i got a job doing seo and inbound marketing..... im listening to rob bell nooma video you and thinking of sermons

its like i cant stop hearing whats within

so its been awhile. i know, i allowed myself to get busy with the stupid and mundane things. im sitting in my room and thinking of how i got here; to this point in my life. ya know that point when you look back and say wow. i know im young and people that are older than me will probably find humor in this but oh well. ya know i remember i was like four or something and up in wisconsin i made a leaf pile in the shape of the batmobile- freaking awesome. i remember when i was five my dad's mom getting cancer for the second time and dying. I remember asking God into my life. i remember my parents sitting my sister and i down and telling us we were moving to springfield mo. i remember my teacher in second graded telling me to shut up when i talked about adam and eve being the first humans. i remember the first time i meet my best friend tyler in kids church- he came up to me because i sat on the girls side with my sister since i was new and knew no one, he explained how they didnt sit boys and girls on the same side and he offered for me to sit by him- 11 years later we are closer than brothers. I remember my first day at new covenant, misses ditomasie's third grade. i remember being picked on thru out elementary school. summer before my seventh grade my sister and i went on a trip around the west coast with my grandpa and  grandmother(moms side)- the best trip with them by far, i still think about that trip all the time. seventh grade started and i was five ft. and two inches- i walked out five ft. nine inches- seven inch growth spurt during the school, sorry mom and dad for the hassle of  getting new clothes like every week cause i kept growing. one day during the school year i saw my parents car at the school, it was odd because it was the middle of the day and i knew what had happened; grandma had died. i remember not ever dealing with it. then high school came. man that was a crazy time. i made friends, lost others, and found myself in places i never thought i would. i remember the pain that i was going thru and not telling anyone. stupidity at its finest i would say. then on summer my grandpa, who was one of my best friends, got sick. no i thought it was nothing-by the time he died he had 8 major heart attacks and three minor ones- my grandpa the hard a. he died on friday, was buried sunday, and the next day my sister and i left for camp in colorado. i barely spoke before the conference. then God came in that moment and called me to something that only could happen with him. so i left my old life of sin behind me, that person was no longer me. january of '08 the last time i hurt myself.  then graduation came, and went. just like high school- ya blink and ya miss it. august came and i moved out into the world of dorm life and college. then first semester came and went. i made new friends and said goodbye to old ones. today i am one year out and never felt better about myself, who i am or where i am at in life. that is all stuff i have been thru that has helped shape me as the young man that i am but that stuff doesnt define me necessarily.

 today is a new day, new beginning, a fresh start, you can change some ones life, you can pick up that hobby you have always wanted to do, you can go tell the person you love how much they mean to you, you can go help in whatever needs to be helped, you can bring a smile to some ones face - how will you spend today?

Music

so lately i have been into some crazy music that is so different its not even funny. I have been listening to everything from rap-50 cent- to hardcore- parkway drive, Maylene and the sons of disaster- to death cab for cutie to this band Owl City-they are ok, not amazing but good to just relax out to. but pretty much all day yesterday and today i have listened to the band The White Tie Affair. Yeah diversity is my name basically

Kids Book

i just got the kids books so here is to reading that 

and then working on the artwork 

i got bored so i did this

more rambelings

so i have been designing some stuff lately and one of my old friends saw it and thought it was really good, and one of them looked like it should be a cover of a children's book. well she is sending me the book she wrote and yeah i may work on some stuff for her. who knows this could be my foot in the door...

So kids camp was last week... 

Intense let me tell ya. So my last post was about how we love others and how I feel we as christians have become unchristian. But God spoke to me at kids camp like this.....

I was a counselor at kids camp, I had five boys in my cabin. Wyatt, Austin, John, Zach, and another John. Kids are amazing. So last Wednesday was the first day of camp, now mind you the only kid in my cabin i knew was wyatt and that is because his older brother is in the youth group and he has come out on monday nights to play football with the youth guys. Now Zach is a great kid, and God used him to teach me a lesson. Zach is going into the fourth grade. When we meet he was in the cabin and had his Garfield stuffed animal out unpacking his things. So the day goes on and we do some team building stuff and I still don't really know the boys in my cabin because the team building stuff is for the kids to get to know each other. So Wednesday night comes around and we have a service. Now Pastor Bill our children's pastor at Hope preaches on what a Freedom Fighter is and how we can be a Freedom Fighter for Christ. At the end of his sermon the counselors were supposed to pray for the kids. So I start to pray for Zach, and he just comes in and gives me this big hug. So I get done praying for him and he just sits on my lap and puts his arm around me. And thats when it hit. The story from Matthew. 

Matthew 18

The Greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven

 1At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"

 2He called a little child and had him stand among them.3And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

 5"And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. 6But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

 7"Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come! 8If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. 9And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.

The Parable of the Lost Sheep

 10"See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.^[a]

So Zach is still sitting on my lap and God says to me "Love like a child". 

And at first that sounds really stupid, but think about for a second. Here I was, with a child on my lap who i had just meet and he was clinging to me. The love of a child. everything i could do to not cry at that moment.

But then at the end of the week one of the boys in my cabin cried that camp was over. John K cried because he wasn't going to see me or the other two boys from Hope for a whole year. John had just meet us three days earlier, and was so sad that he would not be able to see us. That got me. 

Everything that I have been feeling and dealing with the last couple months brought me to that point with God for him to just whisper to me "LOVE LIKE A CHILD". 

My prayer for us is that we start to realize how much like children we must become. May we realize that we must love our neighbor, and that our neighbor is ANYONE in need. May realize that Jesus does love us, and may we accurately reflect that to a world that is hurting and just wants to be loved......