greggandcyndi

Happy Halloween!

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Anderson Farms Pumpkin Patch

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Our Trip Home

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New Pics of the Boys 10/12

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Labor Day Weekend w/ The Vickers

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Our 1st Trip to the Braselton Park

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New Pics of the Boys 9/25

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William Noble

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About

confessions part 2: responsibility

The last time I wrote one of these, my mom kind of freaked out because she didn’t know about it. So I questioned whether I would continue in this line of blogging, but then I thought, maybe I’ll just use something she does know about, so here goes.

`

I still remember my first roll of mints, or at least the first roll I can remember being specifically mine. There were three mints in it.

`

I remember being a very young boy, so young I was still wearing those old shorts that had the elastic waist with the solid color bordering the entire seam of the shorts. You know, the ones basketball players wore in the 1960’s and you still see an occasional jogger wearing proudly.

`

Anyway, I remember standing in the parking lot across from the seven-eleven next to one of the neighborhood kids that was a year or two older than me just staring at the gas station. I’m not even sure I was allowed to be that far from home at this age because I couldn’t have been more than 5, but there I was. This kid, we’ll call him Jimmy, because that was his name, asked me, “So what are you gonna steal?” I said, “Nothing!” of course. What other response could have come from my angel lips? But he retorted, “I’m taking something, you should too.”

`

The next thing I remember is being in the seven-eleven wondering what in the world I could take. I don’t remember how I got in the store, or how I decided I would in fact begin my career as a shoplifter, but I was there and I was trying to figure out what would be my first “lift”.

`

I landed on a 15 cent pack of mints. There were three mints in it, so if you do that math, that was a nickel a piece.

`

I however had failed to notice I didn’t have any pockets in my incredibly timely shorts, so my newly criminalized mind began working on solution. “Okay, okay, now I got it. I’ll put them between my skin and the elastic band of my underwear.” Great plan right? It is a very safe place to put things if I may say so. So I tucked them in and found my way somehow back to the parking lot across the street, once again standing next to the boy we’re calling Jimmy, once again, because that was his name.

`

The first time we stood there, he asked me what I would steal, this time I stood and asked him what he had stolen. My nerves were barely calming when Jimmy said, “Nothing, why would I steal something?” Beats me why he would steal something? Shortly thereafter I found myself standing next to Jimmy on my front porch as he told my mother what I had done. My mom made me go back to the store, pay for the mints and apologize to the woman working behind the counter I couldn’t even seem to see over.

`

There were three mints in the roll, so if you do the math, that’s about one mint to every two swats of the paddle on my bare skinned butt.

`

So who is responsible?

`

I spent quite a bit of my life blaming my problems and faults on others. In most situations that didn’t turn out well like this one I saw myself as a victim. But if you review the story, you will see that I took the mints. Seven-eleven was the victim. I was the culprit. I am responsible, not Jimmy.

`

If you know what I mean, you gotta let Jimmy go, you have to forgive him and yourself. In the Bible, in a book called 1 Corinthians it says, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me (13:11).” So put it down. Leave it behind.

`

I still feel myself feeling very childish sometimes and wanting to claim the position of victim, but there were three mints in that roll, and I ate every one of them.

March 05, 2007 in Confessions | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

where i want to be

the new banner says a little bit about "where i want to be".  i want to be in a place that i wake up every day wanting to be awake and wanting to live fully.  live fully in the ministry i'm blessed with.  live fully in my marriage and family.  i want to want to do what i'm doing. 

it doesn't mean i have to go to a place that looks like the new banner, but sometimes i feel like i need some kind of reset button.  i need some way of figuring out who i am.  i feel like so often i am trying to figure out who i'm not.  and that usually happens from ending up doing something that shows me who i'm not.

so what do i do to find these things out.  i read my bible and pray.  i ask my friends.  i ask mentors.  but when it comes down to it...God has to tell me who i am, and i have to be willing to listen to him and obey what he has to say.  i read and re-read romans 8 yesterday...you should check it out.  it tells us who we are if we know Jesus.  at certain verses i feel like i don't know Jesus and at others i am so encourage that i know him.   

i know that the better we know Jesus, the better we seem to know ourselves...so i need to know Jesus better.

so here are some things i know:

  1. my heart longs to be intimately connected to Jesus
  2. i love to sing to him and to use singing to lead others
  3. i want to be in ministry that integrates cyndi more

i should know more things, but i don't right now.

June 07, 2006 in Confessions, Daily life, Ministry, Spiritual formation | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

confessions: b&e

just to prove how strange i was (yes i know i am still) when i was a child, here is a little story from my childhood:

when i was in grade school, nintendo was really hitting hard, and everyone in my neighborhood had one but us...we did get one that next christmas, which got sold in a garage sale a couple of years ago against mine and my sister's will...anyway...one summer day i was really jonesing for some 'super mario brothers' but alas i had not a nintendo, so what do you think this 8 year old version of me did?  i broke into my neighbor's house and played nintendo...how? you might ask. well this is how.

first thing was first, i poked a hole through the screen door in the back and lifted the lock on the screen door, but the handle on the main door had been locked, so then i checked the windows to the basement to see if any of them were unlocked.  and yes there was one unlocked...i took the screen off the window, you know one of those horizontal narrow basement windows, and pulled the window open, because these windows opened out.  i started to climb through the window when i slipped and sat on the window and cracked the pane...but i couldn't stop now.  So they would know something happened to their window, but they wouldn't be able to trace it back to me...of course now we have csi and i totally would have been in juvie.

once in the basement i walked up the basement stairs and went to open the  door to my prize and found the door would only open three inches.  the door was hitting the handle on the back door and wouldn't open the rest of the way.  some would have given up at this juncture, but i knew that if i were to save the princess i would have to find a way around this particular barricade.

i realized i could reach through and unlock the back door...so i did...i went back down the stairs, up and out the window, back to the back porch, i opened the screen door i had already jimmied, and entered the den of super mario.

i know it was wrong... it was sooooo wrong... but on the bright side, i saved the princess.

October 04, 2005 in Confessions | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

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