The Best Christmas Yet!

The Best Christmas Yet!

Today was Christmas, 2013.  I have spent the day at Steffani's parents' home, her grandparents' home and then caught a movie in the afternoon with some dear friends of ours.  For me, though, I received the best gift of all last night.  Allow me to explain.

Stef had told me she needed to kick me out of the house for a couple hours so she could finish working on my present.  I decided to take the opportunity to invite her father to dinner.  We had a wonderful dinner and I had one of the best steaks I've had in a long time.  We talked about a variety of subjects, ranging from the government deficit to my plans for the new year.

After I talked about my plans for Myanmar in the new year, he asked where Stef fit into that picture.  I laughed and he said, "Well, out with it." I responded by asking for permission for his daughter's hand in marriage.  He talked about the importance of commitment and faithfulness and how he believes the man actually should sacrifice more in the relationship than the woman.  I happen to agree with that if the man is supposed to love His wife as Christ loves the church.  He talked for a while, to the point where I wondered if he was going to answer yes or no.  At long last, he said I had his and his wife's blessing to ask their daughter for her hand in marriage.  I said thank you and as a result received the best Christmas gift I've ever received.

We got back and before we came in the house I thanked him again and he gave me a handshake and a hug which I appreciated.  He followed it up this morning during his prayer before opening presents by saying thanks for all his family and the newest member, if he plays his cards right.  We all chuckled at that.  

After we had been back at the house for a while last night and everyone else was watching the movie, I decided to pay Steffani a visit.  I walked into her bedroom and informed her I had some good news and some bad news.  She wanted me to start with the good news.  Then I said to her, "Well, the good news is I had a really nice steak dinner with your father.  The bad news is he said no."  I somehow pulled off a straight face because she totally bought it.  After I finished laughing and she had punched me in the gut I told her that he had really said yes in case she hadn't picked up on that yet.

Everyone exchanged gifts this morning and Stef's niece and nephew made quite a haul, which is how it should be.  Stef's parents and siblings were quite generous and gave me some of my favorite gifts, money and gift cards.  Stef made a really cool patchwork thing with an overlay of the world and gave me a few other presents as well.  I gave her a Tissot watch and some other things as well.  I gave her dad and brothers some knives I had picked up in Myanmar and her mom a shoulder bag I picked up there as well.  I got her sister-in-law an amazon gift card and their kids just a couple of small items.

After we paid a visit to her grandparents' home and exchanged gifts with her extended family, we went and saw Anchorman 2 with our friends Matt and Elisha and his brother and sister-in-law.  If you liked Anchorman you will love Anchorman 2 and we had a truly wonderful time at the theater with our friends.  Tonight we went for a walk with her parents' 6 month old pup named Jojo downtown.  He's a really good pup and made me wish my parents would get another dog.

While I was away from my own family for Christmas and did miss them a little bit, I have to say this was by far my favorite Christmas yet.  I spent time with my future family and got permission to marry the woman of my dreams.  Life certainly has its ups and downs and you can only count on change being the one consistent thing in your life outside of God.  Right now, though, I feel like the luckiest man on the planet.  Now it's just a matter of talking Stef into a pearl ring and we'll be on our way.  If you're close to either of us try and keep November and December open as we're going to aim for a wedding date next year at Siesta Beach in Sarasota!

1st Book of American Christianity, Chapter 1

First allow me to explain the purpose of this post and ones that will probably follow.  This will be satire aimed at what I see as the majority of American Christians and what they believe.  That being said, within American Christianity there are countless stripes and colors and to try and generalize it as a whole will be undoubtedly inadequate and not representative of the whole, that would be impossible.  I must also acknowledge that the majority I see is largely what comes across my Facebook feed, listen to on podcasts espousing Christian principles and see in the general media as well as previous experiences having grown up in the church.  In addition, even within what I perceive as the majority many individuals are divided on many of the things I will be discussing.  The purpose of these posts will be to challenge certain beliefs inherit to the American Christian landscape and ideally even start a dialogue.  I welcome all comments and am more than willing to listen.  These are simply my opinions and I realize different people have different interpretations of the Bible.  I have never been to seminary or even spent a semester at a Christian college so I gladly acknowledge my lack of training and education on some of these matters.  This is mostly from personal experience.  By the way, I am guilty of much of this thinking myself and am preaching to myself as much as anyone else.  With that being said, let's get started, shall we?

Chapter 1

Above all else, defend the rights of the middle and upper classes.  The rights of the majority are more important than the rights of the poor and needy and minority groups and should be defended as such.  History is written by the victors, but in America's case we are unbiased and can be fully trusted.  

Our nation is a Christian nation, we were founded as one and continue to be one though that is deteriorating.  Our founding fathers used the Bible to defend the Judeo-Christian worldview, the only right one, and this ultimately lead to our prosperity as a nation.  It was not, and I want to emphasize this, due to stealing land from natives as a result of what was called manifest destiny or free labor from enslaving Africans, both of which were defended by using the Bible.

The invisible hand as espoused by Adam Smith is in reality God's hand at work, this is plainly obvious.  Capitalism is the best way forward and is clearly Christ's vision for an economy.  Economic growth must be pursued at all costs.  We are commanded to rule the earth, much like we rule our children.  This means, in practice, that we care for the earth, just like our children, except in cases where it might diminish profits and/or growth.

We must pursue the American dream and encourage others to do so as well.  After all, broke people can't help people.  You must accumulate wealth in order to give to others.  Love your neighbor as yourself, but keep them at a safe distance.  The only neighbors you need to be concerned with are those in your physical neighborhood and in your church community.  They are the ones you are to love as yourself.  Quite frankly, the poor are poor for one reason, and one reason only - bad life choices.  We encourage you to give them your leftover clothes and donate to the local food bank.  Be sure while you are donating to the local food bank to protest against food stamps, it is the job of the church, not the government, to help people eat.

Hope for Haiti

This past week I went to Haiti with both my parents.  It was an amazing experience and one I won't soon forget.  This was my third time to Haiti and I have to say I learned more about the country this time than the other two times combined.  This was mainly due to the fact that I spent my time there with 2 missionaries, one of whom was Haitian and had lived in Haiti for his entire 53 year life.

Obviously, when you live somewhere for 53 years you know way more about it than an expat who has lived there for 3 years or less.  This man was an amazing man of God and I learned a tremendous amount from him and his American wife who has been down there for the past 20 years.  They have 3 wonderful children and I really connected well with the 2 younger ones naturally as I used to teach elementary education.

Where do I begin with what all I learned?  Perhaps I should start off by saying it can be quite paralyzing when you learn about all the problems a country has.  You naturally feel overwhelmed and like anything you do will just be a waste.  It also gives you a higher regard and respect for missionaries who have committed their lives to serving people in that type of country.

Haiti is an interesting place to say the least.  The pastor we met taught us so much about the country in such a short time.  We learned about how corrupt the government is and how you have to pay bribes to get anything through the ports, then you have to pay more bribes when you are on the road or they send you back even if you have the right paperwork.

He taught us how he has struggled with developing leaders.  They seem to get to a certain point and then hit a barrier.  I think he best put it when he said most Haitians are slaves waiting for masters.  People have developed a dependency mindset over the years and lack inner drive or motivation from years of depending on aid.

I was asked to preach on Sunday and gladly took the opportunity.  Haiti has an unemployment rate anywhere from 60-80% of the working age population.  I shared 6 passages on work and then posed the question what do you do about these passages about work when there is no work?  If you feed a man a fish, you feed him for a day, if you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.  What if there's pond?  What if there's no opportunity?

I simply suggested you have to create your own job.  I saw a lot of blank stares as this was clearly a new teaching.  The pastor and missionary I stayed with had started some businesses in the past before they moved.  He's wanting to start some more businesses in the near future.  I preached twice on Sunday.  In the morning his wife translated and in the evening he translated.

His wife said he got fired up after I preached about work and decided to keep going along the same theme after I was finished.  So, while I got a lot of blank states perhaps I planted some seeds and I know I encouraged the pastor.  It also inspired me to follow after my dream of starting an entrepreneurship school down there someday.

As I was telling the youth group about my trip this past week, I emphasized the need for Jesus.  That's why I think Christian NGO's are so much more effective.  I also mentioned that when you share the gospel it has to be the entire gospel, not just fire insurance.  In Rwanda they had an 80% conversion rate to Christianity before the civil war took place.

People identified with their tribes more than with Jesus.  I preached that if you create a job for someone they are more likely to listen to you than to some preacher whom they don't know.  If you create jobs you effectively create a platform in which to share the gospel.

I also preached that Haiti will only change when Haitians take the initiative.  Change doesn't come from outside help, it comes from within.  This is true on a societal level as well as an individual level.  Jesus changes a person from the inside and then that person helps change their community from the inside.

Too Much News

Well, I've done it to myself again.  For a long time I did really well at not watching American news because it just depresses me.  I still kept up with reading the Economist every week and catching the occasional news blip on my BBC app.  I have started going to the gym again though, which proves troublesome when there is mostly only news on the TVs in front of where I ride the exercise bike.  I get lured into watching these talking heads who go on and on about how awful everything is and it just depresses me.  Looks like it's time to get more podcasts so I can listen to them instead of watching the news again.

There has also been a recent uptick in my FB feed with everyone and their mother (quite literally) posting about Obamacare and how bad it is going to be for everyone.  The problem is I have yet to see anyone post any viable alternatives in order to get better health care to the 50 million Americans who not insured right now.  I did just see something pop up at the top of my iPad so I'm going to check that out.

I did a post, the one someone just posted to that hopefully offers some alternatives, that posed the question what are the viable alternatives.  The reason I did this is because I was influenced by my last boss who had a good habit of wanting teachers to have alternative solutions whenever they came to him with a complaint.  That seemed like a great policy to have as a leader.

That being said, there will always be people who hate certain laws and just want to complain about them all day without offering any alternative solutions.  It seems to me to be a waste of time, even though I do the same on often enough occasion that I'm pointing the finger directly back at myself as it were.  Facebook has proved interesting over the past 6 years since I've joined.  It has morphed a certain amount and now it appears everyone just uses it to complain either about their personal problems or our nation's problems, myself included.  I do try to withhold on a lot of the personal complaining though, but I more than make up for it in political complaints I'm sure.

As everyone else has I'm sure, I've either seen people tear one another to shreds or done it myself.  Admittedly I get a certain satisfaction out of this which is easily identified as sin in my heart.  Would we argue like that if we were face to face with each other, perhaps a true Facebook per say?  Of course not!  But perhaps that's why we like Facebook so much, it allows us to say whatever we want without the necessity of common decency.

There's a thing called trolling that I've heard of and understand it to mean something I do on occasion.  It means you post stuff on FB or Twitter just to get people riled up.  I usually do this when I have read too many of my conservative friends posting stuff and figure they need a good dose of the opposite side.  It's not very fruitful but it sure can be fun.  The problem is that many people, including myself, are so passionate about politics that they take everything way too personally.

In short, I'm going to relegate myself to the Economist and BBC News again for a while and not watch the news at the gym anymore.  Maybe I'll even take a break from Facebook for a while although I do enjoy it as a way to get my blog to more readers.  The Economist and the BBC News are not perfect by any means but I prefer them to FOX, CNN, MSNBC and all the other American ones, that's for sure.  They don't seem to be quite as biased.  Of course, if I was from England I might have the opposite views that the stations and news sources I don't like they might think are less biased, who knows?

Christian or Christ-like?

I heard a podcast that caused me to ponder for quite a bit today.  The podcast guy who was being interviewed said that the early Christians, in the first 3 centuries after Christ, would ask other people, "Are you Christ-like?" not "Are you Christian?"  That changes things around a certain amount, doesn't it?

If you're a Christian, it implies a simple belief system.  You believe Christ is who He says He is.  If you're Christ-like though, well that's another thing entirely.  To be sure, we must be Christian in order to be Christ-like if we have any hope of using it for good at least.  I will mention here though that I have met several atheists who were more loving than Christians which is a cause for concern.

What does it mean to be Christ-like?  If you're a Christian, it simply means you intelligently assent to a certain belief in Christ.  To be Christ-like though, well that's just downright painful at times.  You see, I don't believe it's really in our nature to be Christ-like.  He commands us to love our enemies after all.  That surely doesn't come naturally to us, does it?  That takes a tremendous amount of self-discipline and prayer to truly love one's enemies.

He also commands us to love our neighbors as ourselves.  That's another tricky one.  I'm friends with a couple of my neighbors, but do I truly love them?  That's another thing entirely.  One of my neighbors I don't even know because they're never outside and/or wanting to chat.

Are you Christ-like?  Are you growing in your love for God and for others?  That's usually a pretty good test to see if we're becoming more Christ-like I think.  See, you can know all about someone like Jesus, and never actually know them.  Take famous people as a prime example.  There are doubtless fans who know every minute detail about their chosen idol but don't actually know that person.  It's the same way with Christ.  We can know all about Him from reading the Bible a million times; but until we actually come to know Him intimately we will never become Christ-like.

There are also the fruit of the spirit as a measuring rod.  Are we growing in our fruit?  And I'm not talking about the easy way out either of evangelizing strangers.  Are you growing in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and self-control?  You see, sometimes I think we make the mistake of measuring the wrong things.  My pastor talks about how it used to be the three B's that churches were all concerned with; those being butts, bucks and baptisms.  Now he laments that people are measuring much the same thing but just disguising it as how many missional communities a church has as opposed to how many people they have.

A long time ago, I heard a sermon that talked about how the guy never prayed for patience anymore.  His reason was that God would always give him situations to grow his patience when he would pray for it.  I've followed that man's advice for many years, but perhaps it's time to start praying for patience again.  It is a fruit that we're supposed to grow in after all, right?

If we're asked if we're Christian the answer is easy, yes or no.  But when we're asked if we're Christ-like, that's a much more difficult question, isn't it?  Are you bearing fruit?  Are you growing in your love for God and those that He's placed in your life?  These are difficult questions to be sure, but we must ask them so as to be aware of where we stand in our walk with Jesus.

Thoughts on Bible Reading

There are times when I genuinely love reading the Bible.  I read through the 90 day Bible once and was absolutely enthralled with it.  If you're wondering or are inspired to do the same, it takes about 45-55 minutes of reading, at least if you're a slower reader like myself.  That was such a good discipline to cultivate for me when I did it.  It was back in the winter of 2010-2011 when I was in the middle of my round the world trip.  I started doing it again this year but got hung up in the Old Testament which is likely to happen if you're a guy who loves the New Testament as much as I do.

A friend teased me when I said I had gotten hung up in the the Judges, Chronicles and Kings because they repeat the same stories three times.  So I had started a 30 day Gospels plan and he was like, "Justin, those are the same stories only 4 times over!" It was a good point, but remember that I love the New Testament.  You need all of Scripture to paint a more accurate picture of who God is though, so sometimes we just need to read the Old Testament just because it's good for us.

I go through stretches just like I assume everyone else does that I'll call dry patches for the sake of discussion.  I'll be steadily reading for a month about and then I can go quite a while without reading any Scripture unless I'm hearing it on Sunday morning or on a podcast if I'm not careful.  What do you do when you're in the midst of these dry patches.

Well, I'm going to share something with you that never fails for me.  I do it every time I don't feel like reading the Word and it works every single time.  Granted, it's not always right away or the next day, but pretty soon I'm caught up with the story of the Bible again.  All I do, the 'magic' secret, is to pray about it.  I pray for a hunger for God's Word again.  Honestly that's all I know how to do at those points.  Thankfully, it works every time.

The Bible is such a rich text.  Some people like to look at it as an owner's manual or something like that.  I simply like to think of it as God's story of how He came and rescued all mankind from their own sin.  You see certain themes throughout the Scriptures.  One of those is reconciliation.

2 Corinthians 5:18,19 states the following, "All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them.  And he has committed us to the message of reconciliation."  Now that's a beautiful picture if I've ever seen one!  We would be wise to follow suit and not count people's sins against them.

If you've never read the Bible cover to cover, I would highly encourage you to do so.  It takes quite a bit of discipline to be sure, but there are countless means of doing so with the most common being the year long Bible broken up differently by plans on YouVersion or in Bibles in the bookstores.  It takes a lot of discipline to be sure, but I can't recommend it highly enough!  As for me, I'm going to go read some of the Bible now!

Good Gifts and Complete Joy

Why does He bless me so much?  I believe it's so I can pass that blessing onto others.  People have told me I have a gift of encouragement and often have helped them through difficult times.  I need to continue to use this for God's glory.  I sincerely believe the reason we go through difficult times is to help others through the same kinds of things.  Tough times are a kind of blessing then when you look at it that way.  How else would you effectively help someone else who is going through a hard time?  Sometimes sure you can offer outside encouragement but to really get a sense of empathy you will have needed to gone through something similar to their current situation.

What can you bless someone with today?  I used to bless others with money and still do a little bit in spite of not having a real income to speak of.  Right now, though, I can bless others with my time.  Just today I met with a couple of high school kids just to hang out.  Not too many people would do that and I've always tried to, albeit sometimes I'm way more consistent than others mind you.  As a single guy I have a ton of time, particularly now when I'm not working.  I feel called to use that to bless others.  I've taken on volunteering at a local fair trade shop that I just love and am able to do so because I have the time to do so.

I also try to bless others consistently with encouragement.  This is something that everyone can use more of I believe.  It's part of my personality I believe, part of the way God wired me, to bless others with encouragement.  We used to have an encouragement note board in our campus ministry and I would go there some nights and just write a bunch of notes and loved doing so.

The best part about blessing others is you get a blessing in return.  Very rarely do I do anything for others and not come away thinking I received more than I put in.  Maybe that's why Jesus said it's more blessed to give than to receive.  I can tell you from experience that I get more excited about giving people gifts than I would ever get about receiving them.  For instance, I've bought my girlfriend some presents for Christmas and can't wait to give them to her.  I want to give them to her right now but I know it's impossible unfortunately.  In the meantime I wait with anticipation till I'm able to bless her with good gifts.

In Matthew 7:11 Christ relays to us this fact, "If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!"  As much as I love giving gifts, it doesn't come close to the joy God gets from giving us all good gifts.  He gives us so many gifts and it brings Him such joy when we acknowledge that every good gift is from Him and ascribe Him glory for the gifts.  In Zephaniah we're told God will rejoice over us with singing.

And so He gave us the ultimate gift, His Son, for our salvation.  God blessed us so much through the sending of our Lord and Savior.  It is my desire that everyone be saved because I know the joy that it blesses my life with.  How much more does God desire everyone to be saved?  He created us to worship Him.  We're hard-wired to find our joy complete only in Him.  We get a taste of that when we fall in love with someone new, but that never lasts very long.  We get a taste of complete joy when we do work that we find fulfilling.  The only way we can keep a sustained sense of complete joy though is by worshiping Him.  He alone can be our complete joy.

Blessed to Bless

You see this in Genesis in a few different places.  God specifically blesses people so they will be a blessing to others.  In Genesis 12:2 it states, "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing."  We see it again shortly thereafter in Genesis 18:18 where it states, "Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him."  Every single time God blesses someone, it is partially so they'll pass that blessing onto others.  

Blessing is a word that is commonly used, almost to the point of overuse in some instances.  We call other people a blessing on our lives, but we also call a good parking spot a blessing.  It is my sincere belief that God blesses us all in countless ways.  Even to the poor they are blessed with a deeper faith.  I once heard a guy who leads mission trips to the Dominican Republic as being quoted as having said, "People come down here to see poverty firsthand but very soon see poverty in their own hearts."  I think part of the reason is that they see how deep the locals' faith is and how full their hearts are and are convicted that they have everything and yet still lack faith.

It's very possible to become so blessed that we overlook it and hold onto it ourselves.  We see this when we look at our own pocketbooks and retirement accounts.  We've been blessed with so much wealth and yet we're so often tempted to hold onto it ourselves.  We look at others who have more than us and see that as reason why we need to keep striving for more instead of being content with what we have when we realize we have it much better off than most people around us.  

There's a famous cliche that when you're feeling down you just need to count your blessings.  There's a certain deep truth in that, isn't there?  We feel a loss or that we don't get our way at one thing or another and we're so tempted to focus on what we lack instead of what we have.

Take my current circumstance as a case in point.  I've been whining lately because I don't have a job.  The flip side to that is I have an emergency fund that is holding me over, I have a place to live, I have food.  How many people don't even have food right now?  And yet I sit and complain about not having a job?  My poor girlfriend Steffani heard an earful today about my unemployment and how it's really starting to effect me.

In spite of this current situation, I'm reminded to put my trust in Jesus.  He is the One who is always faithful, no matter what my current circumstance.  He's been right by my side through all my episodes of depression and mania for that matter.  He's always provided for me. He has always blessed me.

Job Hunting

Last week, I finally got out there and went a job hunting.  I had zero success and was left pretty discouraged this week.  Job hunting is always a difficult task that just plain old sucks sometimes I think.  You get rejected time and time again constantly hoping for something to come through.  Then just when you think you see a light it's quickly shut out as they hire someone else.

This week, I've found little to no motivation to get out there and get a job.  I know, I know, it's not likely to find a job in a week.  I just want one so bad and try to talk myself into it while simultaneously making excuses as to why this or that won't work for me.  It turns out I don't take rejection all that well, perhaps that's why I stayed away from dating for so long.

Just tonight, I was thinking back to the last time I went job hunting.  I had just graduated college and moved down to Sarasota, my current hometown.  I went looking for a teaching job and was rejected twice before I landed one.  I got hired in February which is very rare for a teacher to be hired in the middle of the year.  Before that though, I got hired on at Applebee's for a few weeks.

The only things I have any experience in are waiting tables and teaching really.  I've done a few other things before, but those are the main ones.  You would think I'd be able to find a waiting job easily with season almost upon us but that is proving to be difficult.  Like my roommate said, it's basically a buyer's market for employers since there are so many people looking for jobs right now.

I told another friend I had applied to a few places off Craigslist and he said they probably had hundreds of applicants.  I've tried networking, what little I know how, and that has turned up a couple of leads.

Motivation is hard to come by this time of year even when I have a job, much less when I'm out of work.  Thankfully I have an emergency savings account which is proving useful right now.  I just hate to see my money disappear like it is currently since I'm not putting any money back into it yet.

Some people have told me about some 'Now Hiring' signs they have seen out and about so hopefully I'll be able to see about those jobs tomorrow.  There are some other places that I have applications for that I need to turn in and a couple places I need to call back.  I guess you could say my current job is finding a job. or some other clever cliche that is funny when you're not looking for a job.  If you're a persona of faith, I could use your prayers.  If you're a friend and are in the Sarasota/Bradenton area, I could use your help in finding and landing a job.

Weight and the desire to change

My weight has only really been an issue as of the past 5 years or so I'd say.  It seems like you just pile on a few pounds every year and before you know it you're what some might call husky.  I love to eat, I always have for as long as I can remember.  There's nothing wrong with eating to be sure, just as long as it's in moderation, especially when it comes to sweets that I just love.

My weight, along with many other things, doesn't define me.  I do however believe that everything God has given us is a gift and He expects us to steward that well.  I don't believe it states that clearly in the Bible; some might argue your body is a living sacrifice and all that but that is kind of missing the point of that passage.  It does state that we're not to be gluttons though.  If an ancient Jew were to watch a modern-day American eat a typical meal, they would for sure think we were gluttons.

We justify our overeating saying we're stressed and we deserve it.  We had a long day at work, surely a bowl of ice cream a night wouldn't harm us too much, right?  I remember growing up I had a bowl of ice cream every night it seemed like; and half a bag of chips and salsa after school to go on top of that.  I would even argue that's okay for a teenager, maybe not those exact foods but you are growing like crazy.  The problem is that when you're no longer a teenager and no longer growing but keep eating like you are.

Back in the spring, I was watching quite a few food documentaries on Netflix.  I need to watch those again as they really made me rethink what I was eating all the time.  I've neglected to do so because I don't want to be convicted on how much or what I'm eating, even though I know it would be good for me.

I have an app on my phone called 'My Fitness Pal' that does a great job at counting calories to where you are made to be much more aware of what you're actually consuming on a daily basis.  The only problem is I find myself not using it on the weekends when I'm tempted to eat much worse and more unhealthy than usual.

Thankfully, I'm a generally enthusiastic person who believes that change can come, it just comes at a price.  I have hope that I can turn this around, it'll just be a matter of time and staying true to some basic principles.  Giving up soda is probably the hardest one for me.  I remember reading though that drinking diet had no better effect in weight loss than regular soda, so I need to cut that crap out of my diet too to be sure.

I'm really tired of carrying an extra intertube of weight so to speak.  So, it's time to change my diet and lifestyle.  The problem is that it has to be a lifestyle change, otherwise it won't last.  

What helps you lose weight?  More importantly, what helps you keep it off?  How do you keep from getting discouraged?

First world problem - too much weight

Lately, I've been trying to lose weight.  I know this may surprise some of my non-American friends who never have to go on a diet, but it's an issue for most Americans, that being weight.  My girlfriend assured me she finds me attractive as I am, but that's sort of besides the point.  I want to be thin again, or at least not to the level I find myself in currently.

I got on the scales a few weeks after having been home only to find I was the heaviest I've ever been.  I was disgusted and quite discouraged.  I'm not sure what I was expecting after having drank 2 cokes a day while I was in Myanmar, but I wasn't clued into the fact that drinking that much soda is one sure way to pack on the pounds.  Or maybe I was and just decided to push that out of my brain for the summer.

Now, I'm faced with the dilemma of wanting to eat like I've always eaten yet living in a 31 year old body that doesn't have nearly the metabolism I once possessed.  My girlfriend pointed that out to me, that it would be harder to lose weight now that I'm older, thanks for that honey.  She's right though, it won't shed like it used to when I was in my early to mid-twenties.

Weight was never a big issue for me in high school.  Then, starting in college, I gained I think somewhere between 10 and 20 pounds my freshman year.  Mind you, I honestly didn't drink a drop of alcohol; but when there are buffet lines for breakfast, lunch and dinner you're bound to gain a few pounds unless you're more mature than most at that age.  I was looking at a weight diary of sorts that I've had around since 2006 I believe it was.  When I was 25 I weighed in at 185 pounds.  That's about where I want to be.

At the time, I was training for triathlons so that's what kept me in shape I think.  Now, I don't train for triathlons and am simply looking to be a healthier weight.  My waist has also increased in size since then.  Progress is so frustratingly slow.  I went off soda for a week and lost a couple pounds due to tracking calories as well.  This past week I wasn't as diligent and allowed myself diet soda again and so I didn't drop a single pound.  Ugh, why is it so much easier to put on weight than it is to lose it?  Excuse my whining there please.

Now, I mainly do a stationary bike at the gym and a Jillian Michaels DVD on a less frequent basis than the bike.  The Jillian Michaels DVD is great, but I just enjoy the stationary bike a bit more for some reason.  Except tonight when I hadn't ridden for half a week and wasn't really all that into it.

Therein lies the problem, though, doesn't it?  Some people love to work out and are highly motivated to do so.  If you're anything like me though, there are certain times when I just don't want to work out at all.  Those are the times when it's almost most necessary to go to the gym I would argue; precisely when you don't feel like it.  I don't know if trainers would agree with that, but I do know they agree with a regular schedule of when you work out so that would fall under that category for sure.

God as Abba

During his earthly ministry, Jesus referred to God as Abba.  This was unheard of at the time I believe; though I'm no Biblical scholar so don't quote me on that.  Abba was the Jewish way of saying Daddy.  That is the kind of relationship we are supposed to have with our Heavenly Father.  One where we're close enough to call Him Daddy.

That's really some heavy stuff theologically if we unpack it for a minute.  The God who created the universe wants nothing more than for us to come before His throne and call Him Daddy.  He calls us His children.  He adopted us.  How are we ever to grasp that concept fully.  It's a little picture when someone adopts a child now.  They choose that child and now they're adopted into the family.  The new parents take custody of the child.  They are now responsible for that child.

Similarly, God takes custody and responsibility for us.  We are His.  We have been purchased at a price, at an incredible cost to our Savior who died for us.  Don't miss this incredible truth.  On our own, we can't make our way to God.  No, quite the opposite, He had to make a way for us.

We are not worthy to even untie the thong of his sandal, to echo John the Baptist.  And yet, in His great love, God sent His Son to die for you and me, that we might come to Him and know Him.  We are to pursue knowledge of God through His love for us.  His love frees us to be all we can be for His kingdom.  We are freed to make much of the One who freed us.  Until we realize this we will live unfulfilled lives.

Now, to be fair, there are people who live much more fulfilled lives apart from Christ than those who have Christ.  Or so it seems, right?  But we are reminded in Scripture that God sends the sun and rain on the righteous and unrighteous.  Just because someone doesn't choose to believe in Christ doesn't mean they are living without being blessed.

There's a thing that theologians call common grace, which I don't pretend to understand even halfway.  But I think the basic premise is that God extends grace to all mankind, and sometimes specific societies like how Western societies have many of their basic needs met for the overwhelming majority of their citizens.  In the states, even in the midst of a recession there are still jobs out there.  They may not be ideal, like I'm currently applying for some serving jobs which isn't ideal, but there are still jobs out there.  That is common grace.

If we recognize that we are His children, life just makes more sense.  Why do good people suffer so much?  Sometimes it's to help someone down the road who will go through the same struggle.  Sometimes it's to bear witness to how faithful God is in the midst of our deepest struggles.  With God, life takes on so much more meaning.  We are able to find purpose in the most mundane of tasks as we try and do everything for the glory of God.

Doing things for the glory of God isn't some esoteric, far away thing that sounds nice but can't really be accomplished.  No, we are given incredible minds and as such we can wash the dishes and be praying to God in our minds and spirits at the same time.  We can commit to doing our best at any job because we realize that is what God asks of us in our working lives.

i am His

One of my favorite verses in the Bible has to be 1 John 3:1 which states, "See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!"  It goes on with a few other things but I just want to take the time to focus on these relatively few words.  

First off, the word lavish isn't one we typically use, is it?  I was lavishing in the ocean the other day isn't something that is often uttered from our mouths.  When I think of lavish I think of completely engulfing something.  A pouring out and an abundance of something, in this case love being what has been poured out in abundance.

Often, I encourage others to find their identities in Christ.  As I was explaining to a friend tonight, though, it's often easier to encourage others to do that than to live it out myself.  Why is it so hard to find our identities in Christ?  In my opinion, I think it has something to do with the fact that we have so many things vying for our attention and that seem of utmost importance that we are likely to put our identity in them.

I think men especially are prone to find their identities in their jobs.  Make no mistake, preachers and missionaries are not immune to this.  What's the first thing a guy is likely to ask you?  So, what do you do?  Right?  Isn't that the basic conversation starter that we all fall back on?

In early September, I decided to resign from my post as an elementary teacher.  I'm hoping to move to Liberia in January and didn't want a new batch of 5 year olds to get too attached only to leave them halfway through the year.  Truth be known I didn't want to get too attached to them either.

What I have learned since is that I found a fair amount of my identity in that job.  People ask me now what do I do and I have to say I'm currently looking for a job while I wait and see if I get accepted into Samaritan's Purse in Liberia in January.  It's hard not to feel like a loser when I say that.  "What do you do?" "Oh, I'm currently unemployed."  I've never been unemployed before except by my parents' wish for when I was in college.  

There are several passages in Scripture though that tell us we are His.  We were bought at a price.  We are made in the image of our Creator.  He is reconciling all things to Himself.  There are so many beautiful promises in Sripture about how we are His and nothing can separate us from His love.

Truly Helping the Poor

I long to do work that truly matters and makes me come alive.  I got a taste of that this summer when I was teaching young people how to start and run businesses.  Teaching certainly matters greatly and makes a lot of people come alive, I just found that it wasn't necessarily a good fit for me; at least in the elementary school setting.  I've never run a business before but the curriculum was so good that I could easily get in there and teach it.

My translator ended up being a great friend and one I saw as a younger sister, as I did a couple of the other girls in the office.  I had a blast this past summer and truly came alive.  It wasn't all due to mania either I might add.  You see, ultimately I'd like to do something similar to my friend Ryan.  He has started an entrepreneurship school and a business with his wife over in Myanmar.  He's busy, as you can probably imagine.  In my humble opinion, he's doing the most good someone could possibly do in a developing nation. 

Ask the poor what they need, and one answer that usually comes up is jobs.  If you really want to help someone, either provide a job for them or help them create their own job.  That's how wealth is created within a community.  From there all other things flow really.  If you don't create wealth, you have no money to start non-profits or keep them going.  You have nothing to start schools with and have to rely on outside support to keep going.  This isn't exactly sustainable to say the least.  Ryan's entrepreneurship school runs on outside support, but they're hoping to get off outside support hopefully in the near future.  This will be difficult to be sure but I know he can do it.  I don't know how mind you, but I know he's going to work hard to do so.

I put out a thing on LinkedIn the other day saying I'd like to help an entrepreneur or some kind of business get started since I don't have any experience and experience is the best teacher so I hope to get some experience before I try teaching it again.  I don't have any business ideas of my own except writing a book which isn't really a business.  There are similarities to be sure but it's obviously not the same thing.  Theory only goes so far so I need to read literature but until I experience it first hand like I got a taste of this summer I'll truly be at a disadvantage of not having enough experience.

I have a chance to do an internship with Samaritan's Purse this upcoming January and if you would join me in prayer for that internship I'd really appreciate all the prayers I can get.  It's in the field of international development, something I've been cultivating a heart for ever since my first mission trip to Kenya back in 2006.  Even my principal at my school says that the mission field seems to be where my heart is leading me.  

I saw they had a job in Haiti for country director and told my dad about it.  He said that would be for someone with 7-10 years experience so maybe someday I could do it.  In the meantime I hope to work for Samaritan's Purse after I hopefully get an internship with them.  I long to work in a developing nation which is crazy to most people I know.  I'm sure after a while I would get the inevitable culture shock that comes with every place but I really think I'm built for life overseas.  Yes, America has plenty of problems herself but not everyone is called to their home nation. 

Different Forms of Therapy

Therapy is good; it's even better when it's free.  My school health insurance used to cover mental health 100% so I'd go and see a therapist once a week and it was extremely beneficial.  Now I don't have insurance and so it costs me $70 a pop so I only go once every couple weeks, much to my own chagrin.  Now I have to do some talk therapy with myself in my head it seems like, which I hope is a healthy thing.  Maybe I just talk too much to myself, but I always seem to enjoy the conversation.

What are some things you do for therapy?  What are some low-cost or even free things you do to calm yourself from your stresses and worries?  One thing I do that I haven't done in a few weeks is go to the beach at night.  It is so relaxing and good for my soul.  I go at night because there are usually very few people there.  People go to the beach to get tan after all, right?  Hardly anyone goes at night so it's just fantastic if you ask me.  It's how I unwind from whatever might be bothering me at the time.  I breathe in the salty air and find inner peace with God.  It's a beautiful thing really, and one of the many reasons I love living in Sarasota.  For those of you who are land-locked, I have to tell you I don't envy you.  You better get down here quickly though, house prices are back on the move and I hear interest rates are slowly creeping back up.

I also enjoy being around people.  As a matter of fact, I thrive when I'm around others.  This probably is why I usually do very well in the summers when I'm living in community.  I love living with people on a day in day out basis where we're sharing the same mission.  We try and do something similar at my church called missional communities but it simply doesn't measure up in my book.  I'm sure it's good for most people who are used to being closed off to their nuclear families but it's really not enough for me.  I crave more, deeper relationships that are only formed by actually living with other people who are doing the same work as you are.  It's messy, or at least can be, but it's really a beautiful mess when it's all said and done.

I recently did one of the personality tests and I came out as extraverted, like to the nth degree.  Every single question that dealt with introverted vs extraverted I scored on the extraverted side.  For as long as I can remember, I've loved being around people.  I especially connect with young people, whether elementary age or high school all the way through to college.  They are full of hopes and dreams and help keep you young in my opinion.  It's almost intoxicating to be around so much energy.

Admittedly, I have always struggled with classroom management as a teacher due to just wanting to love on the kids.  Ultimately loving them means providing structure which I really struggle with; maybe next time I try teaching I'll be better at it.  I will always see myself as an educator in every field, I just don't know if I'll try teaching elementary school again.  As my mom pointed out last night though. I'm still struggling with depression and I'm not even in the teaching profession this year.  I do remember that being a rather depressing endeavor though that certainly didn't help my depression at all.

Writing as Therapy

This will be a practice in metacognition in a sense as I will be writing about the thought process that I go through for writing.  Some of my blog entries get a lot of hits, some not as much.  For a while, I thought I had this figured out.  Whenever I wrote about something I deemed important, my blog wouldn't get too many hits.  Whenever I wrote about my relationship, it would get a ton.  However, for some reason my blog on profits and healthcare received 100 hits in a couple of days; and the latest one about my relationship landed in the 30's.  This was interesting and completely blew my hypothesis out of the water.  I should clarify that when I say I deem it important I mean to other people, not just to myself like I feel about my relationship.

This past summer, I busted out a ton of blog entries; I doubt anyone could keep up with them all.  I write mainly for therapeutic effect, it has a calming effect on me that is rarely matched even in my therapy sessions with my therapist.  I also write simply because I enjoy writing; as I said before it's a type of therapy for me.  It's how I think out loud in a sense.  I bounce ideas off others often never receiving feedback but every once in a while I write something that connects with the general public and a lot of people write me notes or messages like what just happened last night when I wrote about depression knocking at my door.

I started blogging back in 2008 I believe when I was in New Zealand.  I was manic at the time and had to tell people how awesome my experience that I just had was.  Well, actually I think my first blog was about excuses from girls and then I wrote some blogs about my time in New Zealand.  Either way it has opened up a new outlet for me to get some ideas on paper so to speak.  I also keep a prayer journal to God that I write in on a less frequent basis.  That one really helps me gather my thoughts when I'm feeling too scatter brained to put words to my prayers in a meaningful manner.

Over the past couple of years, I've blogged through a few episodes of depression.  It really helps me for some reason.  Just getting down what I'm feeling is surprisingly helpful.  A friend of mine paints and I have a feeling it's for the same reason I write, for personal therapy.  There are worse things for therapy, right?  Some people call it retail therapy but for me that would be awful when I saw just how much I spent in the name of therapy.  I'm too much of a budget nerd to really get any high off of shopping.

Also for therapy I enjoy working out.  This has unfortunately been an on again off again thing in my life.  Right now it's an on thing and has really helped me as I try and lose some weight.  My goal is to lose a pound a week for as long as I can keep it up.  I've given up regular soda in order to accomplish this, I'm counting calories again and I'm also working out again as stated before.  What I've realized about myself through all this is I need to spend less time, money and calories eating out.  It seems like I can't eat out without spending about 1,000 calories which is just an insane amount for one setting.

Goals/New Directions

Right now, there are so many things I want to do.  I have some big dreams and goals, but they will inevitably have to take a back seat to this oncoming depression unless I can magically snap out of it somehow.  I want to write a kids' book and have started doing so.  It's actually a series entitled "Adventures with Mr. Hemming" where I take the kids to different places I've been in the form of narrative.  I want to start an entrepreneurship school one fine day, or at least teach at one.  The problem with that one is of course that I'm not exactly an entrepreneur.  Then again, every entrepreneur has to start somewhere, right?  I'd either like to start an entrepreneurship school or a business in a developing nation some fine day.

I bought a book by Jon Acuff entitled 'Start' that was a great read and has things in the back to help you get started down the road to starting on your different dreams.  Right now I'm doing a 72 hour audit.  You can probably guess which part I'm most disappointed in.  Yep, the parts where I'll sleep for an hour here or three hours there.  At least right now I'm practicing some form of writing in the form of these couple of blog entries.  I've even made the audacious prayer for a business idea to start.  I don't know what that would look like since I am hoping to move to Liberia in January, but it doesn't hurt to ask God in prayer.

In many times in the past when I share these things with people they say I'm a dreamer or at the very least idealistic.  Frankly, I like being idealistic and think we need more idealistic people in the world to keep moving forward.  Being a dreamer isn't necessarily a bad thing either as long as you put one foot in front of the other on your dreams.  What I really need now is a stop-gap job, one to just pay the bills and give me some structure.

Yesterday, I interviewed at a local steakhouse for a job so I hope to hear back from them soon.  Tomorrow I plan on getting back out there again and hitting the job application trail.  Last night I spent sometime on Facebook and LinkedIn trying to network my way to a job.  With season coming up there should be plenty of waiting jobs turn up I just need something sooner rather than later.

Depression Knocks

Lately, I've been sleeping a ton, even for me which is saying something for those of you who are close.  This happens generally every fall.  I get worried that my thyroid is off, then I go and get a blood sample taken.  Inevitably, it turns out that it's fine and so I ask my GP what's wrong with me and he says it's probably my moods kicking in.  Well, it has started happening again.  As my doctor has informed me, this usually means depression isn't too far behind and is getting ready to rear its ugly head.  I thought it might be my thyroid but I got back on my thyroid medication on Friday and am still having the problem as of today.

I can take three hour naps every afternoon if I'm allowed to.  I just did this today.  I wake up, groggy and angry that I slept for that long.  According to a documentary I saw on bipolar disorder I'm not the only patient who experiences this.  It is beyond frustrating and makes me feel like I'm just worthless.  I know I joke about it with my friends but in reality it makes me feel simply worthless about myself.  I go through these phases where I sleep every chance I get.  The past few years it has happened even though I had a job.  You can imagine how bad it is this year when I don't currently have a job to give me structure.

All that to say, sometimes I really just loathe myself.  Anyone else ever been there?  I know it's ungodly to say the least and not becoming of a believer, but sometimes I'm filled with such self-hatred I don't even know what to do with myself.  And then, that inevitably leads to depression.  I know all the right strategies for fighting depression; I've bought all the self help books out there on the subject, but it still comes in spite of that.

Guess I should be grateful I had the mania as long as I did, huh?  I love mania because it makes me feel like I'm on top of the world.  Mania makes me feel like I can do anything, go anywhere and accomplish great feats if I simply would put my mind to them.  Then depression follows it up and reminds me that I can't possibly do those great feats because of the struggles I deal with in the midst of depression.  I hate this so much and I hate that I have to go through this disorder for the rest of my life.

Fellow believers have assured me there is healing in faith and I'm sure there is.  But I don't know why bipolar disorder is treated differently than other chronic illnesses like diabetes.  Can God heal those diseases?  Of course He can.  But does He always heal them?  Not a chance.  Sometimes you have to go through purifying fire to learn to lean on Him more.

I can't do this again.  I can't believe I'm actually going to go through depression again.  It was in the back of my mind when I was manic that it would come again due to the nature of bipolar and how it swings between one and the other, but I somehow manage to lie to myself and tell myself that I'm suddenly cured somehow and that the mania is just my new normal.  Guess it's time to break out the self help books on depression to try and nip it in the bud a little at least.  Those books do help believe it or not.  That may surprise some of you who think self help is a load of crap but there are some really good ones out there actually.

Dating over Skype

As many of you know, I find myself in the midst of a long distance relationship, hence the title of this blog.  I complained to my roommate today that sometimes dating over skype really just sucks, excuse my language there.  The video quality won' come in well and more often then not the call is dropped mid-sentence.  Today was especially bad it seemed like between Steffani and me over Skype.  We must have dropped 6 calls between us before she finally just called from her calling card on her cell phone.

There are advantages to living in today's society of course.  I mean, we have the technology to where it's good enough that I have the audacity to complain about not seeing my girlfriend whose 4 time zones away and on a different continent.  I can't imagine living in another era where I wouldn't have this type of access to stay in touch long distance.  It's hard enough as it is without the added difficulty of not being able to at least talk over the phone.

The benefit I think we get from this time is good communication.  We have to be open and honest even more so as we're unable to see each other's body language in person so we can't pick up on a pretty big part of communication.  I can read her face sometimes as she can mine but we have to depend on one another to be honest so we don't have to worry about the other one lying to one or the other.

She comes back to the states in early December and I can't hardly wait!  It will be so good to see her face to face, in person after almost 6 months apart.  That is a long time to wait if you love someone like I love Stef.  We were saying tonight in the midst of being cut off from one another that we really only have 2 full months and then a week in early December before I see her again.  Kind of puts things in perspective for those of you who may have a 2 hour commute or something, doesn't it?  I'm certainly not trying to be a martyr here or anything; but it would be nice if we were at least in the same time zone.

Merciful to my Mania

The last couple months I'e had several episodes of mania.  I can count at least three major episodes and several smaller ones within those major ones.  Thankfully, God's allowed me to keep it together for the most part in what I call a state of 'controlled mania' or so I like to try and tell myself.  The truth is I kinda neglected the old bank account for the past couple months after being really frugal and careful with the money I raised and was able to do way more with it than I originally had planned.  After I blessed the ministry with the leftover money I had raised for their tech needs and gone onto Kuala Lumpur, the spending spree started and didn' stop for about a month really looking back.  

When I did finally look at my bank account over the course of that past month or so, I found about an extra $1,000 I had spent over budget for the very last part of August and basically 2 weeks into September on stuff I didn't really need.  Now, this may be no big deal to most people, but if you know me at all you know I hold a certain amount of pride about my ability to not spend money compared to most people.  When I was employed with the school district I was saving roughly 40% of my take home pay each month.  Now, I've been without a consistent income since April and been doing fine.  However, I certainly didn't have an extra $1,000 to spend on top of the savings I had built up.

Well, I repented of the part that my greed and selfishness had played in the whole disaster.  Part of it was due to mania to be sure, but without the greed there certainly wouldn't have been nearly as much spending.  Then something strange started to happen.  The tablet that I had ordered never arrived.  So I opened a case against them on ebay today and within 2 minutes they had refunded the money I had unnecessarily spent on it.  Yesterday or the day before, I shipped a laptop that I wanted but didn't need back to the company and they're going to refund me my money for that.  Another tablet I bought I'm going to turn around and try to resell on ebay because the seller said he wouldn't refund it if nothing was wrong with it and hopefully make some money back there too.

Now, I won't get all my money back that I so frivolously spent over the past month or so; this is real life and not a fairy tale after all.  But I will get some of it back and to me that is simply God being merciful to my mania and my spending spree.  I was home when I added up all the extra spending I had done and I told my mom that I hadn't been on a spending spree like that since high school when I bought $100 worth of calendars which was a tremendous amount for what I was making at the time.  It made me realize how far I can go on spending sprees if I'm not careful when I'm manic.  Hopefully I'll be able to learn from this lesson as I move forward and inevitably have more manic episodes down the road.

Profits and healthcare

Today was an interesting day.  I slept in this morning, and woke up to my gf skyping me.  That's a pretty great way to wake up I must say.  Anyways, I've been sleeping too much lately, but then it occurred to me that I hadn't been on my thyroid medication since late June so that might have something to do with it.  I called my doctor's office and made an appointment to get my level checked  and it is October 14th.  Knowing there was simply no way I could make it till then if I was going to be sleeping as much as I am now without that medication, I begged the nurse to get a prescription written for me.  I got to pick that up today and can't wait to go back on my trusty off brand synthroid.

Some people are against all forms of modern day medication but I happen to be a big believer in it.  That being said, the whole reason I had to go on a thyroid medication was because I was on lithium once upon a time and my doc told me it would pretty much destroy my thyroid.  I'm here to tell you though that without lithium my life might have turned out very differently.  Utlimately, God made me well of course, but I can tell you for a fact that he used lithium at first and subsequent psych drugs since to make life much more manageable for me.

Some people who have bipolar disorder complain that the drugs take away all their personality but that thankfully hasn't been the case for me.  Those who know me know I still have a very strong personality in spite of the drugs.  I'm very grateful for them and hope that I can get accepted by insurance on  January 1st, what I'm terming the new Independence Day for people with preexisting conditions.  That way I'll be able to refill my prescriptions without too much hassle.  If my lovely state politicians have anything to say about it though, Obamacare will be defunded and I won't get insurance that I can afford.  Please remember that these laws do have effect on uninsured people who don't want to pay 6 times the going rate of regular insurance just because of a condition that they don't choose to have, thank you very much.  

As it stands now, the current system punishes the sick.  Don't believe me?  Well, I can tell you that I've been turned down by 8 out of 8 health insurance companies because of my preexisting condition. I take care of it of course, I see my doc regularly and always take my meds.  So why am I being punished by being denied coverage?  For one reason and one reason only.  It's because of money, more specifically the fact that we have health insurance as a for profit business model.  Having health care for profit makes about as much sense as having education for profit.

I was lured into applying for one health insurance by them saying they don't turn people down based on preexisting conditions.  Well, that turned out to be a bold-faced lie and one in which I'm not exactly sure how they got away with it.  The one I applied for was for $38/month or something insanely cheap like that.  After calling the state office, I found out the only one that would accept me was $291/month.  Let's see here, sir.  You're telling me you're unemployed for the time being, meaning you don't have an income.  Oh, I know how we can help you!  We can make your health insurance 6 times as expensive as it would be for someone who doesn't have a preexisting condition; surely that will help you get back on your feet, right?

I happen to be a big believer in the business model, for business.  There are some things that should not be profit driven, a couple that come to mind are education and health care.  I just heard a disgusting story of some investors who had met in order to learn how they could invest in some of these up and coming charter schools to make a profit.  Does anyone else see a problem here?  It's the same with healthcare.  I heard another story of a pharmaceutical company producing HIV stopping drugs and then selling them for a mere 5,000% mark up on the price of production.  So please, don't act like the privatization of everything is a way forward, it simply is not.

Long distance relationships

As some of you know, I’ve started dating a girl named Steffani.  She’s a great girl and more than I deserve.  I love her to pieces and actually hope and pray things work out.  Usually when I like a girl for more than a week or two I look for ways out of the relationship.  Not this time though as I’m hoping to get to go to Liberia in January mainly to be with her.  There’s also a great opportunity with her organization Samaritan’s Purse with an internship that I’m trying to get but the main reason as I had to remind her today is that she’s over there.  I could intern with SP theoretically anywhere, but the main reason I want to intern with them in Liberia is because I have one very beautiful reason to be there.

Earlier this year, I considered doing a World Race with Adventures in MIssions.  It’s a chance of a lifetime.  I would be going to 11 countries in 11 months after all; not something everyone gets an opportunity to do.  I’m giving it up though, in exchange for the opportunity to be with my girlfriend.  This led me to ask myself the basic question, “What is wrong with me??”  

As a friend lovingly reminded me the other day, “What if your very own self from about two years ago could see you now?”  I responded that I would probably punch myself in the mouth.  For those of you who don’t know, I was anti-relationship in general but in particular to my own life for about a decade.  I wanted nothing to do with a relationship.  For other people it may be fine, but not for me.  I was perfectly happy being single and free to travel on my own.  As a matter of fact, overall I prefer to travel alone as this has yet to be tested with traveling with Steffani.  Hopefully that will work out well and I’ll change my mind in regards to that.  I have the right attitude to travel alone though.  I’m outgoing enough that I rarely know a stranger and I have no problem with couchsurfing so in a sense I have a built in friend no matter where I may end up for the night.

Steffani is different though.  For starters, she has been by my side so to speak for the last 8 years.  We’ve been through a lot together and been by each other’s side as each of us struggled through different things over the past 8 years alone.  For my part I’ve gone through some major episodes of depression due to having bipolar disorder.  She has loved me through those episodes as a great friend who was always willing to listen to me whine, even if I went on for a while about just nonsense looking back on it.

You see, when someone stands by your side like that, it makes you take notice eventually.  One day you wake up and realize what a diamond in the rough you have in the other person and can’t believe you didn’t see it beforehand.  I’ve always loved Stef as a friend, but now I want more.  I was so turned off to the idea of a relationship for so long and now that I’ve changed course I’m all in I dare say.  I mean, what else would drive a man to give up a round the world mission trip in exchange for moving to Liberia of all places just to be with a woman??

Reentry and Jet Lag

I reentered the country known as the United States of America last Friday with an initial stopover in NYC.  I instantly knew I was in my home country when I was no longer the loudest person in the room.  This was a surprisingly refreshing experience for me.  In Yangon where I spent the summer, I was always the loudest person in the room by a long shot.  There were other Americans there to be sure, but I tend to be loud anyway, even for an American.  The Burmese are generally a quieter group of people overall.  In spite of this, I think even they grew to love my loudness.

American culture is different, one of the main things I’ve noticed is our reliance on meat for almost every meal.  One of the first things I did upon my return was to go to two different barbeques on Labor Day.  Granted, this was a holiday and as Jim Gaffigan put it so eloquently, “I don’t normally have a hot dog, a hamburger, and a steak, but it’s the 4^th of July.  It’s what the founding fathers would have wanted.”  Needless to say, there was a whole lot of meat at these get togethers.  Probably more than I had seen all summer as a matter of fact.  We had meat in Myanmar of course, just not to the extent that it is within the American diet.

In addition to cookouts, I have eaten more meat this past week than I have probably the entire summer.  I eat it when I go out to eat with friends or even when I go out to eat by myself.  Yes, I go out to eat by myself because I generally don’t like to cook all that much, at least when it’s just for me.  I find I end up eating the same thing for four or more meals in a row if I cook for myself because of all the leftovers.  All this meat consumption can’t be good for my health, at least according to some documentaries I saw before I left for the summer.  My loving girlfriend even got me a cookbook that goes along with one of the movies with a bunch of vegan recipes.  I have yet to open the book, hopefully this next week.

On Sunday morning, I informed my friends that I hadn’t missed at all their endless discussions about guns.  That seems to be a fairly prominent discussion on Sunday mornings before we all go in to the theaters to help set up for church later that day.  My friends seem to be obsessed with guns for some reason; I have yet to figure out why.  It is a common topic of discussion, one that I’m usually left out of due to my ‘liberal’ views on the matter.

I’ve been jet lagging pretty badly this past week too.  I find myself sleeping almost all the time it seems like.  I’ve always told people if you go east to west that jet lag isn’t as bad, but I’m finding it particularly difficult to adjust to this time around for some reason.  It started on Friday night in NYC when I slept for 12 straight hours.  I thought surely after that I’d be fine but as it turns out I’ve been catching up seemingly all week.  I’m finding it difficult not to stay up too late and sleep in the next day in particular.  Sometimes I even take 4 hour naps; which aren’t really naps at that point, are they?

Freedom, Choice and Taxes

There’s a book by Amartya Sen entitled Development as Freedom which I would love to read but haven’t had the opportunity to do so.  I have a ton of books that I already own that I want to read first before I buy any new ones, much to my girlfriend’s chagrin as she has some books she wants me to buy.  Anyways, I was talking to another friend named Ryan in Myanmar about it and he was saying how in that book the author mentions how true development leads to freedom of choice for the individual in a society.

Freedom of choice is another thing we have to take into account when we consider universal health care.  Will people be free to choose their own doctors?  Will they be free to choose to make their own careers by still having health care if they choose to leave their current job situations?  These are all things that must be considered.

Many Americans have this false dichotomy between freedom and taxes.  They think lower taxes equal more freedom when that is anything but the case.  Freedom is how much a society cares for the least of their members.  Freedom is how much a society cares for all its members for that matter.  Higher taxes aren’t always the answer to be sure.  There has to be reform in all sectors of government.  It should concern us when we pay more for the military than a bunch of other social programs combined though, right?

There is a growing movement towards simplifying the tax code and I highly applaud this.  As I’ve found through random facebook posts and just straight up asking people though, no one wants to lose their tax credits and/or deductions.  Loopholes are seen as other people’s tax credits and deductions, not their own.  Their own credits and deductions are highly justifiable of course.  It’s that other person we need to go after. 

We would save over a trillion dollars if we nixed all the credits and deductions.  Did you catch that right there?  That is over $1,000,000,000 in today’s dollars.  That’s a bunch of money that we could save.  If we did that we could lower the rate on corporations and individuals.  Not to mention corporations would actually have to pay their taxes instead of using all the credits and deductions to get out of paying one red cent like many of them do.

Universal health care is a good idea that we should at the very least consider.  How much money would you save if you didn’t have to pay a high premium every month?  Yes, you would have to pay higher taxes, but if everyone had to pay higher taxes it wouldn’t be that much.  Health care shouldn’t be a for-profit business, just like education shouldn’t be a for profit business. 

I happen to strongly support business and business creation.  There are just certain fields that business principles don’t apply to; no matter how red in the face a Republican may get over the argument.  I even agree for lower corporate tax rates as a great way to incentivize starting more businesses.  Just keep the profit making out of the health care industry.

Freedom to leave a job

I want to be crystal clear here in my argument.  I have had bipolar disorder since I was 17; which the math works out to 14 years of my life I’ve had this illness.  Bipolar disorder is a chronic illness; meaning I will never get over it, contrary to what some faith healers may believe.  In a couple weeks I get to teach at youth group on the passage in 2 Corinthians where it talks about the thorn in the side and how God’s strength is showed through our weaknesses.  Some people in the faith community don’t know how to treat chronic illness.  Much like Job’s friends in the Old Testament, they see it as a result of sinful living.

Anyway, any health insurance company that takes me on as a customer is necessarily going to lose money on me.  They simply have to with the way the current system is set up.  Drug companies charge way too much for drugs, even generics like I’m on; and so as a result someone has to pay.  Since I want to try some stuff on my own and want to get private insurance, it simply doesn’t make economical sense for a health insurance company to take me on as a patient.

I had lunch with a dear friend today and as we were discussing this I made the off-hand comment that I wondered how many people were in jobs they despised because of the health care that they were afforded.  I wonder how many people want to, even long to take a huge risk and start a business but simply can’t leave their current job because of health care.  If you have a family to provide for all the more reason to not take a risk, start a business and help the economy turn around.  It’s better to play it safe so your kids can be covered by your health insurance plan.

Again, we’re talking about freedom, true freedom here.  In our high ambition to pay as little taxes as possible, we have made it to where people stay in awful jobs just for the health care as opposed to branching out and trying something new.  This country was built on an entrepreneurial spirit and we are largely ignoring that impulse by requiring our healthcare to be wrapped up with our employment. 

It would have to be monitored for abuses, just like everything should be.  There would have to be independent companies who did audits to make sure money was being spent wisely.  There has to be a better way than what we have currently, no one can argue that.  It’s just a matter of how we go about doing so.

Universal healthcare

Some countries have free health care, also known as universal health care.  It sounds so nice and like a great deal more freedom than we have in this country.  Yes, of course their people pay higher taxes; they couldn’t afford free health care without it.  I would much rather have higher taxes and everyone able to have healthcare than our current system.

I once heard Bill O’Reilly talk about how if we got ‘free healthcare’ than it would really cost us a lot.  This is only partly true.  We spend more as a nation than any other rich country by quite a bit as I understand it.  I have to believe part of that is because we have a system where health care is a for-profit business.  What sense does that make?  I understand people need jobs and I’m not saying we should do away with jobs at all.  I’m simply saying it doesn’t make sense to profit off of someone else’s health and well-being.  I used to tell people I would gladly pay half of my income in taxes if it meant everyone had free health care.  This was a point of view not shared by many to say the least.  It seems like a lot of Christians especially don’t want to give up any of their income if it means that it will actually help someone else.  If it will support the military, then by all means take taxes out of their paychecks.  Health care as a reason for taxation, on the other hand, is seen as utterly disdainful. 

There are downsides to universal health care.  People actually go to the doctor before it’s bad enough to where they have to go to the emergency room to get care.  There would be more of an emphasis placed on preventative medicine as opposed to reactive care.  There would be a greater incentive to not run down the gauntlet of tests for every time something goes wrong. 

People could still get specialized services like Botox and other plastic surgery things that are nonessential but those would have to be a for profit business like in Hollywood or somewhere else where people care too much about their looks.  Sometimes there’s a need for plastic surgery like when there are bad burn victims or car accidents where people’s faces are mangled so that would have to be covered.  I’m more referring to people who want a face lift to look younger or things of that nature.

In all seriousness, I know there are true downsides to universal health care.  Some would abuse the system to be sure.  We’ve all heard of the classic Canadian problem where people go in for a tummy ache and things of that nature.  At least they have the option of going in though, right?  If you’re in the states you have to wait until it’s an emergency if you don’t have health care to where you can be admitted to the emergency room.