choice: noun 1. the act of choosing; selection 2. the power, right or liberty to choose; option. 3. an alternative
our speaker at church on wednesday night spoke about the power of choice. i'd been thinking about that topic for the past several days, so i tried to pay close attention. although i will admit it was hard to pay attention because of the intense noise produced from torrential rain on a metal building. but anyway, the content of her sermon was good.
i watched a movie recently that's all about choices. run lola run. summary: lola has 20 minutes to find and take 100,000 deutschmarks (did i mention the film is in german and is set in pre-"€" germany?) to her boyfriend, manny, before he robs a grocery store to pay off a loan shark. the movie takes you through three different scenarios based on the choices she makes during her frantic run to help manny. the choices she makes not only affect her, but those she encounters on her run and vice versa. here's the movie trailer:
so there you go. choices. every second of every day. choice after choice after choice. i hope i make the right ones. i pray i make the right ones.
now i'm choosing to stop writing and to go to bed.
gute nacht und süsse träume.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
makeover
my blog needs some plastic surgery. for real. if you're a doctor or know a good doctor, email me at c noe at nvmc dot tv. i would consider paying as long as it's reasonable.
the template i'm using now is so 2006.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
halitosis
so my younger nephew and i were saying our bedtime prayers tonight.
"ok, close your eyes and lets pray. you go first."
"now i lay me down to sleep, i pray the Lord my soul to keep. now it's your turn."
"is there anything else you want to tell Jesus before i pray?"
"no."
"ok, dear Jesus, thank you for..."
just then i open my eyes to see him with his eyes closed, but he's holding his nose. i stop praying because i find this odd and i want to know why he's holding his nose.
"conner, why are you holding your nose?"
"because your breath stinks."
good and bad days
so the past three days have sucked for a myriad of reasons. big time suckage going on. i can't talk about it all on here, but believe me when i say big time suckage.
but i was reading the b-i-b-l-e, yes that's the book for me, earlier and saw this in ecclesiastes 7:14: "on a good day, enjoy yourself; on a bad day, examine your conscience. God arranges for both kinds of days so that we won't take anything for granted."
ok, God. help me get back up after i fall down. help me to think of others before i think of myself. help me learn to trust You more.
Monday, June 25, 2007
another brutally honest post (i'm going to have to stop this)
my blogger friend made a comment the other day that's really had me thinking. she said "often, what we hate in others is what we hate about ourselves."
my family lives in one house: father, mother, sister, brother-in-law, niece and two nephews. and me. my brother-in-law is the super-creative type. he orchestrates, arranges and produces music. typically, super-creative types are also very unorganized. what's this do for our basement? it makes it unorganized and cluttered. microphones, microphone stands, cords, cables, computers, monitors, instruments, big board things with a lot of buttons to push and knobs to turn are all over the place. me on the other hand, i'm not the super-creative type. but yet my space is also unorganized and cluttered. i complain about his mess yet don't do anything about mine.
while i'm confessing, i guess i should also say that i've always prided myself in not being the jealous type. but that's a lie. i am the jealous type. i'm jealous of seeing my friends in good relationships. i'm jealous of my friends who aren't in debt. it's the nasty, ugly truth and i'm embarrassed to admit it. but i guess you always want what you don't have, right?
so there you go. i'm a messy jealous human and i will try to do better. anne said it best: "...and it actually makes me sick to discover how in my most hidden places, i do exactly those things i despise."
psalm 139:23 investigate my life, o God, find out everything about me; cross-examine and test me, get a clear picture of what i'm about...
Sunday, June 24, 2007
on blogging...
i sometimes feel that people who don't read my blog don't really know me. i share things on here that i more than likely wouldn't share if we were having coffee together.
singing on the beach
i posted this video a while back, but recently came across it again. i laughed as much watching it again as i did the first time i saw it. so sad. so very, very sad.
sunday recap: no more bzzzzzzz
alarm went off at 7am, i got up to turn it off and BOOM! i tripped over this cotton-pickin' radio in my room and fell flat on my face. i've got a mother of a knot on my leg now. ouch.
the worship set this morning was trading my sorrows and Lord, i praise You. the choir did a great job on the last song with the parts and modulations. kudo's to them.
pastor's sermon was off the hook today! he was fired up and told it like it was. we were standing up, then sitting down, then standing up, then sitting down. i felt like i was at catholic mass or something. only i'm pretty sure they don't clap and jump and scream and dance at catholic mass.
my sister went to the store after church to get a birthday card and gift for a friend. did my sister get ME, her flesh and blood, a birthday card or gift for my birthday yesterday? NO. am i a little bitter? YES. moving on...
i had a chance to hang out with some cool cats this afternoon. it was the first time we'd gotten together in a long time and i had a lot of fun.
OH... i found a bee hive. a few of them actually. what do country people do to bee hives? pour gasoline and light a match. fun times...
UPDATE: 8:36PM - my sister just redeemed herself. sort of. we went to dinner and she bought my meal. so don't beat her up too badly when you see her. just a little.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
zits hurt
the big man upstairs chose to give me a phlegmatic personality. i'm naturally low-key, easygoing, relaxed, consistent, quiet and witty. i'm also naturally pessimistic, resistant to change, likely to avoid conflict, shy, stubborn and skeptical.
the past two days i've really been trying to keep myself in check, although it's been without success for the most part. i haven't been able to sleep. my stomach's been upset. i'm worrying over something that is completely out of my control. the evidence of this is a zit the size of mt. vesuvius just above my lip. yuck.
my post from yesterday is haunting me. my head knows that's He's in control, but i'm having trouble getting that message a full 18 inches down to my heart. it's not that i doubt Him, but i'm scared of being hurt. again.
so why try to figure it out? He's all ready worked it out
Friday, June 22, 2007
realizations
1. i say the word "poop" a lot. 2. recently my posts have been l-o-n-g. 3. tomorrow's my birthday. remember your options for my gift: a) pay off my debt, or b) a macbook pro. still your choice. 4. i really need to get back to sleep.
poop on my leg
life is funny sometimes.
when my father retired from a life of pastoral ministry, i was about as bitter as one could get. i laid out of church for about six months because being around "church people" was too much for me to handle. i had seen my family give and give and give, only to be scoffed at for not giving enough. i had seen "christians" act in ways that did not edify Christ.
one wednesday night i drove past the church my father pastored for so many years and saw a lot of cars in the parking lot. church was going on. i don't know what came over me, but i soon found myself on the back row. i went in late and tried to leave before it was over. however, the new pastor (who had been my father's associate) got to me before i could leave. he didn't make a spectacle of my being there. he simply said, "glad you're here". the next day he wrote me a letter and i still have it in my in-the-event-of-a-fire-take-these-things-and-run stash.
i eventually came to the realization that not being bitter is a conscience decision that i had to make. i had to make a choice every day not to be bitter. i know it sounds oprah-winfrey-ish, but it's true.
so lately i've found some of those old feelings of how can they act like that and call themselves christians coming up again. but this time i'm more mature and am making a conscious decision every day not to get upset. not to get mad. not to get hurt. however, i've got to be honest here. sometimes i'd like to take my big ugly foot and shove it up their ever-loving fat butt, but i won't. cause then i'd have to wash poop off my leg and that's just no fun.
the timing of the re-kindling of these emotions is funny to me too. just this week, i was emailed an opportunity to participate in a project regarding pastors, church staff and their families being "beat up and burned out". it was just another reminder to me that i should relax and be confident in the truth: that He is in control. i don't need to get burned out either because there's still SO MUCH WORK that needs to be done. there are people all over the world that haven't yet heard of Jesus and His love and it's my responsibility to ensure they hear of Him before it's too late.
so, i need to love and i need to be a christian. to be Christ-like. and i also need to get back to bed now.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
innocence
my seven-year-old nephew prayed this last night as we were saying our bedtime prayers:
now i lay me down to sleep, i pray the Lord my soul to keep. and Jesus, don't let pastor david be sad because people are saying mean things about him. amen.
Monday, June 18, 2007
extra, extra, read all about it
ok, welcome back. it was a long article so i'll try to make this brief and to the point.
some may disagree with me, but i'm not upset with the reporter for writing what he wrote. i'm not upset with the paper in which the half-truths were published. i'm not upset with my pastor because he hasn't ever hidden anything from anybody. he's about as honest as they come. if you doubt me, please come to one of our services and just listen to him preach. you see, i don't believe that this story rocked God off His throne. He knew it was coming and He promises that it's all for our good.
i'll just lay it out on the table for you: i'm totally excited! do you know how pissed the devil is at our church and at our pastor? he's so scared that he's trying to use these things to make us embarrassed or scared. but we're not scared. at all. not even a little. we're not embarrassed of our pastor. we're not embarrassed of his business ventures. we're not embarrassed to tell our friends, family and co-workers that we attend nvmc. i was able to invite people to church today to see for themselves what kind of man our pastor is and what kind of church we have. we're psyched that he's here helping us reach our city for Christ.
do some people have a leaky roof? maybe. i'm sure if you work in the roofing industry, no matter how many quality roofs you put on, it's just inevitable that some people are going to have a leaky roof. it's not a con. it's not a scam. it's life.
so i'd like to thank peter smith for writing the article and for putting our church on the front page of the newspaper. people who would have never heard of our church are now reading and learning about our church. i'd also like to thank the person or people who first brought this to the attention of mr. smith. they thought they were hurting us, but in fact they were helping to build the kingdom.
what the devil meant for evil God will make it good turn around turn around turn around
Sunday, June 17, 2007
sunday recap
first service was good this morning. the worship set was shabach, You are good and draw me close to You. the last song gets me every stinkin time. for real.
pastor asked the congregation to wish all of the fathers a happy fathers day. pastor don, who's also in the media room during services, looked at me and said, "happy FFA day." i was like...ummm...future farmers of america? turns out i'm wrong. FFA is future father's of america. "it's not about cattle anymore boys."
pastor's sermon was about abraham. he obeyed the Lord and took his son, isaac, to be a sacrifice unto the Lord. but the Lord provided a ram in the bush. i thought it was neat he preached this today since our youth group did a drama this morning that talked about abraham and isaac.
we learned that abraham taught isaac how to worship. abraham taught isaac how to walk in faith. abraham was a teacher. abraham was obedient. confession: i'm not always obedient to God.
our music pastor's wife, charmaine, had some MAJOR eyelashes on this morning. those bad boys were at least an inch long. can we say i love new york? the eyelashes were just asking to be commemorated on film, so i had to comply.
lunch was japanese (hibachi style) and the chef threw a ball of rice at me. i caught it in my mouth. oh yeah. i have real talent.
my brother-in-law comes back from poland in a few hours. my sister wants to leave NOW for the airport so she's sure to see him come out of the secure area. oy vey...
Saturday, June 16, 2007
random thoughts v9
i went to the funeral home this morning. a co-worker's spouse died unexpectedly. the spouse was 47 years old. wow... that was tough. i don't like funeral homes. what do you say to the family who's experienced the loss? "how are you" just seems dumb because they're obviously not peachy. "i'm sorry" seems dumb too because you're obviously not excited. _____
i made an unexpected and unplanned trip to cincinnati yesterday afternoon. i found out i had to go around 1:30. i left at 2:30 and got back home at 7:30. not fun. _____
my father is temporarily moving to akron, ohio, next week. he hasn't told the grandkids yet and i'm not sure how they're going to take it. not well i presume. _____
my birthday is one week from today. you can either pay off my debt or buy me a macbook pro. your choice. _____
Thursday, June 14, 2007
toast + vegemite = art
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
happy 20th anniversary
to me.
read the post below if you don't know what i'm talking about.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
my leg was literally ripped off my body
and it hurt. a lot.
i was only seven years old, standing on the side of the road waiting to cross so i could jump in the backseat of the church van where the cool kids sat. but i never made it.
i tried to cross the street but my feet had sunk in the recently poured tarmac. i fell into the side of a ford bronco going around 45 mph and i fell face first. the pattern of the tire tread was embedded into my stomach. my left leg flew up and caught the bumper, which ripped my left leg off and threw the rest of me up in the air about fifteen feet. i landed in the middle of the street, mangled and bloody. the impact of landing on the tarmac had broken my left arm and torn a hole in my head so deep and wide that you could see a decent size portion of my skull. my right leg was also broken in three places. blood was gushing out of my eyes, nose, mouth and ears. because the main artery to my left leg was severed, blood rushed out in a rhythmic motion with every beat of my heart. my kidneys, spleen and liver were also injured.
my family and the other people around saw the entire thing. i remember my mother, father and jim campbell, the music minister of the church, coming over and telling me everything would be all right. suddenly everything went white. i looked up and saw the most angelic face staring back at me. at that exact moment, i stopped crying and started speaking in tongues for the first time in my life. i laid there, looking around at the cars going past me, listening to everyone pray for me and knowing that i was going to die. i thought the angel was there to take me to heaven. i told my father, "i love you. i just want to tell you that before i die."
the ambulance came, gathered all of me up and took me to the local hospital where a plethora of tests began. they were going to sew up my nub and not even attempt to re-attach my leg. my father asked my pediatrician what she would do if it were her child. the answer came fast and furious: go to a larger, better hospital four hours away.
unlike humpty dumpty, they were able to put me back together again and in half the amount of time the doctors said. they said i would be in the hospital for at least six weeks; i was in the hospital for three weeks. they said i would be in a body cast from the shoulders down for twelve weeks; i was in a body cast from the shoulders down for six weeks. just goes to prove that they, and it doesn't matter who your "they" is, don't have the last word. He does.
the very first time i spoke in africa was when i was fifteen years old. i was on a mission trip and they shoved the microphone in my face and said "testify". i was horrified. i knew i was on a mission trip but i hadn't really ever thought about having to say something. so i told them about what had happened to me eight years prior. some cried. some looked at me in amazement. some tried to touch my leg. and some accepted Christ because of my story of His love and grace.
tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of my accident. i still don't have a full range of motion with my left leg, but at least i have a leg. and i can still tell my story. but more importantly, i can still tell His story.
Monday, June 11, 2007
herzlichen zum geburtstag
so my birthday is next weekend. another year closer to the big three o. scary stuff.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
sunday recap
i woke up to a ringing phone at 7:24am. it was my brother-in-law calling from poland to wish his elder son a happy birthday.
9am service was good. worship rocked. the set this morning was sunrise by christ for the nations, all things are possible by hillsongs and faithful by donnie mcclurkin.
pastor randy taught us about His purpose, using romans 8:28 as the foundation.
at one point during the sermon, he said "people used to deal dope, but are now giving out hope" to which everybody cracked up and cheered and clapped. this sentence coming from old-school pentecost pastor randy was hilarious.
since today is my elder nephew's birthday, i made it his day and we did whatever he wanted. please remind me never to do that again. dumb idea.
we ate at joe's crab shack down by the river. not cheap.
then we went to six flags. yeah. not cheap either.
we rode thirteen rides, saw two shows and ate twice in about six hours.
i've had a super busy day and i'm pooped.
good night.
Saturday, June 09, 2007
of falling down
i'm tired of stumbling, of falling down
tripping over the same rock on the same path again and again when will i learn to just pick up my feet
instead of stumbling, of falling down
Friday, June 08, 2007
updated linkage
i've updated my blog links on the bottom right. i removed some links and added some links. i added flowerdust | anne jackson because she's cool and she emailed me the other day. that made me feel important. i also added pinkhairedgirl. i first found her blog via ragamuffin soul. since i generally like anything he links, i checked it out and have been a follower ever since.
check them out when you can.
my spirit bore witness with this
watch the first three minutes of this video. please. it's too much. just too much.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
i'm feeling better, obviously
i've kept down a baked potato and a turkey sandwich today, so i decided to be adventurous and get on the trampoline with my elder nephew. as you can see from the pic above, he's pretty good and well, me, not so much.
i think i spend quite a bit of time with my nephews and niece, especially considering we're all under the same roof. but while we were jumping, he looked at me and said, "it's been a while since just you and me did something." ouch! that struck me right in the heart. and he's right. we normally do stuff all together as a group, not individually. it's tough to do and the other kiddo's get jealous sometimes, but it's something i'm going to try to do more often.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
leavin' on a jet plane (not me)
the next few days are going to be relatively quiet. the two younger kids are going to western kentucky for a week. my brother-in-law is going to poland tomorrow for ten days. my mother and sister are going to costa rica on friday for five days. my father will be preaching in central kentucky over the weekend. so that leaves me with my older nephew for a few days. my dramatic, i-think-i'm-a-teenager older nephew who knows more than i do about every subject on earth.
it'll be fun though. we're going to a cincinnati reds game and then to six flags i think.
woo-hoo!
Monday, June 04, 2007
there's no good title for this post
still no better today, so i broke down and went to the doctor. turns out there's an outbreak of food poisoning around my town. so what do i get to do? a stool kit. oh yeah. what's more fun than pooping in a cup!? yes, i remember now. it's taking the poop-in-a-cup and dropping it off to the cute chick at the front desk of my doctor's office.
"oh, hey clay"
"hi. here's my poop. wanna go out friday night?"
Sunday, June 03, 2007
sunday recap
as you can see from my post below at 4:22am, my day didn't start out too well. i had about an hour sleep total last night, but went to church anyway. i took a vomit bucket with me to the media room so in case i had to vomit again, i'd have something in which to vomit. gross, i know. but i needed/wanted to be there.
9am service went really well. pastor tries really hard to keep his sermons short, but he doesn't always do that. we had a plan to put a smiley face up on the back projector that only he can see when he got to 14 minutes. well, 14 minutes came and went and we didn't put it up. he was on a roll and we didn't want to break the flow. next time though. next time.
the sermon was on zacchaeus. he was a wee little man. and a wee little man was he.
we were shown how we at nvmc are surrounded by such a cloud of witnesses in the former pastors that still attend the church.
the mantra of the church was re-emphasized: united we stand, divided you leave.
11am service was good too. today was shorts sunday, so everybody was encouraged to wear shorts to church. pastor called my mother up on stage at one point and after church she commented that she probably should have worn longer shorts. remember coollots? yup, that was my mother in the 80's and 90's. i think she's been delivered of that evilness, but the temptation came back today. luckily we rebuked the devil off of her life and she resisted the temptation.
pastor learned that not everybody has white legs.
we had a picnic after church at the park next door. i was planning on going until the whole violent vomiting thing. i'm trying to be more social. i'm naturally introverted and it's hard for me to interact a lot of the time. but i'm trying to do better.
i ate half a bowl of chicken noodle soup when i got home and have managed to keep it all down. praise Him.
warning: this post may make you sick
what's worse the vomiting? vomiting chinese food - sesame chicken to be exact. and i'm not sure it was actually chicken. i don't know that i can ever eat chinese food again.
i've vomited about three times so far since around midnight and i don't see any light at the end of the tunnel. i can feel it churning some more now.
gross.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
ring ring no more
so i'm looking for a new ringtone. here are my top five possibilities:
- cheeseburger in paradise by jimmy buffett - break free by hillsong united - the ten commandment boogie by go fish - i still haven't found what i'm looking for by u2 - again i say rejoice by israel & new breed
now i want some feedback from you. what's your ringtone? click "comment" below and leave one.
Friday, June 01, 2007
words
i read a book in the past few days that felt oddly personal to me. maybe it was because i was in eastern africa in 1994 when the rwandan genocide had seen its darkest hours. we ate lunch one sunday after church with a tutsi who had escaped from rwanda to kenya. i remember hearing her telling us how she survived: by lying in a cesspool using a reed to breath with so she wouldn't be found. if only she had found paul rusesabagina.
i finished his autobiography in about 24 hours flat. out of all 207 pages, it was the words on page xv that have stuck with me the most.
rwanda was a failure on so many levels. it started as a failure of the european colonists who exploited trivial differences for the sake of a divide-and-rule strategy. it was the failure of africa to get beyond its ethnic divisions and form true coalition governments. it was a failure of western democracies to step in and avert the catastrophe when abundant evidence was available. it was a failure of the united states for not calling a genocide by its right name. it was a failure of the united nations to live up to its commitments as a peacekeeping body. all of these come down to a failure of words. and this is what i want to tell you: words are the most effective weapons of death in a man's arsenal. but they can also be powerful tools of life. they may be the only ones.
