Back at it again :-)

Here I am, back at writing again, lol.  To those of you who follow and read my blog, I have to say three things:
1.  Thank you so much!
2.  I love you and you are great!
3.  I'm SORRY!

I have to admit, it's been on my mind since I typed my New Year's resolutions blog that I need to stick to them.  I've also been aware that I have not been doing that.  And that's why I am apologizing.  I do absolutely still believe that God has, in part, called me to be a writer.  It's funny that after being so fired up about my list of resolutions at the beginning of the year, I just let them kind of die off.  I thank all of you for being there for me, and want you to know that in the back of my mind, I always felt like you guys were waiting for me to write again, (because I said I would, lol), and that you were cheering me on in your minds.  For that, I thank you.  In the last week, I had become so angry and aggravated with myself that I wanted everything to come together for me and just be at the end of my dream, where many great things had been accomplished.  The thing I realized about that is, you cannot get to the end if you don't start in the beginning!  Actually, it took me coming to God and praying about why I felt so miserable for me to get my answers.  I fell to my knees, asking "Why?", and "God what is this I'm feeling?", and just like that, it all cleared away, and in came peace.  In that peace, I could see and feel so clearly.  I feel that I am called to be a writer, and also, I feel called to be a pastor someday.

Those are two great feelings, and things I know in my heart that I love.  The thing is, in that peace I wrote of, He showed me so clearly what I already know.  He showed me, and reminded me of my blog, and my promises to keep writing at the beginning of the year, and also, that in my future, part of me being a pastor will be me taking a Bible course which is easily accessible and very affordable to me.  The problem that was causing the way I was feeling?  I haven't been writing.  I left my dream in oblivion and went on chasing this career I am in that has nothing at all to do with where I see myself being in ten or twenty years from now.  I do not mean that I will not or should not continue advancing in the career I am in while I am in it - I think I should do all I can to move forward and move up in it.  I just don't think I should leave my dream hanging in the wind when I'm doing that.  Plus, with God pushing me forward, I don't think I can.  I can see that He always calls me back to my true love.  And for that, I thank Him.  And again, I thank you for reading!  God bless!

My Testimony

My Testimony

So I posted this before.  It's my testimony of how I met God and Jesus for real.  It's about how Jesus changed my life, and it's all summed up here.  There are a lot of details I didn't include, but I think this was the best way to put it out there.  One thing that I didn't want missing from it though is that two weeks before I ever went to the church in my story, I was working with a man from Africa.  I remember it was a Friday afternoon, we were soon to be getting off of work, and I'm sure I was cursing my job and everything about it, and I remember saying how I couldn't wait to go get completely wasted that night.  He turned to me and very nicely said, "Brandon, I am going to pray for God to reveal Himself to you."  That caught me by complete surprise and I told him that was nice and he didn't have too.  I said that people had been praying for me for years and it hadn't done any good yet.  Then I said, "Or maybe that's the reason I'm still alive, I don't know."  I thanked him for wanting to do that and assured him that he shouldn't waste his time praying for me because I was a wreck anyway and I was still going out to party and get wasted that night.  He said, "That's okay.  I'm going to pray for you anyway."  I didn't really care and shrugged it off as "whatever", and went on about my day and night.  Two weeks later, as you see in my story, I ended up at church, and you'll see what happened.  Thanks so much for reading, and God bless!  Here's my story...

My testimony.  It's my life.  I lived with my parents until I was 18 years old.  I walked out a month or so after I turned 18, and went to live with one of my good friend's cousin.  Her and I became best friends and even kind of liked each other, but nothing ever came of it.  About a year after moving in, I moved out on bad terms and we lost contact.  Right before I turned 20, I began dating a girl named Malorie, and we dated for about two and a half years, then broke up and lost contact.  When I moved out of my parents' house, I had really started learning to drink and got pretty heavy into it, and I had also started doing drugs for fun.  When I started dating Malorie, we had moved in together, and I chilled out with the drinking and drugs, (although I didn't stop completely.)

When Malorie and I broke up, I got back into the party scene, and built up a tolerance to alcohol more than I ever had before.  My brother and I moved in together and were throwing parties all the time.  Every weekend for sure.  I remember times when I would get drunk nearly every night of the week and go to work hungover.  I had come to a point in life where I was having so much fun.  I was making more money than ever, and partying more than ever.  At some point, I started taking lortabs, and eventually started selling them.  I always had them available and had the money to buy them, so I started taking them constantly.  Then I got addicted to them.  It was all fun and games until one night I ran out and couldn't find any, and I remember laying in my driveway wanting the sky to fall on me and kill me because the withdrawals felt so terrible.   After that episode, I decided to leave them alone.

I was still all about the drinking though!  If it was alcohol, I was pretty much willing to try it!  I would drink until I couldn't drink any more, and go to sleep.  I remember being upset a lot, because I could never get drunk enough to clear my head and get the torment out of my brain. 

Then one day, after not communicating for nearly 7 years, my old roommate contacted me on Myspace.  We started dating, and it was all about the partying, drinking, some drugs, and whatever else seemed fun.  Everything was going great, and I was thinking more and more that we'd get married.  Then something happened.  Her sister's birthday came around, and she told me that her sister did not want her to buy anything for her birthday.  What her sister wanted was for her to go to church with her.  I got SO mad!  I said that was the stupidest thing I had ever heard.  It was so stupid, and she should just buy her sister something and get it over with.  She told me "No."  She said that was what her sister wanted and she would do it, and she did.  I figured that'd be the end of it but I was wrong.  My ex came back and said she liked the church!  Now it was even worse!  A few weeks went by, and BAM!  What I considered to be the worst case scenario ever happened.  This time, her sister invited her to church again, and not only that, I was invited too!  I cannot tell you how mad I got!  At that point in my life, I was willing to go just about anywhere but church.  I hated it!  Now I was faced with a decision;  go to a place I absolutely hated to go, or make my girlfriend mad because I didn't go.  It took me about a week of intense and agonizing debate in my head, until I finally said I would go.  Well, that Sunday morning, we went to Crossroads Church.  When I walked in, I was surprised because people were smiling everywhere, and were so friendly.  Actually, it freaked me out.  Back then, I thought you went to hell for smiling in church.  I told my ex that if they tried to serve us kool aid, I was running.  I threw an expletive in there, and she said, "I can't believe you said that in church!"  I said, "Well, it's how I feel."

We then walked into the sanctuary, and I was surprised again.  I really liked rock music, and on stage, there were guitars and drums.  I liked that.  Then we sat down in comfortable chairs, and that was also different for me.  Well the service went on, and some guy in jeans and a tee shirt came out on stage.  I didn't know who he was, but when I realized he would be the guy speaking to us about God that day, I knew he would definitely be in trouble with God.  (He wasn't!)  I can't explain it, but somewhere between the middle and end of that service, something changed in me.  When we went to leave, I wanted to complain about something, but my thoughts stopped halfway through my brain, and I didn't.  I was always negative about everything before that, and at that moment, I knew that no one wanted to hear all of the negativity.  We were both pretty excited about the church and went back Wednesday night to a youth service.  The pastor was preaching and saying things like, "if you've ever lied and wished you hadn't, stand up".  He called me out like that over and over, but as people all around stood up, I was too stubborn.  I knew I was wrong but my pride didn't want to stand up, so much so that I thought I would break some of my own fingers from squeezing one hand so tight with the other.    After a while, the pastor said something like, "Please excuse me guys, I'm letting God take over."  Then my heart started pounding like it was going to beat out of my chest, and the pastor said, "If you feel like your heart is about to beat out of your chest, stand up!"  I stood up.  I knew he couldn't fake that.  That night's sermon was about being abstinent until marriage, and I was convicted of it.  I knew it was meant for me, and at that point, I began practicing abstinence.  The following Sunday, we went back to the same church, and at the end of service when the pastor asked if anyone wanted to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, I did.  It was the greatest day of my life.  After that, my girlfriend and I were going separate ways, and after a lot of heart ache and tears, our relationship ended.  It actually happened like this;  I was working nights, and we had been in so much dispute.  I laid down on the floor of a structure we were in while I had some time, looked up at the ceiling, and said, "God, this is as real as I've ever been with you.  It's just me and you here.  If she's in the way of my relationship with you, get her out of my life."  The following morning, I tried to call her to say "I love you" and all that, but she put me off two or three times, then called me, (and I mean this part with all sincerity), and told me she no longer wanted to be with me.  She asked me not to get mad but I did.  When I realized our relationship was over, I literally wanted to die.  I was as distraught as I have ever been, and I remember pouring my heart out to God.  I was in so much pain, I felt like I was literally in pieces on my bedroom floor at one point.  Thankfully though, God put me back together piece by piece...

I came to terms with the fact that I was moving on, and I knew God had been doing a great work in me.  I remember praying to Him saying, "God, I'm ready for you to bring me a girlfriend that I would be equally yoked with and that you would be pleased with me dating."  A few days later, I was going to pray about that situation again, and I remember saying, "No, you KNOW WHAT GOD?  I'M READY FOR THE WOMAN THAT YOU WANT TO BE MY WIFE!" 

I can't tell you for sure how long it was after I prayed that prayer that I saw my ex girlfriend Malorie on Myspace, but it couldn't have been more than two or three months.  I hadn't talked to Malorie in about five years, and when we had last talked, I had been pretty mean.  I knew that I couldn't go on saying I was a Christ follower sincerely when I was pretty sure someone in the world was probably hurt by me, and I wanted the chance to apologize.  I sent Malorie a message, and all it said was, "Hi Malorie, how have you been?"  She sent back two sentences in reply, which turned into paragraphs of conversation, to dinner two weeks later, and us getting married about a year and a month later.  We have been married for a little over a year and two months now, and have our sons Travis, (who Malorie had when we began dating, and I have taken as my own son), and a little baby boy, Brendan.  When talking about me wanting to apologize, Malorie always tells me, "I think you got your point across."  And the man from Africa I said had prayed for me?  He ended up being a great friend and even officiated Malorie and I's wedding!  By the way, I was a little backsliden when we started dating.  Malorie came with me to a Christmas production at Crossroads and gave her life back to God, and we have been yearning to get closer and closer to Him ever since.  Also, I have not drank alcohol, used drugs, or smoked cigarettes in at least a year and a half.  What can I say, God is great!

If you ever decide that you want to accept Jesus Christ in your heart, you just have to believe in your heart that He is God's Son and risen from the dead, and confess it with your mouth.  Pray a prayer, (sincerely), telling God you are sorry for your sins and ask Him to be forgiven.  You will be.  At that moment, you will be saved and adopted into the family of God.  Turn away from everything you know is sin, and start living your life to please God.  He loves you.  I firmly believe you should find a good, Bible believing church and surround yourself with other people who love God as well, and read your Bible everyday.  Not because you have to, but because these things will help you live out your faith and be the best you can be!  I hope this has helped you in some way, and if you just prayed a prayer like I mentioned above and feel you don't know how to get connected with people who believe or you need a Bible, or anything really, please feel free to contact me, and I will do all that I can to help you.  Also, if you did just say this prayer, and were saved, God bless you, and congratulations on your new life in Christ!

NEW YEARS GOALS (And Where I Am With Those)

I know, I know.  I'm a week late starting these.  Probably a little more than a week late, considering that most people who have new years goals that they actually set and follow most likely start thinking about and setting those goals in advance of the new year.  I figured since it is the first time I am actually doing this seriously, now is a way better time to start than never.  Do you agree?  I hope so.  Also, for me personally, as I look into the new year ahead, I see it two ways:  1. Having no goals, and whatever happens happens, or 2. Setting goals, accomplishing them, and watching as God miraculously intervenes and makes things turn out far better than I could have ever imagined or asked by just setting my own goals.

I am going with option two.  Why?  Well because I have lived option one for most of my life now, and I don't like just ending up wherever the wind blows.  This time, at the end of 2012, I want to look back and say, "Yep, I accomplished those things I set up for at the beginning of the year."  I also want to be able to look back at the year with my family, and be greatly appreciative of all I know God will do with us, in us, through us, and for us.  I have much more to talk about with Malorie, my wife, about what we are going to plan this year for our family, and my goals as far as my current and future career, but hey, like I said, starting now is better than never.   These are my personal goals, and how I plan to accomplish them:

1.  Begin reading a Bible track to finish in 1 1/2 years. 

     A.  Follow 3 year reading plan in NIV Bible and double up what's called for each day.  

2.  Write and publish at least one blog a month.

     A.  Whether I consider it good or bad, I will purposely post at least one blog a month.

     

     B.  It does not matter if it's short or long.

     

     C.  It does not matter if it's old or new content. 

     D.  ONCE A MONTH, I WILL POST A BLOG AND PUBLISH IT!  I will continue this all year, no  matter if people love it or hate it, whether hundreds, thousands, or no one at all comments, I will do this for me, God, and the world!

     

     E.  The subject matter for each post will be whatever I choose, because that is me.

3.  I will be sure to continue the book I began writing by writing at LEAST one page of new stuff each month.

So that 's where  I am right now.  I may adjust and sharpen these goals throughout the year.  I will see.  But what I've written is the very minimum I plan to accomplish.  And I shall.  If you wonder why I seem so repetitive for my details of number 2, it's because I feel called to write and publish my work, but I have consistently come up with reason after reason not to do so, when in all truth, the only real reason I haven't is because of fear.  And now, I've accomplished Goal 2 so far this year.  :-)   I hope we all have an amazing year in 2012!  Feel free to comment and leave your thoughts about your New Year's goals and resolutions, or whatever you may call them.  Thanks for reading and God bless you!   

The Body of Christ

     I used to get drunk - completely wasted - all the time.  It was what I did to escape reality.  It was almost the only way I could make it through each day.  Times seemed hard, like everything was against me, and I just couldn't win, no matter how hard I tried.

     Now I don't get drunk, and I don't have to escape reality.  Now I know what reality really is.  I can make it through every day, no matter how rough it seems, and I give all of that credit to God.  Sure there's times when I still get angry or down, but if it continues on, I know it is because I am not focusing on the right thing.  I no longer have to make it through everyday alone.  I have Jesus with me always, and not just Him alone, but the friends, or as He says, the brothers and sisters God has given me in Christ.  PEOPLE I can talk to.  Real life people to connect with, who know Jesus, know God's word, and deal with some of the same things I deal with.

It's, refreshing, relieving, and very helpful.

     Over this past year, I have separated myself from these wonderful people God has placed in my life.  Yes, I talked to people, smiled and held real conversations, prayed, laughed, and cried with them, but I never let them in.  That HURT!  I became very lonely, right in the middle of everyone I know, and that was not good.  Somehow, I managed to isolate myself right in the middle of a crowd.  I was struggling very hard emotionally.  I could look around and see things were not too bad in my life and my family, but I felt like everything was horrible!  Deceived by my feelings, and tricked into believing it was all real.

     What happened is that I wasn't trusting anybody.  At least not enough to let them so far in that they could get to know who I really am.  I didn't want to get hurt like I have with so many relationships, so I purposely kept a wedge between them and myself all the time.  The thing about it is, I didn't even realize I was doing it.  I prayed with people wholeheartedly, I had no problem passing by genuinely smiling, saying "hi", shaking hands, or telling them about my family briefly, but I "knew" that I couldn't let anyone in on how I really felt if I was having trouble in some area or areas of my life.  That's where the snowball began.

On top of all of that, I would almost never make time to actually visit people, have their families visit with mine, or make time to just get together and relax to watch a football game and have a good time.  I always felt I was too busy.  Like I had to work.  If I wasn't working, I felt I had to help with the dishes, or do something at the house.  If not that, I felt like I better spend time with my kids, and if not them, then I felt I needed to spend time with my wife, or I had better be learning about God or praying.  For some reason I felt like if I was relaxing, I was doing something wrong, and everything felt very grudging.   I felt like I always had to be doing something. I was being very selfish, but at the same time,   I completely forgot to take care of me.  I forgot that I need time to relax.  Time to pray because I want to.  Time to watch a football game, or hang out and joke with my friends.  Have some real deep down conversations, and let people in.  So what if I get hurt by them?  I'll never know if I don't try.  

So now I'm letting people in.  I quit being scared anymore.  I can even laugh and joke with my wife much more often, and that's important, and not to mention - FUN!   I am not trying to be all selfish here and say that everything is all about me, lol.  It starts with me though.  On the inside of me, because what's on the inside is what's going to come out.  I really intended for this blog to be different today, but I think Jesus just helped me out even more while I was writing this.  God is awesome, and always setting us free.  I thank Him for that.  I'm realizing that  I need people, and we can't do this on our own.  I look at the Bible and see that 1 Corinthians 12: 12-31 is all about the body of Christ.  It describes how each Christ follower is a part of the body of Christ, and we all need each other and should have equal concern for each other:

"Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.  Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. "  (1 Corinthians 12: 12-14). 

It later says, in verse 20, "As it is, there are many parts, but one body."  I  am now just really starting to understand this.  Christians were not meant to isolate themselves, and I am so glad to be a part of Christ's body, and attend such an awesome church like Crossroads in Lafayette where there are so many loving people reaching out and reaching in to help change lives all the time.  I thank God for what He has done and continues to do for me and my family.  I am so thankful for all the great connections He has given me with people, and I am working on reaching out more, and letting people in.  It's what we're called to do.  I keep thinking that isolating yourself the way I talked about is like tying a string too tight around one of your body parts, and if you left it there for too long, that part would eventually turn colors and fall off because there is no blood flow.  I don't want to do it anymore, and I hope no one else does either.  I hope we can all learn to love the people God has put in our lives, and stay connected to our brothers and sisters in Christ.  After all, they may just be the answers we've been praying for!  

MISSION: DEFINITELY POSSIBLE!

     So I've realized recently, that all my life, writing is something I've always enjoyed and wanted to do.  I think at 29 years old, I just realized why I never understood when everyone else complained about writing a paper or having essay questions on tests, lol.  They never had enough to say.  My only problem was, "How am I going to put my answer in THAT  little space?!"  Now I get it.  I love writing, and always wanted to impress the teachers by getting my point across. 

     Now I'm all grown up and still want to get my point across, and still feel this burning, yearning, leaping inside my heart to write.  Write what, though?  It's part of what I'd love doing for a living.  You know how we all have that something we would do for a living instead of our actual job if we could?  Yeah.  Well for me, that's writing.  Or a big part of it anyway.  I have millions of things running through my head to write about, at all times.  Even as I write this.  The only problem?  Oh...I've just been scared.  Scared you won't care about what I write.  Scared that the first thing you read by me won't be my best, and will turn you, (and everyone else), off from ever reading anything I write again, and thus you'll miss what really is my best one yet, stopping the word from getting out about how good it was.  Or scared of offending you.  I never want to do that.  Then you might say how bad my blog is, or get the complete wrong impression about me, and we'd never get the chance to meet and talk about it.  Of course, it all balls down to not wanting to have a faux pas in anything I do.

     So here it is.  Another blog.  I'm putting everything on the line.  The fear of failure is just going to have to go away.  Just like anyone else who has ever done anything great, they had to start somewhere.  If all my writing ever does is give one person a chuckle, or lets somebody know they are not alone in the way they think, or gets someone to scratch their head and say, "Hmm, I never thought of that", and gives them a new idea, GREAT!  My mission is accomplished.  Hopefully, one day my writing will help change the world.  I believe if I keep stepping out and writing, that change just might be beginning right now.  Maybe someone else realized they are not the only one who woke up this morning scared to put themselves out there and put their dreams on the line.  It all starts somewhere.  A million sayings come to mind right now.  "You have to crawl before you can walk."  Don't believe me?  Why don't you come visit?  I'll let you see my little 11 week old son who I know will be able to run track later in life if he chooses to, but last night, he was just making his first attempts to learn to crawl. 

     That's all I have for now.  I hope you laughed or scratched, or something.  If you've read this far, thanks a million!  Today is a great day, and I hope you get to enjoy it!!  God bless you in all you do!  Feel free to comment and tell us what your dreams are, and what is your progress in accomplishing them.  Again, thanks a million, and have a great day!      

"Have You Ever Thought About"

Have you ever thought about what you would think about if you ever had the time to relax and just think?  What would you do?  Would you think about the good things in life, or how to change what is not good in our world?  Would you let the positive things run through and bring you peace? You couldn't and shouldn't let the negative things take you down.  Would you take your thoughts and make them captive to God's Word?  Bring them up and bind them to make them positive?  Would you decide, "Hey, I'm not going to be conquered by my thoughts anymore!",?  I know I am tired of being destroyed by mine, so I am building them up and turning them over to God.  I am reading the Bible and learning what God thinks of me.  I am seeing that He thinks quite a bit of me - AND YOU!  He loves each and every one of us very much!  So I refuse to be living in defeat everyday anymore, but instead, I will be living in victory because I will be turning everything over to God!  Amen!