Dying Changes Everything
The subject line is originally the title to a season five episode of House, M.D. - I'm using it because it fits a LOT of what has been going on lately.
First, the town is suffering because of the deaths of people from two different colleges. What makes the more recent one from our town stand out to me is that this was discovered during youth group last Monday, and the original thought was that it was a high school student that was killed by a car. It was the other way around, it turned out - a college student had been hit by a distracted high school student.
Second, my own dreams scared me half to death last Tuesday. I had felt a little nauseous, so I slept and encountered some sort of dream with my parents. It was really different because I was along by five years, but it seemed they were along by a little more than that and about the same place where grandma and grandpa were before they passed. Furthermore, something had happened in this dream, but for the life of me I can't figure out what it was; all I have to go on was that it was the first time I experienced a fright so bad that all I could do was freeze up and then break down and cry. Because of how they had aged in the dream, the only logical explanation I can come up with is that they knew they were close to the grave. If that was the case, then I never expected it to affect me so much. Either way, when I woke up, the thought of time being limited began permeating my images and ideas about my uncles and aunts as well, and it was so...so...bittersweet. I would still have time as God allowed, but when their time is up, would we, the next generation, be able to step up and use what they've left behind? I don't just mean any old use, either - any fool can do that; I mean be able to save and use any money wisely, farm the land they left behind so as to feed/clothe both themselves and America, to break our backs and bodies in such a way that we can support ourselves enough to give the next generation something to support.
If there's one other dying that changes everything, it's dying to ourselves, specifically myself currently that I can see the the night and day comparison. Currently I've only seven months left of any schooling before I move on with life, and so I'm working on getting stuff done. Problem: there's a huge part of me that I'm having to fight with, a part of me that wants to go out and get the house, go out and work with the youth, make the money to help the youth group, work all the hours needed to support myself, have the space to have casual youth events, and more. It's so annoying to see any motivation for school just drop off like it has, and quite frankly I'm not looking forward to next semester now because of all the major classes appear to have little to no room for procrastination. It's bad enough currently that in some cases I admit to selfishly choosing to sleep so I can process it some more while not having to deal with the current day at hand. On the plus side, studies and homework haven't been neglected - both tests taken currently netted me the same B I currently have in two of the classes. I could care less about the weightlifting class, especially since it appears that the instructor wants us to become athletes and/or exercise science majors - I came to the class just looking for proper form and means to improve what I know in terms of losing weight; instead, I'm evidently supposed to know all the muscle groups and all these details that I'm never going to use as either a youth minister or business major.
Finally, youth ministry is going well right now - I'm leaning toward scrapping the whole trading card aspect of having a casual Friday meet at the local game shop because it doesn't look like I could do so without the potential for theft and/or language that the parents would disapprove of. It'll be all the various board games we can play that are available at the store. If I decided to do that, hopefully I can get enough money from the cards I bought just to teach the youth so that they can go to one conference in particular. In fact, I almost think that's why I was allowed to collect the cards like I did so that God could use me in such a way as this. The kids are working on "Superhero" by Go Fish - hopefully I can get a video of this one this time around. I'm proud of the movements that I came up with for the song - they're easy enough that they kids picked it all up within the first day, and have been going strong since (with a few adjustments as the rest of the help has pointed out).
First, the town is suffering because of the deaths of people from two different colleges. What makes the more recent one from our town stand out to me is that this was discovered during youth group last Monday, and the original thought was that it was a high school student that was killed by a car. It was the other way around, it turned out - a college student had been hit by a distracted high school student.
Second, my own dreams scared me half to death last Tuesday. I had felt a little nauseous, so I slept and encountered some sort of dream with my parents. It was really different because I was along by five years, but it seemed they were along by a little more than that and about the same place where grandma and grandpa were before they passed. Furthermore, something had happened in this dream, but for the life of me I can't figure out what it was; all I have to go on was that it was the first time I experienced a fright so bad that all I could do was freeze up and then break down and cry. Because of how they had aged in the dream, the only logical explanation I can come up with is that they knew they were close to the grave. If that was the case, then I never expected it to affect me so much. Either way, when I woke up, the thought of time being limited began permeating my images and ideas about my uncles and aunts as well, and it was so...so...bittersweet. I would still have time as God allowed, but when their time is up, would we, the next generation, be able to step up and use what they've left behind? I don't just mean any old use, either - any fool can do that; I mean be able to save and use any money wisely, farm the land they left behind so as to feed/clothe both themselves and America, to break our backs and bodies in such a way that we can support ourselves enough to give the next generation something to support.
If there's one other dying that changes everything, it's dying to ourselves, specifically myself currently that I can see the the night and day comparison. Currently I've only seven months left of any schooling before I move on with life, and so I'm working on getting stuff done. Problem: there's a huge part of me that I'm having to fight with, a part of me that wants to go out and get the house, go out and work with the youth, make the money to help the youth group, work all the hours needed to support myself, have the space to have casual youth events, and more. It's so annoying to see any motivation for school just drop off like it has, and quite frankly I'm not looking forward to next semester now because of all the major classes appear to have little to no room for procrastination. It's bad enough currently that in some cases I admit to selfishly choosing to sleep so I can process it some more while not having to deal with the current day at hand. On the plus side, studies and homework haven't been neglected - both tests taken currently netted me the same B I currently have in two of the classes. I could care less about the weightlifting class, especially since it appears that the instructor wants us to become athletes and/or exercise science majors - I came to the class just looking for proper form and means to improve what I know in terms of losing weight; instead, I'm evidently supposed to know all the muscle groups and all these details that I'm never going to use as either a youth minister or business major.
Finally, youth ministry is going well right now - I'm leaning toward scrapping the whole trading card aspect of having a casual Friday meet at the local game shop because it doesn't look like I could do so without the potential for theft and/or language that the parents would disapprove of. It'll be all the various board games we can play that are available at the store. If I decided to do that, hopefully I can get enough money from the cards I bought just to teach the youth so that they can go to one conference in particular. In fact, I almost think that's why I was allowed to collect the cards like I did so that God could use me in such a way as this. The kids are working on "Superhero" by Go Fish - hopefully I can get a video of this one this time around. I'm proud of the movements that I came up with for the song - they're easy enough that they kids picked it all up within the first day, and have been going strong since (with a few adjustments as the rest of the help has pointed out).