Crumpled Notebook

So, I really meant to do an entry at my 2 years in California point, which was January 20, 2004 or something like that. I forgot. Then I was going to do one at the point where I had officially been working/volunteering at The Salvation Army which was March 3rd, but I was gone to camp and again, forgot. Today isn’t really all that special of a day I don’t think. Yesterday might have been though. Yesterday, if I’m correct (March 21) might have been my first Sunday at church there 2 years ago. It was either the Sunday after or Sunday before St. Patrick’s Day. I really can’t remember.

Anyway, so I’ve been living in California roughly 2 years, 2 months and 2 days. To be perfectly honest–I couldn’t be happier. Not to say life is all great and perfect, but in general, I’ve never regretted my decision to be here. Sure, I didn’t really plan on staying here when I first moved out here, but I’d say within a few months, I think I knew. I mean, I love Kentucky and my family and friends there, but I think I’ve accomplished more and changed in a lot of good ways from being here, that I wouldn’t have if I had stayed in Kentucky, especially if had stayed on working at the jail or in my current line of work. I commented how much I hated Lexington, but it wasn’t Lexington as much it was the place I was in my life there. I seriously saw nothing in my future there. Even with all the bad crap that happened when I worked at the jail, I’m glad it happened, because it forced me to want out. It forced me to go back to Western and take some classes and give me a break from my mundane life. Once I got into classes and realizing that there was more than that stinking detention center and those stupid people there I could not wait to get out. I couldn’t wait to find a new job in a new place, far away. And that is exactly what I did.

I packed up my little Ford, drove cross country, moved onto an abandoned military base (heh) with a bunch of other people just like me, and took a job doing something I had no clue how to do–but that I became pretty darn good at. And here I am, 2 years later. I have a real job with The Salvation Army, I’m running a housing program, teaching Sunday School and over all, pretty happy. I guess the important thing is that I don’t feel stuck. There are about a million things I still want to do(and they change on a daily basis), and I feel pretty confident that I’ll figure it out soon enough, or at least before its too late. Anyway, its just good to feel like my life has some purpose.

I had an interesting/cool sunday school class this morning. At the beginning I shared with them a little bit about a friend of mine from high school that passed away this week and a story about him. I then went on with my lesson, which tied in with my story and then came back to that part at the end.

The story goes like this:

When I was about 14 or 15 years old our school FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes/Anybodies) came and did the Sunday night service at my church one night. I was part of the FCA group and we usually went to a couple different churches a month on Sunday nights. This particular night, it happened to be my church. I was in the back running the sound and video. One of our group leaders, William Shearer, was giving his testimony. I don’t remember much about it, but he said one thing that caught my attention. He said, “I know I’m going to heaven when I die.” He said it a couple of times. At first, I thought it was kind of presumptious. “How on earth could he know that for sure? Only God knows that.” The more he talked, the more I understood. He wasn’t being arrogant, he was merely showing faith in God’s promise to us–redemption through Christ’s death on the cross and resurrection. It didn’t matter how good we were–we were saved by grace, and that includes eternal life in heaven. For the first time in my life, I truely got that. I got it.

Now, at the time, it didn’t seem like that much of a revelation since I already supposedly knew that much. However, over the years, that is the one thing I would always come back to. Knowing that I had a place in heaven no matter how badly I messed up here on earth. No matter how discouraged I got, I would just remember those words, “I know I’m going to heaven.”

I shared this story with the teens in my sunday school class and told them about William’s cancer and how he passed away this week. At the end of class we came back to that and I asked them to raise their hand if they knew without a doubt, 110%, that they were going to heaven. All of them raised their hand, mostly of habit, except for one. The one kid I expected to be first, wouldn’t raise his hand, so I questioned him. He’s also the one kid who wouldn’t raise his hand if he wasn’t sure about something. He stumbled around, talking about how much bad stuff he had done, etc…I told him it didn’t matter. He tried to get in a few “Buts…” but I again told him it didn’t matter. I told him I knew he had accepted Christ, and he said that he had. I explained to him that part of the deal with that is that its all erased. Past, present and future. That it didn’t matter what he had done, it was forgiven. He didn’t really want to accept it, he had done some “really bad stuff.” I told him no matter what he had done, I had probably done worse. Other people have done worse. We talked about how Paul killed Christians and yet he was forgiven. We talked about how the wages of sin was death and that no one was sinless and how if that was the case, we all deserved death, but also how Jesus’ death erased all of that. Anyway, I think he(and the other kids) got tired of me telling him none of it mattered. You could see he was perplexed and putting heavy thought into it. In the end, he said he knew he was going to heaven. I’m not sure if he totally bought it, but he was closer to it. And I mean, I think he knows it, but it is hard to accept sometimes. He had the same look on his face as I did when I first heard William say it. The exact same thoughts and excuses I had when I was his age. It took me a while to accept it. It took years of reminding myself of that to get it.

It was a good reminder for me. It was also cool to see how one little, seemingly minor thing can change someone’s life. Those six words years ago changed my life and hopefully they changed someone else’s today–13 years later from a person who was laid to rest today and who “knew he was going to heaven.”

No, not Christmas…March Madness baby! I’m working on getting tickets for the Oakland Regional Final for next weekend. I’m pleased, even if my brackets are busted, because there have been a lot of good close games. In fact, most games I think so far have been fairly close. Not too many blow-outs really. And I mean, Kentucky at least made it through the first round this season. Life is good.

ooooh…march madness.

(and YES, I am skipping church tomrrow to watch the UK/UConn game…and possibly the next week or two. God and I have talked about it, its okay with Him). :-)

I’m officially a California resident. Got my temporary driver’s license (barely passed that written test) and am registered to vote out here.

Okay people. All you have to do to comment is answer the question under the comment box. However, people seem to be having problems with that, so I’m turning it off for now. But as soon as I start getting comment spam again, it’s going back on.