A Light in a Very Dark Place

Hello, everyone. I hope you had a good Christmas. I can’t say it was the best of Christmases, but it probably wasn’t the worst either. It was different though. To be honest, I did feel depressed throughout most of the holiday. I’ve been fairly depressed for the whole last month now. The reason is that my grandma passed away the day after Thanksgiving, and I’ve been missing her terribly.

Every day I have some memory or thought of her pop into my mind. I find myself wishing I could talk to her one last time, or have one last cup of coffee with her, or spend one last family get-together with her, or take one last drive out in the country, or play one last game of rook, or be a kid again to spend the night with her one last time, or even just to hear her voice and see her smile again. I just wish she was still here so badly that it’s killing me inside.

So, that’s sort of where I’m at right now. I’m not doing too well. But I am trying to pull through and remember that death is not the end of one’s life, and that God still has plans to give me hope and a future. In the meantime, please pray for me and my family. I think we could all use a little extra praying for right now, and would great appreciate that.

Again, I hope all of you had a good Christmas. And in case I don’t get time to write again before the New Year, that you each have a good start to the New Year as well.

60 Minutes Looks for a Clue

I found this to be a really interesting video. I especially thought the whole notion of hormones at birth was intriguing. I've often wondered, as a gay man, whether or not being gay was due to some hormonal issues. I didn't see any proof in this video that that is indeed what causes homosexuality, but it does lend a person to wonder about it.

Remains of the Day

After reading a story about the Air Force dumping the remains of troops in a landfill in Virginia, I can't help but have no wonder at all as to why our country is falling apart. People just do not care and have no respect whatsoever for their fellow man anymore. Really, it is pathetic. These troops deserved so much better.

The Face of One Bullied

I saw this video a few minutes ago and thought it worth posting on my site. I really do feel for this young man. I feel sorrow and sadness, as well as compassion. As a teacher, it is my desire to help students like Jonah. No one deserves to be bullied. No one!

I pray Jonah and all those others like him will find some source of solace, and that they will have the strength to always keep marching forward, until the day they finally do reach that better place in life. And if you're one of those reading this now, I say to you, keep your chin up, know that there are people who do love and care about you (or will), and know that with time, things can and usually do get better. So, take hope in that. :)

Contentedness: Being Happy Without Everything You Ever Wanted

Rarely does anyone ever get everything they ever wanted in life. We all have our wants—those things we wish we could have, but don’t have. And this is the case for most of us throughout our entire lives. There will always be something we’d like to have. Certain things we may want very badly, maybe even to the point of losing sleep over, or becoming depressed or hopeless about. Maybe you’d like a home of your own, or a first car, or enough money to pay the bills and have some left over for a change, or a friend, or maybe even a family of your own. Some things to want in life can quite literally be that life changing that they can make all the difference in the world. Some things to want in life are for the good of others, too. Maybe you want someone’s health to improve, or for a friend to get a good job, or for a couple to have their first baby. Some things to want for others are noble and good intentioned, and for those others to get those things, it literally can be life changing for them. Other things, however, may not be so profound. Sometimes all we want are petty things that, even though we’d like to have them, we aren’t going to lose any sleep if we don’t get them. Maybe you want that new computer, or Kindle, or new purse, or new pair of jeans. These things just aren’t as life changing as the others, but we can still become consumed by our desires to get them.

But how do we handle not getting the things we want in life? Some people resort to thievery to get want they want. Some people get angry. They then resort to jealousy, complaining, blaming God, or maybe even doing something as drastic as committing murder. Some people just become sad and eventually lose hope. Some people keep their hope, knowing that they may, if not immediately, at some point be able to get what they want. And some people become constant worriers, always looking at how bad things can get if they don’t get everything they want, or looking at how bad things already are without having what they want. Then there are those that know, even if they don’t ever get this or that in life, they can still be happy without, and they live their lives each day knowing life can still be good with what they already have—these are the optimistic, hopeful, glass-is-half-full-no-matter-what kind of people. These are the sort we should all strive to be like.

We don’t have to have boyfriends or girlfriends to be happy. We don’t have to have wives or husbands to be happy. We don’t have to have our own children or grandchildren to be happy. We don’t have to have a thousand and one friends on Facebook to be happy. We don’t have to have the world’s best job, or the most secure job, to be happy. We don’t have to have the most expensive car to be happy. We don’t have to have a home of our own to be happy. We don’t have to win the lottery to be happy. We don’t have to have others smile, nod, and say “Good day” to us each day to be happy. We don’t have to be the center of attention to be happy. We don’t have to have the best health to be happy. We don’t have to have the new jacket at Penny’s to be happy. And we don’t have to have the new iphone to be happy. We don’t have to have most of the things we want in life in order to be happy, or to say that we indeed do have a good life.

The truth is that most things in life come and go. Sometimes we have a lot of what we want, and other times we have very little of what we want. But in all things, there is only truly one thing any of us can ever have and keep if we want it. We can all be saved through Christ. And through Christ, we can be happier, healthier, and more blessed than through obtaining anything else. We can be content with the things we do have, knowing that everything we have is a blessing and gift, and that we could always have so much less, no matter how much or how little we think we have (even if at times it seems like nothing at all).

Even if we don’t have all that we want in life, we can still be thankful for and happy about all that we do have. We can still be happy and content not having everything we ever wanted.

Halloween

I’ve always loved Halloween. There’s candy, dressing up, going trick-or-treating, carving jack-o-lanterns, going to parties, listening to spooky stories, watching scary movies, and it comes during my most favorite time of the year: Fall. It’s just always so much fun.

The other night, some of my family got together for a Halloween party. It was the first time many of us had been able to get together in months now. The biggest highlight of the evening turned out to be going on a town scavenger hunt. My brother and I came up with a list of places or things around town to have to take pictures of, only giving clues to each place or thing using the Halloween theme (such as the bank clock being called “A tick tock clock of doom”). We split the family into two groups and each group drove out town trying to find all the items on the list (my brother in one car and me in another—both refereeing in the event). It turned out to be one of the best times my family has ever had together. And, again, just another reason for why I love Halloween so much.

I realize that not everyone likes Halloween though. While subbing the other day, we had some time to pass in between lessons, and so I had the students make hand ghosts on a sheet of paper. At the top of the paper, students had to write “Happy Halloween”, and at the bottom they had to write their names. Most of the students seemed to really enjoy the activity. But I did have one student object, stating that her family doesn’t celebrate Halloween. I told her it was okay and that she didn’t have to participate. A few minutes later, she made a comment that people do bad things on Halloween and that Halloween was an evil holiday. She asked me about these things directly. I responded that, yes, some people do bad things on Halloween, but that most people just want to have fun out of it.

This all got me to thinking though. You know, here is a time when most people just want to have a good time—nothing evil intended out of it—and yet, this girl had it in her mind that nothing good could come of it. The thing is, people can make something bad even out of the best of things. People get drunk, commit suicide, covet, and do all sorts of bad things around Christmastime. Yet, this girl (and I’ll presume her family, too) probably doesn’t have a problem with Christmas at all.

Everything is what we make it to be. Something good can be turned into something evil. Something evil can be turned into something good. The point is to not go looking for the bad in everything, but to look for the good instead. I wish I could have told that little girl all this the other day. I respect her beliefs and those held by her family, but it really does annoy me when people want to look at Halloween as just a time for evil. It’s only a time of evil if you make it out to be.

Anyway, at least I’m glad it’s Halloween. So far it’s been great.

Happy Halloween, everyone! :)

Unfair: When Life Gives Us Lemons

A lot of things in life aren’t fair. It isn’t fair for a kind person to be belittled. It isn’t fair for a helpless child to be abused or neglected. It isn’t fair for a mentally challenged individual to be fooled, or deceived, into wrongdoing, or to be taken advantage of. It isn’t fair for a woman to lose her job because she wouldn’t put out to the boss at work. It isn’t fair for a gay high school student to be bullied into desperation. It isn’t fair for the athlete to be called dumb just because they are an athlete. It isn’t fair for the hard working individual to see their job go overseas just so the share holders of their company can save another couple millions on top of the billions they already get. It isn’t fair whenever a person buys a car and a few months later it becomes a complete lemon. It isn’t fair whenever two parents save money for years in order to help afford buying or building a new home and then they get screwed over by the banks and lose everything. It isn’t fair whenever a person gets lung cancer because they’ve been around secondhand smoke all their life. It isn’t fair whenever someone loses their spouse in a car wreck. It isn’t fair whenever your child develops leukemia and dies from it before the age of two. It isn’t fair whenever the best person for the job doesn’t get the job. It isn’t fair whenever a person exposes their own sin and is then shunned and belittled by the very Christians they sought out help from. It isn’t fair to be tempted by something so strongly that at times there doesn’t seem to be any relief from the temptations. It isn’t fair for a person who’s worked their whole life to see their pension be taken away. It isn’t fair for a woman who loves children to not be able to have children of her own. It isn’t fair for the father of a conceived child to have no right to stop the mother from having an abortion. It isn’t fair for a family to witness their home burn to the ground because of some electrician’s shoddy electrical work. And nor is it fair when you’re picked last for the team because you’re apparently “too smart”.

So much in life isn’t fair. We all get raw deals in life. Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people. None of it is fair. But that is just life. Life isn’t fair, or easy. There are always battles and struggles to have to go through. In all of it, we can make the decision to keep trudging forward to always try to do what is right, or we can decide to give in, give up, and fall to the wayside. How we act when life throws us lemons impacts each of us and those around us in so many profound ways.

Our resolve to keep trudging forward is what makes all the difference in the world. Our hope in good eventually outweighing evil, and God fulfilling the promises He has made to us, keeps us on a path that, even though it may seem harder at times to stay on, truly does lead us to a better place. When we keep our hope and keep our faith and keep moving forward no matter what life throws our way, we become the light of the world and victorious in Christ. Our lives will always be better, even if it seems harder at times and perhaps even less fulfilling at times, when we stay on course. And even though the journey may seem long and difficult, God will always be with us through whatever struggles we have. The devil would love for us to believe that God has abandoned us, forsaken us, deceived us, and/or left us for dead, but that will always ever only be the devil’s own doing—his way of trying to make us stumble, blame God, and to turn away from what we know is right and true. But if we resist him, and hold true to God and to what is right, in the end will we always be better off.

When life is unfair, it is hard not to complain, get angry, depressed, or fall off course. It seems so contradictory to try and do what is right only to get bad things in return. But we have to keep in mind, it is not God sending those lemons our way; it is the devil. We cannot ever forget that, or we will truly become lost. It is when those lemons are being hurled at us that we should hold on the strongest to what we know in our hearts is right; when we should turn to God and cling onto Him with every ounce of our being. And, if we do that, even though we may have some length of time struggling, He will always see us through to a better end than what we’d have with the alternative.