter what environment you get in. I am fighting this battle. I am here, right now. The Bible says in Romans 3:23-25 "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." So if you are reading this and you are a college age student or soon going to be, have as much fun as you can at college, it's supposed to be fun. But, do not sacrifice your beliefs for fun, that's not the kind of fun you should be having. I look forward to continuing this journey with you all.(don't worry though, it will get better, I am still getting the ropes of putting it all in writing) Thanks. Signing off.
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