Legend has it that after Billy the Kids gang was disbanded and he was shot by Sheriff Pat Garret in the dark, unarmed, he was buried at the graveyard at Old Fort Sumner. Sources say that someone snuck in and chisled a one word epitaph that read "Pals".
I guess I've always had a fondness for Billy the Kid. When I was young I thought "Well HEY! I'm a kid too!!! We have so much in common!" Then when the movie Young Guns was released and I finally pestered my pop enough to let me watch it, it of course deepened my affinity for the wise cracking, loyal, fast drawing (and HIGHLY romanticized) outlaw. But I'm not writing this blog to tell you about Billy the Kid. I am writing to tell you about friends and blessings.
Recently our church started back up an older ministry they had called 4x4s. It is when you are assigned to 3 other couples (4 couples in all for you math majors out there) and are given 4 months (get it? 4x4? eh? pretty nifty huh?) and must meet AT LEAST once a month at each couples suggested place or event. In my group there was Jessica and I, Kyle and Heather, AJ and Ashley, and Robert and Cheryl Gauthier. Now this was kinda neat cause me and Robert and Kyle all already hung out before the reinstatement of 4x4s, so that was fun, also each of our respective wives already had a relationship with each of the other ladies except Ashley. But the real suprise firecracker here is the friendship that has fired up between Kyle, AJ, and myself! (Ashley and Jessica have hit it off and become BFFs. whatever that means.) Well, last night (tuesday night) these guys came over to the house and helped me (tho they may tell you I occasionally helped them and they did most of it) rip up the carpet in the living room and replace it with the laminate wood floors that are currently all the rage.
Kyle knew most of any of us what he was doing having just installed the same type of floor in his home and started us off with a bang and a whirlwind of action. AJ tore right into it as well and they were really working well together and the bad part is...I HAD NO IDEA WHAT TO DO! So I got a little bit defensive at these two younger fellas coming into MY house and doing a better job that ME! Now at this point, I had two choices: Get all sulky and a small attitude, or learn what they were teaching me and GO! Sadly I must confess that I chose the former. I got all sulky and a small attitude. Here's the great thing tho, instead of returning my sourness, these guys called me out on it! They could have acted mad and immature (like me) yet they just were really patient with me and helped me get into the groove (pun intended) of laying these floors down! We had a great time, finished up all but 1 piece in the living room (ran outta material), and I ended up having a great evening working side by side these two great young men.
I wish I would have known AJ better at the time me and Jessica got married. I would have asked him to stand next to me on that day. He has joined the very short list of the best men that I know. Kyle also! He actually called me up this morning and called me out on some stuff I had said to him outside as he showed me up on the manly power tools. He just reassured me that I had no reason to be insecure (really all it was!) about these things. I am learning them the same as everyone else! Just a bit later than most.
Hopefully going on my first varmint shoot next month, also gonna cut down some trees that need clearing. Thanks to my friends I'm exploring all these things and sides of myself that I normally wouldn't if I was all by myself! I am also discovering myself on the husband front, but that is another entry ENTIRELY. lol.
AJ, Kyle, I am honored to call you my friends. I thank God for each of you and your wives. I'm sorry for last night and I thank you for everything. I am at your service as readily as you were at mine.
PALS.
jon
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Saturday, April 19, 2008
a stretch of time
has passed since we last met here. I have missed you, however, my brain has been adrift in the sea of BLANKNESS... I couldn't write something to save my life. So I'm just hitting the keys and seeing what comes out. This appears to be (in my eyes anyway) an act of desperation, and the camera pans out, out through the roof of the church office where Jon sits typing, above hundreds of trees in the surrounding community, up even higher till we see pineville and alexandria from a birds eye view thousands of feet up and then we hear the tiniest of voices cry out...."I'VE GOT IT!" and we are drawn (rather forcefully) back into jons head and staring back out of his eyes into the vacuous computer monitor and he begins to type.
So I started working out again recently. And I am feeling the bittersweet feeling of having muscles so sore that i can barely move them. I have also been text messaging two young ladies that appear to be having identical friend problems. I have been struck by a parallel that hit me rather forcefully, you see, when you were with my brain up in The Air Up There, I stretched and was greeted by a feeling like a dozen ball peen hammers sriking me in the immediate shoulder, chest and bicep area. It was a good feeling, but boy did it hurt! I have been thinking that these young ladies are going through some pretty common teenage young lady problems with their respective friend, and I was wondering why that particular time of our life is seemingly so difficult. Then I was remided of the scripture in James chapter 1. He reminds us in verse 2--
See, what he is saying here is that in all walks of our lives, we have to go through some crap. or junk, or stuff, (use whichever is the least offensive to you, they all mean the same thing) so that we can learn how to take all the crapjunkstuff that LIFE is going to throw at us ALL THE TIME! I remember when I was younger and I thought that life was SOO HARD...
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! I had it made when I was a kid, I didn't have to worry about a thing!!!!
I don't think we fully realize that until we are pushing 30 and wondering how on earth I made that stupid mistake with the bank account. (AND, all of this with the possibility ((POSSIBILITY)) of a baby on the horizon! ((i put this in here because when you're married there is ALWAYS that POSSIBILITY- I am not trying to subtley tell you that me and jessica are expecting, because to the best of my knowledge WE ARE NOT))...) I think we are told by James to learn to buck up when a friend says something bad about ya, or maybe you got jipped a little on that super awesome thing that was supposed to happen with your buds, and you got blown off... guys life kinda sucks...but it has to sometimes so that you can get STRONGER! I SEE THE POINT! I SEE THE POINT. THANK GOD ALMIGHTY, I SEE THE POINT TO THIS BLOG!
See I opened up by telling you that I was in pain. But the thing is, the way our bodies are built, in order to get them better or stronger, sometimes IT HAS TO SUCK! Sometimes it has to hurt, it has to groan and stretch in uncomfortable ways. Just like we have to in order to become who God wants for us to be in His ultimate plan. There is not a single person in the bible who didn't go through some sort of MASSIVE trauma so that Gods will could be done in their lives. Does this make God a masochist? NO!!! Of course you will always have your "Overly persecuted" few that want to cry that we serve a cruel God or that He doesn't care about us because they had to go through something a bit harder than they are used to....guys it is NOT because we serve a cruel God (which we do NOT!) but it is because HE WANTS YOU TO BE BETTER!!! STRONGER!!!! MORE INCREDIBLE-ER.... you get the picture.
Take the scripture in this blog to heart... it will do you far more good to remember it on days that the sun just can't break through the clouds. (completely metaphorically speaking of course, i love my cloudy days...weather wise of course) I hope this has been of some encouragement to you. It has helped me IMMENSELY.
good day and God Bless.
So I started working out again recently. And I am feeling the bittersweet feeling of having muscles so sore that i can barely move them. I have also been text messaging two young ladies that appear to be having identical friend problems. I have been struck by a parallel that hit me rather forcefully, you see, when you were with my brain up in The Air Up There, I stretched and was greeted by a feeling like a dozen ball peen hammers sriking me in the immediate shoulder, chest and bicep area. It was a good feeling, but boy did it hurt! I have been thinking that these young ladies are going through some pretty common teenage young lady problems with their respective friend, and I was wondering why that particular time of our life is seemingly so difficult. Then I was remided of the scripture in James chapter 1. He reminds us in verse 2--
"2Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."
See, what he is saying here is that in all walks of our lives, we have to go through some crap. or junk, or stuff, (use whichever is the least offensive to you, they all mean the same thing) so that we can learn how to take all the crapjunkstuff that LIFE is going to throw at us ALL THE TIME! I remember when I was younger and I thought that life was SOO HARD...
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! I had it made when I was a kid, I didn't have to worry about a thing!!!!
I don't think we fully realize that until we are pushing 30 and wondering how on earth I made that stupid mistake with the bank account. (AND, all of this with the possibility ((POSSIBILITY)) of a baby on the horizon! ((i put this in here because when you're married there is ALWAYS that POSSIBILITY- I am not trying to subtley tell you that me and jessica are expecting, because to the best of my knowledge WE ARE NOT))...) I think we are told by James to learn to buck up when a friend says something bad about ya, or maybe you got jipped a little on that super awesome thing that was supposed to happen with your buds, and you got blown off... guys life kinda sucks...but it has to sometimes so that you can get STRONGER! I SEE THE POINT! I SEE THE POINT. THANK GOD ALMIGHTY, I SEE THE POINT TO THIS BLOG!
See I opened up by telling you that I was in pain. But the thing is, the way our bodies are built, in order to get them better or stronger, sometimes IT HAS TO SUCK! Sometimes it has to hurt, it has to groan and stretch in uncomfortable ways. Just like we have to in order to become who God wants for us to be in His ultimate plan. There is not a single person in the bible who didn't go through some sort of MASSIVE trauma so that Gods will could be done in their lives. Does this make God a masochist? NO!!! Of course you will always have your "Overly persecuted" few that want to cry that we serve a cruel God or that He doesn't care about us because they had to go through something a bit harder than they are used to....guys it is NOT because we serve a cruel God (which we do NOT!) but it is because HE WANTS YOU TO BE BETTER!!! STRONGER!!!! MORE INCREDIBLE-ER.... you get the picture.
Take the scripture in this blog to heart... it will do you far more good to remember it on days that the sun just can't break through the clouds. (completely metaphorically speaking of course, i love my cloudy days...weather wise of course) I hope this has been of some encouragement to you. It has helped me IMMENSELY.
good day and God Bless.
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