If i'd have just waited a few more months, it would have been a year!

Been a while since a post!

New sites now:

www.ajwade.com

www.myspace.com/scguycw

Peace!

The "W" in Christmas

So God sent this my way yesterday and It was quite the timely reminder.....read on:

Each December, I vowed to make Christmas a calm and  peaceful  experience. I had cut back on nonessential  obligations -- extensive card writing, endless baking, decorating, and even  overspending. Yet still, I found myself exhausted, unable to appreciate  the precious family moments, and of course, the true meaning of  Christmas.

My son, Nicholas, was in kindergarten that year. It  was an exciting season for a six-year-old. For weeks, he'd been  memorizing songs for his school's "Winter Pageant." I didn't have the heart to tell him I'd be working the night of the  production. Unwilling to miss his shining moment, I spoke with his  teacher. She assured me there'd be a dress rehearsal the morning of  the presentation. All parents unable to attend that evening were welcome to come then. Fortunately, Nicholas seemed happy with the compromise.

So, the morning of the dress rehearsal, I filed in ten minutes early,  found a spot on the cafeteria floor and sat down. Around the room, I saw several other parents quietly scampering to their seats. As I waited, the students were led into the room. Each class, accompanied by their teacher, sat cross-legged on the floor.

Then, each group, one by one, rose to perform their song. Because the public school system had long stopped referring to the holiday as Christmas," I didn't expect anything other than fun, commercial entertainment - songs of reindeer, Santa Claus, snowflakes and good cheer.  

So, when my son's class rose to sing, "Christmas Love," I was slightly taken aback by its bold title.

Nicholas was aglow, as were all of his classmates, adorned in fuzzy mittens, red sweaters, and bright snowcaps upon their heads. Those in the front row-center stage -- held up large letters, one by one, to spell out the title of the song. As the class would sing "C is for Christmas," a child would hold up the letter C. Then, "H is for Happy," and on and on, until each child holding up his portion had presented the complete message, "Christmas Love."

The performance was going smoothly, until suddenly, we noticed her; a small, quiet, girl in the front row holding the letter "M" upside down -- totally unaware her letter "M" appeared as a "W." The audience of 1^st through 6th graders snickered at this little one's mistake. But she had no idea they were laughing at her, so she stood tall, proudly holding her "W." Although many teachers tried to shush the children, the laughter continued until the last letter was raised, and we all saw it together. A hush came over the audience and eyes began to widen. In that instant, we understood the reason we were there, why we celebrated the holiday in the first place, why even in the chaos, there was a purpose for our festivities. For when the last letter was held high, the message read loud and clear: 

"C H R I S T W A S L O V E"

And, I believe, He still is.

Amazed in His presence..

Humbled by His love.

May each of you have a Merry Christmas as you reflect

on His Amazing

Love for us...

Withholding No Sacrafice.....

So the closeness of the end of my four years in my bachelor's degree program is perpetually before me as of late. As I have been pondering this here lately God has been kinda tapping me on the shoulder lately....I've had four years to "find" myself as some might say. I've had four years to come to my sences and get out of this plan for spending my life in ministry. I've had four years to second guess my callings, my committments, and all that God has placed in my life. As I am so quicly coming down to graduation and the point where I will have to step out, not think about, reasearch, or plan, but actually step out into the next step to fulfilling what God has called me to do. 

I must say that life most definitely has it's ups and downs, and no day comes without challenges, but I honestly can bring nothing more than praise to my Lord for how amazing that He is! I am still so very unworthy, still so sinful, still such a failure, still so in need of a savior to hold me up through every step that I take. And in spite of all my disqualifications, He still loves me and chooses to allow me to be a part of what He's doing in the world. I am loved with an undeserved, unrelentless, unchanging, undieing love of a Father who call's me His own and know's me by name! I love my Lord!

So yesterday I was reading (imagin that...lol....im such a nerd) and I came across a paragraph that called it's readers to spend time in the presence of the Lord. Upon reading it, I thought it was just another "cool sounding" christian sentence (you know the ones, kinda like the answers we give in sunday school) and it went on to say that as we spend time in God's presence, the figurative (or maybe not figurative..lol) light of His holy fire will burn away all the imperfections in our lives, leaving us as a vessle that's useful for His work. And then it went on to say that once that is complete'd, that should we continue spending time in His presence that His holy light would then begin to burn away even the features of our lives that make us identifiable......the end result being that nothing would be left except a perfect picture of Him. A completely sold out, fully devoted tool, to be used in His work.

So with such in mind, I must say that its a little mind boggling. In my self absorbed little world, the thought of what makes me unique dissapearing seems like a "not-cool" kinda deal, but then again....what did He place us here for? It wasen't to fulfill our dreams, or to reach our goals....it was to love Him with all of our hearts, and to serve Him with all of our lives.

I came across this song that just says it all:

"To you I give my life, not just the parts I want to
To you I sacrifice these dreams that I hold on to
To you I give my future, As long as it may last
To you I give my present, To you I give my past

Because
Your thoughts are higher than mine
Your words are deeper than mine
Your love is staronger than mine
This is no sacrifice
Here's my life"

Another lesson learned....

And now begins the monthly update...lol. So much has transpired since the last post. Ranging in fact from sending in my applications for seminary to getting a girlfriend. My what a sence of humor that God has. So im sitting here at work this morning...um..."working", and Ive got the ipod plugged in. Seriously, the stupid thing is like a drug. I swore that I wouldnt spend that much money on an mp3 player, and now I can't leave the freakin house without the stupid thing. Its even in that silly little mental check list you go through: phone, keys, wallet, ipod....ahhh! Anyway....So im sitting here listening to the CGB playing "you" from their number 5 album, and God just comes by and whacks me in the back of the head.

"Bigger than the air I breathe, Deeper than the ocean deep, higher than the starts above you are.

Brighter than the blazing sun, louder than the screaming crowds, stronger than the power of death you are.

Your love can melt the hardest heart, your words can bring the dead to life. Nothing is impossible for you.

In the Heavens on the earth, there is no one like you God. And these words are not enough to tell of who you are."

ok, so thats not the chronological order of the song...but who cares, it just left me awe struck again. Kinda funny how God just never gets old, and theres always this breath taking freshness to everything when He comes by. So onto the point...I'm stuck in a group with five other students in my new business enterprise class at coastal, and there is one member of our group who just discusts me. He's a slacker, wont pull his share of the work, is involved in a lot of very serious sin, and to make it better, he just fits my bill of crap that aggrevates me. So basically this guy doesnt have to do much more than breathe to aggrevate me. Just yesterday were sitting in class and its time for another project to be due, so Im'a have to deal with him again, and Im sitting there just discusted by it, and God just up and breaks into my conversation that im having with myself and asks me just who that I think I am...lol. He has a pretty commanding presence. I was kinda struck by it, but didnt have time to ponder on it, so I just kinda went on about my business for the rest of the day, and then today im sitting here at the office, trying to work and God comes back to finish the "talk"...lol. So im listening to the song, and my eyes are just reopened again to how terribly far that I still have to go to be able to understand how to love others as Jesus did. I realized that before I came to know Christ, my sin discusted Jesus in the same way that the guy's in my class does me. I recognized that I was once an outsider too, once lost, once out of reach, once set in my own way, doing stuff on my schedule, and living life by my plans. But God looked down on my one night, and gave me the change to have a part of something so much greater. Basically God reminded me that while I had been spending all this time "not liking the guy", i had not once attempted to share the love of Christ with him.

Lord please forgive my inability to love others. It seems that I still have so far to go. And with that said, I press forward; on towards the prize that is Christ Jesus, another lesson learned, and a new opportunity before me. Pray for my lost brother, and pray that I will have some impact on him that will lead him to meet Jesus.

Ok....So I made this Xanga Profile about 2 summers ago, and I really havent done anything with it since. Since I don't already waste enough time playing with facebook and myspace, I have decided to start playing with this as well.  So here goes my first "blog like" post:

Last weekend we took the kids to the clemson vs. louisana tech game in Clemson. What a day that was! I left the house at 4:30am saturday morning and rolled back into the drive way at 4:30 Sunday morning...it was a long one. We took 47 kids up with us in 2 fifteen passenger vans, 1 twelve passenger, and a mini-van. Now, I gotta tell ya...If you wanna be "blessed", go spend 24 hours with 47 kids....about 10 hours of which is in a van..lol. We had an awesome time, and the FCA guys did a great job with the youth rally. They really could'a left it as a very shallow "lets feel good" type thing, but they jumped right too it and challenged the students. There were almost 50 who made a decision that day, so bravo for the FCA crew in clemson, they did it up right. The game was a pretty boring thing. We left at the end of the 3rd quarter to cut out some of the traffic lag...lol....the game so far had been kinda boring anyway: "Clemson with another touchdown". It ended up 50 - 0, clemson....so hopefully next year Louisiana sends something other than their B-squad team.

So I get home from the trip at about 4:30am, and just crash. (nothing like 24 hrs. straight to help with the crashing). I wake up 3 hours later to get to the church and prepare the pastor's morning sermon notes. Pretty awesome sunday morning and then I go home and begin to study for the evening service. I had accepted the offer to preach from my pastor while he was starting a revival that sunday evening, not knowing that the clemson trip was this weekend, so Im finishing my notes as best I can with my 3 hours of sleep. It was most definitely one of those "God's teaching another lesson" type things. Cause I got up on the stage, and as always, Im praying the whole way up: "God hide me, don't let them see or hear me...hide me behind the cross. God come do this, because I know if you come do this, somebody can be touched". I get up there an start and Ive never been so lost. I couldn't make a complete point, I couldn't complete a thought, heck...I could barely speak straight. About 5 minutes into it I was really considering just sitting down, because I felt like I was up there all alone. Im just screaming in my head: "God what are you doing?/????", and I finish my part, and start a video of Mark Hall's testimony. (the message was about stepping up and being what God called you to be. Not sitting back because of limits or problems, or mistakes, etc...but realizing that we can't do it on our own, and that if were gonna be useful, we just have to die and let Him live through us.). The testimony video ends, and I just stand up and repeat the last words that mark hall said in his testimony: "God doesn't need us, He wants us", "God is gonna do something awesome in the world, I just wanna know if you wanna come along". And God just falls all over the place. The altar fills, mainly with the students. (They're really the awake ones in the church. - unfortunetly thats the common situation in so many of our churches everywhere you go anymore. God's had to cast off the old stiffnecked generation and has moved to a generation who will hear and heed His call.) God started something there the other night that I don't think is anywhere near from being finished. Im just praying that long after theyve all grown and moved on, maybe they wont remember me, or that night at the church, but im praying that they always remember: "God doesnt need us, He wants us"

Ok...so theres my first "Blog like" post...please excuse my obvious lack of gramar and spelling skill, Im a business major....which in truth is an even greater reason to question my sanity....but thats another blog in itself. God is doing amazing stuff here in little Conway, SC....more to come:

In the mean while, check out a few pictures of God's greatest blessings in my life: (be amazed at my "amazing" photographer skills):             http://dyoudontneedtoknow.photosite.com