Exciting News!

What a crazy week!! From family being in town and work being absolutely nuts, which is a tremendous blessing in times like these, this week has been actioned packed! The definite topper of the week is that on Monday my girlfreind and I got engaged to be married! It seems like all week has been a blur since that event and just now is the dust starting to settle to a point where I can sit down and chat a little bit.


I am thankful that admist the chaos I have been somewhat capable of keeping a sound mind and have been heavily reflecting on the latest change in my life. I know for me events like these just seem to bring reflection on heavy and I often find myself deeply thinking about it all. The most apparent thing that became clear to me in my thoughts is the transforming and restorative work of Christ in two peoples lives. I dont want to divulge the details of my bride to be's life, but just like me, with Christ's loving care and guidance she has overcome many trials. Through the many struggles of her life up to this point the faith that has been refined by them is apparent and interwoven into who she is, it just floors me that I have been blessed with such a wonderful gift!


It really floors me to look at my own life up to this point, to think that three years ago I was being released from jail for the 5th time in 10 years! In no way did I think I would end up where I am...engaged to this amazing woman...I didnt even believe in marriage four years ago, that didnt come until I was shown a whole new life that is the Christian faith. I by no means deserve this life and prior to faith I viewed myself as unworthy of God, I mean why would he want apart of horrible, sinful me? Well thats just what the opposition of all that is good wanted me to believe! When that is as far as the truth as possible! God wants me just as I was, all broken and dirty, beat up by the world and constant failure. He grasped me in his arms, cleansed me in his sacrifice releasing my past unto him so I no longer had to be in bondage to it; then he placed his spirit in my heart his word in my hands and said live my son and love me with all your heart and all things good will come from this love.


Two months ago I found myself having to be told this once again, which happens often I have found...I am a slow learner. Anyways I found myself praying to God for guidance of whether or not I should ask my fiancee out to coffee. I came to him in a spirit of inadequacy, I was questioning whether or not a woman as amazing as this would be able to love me. I continued in prayer for the next week and the Spirit continued to reveal that in fact I was worthy, and that I am no longer defined by that past but by Jesus Christ and through him all things are possible. So I did it, I asked her out to coffee....


Now two months later we are engaged to be married! Its like a giant piece of the puzzle has been placed and I am left here going WOW! God you are amazing. I am such a blessed man.


I guess I sit here and blog this to share a victory of course, but also in hopes that if your still reading this that some piece of truth about Christs work in my life has pulled on your heart strings maybe leaving you questioning areas of your life. I just want you to know that it is possible and you are deserving.

Where Is the Love?

I am very blessed to have a wonderful girlfriend who really seems to show me and teach me many things, I dont think she knows all the things I learn from her...good and bad for that matter! j/k! Anyway "Where is the Love?" by the Black Eyed Peas is one of her favorite songs and here recently we were cruising around town and she put that track on. The whole song is about love or rather the lack there of in the world, which has terrible effects such as murder, suffering, oppression, etc. Now I dont know if the definition of evil equals the lack of love, but I think that may be best saved for another day. Sorry for that detour...ADD or something. 

In one part of the song the lyrics state "you got to practice what you preach" or something along those lines, and for some reason that sent me searching deeply inward...one of the reasons I love music. My first path after hearing this was to of course to look at the members of the Peas lives to see if I could find anywhere they weren't practicing what they were preaching! I tried to wade through all the random tabloids I read while standing in line at supermarkets, or the random blurbs I heard on MTV, in the end I had to settle with judging Fergie as a hypocrite because of some shady video and lyric choices in the past...and that's where it hit me wheres the love in that!? That move right there was hypocritical on my part...Lord knows with a past like mine I have no place to be judging someone else or thinking I am better than anyone.

So I started looking at all my relationships and all my dealings with anyone and I came to the conclusion I suck at love! I realized that the dependency of my love really depends on how into myself I am at that time or how into my walk with Jesus I am at that time. When I am focused on Christ and my faith in him by his grace love seems to pour out of me and I dont even realize I am doing it. Yet when I am into other things besides Christ my love is lazy and spotty at best, so I see that without Christ I do not really know love and I would even venture to say that apart from Christ I dont even know true love. I am the branch he is my root, if fruit is to grow from my life it first has to be rooted deep into God's love, mercy and grace leaving a direct route for the light of the Spirit to pour out on the world around me. So to answer the Peas question the love is in Christ.

I realize that I may be foolish for taking on a topic like love but this topic has been on my heart for the last few weeks, however one thing I am being reminded about from my girl is that it should be on my heart all the time.

"Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance." - 1Cor - 13:4-7