My Other Half

There is another half of me. You are out there in this world somewhere, I just need to find you. I am looking, believe me, I am searching diligently. Sometimes I think I have found you but then all of the sudden you are gone and I am forced to realize that it wasn't ever actually you but someone pretending to be you. It seems like a cruel joke at times but that is just life. Anyways, this is the beginning of a little slam poem I wrote the other night as I was thinking about you and what I want you to be like.


This one's for the girl,
For the girl that isn't perfect and doesn't try to be,
For the girl that isn't afraid to go out in public without make-up on,
She'll sing off key in church and won't care
because God says to make a joyful noise which doesn't neccessarily mean a beautiful one.
She isn't always talking about or thinking that she is fat,
but she stays active and fit because it feels good,
This one's for the girl who loves "pillow talk" for hours on end
and won't get mad when it ends in a tickle fight.

And that is as far as I have gotten. More to come...well maybe not soon, but enventually. Haha

Pain Like This, I Have Never Before Known

**Needless to say, this is the internet and for the sake of the parties involved, I won't be telling you the exact situation or who is involved, but I do want and need prayer as I work through this, which is why I am writing in on here.**

My heart is heavy this morning as I ponder my situation. And by heavy I mean screaming in agony over the hurt I have caused my best friend. As the title of my post illustrates, I have literally never felt emotional pain like what I am going through right now. So much so that it makes me nauseous at times.

I am the type of person that can easy break ties with other people if I feel that they are not good for me, or even (sinfully) if I am just tired of them. It isn't hard, it doesn't pain me, it is actually scarily easy for me. But this-dear God, THIS is killing me. Guys, I am not emotional at all. Anyone who reads my posts probably knows me well enough to know that, but I have cried like a little baby over this. I have cried because I want to shoot myself for being such an imbecile, because this is a loss that I don't want to have to live the rest of my life without, and because I have damaged (possible irreparably) the friendship that I hold the most dear in my life. Not just currently in my life, but out of all the friendships I have ever had, I hold this one in the highest regard, and closer to my heart than even I realized. The saying, "You don't know what you have until you lose it" is so true. It kills me and makes me stop and reevaluate my life, to think that I could act in such a way that someone would finally just say, "I done with this." Those words have echoed in my head almost non-stop for the past 12 days. I have spent every single night for the past 12 nights thinking about where I am at and how the hell I got here. And I have my answer. And it is not one that I can easily face, but one I know I must.

Last night I had a dream, a wonderful, glorious, beautiful, hope giving dream. I dreamt of restitution. It was like a breath of air after being trapped underwater for what seems like an eternity. Was it simple and easy, absolutely not, but it was restitution nonetheless.

So to end, please pray for me in a number of ways (even though this post is so super vague):
1) Pray that I will know how to move on from here in a way that conveys humility and repentance in order that I find forgiveness.

2) Also please pray for guidance from the Lord for me as I continue to try search myself and come face to face with where I have been wrong rather than focusing on where I have been wronged. Only by doing that will any progress be made.

Ok, so I am gonna lay it all on the table here, because we all make mistakes, we all have hard times, and we will all do things we regret. And while grace is not an excuse to sin, it does cover my sin on a daily basis. So here goes.

First off, this post could be very offensive to some people, but I am purposefully not censoring my thoughts to give you the fullest picture I can of where my heart has been the past several weeks. Bottom line, I need prayer, and lots of it. The first part to fixing a problem is admitting/realizing that you have one. I have come that far at least. Thank you Lord for your unending forgiveness and grace.

The past several weeks I have been very discontented and frankly unhappy with where the Lord has me right now. I am to a point where I am so ready for another relationship, and God just isn't letting it happen. So I instead turn to anything else that that world has to offer me to bring me temporary satisfaction.

Anything but God.

I have been drinking (not in excess, and not to complete drunkenness, but being underage, any is to much), I have been smoking (a lot), I have been flirting with anything that has two legs and a vagina, and I have been cussing like a sailor (around the groups of people that that is "cool" in). I have been super focused on work and making money, and then spending that money on more things to make me "happy", whether it be new tools, climbing gear, outdoors gear in general, more cigars, alcohol, or stuff for my truck. I have not focused enough on school. The list could go on and on, but you get the idea.

So I say all that to say this. Please pray for me. Thankfully the Lord has never let me wander so far away from him that I get to where I can't see him anymore, but I have been pretty distanced from Him lately. And frankly mad that He won't give me what I want, because we all know that I know what I best for me...or that might be a lie I tell myself to ease my conscience...yeah, it is.

Emotions

Hey world,

Tonight is going to be a super short post, like one thought short, but I need you to know something.

I know that just about all of the time I come across as Mr. Tough Guy and nothin' can touch me. But that is just because I am good at hiding my emotions and feelings. Now I could go into a long psychological story about my childhood and why I am the way that I am (all of which is true) but that is another story for another post.

So here I am. This is me NOT hiding anything. I have feelings too, and you hurting them. You know who you are. I know that I am an infernal ass sometimes, and I am truly sorry. I'm not perfect and never will be. Please forgive me, but then don't shun or reject me...because that isn't forgiveness.

Sincerely,
Me

Forgiveness...It Is A Wonderful Thing

Forgiveness.

What a beautiful word.

It is probably my favorite word out of all the words in all of the languages in the world. Why? Well because without it I would be a dead man. Sure, I would have "fun" for the short time I am here on planet earth, but ultimately I would spend much longer (eternity actually) in absolute agony, separated from God.

At Passion 2012 just a little over a week ago, Louie Giglio talked about forgiveness and who you should forgive. One of the things that he said was that you have to forgive yourself. At first I was thinking that it sounded kind of cliche, but as he kept talking it made perfect sense. I mean, what are we really saying if we don't forgive ourselves for the things we do? Ultimately we might as well spit in Christ's bloody beaten face and say that his sacrifice on the cross was not enough to pay for our sins! Because when we beat ourselves up over our sin and punish ourselves for it, that is exactly what we are doing. Christ has forgiven us if we have come to him and asked for it. And he doesn't forgive us but remember what we did and constantly remind us of how horrible we are for having done that. No. Here is how God forgives.

Hebrews 10:17-18-Then he adds, "I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more." Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no long any offering for sin. (This was quoting Jeremiah 31:34)


Jeremiah 31:31-34-Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

And Paul says this about his mindset which I believe we would all do well to mimic to the best of our abilities:


Philippians 3:12-13-Not that I have already obtained this (becoming like Christ) or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.

We cannot be all out for the Lord if we are being held back by our sins. This is why He offers total and complete forgiveness. We don't have to do ANYTHING to obtain it other than accept it. So what are we waiting for?

Movements of the Holy Spirit

The following story is a real experience that happened to me last night. The Lord has seen fit to place me in the midst of a trial right now and I know He will sustain me, but I would still appreciate your prayers.


"GOD WHERE ARE YOU?! I know you are out there and I know you are real. I have seen your hand work in my life over and over. I have heard of your awesome and mighty miracles. Not just in the bible but in real time. Here, now, in my life, all around me. So then why are you letting this happen? Why have you forsaken me in this time?!" All of this I scream at the sky. On my knees beating the earth desperate to be heard by my maker. Tears streaming from my eyes, voice raw, my heart breaking, soul wrenching. I look out off of the mountain I am on, three crosses behind me, no one else around. I have never cried or prayed this hard before. 

Then it all stops. I open my eyes. I'm sitting on a bus surrounded by people. All of that was happening in my mind but it seemed completely real. The grass beneath my hands and toes, the warm wetness streaming down my cheeks, the taste of blood and salt on my tongue, the anguish of my heart. So I curl up in my seat with a blanket over my head and softly sob, letting it all out and giving it all to the Lord. I have no control over the situation or way of changing it so it is in your hands now Father. I love you.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

A Night of Desserts

So it has been a while since I have blogged, and given that tonight is the first night of spring break I thought I should celebrate by making some desserts that I created tonight (very much so on the spot) and blogging about it! So tonight Em is spending the night here...about 10:00 pm Lauren got my taste buds going by making some pitas with feta, black olives and parsley. So we loaded up, went to Walmart and bought our basic ingredients. Whole Oats, Chocolate, Plantains, Strawberries, Raspberries, and Hickory Swiss/Cheddar Cheese.

Thankfully my beautiful sister agreed to help me out a little with the cutting of the strawberries!

I love this kind of stuff...

Ok so the first thing I decided to make was pan fried Plantains with Hickory Swiss/Chedder cheese garnished with strawberries and a white wine reduction with strawberries and fresh cranberries! The Plantains were not ripe enough so it wasn't as good as it could have been, but it was still pretty good. I fried the plantains in a little butter and sprinkled a little sugar on them while the were frying to take a little of the bitterness out. Then I topped them with the cheese, strawberries and topped them off with the wine reduction.

This is the wine reduction after it was done cooking. I just strained the amount I needed for plantains out and left the rest there for the time being. It was delish!!

Lets just say...we enjoyed them... =)

Secondly I made two different kinds of Chocolate crumble things. I don't really know what to call them. haha

So both of these are the same except the one on the left has raspberries in it and the one on the right has strawberries. They consist of Whole Oats pan toasted with a little bit of butter, cinnamon and sugar. Then mixed with the individual fruits and the melted chocolate. Then I spooned them on to some wax paper, stuck them in the fridge for about 20 minutes and then garnished the strawberry one with a piece of kiwi and a little powdered sugar on top of both for color!

And that has been my evening! Quite wonderful in my opinion! See ya soon!

Quite The Morning

What a night/morning. I now know what Caleb Kestner goes through on a regular basis.

I went to bed around 1:30am, tried to fall asleep til about 3. Couldn't.

Got up, drank a 5 hour energy and did homework for 2 1/2 hours.

Then I went running at 5:30 am. 1 mile on the track, 2 on the dirt. 5 100 yard dashes and 2 sets of suicides.

I felt great. Hit the gym at 6:10am. By 6:20am had to give up trying to do upper body because my shins hurt so bad they are all I could focus on!

Future Leadership

So as you know, I have been praying that God would draw me closer to Him. But recently I have also been wanting to get involved in an area of consistent service.

 It didn't have to be leadership, but I wanted to do something like help out with the children's ministry at FBC Russellville or something of that nature. One of my problems though has been that I don't have the time to be responsibly involved in all of the areas of service that I have open to me. I have heard people say that you can never serve too much. I disagree.

If you are attempting to plug into 5 or 6 different areas of service AND take 18 hours, then something is going to suffer. And I also don't think that you will be fulfilling your duties within those service areas effectively because you are always thinking about the next thing you have to do or how much homework you have. And so not only will your service be a halfway job but so will your academics.

So this past Tuesday at Fuel, the midweek worship service here at Tech, I was talking to Darrel Ray, the BCM director, and as I was leaving he said, "Come see me sometime this week." Well this afternoon I felt like I needed to stop studying for a while and just relax my brain so I walked over to the BCM to talk to him.

And first I feel like I need to explain something. I am a part of a weekly bible study called Freshlife. It is a freshman bible study led by the previous year's freshmen with some general guidance by the BCM leaders. It has been THE single biggest blessing to me this year here at college. Last semester I told Darrel that I am interested in helping lead one of the Freshlife groups next year and he said that that was great and we would talk more about it this semester. So when he said for me to come see him I was assuming that is what he wanted to talk about.

Well I got over there and we chatted for a while and then started talking about next years Freshlife. And then he threw me this curve ball. "Evan, I want you to be the guy that heads everything up for next year's Freshlife." Whoa! Okay, this is not at all what I was expecting. Before I responded I thought about how I have been praying lately and decided that it was pretty obvious where God wanted me to be serving this semester.

Now I tell you this for two reasons. Firstly, I would covet your prayers as I start meeting with the current Freshlife leaders and discussing what worked and did not work this year and as I begin to have to make decisions about what next year will look like. Secondly, I would ask you to pray for humility for me. It is a huge honor and responsibility for me to be selected by Darrel out of about 100 students to be the one that takes over next year and I don't want that to go to my head.

I am still not exactly sure what all this will entail yet, but I am really excited to see what God does next year in the BCM and Freshlife, and can only pray that he uses this to grow and teach me.

One thing I have learned once again is this. We CANNOT put limiters on God. Now this is what I mean by that. So often when we pray we will say something like this, "God if I am supposed to have this car then let me be able to get it for under so and so amount." Or, "God if I am not supposed to be involved in this then give me this sign." I am really bad at that. Recently God has been directing me on big decisions in the completely opposite way that I prayed He would.

Last semester I really wanted to get involved in the Fuel worship band and He just didn't allow that to happen. I now see why. If I had gotten involved in it then I would not have time to be able to head up the Freshlife groups next semester.

Anyway. I just wanted to share this learning experience with ya'll and tell you how excited I am about it. =)

I Don't Understand

Ok, so for those of you that actually read this thing, just know that this post will have no spiritual value for you whatsoever. It is pretty much just going to be an unspecific rant. So you might not want to read it.

I am so confused right now... One day I think this whole thing is going fine and maybe just maybe I can tell how it is all going to end.

But then, the next day (meaning tonight), something happens...I see one little thing, and it throws me for a friggin loop! And now I have no idea what is going on.

Ok! I was fine with things going one way...and it was a way that normally I wouldn't be ok with...but for some reason I WAS fine with it. And that is part of the reason I thought maybe I knew how it was going to work out.

Now...one little thing happens...a thing that SHOULD be good...but no. All of the sudden I am freaking out because the plan has changed in a split second...maybe I can get things back going in the direction the were going, but I am not sure that I want them to happen that way now...GOD...what is going on?!