i am back in my hotel room after a great conference with dare2share. it was my first time at this conference but thanks to revolve i’d been in the venue before a couple of times. it was a fun two days with the team from interlinc and made new friends from dare2share as well. here are a couple of pictures from my trip here and while here.
tunes for the flight over
waiting for my flight
what i saw before landing
more scenery
starfield was leading worship this weekend
the start to saturday
the sky tonight on the way back to the hotel
today i found out that copeland is calling it quits as a band. sad day to say the least. if you’ve never listened to these guys do yourself a favor and go buy any of their albums… here’s an itunes link to make it easy . as i was going through youtube videos of copeland to post here i came across some other videos from bands that are no longer making music. anyways.. here are a couple. check them out and go buy their music!! (i should warn you that the production value on some of these is not the best ever)
so in a recent post (yes i just linked to my own blog. gotta get my page views up somehow) i promised jeremy and amy (who happen to be some of the coolest people on the face of the planet) a post about what they have called “the good stuff.” “the good stuff” would be referencing any sort of stories that involve me in process of getting to know a girl. now you should understand that i don’t get to see/hang out with the adams family (no joke. it’s their last name. well, she took the last name when she married him.) very often. because of the amount of time that passes between our visits there always seems to be stories of love almost had, flowers on desks, and finding out more about what God has in mind for me. towards the end of our last, entirely to short, visit i mentioned a girl as they were walking away. jeremy (also known as @spacekicker in the twitter universe) said something along the lines that i needed more stories of “the good stuff” on my blog for him to read. (have to be honest that i’m pretty sure that’s what he said. they were walking away, it was hot, and the park had a lot of noise going on but it sounds good so i’m going with it) so with all of that i’m going to now get to “the good stuff.”
there was a girl. it was a while ago. she was, still is, different from most of the other girls i’ve been interested in. everyone likes to say that but you could ask a couple of my friends (and there were only a few that knew of this) about her and they would tell you she is different. now you might be thinking different is bad but it is not bad at all in this case. actually there was a lot different about my whole experience with her. i guess i should tell you up front that we never dated. i know, i ruined the end of the story. this story is more about what God has done though, or rather, what God is doing! we started hanging out because of a really random reason. the reason for us spending time together wasn’t even accomplished due to some really great conversation that was really cool. after she and i began to hang out for reasons that had nothing to do with pursuing her i had a conversation with a close friends. the main point my friend tried making in the conversation was that he thought she liked me. here’s where one of the differences from other girls showed up. i told him no way and i wasn’t even going to allow myself to think that. i always had entertained the thoughts of maybe she does like me with other girls. i didn’t want to do that with this one. i had decided that because if that was my attitude it would help protect my heart and hopefully help protect hers. by this point some of the things that i was doing differently included never hanging out alone. from meeting her until i knew she wasn’t the girl for me at this point in my life we had spent, at most, 2 hours alone (and most of that was getting food one evening). outside of driving in the car we had logged maybe 10 minutes of alone time with no one around. all of our time spent together was in public.
in all the premarital counseling i’ve done never have i had someone say “man, we blew it. we were at starbucks and one thing led to another then…” brad bell (pastor of the well community church)
another thing i did differently was that i didn’t try to have serious conversations. i wanted things to stay light and fun. it was all really to help protect my heart. that may sound selfish but i’m going to be held accountable for how i acted towards her, treated her, and even the thoughts i had of her. so i figured going in it was best to not expect or hope for anything. well, that was all fine and dandy until i realized that i was enjoying hanging out with her. that’s how they get us, girls that is. first they’re pretty (they know it and us guys know it), then they’re fun to be around (this girl made me laugh a lot), and then we enjoy that and want more. now don’t get the wrong idea about me. i’m looking for more than a girl who is pretty and funny. but those are the things that girls seem to hook us guys on. well, i couldn’t resist any more. i finally let myself say out loud to a friend or two that i was starting to have a crush on this girl. i still didn’t think she was interested in me though. that was good. because of that i did something different than what i normally (i say normally but i could be wrong) would do. i didn’t do anything about it. i actually cut back on the times that i would see her. i did have one moment of weakness though. we were chatting one evening about our long days. so i told her we were hanging out and i went and picked her up and we had a great evening. hahaha, that didn’t help my cause of maintaining a distance. anyways… a couple weeks after that i decided that i couldn’t take it anymore. i was going to tell her that i wanted to be intentional about getting to know her and i wanted to take her out on a real date. i didn’t want to end up in friendville. well, i chickened out that day a couple of times. as i sat on my floor after a last ditch effort to not chicken out my roommate came and sat down with me. as we talked about my day and what i was thinking he asked me a question. he said that his dad asks him this question whenever he starts talking about a girl he’s interested in. the question was “does she, by just being who she is, challenge you to be a better version of yourself?” i decided to spend another night praying about it. at least that’s what i said out loud. i knew as soon as he asked that question that the answer was no. i’m not telling you that i decided to not do anything about this girl because the answer to the question was no. the question helped me realize that it wasn’t going to be a good thing. she is a great girl. she has a ton of awesome qualities but she just doesn’t challenge me by just being her. i was pretty nervous all day about wanting to talk to her. by the time i had gotten into bed i knew that the nervousness i was feeling was a good kind of nervous. i’m not sure how to explain that. i just knew it wasn’t a good nervous. so i spent some time in prayer and slept. the week following i don’t think she and i talked at all. i really am glad i didn’t do anything about my little crush. i now know my gut feeling about her not being interested in me was correct. when i found that out (when she told me about the guy she had a crush on i kind of figured it out) it was nice to know that i was right and read the situation well when a couple of friends thought otherwise. i think the coolest thing about this whole process was the lack of attachment. my heart didn’t get wrapped up in something that i now need to untangle it from. for that i am really thankful. so, it was a little different. the girl was different as was the experience and how i handled myself.
so, that would be the good stuff for right now. there are always fun little details that get left out of these things. but this gives you an idea. hopefully i’ll be able to apply things i’ve learn from this to the next girl i’m lucky enough to meet and fall for in some way. anyways… God is good and that is enough for me!
to say yes
to say no
to stop chasing
to run faster
to do a dessert presentation
to have a hard conversation
to let go
to not set your alarm
to ask why
to hold your tongue
to sing loudly
to speak softly
to hold her hand
to walk away
to ask for forgiveness
to hope
to give in
to begin
to end
to relax
to supersize
to let someone in
to wear sandals in the rain
to stop dreaming some dreams
to ________ ?
so i’ve been into this band (really it’s just one guy) for a couple of years now. this song, like knives, is off of their/his first album and it one of my favorites… check it out.
check them out!
your hand in mine – explosions in the sky
oh, happiness – david crowder band
these songs have been dominating my iphone this week (or in the case of the kutless song since tuesday)
what are you listening to?
i finished the newest donald miller book today. it is a really good read. throughout the read i was constantly challenged in how i’m living life. it’s stirred up a lot of things in my heart that i’m not sure what to do with but will be prayerfully processing.
the new kutless album is out. i’ve been giving it some serious listening time and will be sharing my thoughts on it soon. i’ll tell you right now that it is what i expected but also a bit different than i expected. i’d recommend the first track off of the cd, it is well, as a must purchase!
the rest of my week is going to be filled with working, weddings, and playing guitar. should be busy but fun!
i haven’t posted a favs list in a while so i thought i’d get one up here. in this installment i’ll be posting multiple mini lists. you’ll see what i mean in a quick moment. all of these are recent favs and in no way reflect any sort of all time favorites (so when i don’t mention radiohead in my bands list don’t go thinking i’ve lost it and they’re not a fav of mine. they are. and they’re recording a new cd this fall) here goes.
bands i’m really into right now:
things my dvr records for me:
- how i met your mother
- tosh.0
- 30rock
- glee
- and anything else i tell it to!
things i’ve been reading:
- a million miles in a thousand years (God is blowing me away with this book)
- James (it’s in the Bible and a must read)
- daring fireball (favorite tech blog for a while)
miscellaneous other things:
- getting witnessed to again by the jehovah witness folks
- having a ton of fees reversed by the branch manager at the bank i go to
- getting to play with students on a worship team
- seeing/hearing students respond and participate in worship on tuesday nights
- rocking out with my brother graham was a blast
guilty pleasure songs currently:
- single ladies (put a ring on it) – beyonce [watch glee from a couple of weeks ago and you'll see]
- shameless – garth brooks
- heart heart break – boys like girls
- good girls go bad – cobra starship
- big green tractor – jason aldean
so i know you’re wondering why i’ve mentioned country music twice now. well, the youth ministry is having a barn dance this coming saturday and yours truly is the dj. yep. i’ve listened to more country music in the past week than the whole time i spent hanging out with elissa (a friend who would only listen to country music while we were in a car). anyways… high school ministry at the well has been going good. this semester has been the most enjoyable for me. i’ve gotten to develop relationships with students and am constantly meeting new students which really excites me. i’m looking forward to seeing what God has for us the rest of this semester as we’re learning about social responsibility. with this topic i’ve been reading about a lot of sweet (and unique) missions opportunities. take a minute to check out this video and click on the link after it. they’re both two pretty cool things that are happening.
video first:
link now: ROSA LOVES
anyways.. that’s just a little bit of what’s going on.
ps. to at least two of you (jeremy and amy) who happen to check my blog out, i promise that there is a post coming about all the “juicy stuff” that you asked about the last time i saw you. it’s good stuff and God is good. miss you both. (yes. that shout out just happened!)
just a little something different from sending a text or email to our students…
