Viewer Discretion Advised

Hey, here is a change; a baseball related blogpost! A couple games ago Dewey was playing a really intense game against one of the better teams in the league when disaster stuck! Dewey was playing Shortstop (for those of you who don't know, that is a position in the middle of the infield) when a throw came to him from the pitcher. He was getting ready to catch it when a player from the opposite team (who was on the bases) ran in front of him causing him to lose sight of the ball. Right as the kid ran passed him the ball came right through and slammed Dewey right in the face (WOOHOO!). Dewey, being the tough guy that he is, was ready just to shake it off and keep playing, but then he started spitting blood so the umpire called time so that they could take a closer look at his face. What they saw was pretty gruesome. After a little on-field examination we discovered that the ball had lodged Dewey's braces in his lip and they had to be forcibly removed (Dewey's coach did the honors on that one). When we got the braces out of the way we surveyed the damage.... It wasn't a pretty sight. Here are a couple of pictures to show you what I mean. After we got home and everything was winding down, Dewey came out of the bathroom and was like "Hey mom, I think I lost a tooth". Yes, he had lost a tooth we made the confirmation the next day when we looked at his dental records, thankfully it was a baby tooth. So, yeah, if you ever hear anyone saying baseball is a sissy sport, remember this post.

Cause Life's Too Short

Over this past week I have come to realize that life is too short, God it too good, and I do not have enough energy to live my life caring about what what people think of me. My very very good friend Jonathan Stemberger and I spent the week backpacking around Ormond Beach and Holly Hill, visiting friends, reaching out to people, and getting extremely strong shoulder muscles. As you all know it rained this week in a way that it has not rained since Noah and The Flood. Yes, Jonathan and I were walking in that. It was a cold, rainy, windy week of walking, but I would not trade the time we had for anything. Jonathan and I started our "Grand Adventure" on Monday morning when we walked to our good friend's the Baloa's house. That first day was probably the hardest for us, because we were pretty unprepared for what the weather was throwing at us. We got a lot of our stuff wet, even though I had a poncho and Jonathan had a couple garbage bags covering his stuff. We were completely soaked head to toe by the end of the day and when we arrived at the Baloas and we both got hot showers and got into dry clothes both Jonathan and I agreed that showers had never felt so good. The second day we had gotten just a little bit wiser and so when we walked to the Dunlop's house (which was only about 1/2 mile)we had all of our gear completely covered and protected. Since it was so close to the Baloa's house we dropped off our bags and just headed out to do some evangelizing. Our main thing with evangelizing was getting people to talk to us by using a survey on the "Impact of Religious Expression In A Free Society". I am writing a Sociology paper so my mom thought it would be a good idea to survey people on what they believe as a lead in to sharing the gospel. So the first thing we did on the second day was go to Office Depot to get our survey laminated, which paid off in a HUGE way because on the first day three of our copies had already been claimed by the rain. So after that we headed to the Ormond Library to survey people. We used the library as our central spot through the whole trip because it was really close to the middle of everywhere we were going. Talking to people at the library was a very fun experience for me, but it was very enlightening and eye-opening as well. As the title of this post reads: Life it too short. At the start of the surveying process I was very hesitant about talking to people, because of what they would think of me, I mean god forbid they think I am some kind of weird Christian guy right?!?!?!? It was totally absurd to be worried about something like that, but I was and thankfully God changed my heart by showing me that life is too short and he has done too much for me to be worried about what other people think of me. After I got over being a total idiot the talking to people and reaching out to people became so much easier, Jonathan and I even prayed for two complete strangers who were having some relationship issues, and it was just because Jonathan said "Hey, I think God wants us to pray for them" and he was right. It was totally amazing how God worked on my heart through this past week. The rest of the week we spent one night with the Smiths, the Urquharts, the Moores, and finally Jesse and Tiffany Jarvis. All of our host families were so gracious and welcoming. Every family we stayed with opened up their houses to us and made us feel like we were completely at home. Thank you all so much! I don't know how many of you will read this, but I just wanted to make mention of it anyway. God also used this week to really build Jonathan and my friendship. While we were walking in the cold, wet, windy weather we had a lot of time to talk and really just get to know each other better (maybe even a little more than we wanted to) lol. Seriously though, whether it was just walking along in the pouring rain singing songs and talking about how God is working in our lives or walking over the Grenada bridge screaming "GOD IS BIG! HE'S REALLY REALLY BIG!" at the top of our lungs God used this trip to make Joanthan and my relationship even stronger than when we had started. In closing I would just like to encourage any of you who read this unusually long post. Don't be afraid to talk to people and don't be ashamed of God. If you are trusting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior then you are carrying the news that the ENTIRE WORLD wants to hear! "JESUS LOVES THEM!" Even if they don't want to admit it, they do and that is another thing this trip has taught me; there are SO many people out there that are searching, looking, yearning, and dying to hear that they are loved and that they can have peace. So many people out there do not know the peace that you you know if you are trusting in Jesus as your savior. And let me tell you, just from what I saw in ONE WEEK of talking to people, it is a very uncertain and hopeless life if you are not trusting in Jesus. So please "Live the Commission", I am not saying go hiking all over your hometown talking to people, but wherever you go if you feel like there is ANY WAY you can reach out to some one DO IT! Ok, thank you for reading.

...And The Holy Spirit

Most of you (if not all) know what the Holy Trinity is: The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit. If you are a Christian than you know all about The Father (God) and The Son (Jesus Christ), but I think that there are a fair amount of Christians out there that do not know a lot about the third member of the Trinity...The Holy Spirit. I will tell you, that before last Saturday I did not know too much about the holy Spirit either. I knew that the it was part of the Trinity and that Jesus had sent it to Christians to be a "Helper", but other than that I did not know anything whatsoever about it's purpose or it's role in a Christian's life. That all changed last Saturday when I attended the Mission X Training Day at Metro Life Church in Orlando. The Training day was excellent, the teaching was amazing, the questions I had coming into it were all answered, and it was an awesome time of fellowship and worship. After the Training Day though, came Deluge (Metro's Youth Group meeting). Deluge was led by Jesse Phillips and his message was great, but it was what happened after the message that was the highlight for me. After the message was over and we were closing in worship Mr.Phillips came up and asked if anyone wanted to be baptized with the Holy Spirit. I went forward not really knowing what to expect, because I knew so little about the Holy Spirit and what it's purpose was. Thankfully Mr. Phillips separated the people who came forward into two groups-those who had already been baptized and wanted to be refreshed, and those who hadn't been baptized yet. While we were being prayed for Mr. Phillips all of the people who were being baptized for the first time to go to another room so that he could discuss it more in depth with us. So while we went into another room the rest of the people finished up the worship and concluded Deluge. When we got to the room we were a fairly small group of maybe 15 to 20 people (that includes the people who came to pray for those who were being baptized). Mr. Phillips started out by just giving us all a "rundown" of what being baptized with the Holy Spirit means and what will happen once we are. After that was done people began praying for all of us who had come forward to be baptized. What followed was by far the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me. People were praying, singing, prophesying, speaking in tongues, crying, and laughing. There was such a strong presence of the Holy Spirit there that night that you would have to have been there to understand what I mean. I don't mean to sounds cliche in saying this, but the way I felt that night was so amazing I wanted it never to end. I was filled with so much faith that night, faith, that I had never experienced before and it was amazing to feel. We were in that room for about an hour and a half just feeling the holy Spirit move amongst us in ways that would make even the most hardened atheist believe there is a God. I can't describe it any better than that, any words I try to use just don't seem to do it justice. I will say that it was the most amazing experience of my life and I will NEVER forget it. If you want to have an unforgettable experience I suggest you try getting baptized with the Holy Spirit :). Thanks for reading.

Uncertainty.......

Some of y'all may know (maybe all of you) that I am currently not playing on a baseball team, and I haven't been for the past few months. And let me tell you, not playing on a team and not getting to play actual games against real competition will take a toll on your playing skills. Thankfully, I have been able to stay in shape by throwing regularly, working out at the YMCA, and taking pitching lessons from my friend and coach Andrew Brown, who is also a professional baseball player. Even with all that I have been able to do to stay in shape there really is nothing that can take the place of being on a team and competing against another team. With that being said I will get on with this. In the last couple of weeks I have been feeling more and more anxious about getting on a team so I can get back to competing. I am an extremely competitive person so not being able to compete for so long has made me very restless. I started doubting whether baseball was the right path for me to take in life and I started praying for God to show me what his will is for me. I was getting pretty depressed because it seemed like every option I had for getting on a high school team or even a good traveling team was not going to work. Then, about 4 weeks ago, I got an e-mail from a friend telling me that they had been praying for me and that they felt that God was going to open up a door for me to continue playing baseball. I felt encouraged and I thanked them for their prayers and for the encouragement. Then I started looking for "the door" that God was going to open. It didn't happen. After a couple of weeks I still had not seen or heard anything and I was becoming discouraged. Then last Saturday we had the Wigles and Rachel, and Danielle Macmichael down to watch my little brother's games. The day was tons of fun, just hanging out, wathcing baseball games, and enjoying eachothers company. When they were getting ready to head home Mr. Wigle and I started talking and he told me that he felt like God was going to open up a door for me, and that I just need to trust Him to do it. So, I came home that night and I was thinking about it all and I realized that I really had not been trusting God, I had just been expecting him to "do something". The next day was Sunday (obviously) and when we were worshiping at church one of the songs we sang was the one that goes: "No one who's hope is in you will ever be put to shame. That's why my eyes are on you, Oh Lord." I was really affected by the words of that song and I realized that if I am trusting in Him and my hope is in Him I will NEVER be put to shame. I know that God was behind all of these events and he has really shown me that I need to trust Him more. Just to let you know, I am still not sure about what is going to happen with my baseball situation, but I am trusing God so what I do have is an amazing peace. I know some of you out there probably have trouble with trusting God sometimes too, so I thought I would share this with you. And I have a little bit of a revalation for you: Maybe God does things like this to get us to trust Him more! It is so obvious, but so profound and I think that might be what He is doing with me. Thanks for reading.

When you just don't got it......

You know that feeling when you are about to do something, that requires effort and concentration, and you feel like "it" just is not there? Whatever that "it" is, if it isn't there you just do not want to do what ever it is that you were going to do. Well, that is what has been happening with me. I must have started about 4 new posts, but I deleted them all, becasue I only got about one sentence into each of them and saw that I was writing a bunch of gibberish. So, I apologize for the lack of posting in the last week or so, but please understand that I did not post because I was thinking of all you. Cause, if I would have posted those posts that I started writing, as soon as you started reading them you all would probably start to have migraines instantaneously. So, again, I apologize for not posting in a while, but now you know why and now you can be thankful I didn't. So, please be patient as I wait for my "writing genius" to find it's way back to my mind.

T.O.A.D.

Taylor, Owen, Andrew, and Daniel. Those are the people who make up T.O.A.D. A little while ago (I think when we were supposed to be doing school) one of us pointed out that if you took the first letter from each of our names and put them together it made the word "TOAD". Shortly after that, one of us was stuck with the genius idea that all four of us should start a business together and name it "T.O.A.D. Incorporated". We only said it as a joke, but after some of the stuff we have done together I don't think we would have any problem getting a business going. Allow me to explain what I am talking about. Today we did one of the biggest "yard work" days of our lives and I am not exaggerating when I say that. We started off with trimming a bunch of the trees in our yard and then piling the debris at the edge of the road. Well, I have no problem doing some trimming cause that means I get to play with my ol' buddy the chainsaw. If you haven't ever used a chainsaw before then you just can't understand how much fun they are. So just take my word for it, they are fun! After I had cut up all of the stuff I needed to, we piled it down at the side of the road. There were three piles (pretty big ones) and there were three trashcans full of the stuff we had cut up and cleared out. Now, if you are thinking "Ok big whoop" just keep reading, because that wasn't the half of it. I forgot to mention that 3 days ago we had made the preparations for this project by weeding all of my mom's flower beds. If you have been to our house then you know that that is no small deal, anyway back to the story. After we had piled all the debris down at the road we had to clear the driveway (that means cars too). The reason we had to clear off the driveway was because a guy in a dumptruck came and dumped 5 yards of mulch in it. Oh, and just an FYI for those of you who don't know, they measure mulch in "cubic" yards. So, after all the trimming we got 5 cubic yards of mulch dumped in our driveway. Now, for normal people that would take like 5 hours to spread, but between Owen, Andrew, Daniel, and myself we got it all spread in 2 1/2 hours........Oh yeah! We're the bomb! I apologize if it seems like I am bragging about how well my little bros and I work, but that's exactly what I am doing :D.

Smiles All Around :)

A smile....... It is amazing how much this small little facial expression tells about us as a person. Personally I think God wants us to smile as often as possible. I partly came to this conclusion when I realized that when I am trying to look "serious" I look like a complete idiot. Now, I am not saying we should all go around grinning like Garfield, but I think as Christians we have something to smile about and we should more often than we do. I am also convinced that God wants us to smile because he designed us so that it takes 28 muscles to frown and 21 muscles to smile (or so I have heard). So when you smile you are conserving energy! How about that for "Going Green"?! I realize that there are those out there who have got the "serious" look down (and I envy you), but as Christians we have something to smile about don't we? I have nothing against being serious and don't have anything against people who are of a more serious demeanor. On the contrary there are times when you need to be serious, but I do want to encourage us all to smile on as many occasions as it is appropriate. Ok, what I am getting at here is that there is a very sad, lonely, depressed, and lost world out there that is looking for something to satisfy them. They go to any and every extreme to find something that will satisfy them, and we (Christians) have the one and only thing that CAN satisfy them. But how can they see the difference between us and the rest of the world if we are walking around wearing frowns like the rest of the world? I don't mean to sound preachy, but the bible says that we are "to let our light shine". Have you ever met someone who's smile just makes the place light up? Smiles can say a lot more than we think and I think we need to give those muscles a little more exercise. My favorite band, Kutless, has a song that is called Smile and the song is all about how much a smile can say about us as people and how much of an effect it can have on others. If you get the chance I would encourage you all to listen to it. Until next time. Smile!