I am halfway through the semester now. This semester has been a trip for me, since like most years, this year is completely different than the last one. As i get older, each year, there is more i am required to do in order to responsibly exist while in pursuit of something else. To update you on my life, i should probably list out what i am pursuing: Finishing up my degree, a recently started, as in 7 week ago, relationship, and looking into how to start a career in full time vocational ministry. Now, to explain how all this has been going and where it has carried me.

To start, my degree. I will be finishing up, hopefully, in august with my B.S. in Psychology. I graduated early from highschool and am graduating early from college. The issue i am running into over and over again is my age. most of the positions i would be able to go into with my B.S. are research based and that is the opposite end of what i want to go into. Straight out of college it is looking like i will be going to get my license as a child life specialist. Basically that allows me to work with children, particularly in hospitals, counseling, guiding, and simply listening and brokering their needs out. the starting salary is upwards of 30,000 a year. not bad for a 20 something guy with an undergrad. considering i make my way on 400 a month, this is a nice upgrade. Honestly, i do not give a damn about the money, but this makes me more capable to give, provide, and build community. i do believe that there are people called to make money so they can provide for Jesus's body, the church. Everything takes money and for one person to actually get into ministry, there is a multitude of people who need to support the one guy crazy enough to actually take on the role of pushing people to jesus and attacking anything that is driving God's children away from Jesus.

Next, the relationship. I am dating a fantastic girl named Ellen. I started of by writing her and now i am dating her. She give me grace and as much as she knows how, she takes care of me. Me being stubborn, as you know, red, i am not easy to take care of at times. well, all the time. Relationships take everything you believe and hold up a mirror to your face and screams, " do you really believe this is true?" The simple questions the gospel presents like: " who is jesus, what is grace, are you forgiven, ect" are all mirrored in relationships. I struggle with accepting grace, since i have been the worst of people. yet God has called me to serve. telling ellen i had been the worst of the worst was one of the things that stirred my insecurities and let them run rampant. However, that is one of the questions that i had to answer through confronting my disbelief and lack of application in the trueness of the gospel. I mean, ask yourself the question, " who am i to jesus. who does jesus say i am?" after answering that, tell me it does not change how you will act and treat your other in whatever relationship you are in. i do not believe you can say the answer you present does not change how you are in relationships.

finally, i finally stopped fighting God in the area of ministering. God finally broke me will and i agreed to go into full time ministry. i swore, from the time i was a small child, i would never minister full time. I swore i would not and fought for that. in the end, i realized everything i pursue passionately is serving people, preaching, and just telling the simple truths of the gospel, which can be summed up in screwing yourself and living for a much more beautiful reality that is given to us. everything else is so utterly meaningless and i loose interest quickly. Even in counseling, you are bound by a code of non-religious ethics and regulations your have to consider out the wazoo. I am not very good at living inside boundries. The physical manifestation of being given the world comes out in my climbing everything, jumping off of anything jumpable, and making the world my playground. The more emotional and relational side comes out in there is very little i think and will not say. Mostly, everything goes back to a spiritual root and mending the broken relationship between us and our father. That is a relationship that heals us as it is mending. A good pastor will guide you in accepting the absolute power of jesus and guide you to faith in the love of your father. that is true healing, since it stops you from focusing on yourself and points you to love someone else. ( insert tangent)

I have been confronted with my sin. In the sense of i am being forced to no longer look or live in my sin, mostly past, any longer. Look at your sin to be moved to repentance, but gazed, long, and strive to walk in and look at the face of jesus and forget your sin. He ripped your burden off your own shoulders and placed it on His body. Guilt is gazing at your old wounds and mourning, joy is looking at the shoulders of Christ and seeing how he carried your sin to its completion and has placed you as a son of the father, and a brother to the king. you are no longer guilty, you are now a justified brother to the king. you are now a son of the loving father.

Red, i posted this blog for you, since i haven't been able to write back yet. i want you to know how i am doing and it is regrettable i have not had time to write. i have barely had time to eat each day. you are my brother. so, there will be a time for me to write. do know, you are not forgotten, rather missed. dear brother, you are redeemed.