Hello readers,
well its been about 2 months since my last post, so I will post something!
lots has happened in the past 2 months for me. well I finished up my spring semester at school in June, meaning I have only 10 classes left until I have my Bcomm. I will have a bachelors degree in 9 months! also I turned 22...ok thats not that exciting, kind of crazy to think actually. 22, wow. so i have been working the past month at TransCanada, good times, its been a great opportunity with Employee Communications, but sadly my summer student experience only has one month left! (well, maybe i can extend this job into a part time role in the fall like I did at Nexen!)
hmm, well Ryan got the job at the baptist church in lethbridge! congrats to him, Nat and Ryan will be moving down there at the end of the month and get thier house in November! yay for them! I will miss my little Abi and Silas though, as well as of course Nat and Ryan.
it will be wierd having them move out and not live here (tho Ryan has been living mostly in lethbridge lately). my mom and step-dad came up for a visit in June as well, always good to see them.
went camping in Sandy McNabb first weekend of July with some of my friends, went for a bike to downtown the week before, and attended some work functions during Stampede week!
also I bought a new phone last week, got an LG Rumour through Solo mobile, its a pretty cool phone and a cheaper plan than the ripoff that called itself Rogers.
hmm, oh I went to camp for a week, as a cabin leader for Junior camp, good but wild times. I wasn't feeling great going into it, but got through and enjoyed leading the boys in my cabin, and there were alot of them (11 boys with 2 leaders for our cabin). It was great to get back out to camp, it was still tiring, but its a different tiring than sitting in an office all day!
It would have been great to be out at camp for the whole summer like I used to do, but those days have passed unfortunately(stupid need for money), but I still enjoy going out for a week or two during the summer.
Right now it is a long weekend, an extra long weekend for me as friday was a designated day off at TransCanada, and monday is a holiday. 4 day weekend, I didn't end up going out of town, as much as I thought I should, but thats perfectly fine. its funny how even taking a weekend off ( a long one even) you still end up busy, or at least I did. not too busy, but not extremely bored either. Friday was good because it was a sleepin, a relax no rush day, I went for a bike and had a little devo at a bench in fish creek on a beautiful day. then helped dad with some yard work and spent time with family, then watched football. its nice being able to just do whatever, not trying to get heaps done in one short period.
saturday was the same deal, I slept in, was expecting to fill in for a soccer game but it got cancelled. my day opened up even more. I went out into the heat and wandered around best buy, eventually buying a microsdhc card for my cell phone, getting a starbucks and heading home, only to head to Shawns to hang out for a bit. played some NHL 09 and went home, where I enjoyed homemade burgers (via my dad) and watched the Stamps-Riders game.
I guess that is a little busy, but not organized busyness, just freeflowingness (i know, thats not a word).
today I went for lunch with my friends Jake and Jeanie then played a game called discipleship at Sam's place for the afternoon, enjoying the beautiful weather (we played outside) and hanging out. I went for dinner at Montanas with my Dad, Nat, Ryan and the kids. also made plans with Jake and Jeanie to go to Banff tomorrow and then meet up with some of the guys about a campin trip next weekend.
anyways i guess my point is that I'm glad I decided to hang around town this weekend, glad to have a mid-summer long weekend to enjoy, and thankful for friends that had the same mindset on this long weekend!
hmm well some other thoughts I guess.
In anyones spiritual journey (or whatever you want to call it) there are good times and bad times, peaks and valleys. over the years I have had some peaks and valleys, but over time it gets less extreme, or at least it as for me. in the Good times, you feel great, all facets of life seem to be going well, and most importantly you have a passion for God, unfortunately this doesn't always stay the same. Sometimes we have rough times, times when we just aren't feeling it, we aren't sure what we are doing, where we are going (this isn't always bad though!) and maybe feel God isn't right there or that lifes trials are hitting us all at once....
wait - sometimes you are thinking about something or in this case writing and a song comes on or something happens that fits, right now is one of those times. I am writing about good and bad times, and just noticed that a song called "the lining is silver" by Relient K is playing. part of the chorus is "isn't it nice to know, that that the lining is silver, isn't nice to know, that were golden". cool. (well at least i think so!)
in bad times, things seem to suck, but we have to remember that God is there for us, and that these trials or tough times we are going through will pass. That God has the vision, we don't need to know where this is going (though in the tough times we really Want to know), we just need to trust God. The lining is silver, take the positives out of it, remember what you have, remember the good times and know and trust that there will be good times again. The song that is on right now is "Praise you" by Fatboy Slim. haha. anyways we need to praise God in all of our 'seasons', part of the words in this song are "we've come a long, long way together, through the hard times and the good". wow.
another song, and some people say this one is overplayed, but I think its for a reason, it speaks so much to us about life and us and God in that life. The song is Blessed be your name, I really love this song, its about us praising God, at all times everywhere, including in the desert place.
Ok so the reason I was thinking about this, was that the other day I was thinking that maybe I'm in a spiritual rut, I had slipped on some things, like prayer. upon realizing this, I got to thinking about how our rough or downtimes end/start.
Do our bad times end when we start to figure out whats going on? or does God prompt us in subtle ways we don't realize, so that we come back. when we are in a good time, does it end because we realize we are doing good and get overconfident and complacent? I don't know but that has to be part of it. Another part has to be that it just is human nature, look at the old Testament, we would come back to God, then go away, then back again, realizing at different points.
bottom line, it happens, but I think we can actively do things to get out of the tough times, but not always, and often we don't feel like it, and eventually God (who is faithful) will nudge us out of the spot, but that doesn't mean we should wait. I've seen people have trouble and instead of seeing God pulling them back, they saw it as something else and thier faith crumbled.
another song playing on my stereo, Citybus Lovesong by NewWorldSon (one of my latest favourite bands to listen to, since YC), in the chorus: "where would I go without you, without you to guide my way? where would i be without you, I'd be wandering day by day"
where would I go without you God? I would be wandering day by day, in a far off worse state then I am, if still on earth.
Ok, one last thing (this has turned into a much longer post than I expected, a brain dump of sorts).
I started writing in a journal each day as a practice when I went to Australia, so to remember my times and have been reading through some of my writings that last little while. such good times, I'm so glad to have the pictures, the DVD and my journalling (as well as reunions with Capers friends) to look back at the great times had and things learned. keeping a journal is a good idea, even though sometimes its like a chore. if it becomes a habit (which apparently happens after 2 weeks or so?) it is a nice memory and way to look back to see how much we have changed. anyways its been almost a year to the day (a year to the day on friday!) since I got back from Australia. one year ago I was exploring Sydney one last time on my own before returning for one last visit to Capernwray to see my friends and get my luggage.
oh the memories!
another odd coincidence, our waiter tonight was from Australia.
as always, thanks for reading (and congrats for getting through all that) and I hope some of my thoughts got you thinking!
Adam
