Happy Thanksgiving. I was talking to Emma about what I am thankful for and realized how blessed I am. I am thankful for family. I am thankful for my YWAM family and friends. I am thankful for the roof over my head and the big ol turkey that will be in my tummy in about 3 hours. I am thankful that God has given me another day to live. Take some time today as you are eating, watching football, playing football, or whateve you do and think about what and who you are thankful for. If you are thankful for people, tell them, if you are thankful for God, tell Him. Enjoy your day.

I am realy enjoying reading

I've been having a great time reading lately. I highly recomend during the holidays picking up a good book and realy letting it speak to you. I am learning so much about myself and God from this. It makes me feel useful and better for it. I have put some books in the links bar that I am reading and recomend.

The Way It Should Be

On Friday I was hanging out with my good friend Lori Fox. Lori is works merchandise for the band Blindside. Lori and the band pulled into Seattle late Friday evening and I went downtown to meet up with them. After they checked into their hotel room we went over to The The Showbox where they were checking out another band and meeting up with some more friends.
After leaving the show there were a couple of us standing outside figuring out what we were going to do when I saw something that made me think "this is the way it should be." There was a guy outside who was completely smashed from drinking. He was one of the crew members of a band that was there and the guy's in Blindside knew him. There are a couple of things that Christians can do in this situation. One is to judge and put ourselves on a pedestal and the other is to show the uncompromising, unchanging, unbiased love of Jesus. Thankfully, Christian, Simon and Thomas chose to show the love of Jesus.

It was a cold night out, as is typical for Seattle in Nov. So they zipped up there friends sweatshirt and put on his hood, despite his fight to be as naked as possible. They also stood with him and held him up and from doing anything stupid. There was the opportunity to let him go and watch him do totally funny drunken things at his expense, but they chose to love, care for and protect their friend.

How many of us would care so much to put the interest of others ahead of ourselves? Thank you guys, you taught me a lot that night just by being yourselves.

What do you say to that?

I was talking to a friend today who is realy going through it. My friend is great, has a lot of potential and talent, but is realy struggling with the whole God is good thing. I am not sure what to do. I mean today I sat there while my friend poured out their heart about how they want to believe, but they have no reason or desire any more. It is just to hard.

My friend grew up in a hyper conservative, totally controling house hold who told my friend things about God that made Him out to be more of a monster than a friend and father. Now my friend is out of the house and is free for the first time. My friend is realizing that the view of God that my friends famliy forced on them was very wrong and distorted. The thing now is that my friend feels like rebelling against their parents and turning away from God totally even though their parents are not even around to see my friend getting back at them.

I sat there on the couch listening to my friend talk with tears about how they don't know what to do. I mean everyone says that God is good, and that God is the only way, but every time my friend sees God is is through the eyes that their parents gave them. I can't relate, I can't understand and I refuse to give pad answers like I will pray for you, or God is good, or God does love you and you will get over this. What do you say to that? I am not sure, but what I do know is that God is good, God does love and I will pray for my friend. What I also know is that my friend needs help, as do I, as do you. Help us God.

Man Kills Buck with Bare Hands In Bedroom

BENTONVILLE, Ark. - For 40 exhausting minutes, Wayne Goldsberry battled a buck with his bare hands in his daughter's bedroom.

Goldsberry finally subdued the five-point whitetail deer that crashed through a bedroom window at his daughter's home Friday. When it was over, blood splattered the walls and the deer lay dead on the bedroom floor, its neck broken.

Goldsberry was at his daughter's home when he heard glass breaking. He went back to check on the noise and found the deer.

"I was standing about like this peeking around the corner when the deer came out of the bedroom," said Goldsberry. The deer ran down the hall and into the master bedroom — "jumping back and forth across the bed."

Goldsberry, about 6-feet-1 and 200 pounds, entered the bedroom to confront the deer and, after a brief struggle, emerged to tell his wife to call police. After returning to the bedroom, the fight continued. Goldsberry finally was able to grip the animal and twist its neck, killing it.

Goldsberry, sore from the struggle, dragged the dead animal out of the house.

"He got kicked several times. He was walking bowlegged for a while," Deputy Doug Gay said.

At this time of year, a buck that sees its reflection in a window often charges, believing it is fighting off a rival, Gay said.

Goldsberry had the deer butchered.

"He's in the freezer," the man said before walking to the kitchen and showing off pounds of freshly wrapped venison.

Man Kills Buck Yahoo Article

Does Anyone Want A Lap Dance?

Today over 27000 singnatures were handed into the city of Seattle in an attempt to keep lap dances legal in our city. The law banning it would state that there needs to be brighter lights in strip clubs and a four foot distance between dancer and customer.
They are calling the act an act of free speech. I think that the main issue of opposing it is to protect people, male and female. Men don't need any more reason to go into a strip club and women don't need any more reasons to use their bodies for something that God didn't intend.
Anyway, pray for this that people would walk in purity and that this act would not go through.
Lap Dance Seattle Times Article

Being Real

I was just listening to a sermon by Erwin Mcmanus, the pastor of Mosaic Church in Los Angeles. It really spoke to me about being real.
Recently one of my friends had some trouble in his life because they didn't tell people what they were struggling with. They tried to do it alone and be invincable. What happened was that my friend fell.
This is a quote from Erwin in his message

" It is amazing how much strength love will give you and how much strength you will find when you care about other people even more than yourself. And I know this, no matter how sincere you are, your going to need some extraordinary strenth to overcome your rapids you are going to find yourself drowning in. And that is why we all need Jesus. Because when He enters our life, when we give our hearts to Him He becomes our source of strength. And when your exhausted and you have no energy left and you don't think that you can make it one more day, you will find that He is always strong. Especially when you are honest about your weakness."
I pray that we would be honest today about our weaknesses and that we would take them to God and take them to each other so that we would become the kind of people for God that we desire to be.