Thursday, May 6, 2010

MOM-Oh yeah, I love her.

So this weekend is mother's day weekend and I'm so excited to go home and see my mom and grill out for her and all that good stuff. It's gonna be amazing. I truly have to say that my mom is the best mom ever. See she raised me and my sister by herself for the most part and I would say she's done a good job. Don't ya think? (shoot, that was corny) So many things about me can be attributed to my mom. I love meeting new people and hanging with friends. Like for real its super awesome. My mom is the queen of having friends. She knows everyone! My mom's laugh is extra, extra loud. My laugh is loud but my mom's laugh blows mine out of the water. I know its hard to believe but its very true. My mom also loves the Lord and really kept me in church all of my life. It's great because she supports my career path and my relationship with God. I kinda realized this a few days ago when I was thinking about going home, and honestly my mom was one of the main reasons why I never missed church all thru high school. Despite us going to 2 different churches from when I was about 11 til now, she would always get me up for church cause I would be super dragging from my usually long Saturday night. "Terrell (my middle name), you goin to church?" I can hear it in my head now. She would always make sure that I wouldn't oversleep. I didn't realize at the time how important that was for me and how much my mom has always supported me. Every sermon, i've ever preached, she has been there in the front row. Every bowling competition (yes, I was a beat bowler growing up), she was there. Football games, band performances (sometimes on the same day), she was there. I think about it and I realize how blessed I am because of my mom. Through the Lord and my mom, I want for very little things and for that I am eternally grateful and this weekend and everyday, I want to show my appreciation to the Lord and also my great mom.
I want to encourage everyone to truly take this weekend to honor the special mom in your life. Bottom line, is if it wasn't mothers, we would exist. Dishes wouldn't get done, laundry wouldn't get done, kids would get nurtured. Moms do alot and really are probably the most important part of a successful family. It's such a blessing to have strong mothers in this world that sacrifice for their kids and their families in every way. I LOVE YOU MOM and I can't wait to be home with you this weekend. Well hopefully, my next blog post will come from Da Brook but if not I will give a weekend recap on Monday. Until next time...

Joe Canady
Ephesians 4:29

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Uncomfortable

So this will be a bunch of random thoughts that have been rollin through my head over the past few weeks. You've been warned. I think they all come together at some point.

So the past few weeks have been unbelievably challenging. I've had to walk through things that I have seen others around me walk through and really I've worked extra hard not to have to deal with but hey at a moment of weakness, I straight up opened myself up. I don't regret it but at the same time I don't wish the feelings and emotions that have ran rampid in my life on anyone. For Realz.
I never thought of myself to be an emotional guy at all until a few weeks ago and even now my desire is to never be vunerable and never put my self in a position to look weak. It's crazy how God breaks you down and works some crazy healing in our lives. Broken, confused, rejected, striaght up feeling worthless, I mean it was all me a few weeks ago but through the love, grace and mercy that God showed me over the course of a few day I started to realize how I have failed the Lord in a lot of areas in my life and he had to break me to get me on track in my life. Tough stuff to say the least but in the end, I'm so thankful for the last month of my life. I've learned so much more about the plan and the purpose and the calling that the Lord has on my life. It's so crazy. God is good.
What really has been on my heart the past few days is the fact that alot of my life the past few weeks has been super uncomfortable. I mean, I am honestly helpless in the situation that I'm in right now because when God delievered me from the brokenness and the terrible place that I was at a few weeks ago, I promised Him, some of my friends and myself that I would give the situation and everything else that is going on in my life, completely to Him. WOW, I can't even begin to tell you how this makes me feel from day to day. I second guess what I'm doing everyday, but then I have to say things to myself like, "God is in control" "He is seated on the throne" "If its meant to be, it will be." "If it's not God's will, then let His will be done" Now I can't truly say that this makes everything 100 percent better what it does do is it makes me realize more and more that if I can't trust God to take care of me in every way then He isn't who He said He is. And I know that ain't true at all
God is the ruler of everything, He makes no mistakes. He loves me more than anything and he has a plan for my life. (Jeramiah 29:11) I mean in the bible God promised Abraham and Sarah a boy and then Issac came along. Later on God, asks Abraham to sacrifice Issac and Abraham is willing to obey God. How uncomfortable is that? For real? Your gonna kill your son? WHOA? How in the world can I not be obedient to the Lord in this situation when people like Abraham would give his son, in obedience to the Lord. I am humbled beyond measure by stories like this all over the bible and what I know for a fact is that God never leaves us, nor forsakes us and though this situation is hard and difficult I know that God has a plan and I have to fall into it with reckless abandon. Easier said than done people.
I will close with this. I was on my morning run yesterday and I felt God speak this to me...."When are you gonna start being uncomfortable?" You know what in life, especially as a Christian at a Christian school, there aren't to many times were my life requires a ton of uncomfortableness. These past few weeks have been real tough but outside of that, what in my life is uncomfortable. I sit in the front row in every class. I sweat hard in front of girls at times. See what I know that these next few months will bring for me is a level of uncomfortableness. This summer I'm going out to Colorado to intern at a church and I will not be comfortable. I;ve already decided that. My life is not my own, and it's really time to start acting like that. You want to know why people cry about things like the health care bill or gas going up, or tithing? it's because we believe that what we have on this earth is our own and we don't want to be uncomfortable. For some of us, not knowing about what healthcare is going to look like in the future is uncomfortable. Having to pay more money for gas or paying our tithe to the Lord instead of going out to dinner those 3 times a week or getting that extra game for the xbox on a given week, its uncomfortable.
The bottom line guys is that God has called us to live uncomfortable lives. Jesus lived an uncomfortable life all the way up til he dies on the cross. Eating with tax collectors, loving on people no matter what. Jesus was perfect but in all reality we can look at situations like that to be uncomfortable. Not the norm. Jesus died for us. He dies on a cross for us. Uncomfortable. I'm not by any means a legit uncomfortable guy but I'm working on it every day. For me, holding my toungue right now about certain things is super uncomfortable because for so long I have just said whatever to get a laugh or looked down at others when I'm no where near being perfect. Now, I throw out Ephesians 4:29 and God is working to move my uncomfortableness to a feeling of being unstoppable. Folks when we start being uncomfortable in our lives, we become unstoppable because the Lord empowers us to do things that we never even dreamed or could have ever imagined. The Lord is God and I live each day to serve him and praise his name.
I'm so glad I'm blogging again because I really love it and I pray that I can continue to pound out one a day. My thoughts are really what gets me through every day because God speaks and downloads some crazy things in my life and I pray that it really starts to move me into action. well I gotta attempt to do some homework now. until next time...

Joe Canady
Ephesians 4:29