Friday, January 13, 2012

January 13th


 Jason: 

We have connection to the world!  This week was pretty amazing as a morale booster because we managed to buy our own Wifi connection in our tents!  So now we all can send messages home from the comfort of our own bed, at any hour of the night that we please…so long as your laptop screen is not too bright to keep up your neighbor, ha.  It has been so great being able to send messages to Melissa now right when I wake up in the morning, before I go to bed, and anytime in between so long as we are off work.  It has helped our distance relationship tremendously, and now we can joke around and be each other’s silly best friends again.  Before, it was always brief emails about how’s your day, how did you sleep, etc.  Now we have the time to dive in deep with our email messages, and we have grown and learned so much more about each other this week than the past three months!  Communication is an amazing thing.

Obviously with having the luxury of Wifi in my bed I have spent more time surfing the web, and looking more into life around the world.  It has been great, but I have found myself very distracted more now, and my reading of books and listening to music has dwindled down this week.  Not to say I have done none, because the Lord sent me toward an excellent passage today.

1 Corinthians 7:32-35 reads;
“I want you to be free from anxieties.  The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord.  But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interest are divided.  And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit.  But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband.  I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.”

There are definitely advantages and disadvantages of being married, or unmarried, and I wouldn’t change my Facebook status for anything!!!  But the importance of this passage to me is being reminded of the most important thing in our lives, our relationship and communication with the Jesus.  I challenge you to pray that you are not too distracted, anxious, and divided with other stuff that you push your devotion time away.   My song to go along with this is from 1997, titled “I Wanna Be There” by Blessid Union of Souls.  I believe this song was written as one person wanting to be there for their loved one, but if you listen to the words you can easily imagine its Jesus singing to us!  “You wouldn’t know that I was there, cause I have been there all the time, and if I had my way, I’d hold you in my arms, leave this madness all behind.”  How true, we do such a good job of pushing the Lord away when we are distracted and anxious about other things in life.  It’s so comforting and praiseworthy to be reminded that Jesus would sing to us, “Im gonna be your lover, gonna be your friend, gonna be there till the end.”  I love my wife more now than when we first said “I do.”  However, let’s all work on loving the Lord more now than when we first said “Jesus be the savior of my sins, and accept me into your Kingdom.”

Enjoy the song, it’s what I have enjoyed all week.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

2012

We are a few days into the New Year, which means a few days past the half way mark for this deployment!  I spent most of the first three months with a goal in mind; make it to January 1st, and then your half way done.  Now that we have reached that goal my motivation has gone down quite a bit.  Everything out here is very cyclical, which includes the work, the meals, the minimum entertainment, and the people.  We basically all wake up at the same time, we eat our meals at the same time, we work together all day, and then we are around each other most of the evening.  We all dream of being back at home with the ones we love.  Simply put, we want to be doing the things we choose, with whom we choose, at the time we choose.  Lately it has felt like some sort of prison.  Obviously I don’t know what prison feels like, and I’m sure it’s NOT that bad here!  However, my favorite song to escape to this week has been Johnny Cash, “Folsom Prison Blues.”
 
Most days lately I feel like, as Cash sings, “I’m stuck in Folsom Prison, and time keeps dragging on.”  Melissa and I cannot wait until April comes!  We both need your continued thoughts and prayers to make it through this second half.  I feel like I’m stuck in a detention center of some sort, and Melissa has been feeling like she is stuck in a rut.  It’s a shame we can’t be around to help each other out, but great we both have faith…some days stronger than others.  I just wish I could be like Peter in Acts 12:6-11.  How great would it be to have an angel appear to me in prison, take off my chains and tell me, “Get up, get dressed, and follow me out of the country.”   
 
Enjoy the song, it's what I have enjoyed all week.