My thoughts on National Suicide Prevention Day

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. This day brings many memories to us. In some ways it recalls tragic moments in our lives. It recalls times when loved ones were physically present with us. This day is rough for many people out there. For many families. For many communities.

Today is a day where we recognize one of the largest tragedies in our communities. I recall these tragedies as a person who meets with students every week, I see this topic every now and then. Even recently.

[I asked permission from this student before I shared this] I was meeting with a student many odd weeks ago. As I was talking with him over the phone, I kept listening to him say, "I am useless and no one would know I was gone anyway. Why does it matter. Why do you even care, no one else does...." As he kept going on, He starts to break down, and just keeps saying, "man I am pathetic, I need help, I hate dealing with this on my own, I just need help, I need someone to help me. I just can't seem to ask for help." That admission was more brave than he thinks. He use to tie weakness to help.

Asking for help is an act of bravery. In a world where appearing weak is frowned open, I praise those who ask for help. 

However, this day is not about the person who is attempting to end their life. This day is about the people who are willing to intervene. This day is a call for all humans to recognize that they are needed in the fight for humanity.

It would be easy for me to offer you a simple set of philosophical arguments pointing to the importance of your involvement. Sadly, they will just remain philosophical for many. They often do for me. 

Today is a call for all of us to be active participants in our communities. But what can this look like?

The best illustration I can offer is from the story of Lord of the Rings. 

Sam: Do you remember the Shire, Mr. Frodo? It'll be spring soon. And the orchards will be in blossom. And the birds will be nesting in the hazel thicket. And they'll be sowing the summer barley in the lower fields... and eating the first of the strawberries with cream. Do you remember the taste of strawberries?

Frodo: No, Sam. I can't recall the taste of food... Nor the sound of water or touch of grass... I'm naked in the dark, with nothing. No veil between me and the ring of fire. I can see him with my waking eyes!

Sam: Then let us be rid of it! Once and for all! Come on Mr. Frodo. I can't carry it for you! But I can carry you! Come on!
[He picks Frodo up and starts carrying him up the slopes of Mount Doom]

Man, I tear up every time I think about this scene. This is how humanity is suppose to be. This was our intent. When our neighbor falls, we are suppose to look at them and say "I can't carry it for you! But I can carry you! Come on!"

This is what this day is about. A person getting ready to take their life is burdened beyond what we could ever understand. We can't carry that burden for them, but in times when they feel the weakest, we can surely carry them. We can participate in their life to the point where their burdens become less heavy simply because we are particiapting actively in their life. This is very hard to practice, because it calls for us to be vulnerable. However, it is necessary.

I want to share a few things that I try to practice.

1) Never assume they are mentally ill. One of the largest problems I have seen and heard is when people say "Is this because they are depressed?" or "What mental illness do they have?" Actually the best advice.Don't assume anything about them. It may not be bullying or family life or illness or pressure. Get to know people, and they will give you permission to see more about who they are and what they often hide from others.

2) Appreciate the Gray. Life is not black and white. No matter how much you want it to be, it just simply isnt. There tends to be a lot more gray in life than we like. Everything is not as simple as it seems, no matter how the media or near by gossipers assume.

3) Accepting your own beauty. It sounds weird. But one thing I always tell people is, you will never be capable of fully accepting someone else unless you fully accept who you are. Accepting who you are is not meaning you are perfect, it means you are willing to move forward from who you are to who you can be. You accept everything about you. I promise you though, you will never fully love someone until you start loving who you are, otherwise your insecurites will block your ability to love, you begin to doubt yourself, you begin to withdrawl from the world, you begin to hide who you are and can be. Accepting yourself is one of the first steps to loving others. Even in the context of Bible, the God I know, knows it is impossible for you to love someone unless you love yourself. How can you let someone in if you hate yourself? You are a live, which means you have value and purpose and meaning and are fully loveable. You are worth it. This is hard, but I promise you are more free when you accept yourself. Not to mention, you become use to the idea that you actually can be loved. That someone can actually love you. Then you start to let people into your life.

4) Value comes from many avenues. I was listening to a psychologist from seattle's School for Theology and Psychology talk about the most dangerous thing about telling your daughter she is Beautiful and your son that he is strong. He talked about how most of us tell our daughters they are beautiful and that our son is strong. The problem is, we often only tell them they are beautiful or strong. So when we do that, we tie their value to their beauty or strength. He also talks about how that is the case for everything. We create an avenue to what makes children have worth, then we sell them on their worth being tied to that item. (Sports, school, beauty, musical talent, etc...) The tragedy is, when children are not feeling worthy, they will turn to anything that will give them that worth. How can we as humans point to the personhood as valued? It is not what they do or how they look that make them worthy. I am not advocating ignoring your childs beauty, I am simply stating that we should create many avenues that point to their worth. Their worth is their life, their being. Your worth is the same.

I pray this day never happens again, but until we all begin to dialogue about what is actually the root of this, until we create avenues for people to be brave, until we live in a society where value is holistic in nature, until we begin to realize that humans are valued, not their talents, this day will continue. People are worth it, this day is about those who of us who must intervene, who must create an environment for the brave individuals asking for help to continue to ask.

Always feel safe knowing that you can ask for help. You are worth it, and asking for help is brave. You are not alone, you have an ocean of people whom find value in your personhood.

Why I am not an Atheist

It is interesting writing this post. I have never found a reason to leave my faith on the grounds of science; meaning I would only leave faith because I was upset and simply could not believe in a God who allows the world to be the way it is.

I would never leave God on terms of science. Proving a theory in science is impossible. Literally, it is against the rules they have, nothing is absolute truth (facts), only scientifically theoretical. There is no such thing as absolute proof (facts), only conclusive evidence that leads us to beliefs. Disproving God would take a miracle even Richard Dawkins has been unable to do in any of his books, articles, essays, lectures and other discussions. Proving God takes the same miracle.

In the end, we leave God because of a strong misunderstanding of theology. We assume things about God that really are not there theologically. We ask those big questions: If God is real, why is there suffering? If God is real, then why do children in Africa die? If God is real, then why is the Universe so big? If God is real, then why would a certain isolated culture not have heard of Him? If God is real, then why did he cause so many wars in the past? If God is real, then why doesn’t He just show up? What about the other religions? What about the sexually abused children inside the church? What about treatment towards Homosexuals? Can you really disprove evolutionary theory by bacterial flagellar?

Christians have done their fair share of butchering these topics. Seriously. We have created so many different harsh  responses. From God only helps those who help themselves to “God hates fags.” We seriously have a lot of fact checking to do. We have messed up big.

You see the problem with these entire questions lie in the emotionality behind them. These are all based off emotions; God clearly can’t exist if this is going on or God clearly can’t exist if that happened. I have yet to hear a lecture (and to make it clear, I do listen to quite a few) or read a book where there is actual evidence against ANY sort of intelligent design. I only see arguments level the playing field with logical responses. (Sorry, that means faith is never going to be a good enough answer.)

Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Peter Atkins, Kenneth Miller, Stephen Hawking, all are very strong militant atheists. They fall under the same arguments that God is not provable, and even if God was, there would be a lot of explaining to do. Some of them do not even allow for the thought of the latter.

This leads me into three areas that I want to share with you. I want to share with you where I have been wrong, why I still allow for hurting, and Why I believe in Jesus.

Why we have it wrong in the west

We have missed the point and messed it up big time. We have spent so much time defending God against others, when in reality; God does not need our defending. That sounds weird to say, but in reality, we are trying to defend God, whom we have little to no clue about the in-depth complexity of God. It is like me defending Physics as a Counseling Major. I may understand principals, but the depth of physics, psh, I am lucky I can even spell it. Why waste our energy defending God, when we can allow our lives, our actions and our Love to show the world God. If we want the character of God to be shown to the world, we have to be willing to show it in our own lives. Because God chooses to work through us, we run the dangerous risk of sticking up for God in ways that hinder God more than advance.

What is so dangerous is that we get in our denominational modes and spend time defending rather than advancing. We spend time hating each other and other denominations that we miss a life with God. We spend time deeply in judgment. I mean seriously, we Christians do our fair share of Obama hating, Muslim bashing, liberal mocking, inner city pitying all mixed with a touch of homosexual attacking. Now, don’t get me wrong, it is much better than when I was a kid, but man, we really have to step up our game. Atheists win every time when it comes to moral attacks against the church. And we can’t afford to just say things like “We are sinful people, that’s just what happens.” No. It is not just what happens. When people outside of our faith see what we do wrong, and we reply with, “welp, we are sinful broken people” that makes us cowards and I contend, that we become godless in those moments. Sin does not just happen folks. We went wrong when we point out the sin of the people in the world, defended God, and proclaimed that we know better than everyone else while right outside our mansions, on the doorsteps, people are starving, lonely, abused, thirsty, and in a world we in the west just don’t get. We spend years fighting against atheisms disbelief, trying to disprove all of their theories. No matter how many times I listen to lectures by Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins, the more I see why they can never believe. We Christians fight against everything they say. Global Warming- Hoax. Evolution- Have fun in hell if you believe that. I mean seriously… Like. Seriously. These theories actually don’t hurt God in any way.

We need to be less against atheism and more against the darkness of this world that robs people of life. Because atheist attack us for that darkness, and instead of fighting the darkness, we fight them, which leaves the people in darkness to fend for themselves.

Why our world is still hurting

I have been having a lot of my friends leave the church. Not because they buy into an argument about the falsehood of God, but because there is too much suffering in the world. That a God who loves would simply not stand for that.

I agree. God will not stand for this. But we do. We do stand for childhood prostitution. We do stand for homophobia. We do stand for suicide. We stand for these things because we don’t really do anything about them. We do so much about individual faith, that we collectively forget that we are one part of many in Christ, not one and just God.

What I want all my friends and all people my age leaving that church- It is not supposed to be like this. Seriously, we are living in messed up times. Girls in all countries are not meant to be sold to feed a family. Soldiers are not meant to return and deeply struggle internally to a point of suicide. People are not meant to die from starvation. But, the problem does not lie with them, it lies with us.

We need passionate people to step forward. People my age lose big picture passion for small picture gain, but they don’t have a society that tells them differently. People my age are ready to step forward, to intervene, to change this world. We are not ok with 27,000,000 slaves. But if we do not stand up against it, we find it permissible.  If we do not collectively live to advance the kingdom, and we only live for a far off distant heaven, then we fail. If we don’t start warring against this evil, we lose. The church needs people my age to start a revolution. A revolution that calls for us to move past ordinary and contemporary denominational church to a movement lead by Christ’s life, death and resurrection. I am not just asking for a policy change, or to build a few schools, or to remove Joesph Kony. Those things aid the light, but true commitment to a life fighting against the darkness, a life lived with these people fighting and promoting solutions, those a life time commitments.

We need all of us to live in a way that challenges the wrong in this world. Hurting can’t end if we don’t confront it.

Why I believe in Jesus

History. I hope I am logical, and I hope I can learn from the past. The personhood of Jesus Christ is a reality. You can't trump that. Outside of the Bible, there are sources pointing to the person Jesus. You simply can't deny that. Not only can you not deny the personhood of Christ, you can’t deny certain stories in the Old Testament. I know there are theorists who attempt to prove the Old Testament incorrect through sociological implications and oral traditions miscommunications. I mean, when you have archaeologists capable of proving the existence of certain key Old Testament kings/kingdoms/people you start to see that this has some traction. Denying the existence of these people would not only be a slap in the face to Christians (which really does not matter as much) but a slap in the face of all archaeologists, history students, doctors of history, and other areas that have to utilize history.

You have EVERY reason to be an atheist if it is based off of your emotions. Seriously, if you base it off your emotions and off the actions of the church, you win. But if you base it off the character of God, the historical implications and other items that play into this, being an atheist is hard for me. I can’t just allow all of the science to go without notice. Science plays into my belief. I understand many see the opposite; however my approach is to compliment the historical implications with science. You can’t have one or the other.

I could honestly say I believe in Jesus. I am willing to engage in any conversation, but know full well my challenge will constantly be to engage this world.

With Love,

Casey

Why we CAN Afford to get Hell Wrong

Lately, this argument about Heaven and Hell has gotten shallow. Our arguments have turned to this finger pointing mockery of our brothers and sisters in Christ… There are two books that are schedule to come out soon, one is by a pastor that I admire for his courage to step away from his church. That pastor is Francis Chan, whose book is called Erasing Hell. The whole point of the book is that we have to re-examine . The second book is really by a pastor whom I have never heard of, but his book is titled “God Wins- The truth about Heaven, Hell and how the good news is better than Love Wins”…. How shallow is that. When did we forget that we are a body, and when did we start being the mouth.

I am discouraged. Not because these pastors are taking on this subject, but because they are attempting to only allow their understanding of scripture to be the right one. When we shape our thinking in only one way, when we define God to a point in which we believe we understand everything about God, we are clearly misunderstanding everything there is to know about God, even if we say phrases that convince others and even ourselves that we don't have God figured out. There are going to be things that we can’t even begin to fathom, so why try to force your own theological theory about topics that have little to do with salvation. I mean, when Jesus called the disciples, did Jesus give them a multiple choice test on certain theology, and if they failed, they would not cut it? I love this quote:

“We evangelicals tend to colonize the text, make Scripture our own possession and in effect make the words of Scripture an idolatry. As a result, we have become a controlling, uninviting, judgmental people losing the ability to encounter the living God and inviting others into such an encounter. We know Scripture but we are untouched by it and so we are insulated from God who seeks to reveal Himself in and through it.”-David Fitch

I am going to not try to use scripture to defend my argument, because in all honesty, I don’t believe we use scripture to win arguments or strengthen our opinions…. No, scripture is meant solely as our insight to Christ, and our defense against worldly living. I believe scripture has power, but even the demons and Satan use scripture to battle…Do we worry about that ever?

The crux of my argument here is that all of us CAN afford to get hell wrong. We can afford to get it wrong because no matter what hell is or isn’t, Christ has disarmed it, is victorious over it, has defeated it, has made a mockery of it, and most importantly made a clear point that states that we are to storm the gates. Our message about sending people to hell, and defining hell does us no good. Our enemy is not the various theologies of hell, our enemy is oppression, darkness, evil, wickedness,  anything that even attempts to rob us of God, and not even pastors who preach that they hope every person goes Heaven..

The doctrine of Hell does not matter to your salvation, and this goes out to all my friends who are new Christians, agnostics and atheists… Because our message is not about destruction, our message is a story of pure love! The Good News is that Jesus has come for you, and is not willing that you shall perish, but often we don’t choose God whom has chosen us through the life, death and resurrection of Christ.

How much money do we waste consuming all of this. I am even at fault. As of 2:15 am May 23rd, 2011 there have been 417,294 suicides this year, as of 2:18 am May 23rd, 2011 there have been 654,177 deaths caused by HIV/AIDS this year, and today alone by 2:20 am May 23rd, 2011 there have been 3,017 deaths due to hunger (2 hours and twenty minutes). We have time to discuss what hell is like, but yet we don’t have time to fight it? Hell has come now, and it has disguised itself as hopeless, painful suffering, life eating, soul sucking misery. Hell is not some far off distant land. Hell is here, trying to convince all of us that the life of mass consumption, self indulgence, self-preservation, minimal community interaction and so many other fleeting feelings and lies are true. We spend so much time saying who can go to Heaven, that we forget that our neighbors are experiencing hell right now.

Just the other day, I listen as a teenager explains to me their personal hell they are going through with their addictions. A few weeks ago, I listen to a close friend share with me some deep pain about his current relationship. Just a while ago, I got to hear about the personal hell of a rape victim.

You ask me why I think it is shallow for us to be defining hell; my answer is because it does no good for the people who are already experiencing hell right now. Jesus told Peter to storm the gates of hell because they can’t prevail against the church… When did we lose sight of this imagery? When did we stop kicking down the walls of child brothels? When did we stop holding the hands of the hopeless? When did we stop mourning with a friend who lost a child to cancer? When did we start thinking that evil and wickedness and treating each other as dumber or satan disguised as light was Christ like? When did we become shallow?

I don’t believe Rob Bell is 100% right. I do believe that Rob Bell believes in Jesus Christ, and the Jesus is whom Mr. Bell strives to be like. I have read his book. I don’t believe Francis Chan is 100% right. I do believe that Francis Chan believes in Jesus Christ and the Jesus is whom Mr. Chan strives to be like. I will probably read his book.

But in all of this we must remember that God’s ways are not like our ways. If God chooses to do something different than what I have been taught to believe about hell, than that is under God’s direction. But at the same time God is not going to teach us about Love and Justice and Compassion just to turn around and do the opposite. To all my conservative Christian friends, this is not even a hint at universalism, I believe there is a hell and God takes NO pleasure in having anyone there, but this is a hint that God is teaching us about Love and Justice and Compassion, and we can’t discredit the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we can’t afford to miss the good news of the Gospel for our shallow understanding of the afterlife.

Your job as a Christians is to stop defining God, and start living with God. When you read about the day of judgment in Matthew 25, God does not say to the righteous that because they had such great defined doctrine and that they could define hell clearly and have a clear image of what the Bible says and because they took everything literally that they get into Heaven… No, far from that, God looks at how they lived out their faith. You see, salvation is not contingent on your works, but your belief in God is shown through your works. Gal 5:6b”…for the only thing that matters is faith expressing itself through love.”

I have wasted so much time being absorbed by this debate. May we stop that, and may we start being absorbed in the Mercy, Justice and Humility we find in Christ, and may we in turn do that very thing to others.

Much Love.
Casey

Love.Wins.

What we really believe is evidenced by how we live, not by what we say.- Donald Miller

What a powerful quote in a dangerous era, isn’t it? In a time where everything in life is so up and arms, anything we say (even if it is in support or in condemnation) is up for scrutiny. Everything is examined and nothing is neutral. Nothing is ever able to be neutral.

I got the chance to spend the weekend with some very awesome kids. Shout out to Five Oaks Youth Homies!! “umm, yeaaa word, sing it out now, Kirk Franklin in the House.”  And let me tell you, there is very little joy in life when compared to spending a weekend with 78 youth and 12 adult leaders at a conference.

Before I went on the trip, I had a pretty tough week with some things going on. As many people know, life is NOT easy by any means, not even for an old pastor’s kid like me. I find everyday just as challenging as the day before, but for some reason, this past week was just hard.

Some folks all around the community had begun to share stories with me. They are very graphic stories, so please be aware of that before reading them. (No worries, I will keep them short)

Story Number one: Delinquent. A young lady was put on probation. Most people would think that it was because she was a delinquent, always getting into trouble. She was known for using drugs, for skipping class, for the occasional thievery. In those terms, it is clear to me, she has done wrong in her life. On the outside we see what she has done wrong. But in her home life, and the reason she is now seeing a probation officer is because her mother would prostitute her out to male drug dealers so that she could get her high. One would hope this would never happen, or if it did, only once… Try nearly once a week for more years than I am willing to admit.

Story Number two: Rape. Fear has this interesting way of capturing a person’s life. It can make you submit too many things, and for this daughter, it was her father. Her father was known by the town as this great man. He was wealthy and loveable, but to his daughter, he was this demonic addict who in the flip of a switch continued to ruin her life. Most nights were fine, but when he went out on the town, he came home, late, and rape his daughter. The worst part is, the judge gave the man special considerations and accommodations, I guess the judge did his part to help the wealthy man out because the wealthy did his part to make sure that judge was re-elected.

Story Number three: Suicide. This is sensitive subject. There has been a drastic increase in numbers of suicides nationally. The 3rd leading cause of death for teenagers is suicides. There are 1800 suicide attempts made a day by teenagers. The worst part is not reading these statistics, the worst part is when you see the faces of these statistics every day. The hardest part of this topic is listening to parents question everything in their life because they had to bury the freshmen in college, with no explanation as to why it happened.

Story Number four: Self-Mutilation. Choking, burning, cutting… I remember hearing a story about a young man who hated every aspect of his life. His family life was broken, his friends were all around him, but yet he was lost. He tried hard to impress every person, but yet never could. So he began to cut his inner thigh and began starving himself, because he felt ugly, he felt lowly and he felt useless.

Story Number five: Divorce. This was a hard one. The father left the mother for some young girl. The mother is now raising 3 kids all on her own. I have never met a more bitter woman, but I have also never seen a mother invest instantly into her daughters lives, never seen a mother take on both of the roles of parenthood, and I would have to say, never seen a mother find joy as much as she has admitted to.

You see, today I am not here to tell you how messed up our world is, no, in fact that would be an understatement. You see, if I stopped there, and just shared these depressing stories with you, what would I be doing? If I shared these stories with you, only to show you “why” we need love in this world, I would be missing the point.

Love desires to destroy sin. And it is ruthless in doing so. The love I am talking about can only be found in Christ. You see without Christ, all we have hope for in this world is that someday, we will be dead, in the ground and never have to worry about that pain happening to us again. For as long as we live we will carry the weight of that pain on our shoulders, no matter how well we suppress it. Please do not go another day thinking you are alone in this world.

I have four things I want to say in closing:
1)      Do not be afraid to feel what you are going through. I am honored to meet with a lot of people in my day, trust me, I am NOT a counselor nor am I an expert, I still have SO much to learn, I am only a listener and sometimes I can say things, but when I meet with these people I get to hear their stories. There is nothing better in life then when I get to hear these stories, partially because I get to see what they are feeling. The reason I say this is because I cannot even begin to tell you how many times I hear people say sorry for crying (I say it too) or being angry or just frustrated. The best thing for a human soul is to be honest and to not fear what you are feeling. That is the worst for you. When you push all those feelings deep down, you become drained faster than you could ever imagine! Be honest about what you are going through, and if you feel angry or sad or want to cry, do it! NEVER EVER be afraid to feel what you are going through, to address your feelings. It is ok to cry out to God, to beg why!
2)      Live out sacrificial Love. Suffering is happening ALL around us right now, but God finds infinite worth in His creation, so I beg all of us to do the same. If God is ruthless against evil and ruthless against sin, and is destroying it, may we also do the same. May we join with Christ in the ministry of mercy, justice, peace and reconciliation. When we hear stories and statistics like this, may we be moved not to just pray but to action as well. Sacrifice for the cause of Love. Join in mission with Christ.
3)      You are NOT alone. PLEASE if you take anything away just know that you are not alone. Christ is with you, and in the moments you do not recognize Him, may you realize that the community is desiring to surround you, to be with you in the moments you want to cry in your closet, to the moments you are jumping with joy. You are not alone in what you are going through. Many others have a journey like yours. Don’t take this journey alone, share it with others who want to be a part of your life.
4)      Bring Joy into their lives. Christ came to party. Christ came to hang out, to be joyous, to enjoy the company of others. Christ is singing and dancing. Tony Campolo shares a great story about throwing a birthday party for a prostitute in a restaurant years ago. The prostitute never had a birthday party before, and Tony and the people he was with decided it was time she had one! So they decorated the place, made a cake and sang to her, all while inviting all the people she knew. It is a beautiful story about how God wants us to bring joy into other people’s lives. Through parties for them. Enjoy their company, laugh with them! Life is not all serious. If all you have to offer a person is a few words and a bowl of soup, that is not enough! BRING LOVE AND JOY into the lives of people!

I say all of this with great Love for people. But know my Love is not as great as what God is offering you every moment. I want you to know freedom, but I can’t give it to you.

May you experience joy in your life, because each of us are suffering in a way, hidden or out in the open. May we show what we believe about our God by the way we live.

I leave you with this Psalm:
Psalm 3
A psalm of David, regarding the time David fled from his son Absalom.
 1 O Lord, I have so many enemies;
      so many are against me.
 2 So many are saying,
      “God will never rescue him!”
                         Interlude

 3 But you, O Lord, are a shield around me;
      you are my glory, the one who holds my head high.
 4 I cried out to the Lord,
      and he answered me from his holy mountain.
                         Interlude

 5 I lay down and slept,
      yet I woke up in safety,
      for the Lord was watching over me.
 6 I am not afraid of ten thousand enemies
      who surround me on every side.

Stress

I would be lying if I did not say I was stressed out right now. But in the end, I have found I am stressed because I am not patient. I am not taking my time to enjoy what I am going through. I am rushing through everything and attempting to live at the same time.

Seriously, look my my schedule... I have everything planned out, almost to when I would even be going to the bathroom and where. Talk about boring. I have found my stress comes when things are not going to plan. I CANNOT BELIEVE I AM A PLAN GUY! I grew up despising those people and thinking little of them... Now I have ALL the respect in the world for them.

BUT I am beginning to change from that. I mean, do not get me wrong, I am very adaptable, however, I get stressed if it is my plan we have to go from. ESPECIALLY when I can't do something because of my scdeule. It was a CRAZY week.

However, I am learning again how to find God. It sounds simple to think about, but it is a moment by moment thing. Yes, I gave my life to Christ when I was 8, but I have been fighting for years to still know Him.

Keep prayin. Working out it great! Let me know how you need prayer or encouragment!

God Bless,
Casey

Long LONG day!

Today was just too long. I had so much I had to do. It reminded me of the days I was running away from! I sadly could not work out tonight, and the pain in my back is slowly coming back.

However I am still optimistic! I can still do this!!

On a happier note, I get a break from Grand Forks this weekend with a trip to the cities! I can't wait!

Sorry for the short post, but just wanted to update!

Level of Confidence

Man, was I sore and tired today after last nights work out! I am excited to get this week done with. SOO many things happening! (Also, as a point of confession, I hate dealing with the parking ticket office, by the end of the conversation, I had no clue what I was saying anymore or what I am suppose to do. Not to mention I probably did something illegal to begin with... JEEPERS!!)

Anywho.

This will be a short update. I need some recipes. I am starting to become a little more adventurous, plus I plan out my meals! So that is fun.

I still have a lot to learn in life. And that is sometimes the hardest part. I wonder what am I suppose to be doing, or what should I be doing. It is not an easy thing to do.

I will say this, I am starting to enjoy the mystery of life more. I still have a lot to learn.

More importantly, I am learning a lot about behavior. I am learning that relapsing in old habits is normal and expected. To think that one can stop cold turkey without relapse is only going to lead to a lot of guilt. I think that is where my heart is trying to work out right now. I am dealing with all the gunk inside my life that I have built up for years. I am recognizing Christ more in some ways. Some days, I recognize Christ as right next to me, and other days (sometimes in long stints) I can barely even remember Christ and what Christ's Love truly means. I just have to battle through that.

Thank you all for the support! let me know how I can pray for you!

-Casey