Tommy B’s Thoughts for the day

I have spent my first semester at SWU and have grown to love this place so much in my heart. I really do believe that this is the place that God has called me to serve in and by being obedient my wildest dreams have been answered and so much more. God is showing me that he is in control and that if I am willing to listen to Him and put my faith in Him that the plan He has for my life will be ten fold more satisfactory than anything that I could do on my own. I had to write a paper about my personal beliefs and I think that it has really shown me how much I have grown not just in the last couple of years in my faith but just in this last semester at SWU. Things are looking on the up and up even though times get rough the outcome will be awesome!

i am Sitting in class and I am really thinking about how it makes sense to do learn everything that I can about what the church is and was. I want to know the history cause I really am not sure of where i would be going if I don’t know where the church has been. Even though i know this makes the most sense I want so badly to hit the ground running in my ministry and get going with what God has in store for me.

This week has been homecoming week at SWU. We have had everything from decades day to super hero day. I even sprayed my hair blue this week. Today is going to be a long day between the 2 soccer games and homecoming court then the thing I have been waiting for all week. Georgia is blacking out tonight against Alabama.

It seem like it has been forever since you have been gone and I miss you terribly. I sometimes wonder what it would be like to watch a braves game with you now or to talk about the NFL and how you would kill all the Falcons players and just start from scratch every game. I miss you sense of humor and most of all I miss your wisdom. You never thought much of yourself as an intellectual kind of man but you had more knowledge than most professors have intellect. I really do wish you were here sometimes to help me get through this but then again if your were here I wouldn’t have the need to go through this. I have been playing the last song you sang in church today. It almost sounds like you singing it and it makes me think about how much of a beautiful voice that you had and how much I wanted to be able to sing like you when I was grown up. I realize now that I am never going to sound like you but I was given musical talent to make up for it so I guess its like a checks and balance thing. I wish I could have seen your face when I told you that I was going to go into the ministry but I wont be able to get that chance but then again you probably already knew. I can see God’s hand in everything that has happened. If I hadn’t lost you then I wouldn’t have left Gardner-Webb, I wouldn’t have spent that time over at UNCC meeting new people and realizing that some people have it worse off than I did. I wouldn’t have been able to stand up in youth give my testimony about how God was working in my life and probably most importantly I wouldn’t have been able to realize that I can rely on God for everything. Scrubs really does have something for all occasions because all I can think of is “I miss you so much it hurts sometimes” which we joke around a lot about but it really is the only way to describe what I feel inside sometimes. Today Terry, Joyce, Michael, Angela and the kids are all coming down for lunch and it is going to be so hard for me to sit there and watch them interact with one another knowing that I will never have that again. I will have people in my life that are like fathers to me but I will never have another you.

Why is it 1:30 in the morning and I am thinking about you? I am not even sure who you are but you are running through my mind. You are driving me crazy and all I can do is long for the day that I meet you. You seem to be what my soul has been missing for so long and I feel somewhat complete just knowing that you are out there wondering where I am too. I am always wondering what you will be like. Will you be tall or short, have blond hair or maybe a brunette, love zombie movies or hate the outdoors. When I think about you my heart beats wildly and my attention to everything else just kind of fades away. How wonderful would it be if you shared my love of music or if you had amazingly bad taste in movies as well? I pray everyday that God will guide us in the right direction and that when we meet there will be no doubt in our minds that we could ever be apart. I have so many questions and I want to know everything about you but I am in no hurry. Will you be a football fan and if you are I hope that it is not for the Denver Broncos. Will your favorite movie be one where there is a hero that saves the day and wins the affection of the love of their life or one that ends sadly like all those Nicholas Sparks movies… I’m looking at you “The Notebook.” I wonder how we will meet. Will it be at orientation when I get to SWU or will it be through mutual friends? Will I bump into you at the cafeteria or will you sit next to me in one of my classes? I will be waiting for the time when our eyes meet and everything seems to make sense in the world.

I have kind of fallen off the blog band wagon here as of late and I apologize for that. I just didn’t want to post meaningless material in the name of posting a blog. I wanted the blogs that I post to be meaningful actually have real things that matter in them.

I have been accepted into SWU and I am living in Mullinax Hall. I am very excited about being down in South Carolina for most of next year. I am gonna miss all my friends here and I hope to see them as much as I can. My last day of working at Circuit City will be the last of the month if not before. I am going to the rodeo on sat. night and I really can’t wait! It has been a while since I have been to a rodeo and hanging out with friends before I leave for school makes it even better.

That’s all I have for now be back hopefully in a couple of days with something a little more awesome.

Sorry for the delay in the post today I had a very busy day and will enlighten people tomorrow early afternoon. Well Im going to bed

Tommy

Ever had one of those days where you feel like the musicians on the Titanic, everything is going bad around you but you are off in your own little world doing the thing you love? I have that feeling today. I am so happy about getting my application in to SWU that there is hardly anything that can but a tarnish on today. I have my IPod on shuffle and some of my favorite songs have been playing. It’s raining outside but I am here at J. Oliver’s sitting on the veranda watching cars go by. My dad and me used to do this all the time when it rained especially when there was a thunderstorm. We used to sit under out carport in the steps and just watch the sky light up. It was our special time of talking and laughing and him passing on life lessons. I wish that I would have been a little less naive and paid a little more attention to tings that he had said and to things that he had showed me, but as the saying goes youth is wasted on the young. I have to get my truck tires replaced tomorrow but I found a place where I can get 2 tires and have them put on for $60 which is amazingly cheap. I have been listening to my IPod for over an hour and still haven’t heard a song I wanted to skip, this is truly amazing!

We had praise band practice last night and it was a little rough at the beginning because Richard wasn’t there. Speaking of Richard I got a text message that said that Sawyer was feeling so much better but the neurosurgeon still thinks that the shunt is malfunctioning so Sawyer has a surgery tomorrow. Back to band practice; we took time out to pray when things just weren’t sounding good and everyone was getting frustrated, and when we did things calmed back down and our minds focused on what was really important. I have come to realize that it is not really the way we sound that makes the biggest difference but where our hearts lie really effects how we and people perceive the music that we make. When we are in the right heart of just wanting to praise God whether the music is the quality of bands that play on the radio or if we struggle through every song and it sounds horrible in our ears if we truly are worshipping God while we play then God is going to bless it. I am listening to Bob Marley’s “Waiting in Vain” and it says that I don’t want to wait in vain for you love. That is my prayer, that I am not going to have to wait for God’s love to show itself to me. I am not the most patient of people sometimes especially when it comes to wanting to gain the approval of someone. I feel a lot like JD from Scrubs sometimes. He tries so hard to gain the approval of Dr. Cox that it becomes obsessive for him. I used to try and get God’s approval for the longest time before I finally realized that I always had it. That even before I was a Christian I was loved by God despite the things I had done. That’s the thing about grace is that we never understand it fully until it is either showed to us on a real and personal level or we have the opportunity to show someone else it. Jon finally talked me into watching “Les Miserables” and I have to say that it is a truly mind altering story. The whole story is one about grace being shown to convict and how it leads to his salvation. If I could I would show that scene in youth but to be honest since we have mainly younger youth I am not sure that hey could really comprehend what the story was trying to convey.

I am going to be teaching youth in about 2 weeks and God still hasn’t said for sure what he wants me to say and that always makes me nervous, but then again the last time I had something prepared in advance God smacked me on the nose with a rolled up newspaper and told me that I wasn’t listening to what he was trying to tell me. Well then again the message that he gave me went over great, just it always does. So be praying for guidance about my lesson. I will c y’all again tomorrow

-Tommy

An idea from Old English times

Well for those of you that read the one before this one you know what this blog is about, and the ones that are reading this one before “Every dog has his day” this blog is about some lyrics that I had heard yesterday that kind of spoke to me and made me think.

One that definitely caught my attention was “Burn Back the Sun” by Decyfer Down. There are several lyrics that I love in that song but that are just right on the money, but the one that I would say was the most meaningful to me would have to be the lyric “burn back the sun, you were the only one that loved me with passion’s quiet rage.” Passion’s quiet rage… that is probably the most thought provoking statement that I have heard in a song in a while. Most of the time when we think of passion we think of things like someone who is so focused that nothing can deter them form obtaining the thing that they love or someone that lives and breathes for something so much so that it seeps into every fiber of their life. I think this a something that does seep into the very core of a person but the difference is that people can see the difference without you having to tell people about it. I see this as a comparison to a new Christian’s walk of faith. People are going to notice a change in you whether you are a bible thumper or a ultra conservative person who never says anything about Christ or church. If Christ is really in your life then is nothing that you can do to stop Him from shining through.

The next song that comes to mind is “Those words are not enough” by Relient K. “When its twice as hard to realize that I am still trying twice as hard to satisfy myself on my own, and I’m still waiting for things to change. I lay my life before you, and I’m not getting up. Father how I adore you those words are not enough.” Those words just leave me breathless every time that I hear them. It takes exactly how I feel on some Sunday mornings when God shows up and just washes over me like the waves of the ocean. Sometimes I get so caught up in the presence of God that I find it hard to breathe sometimes. For those of you who don’t know what it feels like to have God show up and just engulf you it is one of those experiences in life that you can never put the right combination of words together to make others understand how it feels to happen.

Have a great day

Tommy

Life at the homestead…

I have had one of the weirdest days that I have had in a while. I know what some of you are probably thinking and just because I’m kind of weird doesn’t mean that today was a normal day for anyone else. Ever had one of those days where you think that is a dream and that there is no way that this can possibly be really happening. Well today was really like that for me.

I woke up this morning and had my dog Earnhardt come and jump on me to wake me up. Well I grabbed him and his leash and went back to sleep. When I woke back up about 15 minutes later I found myself sharing a pillow with him. The thing that was interesting id that when we were sharing the pillow but we were not sharing the same side of the pillow. He ad burrowed down underneath the pillow propped the pillow up and we were both leaned against one another with the pillow in between us.

After that I had to take Earnhardt to preschool so that he could attend his party. He always gets to go to preschool on his birthday because it is usually the last week of school and it makes the kids really at ease since the are rowdy and excited about graduating. The class my mom teaches goes t the patch of grass in front of the youth building at church to watch as Earnhardt does some tricks for them. The class sat there in wonder as Earnhardt as he did simple things like sit and lay down and shake paws. The one that they liked the best is a trick that I taught Earnhardt just messing around one day. He sits down and I raise a treat over his head. I can make him wait either no time or I can make him wait for over a minute before giving him the command to get the treat. When he gets it he jumps into the air and lans on the ground finishing his treat. A couple ofkids even brought him things like milk bones and one student brought him a ball to play fetch with. The kids got to come up and pet him and wish him a happy birthday in person. Some of the boys and girls think of that dog as if he is one of their class mates. One of the kids gave Earnhardt a hug around his neck, which worried me about because I was worried about how he would react being a stranger hugging his neck. He looked and acted like he loved it his tail was wagging and he was smiling. After he preformed for my mom’s class the other classes came out to see him. I did the same tricks for them as I did for the other class.

I took Earnhardt back to the house and him being the greatest dog in the world jumped up on the couch and looked me square in the eye to say “its been a long day we need a nap.” My dog is the most influential people because it took no time at all to convince me that I too needed to lay down a take a nap on the couch. Needles to say we woke up two and a half hours later when my mom came home.

I helped my mom clean up the house and some running around town. We had family coming over tonight for a little get together. The get together as you might have guessed but the rest of the blog was a birthday party for Earnhardt. The family came over and we ate and talked them Earnhardt came in the house to sounds of “Happy Birthday” and he did some tricks for the kids and got even more treats then ate some ice cream . My mom made cupcakes for use to eat that was made to look like Earnhardt. They looked amazingly well and I will probably post a pic of the cupcake tomorrow. Everyone one left and he got his big present a bone that was charred with some of the meat still on the bone and all the marrow inside. He loved it and tore into it. That bone is not gonna last the week if he keeps the same pace as he had tonight about eating it.

Well that was my day and I will post a bonus blog in the morning or early afternoon about thought I got while listening to some music today.

I’m not sure what to do with my hands…