Where The Story Begins / Happy Anniversary To My Wife

Thank you faithful readers for following me and reading my blogs. This one is special, because today is a special day.
Throughout your life you have many moments that just stick with you for the rest of your life, moments that are memorable. Today will mark the day that a year ago I married the love of my life, my partner in crime. I remember watching her come down the aisle as her adopted father, a man I greatly look up to, walked her down the aisle. I remember holding her hands as we listened to our dear friend marry us, staring into her eyes, crying because she is crying and because of the moment.
Let's go back a little bit, only because there is so much more to this story, that has to do with my walk with Christ. If it wasn't for her I wouldn't be where I am. I tell her often. It is because of her that I know God. If it weren't for her I would be a part-part-time parent, letting my parents raise my daughter when she wasn't with her mother. I would be sitting on the computer playing World of Warcraft til like 3 in the morning, and getting up about 10 for work.
When I finally got out of the addiction of World of Warcraft, and yes, it is an addiction, I have seen it tear through relationships and marriages and witnessed myself what it did to me. I started looking online afterwards for companionship, and after many attempts I found my wife. We talked for a bit, she lived a bit of a way from me, but whenever I could I would go see her.  Some nights I would stay, go to church with her on Sundays, and that's when it started.
At church I always felt the pastor was talking to me. I always walked away with something, but I never really held onto it, but for that one day it would touch me. After about 3 months she broke up with me, complicated situation, she loved me, but in my opinion she was just afraid of what I was offering, because after 1 month I was ready to move in and start a life with her. I was moving too fast honestly, and I can admit that, it's what I did, all the time.
Before we broke up though we went to a day at the park called Willamette Celebration, where there were a bunch of stuff, stages and bands that were Christian. There even was a skate park set up and a bmx ramp set up where some Christian extreme sports people were showing off and preaching on Him. I was excited.
I started getting ideas that somehow, someway, I want to let youth know that God is much more than bible and church. I want to show them that there are rappers, rockers, skaters and other extreme sports. That is where my previous blog about my ideas came from.
All of that plus my want to become the leader of my household all started and continues to grow, because of my wife. She is my rock, the one that holds me down. We may argue, we may fight, do and say stupid things, but we love eachother no matter what. Through Christ we can do anything. Next blog I will write about a few things I am doing in my life to help me become a spiritual leader in my household.
Thank you all and God bless.



*Horrible ... I didn't get around to publishing this til now.. I did read it to my wife on the day of our anniversary*

Baptizem!!!!!

So, been gone for a long while, not gonna get into why, because for one, I would be repeating myself from previous posts, and two, today is a spectacular special day....


Many years ago, so long ago I don't even remember, sometime between age 8 and 13 I was baptized, sounds bad but the only way I can put it is I was forced to. I didn't fight it, so it does sound bad, but I got baptized because my dad wanted me baptized.  So now, today, at the age of 20... ok, 29, soon to be 30, I am dedicating my life to Christ, not really re-dedicating, because when I first got baptized, I did not have Jesus in my heart, in my life. I did not go to church but maybe once a month, I never read the bible, the closest I got to worshiping the Lord was listening to Jars of Clay or DC Talk, but also I was listening to Tool and Marilyn Manson.

Now, being a Christian does not mean you must ALWAYS go to church, always read your bible, always pray, but I can tell you now, it does help. If I were to die today, not being baptized again, I would still be accepted to heaven, because I have accepted Jesus as my Father, as my Savior, I don't read my bible daily, but on the days that I don't, there is a huge difference, when I don't pray, I feel disconnected from Him.

Some are confused why anyone would get re-baptized, we all have our own reasons, mine, I have a few, I was so young I did not understand what it meant to give my life to Him, to trust in Him in everything. My main reason to be baptized again is not to become clean of all my sins, I have asked for forgiveness, He has forgiven me, daily. My biggest part of wanting to do this is to show my family and friends, my Church family, that I have chosen Christ as my savior and I want to share this moment with all of them.

For those of you who can't be there, pray for me, as I pray for you, and for all of those coming to see, thank you, this is one of those moments that is going to stick with me for the rest of my life, I will remember forever, and luckily to boot, it is being done at the same park I gave my life to my Wife, we got married at the same park. I will try and blog more, write out my thoughts, my going ons and what not, but no guarantees, just like my baptism, does not mean I will automatically read daily, never sin again and just get hit with a white light and understand everything about God my father, but, it is a start to the continuation to a beautiful relationship between me and Him, and I would like to share that with you all.

God is Love.

God is Great! God is Good!

So, in the last blog I posted and asked for prayers for my wife and I, and for those of you who did, thank you very much. Our prayers were answered. During the time we had alone we talked a lot about what we were going to do. A lot of things were talked about and kind of thrown around. We figured, if both of us were out of work we would have more time to serve Him. We planned on getting more involved, whether it be in our church or just in our community, we were going to hit the streets and get His work done. Well, just a little back story if you haven't read the last blog.

My wife has been sick since last August off and on, and for the last 3 weeks straight, she hasn't been able to work. She works in Care Giving, elderly and people that are recovering from illnesses and injuries, with what she had, which ended up being Walking Pneumonia, was not good for her to be around her residents.  For a while now the job has been taking it's toll on her, she has been in care giving for about 15 years now, so in hopes to take some time off, she turned in her two week notice.  The next day I found out from my work, that my job through the Temp agency that has me working at a local college, will be ending this month.  I had hoped to work til at least end of spring term, and taking Summer off to be able to spend time with the kids and not have to pay for a baby sitter. Well, as soon as I found out I was losing my job I let my wife know, and automatically she called her work and asked to take her 2 week notice back. They said no.

To take a quick break, I felt this was a huge test for me. In the past when I wasn't making money for my family I would get depressed, upset, frustrated that I wasn't supporting my family, but all I can do is laugh with this situation.  I find it funny, my heart has been softened, and every time I think of the situation I laugh. My wife turns in her 2 week notice and then the next day I lose my job.

Well, my wife finally felt better that she could go into work, she sat down with 3 of her managers and they told her they talked to the corporate office and they didn't want to lose her, so instead of leaving completely they are allowing her to be On Call, meaning whenever they need someone they will call her, and to be able to stay on the pay roll all she has to do is work 2 or 3 days every 60 or so days. And that's not all, there is more to that, keep reading and you will see.

After my weekend and week of work telling people that I would be leaving in a week, and had the same reaction every where I went, no one wants me to leave, my manager wants me to apply for the actual job so I will be working for them so I can stay. Well after my weekend I come back to find out that the reason I was leaving was being looked into. Temps can only work 1300 hours or 6 months, whichever comes first, which was weird because even though during winter break and spring break I wasn't working, those counted towards my 6 months.  Well, I come to find out, which I actually haven't fully figured it all out but my boss told me that I could stay til Summer.

Such great news and all I can do is thank you all for prayer and thank Him.  God has a plan for you, for me, for everyone. His job is to test me, He is in complete control, and finally, I feel I have learned what it means to Let Go and Let God. I feel so blessed and touched. Give your life to Him. Be in His word daily. Thank him for every little thing in your life. Ask him to bless you and your family, your friends, ask Him to watch over everyone you love. He will never give you anything you can't handle. I will repeat that to end this. He will NEVER give you anything you can't handle.

HOMEWORK : YouTube Video : Bball1989 : Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus

Sorry for the time away

          I am extremely sorry for not blogging earlier. I started this, hoping to be able to blog every day. I was over achieving obviously, I don't have a computer at home or the internet, only can blog at work during breaks and lunch, but honestly, those are all excuses.  Honestly I have been struggling with myself, upset with myself. It's hard to explain, I haven't exactly fallen from His grace, I guess, just fallen from His purpose.  For the last month I have not been reading His word, I have been going to church, but that's not enough. I haven't been living my life for him, I have been living my life for me, watching movies, playing video games, finding whatever else out there to idolize than to be spending my time in prayer and thanking and worshiping Him.  I feel depressed, upset, that I have let him down.  Talked it over with a few friends, talked it over with my wife, and only I can change my ways. My church is doing the Bread Project, which is reading the bible in a year together, I used to be able to follow along, read daily, if not every few days and catch up, but I have been so far behind, to catch up I would have to read from Duet. 1 to 22 or so, and each day I kept picking up my bible I would put it back down, discouraged about having to catch up, not wanting just to start on the day we were on.  So, instead, on my phone I have a bible app that has many reading plans to go through, so I picked about 5 or 6, one is a year plan, the others are 14 to 21 day plans, and I can set reminders to remind myself to read. So far it has gone great, I didn't get a chance to read this morning though, Friday's I work early, but again, that is an excuse, I could have waken up at 6 and started reading.

         Now to move on a bit, God works in mysterious ways, and His way is right and we just need to go with the flow. Hard to do I know, I know more than anyone, I am the kind of person that if I don't have control of the situation or can do anything about it I get upset or freak out. It's in my human nature, but it is not of my Godly nature which I need to focus on more. Let go and let God.  I am being tested right now on my works of letting go and letting God. My wife has been sick for about 3 weeks straight, well, technically been sick since August, off and on, and 10 years of care giving is taking it's toll, well after prayer and talking to friends we decided it was time for her to quit. She's going to take some time off. So two days ago she turned in her two week notice. Well, our plan was for me to work and her to stay home, with only one income the state will help us out more, lower our rent, give us more food stamps and hopefully we can catch up. So I must add, that was OUR plan, not HIS plan. What was in his plan was, the next day I went to work to find out that my 6 months as a temp at my job is up soon, in about a week and a half to be exact. Now, usually I would be upset, freaking out, telling my wife to go get her job back, but, I refuse to let Satan take over.  Honestly, when I found out, I chuckled in my head, and every time I think about it I just laugh. Everyone asks if I will be ok, of course I will be ok, everyone asks if I am ok with losing my job, well, it is what it is, God has bigger and better plans for me.

So I end this with a few notes. Hopefully I will be able to blog more, just from my phone, hopefully He speaks to me and helps me along.  Please pray for me and my family as we go through this time in our lives. God is love. God Bless you Brother and Sisters in Christ. We are all God's Children whether we know it or not, He is always there.

Matthew 7 : 3-5 / John 8:7

So I am in no way shy about my beliefs and my relationship with Christ. At work I am privileged to work with others that I can talk to about and share my experiences. Well yesterday at work one of my workers who is Catholic and a lesbian, she asked me what I thought about LAGC, I had no idea what it meant, she asked what my thoughts were on the Lesbian and Gay Community.  Something took over and I started quoting the bible the only way I know how, very poorly lol.

I explained to her that my wife has a gay friend and she is a big part of our family.  Talking to her it reminded me of one of my favorite passages, it comes from Matthew 7 : 3-5.

Matthew 7:3-5 NIV84

2 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?

3 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?

5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

So I told her that scripture in my own words and explained, it is not my job to judge others, God is the ultimate judge. Peoples life choices are theirs, and it is not my responsibility to lecture or tell them their choices are wrong. My responsibility is to my wife and children, but ultimately I am responsibility is for me and my actions. I also brought up the part of the scripture where Jesus was teaching and there was a woman who came up to learn who was a known adulteress, the crowd told Jesus to give them permission to stone her, that her sins were worth her death, but Jesus said, "Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her" (John 8:7) and slowly all of the crowd and pharasies left.


People are sinful.  Today in service my Pastor spoke about how Christianity is more than the Bible being a book of rules and guidelines, the real true purpose of Christianity is to give all to God, to accept him as your savior.  How I look at it is God is our Father, He sent his only Son, Jesus Christ to be one of us, to walk among us, so we can see His glory.  Jesus Christ died for our sins, it was His purpose, why He was created, He knew from day one.


It is hard for us to understand that we are sinful and any sin we do, as long as we confess and are truly sorry for it, we are forgiven.  About what was talked about earlier, my beliefs that it is not our job to judge others, and it is difficult, I catch myself all the time watching people, "Why are they wearing that?" We are very critical of others.  What I am trying to get out there is, worry about yourself, where are you with Christ, what is your relationship with Him, are you doing what is right in His eyes? So work on taking the plank out of your eye.

Let Go and Let God Part 2 / Be A Man

So, earthly bills are annoying. Just saying. Things are really up in the air with my job, and I complain too much, trying my best to just Let Go and Let God, just to have it set and know that God is in control.  Since I work through a temp agency at OSU, when the kids go on vacations, I go on vacation. It's a blessing in disguise, because our 4 kids have the time off too and I get to spend time with them and we don't have to pay a baby sitter, but that's also days I won't be getting paid.  Bills are getting slowly paid off but once I get close they tend to go back up, and my bank account keeps going into negative. Such is life though.  Compared to some peoples problems mine are nothing, I shouldn't complain, it is extremly hard to just Let Go and Let God, but even though I have trouble doing it, he still takes care of us. We have a roof over our head, food to feed our kids, a car to get around in, and believe me, if it wasn't for Him we would be in worse off condition.  I feel I have kept a pretty positive attitude, staying positive that even if I do lose my job, then it was meant to be and God will have the next thing lined up for me. I just need to pray and obey Him. Do you have problems Letting Go and Letting God? Do you do it easily? How so?

Moving on from my complain fest, what does it mean to be a Man? When did you first feel you were a Man? Was it the first time you had sex? First time you moved out? When you were finally old enough to drive, buy cigarettes or alcohol?  God has been doing a lot of work on me, my beliefs and how I really need to act.  A lot of it was sparked by the movie Courageous, but I feel He was shaping and changing my heart before that movie.  Even before I had seen the movie I felt I had to show it to my home church, night was a success by the way, over 100 people came.  Well, growing up, I never really had a person in my life that told me how a man should be, I just watched and learned from my dad, which isn't a bad thing, but I am now learning a lot more, being in the Word, reading the Bible, a few books, one called the Resolution For Men I am learning a lot.  I am learning it is my job to be the Spiritual Leader of the Household, and what it means to Lead My Family.  I know I can not do it without Him.  I have made a concious decision to be in His Word daily; Talk to Him daily, if not hourly; Read with my children His Word and teach them daily right from wrong; Show them how a man treats a woman, their elderly and others. Sure my children stumble, but so do I, DAILY. We are all human, it is our nature to Sin. Satan is always around, trying to pull us into his grasps, telling us we are not good enough, telling us bad things are good, corrupting our minds. It is all thanks to God that he sent his ONLY SON JESUS to die on the cross for our Sins.  I am just now reading through the bible, I have never really done it before, but reading through Exodus it explains what they used to have to do to attone or ask for forgiveness of their sins. I don't know about you but I feel a million times better knowing that I can just talk to God and Jesus and ask them to forgive me for my Sins because Jesus PAID THAT PRICE, instead of having to butcher and sacrifice cows and animals in His name.  Just know, when you are going down the right path, the path of Christ, the path to God, Satan is pissed and does not want you to, he will do everything in his POWER to pull you away. Just yell at him, let him know, "Satan, you have no POWER over me!" because he does not, because you are a child of Christ and God LOVES YOU! Yes YOU!

Let Go and Let God

Well I thought I could try to do this everyday, but between trying to get my college application in and hosting a showing of Courageous at my home church yesterday, as well as work, hasn't been working out too well, but I have had these thoughts collecting for the last few days. One of my biggest hurdles I have to get over, as many people do, is to Let Go and Let God. For a while I have had an idea for a tattoo that hopefully one day I will be able to get. It is a tattoo on my back I would like Gods hands, and in one hand it will say Let Go and the other will say Let God. Without any thought or noticing there have been many times He has helped me when I Let Go. A time that comes to mind is when our family car died, still don't know what is wrong with it, but it has issues. Well, without even prayer, without even thought, just knowing that God would figure something out for us, whether it be my wife getting rides to work, (I was not working at the time) or whatever, I just knew it would be taken care of. Well, no more than a few days later after posting on Facebook that our car had died, I got a call from my Dad, my Grandma, his mom, said she had an extra car because her friend had moved out of state, didn't want to take her car with her so she gave my Grandma the car, so, for completely free, not asking for anything, my Grandma gave us her old car. My wife says she prayed, but I will be honest, I did not, I just gave it to God to take care of.

Well, now is the time for the biggest test, I shouldn't say test, because we should never test God, it is not our job to test Him, I should say time for my biggest step, biggest leap of faith. In a previous blog I mentioned that one of the biggest moments that God had touched me was at Willamette Celebration, where I watched some skaters and bmxers that had given their life to Christ. Well, after a lot of praying, asking God for help to guide me into where he wants me to be, what he wants me to do, I have decided to try to go to a prominent Christian College in my state. I am excited, nervous and just humble that this is the way things are going. I have had my FAFSA for college help filled out for about 2 years now, and every time I go to sign up for a term at a close by community college to take some business and accounting classes, I keep missing the deadline, never have the money to pay for an application, missing certain things turned in, one after another reason it just was not working out. I felt after all that failure, at the start of this year and a little before while I was filing my FAFSA for this year that God was tugging on me to look into and put this Christian College as one of my options.

After talking it over with my wife, and discussing that was a huge leap and not really possible, I explained to her it would be maybe 5 years or so down the line, after I did a couple to a few years at the community college maybe then I would be ready for this Christian College. But after thought and prayer, and the dreams and premonitions God has been giving my wife, letting her know that we are not meant to be comfortable in life, and in ways preparing her for a huge move in her life, which ended up preparing me as well and helped us both decide as soon as we can maybe we should take the leap. I finally got my FAFSA approved for this year and it says I have been approved for the Fall term of 2012. A little discouraged because I had planned on going back in Summer term, but once I stopped and thought about it, if I start in Fall term and it does include a move away from our home, our kids would start a new school in a new school, and not maybe have to be moved in between a school year. Well, right now I am working on reaching out, I have made contact with the college, received a welcome packet, been emailing an Admissions Adviser back and forth, set up a date that I can go visit the college this month. I want to do this right. We can pray and ask for God to help us, but if we don't do any work then nothing will be done. He doesn't want us just to sit back and pray and ask for help, it helps, but unless you are in His Word, doing His will, not sitting back on your laurels, He will listen to you and Bless you, if it is in His Will.

So I kinda went off on a tangent, but my idea, well ideas, is I would like to open an indoor skate park, it will be a faith based establishment, where I plan to have possibly Sunday service, one or two day a week youth group/bible study, during the summer maybe like a camp kind of thing. I would also like to have my own Christian clothing line, and Christian record label. All of these things are just kind of bouncing around, it is my prayers that God will allow me to show the youth who He is through one or two if not all of these ways, but it is not up to me, He has a plan for me, and it is my job to listen and do His Will, for all I know, for all anyone knows, I may not even do any of these things. I hope you are all feeling Blessed and stay in His Word.