It’s been a while since I’ve sat down and actually written anything — particularly I mean a blog post. I’d like to say that I’ve been busy, which I have been, but isn’t everyone? I’d love to have an excuse, some sort of validation but I don’t other than the fact that I’ve gotten out of the routine and practice of writing. Few were born with the innate ability to craft masterpieces with words; the ability is developed. Anyone can do it. Sure we will not all be Shakespeare or Tolkien but we all have a story to tell. Our story. The Church labels it as our testimony which is both beautiful and unfortunate. It is beautiful to think of my life story as a testament to a God who IS love — it is unfortunate that often times the word testimony is only used to describe how God “saved” you. It’s like reading only 1 page out of a chapter that is my life in an epic novel that is the human existence. My testimony is very much the story of my salvation, but it is also the story of what my gracious and loving God is doing and will do in my life since that wonderful moment in history.

This weekend I figured out a few things about myself and about life that I expect to have lasting effects. I had a chance to spend time with a new family — a group of believers passionate about SHOWING God’s love to youth by simply loving them. This is a group of believers who are fully content with being the sower of seeds and accepting of the fact that they more than likely will never directly see the fruits of that labor. Over the past few months I’ve become integrated into this family, the L.I.F.E. staff which hosts the Weekend of a Lifetime leadership retreat for high school Key Club students. It has been a real blessing to share in the joys and burdens of this odd and diverse family which I am more and more grateful for after each weekend retreat.

I have high hopes for 2008. Hopes that I will decrease and Christ will increase in my life. On a more tangible level, I hope to find more direction regarding my future career and ministry. I had the opportunity to meet with the director for the Mayborn Insititute which is the graduate school of Journalism at UNT. We spend over an hour talking about life, ministry and school and he said two things that have had the wheels in my head turning this past week. First, he asked me if I liked to write. I never really thought of finding enjoyment in writing — I’ve never been great at it. Truthfully, aside from this blog, I haven’t had much practice at the craft but I realized that I DO enjoy it. The second thing he said was that, while their program was very much built on the principles of Journalism, the corner stone for the program was story telling — non fiction story telling to be more specific. Some of the most influential people in my life made an impact on my life because they were able to communicate a story. That’s what I love about writing and reading blogs. We may not always use proper grammar or have the most exciting topics to discuss, but we have an opportunity to write another page in the story that is our life and share that with anyone willing to sit down for a while and listen.