April 20th – 26th

So I’m getting really bad about typing these “on time.” My goal is to blog on Mondays about the previous week. Well it’s Wed night and I’m now struggling to keep my weeks straight. As i recall, this past week was pretty uneventful, but here goes the recap – >

Church –

              Round 2 of our new series on Ecclesiastes was even better than the 1st. Chapter 2 follows Solomon’s search for meaning. He tries multiple ways to amass something to hold onto,  but even through wise living and hard work, he comes up empty handed. He finally concludes that you might as well just live life going after all the spoils of this world, because there’s no way to gain anything greater. Obviously after just stating the opposite idea for 2/3 of a chapter, thats not exactly what he means. He says that its worth something to live righteously, because as bad as it is to toil away your whole life and end up with temporal happiness, it’s worse (for those who are unrighteous) to waste that same time and then end up giving away their worthless stockpile to the righteous. Bottom line – if you try to support your whole life on any other bridge other than God’s, it’s gonna crumble. The bridges of relationships, money, fame, success: insufficient.

Me –

                      Again, fairly uneventful week. Work had continued to increase in hours, and this next friday, May 1, I will officially have a full time job. I’m very thankful for the hours, but really wish I didnt have to lose my awesome boss in the process. I know he’s doing what God wants for him and his fam, but ya know. This past week was, for me, the worst week for technology. Besides my car not working right and some stupid stuff at work, my new computer had issues and my ipod is on the fritz. I dont know how to spell that word. I almost have my whole iTunes libraryb ack, and I’m hoping Walmart will exchange my iPod for me. On the workout subject, I actually didnt run once this past week. Every morning I either worked or was trying to fix one of the afformentioned problems. ugh. Definitely getting back on track this week.

Sports –

               The Boston Red Sox continue to roll. After a bad start of 2-6, they are the winners of 10 straight games, including a 3 game sweep of the rival NY Yankees. Sweet.

               The Boston Celtics are currently tied 2-2 in their 1st round series against Chicago.

              Finally, the Pittsburgh Penguins wrapped up their opening round series against the Flyers, beating them 5-3 on Sat, winning the series 4-2.

TV –

              Idol – Disco week turned out to be filled with great performances, the best, as usual, coming from Adam Lambert. This week had 2 contestants voted off, and we said goodbye, as predicted, to Lil and Anoop. I’m expecting Matt to get voted off next week, and even though I already know what happened (another reason why I should write these sooner), this was my prediction a week ago. so it still stands.

         Lost this week was simply an Oceanic 6 recap, so nothing new to share.

Movies – again, no new movies to review. Believe me, when summer hits in a couple weeks, this section will change drastically.

Music –

                Deleted my entire iPod, so i haveb een spending a lot of time with music lately. No no albums to talk about, but the countdown, from the day im writing this, is 5 days til the DC Concert.

No specials this week. Next week’s blog should be a little meaty – er. Peace.

April 13 – 19

A fairly eventful week leaves us with a lot to cover, so lets get rolling ->

Church –

               This week’s message was the 1st in a new shorter series covering the book of Ecclesiastes. Matt covered the opening chapter of the book; one that is not too encouraging to say the least. Chapter 1 heavilty emphasizes how meaningless the world is. From the perspective of Solomon, the wisest man to ever live, nothing is new under the sun, and regardless of what happenens to you, the earth still spins and life continues on. He goes on to say that the more knowledge you gain, the more hopeless and meaningless life gets. Think back to when you were a child and life was care-free. Think back to, again as a child, thinking life was tuff. I’m speaking slightly out of ignorance here, since I’m not saddled with life’s full resposibilities just yet, but I know by  now that what that child was experiencing was far from a difficult existence. Now all of this is not stated by Solomon to provoke some looney existential lose yourself in the meaningless sea of life movement. He is simply saying, from a wise and experienced standpoint, that your life must be driven by something greater than what you can attain in your own power and knowledge. I am VERY excited about the weeks to come on the subject.

Me –

Lets see .  . . . starting off as usual, work was good this week, continuing to be busy and offering more hours. Friday I got a raise (woohoo) and was also given some promising news on being  hired out at Ramboard West in August. They need to hire a new guy soon but are trying to hold off on hiring someone else so that I can take the new position in Aug. My good friend Nate Moses got married this past saturday, which of course filled my schedule with lots of fun things – rehearsal/pictures/receptions/guys night/after party, etc. Check out the SPECIAL section at the end of this post for another amazing story surrounding those events. Final big thing for the week – this blog post is currently being typed on my brand new, and very first ever, laptop! It’s a white HP special edition notebook; has 15.4″ high-def screen, blu ray player, good processor, plenty of hard drive space, and plenty of other features. I’m really enjoying it so far, and have learned a lot about laptops and programs and such.

Sports –

                 The Red Sox season is looking a little better lately – they’ve won 5 straight games, bringing theor record to 7-6, sitting at 2nd in the Al East.

                 The Celtics had some disappointing news, reporting that KG may be out for the entire playoff season, but knowing him I have a feeling we’ll be seeing him again if they dont get elliminated 1st. They’re currently tied 1-1 in a best-of-7 series with the Bulls.

                  Finally, the Pittsburgh Penguins are looking great, currently up 3 game to 1 on the Flyers in the 1st round of the NHL playoffs.

TV –

              Idol – This week’s Idol featured the songs of cinema. Having Quentin Tarrantino on the show was a little odd. Adam and Danny, as usual, had the stand-out performances. Danny sang Endless Love, while Adam sang an INSANE rendition of Born To Be Wild. In the end, Matt Giraud received the least amount of votes, however, the judges, with only 2 weeks left to use it, chose to save him. This means Next week’s show will have 2 people voted off. My prediction – Anoop and Lil, but we’ll see what happens.

           LOST – This week’s episode focused on the life/history of Miles. We learned that he had been on thei sland before and that his father was Dr Chang (i think thats his name) from the Dharma group. At one point Miles even sees himself as an infant. The big surprise at the end of the show was the reappearance of Daniel Faraday, who I must admit, I had even forgot about after he dissappeared following Charlotte’s death. This next week’s show is supposed to be some kind of history of the Oceanic 6, so I’m not sure if that means its a new episode or if its just some kind of clever recap.

Movies – I got nothing here. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen any movie, much less anything new. Stay tuned for X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Definitely seeing that one.

Music – nothing going here either. We are less than 2 weeks away from the DC concert though!! On another note – my iPod is not functioning the way it should. Anyone know how to fix them or is it assumed you have to send it in to Apple??? Help me out if you know anything.

Special –

                         Crazy/awesome story here – Wed night I had sat down with a couple friends to watch the Idol results, so it’s about 9 15. Moses gets a call from his parents (arrived in Gville  for the wedding with their 7 youngest children Tues night) saying they had just been in a wreck and flipped their 12-passenger van. Without many other details besides a location, the 3 of us hopped into seperate vehicles and drove out to the scene of the crash.  In short, the van was t-boned while trying to make a legal u-turn. The other car did not swerve or try and slow down. Thankfully, noone in Moses’ family was injured. The lady in the other car suffered a broken leg at worst. It took forever to get the van flipped back over, the nwe snagged everything save-able out of it and piled into the 3 cars. Within 30 min of Nate posting a prayer request for the wreck as his facebook status, 3 people from Grace had already called him and offered help and vehicles for the family. They eneded up driving aorund a 2007 Range Rover for the next 2 days. Unreal.  Awful wreck, total miracle, praise God.

April 6 – 12

Semi typical week, not a whole lot happened, but hey I may remember more stuff as I type so here goes nothin . . .

Church –

                   *See previous post titled Easter 09 in the *Special Edition category

Me –

             Lets see – work was noraml. Not as busy as it had been but still got a good amount of hours. I’m just about done painting over at the Moses residence too so thats cool. Still goin to the gym. My workout buddy bailed the whole week, but I kept it up, so I was proud of that. Wed night I got my haircut for the 1st time since like October lol. It’s kind of a David Cook look. I also got it highlighted with some red/auburn. I really liked how it turned out but I think I will be getting some more red in it next week. I dont want anything LOUD, but I do want people to notice it. Friday I ordered my new/1st laptop!! I’m pretty excited about getting it. I got to pick out all the components of it off of HP’s website, and got an official approval from Joe and Drew Sutherland, so it should rock.

Sports –

                  I watched a good deal of the Final Round of The Masters. Tiger and Phil put on an impressive show, but all too late. Gongrats to Angel. Kenny Perry was leading the whole time though so it was sad to see him choke on 17 and 18.

                 The Red Sox are off to a slow start at 2 and 4, sitting at the bottom of the AL East, but I’m sure they’ll pick up their game. The Penguins are headed into the playoffs as the 4 seed facing the Flyers and have secured home ice for the series. The Celtics have 2 games left and are poised to take the 2 seed in the East.

TV –

        Idol – this weeks Idol performances featured songs from the year the contestants were born, leaving us with all 80’s music, with the acception of 16 yr old Allison. The only performance that really stood out to me was of course Adam’s. He actually received an unheard-of standing ovation from SIMON for it. In the end, Scott Macintyre got the axe. I thought Anoop should have, but they were the next 2 to go so Anoop should be gone this week, barring a tremendous performance.

LOST – I could probably right a whole post just about this week’s episode, but to keep it short : We learned some interesting background on Ben, including his relationship with Charles Whitmore, how he came to adopt his daughter, and why he came back to the island. We found out he was injured before leaving on the plane by Desmond, my fave, after trying to take Penny’s life. Locke also returned in this episode, leading Ben and Sun on there trek to find the smoke monster and to somehow find a way to the other Oceanic 815 members who remain in 1977, while Ben Sun and Locke live in the present. Crazy. Awesome. I’m seriosuly considering signing up for a therapy/rehab session immediately following each episode.

Music –

 For another week, the music category remains empty. 3 weeks til the David Cook concert!!!

Movies –

               Trying to remember if I saw any movies this week. I watched Yes Man again (saw it in theaters back in Dec) and I still laughed just as hard at it. Highly recommeneded.

Special –

              Sat night was Nate Moses’ bachelor party. We took him out for an awesome steak dinner at City Range – herb crusted 14 oz Ribeye w/ garlic mashed potatoes and french onion soup. Amazing. After dinner we went back to an apartment and just had some guy chill time with a couple games and some refreshments. Last, we all went to see a funny movie at the theater. Didnt get home til 2 30. Great time!

Easter 09

The 1st  *Special Edition blog post could not have a greater subject. . . .

        Acts 2:42 says “God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.”

        Today we celebrate the most crucial event in history. Anyone can die. Anyone can suffer torture and cruel treatment. NOT just anyone can conquer death. Today we remember what should be the driving force in our every breath : Jesus, the God man, willingly allowed sinners like you and me to put to shame and death the only being capable of saving them from the same thing. Striking story, but praise God that’s not where it ends. He lives, and thus we too may live.

          The church service this morning at Grace Church in Greenville was amazing. Pastor Matt Williams concluded our study on 1 Peter by examining Peter’s life. Last week we looked at his failures; this week his transformation. Matt started in John 21, detailing Jesus’ appearance to the Disciples after having fished all night only to come up empty. Jesus then takes Peter aside, purposefully asking him 3 times if he loved Him. In a nut shell, Jesus’ final charge to Peter was to simply feed the sheep, even though Jesus stated plainly that Peter’s life was not going to go well. I was not going to be the heroic and joyous triumph over Roman rule that Peter thought it would be. With that, we fast-forward 2 months to Acts 2, and we witness the birth of the church. As the Holy Spirit comes down into the world, strange things start to happen. The evil rulers of Jerusalem attribute this to drunkeness and insanity that has come upon the “Jesus Followers”, still clinging to an all-but-gone cause. Then the time comes for Peter to show what Jesus changed in him. Someone needed to stand up, speak out, and let the very people who killed God know what was happening. Peter figures, “hey, Jesus said life wasn’t going to go well for me, so I might as well start living my life for Him now.” And with that, Peter preaches at Pentecost, proclaims the murder and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and sees 3000 souls come to a faith in God.

          After the message, we had a baptism service. The baptisms at Grace are really cool/unique for several reasons. Each person gives a short testimony  in a video shown right beforehand. This is really cool cause it just lets everyone get to hear where the person is coming from and who they are. Everyone who is friends or family with the person is then allowed to gather around the pool to show support and love. To my understanding/knowledge, there is no passage in Scripture saying a Pastor has to be the one who actually does the baptizing, so at Grace, the person being baptized is allowed to choose the person who has had the biggest spiritual influence on their life to baptize them. This could be the Pastor, but it could also be a parent, sibling, or friend. There is something really touching about a Father being baptized by our Pastor and then staying in the pool to baptize his daughter, assisting in her making the same public profession of faith as he did moments earlier. Of course, this is all being accompanied by the musicians and worship leader playing and singing Jesus Paid It All, and just made for a really special time on a really special day.

             For the Christian, it’s imperative to live in the past – remebering what God has done for you, but also to live in light of the future – the return of the Savior. We closed the service by singing Glorious Day,  which states in it’s closing verse :

One day the trumpet will sound for His coming. One day the skies with His glories will shine.  Wonderful day, my Beloved One’s bringing. Glorious Savior, this Jesus is mine. Living He loved me, dying He saved me, buried He carried my sins far away, rising He justified, freely, forever. One day He’s coming, O Glorious Day!

March 30th – April 5th

 AH how time screams by – we’re in week 3 of what is surely the most popular blog out there (*joke) and this past week was fairly normal, nothing huge to share here, but several sweet things happened so here weeeeeeee go  . . . (insert Joker voice)

Church – This week Matt Williams preached again. We had just finished up the book of 1 Peter the week prior, so this week’s message focused on the life of Peter leading up to the crucifixion(to be covered this next Sunday for Easter.) Matt brought out some awesome points about Peter’s high and low points. At one point while discussing Peter’s denial, we were shown the clip from The Passion on the subject. This made me really wonder what I would do and say if the pressure were there. It was easy for Peter to say he would follow Jesus even to death, when all the disciples were still confused about His purpose in His 1st coming, thinking He was there to liberate them and overthrow the Roman powers. “Yea Jesus, I’ll die for you (because it’s not like I will have to”. Of course Peter would later be crucified upside down for his FAITH.

Me – Another typical week – work was good. Our printer is still ALMOST up and running, but not totally. This will definitely increase everyone’s hours even before Drew moves at the end of this month. I have continued to help Nate Moses paint his house 4 or 5 nights a week. We done the bulk of the owrk, but still have a couple bathrooms and a hallway. and a really small kitchen. I found out Thurs. that my parents are getting me a laptop for graduation. This is especially cool for me since I went through my entire undergrad without one. I didnt even have a freeakin JUMP DRIVE. yea. It’s also cool since I graduated like 5 months ago and the biggest accomplishment of my life, to date, is being recognized .

Sports – I will go ahead and iclude sports from yesterday in my post since I’m writing this a day late. Congrats to UNC for taking the championship. I was pleased to see them win, but would have been content with MSU as well. Again, my bracket is currently floating down a river somewhere on a trash barge. This weekend is the Master’s, so we’ll be keeping tabs on that. Yesterday marked the beginning of the MLB season. The BoSox game was postponed, however, so my season really has yet to begin. Finally – just a note that the NBA and NHL have roughly 6 or so games left for each team. As the season comes to a close, it appears both the Celtics and Penguins are poised to enter the playoffs.

TV – AI – This week’s Idol featured music from off the Top 40 charts and from the best seller charts on iTunes. I thought there would be a lot more current songs, but at least half the songs performed were older. The group song for the night was Journey’s Dont Stop Believin’ – which was amazing. Adam’s particular part in the song was fantastic. As for the performances, most people did well. Adam’s Play That Funky Music was the best. Danny, Scott, and Matt did really well too. Danny sang Rascall Flatt’s What Hurts the Most. In the end, Megan got the boot, which was probably the right choice, though now there are only 2 chics left with 6 dudes. She was cute, but really really quirky.

    LOST – a short recap on 2 episodes (since I skipped last week’s) – the show covered some background on how and why Sayid and Kate got to the island. Sayid was arrested and was a a plane to stand trial, while Kate wanted to find Aaron’s real long-lost mother, Claire. I loved the back stoies mixed in with the current drama of Sayid being a prisoner and young Ben being shot. The best thing in these 2 episodes though was a conversation between Hurley and Miles about how confusing the time travel thing is. It was like the show was acknowledging, through it’s characters, that not everything is gonna add up. Loved that.

Movies –

                        Seven Pounds – Though I had already been to the theater to see this one twice, I bought it this week when it cameo ut and wanted to do a quick blurb about it. If you haven’t seen it, you need to. It’s one of Will Smith’s best performances. Simply the fact that he is in it should be, to an intelligent movie-goer, a good enough reason to check it out. I know NOONE who didn’t like it.

         Fast and Furious – Yes, I went opening night. Yes, it was packed. And Yes, it was sweet. I really liked Vin Diesel in this, though I dont normally enjoy his acting. The movie has a good storyline, and, of course, plenty of high octane thrills. This movie acts as the true sequel to the original film, making me wish that 2 Fast 2 Furious and Tokyo Drift were never made. They weren’t awful, but these 2 are sooooo much better. Great action flick, obviously not an amazing film or anything, but a good time.

I am thinking that’s it. I should have a lot to say next time too. This week will have lots of stuff to talk about. Thanks for reading – Peace.