Today was epic

This is pretty journal-y, so if you don't care, I don't really care either. haha I'd say skip it if you're looking for some meaning. This is just me recapping a really happy fun day.

Preface (Yesterday):
Yesterday was very unepic.
I started with a great day, checking out some art (plus one of my prints) in an art show, then chilled and flipped with Ryan Smith. I finished the entire rest of the day with horrible stomach pains that felt like an alien was growing inside of me. The leaders meeting for the Middle School Lifegroup was awesome so that helped a little. I hung out with my friend I've known since Kindergarten and then got to hear the prettiest voice on the planet for a while. :D All in all, wasn't horrible, but that stomach pain got to me real bad.

Today:
Today was, in fact, much better. Some may even say epic! :D
I listened to some not so good presentations (and a couple good ones) in English, that my teacher was pretty receptive of. That encouraged me because mine is on Thursday. Then I had a great time in Print Making 2 pulling mono prints for the first time. I think I like those the best of anything I've done so far! Mono prints are like any other prints, in that you start with a predetermined matrix to print from, but then you hand paint it so each one is slightly or completely different. Fun stuff! I then had some amazing quiet time in prayer and in 2 Samuel. Work was good. I enjoyed moving big heavy stuff. After work the epicmeter started to really fill! I got the chance to pick up Alicia and take her for a super-short coffee date to Dunkin' Donuts with the 2 free small coffee coupons I received from Lifepoint Midtown (what what)! On the way back to my truck (with 2 cinnamon coffees in hand (and an iced coffee Alicia bought for Arielle)), so I could take her to the library, we experienced a 10 minute hurricane in the sun and got a nice kiss in the rain. :D Then, after I dropped her off, I pulled onto College Road heading towards Monkey Junction to hit up some awesome Lifegroup time and noticed that Jesse and Ed were tailing me! Short phone call to them, jamming out to sweet tunes, and a little driving later, we were at Dobey's house, where Ed and I had a good wrestling match. haha Then we had a really great discussion with the boys about Genesis 1 in the bible. At the end of the night, Ed and I threw some of the boys to do back flips and just had a lot of fun. I gave Kai a ride home and we had a cool conversation. "But John, when in all that did you have time for dinner?" you might ask. I got home and had honey drizzled chicken, I would respond. Life is good. God has blessed me and I just hope I'm accurately displaying Jesus through my life to my family, friends, Alicia, and those boys.

Important and Meaningful

I've been super busy recently, and that has kind of kept me from some simple things that really helped me relax at the beginning of the year. Writing on this blog was one of those simple things. Writing out my schedule for the week was another (with double meaning, because I also have a really hard time remembering all of what is going on in my life if I don't take the time to write it out. Even if I don't look at it again, it still helps me). It is weird for me to even write this, or be writing this because I've never liked writing in the past. And what is weirder is that I'm writing about missing the time to write.
ANYWAYS... I haven't posted up anything on this blog in a while. I was kind of getting to the point that I thought I needed to write something super meaningful and maybe even important to me, or else not write at all... The thing I'm realizing is that writing just helps me form my thoughts better, regardless of if I'm writing online so a couple close friends can read my thoughts, or I'm just writing in my note-taking/journal thing.
Going along with that, I feel that if I start to write more consistently, then I'll be able to look back and track the progress of what God is doing in my life and stay encouraged and on fire for Him! :D God is doing a LOT in my life right now too. I am immensely blessed and constantly thankful for that.
One thing is that I said yes to way too much and got overloaded for a couple months, but now that I'm freeing up more time I should be able to write more! YAY! hahaha I just said yay out loud in the library and had to quiet myself. :P
So excited!
Yall have a good day!
Remember that it's FRIDAY! :D
With love,

Filler blog number 1

So... hopefully very soon I will be uploading all of my art available for sale to showcase on this blog (which will go towards funding the missions trip to Brazil this summer)!

In the mean time though, I thought I'd try to brighten some days up with a little fun stuff I found on the internet via Stumbleupon.com. I was introduced to this by Jesse McCarl btw. :D





Mariana Trench

This Weekend of Celebration

Ok... So I've been sick since Thursday, and actually didn't work Thursday or Friday so I could just recover. It didn't feel great, and truthfully I'm still slightly congested. Plus, now I barely have a voice, but I feel so incredible at the same time!

Saturday night I got to see Nick and Sarah Ross at their going away party at The Surfhouse (even though they've been gone for a couple weeks or more anyways. haha) and it was just great to see that God is placing them somewhere that He can use them to change peoples lives and spread His love. :D

THEN, This Sunday was Lifepoint Churches 4th Birthday! We blew up Kenan Auditorium in celebration of all that God has done over these years through Lifepoint in Wilmington. The place was packed, we sang, and screamed, and cried, and baptized like 30 people or something, and hugged, and everything I can think of to send our praises up to God. (That of course is how I lost my voice. Not from being sick.) I saw a bunch of my friends publicly show their devotion and love for God and couldn't be happier! Lunch with some friends at the Carolina Ale House proved purdy good too.

THEN, I got to attend PC3's 4 o clock service with a couple friends of mine and see 2 more people get Baptized! That place was different than I'm used to for sure, but still pretty sweet.

THEN, I went to a super awesome super bowl party with a wonderful group of people from Lifepoint at Midtown and caught the game on a 9 by 11 foot screen.

Basically, I felt crappy almost all weekend till Sunday (and I didn't even get to work out), but even through all of that I couldn't help but rejoice and praise and worship my great and mighty God! Sometimes things can be better, but God still loves us and I just pray that I'll never lose that zeal for my God, and seeing the salvation of others through Jesus.

2 of my favorite things combined!

Goals

Now that I've started to get into the groove of this year, I'm going to set some short-term goals.
It definitely helps to write out your goals as a way to start being accountable to yourself, and writing then re-reading your own words helps solidify them in your brain.

In a loose, unorganized list... here we go:

• Raise money for the mission trip to Brazil
• Learn a new flip or combo
• exercise at least 3 times a week (if I just said more, that could still be a lot less than I'd like)
• Manage my money better (including saving money after Brazil and saying no to some fun things)
• Learn to cook (or at least prepare food at home... This goes along with managing money better)
• Read the entire bible (I'm on a one year plan already :D)
• Paint or do something artistic at least once a month, even if I'm not in art class.
  

Dang... I thought I'd have a lot more. Well this is a good start, and I'm sure I'll add to it through out the year. Any other suggestions? Don't be shy. :D

Humbled

This week I was humbled.

Even as I type this, I'm realizing more and more that I am constantly humbled.
I went to work out with a good friend of mine, Wes Rose, at his place and try out this P90X. Now, I have never been a work out freak or anything, but I've always though that I was in alright shape. After all I do parkour, occasionally surf, work out, and I think of myself as a fairly active guy. Going into this hour long work out I knew it would be hard, but I thought I could get through it.

I could not. I failed... Bad. Out of an hour I could only manage close to 35 minutes of this rigorous work out. 2 days later, I'm still sore! You know who didn't fail bad? My man, Wes Rose! I have a feeling that he quit early so he wouldn't show me up. He was in good form and keeping up better than me most of this work out. Honestly, I didn't expect that. It was really humbling to see a guy that I've known for a while, and always thought I was in better shape than, (no offense Wes if you end up reading this!) to show me up.
Moral of this... I realize now that I haven't been quite as active and up to par as I'd like to think. Now I'm aware of it and can work harder to really get in shape.

That was just a single humbling moment out of the constant humbling that I receive.
I've been reading the Bible with this year long Bible plan and have noticed a trending topic through out Genesis and Matthew. God and Jesus just straight up humble all these people! I think out of everything in the Bible, the most humbling thing is that God and Jesus show us just how screwed up as humans we are. He calls us out on everything, and through out it all, He still loves us. He hates the evil in us, but He loves us.

"And Abram believed the LORD, and the LORD counted him as righteous because of his faith." Genesis 15:6 NLT
If you have read the story of Abraham (formerly known as Abram) then you would know that he screwed up multiple times, even doing the exact same thing. He wasn't counted as righteous because of his accumulated actions, but because of his faith. That's humbling to me. God was willing to overlook Abraham's screw ups. We can barely overlook our friends and rarely our enemies screw ups. God Almighty, (I love the Hebrew, El-Shaddai) who is completely perfect, humbles us by giving the example on how we should forgive, even before He sends His only Son to forgive us of our sins!

"If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that." Matthew 5:47 NLT
This is Jesus talking. Here He calls out a whole LARGE group of people, and I believe, speaks through time, through the Bible, to everyone that ever reads His words. He calls all of us out, specifically on how we act towards others in this passage, but in all parts of our lives in the rest of His teachings.
If it isn't humbling for Jesus, our Savior, the One who took on ALL of our sins so we could be made righteous through Him, to call us out on how we act, then I don't know what is.

Now to tie it all together.
I was made aware that I need to work out more by a friend who humbled me.
God is the greatest friend I could ever have (if I could even place Him in a title so small) and He humbles me constantly as I read through the Bible. He makes me aware of the sin that I was once a part of, the temptation in my life, the weak areas that I still struggle with, and has humbled me by still blessing my life and loving me. I need to try harder all the time to live for and love Him, and He still loves me. It makes His love so much more important to me.

I was humbled this week.