Five More

6. I'm stocky. I'm short, around 5'7. Am I fat? Would you dare ask that question? I suppose I am. I prefer the word 'chunky'. My main areas of chunkiness being my belly and my behind, but to look at the rest of me without viewing those two problem areas, you wouldn't think that I was fat at all.

7. I have asthma. I think this adds to my chunkiness. I get winded pretty easily. But I take medication for it now that I should have been taking my whole life, which keeps the attacks down to the minimum. I've never been hospitalized for my asthma. I can really only remember a few scary moments when I woke up and simply could not draw breath. But I survived, I think. I'm pretty sure I'm not dead...yet.

8. I love gardening. This includes mowing and trimming and anything to do with plants. Right now I have a huge vegetable garden that is too much for me to handle with my limited time. My big brother finally got out there today and pulled some weeds for me. I know that's all I'll be doing on my days off this week.

9. I can sleep a lot. If I don't have to be to work, and no one disturbs me, I can sleep anywhere from twelve to fourteen hours. It kills the rest of the day, however, since it makes me so sluggish. But somehow I slip into this zone and just snooze and snooze and snooze.

10. I've never broken a bone in my body (knock on particle board). I twisted up my wrist real bad playing football in the backyard and had to wear a cast, but no bones were broken. I twisted up my ankle real bad in a high school football game my senior year. But again, no bones were broken. And I used to climb up and down a small mountain when I was younger, and I climbed all around the rocks at the lake a million times as well. But I love milk and I drink a lot of it. Let that be a lesson to you, kids.

muchas gracias or much grace...i think

Wow. I got a compliment from the Complimenting Commenter in the comments on my last post (see below). Apparently this person goes from blog to blog leaving compliments in their comments. It's really a nice thing. According to their tally, they've given out about 1,300+ compliments, and they have 700+ blogs on their blogroll. I should figure out that blogroll deal. Anyways, work at the Evil Empire was hectic again. I bet the managers are sitting back and smiling at all the salary they're saving, but I bet the loss in sales will even things out. There's just only so much one person can do. I used to let it weigh on me when I left with the shelves half empty, but I'm learning to be complacent. When I go overnights, I won't have to worry about any of that anymore. I can just do my job without customers constantly getting in my way or asking where things are at. There will be a few customers since it's a 24 hour store, but stocking will be my main concern. And once it's stocked, it's stocked. You don't have to worry about it running out again thirty minutes later. In other words, it will create much less stress for my poor brain. I know I shouldn't worry about these things anyways, but that's just who I am. You ever go to a store and they don't have what you're looking for? Or at least it's not on the shelf where it should be, but you can't find anyone or aren't willing to ask anyone if they have any in the back, so you go home empty handed (well, besides all the impulse stuff you can't help but buy). Well, it's this very thing that eats at me when I can't keep up. I think of all those people who felt some degree of disappointment because of my inadequacy. It wasn't my fault, per se. But still, if I could have worked a little bit faster. If I'd not taken my fifteen minute breaks...ha, ha. Management freaks on you if they find out you didn't take your breaks. I get so busy that I miss some from time to time, but if you tell a manager that you're on break, they back off like you got something contagious.

Sorry to bore you so much with my job. But since I woke up too late to read my bible and didn't do any writing because it's Sunday, I've nothing else to talk about. Well, I did lose my wallet and had to drive out on the open road without my license handy. I obeyed all the traffic laws and didn't get pulled over, so it was okay. I wondered though, as I was driving and didn't feel the lump of my wallet in my right pocket, if I was still physically able to drive without my drivers license on my person. I managed it, but I felt so naked.

So there's this thing a lot of bloggers do with the 100 things about me deal. Where you list (you guessed it) 100 things about yourself. I guess I should do this. Some people aren't sure that they can think of 100 things about themselves. I can think of a couple of thousand things about myself, but I won't bore you that much. One fellow blogger that I know of did 100 things that they like about themselves. I'm too pessimistic for that. So I'll just stick with the 100 things, but I'll try to make them very specific things. I won't be like "#1: I have fingers". That's sort of cheating, I think. I'll try to make them things that not everybody can say about themselves. I'm gonna start off small. How about 5 things to start off with:

1. I am super creative. I can think of some really crazy stuff. Things people ought not to be thinking of. Forgive me, Lord.

2. I'm a writer. That kind of goes along with the creativity. But there are writers who have very little imagination. They write a lot of textbooks and instruction manuals.

3. I like books. I like to read, too, but the best way to describe my passion for the written word is to say that I like books. And magazines, too. I like any writing medium. I look at a book and it's thickness and it's potential, and it excites me. Actual reading a lot of the time just feels like a chore.

4. I've spoken in tongues. I'll group that together with being a Christian. Any time I begin to have any doubts about anything, I think back to that day that I was 100% filled with the Holy Spirit. I don't really remember much about the actual speaking in tongues part except for the very end of it. It seemed to last about a minute or so, but eye witnesses say I went on and on for a while, probably a good five to ten minutes. I don't know why so many churches ignore that part of the bible. But it's a real and true thing.

5. I love sunflower seeds. I really do. Give me a bag of sunflower seeds and you won't have to feed me for a while. Though I don't think the excessive salt intake that accompanies the seeds is very healthy. I used to eat them until my mouth bled. Now my mouth is used to it, so it doesn't bleed anymore. But I haven't eaten very many in the last six months or so. I go long stretches of time where I don't eat any. So I'm not addicted like everyone said I was. I took some steps...just kidding.

I'll try at five more tomorrow and five more the next day for the next twenty days.

Waste my days

Yeah, that's what a midshift tends to do to your whole day. Not enough time in the morning or in the evening to do anything constructive. I'm stuck on a midshift all week. Maybe next week they'll let me switch over to nights like I'm supposed to.

Storms rolled through today. A tornado touched down none too far from where I live. Lot's of lightning and thunder and rain. Huge drops of rain that I thought were going finish off what the crack in my windshield has already started. I saw some hail clouds, but no hail. The weather guy showed us some that had hit the station. I saw this one cloud that really looked alive. I kept waiting for it to start spinning. I saw a rainbow, though, amidst the clouds and remembered God's promise. I think we're more equipped to handle another flood these days. Ever see the movie Waterworld. We'd all be floating on our own arks with our pet poodles and hamsters.

I got a couple of new story ideas today. Well, one new one and one I forgot to write down and forgot about and remembered again. Lucky me. Now, where's my pen...

It's the reason...for my pain

Often times, when I get discouraged about my writing for one reason or another, I wonder if I really am a writer. I wonder if that's what God really intends for me to do. So I think of all the things that I can't do and see what's left. I can't sing, despite how hard I try. I can't play any instruments, and I don't have much desire to learn. I think I could be an okay drummer. I'm fairly athletic, or rather I have the potential to be. I surprise people with my speed and strength. But not so much that I could make a career of it. I don't have a drive for money or possessions, so I would not make a very good businessman. I'm a quiet person, and shy most of the time. I don't like dealing with people very much. I don't have an eloquent voice. I could almost be a preacher if I had a better speaking voice. I'm not a leader. I serve better as an advisor the person in charge. I prefer to be alone most of the time. I do get lonely, but once I've been around other people for a while, it's time to slip away to someplace quiet. As I've said before, I'm a deep thinker. I'm very conscious of other people. I'm always wondering what others might be thinking or feeling. Or what would they think and feel if I said a particular thing or did a particular thing. I think this adds to my shyness. I don't want to even begin to think that I've done or said something that could cause someone else pain. I like to make people happy, if I can. My happiness comes from other people's happiness. I hate to be a burden on anyone else. I think I'm getting off subject just a little. Sorry. When I think about what I am best at and what brings me joy and what I think about most of the time, it all points back to writing. Whether I am actually any good at it or not, it's what I want to do most in life. And because of my shyness, it's the best way for me to spread God's word. I'm not shy on the page (or the screen). This is where I can be bold. I'm getting better at talking to others about Christ. I've been down the path of sin and I can see the destruction it leads to. I hate that I had to go through it all, but it helps me relate to those who are on that same doomed path. It's made me a stronger Christian. And it's helped me to see the difference between a true Christian and those who just play church. It was horrible. It is horrible. But without it, I wouldn't be the same person I am today. I think of all the trials and pains, self-inflicted or otherwise, that I've been through, and I know that it had to be so to make me who I am. But in the midst of it, standing in the hottest part of the flame, you can't imagine why God would let these things happen to you. You can't imagine why God would let you do these things to yourself. But life is a great exercise in patience. You get through the bad things and come out stronger on the other side. Time heals everything. There will still be a scar, but the bleeding eventually stops. I think of all the story ideas I've slowly accumulated in my binder. I've probably got a hundred or so still lying around on scraps of paper that I haven't put in my binder yet. But I know if my life hadn't been what it has been, if everything had gone according to plan, 90% of those ideas wouldn't be there. Most of the stories I've written wouldn't be there. I probably wouldn't be a writer. At least not the kind of writer that I've become. I would probably write bland suspense thrillers about celebrities and high society. I wouldn't know to delve deeper into the human psyche because I never would have experienced these hardships and had these pains to express. The bulk of my writing centers around those things. I may be writing a story about time-travel or alien invasions, but they're really about life and relationships and God's master plan. As I've said before, I won't write a story unless I can reveal something about God through it. I don't preach a sermon, but there is some bit of God's truth revealed in the resolution of the story. So everything about me, the way I think and live and the experiences of my past, present, and future, all revolve around spreading God's word through my writing. So anytime I get down on myself, I just have to think about these things and it all becomes clear again. My uncle once told me that if you love your job, you'll never work a day in your life. Usually when I write, I have a grand time. It's when I let the things of this world bog me down that my writing becomes slow and difficult and begins to feel like real work. And it helps to get plenty of sleep, too, so I better hit the sack.

Fertile Ground

It rained for like a week. I finally got back out into my garden to pull some weeds. I've been able to keep the weeds beat back enough so they don't choke my plants, but it still looks horrible. I wouldn't have made the garden so big if I'd known my tiller was gonna go kaput. Between the plants it's like a grassy meadow. But most of the plants seem to be doing okay. A few squash and zucchini plants looked dwarfed. Hopefully they will grow out of it. My potatoes are doing wonderfully. I'll be eating potatoes all winter. My tomatoes will be fine. Last year we didn't even attempt to pull the grass away from them and they still made tomatoes like crazy. I'm sure I'll have more green beans than I can handle. Peas never do any good around here. The lettuce and spinach already had their run. It wasn't a very successful one. I've never had success with corn before. We shall see. Half of them look sallow for some reason. Cucumbers should do fine. My tiller broke before I could make a spot for the cantaloupe and watermelon. We'll have to buy some from a roadside stand. Okra's still waiting on some good hot days to get going. Seems like there's more, but I think that's it. Oh, onions are great. They're recovering nicely from the once over I did on them. They really seem to be fattening up. My mom bought some hens a while back, and I would tell you how they are doing except they died three days after she brought them home. She fancies becoming Amish, but she won't be able to let go of the television. I would miss my wordprocessor and the internet and my music. I would introduce the Amish to gangsta rap. Just kidding. Rock and roll all the way. I would teach them some Relient K. I would be married, though. They would have taught me the proper way to court a girl, and she would be helpless to say no. I better go. I'm itching from all the grass. I had to trim the yard as well. I love it, but it has it's consequences.

Look the other way

I think I'm fixing to start working overnights at the Evil Empire. Seems very likely. Will mean a major change in my daily routine (if I really have a routine, that is). I'm a night person anyways, so I think it will be okay. But trying to get my sleeping done during the day with everybody chitter-chattering and what not might be a problem. And since the computer is here in my bedroom and everybody wants to check their email and what not forty times a day compounds that problem. I'm thinking of getting a small bed set up in what serves as my writing/junk room. That will definitely help. The transition will be the hardest part. I'll manage it, I know. I use to go to work on occasion having not slept the night before. I know of a few times I stayed up all night writing and went to work the next morning. Though I didn't have to drive forty minutes to get to that job either. Oh, well. I'll manage.

No writing and no bible reading occurred today. I slept in late and my grandparents came for a visit. Add to that my nieces and oldest brother and his wife, and we had a regular ol' shindig happening. Mom cooked a wonderful meal and we ate and played cards. And when my grandparents left, we watched a movie. So by then I was pretty much shot for anything useful.

I called my friend last night. She didn't have much to say about nothing. I had her convinced for a while that I was married, but when she asked for my wife's name, I drew a blank. I must have been tired. I'm usually a pretty quick thinker. No, I wasn't trying to lie to her. I was kidding. It's only a lie if I truly want her to continue believing that I'm married. She's told me she was married hundreds of times, but I never believed her. I think she did almost get married once her student visa expired and she was trying to get it renewed. I think that's why she keeps pretending to try to get her masters, so she can stay in the country. Anyways, I know you could care less about this petty stuff. I did conclude from our conversation that she in fact did not read that long post. If she had, surely she would have said something to me about it. And I'm not real sure if she read my last email, either. She usually responds, however curtly, to my emails.

We are beings of the flesh and of the spirit. Our flesh desires the things of this world, while our spirit seeks God. It is a constant battle. The spirit will win out when the flesh dies. But right here, right now, in this life, it can be so hard. We seek, we pray, we cry out. We falter. We triumph. We falter. We falter. We falter. We triumph. We falter, again. We seek, we pray, we cry out. Oh, the days grow long. The weeks and months and years. Our lives. Then, in the end, a bright, shining light. His eternal glory. Our spirit soars, leaving this blackness behind. Oh, how I wait for the day.

1 Missed Call

Yes, Lord Jesus, thank You so much. I got through that chapter I've been struggling with. I didn't think I was gonna make it. I had to hammer out one more page and I was drawing a blank. But the words found me and there they were. And here it is.

Still working my way through Romans. Paul's really laying it all out in the open for the folks in Rome. Most of what I read was about sin and how God's grace is shown to us when we sin and he forgives us for it. Does this mean that we should continue to sin, so that God's grace can continue to be shown in us. No! When we were saved, we died to sin. You can't continue living in something that is dead. Come on folks. Get with the program.

That girl I was friends with in college (and I guess we're still sort of friends now) called me out of the blue. Maybe she read my post...or maybe she got my email and decided it would be easier to call since her writing skills aren't so good. Alas, I was at work. Should I call her back? Yes, I probably should. Tonight? Maybe. But I've got a movie to watch. We'll see.

By the wayside

Okay, I have a problem. Or many problems. Or maybe it's not a problem. Maybe it's just a thing. Maybe even a good thing. But here it is. I think too much. Normally, you would think (ha, ha) that it's okay to think. Think before you speak. Think before you act. But I tend to do so much thinking that I silence myself or immobilize myself. That's why it's best that I get blindsided by life, otherwise I'm bound to get nothing accomplished. What I'm alluding to is my proposed article on Acts 13:48 and Romans 1:20. I was all set to write it one night when I started thinking about it. I had already been thinking on it for a while, and I thought I had it all set. I knew what I wanted to say. Everything seemed logical and correct, and it still is. But all those thoughts led to other thoughts which led to other questions until it has become this gargantuan thing in my mind. Throw on top of it all of my current bible reading and new understanding that I receive daily, and it's becoming so large that my tiny little brain can barely keep up. I'll get to it. I can't say when. Maybe by the end of the week. Maybe ten years from now. But I'll keep working on it, praying about it, asking God to give me wisdom and the ability to convey that wisdom. I'm a young guy. I am. Twenty-five years seems a long time, but I still feel like I'm a teenager. I feel so immature sometimes. And other times I feel really mature. Sometimes I think I'm mature, and I soon realize how naive I am. It's this daily struggle of life. I'm sure you older folk are sitting back and laughing. Poor kid. Someday he'll learn as I have learned. But, yeah. I think and think and think. The main focus of all of this thinking and talking I've been doing is on Salvation. I was pushing along through Romans this morning and Paul was talking about the men of faith in the old testament, before God gave the law to Moses. There was no law when God promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations. Abraham lived by faith in God and that he would come through on His promise. Faith in the promise. That's how the Old Testament people received salvation. It wasn't by following the law. For the law only showed them their sins and condemned them. But by trying to follow God's law and do the things that God required to atone for their sins, they showed that they had faith that God would fulfill His promise. That was cool.

I didn't write as much as I wanted to this morning, but I wrote more than I had been. I pray that I can finally get through the chapter that I'm on in the morning. Seems like I've been writing this same chapter forever. The story is starting to get real heavy at this point. Spiritually heavy, in other words.

Yes, she has kids. Good job, Inspector. Still don't know if she's married. But...um, yeah...Let me tell you a little story. Actually this story could go on for days, but I'll give the shortest version I can. I met this girl in college. Last semester of my Senior year, to be more correct. I liked her. Imagine that. We were friends. Or rather we became friends, of a sort. We had a class together, so we studied together on occasion. We played tennis together a few times. She didn't have a car, so I took her places a lot. My parents said she was just using me for transportation. They didn't trust her. They didn't trust her kind, I think. She was foreign. But I didn't care. I liked her. We were friends. So we graduated. She went to Vermont. I went back to the sticks. She called me. We exchanged emails. All those things to keep in touch before we realized that our relationship, our friendship, was waning and fading. She had another semester to finish up, so she went back to the University. She called me and wanted me to take her out. I obliged. I drove the hour or so and picked her up and we drove another hour or so to the City and ate Chinese and went to a Korean market and it seems like we did something else. Maybe not. You know, all this time we were friends I kept expecting something to happen. I don't know. That she would kiss me and declare her love for me. My wildest dream. But no, nothing. Then I didn't hear from her for a couple of months. When she finally got in touch with me again, she was living in Minnesota with her older sister. She would call me and we would have nothing to talk about and I would sit there listening, hoping. But nothing. Then I didn't hear from her for a long while. In the meantime, I found a girl, lost her, found her again, and had just lost her again when I got a phone call. She was back at the University. She was working on her Masters. I took her out to dinner. We talked about old times. We always talked better face to face. We just didn't click on the phone for some reason. I guess because you can't have long silences on the phone without someone getting impatient. In her apartment we could sit there and just be and say whatever we liked when we felt like saying it. Then she broke the news to me. She had been raped and gotten pregnant and the child was living with her parents. She had been afraid to tell me. Afraid to tell anyone. She'd wound up around New York in some Catholic thing while she was pregnant and catching buses and trains and what not to get to and from work. I don't remember all of the details. Even with this new knowledge I sat there hoping, thinking, but nothing. We kept in touch off and on. We exchanged a few short emails a few weeks ago. She's pregnant again. This time of her own doing. But she still isn't married. I think she would have told me if she'd gotten married. Now and then I think that she'll call me and tell me all those things I wanted to hear in the beginning when everything was still so full of potential and all the ideals I hold in my mind could still be true. But I know it can't be. If she called me and wanted to marry me and was sincere (she used to ask me to marry her all the time, but I knew she was kidding), would I do it? Would I let this life I have imagined go by the wayside to make this muddled dream a reality? So now I think of this other girl, the one who has more recently caught my fancy, knowing what I know now, what the silent inspector has shown me, always assuming she is unmarried (the inspector is still working on that aspect of the case). Would I let my hopes and dreams go unfulfilled if she were to smile at me beautifully in that quiet way she has and let those tears that always seem ready to fall roll down her face as she takes my hand. I like to think that I wouldn't. But I'm twenty-five. I'm old. Life has to move on sometime, doesn't it?

You know, I just realized that I gave that friend from college the link to this blog. I don’t think she reads it. She might have read a post or two when I first gave her the link, but not anymore. But does it really matter. She would just laugh and send me an email telling me what a child I am. She would tell me that she already knew all those things, those secret desires of my heart, and thought it was funny and pathetic the way I kept thinking, hoping, dreaming. But whatever.

Beautiful when she cries

You know, every once in a while, when you're starting to feel good about things again, you get brought low. Nothing happened. Nobody did or said anything to me. I was just sitting there thinking about the few meager things that seemed to be going pretty well in my life, when I realized how foolish everything seemed. It's like things become important for one reason or another, and you think about them, perhaps dwell on them. And then you're like, "Oh, wait. That's stupid." Oh, well. New things will become important again. So long as the main things stay important, my Christian walk and my writing, life can go on.

I read chapter 2 of Romans today. Wow, two days, two chapters. I used to do that. Just one chapter a day. I would sit down, and it would be like, "Okay, let's get this over with." And I'd read my one chapter real quick. I didn't take the time to dwell on what I had read or even pray about it. It was better than nothing, I suppose, but I wasn't growing very much spiritually. I think I was actually regressing. Then there were times when I wasn't reading my bible at all, but I was doing more thinking and pondering on the things of God and what Jesus did for us and growing spiritually a little more. It took a while, but I've finally managed to put the two together. So much that my life is nearly consumed by it. And that's really awesome. I finally feel like I'm slowly becoming the person God wants me to be. I'm not there yet. I may never actually get there until I die and cross the threshold of the pearly gates, but I think the striving to become is what God really wants.

No writing, I repeat, because it is Sunday. Last night I wrote about a paragraph. Five or six lines. I wouldn't have written anything, but I had already turned my other computer on, so I had to write something. I felt really bad yesterday. I don't feel so great today, but at least I feel manageable. Yesterday was just horrible. Bad day at work on top of how I felt. I think it's because I didn't eat enough yesterday. A few cups of coffee and a PayDay candybar is all that had made it into my stomach until 9 o'clock. I need to get on a real diet. Not this not eating very much diet. I find myself hungry and tired all the time. I have a friend encouraging me to do weight watchers. I tried Atkins once before and it made me feel all weird after a while. The South Beach diet seems too expensive, and I don't want to have to buy another book. I can get all the info for weight watchers for free. So maybe that's what I'll do. I think I'm chemically imbalanced inside or something. Things aren't clicking. And no, I don't mean a mental problem...I don't think. Just this feeling bad all the time. I take medicine for my thyroid. Something's wrong with my thyroid, just not sure what. It either produces too much or too little of something. It's a low dosage, though. I think the doctor needs to up it, if I ever make it back for more bloodwork. I just can't afford anything. Well, that's not true. Yeah, it is. It should be true, anyways. My parents would gladly pick up the tab if it meant making their baby boy feel better. I just won't tell them about the cd's and books and junk food that I buy...on rare occasion...um...Wait, they already know. They see the credit card bill. Anyways. I must be boring you to death. I'll send flowers to your funeral.

I guess I should pray about all these things I babble on about. I usually wait until I'm about to go to sleep to pray, which means I get halfway through the prayer before I fall asleep. Well, I say little prayers throughout the day, especially if I'm being tempted by evil or just having an all around humdinger like Saturday. But I have this concept in my mind that I must have this one big get together with God each day to lay it all out in the open. It's not a bad idea, really, but I understand that just before I go to sleep isn't the best time to do it. I try to keep a prayerful mind throughout the day, however, and I know God knows my every thought. So it's not like we don't keep in touch.

Later, Dude(tte)

No, they weren't Post-its

Work was horrible. I had to be there a few hours earlier than normal, so I didn't get any writing done. I didn't even finish my bible reading. The guy that was supposed to close didn't show up, and I was by myself most of the day. Being a Saturday at the Evil Empire, you can imagine my department looked pretty shabby trying to go it alone. I think management did a backflip. I had a bunch of stuff for the closer to do. Since he's new, I was leaving him the stuff he knew how to do. There's no such thing as learning on a Saturday or at the first of the month. But when he didn't show up, I ended up having to do all those things myself, which meant I didn't get anything else done in my final hours.

I started reading Romans today, which meant I went through 1:20. I had forgotten how important the surrounding verses are as well. I'm gonna get a shower and maybe see if I can't write a page or two before I hit the sack. Tomorrow's Sunday, so no writing.

I think I may have embarassed a co-worker today. And it would have to be the very girl who dominates my thoughts. She dropped something. It fell out of her work vest pockets. I was gonna be nice and pick it up for her. When I realized what it was, I refrained. "You dropped something," I said, and walked away. I realized later it would have been better to have not said anything at all, other than 'hello' or rather 'what's up' or 'que pasa'. She probably didn't think anything of it, though. She didn't act weird towards me the rest of the day or anything.

Anyways, later.

Final Act

I finished Acts today. Ready to get into Paul's letters. I like Paul's letters. He had a lot of awesome things to say. Though I wonder how many of his letters got lost or weren't included in the Bible. I didn't write a lick today. I felt bad all day for some reason. Really tired right now. I worked about five hours in my garden though. I feel a little better about it now. Not so many weeds choking my plants. I'm gonna have an awesome potato crop. Oh, the wonderful things God creates. It's back to work tomorrow. I better hit the sack. I was gonna write an ode, but I didn't feel like it. Maybe tomorrow. Sorry.

Secret Desires

Writing hasn't been so good the last couple of days. Less than four pages between yesterday and today. And today I had the day off. For some reason I never manage to get much done on my days off. Well, I was gonna work in my garden since it's becoming uncontrollable, but it was raining, so I slept in, then I goofed around and ate lunch and finally sat down and read my bible around 2 or so. I'm nearing the end of Acts. I'm still thinking and working on my little article on Acts 13:48 and Romans 1:20. And there's another verse in Acts. Acts 17:23, I think, that confirms Romans 1:20. Anyways, I've still been talking to people about it and reading different bible translations and praying about it. I'm not a preacher and I'm still fairly new to this getting into the meat of the word business, so I want to make sure I get things straight before I go through with this. And even then I'll present it to you with a disclaimer. I'm a timid fellow, but I'm learning to be bold in Christ.

Back to my writing. I haven't really felt bad that I've not written much. It seems the less that I write at a time, the more focused the writing is. I have a problem with generalizing scenes in the first draft rather than really hammering it out for all it's worth. That's why it's good for me not to know what's supposed to happen next. Because then I do a lot of hammering on the same nail, which gives me lots of options for the second draft. A few weeks ago, I wrote this scene just because I was trying to fill space that didn't really fit with the flow of the current action, but it turned into a great scene that has set up many other great scenes that I will eventually get to. In other words, you have to really search hard and poke and prod in some unexpected places to find the gemstones. If you just ruffle up the dirt as you zoom along, you're not likely to find many, which is what i've been doing on those days I whip out six or ten pages. Yeah, I wrote a lot and moved the story along quite a bit, but those little things that make a story nice aren't as present.

And blah, blah, blah. It's late. I'm tired. I've already written more in this post than I did on my novel today. I should be ashamed. But I'm not.

Descartes and Costello

I am not.

Not what?

I am not.

I don't think so.

God is.

God is what?

God is.

Yeah, I think so.

I am not, but God is.

You are.

No, I'm not.

Yes, you are.

God is.

Yes, He is.

The mountains, the seas, the stars.

He is.

But I am not.

Yes, you are because He is.

Lyrical Gangster

Not really. But I'm super tired tonight, so I'm going to take a crack at a short poem that may or may not rhyme about this girl I have alluded to.

Some 15 Billion people,
perhaps,
have lived,
between now and the past.

Each one,
at some point,
found love,
or were shunned.

I see it,
with her,
this potential,
for love.

For holding,
and caring,
and anger,
and tears.

I've sought,
reached out,
been shy,
been shunned.

I fear,
those feelings,
will tear me apart,
again.

The darkness,
that follows,
consumes me,
I can't see the light.

But there she is,
she's shining,
she's smiling,
So beautiful.

In her silence,
she has grace,
behind her eyes,
there is cunning.

Not for me,
I fear,
but I can't stop thinking,
I can't stop compromising my own hopes and dreams and desires to make this so.

Yeah, I told you I can't write poetry. I talked extensively again with my department manager. Again...maybe I never told you about the times we talked before. This is a different person than the one I told you about that had some weird ideas. I talked to my department manager for a goodish while. We can hardly work, we get so interested in our conversation. He's a cool guy. I felt bad for talking instead of working, so I forewent my first 15 minute break, so it was more like I only didn't work for five or six minutes, which is okay. I ended up making him late getting home, but I don't think he minded. He's going to send me some interesting stuff on numbers in the bible and how numbers unify the old and new testaments together. In exchange I'm gonna send him some of my wild and whacky story ideas to think on, see if he can help me focus the message I'm going to try and include into these stories.

Okay, okay. I finished chapter 17 on my novel this morning. By chapter I mean ten or twelve or so pages. Usually ten. I'm not sure how the chapters are actually gonna line up when I set out to do the second draft. Right now everything's pretty much a massive freewrite. I'm almost two-thirds of the way through the first draft. I got about five or six more major scenes before I can move into the last act. I'm probably going to end up making myself cry before I get to the end of this. And that's saying a lot since I didn't even cry when I watched The Passion of the Christ. But I was a different person back then. I used to be really cold. But now I try to let my spirit be free and abound with the rest of God's creation. But the writing's going good and the bible reading's going good. The only thing not going good is my job at the Evil Empire. But I'll never be happy at any job until I'm a full-time writer. Writing and yardwork are the only work related things that make me happy. Not sure why I like yardwork so much with my horrible allergies. But I do. I just love it with a sneeze and gallons of snot.

I apologize for that horrible poem. I should probably remove it, but I'm just too tired to be embarrassed about it right now. And I don't figure anybody reads this Blog anyways. So what's the difference.

The Answers To The Questions Nobody Even Wants To Know

After reading and rereading Acts 13:48, I finally bowed my head and prayed about it and asked God to explain the verse to me. And wouldn't you know, He did. Instantly thoughts began to fill my head, and there it was. I also asked a friend to read the verse and give me her take on it, and she brought up another angle to look at the verse with. Then I began thinking about Romans 1:20 and coupled it with Acts 13:48. So triple all of that with what my friend told me, and I've still got a lot of thinking and praying to do before I venture to explain anything to my fellow bloggers. But it all has to do with who can be saved, who will be saved, and why nobody will have an excuse as they stand before God as to why they did not accept salvation. So it'll probably be Thursday or Friday, or perhaps later, before I can push ahead with it.

I wrote about three or four pages this morning. I actually got started a lot sooner than I normally do. I actually stayed awake after the alarm woke me up the first time. I did my bible reading before I finished drinking my first mug of coffee. And I had taken my shower the night before, so that fifteen minutes was free and available. So here it is, half past nine or so, and I've got a solid two hours in which to write and two full scenes already planned in my head, but I only manged somewhere between three and four pages. On a normal morning I only sit down and write for about an hour and usually manage at least five pages. But in my defense, a storm passed through and I got all jittery. I wasn't scared. I love storms. But I guess that instinct to seek shelter crops up even though we're already perfectly sheltered. I was in a house, and I had easy access to a basement on the other side of the house. I could sit and stare at a tornado until it was a block away and still get to the basement in time. You would think the energy the storm gave me would boost my writing speed and I could whip out ten pages an hour. But I can't concentrate if I have too much energy. Writing isn't manual labor, unfortunately. If it were, I wouldn't have an ounce of body fat. You want some irony? In the very scene I was working on, it was beginning to storm just as it was beginning to storm in the real world. I guess that's irony. The whole point of the scene was that it was beginning to storm and my characters had to hasten what they were doing. I had written the beginning of that scene on Saturday, so it's not like the real storm influenced what I was writing. Coincidence more than irony. Though I suppose even a coincidence could be found ironic. Maybe irony isn't the word I'm looking for. Maybe it's some other word. My brain isn't working too well. I need to go to sleep.

I got a few new story ideas on the drive to work. One was for a murder mystery. I'm not big on murder mysteries. They're usually too predictable. And I have to think on them for a long time before I can even begin to write them because I want to see how I can make it not so predictable. The other one dealt with attempted suicide. I have a lot of story ideas that deal with attempted suicide. Suicide is a horrible thing. I had a sort of friend in college who was potentially suicidal. She was always depressed and always talking that way. And it seems like once she made some comment about wanting to kill herself, and one of us, it may have been me but I don't think it was, told her to just go ahead. She didn't. But, man, if that had been the feather on her back. It would have freaked us out. I think though that psychologists say that if someone is talking about committing suicide, then they're less likely to do it. They say that when someone is coming out of a depression and feeling good about themselves again, that's when they kill themselves. That's when they finally feel enough self worth to believe that it might actually mean something if they take their own life. See what I mean. Maybe not. I'm not sure what I mean half the time. I use all these suicide stories to portray the true meaning of life. Yes, I know the true meaning of life. I don't know the secret to life. But I know why we're here. I'll tell you about it later, though. It would be nice to back up this truth with some scripture. I know it's in there, but I don't remember where. Some of it I came up with on my own, or should I say under the influence of the Holy Spirit. But I often find that these things I thought I came up with on my own were already in the Bible, I just hadn't come across it yet. Romans 1:20 for example. Or I couldn't remember reading it. I've read all of the new testament a couple of times and a good portion of the old testament. Somewhere around a third of it. So if it's in the Bible, there's a fifty-fifty shot that I've read it at least once. I need to buckle down and work my way through the old testament. I need to read all the prophets for sure. I've read through, or skimmed through rather, the law of Moses and much of the purging of evil from the land and what not. I left of somewhere around Kings or Judges. It was a long time ago, though. There's a lot of wisdom in the old testament and it really helps you put the new testament into perspective. But a lot of it, about the first third or so, is really hard to swallow with all the laws and history. I really better be hitting the sack.

Chosen, Appointed, Ordained for Eternal Life

Acts 13:48. Read that verse and tell me what you think it means. I read it in five different versions. I'll talk more on it later, but I took my contacts out, so I can barely see what I'm writing now. (Please excuse all typos and misspellings.)

I didn't write any today, like I said before, because it's Sunday. Today was our company picnic. I didn't join the festivities, however I did nab a few hotdogs on my lunch break as they were wrapping things up. So that was good. I did get a few ideas for stories bouncing around my head that I had to jot down. In fact, there's one bouncing around my head right now that I just got as I was taking a shower a few minutes ago. I need to write down before I forget it...just a sec...

Okay, I'm back. Sorry about that. Funny thing, though, about that story idea I just wrote down. As I was writing it down, I saw how it relates to the scripture I just ask everybody to read. Perhaps God's way of showing me the answers to the questions I have about that verse. Yes, probably so. Anyways, I'm getting tired of leaning up so close to the computer screen so I can see what I'm typing. Back to work on my novel in the morning. Pray it goes well.

I saw her smile, but it wasn't for me

That's a no go for launch, Houston. But that's cool. I made a promise to myself a long time ago that I would never compromise the truth I felt in my heart to requite my loneliness, yet I've broken that promise time and time again to my own destruction. No point in doing that again. This time, as I should have done those times before, I'll just close my eyes and let God do what He will. It's the only true way to live. And I still haven't fully recovered from the last mess that I made for myself. I apologize if this all sounds cryptic.

Sorry, no poems or song verse today. Too tired.

I wrote about two pages today. Not much, but I took another step. That's what's important. I'm pretty firm on the next couple of scenes, though I've learned that the writing always comes the hardest when I know what I want to write about. My brain is so uber creative that it pouts like a child when I have plans for it. It also gets cranky when it doesn't get enough sleep. Or too much sleep. Anything around 7.5 or 8.5 hours, and I'm cool. Anything below or above that and I can't focus. Too much sleep is worse than too little. I can sleep for 14 hours at a time if nobody bothers me. I'm worthless the rest of the day, however. My favorite part of sleep is the last hour or so when I go in and out of the dream stage and slight consciousness. This is when I really get to feel my body resting. I just love it. Maybe this is what heaven will feel like. This perfect rested feeling. And peace and serenity, of course.

Wow, I got another person to read one of my old stories and they said they liked it. And I think they really did. They didn't just say they liked it so my feelings wouldn't be hurt. They went on to say why they liked it and the particular parts they enjoyed. So that was cool. And today I got into much discussion about Christianity with a co-worker. He says he's a Christian, and I have no right to decide if he is or isn't. But he's got some strange ideas. And he couldn't offer any scripture to back it up because he says he doesn't believe he has to study his bible. You can be saved and go to heaven and enter into God's glory without reading your bible day and night, but it can sure help you get through the rough times we have on this Earth. We didn't get to finish our discussion because a co-manager (one step below the store manager), came barging in telling us how bad the juice was looking on the floor (the sales floor, that is). I only took five minutes of my last 15 minute break to make up for it, so it was all good. I didn't cheat the company or anything. Well, maybe a little. Jesus, forgive me, for I have sinned. In Your precious name, Amen.

The time has come that I should sleep and dream and be refreshed. No writing tomorrow. It's Sunday. I do have to go to work, however. How I wish people wouldn't shop on Sundays. Tomorrow, please don't ask me why I wasn't at Church while you stand there with a shopping cart full of knick-knacks and other nothings. Don't preach in your sermon tomorrow about the importance of being in church and then head out to some restaurant to eat after the amen's and God bless you's have been said and reciprocated. Please don't condemn yourself with your own words.

Cupid, Among Other Things

I've had these lasts two days off, and I didn't write a word on the novel I've been working on for several months now. Usually, I feel bad when I waste away my days like this, getting nothing done. But this time I don't. It's not like I haven't done anything. I mowed my parents gargantuan lawn, and I mowed and trimmed my brother's lawn. I mowed them on a riding lawnmower, so all I really had to do was steer. And I love to weed-eat (trim). Don't ask me why. I suppose the heat and humidity have taken their toll on me, however.

I read about five chapters in Acts today. I read the part where Gamaliel, Pharisee and expert in religious law, confronted the council about prior religious movements and how when their leaders died, the followers went their separate ways. He said if this current movement with Jesus wasn't from God, then Jesus's followers would soon lose their interest and go away. But if they didn't, then it was truly from God, and the council would be fighting against God Himself. I thought that was cool. I had wondered if other people who knew the scriptures had claimed to be the messiah prior to Jesus. And I know I've read through Acts at least two times, but I didn't catch it. Just another example of why we need to read and reread our bible over and over again. There are so many things we miss or simply don't understand the first or second or third time through that we may catch the fourth or fifth or sixth time through. I think a lot of it has to do with our maturity as we age and our maturity as we continue to grow in Christ.

I also read the part where Ananias and Sapphira both died for lying about how much they sold a field for. Peter clearly pointed out that it wasn't because they only gave half of the money they sold the field for. He said that they didn't have to sell the field and give the money to the church in the first place, if they didn't want to. But they lied and said they gave the full amount so people would think more highly of them among the church. You know, if God struck down every person that did something falsely to receive praise from their fellow church members, the memberships of the churches today would probably be cut in half.

And, of course, I read through Paul's conversion. You probably won't find a better example of how God can use even the most loathsome people to do his will. Paul refers to himself in some of his letters as the chief sinner. If you think you've sinned too much for Jesus to save you, you're wrong. There's only one unforgivable sin--blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. If your afraid that you might have accidentally committed this sin, don't worry. You haven't. It's a very deliberate sin, and you have to be fully aware of what you're doing to commit it. And if you've committed it, you don't care. You're glad you did it. And you fully understand that you have forever separated yourself from God and are damned to life in hell. You know this, and you still don't care. If you're worried about it, then you've already proven your innocence. So sleep easy tonight, dear child.

Well, it's back to the grind tomorrow. I've done messed myself up by deciding that I like a girl at work. I don't know why I like her. There's no rhyme or reason for it. There's plenty of girls there to be liked. But my heart decided, for now at least, that this is the one that will dominate my thoughts. I'll probably never say anything to her about the way I feel. I may pass a word or two with her as I had been doing before I decided that I liked her. Except this time I'll feel a tingle in my stomach and wonder if my words were as cool and suave as I want them to be. They usually aren't. I usually think of the perfect thing to say, but it doesn't come out right. These feelings will pass as they usually do. I'll find out that she's married (though I don't see a ring, but who wears their ring to a job that requires manual labor), or she's got kids (which I seem to think I caught the tail end of a conversation in which I got the impression that she might have kids. Nothing against kids or unmarried women who have them. Do not judge, lest ye be judged. But I had always had the feeling that if I ever had a family, I would start fresh.) Eventually I find these things out without saying a word to the girl in question or her immediate co-workers. I'm like this silent, patient investigator that never asks any questions. More like an undercover agent careful not to be exposed. It's a pathetic way I have about me, and I fully understand that it hinders me from having the things I may desire. But God made me this way for a reason. So I shall not question it. Ask and ye shall receive. If God wills it, then it shall be.

Maybe tomorrow I'll write a poem, or some song lyrics. Depends on how the day goes, I guess.

Gone With The Wind

Read the fine print, folks. I didn't realize I wasn't allowed to click on any of the ads that Google sent me through their Adsense program, so they disabled my account. So that means I won't get the fifty bucks or so I had coming to me. That's just as well. I was considering dropping the ads anyways because of some of the anti-Christian content. It had been weighing on my mind, so God lifted the burden.

I'm gonna try to start posting daily. I've probably said this before. But now I'm really gonna try. I'm just gonna post a bit of what's on my mind each night before I go to bed. A lot of it will probably be about writing, since that's what dominates my thoughts most of the time. Christian writing, to be more exact, since that's all I write these days. If I'm thinking of a story, I'm thinking of how I can include God's message into it. I'll post a lot about my thoughts on what I read in my bible each morning, if anything particular strikes me and inspires me, which happens a lot. I enjoy my bible reading time. I used to have a difficult time reading my bible. I used to read the King James Version and the New International Version and the New American Standard Version. In some of Paul's letters, I can't remember where...probably Romans or 1st Corinthians, I couldn't understand what Paul was getting at. I read through those three editions and studied those same verses and just couldn't quite grasp Paul's meaning. Then my oldest brother brought over the New Living Translation that his mother-in-law had bought by accident. It was so clear and understandable. It made things I had been troubled over for years make perfect sense. See, what they did was take all the manuscripts still in existence from the original Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic and commissioned a team of bible scholars and language scholars and translation specialists and what not and really came up with the most accurate meanings and translations that they could. I know the NIV did something similar, but it's still hard to follow sometimes. Anyways, I decided to get my own NLT, and when I finally found a bookstore that had it, I discovered that the NLT people had taken an extra eight years to do more research to be sure of the accuracy of their translation. If you have trouble with all these other translations, I would recommend picking up a copy of the NLT Study Bible. I like to keep all the different versions I can for reference, but I've found the NLT the easiest to read and understand and it has strengthened my walk with God tremendously. And The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren is a good read if you feel you've been lackadaisical in your Christian life. And I would particularly have you read the beatitudes that start in Matthew, Chapter 5, and run through Chapter 7, about a dozen times. Yes, read them over and over again until you absorb the full meaning of it all. Life can be difficult, but Jesus gives us no excuses for not following God's word because of what the world may do to us. For they hated the Master. How much more will they hate the servant.

Alright, so no more ads and many more posts. How's that for cake and ice cream.

True Writers

True writers write because they have to. Not for money or fame or admiration. We write because the desire burns within us and there's no other way to quench it but to write. True Christians serve Christ because there is no other way to live. We don't do it for money or fame or admiration. We serve God because our spirit yearns to be closer to Him. God gave me this talent to serve His will. He gives everyone a special talent to work for the benefit of His body of believers. If you think that you don't have a talent and feel worthless, you are wrong. You may not be a writer or a musician or an artist. You may not be a teacher or a leader. You may not be able to do anything that you think is important or worthwhile. But one thing anybody can do, no matter their skill or intelligence, is be a witness for Christ. You don't have to be able to write or speak eloquently to woo others to Christ. Simply live your life for Christ and His light will shine through you. Read your bible. Hide His word in your heart. Be kind and forgiving to everybody, especially your enemies. The world will hate you for His sake, but don't let that be a reason to compromise and give into the temptations of this world. We're here on this Earth for a short while. But eternity is forever. Your human brain can't comprehend eternity. If it could, this life would be little more than a passing thought. I must go now. I must write. I must use my writing as a testimony for Christ. I used to write for this world. I used to seek fame and fortune and admiration. But God didn't bless it. He was patient with me. He knew me before the creation of the world. He knew I would come around. He knew I would come back to Him. He was patient with me, so now I must be patient with Him. God exists outside the bounds of time. He created time. Generations pass by on this Earth when He blinks. I don't think God has eyes like we have eyes. We were made in His image. But I think that means His spiritual image. For a long time, I didn't understand that. Anyways...more tomorrow perhaps.