Category: I’m Just Sayin

I write these posts now to just keep a diary of my life. It doesn’t happen as often as it should because I have been to busy living life and have had little time to jot down notes about it.

It’s 2011 and this year I started with a personal trainer for 3 months. Twice a week I killed my muscles and while I felt like it was good for me to go to a personal trainer, I hate that it took up time and was a fixed time. I like flexibility in my schedule… and in my body for that matter, though I have very little.

In April I started a low-carb diet for the 1000th time. It worked well for the first 10 days or so and then I started to get tired of it. The great thing about low-carb diets is that you do lose weight fast. Unfortunately, I like to eat carbs and I love variety and so this was a problem for me. Today I plan to start Weight Watchers for Men. I’ve got to keep after my weight-loss goals. It has been a life-long battle and I don’t like to count or measure. I don’t like to budget. I abhor having to limit myself and to say “No”, but I’ve got to start.

I’m still single. No dating prospects right now. I met a cool girl a couple of weeks ago, unfortunately she lives in Georgia.

I have been working on my second book. It’s autobiographical and it’s finished for the most part. I need to do a lot of editing and then I want to see about getting it published this summer.

I love my apartment. I currently live in Krum, TX and I never thought I would enjoy just a simple apartment with minimal furnishings. I keep it very tidy. This is new for me. When I had my house I was unorganized and there would be times my house would be a mess for days. I watched a movie called “The Mechanic” and I loved how organized and orderly Jason Statham was in that movie. I thought, “I should be like that”. The recurring theme throughout the movie was VICTORY LOVES PREPARATION. I love that. It is now the theme on my business cards.

Business has been booming lately. So much so that I can’t keep up with it. But that is a good thing.

I’m still working at Denton Bible Church and it is challenging. I’ve been there for a year and 4 months. It’s hard to believe. Time has flown by. Teaching 5th and 6th grade is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’d like to say, “But it’s also very rewarding!” but it isn’t. I don’t really see a lot of change in the students – nor do I expect to at this age. My goal is to teach them Christ and him crucified. To teach them how to share the gospel with others and how to glorify God in all that they do. I’m not sure how successful I am, but each week I pray that God uses me in spite of my inadequacies. I just make myself available and do the best I can.

In the youth ministry and in the church as a whole we are going through a rough patch right now. Thankfully the new sanctuary will be paid off this year and maybe when that burden is lifted we can focus on ministry more. It seems that everytime a new program is mentioned it is preceded by the phrase, “Once we get the building paid off”. I understand that this is a priority and I pray that it gets paid off soon and that we can move forward and grow and do more outreach.

Personal goals as always are to get on a budget and stick to it. To work on my health and physical fitness. And most importantly to grow in my relationship with Christ and to not grow weary in doing good. (Mark 6:9)

God Bless.

I won’t let you close enough to hurt me…

No I won’t ask you to just desert me…

This song Turning Tables is one of the best pieces of music I have heard in a long time. The haunting melody sticks with you and coveys the words perfectly. The overall package is an auditory gift.

I’ve been going through a lot of self-evaluation lately… sort of a mental inventory where I do spring cleaning on my brain. As I look through old boxes of memories and I sift through piles of data that have been covered with dust, forgotten like old scrapbooks in my closet, I can’t help but wonder why I’m hanging on to this stuff. I still have memories from when I was 5 when I zipped my penis up in my zipper and my grandfather had to help me get it unstuck. Painful memories stay with us longer than the pleasant ones. There is little fading in the color, the edges and outlines of the memory are still crisp. I can remember the way I bounced around in panic and pain, gasping and embarrassed. I was barefoot. My shorts were red and they were a pair of cut-offs that I liked to wear. I preferred wearing underwear but that particular morning I couldn’t find any that were clean and so I had slipped into my shorts and then slipped out the door into the summer sun. So what was I doing with my pants unzipped outside? Peeing of course. A second cause for embarrassment. It was something I knew I wasn’t supposed to do, but something I sure enjoyed doing. I distinctly remember enjoying the way the summer sun felt on my bare skin. There is something so freeing about being in the buff dancing under a shimmering cascade of water sprinkles. Such a carefree time until you do something stupid, like hurriedly zip up when you hear the front door of your house opening.

But what good are these memories? They clutter up my mind and take up space. If my mental hard drive is only say, 1 terabyte, does it make sense that at some point it will get full? And if so, why can’t I pick and choose what I want to keep the way I sort through old clothes and send some off to Goodwill?

These are the things I think of when I can’t get thoughts out of my head. My brain is probably not that different than most, but I think most people like to think that they are something special. Like they have a unique way of thinking or organizing their thoughts. Or perhaps that they are more or less ADD than the next person. Whatever our uniqueness, I’m sure that we all are so much more alike than we’d like to admit.

So today while perusing the labyrinth of my mind I couldn’t help but think of all the waste. The hours I’ve spent in classrooms learning about statistics, algebra, geometry, and even calculus. If I’d spent the same amount of time on economics and accounting how much better off would I be? And what about other basic life skills? Cooking, cleaning, organization, responsibility – these are things that you should be taught in school – but instead we are forced to sit through hours of Geography and history and while I realize it is nice to know where Russia is, that knowledge has never once helped me balance my checkbook, pay my taxes, nor has it been asked in a job interview.

I feel the same way about church. Gasp! What actual life application have I done with all these countless hours I have spent listening to sermon after sermon? I feel guilty for not doing more with this information, sharing it more often, telling others about Christ. Could I be more beneficial if I got out of the Sunday School Classroom and started actually putting into practice some of what I’ve learned? I sit passively week after week listening to sermons, but do I ever share them with anyone other than other Christians? Do I take notes and if I do, do I ever bother to re-read them?

I will say the benefit of that painful memory, where I zipped my penis up in my zipper, well, that is a memory I’ll keep. It reminds me to always wear underwear and to not get in a hurry, ever, when zipping up. But for the other questions this post stirs up, I not have any answers. As I do spring cleaning on my brain, I can’t help but wonder what I need to put in the discard pile and what I need to keep.

I’m working on my life story once again. People always laugh when I talk about writing my life story, but I think I have something to say. So much of my life and what has happened my past has been kept secret… and right now the book is tentatively titled, but I can’t divulge it here since I don’t know if I will publish the book under my own name or not.

In an effort to protect my family and friends – not that anything I did was really illegal, it is stuff that I’d like to remain somewhat disconnected from – unless I find that it hinders me from being able to use what my life has been about to help others. That is my goal in life, to help people be real. To allow men to be vulnerable with sharing their struggles. We all have them.

So yeah, that’s what’s new with me other than reading a lot with school.

Eddie