Saturday Shenanigans

Okay today was kinda weird. In some good ways, and some bad ways. It was a good day overall, though.

This morning I got up and ran a 5k to raise money for a local ministry in Vinton, came back from that and went to a picnic for our new youth pastor candidate and his family which was super fun - catching up with old friends, getting to meet the new people, and getting a pretty nice looking tan! Good times.

Then I got to watch my little brother play lacrosse for the first time at the WBHS Stadium! Woohoo! Plus they won 12-5, so that was good too. However, my father showed up at the game which I was not too thrilled about. I'm still working on forgiveness. It's weird. And not so much working. Ah well.

After the game, though, was when I decided to take a detour on the way home. I had a friend who passed away in February, and his body is buried at the cemetery on my route from school to home. So today, for the first time since he was buried, I went to the gravesite. And I sat there. And I talked to him. And I talked to God. And I apologized for not sharing the love of Jesus with this friend. And I apologized to God for not doing what I was supposed to while he was still alive.

I prayed for God to somehow save his soul. I told God that I knew that salvation depended on faith in Jesus and repentance and love, but I asked of Jesus to somehow just make it so that my friend got one more chance to choose Jesus - to choose life and eternity. I know that Jesus has to intercede for us when we get to Heaven, so I thought maybe if my friend realizes that he'll try to get right with Jesus so he can live forever. I also prayed that he was just in Heaven, and that I was making wrong assumptions about the condition of his heart. God does work in crazy ways, so maybe this was one of them. I certainly can't understand all that God does.

I tried to let this motivate me to share the love of Jesus with his closest friends; friends that we both knew in high school, and I guess I still know. It was sad. It still is sad. I had never had to do something like this before. But it was kind of nice, just to sit up on that hill by myself, admiring God's beautiful creation and praying to Him more earnestly than I have in a long time. I told God that I knew my heart wasn't right with Him. I need to change that. But I asked if there was anything I could possibly do to make it so that I see Troy again one day, when I die from this earth.

My allergies are getting pretty severe.

Ephesians 4:32