Children's Letters to God

Today I relived a piece of my childhood. I was trying to think back through all of the theatrical performances I had been a part of over the past several years, and somehow ended up listening to the cast recording of the first play I had a major part in, Children's Letters to God. For those of you who don't know what that musical is, well, you can take my word that it is a heartwarming, hilarious, and all-around fantastic story that will always be very dear to me. Yes, I might be a bit biased, but I don't really care. I will always love this story.

The musical revolves around the lives of a group of kids who are going through life together. They are asking questions and trying to find the answers, and so, as might be expected, they turn to God with those riddles that they want figured out, hoping that He will be able to solve it all for them.

Listening back through the songs--the beautiful, nostalgic songs that defined a time in my life that I was just discovering who I was--I felt like I was going to simply break down crying. I didn't, mainly because I was at school, and that probably wouldn't have been a pretty sight to see, but throughout the entire time I listened to the songs, my heart was heavy with both joy and sadness. Joy at the happy memories that listening to the wonderful music brought back to me, and sadness at both the nostalgia of those days and the slightly bittersweet nature of the play itself.

In the musical, I played a thirteen year-old boy named Brett. This boy was the oldest and sort of the leader of the group of friends, and he came from a divorced home. It was one of my favorite characters I've ever played. This kid, he was so hurt, and he just wanted answers from God, or anyone, as to why his life was changing so much. I don't think I truly understood how poignant the entire musical was when I was in it, but now, five years later, I am truly appreciating how deep and intricate Children's Letters to God is as a dramatic presentation, and also how much being a part of it meant to me.

Not only was the play itself fantastic and touching to both the actors involved, the rest of the people in the production, and the audience enjoying it, the entire experience of rehearsing, performing, and preparing for the musical was such an amazing time for me. I met so many great people by trying out, and the process of getting to know them over the months we practiced, I wouldn't trade for the world.

Some of you might be confused as to how a silly play I was in when I was fourteen could have any lasting impact on my life. I don't really know how to explain it. Part of my life began on that stage. It was one of the first times I really understood what I wanted from my life, and I what I was willing to do to get there. And I will always be incredibly thankful to everyone who was a part of that production, and everyone who has ever pushed me to be the best that I could be.

So, thank you to Spotlight on Kids, the local community theatre group that I have been a part of since Children's Letters to God. And thank you to all the wonderful actors that became a part of my life through that experience, and who gave me so much love, joy, and encouragement as we all tried to figure out how to portray these kids who just wanted to know why.

Most of all, however, I want to thank my mom. For pushing me and my brother to try out for Children's Letters to God. She knew me more than I knew myself. And even though I've figured out a lot more about life since those days five years ago, I still have a lot to learn, and I'm glad I'll have her and my dad to help me through it all.

You see, Brett didn't. And I know lots of people who come from broken families, who are going through so many things that they shouldn't have to deal with. But my parents have made a commitment. To me, to my siblings, to each other.

And together, with my family, my best friends, and everyone else who I am blessed to have as a part of my life, we can go forward with the confidence that God does have the answers to all those questions burning in our minds. And if we trust Him, we'll find the answers. Maybe not in this life, but someday.

That's enough for me.

The People Who Inspire Me

I've always had big dreams--from my very earliest memories, I knew I wanted to do something great. I've gone through dozens of possible career options (at one point I was convinced that God wanted me to be an astronaut, though I thank God that He didn't actually want me to pursue that...), but the overwhelming passion behind my desire to do something big has never diminished.

I believe that now, at the age of nineteen, I am pretty sure what direction God wants me to take on this crazy journey called life. And it's not some cut and dry thing like I thought it would be--it's going to be messy, involved, probably painful, but I am more sure now than I ever have been about what God wants me to do with my life.

I'm going to create things. For Him. For other people. Writing, songs, art in general... Creations that will glorify God and touch other people's lives. But this is all a tangent. It's not what I'm here to talk about.

Sometimes, even though I have these dreams, even though I know God wants me to follow those dreams... I get distracted.

There always seem to be those things that are more pressing. Things that demand my time and attention, things that seem just as important as any dream when I'm faced with them. Sometimes those things are important, and I should be paying attention to them, but more and more frequently I've let these things--the normal, everyday living--get in the way of living a life of purpose and meaning. I need to have focus. I need to be so driven on living my life for God and for others that everything I do is done through that filter.

No more getting by. No more being lazy. No more doing only the minimum necessary to pass. I need to live. I need to look at every task as a challenge, a chance to honor God and serve others in a way that will change the world, if only by a small margin. One of the ways I remember to live like this is because of the people in my life who constantly inspire me to be more than I am.

My parents, who have always told me to do everything with excellence, and have always tried to do that themselves, not just with the big things, but with every little situation that has ever come up in their lives. My parents are not idle, they don't half-heartedly do things. If they take up a task, they do it right. They learn what they need to learn, they do what they need to do, they try to the very best of their ability to complete something with excellence, and you might say that's rubbed off on me a little bit.

My brothers, who continue to inspire and challenge me with the way they live out their faith. Connor with his unshakable faith and conviction. Chase with his unending servitude and friendship to those around him. They humble me and test me and point me towards God more often than they could ever know. Connor and I have had many a conversation where I was being lazy or being a jerk and he has challenged me with God's Word and made me realize my mistake. And I believe I've done the same for him.

My friends. I have a lot of them, and they all inspire me, every single last one of them. The more I get to know people, the more I realize how much there is to know about people. To quote Gandalf: "You can learn all that there is to know about their ways in a month, and yet after a hundred years they can still surprise you in a pinch." I am constantly learning, being challenged, inspired, convicted, tested, and amazed by my friends. People have so much to teach, if you are willing to listen. I love hearing about people's dreams, their desires, what makes them tick. And this in turn inspires me to reach out, to live big, to be a better person, if for no other reason than to join this multitude of dreamers and explorers who want to change their world for the better.

In closing, thank you to everyone who has been a part of my life. I guarantee that you have inspired me in some way or another during my time knowing you. Everyone has something to share, something to teach, and most often the lesson I learn is that life is short, and dreams do not just magically come true. You have to work for them.

And so, I will look to the next page of the narrative. That in itself inspires me. The adventure. The journey of life that I get to go through with God and the wonderful people I know on this Earth. Living inspires me. I too easily forget how enchanting and special a single day can be. It takes days like Tuesday, March 24th, to make me realize that life isn't about getting by. It's about giving your all.

You all inspire me. Thank you for that.

I Could Be Doing So Much More

This past weekend I attended the Dare 2 Share conference in Chicago for the seventh year in a row. This was, however, the first time I attended not as a student, but a young youth leader. Of course, I got just as much out of it as I always have, but for some reason this year was also significantly different. You see, I realized with shame that I had been wasting a lot of time.

Let me back up. My favorite part of the weekend was undoubtedly the drama that was performed on Friday night. It portrayed a young girl trapped within the dark room of her mind, with all of her doubts, fears, and struggles. This young girl heard whispers from two distinct voices. The first voice is the voice of demons trying to drag her down into despair. They tell her that she is crazy, she isn't worth anything, everything that is wrong with her life is her fault, all in an attempt to try to drag her so low that she will commit suicide. The second voice is the voice of Jesus Christ. This voice seems to be haunting her like a ghost at first. It continually whispers "I am coming for you. You are mine." But eventually both the audience and the girl realize that this voice is not a ghost or a halllucination, but Jesus Christ himself. He tells the girl that she is loved, and the voice begins to grow less frightening, but its intensity does not waver.

Finally, the demons have driven her to a point where she is at her lowest. She is right on the verge of taking her own precious life. But she remembers...there is another way. She says the name of Jesus. The demons hiss and recoil. She falls to her knees and begins to beg God to save her, to rescue her, to forgive her for all of the horrible things she has done. The demons are pushed further and further away, and finally with a resounding call to her Savior, the lights and music that have been building throughout the scene reach their crescendo and blaze into glory.

I shiver.

Everything goes quiet. The door from which the voice has been calling to the girl opens, and out walks Jesus Christ. He runs to the girl, holds her, takes her arm and sees the scars of her self-harm. "I have scars too," He says. And then He embraces her.

End scene.

It was so much more vivid and intense than a simple write-up can do justice to, but it moved me in such a way that left me breathless and in awe of God's grace and in wonder of His majesty. Afterward, Greg Stier, the head of Dare 2 Share, asked the youth leaders of each group at the conference to pray over their students. I bowed my head and listened to the multitude of youth pastors praying for their beloved youth.

It was a moment I will never forget. I was reminded again of how much God loves us, and how much he cares for every single teenager, every single child, every single person in the entire world. And then I remembered that I was supposed to be caring for people too.

The prayers broke off as Greg closed with his own prayer, asking those who had not received Jesus Christ to do so in the silence of their hearts, and then I looked around to see the hundreds of students around the building--some crying, some still praying, some hugging each other or their youth pastor. I heard a noise that was somewhere between a shout and a sob, but tinged with such joy that I knew with certainty what it had meant. Someone had found out that their friend had just accepted Christ. I smiled at all of the amazing work I was seeing God do around me, and at the thought of all the work God would continue to do in the lives of the students and teachers in the room.

And then I thought deeper than that, looked into my own heart and saw what I had been missing. So often in the past I have said that I would be all in for God, and that enthusiasm wavered. It wasn't that I didn't still love God, or that I wasn't a true follower of Jesus Christ. I know that I am, and that I will be with Christ in heaven. But I was being distracted. I was wasting time.

I don't want to waste any more time.

I thought of all of the numerous opportunities I have every week to talk to people about Jesus, or even to just try to have deeper conversations with them than just a superficial surface level relationship would require. I thought of all of the times when I saw reading the Bible as a chore or a task rather than a privilege. And I was ashamed.

That's what matters, in the end. Doing whatever you can do to love God and love others. To serve God and serve others. To make deep relationships, to nurture those relationships, to be a part of people's lives in a positive way.

One of the things that has been crucial in my understanding of the necessity of being in the Word of God is this simple fact: Reading the Bible is being nourished spiritually. We are taking part of the Bread of Life. Do we skip our physical meals? Do we put them off? Do we tell ourselves that we can eat later? Of course not! We eat when we're hungry.

I'm always hungry, spiritually, and yet I find excuses to starve myself for a bit longer. How morbid is that?

Life is about love. I'm going to make time for the things that are important. If I see someone that I know God wants me to talk to, I will. When I go to the grocery store, I won't always put in headphones and try to ignore everyone. I'll go out of my way to be kind and courteous to everyone I come in contact with. Find a way to make people's days.

I'm going to make it a priority to be reading the Word, not the required "once per day", but whenever I'm "hungry". I need to learn to identify that need in myself and specifically memorize and seek after verses that will help with specific areas.

I'm going to take the time to pray for the people I meet, the people I interact with on a regular basis. I'm going to pray for the little things, the things that I might not think matter that much...but it's like, why not? It's not like God is saying "whoa, that's too much prayer, I'm getting a little bogged down here." I should be praying constantly throughout a day. I need to be in communication with God. That's the only way I'm going to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

So, I'd like to say: Thank you, Dare 2 Share, for yet another weekend of conviction. I needed that. Here's to you and your ministry. I pray that God would continue to bless you all as you continue to bless so many others.

The People Who Have Kept Me Accountable

There is a term that very neatly defines a significant portion of Christian fellowship. This term is accountability. It's one of the most important things to have a handle on as a Christian. What is it? Well, simply put, in the Christian meaning of the word, being accountable is having people around you that keep you in check, that make sure you're on the right path and expect you to live up to your responsibilities as a follower of Jesus Christ.

As Christians, we must have accountability with people. We need their iron to sharpen ours, so to speak. Being a Jesus-follower is not a solo deal, it is a community effort, a church effort, a family effort, a group effort. It takes a cloud of witnesses to raise up a young man or woman and put them on the right path. Without those checks and balances, it would be infinitely harder to follow God's Word.

And so, I'd like to acknowledge all the numerous people in my life who have kept me accountable. Who have called me out when they saw something in my life that was out of place with the example I should be setting as a young Christian man. The people who have had the guts to say things that might be considered as harsh, because they knew that was what I needed.

My parents, first and foremost. They have constantly encouraged me, uplifted me, and strengthened me, but they have continued to point me to God's standard in every situation, to challenge me to be responsible, virtuous, loving, bold, unyielding in the face of hardship or adversity. I haven't always listened to their advice. I've screwed up many times and let them down. But I would not be half the person I am today without their perseverance in my life.

And to the dozens of strong men and women in Christ who have counseled me over the years. The people who have poured their lives into me. Jonanne, the children's minister at my church, who has been such an influential and inspiring force in my life, even years after I was no longer a part of the children's ministry (at least as a student). She had patience with me when I was a rambunctious little boy who would not sit still for a moment, and she had the wisdom and clarity to know exactly what I needed to help me grow as a young man taking his first steps in a journey with Christ. There are many, many more teachers, pastors, leaders in my life that have made an impact on me, but it would take much more space than I reasonably had to name them all.

Finally, to my friends. The people I have simply done life with over the past nineteen and a half years of life. My brothers. My childhood friends. My fellow youth groupers. The young men and women I get to call my people. They have challenged me, inspired me, and driven me onward in a way that makes me smile, looking back on the years we've had together.

Thank you all for thinking I was worth it. For taking the time and energy to patiently correct me. For being willing to say whatever needed to be said for me to grow. And for loving me all the while. I cannot thank you enough.

We're All Growing Up

So, one of my best friends is getting married...and I'm still kind of in shock. When I first found out that he had proposed to his girlfriend, I freaked out a little bit. I was utterly ecstatic, dancing around the basement and talking to everyone I knew and mutually being excited with them. The best part is: I get to be in the wedding. I'm not entirely sure what my role will be yet, but I know I'm going to be a part of it, and that truly makes me happy.

And it makes me start thinking about the future. About how this is the beginning of a time in my life and my friends' lives when we'll be growing up, moving away, getting married, buying houses, being grown-ups. That's an exciting, yet nerve-wracking thought. It means that our decisions are going to continue to have more and more weight to them, and there's nothing we can do to stop that.

Things are changing. Luckily, for most of us, they're changing for the better. But that doesn't mean it will always be like that, that we won't run into hard times down the road, or even that tomorrow will be assured. But it does that mean that for right now, we can be content with where and who we are. And the best thing about it all? We all know that God's gonna be with us through it all.

Sometimes I wonder how people who don't have that ultimate hope get through life. I couldn't imagine not having God as a foundation to cling to. I'm so grateful that I do have this life, with these wonderful people in it, and this wonderful God guiding me through it.

We're all growing up. That's pretty darn cool, when you think about it. I'm excited to see where all of our lives are headed. What plans God has for all of us.

Time to turn to the next page. I can't wait to see what happens next.a

Role-Playing Games

So, I have this hobby... It involves rolling dice.

There are some people who believe it is Satanic. Most people think it's incredibly nerdy. But as a person who has played role-playing games for over ten years now, I am standing before you (figuratively, because this is the internet) and saying that both of those views are incredibly wrong and harmful to society. I believe that everyone should be involved in role-playing games (and that parents should really be pushing their kids into it), and I'll show you a few reasons why. But before I do that, I should probably explain what role-playing games (RPGs) are.

I like to explain it to people like this: RPGs are a perfect mix between an interactive storytelling experience and a board game. You want to tell a story with some friends, and the game sets up the rules to make that experience as fun as possible. The rules help you to be creative and come up against interesting challenges to make the game worthwhile. Otherwise the story would be boring, because it would be so easy to win.

Now, there are a lot of different RPGs out there. Hundreds in fact. The classic Dungeons & Dragons, of course, lets you play as warriors, wizards, priests, thieves, and a host of other things in a pseudo-medieval fantasy world in which you fight demons and dragons and go on numerous adventures in an attempt to make your character better and get rich. One of my personal favorites: The Hero System, is an incredibly diverse rule system that allows you to control every facet of character creation through the assignment of points, and as such, allows you to play in any genre imaginable with any sort of weird powers or gadgets imaginable.

Now that you have a basic idea what RPGs are, here are a few of the reasons why I think everyone should play them:

Social Interaction. Role-playing games are an incredibly social experience, and you get to know people really well when you have to work together to defeat that massive dragon that you just stumbled across. You learn social skills playing this game: conversational skills, teamwork, leadership, and so on.

Creativity. If you have ever played a role-playing game, you know what I'm talking about. There is something about the freedoms (coupled with the constraints) of an RPG that gets your mind working. You combine things you didn't think would work together before. You try new things in an attempt to solve your current problem. And that is creativity at its finest. As a player, you learn how to get into the mind of a character and make them unique. As a gamemaster (the storyteller who controls everything except the players' characters), you learn how to build a story, build a world, build an entire universe that you can play with.

Education. You learn so much through playing role-playing games. Most of the big words I know I've learned through reading books (mostly fantasy books) and playing role-playing games. Those game manuals have complicated words, man! And not only that, you learn acting skills, improvisational skills, and a host of other things that are invaluable later in life. RPGs encourage you to be creative, to have fun, and to learn.

And that is why I will always play them, and I will encourage my future kids to play them. They help you. They're fun. They're creative outlets. And I wouldn't be the person I am today without them.

Oh, and to all the people who say D&D is Satanic... Please, do your research. Don't just judge without context. I'm sure there are weird people out there who are already involved in that sort of thing and then put weird mystical stuff into their D&D sessions...but most people don't. And you shouldn't be blaming RPGs anyway, since they aren't responsible for that kind of thing. Satan is.

So, I'll raise a glass of orange juice and toast you, Mr. Gary Gygax (rest in peace), for paving the way for the rest of us to roll dice.

The People Who Forgive Me

I'd like to acknowledge all of the people who put up with me. The people who have to deal with every stupid mistake I make, and yet continue to love me and cherish me despite my flaws. I love you all so much, and I can't begin to thank you enough for the grace you've shown me. I'm not a good person--I mess up daily, saying things I don't mean, saying things I do mean but that should never have come out of my mouth, doing things that hurt other people deeply--and yet these select few people have decided that I am worth it. They see a potential in me that I have trouble ever seeing in myself, and that, more than anything else, is what keeps me going day after day. I thank God for those people. I don't know what I'd do without them.

And of course, I thank God for His own amazing grace and forgiveness in my life. He, more than anyone else, has such a right to just hate me, to wipe me off the face of the Earth, to want to have nothing to do with me because of my continued disobedience and selfishness in the face of his unending mercy. And yet with every mistake, with every step in the wrong direction, His love is the same for me. He continues to cherish me as an adopted son in His kingdom, and I have no response worthy enough for that kind of great, unfailing love. The best I can do is try as hard as I can to put on my red shoes and walk in the way He has called me to walk, sing in the way He wants to me sing, and live in the way I will honor Him by living.

There is nothing I have ever done to deserve even the slightest bit of grace or mercy in my life, not when you compare it with my ever-present failings. And yet, I am forgiven by those that I love. And I am so grateful. Here's to the people that forgive me. The God that has forgiven me. I hope you know that I will always try to do the very best I can to make up for the love and grace you've shown me. And if any of the people in my life ever fall down, fail in their own way, just know that I will be there to pick you up. I owe you that much at least. I will love you right back, and I'll forgive you like you've forgiven me.

Like He has forgiven us.

The Ways We Experience Music

I find it endlessly interesting the different ways people experience music. We're all just so different. Some people listen to classical music when they want to be de-stressed, others (such as my brother, Connor) listen to hard rock. When I listen to hard rock, I feel determined to accomplish things, but my brother and a lot of my other friends listen to it, as I said above, to calm themselves down. They described it as letting the music be angry and stressed for them so they didn't have to be.

Again, I find this so interesting.

Also, with the way people transition to different types of music: I hop from band to band and go through a phase where that's all I listen to--usually new music that I've found on NoiseTrade or something--and really get to know that music until I find a new artist to love and move on to that. This keeps me feeling refreshed in terms of music, and though I'll always come back and listen to songs from the bands I love (especially in playlists that are themed, like a love song playlist), I often get tired of some artists and can't listen to any of their music for a while. Sometimes the bands I switch to will be old bands I haven't listened to in a while, and then I listen to them almost as if for the first time, because it's been so long and I've been filling my head with so many other songs.

Others that I know find it harder to switch to new music. They'll listen to the same music they've always listened to on shuffle all the time, and they have to be in a certain mood to invest in a new song. Once they do, they'll add it to their list of music they like and shuffle it all together.

This goes into what I just love about living--finding out how people operate, discovering their interests, tastes, how they view the world, how they experience things. It's one of my absolute favorite things to do--get to know people on a personal level. Understand where they're coming from, how they got there, and what they strive for.

And music is such a dynamic thing in most of our lives...you can tell a lot about how a person experiences music. If you want to, leave a comment or two about different ways you experience music! When you're feeling a specific emotion, you listen to ...what? And so on. I'd love to read them :)

The Three Rabbis

This is a fantastic section from the book I'm reading right now by Orson Scott Card, "Speaker For The Dead". It is an epigraph at the beginning of one of the later chapters, a writing by a Christian leader in the far-future science fiction setting Mr. Card has dreamed up. I thought it was rather poignant, so I decided to share it. 

“A Great Rabbi stands, teaching in the marketplace. It happens that a husband finds proof that morning of his wife's adultery, and a mob carries her to the marketplace to stone her to death.

There is a familiar version of this story, but a friend of mine - a Speaker for the Dead - has told me of two other Rabbis that faced the same situation. Those are the ones I'm going to tell you.

The Rabbi walks forward and stands beside the woman. Out of respect for him the mob forbears and waits with the stones heavy in their hands. 'Is there any man here,' he says to them, 'who has not desired another man's wife, another woman's husband?'
They murmur and say, 'We all know the desire, but Rabbi, none of us has acted on it.'

The Rabbi says, 'Then kneel down and give thanks that God has made you strong.' He takes the woman by the hand and leads her out of the market. Just before he lets her go, he whispers to her, 'Tell the Lord Magistrate who saved his mistress, then he'll know I am his loyal servant.'

So the woman lives because the community is too corrupt to protect itself from disorder.

Another Rabbi. Another city. He goes to her and stops the mob as in the other story and says, 'Which of you is without sin? Let him cast the first stone.'

The people are abashed, and they forget their unity of purpose in the memory of their own individual sins. ‘Someday,’ they think, ‘I may be like this woman. And I’ll hope for forgiveness and another chance. I should treat her as I wish to be treated.’

As they opened their hands and let their stones fall to the ground, the Rabbi picks up one of the fallen stones, lifts it high over the woman’s head and throws it straight down with all his might. It crushes her skull and dashes her brain among the cobblestones. ‘Nor am I without sins,’ he says to the people, ‘but if we allow only perfect people to enforce the law, the law will soon be dead – and our city with it.’

So the woman died because her community was too rigid to endure her deviance.

The famous version of this story is noteworthy because it is so startlingly rare in our experience. Most communities lurch between decay and rigor mortis and when they veer too far they die. Only one Rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation.

So of course, we killed him."

Not To Be Taken Lightly

I take the Bible seriously. That may step on some toes right there, but I believe wholeheartedly that the Bible is what it says it is: a divine revelation from the Creator of the Universe. And I believe that everything the Bible says is truth. They are not just stories. They are historical narratives that really happened.

Yes, that means that God created the world in six literal twenty-four hour days. And there was a worldwide flood. And there was one language until the Tower of Babel was being built and God confused the tongues of men.

And some people would call me insane for actually believing these things.

But when the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings says something, I'm going to listen.

I will not get into the semantics of proving the authenticity of the Bible. This has been done time and time again by hundreds of different scholars and theologians and ordinary people across the expanse of time. There are no contradictions in the Bible, and there is no part of the Word of God that is not truth to its very core.

What I want to talk about it Christians who decide that they can make the Bible into anything they want it to be. They are wrong, and they are doing something unbelievably dangerous: they are compromising.

This is a shout out to all Christians: read your Bible. Trust your Bible. Do not let people convince you of something unless you check your Bible first. It is God's Word to you and to everyone, and it should not be taken lightly. You should not set aside parts of the Bible that make you uncomfortable or that you don't agree with. That is wrong, and that is dangerous.

You should read the Bible as much as you can and learn as much as you can from it. God has things to say to you. But you should not decide arbitrarily what parts of the Bible you want to believe. Once you do that, you are not a Christian. You have created a god for yourself that is nothing like the God of the Bible.

Genesis is not a myth. Anyone who just reads those words at face value can argue otherwise. It's only when we decide that we want to shove man's opinions into this perfect book that it starts to get fuzzy. God is explicitly clear about what happened and how it happened. Everything in Genesis is historical narrative and that means that the world is six thousand years old and Darwin's ideas are null and void. If you are a Christian and you believe that God used evolution, you are wrong, and you have been influenced by atheists who want to make a world without God and therefore without accountability.

If you are unsure about something that the Bible says, read the Bible. If you find a part of the Bible that you are uncomfortable with, research that using other parts of the Bible, research it using other books, talk to other people, but always come back to the Bible, because that is the only thing that is truth, in the end.

If you aren't a Christian, you're probably screaming at me right now, thinking I'm crazy for basing everything I believe on one book and one book only. But I'm not talking to you. That's a conversation for another day. Christians: if you say you are a follower of God, the Bible is where you should base all of your opinions, all of the things you count as fact, and all of the things that you believe in. Obviously the Bible doesn't touch on a lot of topics in every day life, but if anything you learn in any situation seems to contradict the Bible, read the Bible and you will find a perfect explanation if you let God speak to you.

There are no contradictions in the Bible. Plain and simple. Anyone who thinks otherwise can challenge me, and though I might not know the answer at first to a specific question, I will find it and I will prove the contradiction to be nonexistent. You can count on that. Whether you accept it at that point is irrelevant.

As a last little thing here: you do God a disservice when you spend hours and days and months and years trying to prove a specific theology right or wrong just so you can be right about something or justify your own actions. The Bible is pretty clear, and though you obviously can't know all of the answers just by reading through it once, you can know exactly what it means to be a Christian and what is required of you as a follower of Jesus by simply reading the Word of God with an open heart, willing to be molded and shaped by Jesus Christ.

So, to close: read your Bible. It's the most important book you'll ever open.

The Girl Who Read My Book

Today I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge a person that made a tremendous influence on my life, despite the fact that I don't really know her that well. When I was first writing my epic fantasy novel, tentatively titled at that point "Incipient", I was just learning the ropes. I really had no idea what I was doing--I had based the book on the D&D campaign I ran for my friends, mostly because of how fun that story was and how much we all loved the characters. I had it in my mind that I would make the best book ever off of these characters' adventures, and then go on to write two more in an epic trilogy with dozens of viewpoint characters spread out across the world all involved in this amazing plot I had dreamed up.

It failed, for obvious reasons. I had too many rookie mistakes--too many viewpoints too quickly, too little really happening to catch interest, and way too many flashbacks interspersed among scenes Lost-style. But the characters, for the most part, were solid, and I do intend to go back and finish that book someday, albeit with a major overhaul.

Despite the book's faults, I attracted a reader on one of the forums I post my work on for critique. Her name was Emily, and one of the first things she commented when she read the prologue to my novel was "*shivers* Wow."

That was the beginning of an amazing journey.

Emily went on to avidly devour every chapter I posted, becoming immersed in my story and my characters and genuinely loving the entire experience. It was the coolest thing. She even made me a stick figure sketch of some of my characters--my first fan art. And best of all, she encouraged me to keep writing. Without her constant encouragement, feedback, and nagging when I didn't have a chapter up, I might not be pursuing a career in writing genre fiction.

She was the first person to see what I was trying to do. To really get it. She took my characters and she made them her own, like any reader of a good book will do. Looking back, there were some things I did right with that book, but for the most part, it was sort of hodge-podge and convoluted. But Emily saw the diamond in the rough. She saw the story that I was trying to tell, and she gave me her honest reaction to each scene, which helped so much to see what I was doing wrong and how I could fix it.

We don't keep in touch anymore, sadly, because of both of our lives being crazy, but someday I hope to get back in contact with her, or maybe even meet her in person and give her a big hug and tell her how much her simple enjoyment of my story meant to me. And you can get bet that when (not if, but when) I start publishing novels, one of them will be dedicated to her.

Here's to you, Emily, wherever you are. Thanks for everything. Thanks for believing in me. And thank you for showing me so much kindness.

EDIT: Oh, and if you want to see the fan art she drew for me... Here you go!

Explanation for what's going on here: I had written a good villain (Vangen), apparently, because Emily hated him (for the right reasons) and all she wanted was for my character Striker (who was working for the bad guys at the time) to save the poor slave girl that was being abused by Vangen. He didn't do so, so she took it into her own hands and created this.

And The Tears, They Finally Came

I'm sitting in the car, waiting for my brother to be finished with his dance lesson. He's part of a hip-hop class, and he's really good at it. He loves dancing. And I'm proud of him. But that's not what I'm thinking about.

I grab the novel sitting on the center console between the two front seats of the Suburban--I'm almost finished. I read for almost two hours today in the car on the way back from Dubuque. That might be why my stomach is churning and I have a headache. Or maybe it's because of something else.

I start reading. This book is good. The fourth book of one of my favorite series--I'm doing my annual reread of all of David Eddings' books. But I still don't feel well, and my eyes are strained from motion sickness, and so I put it down after only a few pages. I start feeling tired. Maybe I should just shut the lights off and try to take a nap or something. Not like that ever goes well for me. But I'm literally about to fall asleep, so...

I grab my headphones and start to put them in, searching through my music for some soft instrumental pieces to fall asleep to. I don't always do that, but sometimes it helps. I pick a Lowercase Noises track and close my eyes.

I can't fall asleep. The track is "Persistence", and it's one of those wonderfully nostalgic pieces that reminds me of the past and has me looking towards the future. I sigh and realize that I'm wide awake now, my thoughts racing at a hundred miles an hour. Four hours ago was the last time I saw them. The last time I'd see them for a long time. Again.

I haven't been sad about it, really. They're going to a fantastic college with fantastic people and learning fantastic things. I miss them, and they miss me, but we're all okay with the way things are. And that's pretty awesome. They have a home in Missouri now. I'm so excited for them.

We'll keep in touch. I know we will. And life is different, but life is still great, and God is still good. And I'll see them again along the road. But the music is still playing in my ears, and I feel nostalgic. So I take out the letter that she wrote to me.

I read it for the second time today. I smiled the first time I read it, after we all left Dubuque--I headed back to Janesville, and they headed back to Moberly. I smile again as I read it to nostalgic music. But this time I cry. I knew it was going to happen eventually, I'm a pretty emotional person. But it's not a sad, bitter cry, as so many have been before it. It's a happy little sob that wrenches at my heart and turns my brain to jelly as I thank God for everything that is amazing in my life.

It feels like a dam breaking loose, setting my emotions free and taking with it any remaining sense of loss I was holding on to. I finish the letter as I continue to sob. I grab my phone as a short verse comes to my mind. I start composing a tweet.

And the tears, they finally came
In between these bouts of rain
Time will tell, time will show
When this rain will make the flowers grow

I hit send.

2015 is just beginning. Life will be different. But life will be good. I know this.

My friends are still my friends, no matter where life takes us. I love them, they love me. Even if we disagree at times, even if things may drive us apart... We share something that ordinary people just don't understand. You see, we all met at this church in Janesville, and we all grew and learned and leaned on each other as we all held God's hand. And I don't think any of us will ever forget that. I still have them. I still have her.

That's enough.

The Girl

You try to work up the courage
To face your father again
But you ask “is it worth it?”
You already know how it’ll end

He wants you to grow up
To put aside those childish things
He’s had enough with who you are
Now he’s tryin’ to make you into someone you don’t want to be

Reach out, don’t hide
There’s a life waiting for you on the other side
You shout, and cry
Your tears can stain my shoulder, yeah, I don’t mind

Another night spent screaming
Shattered glass covers the floor
He raises his fist, you stop breathing
And you pray, God please no more

A rose blossoms on your cheek
As you crash to the ground
Your father tells you, “you’re so weak.”
But he doesn’t hear the whispered prayer, no, he doesn’t hear the sound
Of your voice over his, you’re crying

“Please, I can’t take one more step
God, won’t you save me from this death?
If I could hear Your battle cry
Your hand reaching out and grasping mine…”

Reach out, don’t hide
There’s a life waiting for you on the other side
You shout, and cry
Your tears can stain my shoulder, yeah, I don’t mind

If there’s one thing I could say
It’s “please God, take her pain away
Remind her that she’s not alone
Hold her hand and bring her home
To us, bring her home to us”

We’ll reach out, we won’t hide
Yeah, there’s a life waiting for us on the other side
We’ll shout and we’ll cry
But our tears can stain His shoulder, He won’t mind

This song was written first in inspiration of one of the main characters of my novel, To Look Skyward: a girl named Ilendia. But the more I got into the song, the more I started being inspired by some of the people from my own life, friends of mine who have gone through horrible family situations, and then this song became theirs. It's a plea to those who struggle to reach out and ask for help. You do not have to fight the darkness with a single candle.

My Writing Process

I want to be a writer. That is what I'm jumping for. And I don't want to be a journalist, I don't want to be a corporate writer, I don't even want to be a blogger, despite what I've written on here or my other blog. I want to be a storyteller. And I don't care if that's unrealistic--that's what I want to do, and that's what God has placed in my heart to do.

I've written and rewritten many stories, and yet never actually finished anything major. As of now, I have written many short stories, and one novella, which I am very proud of, but I have never finished a novel. I've written the first part of a novel--60,000 words of three parallel storylines that come to satisfying conclusions, but only if you have another 60k or 100k words to back it up--and the first few chapters of dozens of novels, but I've had a problem with finishing things. With the book I'm on right now, To Look Skyward, I plan to change that. It's going to be a massive undertaking. I'm already 50,000 words in, having finished NaNoWriMo with it, and I have barely even scratched the surface of the story. But I'll do it, and I'll revise it until it's a great story, and then I'll submit it. And then I'll start a new book. Because that's the life I've chosen for myself.

But enough about that. Let's talk about my writing process. It's changed considerably over the years I've been writing, and I continue to learn new things about how my brain works, and how I can best equip my mind to make quality stories. NaNoWriMo, especially, taught me many things about how I write.

I’ve been told there is a sliding scale to being a writer—on one end you have the discovery writer, who makes it up as they go, does what the story demands, what the characters want, rather than sticking to an outline. They do multiple drafts of one book, and some say their first draft is really just an incredibly extensive outline. On the other end you have the outliner—the guy who details what’s going to happen in every chapter, step by step, before he even puts his hand to the keys. The story doesn’t get away from him, he knows where he’s going from start to finish. And though something major may change during the course of the book, he usually has a very firm ending already in mind when he starts writing.

I’m somewhere in the middle between those two extremes, as most people are. I tend to spend a lot of time thinking about a book, envisioning key scenes and characters, listening to a specific film score I pick out for the story, helping me see certain events and set them to music in my head. I have a basic idea of what the story is going to be about, who is going to be major players, and what the ending is going to look like.

Then I write—I start with the first chapter and go. Beginnings are usually easy—since I’ve been thinking about this story for a while now, the beginning and the ending are usually firm in my mind, as well as a few key scenes that I want to happen in the middle. After that first chapter, though, I take another step back.

And then I outline the second chapter all the way through, figuring out what will be the goal, conflict, and outcome of each scene, trying to end with a satisfying resolution for that mini-arc of story. Then I write that out all the way to the end of the chapter.

But, I really don’t end up sticking to the outline very much. I’m probably more of a discovery writer than an outliner in a scene by scene basis. I let things fall where they may, writing myself into the story and the characters and letting them take it where they want it to. I make up characters on the fly when I need a specific person to be there, I change key events to make a better flow. And I usually end up changing the climax I had in mind considerably. Though I may plan out when a chapter ends, it almost always turns out to end sooner than I thought. I tend to end chapters when I feel the climax has come, a satisfying resolution has been accomplished. And I love to end a chapter (and a scene) on a great line that sets the tone and leaves you with a sense of completion, yet looking towards the future.

With To Look Skyward, my standard process has stayed mostly the same, though I did outline much more heavily than I ever have before. During the actual writing, I've realized dozens of things that have changed the outline and made it better, and I'll realize dozen more things as I continue to churn out the story. And though I have a basic idea of what my ending will be, and where I want to end up, the second half of TLS is much less defined than the first half. If I reach the halfway point and still don't quite know where I want the last half to go, I'll sit down with a few friends and brainstorm some ideas based on what I already have. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I still have a long way to go.

One of the things that I learned during NaNoWriMo that I'll add--I have to edit. Some writers talk about turning off their internal editor and just writing without any restraints, but I just cannot work that way. I am constantly checking and rechecking my writing as I go, making sure that the scene is cohesive and it's headed in the right direction, the continuity is consistent, and the wording is how I'd like it to be. Not to the point that it takes me forever to write something (I write fairly quickly anyway), but enough to make the completed first draft of a scene of mine pretty workable by the time I'm through.

One of the main things that went wrong during NaNoWriMo for me was when I got behind. I knew I couldn't do my normal checking and rechecking of the scene, and so I was forced to barrel onward when I knew the writing I was leaving behind wasn't good. It frustrated me so much. I ended up finishing a chapter just to finish it, and sent my character in a completely random direction simply because I had no idea what to do next. Once NaNoWriMo was over, I took a step back, deleted all of the text after the point I had gotten stuck, and tried again. I was so much more satisfied with the new version of the chapter than the old, because I got to take some time to truly think about the scene and what it needed, rather than writing it simply to be writing.

For some people, that works, and they could write a bunch of scenes that they know they're going to throw away completely or rewrite the heck out of, and they can do a dozen drafts, but I just don't work like that. I like to be neater than that, and have my first drafts make as much cohesive sense as possible.

To close this slightly rambly entry, I'd like to talk about one of my favorite podcasts, Writing Excuses, with some of my favorite authors--Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Howard Tayler, and Mary Robinette-Kowal. They are on their tenth season, and are the main reason I know how to write a story. Their tips and tricks have been so unbelievably helpful to me, and have helped me shape my writing process, and now, for their tenth season, they are structuring the entire year of podcasts as a master class! And that has me super excited, because it means I get to learn more about the art of writing in a way that'll be super informative (not that it hasn't already been informative...)! So, if you're at all interested in writing science fiction, fantasy, horror, or any other kind of genre fiction, check out Writing Excuses, and get in on this awesome master class thing they're doing. You won't regret it.

That's all from the guy who likes to fancy himself a storyteller.

Brother (I've Been There Before)

The title of this post is also the title of one of my favorite songs, written and performed by a band called the New Ancestors. It tells the story of a brother who has made mistakes, so many mistakes, and is now pleading with his sibling to keep fighting, keep going on the straight and narrow.

That song defines my life more than I'd ever care to admit.

I am the older brother who always screwed everything up. I would always be the one fighting with our parents. I was the one who would say something stupid and really hurt one of my brothers. I was the one who would make the bad decisions, and reap the consequences. My brothers didn't have to--I was making enough mistakes for all three of us.

I still feel like that, even at nineteen. I'm not saying I am a horribly sinful person who is secretly not following after God and will walk away from my faith the first chance I get. I am saying that I'm a broken human being who has made more mistakes than I would ever care to share.

But the point of this journal entry is not to talk about my mistakes, or wallow in self-pity. The reason I'm writing this is to tell you how much I love my brothers, and how proud I am of them. They are better people now than I ever was, and maybe ever will be. They consistently follow after God with all of their hearts and minds, and have not compromised. Not like I have.

I was having a conversation with one of my friends the other day about how great of a guy my brother Connor was. We eventually just said "he's just awesome. I'll never be as a great as he is." And we both knew it was true. My brother Connor is an amazing young man that is following after God with everything he has. I'm not saying he's perfect, or that he has it all together, and I'm not idolizing him. I'm simply stating fact. He has consistently followed after and sought after God in a way that I can't claim to.

Connor sees everything in black and white. He does not compromise--and yet, when he's confronted with the truth, when he's confronted with a mistake he's made, he will own up to it. He won't make excuses. He'll check his behavior with what the Word of God says, and if he's found wanting, he will change. He's pretty great like that. I've had so many good conversations with him about everything--from God to stories to science to politics--and talking with him may be one of my favorite things to do. Ever.

And even though we think in completely different ways, we get along unbelievably well. We agree on pretty much everything, and when one of us disagrees, we talk it out and check with the Bible and end up figuring out the answer that proves both of us wrong and points us in the right direction.

And my little brother, Chase. He is the greatest kid. He's always nice to everyone around him, and so ready to serve. His friends love him, and he is loyal, kind, and amazingly tender-hearted. And he's observant, perceptive. He can usually tell you what's going on with a person just by listening to them talk and analyzing their behavior. And I am so unbelievably proud of how earnestly he seeks after God. He's also very adventurous and loves using his imagination--in a way that poignantly reminds me of my own childhood.

All this to say, I love them both. They've learned from their mistakes, and I've learned from mine (and they've learned from mine), and we're all better for it. One of the things I most look forward to is seeing what God has in store for each of us. All I know is that I couldn't ask for better siblings, better friends, better brothers to stand side by side with as we face life together.

So, here's to you, Connor and Chase. And here's to never growing up.

The Only Thing I'm Sure Of Is Things Will Change

Take a look at this city
What do you see?
63,000 people
And counting

Yeah, it’s not much to look at
But that doesn't bother me
Because it’s this city
That gave me so much clarity

Zoom in on a church at the end of this street
See a dozen young men and women
Trying to figure out who they’re supposed to be
Cause we don’t know yet, but we’re learning

I remember, those warm summer nights
When we were all together,everything was alright
It’s been too long

It’s been forever, so how have you been?
Do you still remember, our promise way back then
I wrote it in a song

Zoom out and we’re all in different places
A dozen points on this map
Don’t understand who they’re supposed to be
Yeah, we don’t know yet, but we’re learning

Everything we've said is burned into my mind
I wrote it all down in case we had the time
To go back to those days when everything was fine
Everything was fine

So, I’ll take all these words and I’ll write a million songs
Maybe someday we’ll all find where we belong
Please forgive me for all those times when I was wrong
Those times when I was wrong

So, I’ll use words like ink and my voice just like a pen
Trying to define my emotions once again
The only thing to say is bear with me my friends
Cause this is not the end

Oh my friends, the only thing I’m sure of is that things will change
No, I won’t pretend--the only thing I hope for is that things won’t change
At least not enough to matter in the end, oh...
This world will try to break us but we won’t bend, no…
Cause we have something they don’t understand, whoa!
Cause we have something they don’t understand

Take a look at this city
What do you see?
63,000 people and a dozen more leaving
As you go take a look back
I pray that you see
That is was this city and these people
That gave you so much clarity

Zoom out and we’re all in different places
Zoom back in and I’m still here
Don’t understand who I’m supposed to be
Oh, I don’t know yet, but I’m learning

We don’t know yet, but we’re learning

God Is Love, But Love Is Not Always Nice

Over the past few months, I've really dug into an interesting concept: what it means to love people as a Christian. There are all sorts of views about this, and most of them can be categorized in one of two categories: "Love" and "Justice". People on one extreme say that we should never judge anyone and just "love" everyone, in which they mean give them grace in such a way that ignores their actions and the consequences for their actions. On the other extreme, you have people who are going around telling everyone how wrong they are, and that they're going to hell, and God is going to judge them for the horrible things they're doing. Neither extreme has it right, and as in most things I've found related to God, there is a balance between the two that we as Christians need to walk. But the more I thought and studied the topic, the more I've come to believe that "love" and "justice" are misleading terms, since the two are actually mutually inclusive. But let me back up.

God is love. One can know this simply by reading any part of the Bible with an open mind--the thread of God's love for humanity lies throughout the entire narrative, in every poem and song, in every historical account, in every prophecy, you can see the overwhelming desire of God's to be in an intimate relationship with His creation.

But we need to define the term love, as Christians. After some considerable thought, I believe that this simple definition might be the most accurate: loving someone is giving them what they need emotionally. Most of the time, that is acceptance, companionship, grace, servitude--being there for someone. Everyone has a deeply rooted desire to feel like they belong, and loving someone truly is to show them that they do belong, and that they are accepted. But if love can be defined as giving people what they need, then there comes a point when what someone needs is not going to be what they want.

My parents can tell you this, from hundreds of experiences throughout their illustrious careers as youth leaders, that loving people with the truth is hard, but necessary. They've told me time and time again that you have to be okay with people not liking you for a while, maybe even hating you. But hopefully, as God works on their heart, the person you spoke truth to will be able to look back and thank you for it.

Obviously, different situations call for different approaches. For the most part, if you're in a situation with a non-Christian, and they are involved in sin, calling them out on it will neither be productive or loving. But there also come times when the truth does need to be spoken, and at that point the most loving thing to do is often not what modern Christians would call "loving".

We, as Christians, need to keep each other accountable with our actions and our words, and dancing around subjects because you don't want to hurt people's feelings is a horrible way to do that. There needs to come a point when one follower of Jesus Christ looks at another follower of Jesus Christ and is able to say "what you're doing is wrong, and you need to stop", and the recipient of that criticism will be able to, with an open mind, evaluate their actions and line it up against what the Bible says. If they are in error, they should change. If they are not, well, God's Word takes prevalence over man's.

In that sort of a situation, one obviously needs to make sure that one's own actions and words are being held to the same standard, so as to not be hypocritical, but using your own faults as an excuse not to lovingly correct someone else's (in the context of brothers and sisters in Christ) is not only unloving, but it's really sort of a cop-out. We have a responsibility to people on this earth. We're all headed in a downward spiral further away from God, and only by keeping each other accountable to God's moral standards and guidelines for our lives will we be able to have credibility when speaking on His behalf.

This is not to say that we are not broken people. Of course we are. And we will undoubtedly make mistakes. But there is a difference between stumbling and falling, and that difference is what defines those that have surrendered to their sin and those that have surrendered to God. Iron sharpens iron, and sometimes that process will hurt, and it will create sparks. But in the end, we will be better for it.

So, really, the love versus justice argument is faulty. Love is justice, and it is grace, mercy, acceptance, truth, and a host of other things. God is love, and so every aspect of God's character is an aspect of the definition of love. The same God who died on the cross for the sins of every man also told the adulteress to go and sin no more. And that was exactly what that woman needed in that situation--Jesus did not condemn her, He did not throw stones, but he did not pull any punches. He spoke the truth in love, and that was probably the turning point in her life.

As a closing thought, the thing we need to be most careful with when trying to be more like Jesus is letting our pride get in the way. This can take many different forms--thinking that we are so good that our sole duty is to tell people how they are wrong without challenging our own brokenness, being so caught up in the theology of what love is or isn't that we lose sight of the people we're supposed to be loving...even using our own weaknesses as an excuse to not try to live up to God's standards for our lives, no matter the cost, can be a form of pride--focusing so much on how screwed up we are that we forget that God redeemed us, and that means we have a responsibility to everyone around us.

In the end, God is who the Bible reveals him to be, and trying to put him into the "mercy" camp or the "justice" camp is neither correct theology nor anything but an unproductive waste of time. God is love, and love is anything that God would do. Follow His example, and don't let your own feelings get mixed up in it, and you'll be fine.

The Anticipation of Contentment

One of the things that I've been thinking about a lot over the last few months is the subject of contentment. Being happy with where you are in any moment--not regretting the past or longing for the future (or the other way around), but simply being present and living for the here and now.

All of our lives as human beings, our natural tendency is to rely on anticipation. We wait for the year that we've convinced ourselves will be "where our lives truly start". When we start dating. When we get a job. When we get married. When we finish college. When we have kids. But those moments often come and go, and they don't fulfill our expectations how we thought they ought to.

The event, no matter how great it is, will never live up to the expectations we've set up for it. That birthday party will never be quite as fantastic as you pictured it in your head. That's just the way the world is. And the more we rely on expectations, the more we wish we were in a different place and time than we are now, the more we become disconnected and unhappy with where we are right now.

And that's not what God called us to do or be. He calls us to be content in every circumstance--to trust Him. The more I live my life, the more I realize how horrible a sin worrying really is. When we worry, we not only waste time, we aren't trusting God.

The level of happiness and joy in our lives is directly dependent on our level of trust in God. And until we can learn to be content in every situation we find ourselves in, and not be longing for or dreading things that may or may not ever happen, we will be anxious.

There will never be a point in your life where you can say you've arrived. There will never be a time that you can look at definitively and say "I was the closest to God I'll ever be right about then" or "I was the happiest I'll ever be at that point in my life" because it's simply not true. Or at least it doesn't have to be. People are constantly growing and changing, sometimes for the worse, but sometimes for the better. But looking forward in time and thinking "I'll be a follower of God when that happens" or "I'll be happy when that happens" is just wrong, and it will drive your focus away from what God has for you in this very moment.

You have to live every moment as if it's the best moment of your life. Joy, pure joy, is not something you just stumble upon--it is something that you strive for. It is something that comes from a conscious change of attitude. If you base your actions on however you're feeling at the moment, what happens when you're feeling depressed? God has better things for you to do than to wallow in melancholy because of how horrible a person you are.

Life is about your attitude. There's only so much that other people can do. The rest is up to you. You have the Living God inside of you, and all you have to do is ask for his Holy Spirit to fill you up, and bam, it's there. And that is a conscious choice you have. Life is not about what you're feeling. Life is about what you choose to do with those feelings.

So, let's go. Let's live in the moment. Be content with who we are, where we are, right now. God has some amazing things for us to do, and all we have to do is take a step of faith and trust Him, and He'll lead us. Stop longing for a time when things were better. Stop worrying about what the future might hold.

You're alive now, and you have a job to do.