musings and mutterings

i can’t decide if i wish i had control over my life or not. some days i really wish i could press the staples “easy button” and make my trials and tribulations all go away. other times i wax spiritual and say that i believe there is a rhyme and a reason behind the crap i go through, that God somehow purposes things in our lives to improve our character, to make us more holy, or to…well, whatever.

it’s just that…well, it sounds easy to say those things when things are going along just fine. whether it’s a relationship, school, a job, family stuff - when all is well, we can preach the “purpose in pain” mantra all day long until our lungs are ready to blow up, but when the first hint of unrest comes along, all of the sudden, no matter how much we believe what we spout off to others, all of the sudden everything changes. now when people start quoting romans 8:28 to you, all you can think is, where is the nearest baseball bat, and i hope no one is looking.

at 21 years old, i am no where near where i thought i would be. a seizure condition has forced me, at the last minute, to take the semester off of school at the beginning of what would be my senior year of college. i’ll be lucky to graduate in eight semesters with a degree in journalism and no plans on going into that field. in the next two weeks i’ll be having a spinal tap, a PET scan, and a 72-hour ambulatory EEG because the doctors have no idea what’s causing my seizures. and that’s just the beginning.

i say all this not whining, just to continue to make my case that my life is, in absolutely no way, shape or form, in my hands. but what i have realized through all of this, in no cheesy or super-spiritual way, is that i wouldn’t have it any other way. i have figured out the hard way that when i am the boss, things go down the crapper, fast. i have an uncanny ability to, when i try to be in control, make my life…well, suck. but when i cede control to the One who is truly in control, i have nothing to worry about. seizures, school, degrees, future…the strangest peace comes in regard to all of those things. i never had control in the first place. it’s just a matter of realizing that it was all out of my hands to begin with - i just have to let go.

i was talking with a buddy of mine the other day and he was telling me how he struggles with the idea of grace. he shared how he always feels like he is trying to earn or work for something that he can never quite attain. i can’t really blame him. it seems that when we are walked down the romans road to salvation they forget to explain to us that at the end of the road often comes the feeling that we owe something. but we have been given something we can only receive, which leaves us feeling a little bit undone.

and our culture doesn’t help any. the american mindset states we work for everything and are rewarded accordingly. promotions come after years of hard work. no dollar comes unearned. dog eat dog. survival of the fittest. make your own way. this all fits right into the “american dream,” which christians buy into hook, line and sinker. so when we’re introduced to the concept of grace, we’re wrestling with a completely foreign concept. just like Jesus, huh?

and our human nature, which yearns for recognition, works completely against the idea of grace. when adam and eve ate from that tree, it was from a desire to be like god - they bought the lie that they could be gods themselves. and so, like them, we all want credit. so even in salvation, we desire credit for something. we’re ok with God doing most of the work of salvation, but we want to imagine that we can do something to earn part of it. maybe not even a 75/25 split - that might be overstating what we could accomplish. most days i would be ok with even 99/1. just as long as we feel like we have done something to earn our way, to make ourselves valued. grappling with the truth that we earn and deserve none of the credit is not so hard to accept in our heads, but it is much more difficult to live out because of our nature and the mindset we are ingrained with daily.

another good friend told me something the other day that i have been dwelling on. i think he coined it. our value is declared, not appraised. i’m pretty sure grace would be easier if we lived as though that were true - which i think it is. Jesus came and declared our value on the cross. done deal. it’s not only useless to keep jumping through these religious hoops trying to earn our way. i think it’s a little bit of a slap in His face. as long as we are trying to earn our way, even part of it, we are essentially saying that the cross isn’t enough. we need credit for our salvation, and Jesus alone just doesn’t cut it.

we need to get over the fact that grace, intrinsically, leaves us feeling a little bit helpless. we have received something of the greatest value to which we can give nothing in return. the concept goes against everything cultural that we are fed every day, and yet it is possibly the most beautiful, freeing thing in the world: free, full life, no strings attached. let’s stop earning and start living.

today i went out to the bay hill invitational, where every year all the professional golfers come out to orlando to swing their clubs in honor of the great one, arnold palmer. this event holds special significance for me because not only did i grow up in orlando, but i grew up right down the road from this course in bay hill itself. i used to drive down the road and hear my dad tell me that arnold palmer was about to tee off right outside the window. that, of course, meant nothing to me then, but i guess it’s sorta cool now.

anyway, it was such a throwback to my youth it was crazy. you see, my family moved to texas when i was 16, and in an effort to do the best job possible of transitioning into texas life, i thrust myself wholeheartedly into it. that’s right. i learned all the stats on how texas is the only state that can fly its flag as high as the u.s. flag. i became a full-fledged mavs fan. i even revived the cowboys fan inside of me to pull for the parcells-led ‘boys that could never seem to make it past the first round of the playoffs. i became a tex-mex eating, “everything’s bigger AND better here” quoting, obnoxious texas resident. and i say obnoxious only because hey - even those of us who reside in texas can admit that we can occasionally be obnoxious. all this to say, i dove headfirst into my new hometown and left orlando, fl in the dust.

so now i find myself, by a strange twist of fate, living back in the town i, for 13 years, called home. and i can’t shake this feeling that…man, this IS home. i might have graduated from a high school in texas. my parents might have a house there that i return to on breaks from school. but when i was out on the golf course today, i realized something: i have history here. lots and lots of history. and it goes way further back than my junior year of high school. you see, what i wanted to tell all those jokers out on the golf course today that they obviously don’t realize is that this is MY golf course. i’m the one that grew up going to clinics out here every summer. i’m the one that won a cheapo driver here when i was like 10 by correctly guessing one of the anchors of channel 9 news (it was bob opsahl by the way…i could have said marla weech, but i really like the name opsahl…opsaaaahl.) i’m the one that volunteered to work this tournament when i was in middle school and went from security guard to cash register in like 15 minutes…and they said my drawer didn’t have a penny off. i’m the one that broke my dad’s intern’s big bertha on the driving range when i was 13. that was ME. this is MY course.

now please understand i am completely joking and i feign arrogance only to get the point across that out there today, i realized something. this is home. not just this course, although it definitely holds a lot of memories. but orlando. this is home. it’s good to be home.

ok so i’m taking a new approach to this thing called blogging (is it so obvious that i’m a. a blogging novice and b. a bit of a blogging skeptic? i have no qualms about blogging in and of itself, but maybe because i am an extremely undisciplined person, i just have trouble sticking with it, and the problem is me, not blogging…by the way i am doing an experiment to see how many times i can write the word “blogging” in between these parentheses i think i’m about to hit the limit…bloggingbloggingblogging…ok i’m done).

anyway yes, i will finish the three part series on the confirmation of me being in orlando, so allllll you people out there in cyberspace who are just sitting on the edge of your seat, waiting for the second installment…i know it’s killing you, but you might have to wait a little bit longer. but my new approach is this…i am just gonna write about whatever i want to. whatever is floating through my head, this will be my outlet to get it out. because there are wayyy too many things going on in my head right now, and i need some kind of online journal to get some of this stuff out (what a concept, huh? i think i just re-invented the blog. i am a genius.) and as i write, i will just put different categories on what i am writing. i didn’t even know you could do that until yesterday. (shoutout AM.) so those of you who are undoubtedly visiting my page again and again, who just can’t get enough of my witty retort and banter…rejoice, your day is nigh. i will be publishing a’plenty.

on any journey, there will be doubts of whether or not we have made the right choice. a few months ago, i was struggling with the choice of whether i should return to school or not. my parents, as all good parents should, spoke words of wisdom that, inevitably, turned into some type of pep talk about the importance of a college degree. in other words, stay at samford or transfer. this was not bad advice. this was merely parental advice. as i sat on my bum not knowing what to do and, in effect, not doing anything, my sister gave me sisterly advice encouraging me that to not make any choice was, indeed, to make a choice. quite wise, i think. and so, still not knowing what to do, i continued to sit.

and so we did what all good families do when one member is in a crisis of decision-making: we went to disney world. but seriously, we did. and so as we began our trek to orlando, i had begun to think that maybe transferring was the answer. so we planned to meet up with an old friend in orlando who would undoubtedly speak some wisdom into the situation and knew very well the school i was thinking about transferring to. because, if there is one lesson i have learned in my 20 years of life, it is this: when you don’t know the answer, ask the old people.

so we meet up with mrs. corbett at season’s 52 the day we fly in and begin discussing options for the semester, of which there are many. transfer to asbury, go to d.c. for a journalism program, etc. but as we sit there, who walks in but one of my favorite people in the world, my old basketball coach and teacher, and a man who i respect in the highest degree, jason dukes. (my sister spotted him first, really, and if she hadn’t seen him i would have been totally oblivious.) so he walks over, we exchange the obligatory “been a long time!” greetings, and after he gives me his business card we part ways amiably as i go on to talk about my plans to transfer. little did i know that meeting would go on to change the rest of my life……(ok that was really dramatic but it would go on to change at least the next 6 months of my life… )

stay tuned for part 2 to hear the next chapter of the story

so this is one of many blogs i have. every site has a unique, catchy name that should draw me back and keep me “blogging,” (it took me long enough to accept the word blog as acceptable language, any variation therein must go in quotations) but each new venture finds itself a fad, a fleeting thought with a few entries and then left in cyberspace to collect dust. the hope of this blog is that i have set a goal over the next few months to be writing consistently, and this will be one of my outlets in which to do so. in fact, i have an accountability partner who will be checking to make sure i am doing what i set out to do. but enough about nothing.

i am out on a new venture in life. i have just moved back to orlando, my home, to intern for my old basketball coach who is the pastor of a church here called westpoint fellowship. i am quite excited about the next few months and working for jason, a guy whom i respect in the highest degree. the possibilities of this next phase of my life are really exciting and although a lot of it is unknown, that is a big part of the excitement for me.

this intro is not working out like i had planned. somewhere i really wanted to talk about who i am and what i’m about but i am much too tired and at the moment lack the creativity and will power for such a feat. for now i will settle for what i have written and let this end. more later.