Inward Change

Has your appearance ever changed so drastically, that some people did not know who you were? I have had shoulder length hair since I began with my current company in October. Well this past weekend I got it all cut off! Monday at work I loaded the company truck up for my job this week and after getting out and walking toward the warehouse, one of the managers stepped in my way and would not let me enter. He seriously did not know who I was and even after telling him, he still was not sure. He physically was stopping me from entering the warehouse, I had to show him my drivers license to prove my identity.

I believe that this is the kind of change Jesus is looking for from us, a change that takes peoples breath away and leaves them wanting what we have going on in our lives. This kind of change is difficult, but not impossible. Wanting to please Jesus should be at the for front of all we do every minute of every day. We should not have to say we are followers, our actions, should do our talking. After we all went back inside to work and had a great laugh, it hit me hard about the series we are doing at Church now called The Practical Atheist and how I have accepted Jesus but really have not turned my life over to Him fully yet. I am working hard everyday from now till I die, to please The Lord in everything I do and turn over to Him what is His. Thank you Jesus for saving me!

Wake Up

Have you ever woken up and wondered were it all has gone? I am talking about time, one day you are twenty years old and think you have all the time in the world to accomplish all the wonderful things a twenty year old dreams about doing. Then life seems to get in the way and you make choices to go down that road and take that fork along the way and all the sudden you are now fifty years old and looking back you ask yourself where did it all go? Time, the precious commodity that you can never get back. I spent my first fifty years pleasing myself and and accomplishing very little that I can truly pass along as my legacy. My children deserve better than just a piece of land, a few dollars or some cloths, they should be able to see the accomplishments of a person who lived to make a difference. I looked through a few blog friends of my wife's, this morning and came across one with an obituary of her granny, I wondered what people would put in mine, maybe he lived a so-so life, touched very few and died from selfishness? I believe in a future blog I am going to try to write my own obituary. I will write it the way I would like it to read and then for the very, very short time I have left on this earth, I hope I can please God by living it out.

unemployed,but not umemployable

The statement used to be that everyone knew someone who either has had or died of cancer, the statement today seems to be that everyone knows someone that has lost their job, business, home or cars. I really do not know many people that are not "financially challenged" today and for our household both my wife and I have lost our jobs. I have laid awake nights and thought maybe if I had done this or been better at that, well after two months and several of my friends losing jobs, I have handed this and everything else in my life over to God. I still have several questions that I know will never get answered, but here they are: am I sure if President Obama is doing the right things? My answer to that is I am not sure, in my experiences in life it is very hard to give something to the people at the top and watch it trickle down to the bottom, where it is needed the most. When you use this process the ones on the bottom always get the least and it is mostly crap that is left. But in saying this the most serious and troublesome question I have is for President Bush, you say all this coming and you did nothing, I thought we elected you to help us and take care of us, as our President?
I do not know where all this will lead us, but I do know that if we do not elect more true Christian politicians regardless of party or color to help lead this country in a Godly way, more of this will be in our future. Please leave your comments and feelings, I would love to know if I am the only one who feels this way?

Children you may or may not have been blessed with

Let me tell you a story that in some ways is scary, relieving and to some points sad. I was at work Monday and Rene' received a court order in the mail from the state of Oklahoma, stating that I have a court date for over $12,000 in arrears of child support! Now never really being a ladies man, but I did drink a lot years ago, I really could not think of anyone who I may have had "sexual relations with." Now let's cut to my wife Rene', she calls me and I can hear the stress in her voice, but she is not mad, maybe a little scared also, because as all Americans we are feeling the financial pinch to. She tried to call, but they would not talk to her, I was busy at work, but hearing her voice meant that I needed to call now and get to the bottom of this. I called and the have a call center answer phones and you can not get to a case worker, they have 3 working days to call you back, so again still at square one. So fast forward to yesterday, my case worker finally called me and as soon as I confirmed my SS number all was fine. Well yes a sense of relief came over me, but then I got to thinking here is another child without a biological father to take them to ballgames or dance recitals. I will never say I am a great father but I do try, and it is very sad that the child in Oklahoma will never have his or her dad try. They got my name, which is not to common, ha ha, from Travelers Insurance, which is my workers Comp company at work. Why they have the right to even release my name is not known at this time, but I will find out. So if you have experienced anything along these lines, please tell me?

peps watchin

Just sitting here in the lobby of the Hilton downtown Houston watchin the peps go about their business. It is not your usual Hilton crowd. They have the business class peps here, and the relaxing come to the spa and shop to ya drop crowd. But then you have the beer drinkin, cusin, torn up tee shirts with provocative sayings on them mixing in with all the others. You see since the hurricane Houston has needed the help of outsiders. I see an attitude of gratefulness coming from the class of people that if the tree toppers, lineman, construction crews, were to come in here any other time of year, they would not be welcome. You see fellowship is always needed and sometimes welcomed.

God's Fury

Why do they always call natural disasters " God's Fury?" I am not sure, but I believe that God uses everything for His benefit, whether it be a beautiful sunset or a snowy covered mountain or in this instance a hurricane. I know that I am praying for people I do not even know, there are allot of people staying in this motel from Houston and Galveston areas. They sit here hour after hour just watching and praying that they have a place to call home again, and not knowing if loved ones or pets that are left behind will survive. No telephone or mobile phone service, no one ask, to get answers from, that has to be real scary. I met two young girls around 13 or 14 just sitting on the elevator floor telling each other secrets being normal like young girls do, until I asked them what they had to leave behind, then the fear, concern, anxiety and uncertainty set in. They said pets, friends, their schools, their dads jobs, at this point I realized these two young girls would never be the same. Their world as they new it was gone, all the innocence we grow up with, was stripped from them. The look in their eyes told me that they never get that back.
Now all of the sudden my mission and reason for being here seems rather small and inconsequential. Going to Houston tomorrow to do assessments on banks is a crucial necessity, but now I can also be a link to a world that all these people here can not see or understand yet. I took the two girls addresses and told them that I would do what I could do to look at their homes while I am down there, if I was near them. All of the sudden they started to cry and thank me, a conversation of approximately five minutes seemed to bring them some hope, joy and peace. Thank you Jesus for showing me that there is more than just doing my job to the best of my ability. I will try to blog later as the week goes on and include pictures.

Airports and Storms

Life of a business traveler is not fun anymore! Storms make you wait and if not storms then mechanical, if not that maybe the crew has timed out! Whatever it may be it sure makes flying a challenge. I am in the Greenville Spartanburg International airport, supposed to have left for Atlanta at 5:40pm and make my connection to Newburgh NY at 9:30pm. Well just been told it will be at least 6:45pm and my connection has been delayed till 10:10pm. Always a silver lined cloud somewhere, the Southeast is in desperate need of rain and thank God we are getting it! Well I will write more later and tell you how it all ends, bye.