| Check This Out |
[May. 3rd, 2007|04:42 pm] |
There's a search engine that will donate a penny to the charity of your choice every time you do a search. You should all do this, and spread the word!
http://www.goodsearch.com/
Dig it! |
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| Here's a real entry for the first time in a long time! |
[May. 1st, 2007|12:33 am] |
This is one of the essays that I wrote for my advanced nonfiction class this semester. I wanted to make it available to my friends, since some of them happen to make an appearance. The essay is really about faith and the different forces that enact themselves against that within me, but I tried to write it in a way that was accessible to everyone (though I'm not sure). Anyway, if you're interested take a look!
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| Extra Ticket |
[Apr. 24th, 2007|09:35 am] |
Hey Guys! If anyone has an extra ticket for graduation, could you let me know? My aunt is coming in to town and I'd like to be able to give her one!
Love you bunches. Congrats to everyone who is done. |
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| Guys Be My Friend! |
[Mar. 29th, 2007|02:58 pm] |
I'm doing a cancer fundraiser called "Relay for Life" in a few weeks with a bunch of my friends. As a team, we're going to walk for 12 hours on April 13 and we're taking donations for the American Cancer Society between now and then. If you'd like to donate, go to http://www.acsevents.org/relay/mi/gvsu/comingsoon.
I can also take cash donations, next time you see me if that would be easier. Please just let me know in advance if that's what would be easiest for you.
Please forward this message on to everyone you know, and hopefully some really incredible things will happen. Thank you so much!
love,
AJ |
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| A Post! |
[Feb. 7th, 2007|02:04 pm] |
Hey all you artistic types!
Fishladder is looking for art/photography for this year's edition. If you've got anything that you like, even a little bit, you should submit it. We're taking hard or digital copies in the Writing Department office, 326 LOH. Entries are due by 5 on friday! |
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| Prayer Request |
[Dec. 6th, 2006|11:46 am] |
My phone works again! You can call it if you need to. It's the same one as David, so you know it's good.
I'm applying for this long shot job doing community development stuff that would start in the summer. The odds of getting it are really small, but I figured it was worth a shot. Please pray that I have peace with whatever God has planned, and that the right people get picked for it. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 2nd, 2006|05:13 pm] |
Hey my sister's selling a desk if anyone needs/wants one!
Also, I still have no phone. Hopefully monday or tuesday? |
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| Ladies and Germs |
[Nov. 22nd, 2006|09:32 pm] |
My phone is officialy dead. I'm in the process of getting a new one, but it won't be for a while. If you need to get ahold of me, or if you have an Alltel phone just sitting around, give me a call here at my parents house, or send me an email, or leave me a message on facebook or something.
Happy Thanksgiving! |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 7th, 2006|12:04 am] |
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I had a great birthday. Thank you so much everyone. |
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| I wrote a poem for Ashley |
[Oct. 31st, 2006|12:49 pm] |
And I thought y'all would like it:
Oh Ashley- You
Are Woman
Wise Freedom and Chocolate Syrup
You smell better
Than David
Though I love you both
Symmetry
Two gaping holes in my heart
My pocket children
You fit there perfectly
Kangaroo pouch without the goo
I love David
It’s cookie time now. |
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| Costume Update |
[Oct. 15th, 2006|01:43 pm] |
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I've modified my decision a bit and will now be going as Captain Ahab (Gregory Peck's version, or a close approximation). If you have a large blue mariner's pea coat, or a suggestion for how to do a wooden leg, let me know! |
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| Hey Everybody- |
[Oct. 14th, 2006|10:01 pm] |
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I'm looking for a bright yellow rain jacket, big boots/wellies, a captain's hat (or bright yellow hat) and a pipe. If you have any of these items, let me know because I would like to borrow them for my halloween costume (bet you can't guess what I want to go as). If you can help, I'd gladly make you some cookies or give you hugs or trade stuff that I own for your costume! |
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| Things of late.. |
[Sep. 23rd, 2006|12:10 am] |
I feel like there is so much on my mind lately. I have so, so much going on with school and everything that I can't do the quality job that I should, because I'm spread so thin. I think next semester will be better after the internship is over, but right now that's a long way off.
Said internship is going well for the most part. I like doing ad/pr work, and I feel so fortunate to be doing something I believe in SO much, and have this oppurtunity to begin using some of my mistakes and problems in a positive way.
I am becoming so, so convinced the communal living is the right way to live. We are so isolated in the culture and we try to do so much by taking so much on ourselves. It's not healthy and it's not right. I'm excited to see what the future holds for that.
I feel like God has been showing me a lot about myself since camp got over, and a lot of it is stuff I want to change. But it's all just sort of hanging around on the back burner. Right now I am not taking care of myself. At all. I don't eat well. I don't excercise. I've taken on too much during the day, and if I'm lucky I might read a chapter of the Bible somewhat at random every couple of days. I don't spend nearly enough quality time with people, and I feel like I'm so crazy/in need of blowing off steam that the time I get is not as quality as it could be.
There are so many people that I feel like I miss. And God is at the top of that list. |
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| Our Rival Show |
[Sep. 10th, 2006|08:12 pm] |
Tuesday...9:00....Intersection...Grand Rapids....Michigan...
Do it
Also, Rock and Roll Bible Study for people who don't know what to make of this Jesus character(tentative working title) will start next tuesday at 9. In kirkhoff....Allendale...Michigan...
I'm really tired and will always have 1,000,000,000 things to do between now and the time I graduate. |
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| Invites |
[Aug. 31st, 2006|11:54 pm] |
I have tickets for sale for our show on the 12th at the intersection. They only cost a dollar, but if you are under 21 I guess you will be charged another four at the door.
Worth it.
Also, the wonderful Katie Shinkle and I have been in talks for awhile now to start a Bible study for people who aren't Christians. It would be a safe atmosphere without any personal restrictions where people could come and ask questions and discuss without feeling like they had to measure up to any particular image or be at a specific place in their life. If it's something that would interest you, let me know. We are thinking about Monday nights, but that could be subject to change.
I love you all very much. |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 16th, 2006|01:57 pm] |
Thank you guys for the prayers and encouragement. I plan to be in the Grand Rapids area late on friday, although that may change.
It is going to be really, really hard to watch my dad grieve these next few days. I feel frustrated for him because I know he always tried to have a relationship with his dad, it just didn't get reciprocated. It makes me both grateful for the ways I have been blessed and sad that I am always so distant from my own family. I want to know them better. I want to help them know God. |
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| An update |
[Aug. 15th, 2006|09:19 am] |
I am leaving camp early tomorrow morning to attend the funeral of my father's father in Wisconsin. If you could pray for the strength of our family, and that God would use this time to open doors and draw my family memebers closer to Him, that would be phenomenal. I don't consider him to be a grandfather, since I barely knew him, but I know that that we are linked in personalities/problems, and I think that is something I wish I could have known more about.
I am really bummed to be leaving a few days early. I've been working with an inner city youth group this week which was so interesting and different than anything I've ever done. It was wierd to feel so culturally seperated but even in two days it was amazing to watch the group come together and accept us and counselors. My friend Jeff could also use prayer, as he has been thrown into the group as a replacement and has some catching up to do.
This place has changed my life forever. I didn't think I could undergo any more change this year, but now I am ready. I am ready to share what God has taught me. I am ready to be bold about the things I believe in. I am ready to embrace the ups and downs that come from recognizing that my life is His, and not mine.
I love and miss you all. It's going to be heartbreaking to leave this place, but I feel so so blessed that I have such a wonderful group of people to come home to. I am anxious to see how you all are doing. |
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| The Door of Full Surrender |
[Aug. 3rd, 2006|04:50 pm] |
I read this in an email yesterday and it really hit me:
But He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I will come forth as gold. - Job 23:10
I was recently sitting with the leader of a workplace organization as he described a question he poses to workplace believers. "What if there were two doors to choose from; behind one door was the complete will of God for your life and behind the other door was how life could be according to your own preference. Which door would you choose?" The struggle for most lies in the desire to follow God completely and the fear of what might be behind the door of full surrender. Most of us desire to follow God, but few of us will do it at any cost. We do not really believe that God loves us to the degree that we are willing to give Him complete permission to do as He wills in us.
If we desire to fully walk with Christ, there is a cost. We may give intellectual assent and go along with His principles and do fine; however, if we are fully given over to Him and His will for our life, it will be a life that will have adversity. The Bible is clear that humans do not achieve greatness without having their sinful will broken. This process is designed to create a nature change in each of us, not just a habit change. The Bible calls it circumcision. Circumcision is painful, bloody, and personal.
If God has plans to greatly use you in the lives of others, you can expect your trials to be even greater than those of others. Why? Because, like Joseph who went through greater trials than most patriarchs, your calling may have such responsibility that God cannot afford to entrust it to you without ensuring your complete faithfulness to the call. He has much invested in you on behalf of others. He may want to speak through your life to a greater degree than through another. The events of your life would become the frame for the message He wants to speak through you.
Do not fear the path that God may lead you on. Embrace it. For God may bring you down a path in your life to ensure the reward of your inheritance. "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all" (2 Cor. 4:17) |
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 18th, 2006|11:01 am] |
Someone (Sam?) put false info on my myspace "account" that I don't even use. Sweet. That's gone now.
Camp has been great. My team the last two weeks was so incredible. I feel like now the real test of the summer is going to be learning how to let go and continue to show and recieve God's love when my heart is spread even thinner than it already was.
I'll be in town thursday from like 4-10. Does anyone want to hang out? |
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| An Update |
[Jul. 6th, 2006|01:04 pm] |
My campers this week are unbelievable. One of them, Jake, is the 9th best yo-yo player(?) in the world. He can do a trick where he ties the string in a knot that looks like Darth Vader. That's right. Vader. These guys are some of the funniest and most intelligent people I've ever been around, and it's been cool to watch them come together from a lot of different backgrounds and develop what I hope will be real and amazing friendships. If any of you are the praying type, there are some guys who may be on the brink of making a serious spiritual commitment, but they have a lot of doubt and a lot of questions and need all the help they can get.
I am having more fun in this place than I have in a long, long time. I feel like God has given me a huge present and it can be tough because time and time again I demonstrate that I do not deserve it. And yet He insists on loving me with this ferocious, fervent love that I don't understand.
I realized something yesterday. In my struggles and efforts to truly be a man of integrity and a man of God, I have lost sight of the fact that God loves me first, before I accoplish anything. My Area Director gave me a note of encouragement yesterday that mentioned how much God loves me, and my first reaction was to put a condition on it. I felt like I couldn't fully accept that because there are things about myself that need work and need to be fixed, and until that happens it will always be a case of "God loves me but this, this, and this are wrong." And I know it's not like that. I KNOW this. Here I am surrounded by an amazing and loving staff of people, many who could easily step into my community at home and have made me feel extremely comfortable and loved in spite of myself, but I still hold myself back from God's love. I still can't always accept that He loves me EXACTLY where I am at this moment. I am too often focused on the next thing "to work on" or correcting the latest batch of mistakes that I've made. I sometimes forget that the best servent is the one who knows when to work, and knows when to rest in the love that is offered so graciously and abundantly.
I miss you all at home or abroad of wherever you are. I am excited to see you again. |
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cowbellfever's journal