something like this pt. 2

scratcth that, it's pneumonia.

something like this.

it's like an eighteen wheeler barreling down I-75 at speeds of 80 miles-per-hour and my sinuses are a four-lane highway.

it's like an NFL linebacker pummeling the cavernous spaces behind my cheekbones.

it's like a monster snow plow making walls of gooey secretion inside my face, except the blizzard is chronic and the truck can't drive fast enough.

it's something like that.
some people call it bronchitis.

train of thought.

I find myself rummaging through stacks of paper from freshman year, and I have to look at my watch to remind myself that it is, in fact, October 20th, 2008. It's like those annual Christmas-cookie-recipes that consume your house with the scent of memories--those smells that somehow allow you to remember exactly what you were doing the previous year when you caught that same aroma. I remember when I wrote this. I was just beginning to get into the swing of the high school scene, no thoughts of college in mind, aside from the occasional, "I wonder what it'll be like to be a senior," thought that sometimes knocked on the door of my head." I instinctively look out my window. Have you ever noticed that whenever people reminisce or try to grasp the concept of time, they almost always gaze out a window? I wonder why. Perhaps it is because the glass that separates them from the scenery they can so clearly see is much too familiar, like the next turn of a calendar page when you sneakily peek at next month's picture, as if someone is watching you. The view from my window is the same as it was two years prior, but I am not. The leaves, trees, and grass are all the same, but somehow they are different. This ensemble of nature seems stagnant, yet cyclical. It is as if they keep repeating their turns in season just in case I might have missed something, for I am in forward motion. I do not make my rounds; I make footprints. But the leaves keep falling right outside my glass. The tree just stands there. And the grass just rests. Much to their delight, I suppose, I seem to notice something different each time I look out that window. I am reminded of who I was, who I am, and I wonder what I will be next time I turn to look outside through that expectant window pane.

what's your prognosis?

"The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved- loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves." Victor Hugo

"One hundred worshippers meeting together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possible be were they to become 'unity' conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship." A. W. Tozer

"There are many things which a person can do alone, but being a Christian is not one of them. As the Christian life is, above all things, a state of union with Christ, and of union of his followers with one another, love of the brethren is inseparable from the love of God. Resentment toward any human being cannot exist in the same heart with love to God. The personal relationship to Christ can only be realized when one has 'come to himself' as a member of His Body, the Christian fellowship." William T. Ham

"The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people." G. K. Chesterton

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

-Langston Hughes-

it would be cruel to watch someone die, while holding the cure for his sickness in your hands.

The main thing God convicted me of on the senior retreat was how I hold back way too often. After hearing so many testimonies from people whom I barely knew, I realized that it is way too easy for me to by this bubble around myself and my friends. You know, we always say that we want to love people, and whenever we hear a convicting message about love, we make a mental note, but we do absolutely nothing. I really liked what Sam Wolfe said. "If I'm not building you up, I'm tearing you down." In the same way, we can't just sit around and wait for depressed, discouraged, weary people to just plop themselves on our front steps (but sometimes God does do that). People like that don't seek out help because they're just too afraid of being 'naked and ashamed'. Very rarely did those kinds of people make the initiative with Jesus; he was the one to seek out the lost. We need to take the first step and be bold in finding those people. We need to be intentional in getting to know others. There are so many more layers to people and so much more depth, but we're so easily satisfied with the surface because we're just not willing to deeply invest. Just because someone's personality or actions don't appeal to me doesn't give me any justification for not pursuing them. People that I care for are not in any more need of grace than the quiet girl in the corner, or the loudest person at school. Everyone equaly needs God's grace and they need to know that it is sufficient for each and every thing in their lives. Our obedience to the life of Jesus will glorify God, and it may just play a part in saving someone's life. Our disobedience will disgrace the name of Jesus and may have been the one thing that played a part in someone's death. I know, it sounds pretty harsh, but when you think about it, it's inhuman to be surrounded by dying people and not do anything about it.