I'm Going to Miss This....

Let's face it.  Williams Baptist College might just be the greatest place on earth.  There may be more love here in the middle of this rice field than I have ever seen or even dreamed of feeling.  I am going to miss it like crazy.  It is not many places that you meet friends that pray for you, pray with you, sing songs with you, laugh, cry, and act like idiots with you.  Ah, but I can't stay here forever.  I can't.  It just isn't possible.  But, in memoriam here are some things I am going to miss:

Theses guys are pretty great.  I love them a whole lot.  Who knew you could have that much personality at ten or eleven.  If I could pick out someone who has taught me the most in the past year it would probably be these kiddos.  They have so much passion.  Talk about from the overflow of the mouth the heart speaks...these guys and some other pretty great kiddos I know have the most amazing hearts I have ever seen.  I am going to miss them like crazy, but I am going to pray for them everyday because if anyone is going to change the world, it'll be them.  

Freshman year we wrote a letter to ourselves that asked a bunch of questions about the future and about now.  When it asked who my best friends were....I wrote these ladies.  Duh!  They are pretty great and I love them with everything I am.  I am going to miss seeing them on my trips home.  And most of all?  Well, Maggie the one with the big smile there in the middle...she's making me an uncle (again).  Uncle Will is going to not be happy about seeing that precious little girl growing inside of her....but you better tell me about her! And you best send pictures.

 Talk about seeing Christ in others?  Jesus shines so brightly through these fellas that you almost miss how darn good looking they are.  Gosh,  they have absolutely beautiful hearts.  They speak endless amounts of truth and love to me.  I don't know what I am going to do without them.  Well, thank God for modern technology, because I am not going to have to go too long without talking to them.  They are wonderful.  And will all be famous.  You will be reading there books.  I will get advanced copies....because well, I knew them when they were little people.  I love you, brothers.

Gosh, this guys is pretty great.  He is well, one of my very best friends.  I couldn't lie to him if I tried and you know what I wouldn't have to, because I can't think of anything I could do that would make him stop being my friend.  I may meet new friends in Waco....but we are skyping.  And you best answer your phone every once in a while.  

 Hannah Kate this cutie and her little bro Eli Carter are going to make me sad.  They are going to grow so much in the next few years.  I am going to miss a lot.  But they are phone talkers and there mommy better send me some pictures of them.

Oh my gosh I love these people.  They are freaking hilarious.  I love getting to be hilarious with them.  And I wouldn't be the Will you know, love, and may hate today if it weren't for them.  They are some kind of wonderful.  And whether I was Charlie Brown or a beat up or paralyzed man getting stepped on I will miss all of your faces and laughing at you and with you.



This girl is pretty special.  She is one of my favorite people in the world.  No matter what, I can talk to her.  She shows so much love to so many people.  She is passionate, she loves Jesus and shows it.  She is just simply precious and I also place that title best friend on her.  She's getting married this summer.  And she is going to be an awesome wife and minister.  Did I mention her husband to be is a soccer coach, rock that minivan, soccer mom.



Want to meet some really cool church ladies?  I know four of them that are awesome!  I seriously might have died of too much cafeteria food and might have had to sleep on the streets during breaks if it weren't for these ladies (and their families) and how well they've take care of me.  Notice also, Lori, Steph, and Chrissy are rockin some OMC shirts...best camp moms ever.  Hannah is going to follow soon!



These people are special because two of them gave me life.  Two of them lived in a house with me for eighteenish years and one of them married my sister (he is a saint :) )  I am going to miss them.  They are really the best family a guy could ask for.  They love me, I love them.  We are pretty good looking too if I might add.  I love you guys.

Keeping My Head Above Water

I am just keeping my head above water theses days.  Simply trying to to you know get the next thing on.  Things like singing in front of people, preaching a sermon on Sunday morning, and picking up my cap and gown haven't made me sad, nostalgic, or induced vomiting.  I am just doing what I know to do.  And what is that?  Certainly, to keep going.  To live for right now and do what's next when it happens.  WHO AM I?  I am not even incredibly sad at the moment to leave Williams.  I love here.  I am WBC's biggest fan.  I freaking love it.  It is just time for next.  It's not like I am losing friends.  I have great ones, they will still be great we will just not see each other every day (and some of them are getting married).  I need to get a meningitis vaccination.  Random, but I do.  I am very tired.  I just want to rest.  Then, 10 weeks of crazy awesomeness awaits.  Then, rent.  And a job, that I don't have yet.  And graduate school 120 hours of it.  And all that...it doesn't scare me.  It makes me incredibly happy to see what's next.

Grace blogged about girl stuff.  Go read it.  She's funny.
Jon didn't blog.  He needs to.
On the CK blog there are some fun games I am going to try out this week with my kiddos.
I have found all these hilarious blogs that all these moms write.  I need a witty and funny dad to write a blog about his family.  Maybe I'll do that someday.

I Sin Too

Yep.  In case you didn't know already....I am a sinner.  Like a class A sinner.  I pretty much suck at life a majority of the time.  I mess up.  The same junk over and over again....and you know what?  My God still loves me.  Even though a majority of the time my prayers are thrown up to him in desperation and times of need instead of daily and in the mundane.  I am self absorbed a majority of the time and even try to mold my relationships and friendships to gratify and please myself.  I am the most undisciplined person in the world.  I have had the idea to start working out and running....for four years.  Now I am fat and have love handles...good.  I read my Bible consistently for you know about a week sometimes two and then forget it exists for about three.  I am a major, major screw up.

Saying that, I was pretty ticked at Mr. Bobby Petrino.  He messed up big time.  You know the details.  He cheated, hired his mistress, gave her money, lied about it afterward.  Honestly, the man deserved to be fired.  But, I beg the question...who of us deserves the same fate?  Y'all I may not be shacking it up with some engaged chick, but I do some pretty awful things.  I was really convicted of that last night when my good friend Jon wrote a tweet about how he forgives Petrino and his sins are no worse than the one's he commits.  I'll be honest, Jon, if you are reading this....I thought come on, buddy the guy screwed up.  He deserved it.  I screw up though....what punishment do I deserve?

This is a cry for discipline and spiritual growth.  For accountability from friends.  For a return to the joy of my salvation.  I am sinking.  I am content with the sinking now....which is sad, but very soon I won't be.  I'll be in a bad place.  It will probably happen you know early June when I will be charged with teaching a gospel to children that I haven't been living out.

Saying that, I despise hypocrites. I hate them even.  Well, I guess I hate myself then.  Because I live lies everyday.

 Lord, forgive me.  Give me clean hands and discipline your child.

Amen.

Washed

A verse that has impacted my life so much in the last year came up in class today.  2 Corinthians 6:11: "And such were some of you, but you have been washed, you have been sanctified, you have been justified in the name of Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."  I get so caught up and enslaved to sin.  I get caught up in justifying my sin.  I get caught up in the struggle of what it means to do right and what it is to do wrong.  You see, this verse tells me that Christ is bigger than all that.  You see, 1 Corinthians 6 says that everything is permissible for us, but not everything is beneficial.  In other words, we can do whatever in theory because it has already been forgiven, but that is rubbish Paul says.  You see because we are different than that.  We don't want to be part of that slavery.  We are free.  We are not fornicators, homosexuals, or swindlers.....we are washed.  We are being washed.  So, a new desire should come into our hearts not to please or gratify self, but rather to please and gratify Christ.  

More later.

Four weeks.

And I graduate. 

7ish weeks and I will be at camp.

Time flies.

Today I Don't Know

I hate questions.  Well, let me rephrase that.  I hate questions I don't know the answer to.  Mostly, I hate questions I thought I knew the answer to, but then I see something that may change my mind.  I hate not being able to stick to my guns and live what I think is truth, when I don't always know what truth is.  Especially when those questions, the ones I don't know the answers to, eat at the very center of who I am.  They effect everything my relationship with God, my relationship with others, how I display God's love, EVERYTHING.  I know truth lies in God.  But, I am sacred.  I am scared of what the truth is.  Because essentially there are only two options and frankly I don't like either one of them.  AT ALL.  I am a know it all.  You know that.  I hate that about myself, but its true.  I like to pretend I have it all together.  But, you know I don't.  You really know I am a mess.  I asked God in my prayers at the beginning of this semester to change me, to grow me.  I realize now that's what he's trying to do.  I have to submit to that growth though.  I have submit to that change.  I have to allow that change to happen and foster an environment for that change.  Sometimes change brings challenges in the way I think and the method I use to make decisions, none of which are bad...if God is at the center of them.  That's where I'll start.