A Few Things I have Been Learning

Over the past couple of months I have learned a couple of things that... well they suck to learn these things the hard way.

-Too much fast food disrupts the normal flow of things inside your body. I don't think I need to expand on this too much, but I will say this... Everyone needs to eat a salad every now and then!

-I am not an island! In the great movie About A Boy, Will (Hugh Grant) learns, the hard way, that you need people to get through life. In the past two months I have tried everything to keep myself away from people, because they make things messy! People have a bad habit of crowding you. They need things and can have a way of hurting you. But the farther you distance yourself from people... well, loneliness has a way of replacing the freedom you felt from people. Things can get pretty dark in a place like that.

-Community and Fellowship aren't a walk in the park, either! Just because I learned that you need people, doesn't make dealing with people any easier! The hard part about having fellowship with people in a community that you willingly are a part of is that you are forced to give something of yourself. You have to listen, care, and mean things. Who wants to do that? Who wants to sit with people and tell them that you are all screwed up inside, and you aren't sure things are going to get better? Who wants to listen a bunch of people talk about their "struggles"? Well... deep down we all do. It is a need that God put in us. So, I need to learn to be with people a lot better than I am right now!

-Community and Fellowship do not replace the need to be with God in the private places of my life. Fellowship is just a reflection of my relationship with the Creator and Savior of my life. No matter how much time I spend with a group of people that lift up and encourage me, there is no substitute for the time I spend with my God. I will never truly know His word unless I spend time with Him in it. He is the only giver of peace in this life, community is just one way He administers His peace.

-It is healthy to try new things! I tried Tofu for the first time. I liked it! I have also found a love for Yogurt. Up next: I will try to not be a jerk at work (I doubt I will like that as much as the yogurt!).

-Don't promise things you can't deliver. I have promised things to people with the best of intentions, but with a small hope that I never have to deliver. It is horrible when you don't do what you promised you would (especially to family!). How small of a man am I when I don't have the guts to give up a small piece of my time and life for others! I need to keep my emotions in check, so I don't hurt people with broken promises given in anger or sorrow.

There are millions of other things that I could say, but I am sure they wouldn't be as authentic as they should.

Lets all learn to love ourselves in our struggles. Lets learn to praise God for the small stuff like: toothpaste, the clanging of forks before a meal, toilets that work properly, and toilet paper (ohh, how I love the toilet paper!)