Mmm. Love me some Regina. Good movie, too.
Digital jackpot
This is my confession
I am not perfect.
I am not close, by any stretch of the imagination.
But I serve the One who is. And I know that I want to be like Him. Hallelujah.
Just in another funk today, really bad one. It’s been rough the two days. I emotionally vomited on some people close to me today, and I wanted to publicly call myself out. I needed to do it but that didn’t make it entirely right. I needed to fight, tooth and nail, like the man I want to be, to maintain my peace. But I didn’t. I am so thankful for some of the people in my life right now. I know I said before that I felt like I had no one, but everyone knows that most of the time someone who feels that way just isn’t paying attention.
Anyways, I don’t know if anyone who reads this doesn’t know, but I was diagnosed with clinical depression about a year and a few months ago. I quit taking my medication, an anti-depressant/anti-anxiety pill called Lexapro, in mid-January of last year. I have been able to cope really well by the grace of Jesus (believe me, if you knew some of the things I’ve dealt with over the last few months without medication you’d believe in Jesus too) (you know, if you, like, didn’t, already, or something… awkward…) but over the last few weeks the stress has increased considerably. It’s getting harder and harder to hold off… But I can feel myself learning. Peace. Peace. Peace.
I don’t always do it right, but I’m figuring it out.
I see no point in having a blog if one can’t be completely real and vomit appropriate and relatively vague commentaries about life from time to time.
Alone
I don’t know what it is, but everyone around me is traveling and going places lately. Practically everyone on my Facebook friends list, when you check their statuses, is going somewhere, and many of those are leaving the country.
Anyways, to top it off, some of these people are my closest friends. My best friend is out of town the entire week. I really have no one to hang around. I feel kind of guilty, but I am a little lonely. I have been at work all day and have been taking in a lot of new information, and as a result I’m exhausted. I just really want to sit down and chill- but I have nothing to do and no one to do it with. I sometimes feel guilty when I want to call friends up, but then I think of the times that I am there for people and ask myself why I am selfish if I am simply in need of support?
On a side note, I am so tired of my mother’s dogs. Honestly, I think it’s just silly to have four dogs inside who all crave attention and still have two more outside who are completely neglected.
This post may be one of the most self-indulgent ones on my blog, but to be honest I just needed someplace to put it down, so there.
Jabez
As some of you may or may not know, I recently took the life of one of the longest-living family pets we’ve had, Jabez.
I must admit I felt little remorse as I’m not fond of (read: I loathe most of) cats in general, but also because it wasn’t technically my fault. The cat had always moved out of the way of the cars since we found him when I was in the 5th grade. Anyways, I digress.
I was going through my flickr account tonight and I found some pictures of the late great Jabez the Cat. Here he is, in memoriam.
Miss you, dawg.
I mean…
Strength
That’s what my name means. A pictoral representation of the transitive property, then, would look like this:
“Andrew” = “strength,” therefore:
= 
I’ve wondered since I heard that as a child what standing my name had on my life, my character. Would I actually be strong? Would I be able to stand in the face of whatever rose against me and overcome? Would I be strong enough for others, especially those I love? (Well, I’ve wondered the first one since I was a child.)
Really and truly, though, I’ve learned that I’m not strong at all. I’m actually weak. I’m becoming a man, to be sure- but it’s not by my own volition. I, by nature, am lazy. I allow my intellect to do the work so that I don’t have to do any. I let myself become lax. I accept less than the best from myself in critical areas. I refuse to take care of others when I know I need to. Not only am I weak, but I’m spineless.
However, I have something… unexplicable… that has always lived within me. Something that KNOWS, just knows, there is more to this. That I’m settling. That there is something better out there and that I’m just not doing what I need to in order to get it. And I know what it is I must do. I don’t like it. I’m not happy with it. But the inside of me is CRYING OUT for it.
And so I need to be strong. I need to listen to that Andrew on the inside, the one that knows what to do. It’s quiet, it’s a whisper: but it’s getting louder. And I know it will not be silenced, for it is the real me. And I am strong through weakness- thanks to Him.
Side note: Congrats to PaulDeuce for completing his undergrad! Good luck in Cali!
#008000, #0000FF or #808080 eyes
I have always secretly thought that this was the best song to sing alone in the car.
Ephesians 4:15
I randomly check the BibleGateway daily verse, and today’s was Ephesians 4:15.
Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.
Ephesians 4:15
{emphasis mine}
Grow into him? Ok.
And, even more randomly (partially because the last few days haven’t exactly been a walk in the park), I went to studylight.org to check the commentary on this verse. Here is what the Barnes’ Commentary says:
But speaking the truth in love. Marg., being sincere. The translation in the text is correct–literally, truthing in love –\~alhyeuontev\~. Two things are here to be noted:
(1.) The truth is to be spoken–the simple, unvarnished truth. This is the way to avoid error, and this is the way to preserve others from error. In opposition to all trick, and art, and cunning, and fraud, and deception, Christians are to speak the simple truth, and nothing but the truth. Every statement which they make should be unvarnished truth; every promise which they make should be true; every representation which they make of the sentiments of others should be simple truth. Truth is the representation of things as they are; and there is no virtue that is more valuable in a Christian than the love of simple truth. {emphasis mine}
It goes on to say that there are other ways to speak the truth, but we must do it in love.
May grow up into him. Into Christ; that is, to the stature of a complete man in him.
{emphasis mine}
A complete man. That is all that I want to be. That is the cry of my heart.
Digital Jackpot
I’ll let you know in advance this is pure repetitive fluff so I don’t expect you to finish the video, but it’ll ingrain itself into your cerebral cortex, no matter how long you watch it.
De-da-de-da-bop-bop. Good stuff.
