A challenge...from a friend. My 100.

Here you are: 100 things that make me happy!

1. God

2. Memories

3. Clay

4. Mom and Dad

5. Smiles

6. Stars

7. The number 7 :)

8. Oklahoma

9. Running

10. Rain

11. Running in the rain

12. Coffee

13. My time with God!

14. Reading

15. Dirt roads

16. Long drives

17. The sound of a gas pump in an otherwise still night

18. Baseball

19. People

20. Whiskey (my dog)

21. Fishing

22. Challenges

23. Friends

24. Friends that are close as family (you know who you are)

25. Leaves

26. Alaska

27. Helping people

28. Good songs

29. Believers

30. The Bible

31. Family nights (both at home and Stewart)

32. Camping

33. Two-Stepping

34. Writing

35. Heart-to-heart talks

36. AWANA kids singing

37. Remembering names

38. Stories told by the early morning coffee generation (grandmas, grandpas, vets...ect)

39. Early mornings

40. Thunderstorms

41. Seeing God move...and His work :)

42. Kayaking

43. Accountability...and those who hold me to it

44. God's future for me

45. Nebraska

46. Overcoming

47. SWOSU

48. Antelope Hills

49. Seeing Love

50. Older people

51. Kids

52. Mischief

53. Hearing the breeze through the trees

54. Song birds

55. Sunshine...and the warmth it brings

56. Latenight walks

57. Randomness

58. People who are true to themselves

59.Community

60. Cooking on campfires

61. Making a difference

62. Prayer

63. Smell of chimney smoke on a winter day

64. Apples

65. Cowboy boots

66. Adventures

67. Listening

68. Sunsets

69. Sunrises

70. Clouds

71. Italy

72. God's Soverignty

73. Dreaming

74. Seeing the best

75. Handshakes

76. Love

77. Roadtrips

78. 4th of July

79. Building fence

80. Christ Community Church

81. Hard work

82. Taking pictures

83. Thanksgiving

84. Peoples ambitions and hopes

85. The smell of alfalfa

86. Getting lost

87. Laughing

88. Investing in, encouraging, and  empowering people

89. 50th wedding anniversaries

90. The Cup

91. When my pride falls

92. My (future)Wife

93. My (future) Kids

94. Antique stores

95. Riding

96. Open land

97. Being a top Mountains

98. Growing old

99. Rocking Chairs, Wrap Around Porch, Lemonade, and You (1, 92, 93)

100. My Savior

safe.

"Oh the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain togther, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with the breath of kindness, blow the rest away."

                                          -George Elliot


To those in my inner-inner circle, you are few. Safe with you are my words, and my heart... Thank you.

Byron from Boston

Byron.
Byron From Boston. That is what everyone came to know him as. Five years ago, Byron and I were both new to the dorms and we ended up roommates. It was always odd to me how we ended up being placed together, because we were nothing near the same:
I was an eighteen year old freshman, just off the farm, and he was a mid-twenty-something student from Boston.
I came here for an education and to meet people who would be important to me all my life. He came here because he had a tattoo that was the same as our mascot emblem...and quite possibly to evade the law from somewhere up north.
I would enter our room with my Bible in hand, he would enter with some home-made paraphernalia.
I once cleaned up, up-chuck from a girl he brought to the dorm drunk. He often made sport of eating my guppies and tetras.

We were so very different.

I remember thinking (almost on a daily basis) that this match was just too crazy...this type of roommate match never happened, and that it had to be by God's ordaining that it ended up this way.

Those five months were at times tough, and they were always trying. Even Byron's closest of friends ask me how I survived it...how I never requested a roommate change. The answer to that question was simply I felt like that was where I was suppose to be.

Yesterday, I recieved this facebook message:

hey man, long time no talk. i know you and byron didn't always see eye to eye, hell who are we kidding-neither one of yall liked the other. lol. anyway, his wife (yes he got married just over a year ago) got ahold of me yesterday (sat) morning and told me she found him dead on their couch. like i said they got married just before valentine's day last year, and she is pregnant with their son. i'm not exactly sure when she's due, but i know it's close-within a month or 2. my heart goes out to all his family, but especially his wife. i can't imagine what it would be like to find your husband dead on the couch and be carrying his son. anyway, i just thought you might like to know. take care brad.

I have been at a deep loss for words...and really a loss for directional thought as well.

All I know is that everyday I felt like I was placed in that place and situation by God...
and looking back I still can not see my difference in the life of Byron.

If I am unable to purposefully assist, help, and plant, in the life of an individual, when God very directly tells me and reminds me to daily...
How am I able to purposefully do those things in the lives of those who I do not feel that constant reminder?


Once I heard the news, I looked at his facebook page...his religious views (i had hoped to be different than I had known them to be), stated "...we all die".

Today, please pray for Byron's family, for their future.
Please pray that God constantly pangs our hearts with aches for those who do not know Him.
Please pray that we follow those aches...that we share our Lord, daily and with all we see.



...WE ALL DIE. not just me (bradley, you), but also all those we see. If we have a message to share, we are not only limited to our time but also theirs.
Something I had forgotten, now remembered.

This Calming Storm

"Now it happened, on a certain day, that He got into a boat with His disciples. And He said to them, "Let us cross over to the other side of the lake." And they launched out. But as they sailed He fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling [with water], and were in jeopardy. And they came to Him and awoke Him, saying, "Master, Master, we are perishing!" Then He arose and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water. And they ceased, and there was a calm. But He said to them, "Where is your faith?" And they were afraid, and marveled, saying to one another, "Who can this be? For He commands even the winds and water, and they obey Him!"

                                                                                            -Luke 8:22-25

It is amazing how often I forget the power of our King.

Here Christ tells his disciples "let us go cross the lake". He knows the troubles that lie ahead and yet He led them there. Upon their following his command, they later find themselves in an (from human perspective) alarming situation. They immediately forget that they were directed to that place by their Lord, as well as all of the miracles they had witnessed Him perform. They panic, fret, and fear. Upon Christ's awaking, He calms this seemingly huge problem.

Why do we as Christians, so quickly jump to panic, concern...angst?

I strive to follow His leadings. To step where He directs. Today, I believe that I am in His will. I believe I am where He wants me to be, doing what He wants me to do. He guided me to this lake...He told me to cross.

A storm arises, and my vessel begins to fill with water. Reaction comes in thoughts of "I am finished, I shall perish!", but, I know better...deep down I know better.

My Lord is here with me! He is here!!! All is well!

   glimmer of white

just outside, frozen ice.

              yet

   flowerswild and
                   flies aglow
         deep inside,
                it is springtime.

Lead

lead me, Lord.
i am unable...
unable at all i attempt.
yet with You, nothing untamable, nothing unmovable, nothing unclimbable, nothing unbearable, nothing to difficult.
my plans,
they are not worthy,
nor my efforts.
Your plans, they are best.
Father, lead me. i need You.
cause my ear to hear, my heart to yearn, my feet to follow.
o Lord, how great You are.
Your Sovereignty...how beautiful.

Today

"Today I will be bright, cheerful, and happy; Streams of power will flow from my veins, and all will be well."

A cheer and chant from my TSA days. Worthy of repeating...and often I do.