Hmm...

• Driving around with the windows down listening to Jack Johnson and or G. Love on one of those abnormally warm "winter"days.
• Really good coffee.
• Chocolate milk.
• Seeing someone you love after not seeing them for a long time.
• Taking off your shoes and socks after a long day and rubbing them into the carpet.
• Getting ridiculously sunburned at the beach, going back to the hotel room, showering and going out to eat.
• Meeting new people.
• Hanging out in the kitchen telling stories and laughing until your throat is sore.
• A really good workout.
• First kisses.
• Watching little kids play in a fountain on a hot day.
• Birds.
• Driving by yourself at night listening to a song that comes alive when the sun goes down.
• Wet asphalt.
• The way the trees sound when the breeze dances with them.
• Getting lost in a good book.
• Laughing when you're not supposed to.
• Licking the frosting off of a cupcake.
• New places.
• Being afraid.
• The cool spots under the pillow and in the sheets.
• Eye contact.

I love knowing that whenever I experience these things that they aren't just accidents, but they are proof that I am loved by a God with a huge imagination. Because I know God, these aren't just experiences that I hope for, these are places where I find God and I am swept away by His love for me. "The earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world and all who live it in." Psalm 24:1. "My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast; I will sing and make music. Awake my soul! Awake, harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn."

7 dollars and 50 cents worth of macho madness

I came home last night and went to bed a man. I went with some friends to see the movie 300, somebody should warn you about a movie like that. If I wouldn't have been for the soothing effect of Cherry Coke, I may have waylaid the entire theatre. The testosterone in me was screaming to get out. But for serious, the movie was great, minus the incredibly awkward nude/sex scenes. Go see it...twice maybe.

S.O.S.

I almost forgot. I need help editing my blogg. Like with links and such. I don't know how to do it, and how do I make my blogg look all cool and trendy. I'm really not digging the templates blogger has to offer. Help me please.

Diggle Diggle

I don't have much to say, but I saw Rachel do this so I want to do this. Here's a list of some of my new favorite things...

10. Organic peanut butter.
9. The Mediterranian Cafe's grilled chicken and vegetables.
8. Amos Lee.
7. Tostones and the green tomatilla sauce.
6. Blogger-I have a new obsession.
5. Speed Stak.
4. The Battle for Middle Earth II for the Xbox 360-shut up.
3. Xbox 360.
2. My new Canon digital camera.
1. Not having a parasite living in my intestines any more.

Dude. How could I not inform the world about THAT. As most of you know I went down to the Domincan Republic...i like how i said "as most of you know", like everyone that knows me is reading this or something. I had an amazing time with my girlfriend. I do think this is the first time I've mentioned her in my blog. I don't know why I don't talk about her more on here. Yeah I do. I feel like if I were to talk about her on here it would almost be a strange form of PDA and I'm not a huge PDA guy. Anyway. Had a great time and then I came home. I got home on a monday and then thursday night I started getting these weird cramps. It felt like I had the bubble gut but I was firing blanks. All bark and no bite kind of thing. Friday waaaas a different story. I proceded to have the green apple quick step for 5 days followed by two days of my best impression of a plado fun factory. I am happy to report that I am up and at em thanks to some awesome antibiotics and some groovy little muscle relaxers. There ya go folks. I'm lightening up my posts.

pea-sized bologna

I was reading the back of my toothpaste tube yesterday so that I could enlarge my dental hygene data base. I had honestly never read the "Directions" on the back of the tube and I had some time to kill so I took a look at what Crest had to say about brushing your teeth. Did you know that they instruct you to put a "pea-sized" amount onto your brush? I mean come on. Really? Here we are trusting the health of our canines and molars to a company that measures the accurate amount of toothpaste in vegetable sizes. Is this some kind of conspiracy? Do Crest and DelMonte have some sort of deal in this?

Home

Home, everyone has one. For those of us in college or just out of college, we tend to have two; where your parents are and where you live now. I guess I bring it up because I recently traveled to see my girlfriend in the Dominican Republic which required me to stop in New York City. I love New York City because of its people. Yes, they're rude and they have some ridiculous accents, but there's so many of them! Something happens to me when I see that many people. I was only in the airport, but the airport is filled with so many stories. So many people going to so many different places with so many different homes! It floors me sometimes to think about how much I don't know. How many people I haven't met whose stories have nothing to do with me. I find myself people watching and asking myself in my mind and sometimes out loud, "Where did this person just come from? Where are they going to? Where's home?" Its fun, but it kind of gets my head spinning.

Of course God comes into the picture. Not only does God know everybody's story, but the person whom the story belongs to was His idea. He put them together thought by thought, completely on purpose and I guess when I'm confronted with all of those people with all of those stories I get a fragment of an idea of how big God is. Big seems like a silly word compared to God after seeing so many stories coming from and going to so many places.

I'm a Lion

I've decided that if I were an animal, I'd be a lion. I don't care what you think, I don't want to hear any crap about looking like a friggin teddy bear, because I'm not. I'm fierce, I'm wild, and I'm the king of the stinkin jungle. If you have a problem with this I'll eat your face off. What animal would you be?

One Minute, Forty-Five Seconds

First of all, props to my home girl Rachel for catching my spelling blunders. I honestly suck at spelling and I would be clueless to the fact if it weren't for BASS watching my back.

The first thing I do in the morning is fix a cup of coffee. I'm actually really good at getting out of bed as soon as the alarm goes off. I don't think that I'm actually awake, but I'm on auto-pilot. I wake up, make my bed, and head into the kitchen. I'm not aware of what I'm doing until I'm in the kitchen. I also think that it's impossible for me to speak until my first cup of coffee, and that brings us to the subject of this post...

Most of the time I have coffee left over from the day before, yeah I know gross, but I really don't notice in the morning. I poor a cup and put it in the microwave for a minute and forty five seconds and then I wait, and wait, an wait...do realize how long a minute and forty five seconds can last? It's incredible. It doesn't sound like much, but I've realized that I can accomplish a lot in a minute and forty five seconds. Its sort of become a game I play. I see how much I can get done in a minute a forty five seconds. One time I was able to get Tozer (our dog) breakfast (pour both the food and the water), change my clothes (I work outside early in the mornings so that's three layers of clothing), and even check my e-mail before the timer went off on the microwave. It's incredible.

I'm not sure if a minute and forty fives seconds feels like a long time just because I'm impatiently waiting for my morning "go juice", or if it actually is a long time. I always recieved poor marks for my time management skills in elementary school. Honestly I think its a horrible thing to test elementary school students for time management skills, can they even tell time? The only time management I ever understood were those paper chains you would make to countdown the days until Christmas.

I think that a minute and forty five seconds happens to be a good amount of time. I wonder how much could be done if I took advantage of every one minute and forty-five second interval. I would appreciate a lot more. Time with my friends, naps, beauty, face time with God. Jack Johnson probably had the same life altering experience warming up a cup of joe when he penned the words, "Slow down everyone, you're moving too fast." So here's to you Jacky J, and just imagine what would happen if I warmed up my coffee for two minutes a ten seconds.

The Bottom Shelf

The only time I like to shop for groceries is when I'm hungry. It quickly morphs from a necessary evil to an exciting adventure. There's a lot I love about late night Walmart runs. Buying what you really don't need, having a contest with Trevor to see who spends less. I've figured out that whoever purchases the frozen chicken breasts typically loses. The rare encounter with an attractive member of the opposite sex sprinkled in there from time to time, but my favorite thing about the Walmart endeavor is about six inches from the ground, keep looking, a little farther down, about ankle height. Ah, yes, there it is; the bottom shelf. Collegiate best friend, home of the beat up and bedraggled. Where the deformed and naked find shelter.

It is a good day when a overdrafting college student stumbles upon the mountain of goodies on the bottom shelf. Its where they put the cheap stuff. Dented and crushed cans with torn labels for 10 cents and piles of Ramen that will cost you less than a tank of gas. A person could possibly buy a weeks worth of food for less than the cost of single text book.

There's something homey about the bottom shelf. I can't help but smile and say, "hey guys" when i look down at those cylinder shaped rejects. Its almost as if I can relate to the bottom shelf. If I were a canned good would I find myself on the bottom shelf? I sure hope so.

God shops on the bottom shelf. He just doesn't look there for a bargain or as a last result, that's where He starts. He seems to go after the broken and the beat up. I even think He might hope to find us there. Our God is a redeemer, and until we understand we're broken, redemption will avoid us. I find that God has favor with those who don't understand why God is so crazy about them. David is a guy whom God loved fiercely. The Bible accredits him alone with the phrase, "A man after God's own heart," but he seems to live life with the "who? me?" look on his face.

So here's to the bottom shelf. A place to find an amazing offer, maybe a place to get a picture of grace.

A Chuckle

Both of my parents worked while I was growing up so I would stay at daycare after school. I loved daycare. One of my favorite memories of all time happened at daycare. If I say daycare one more time this blog will be officially obnoxious.
We were divided into two groups at my...aggg...daycare. The older kids made up one group and we, the younger kids, made up the second. I know, creative way to divide yourselves. Us younger chaps had the job of being tortured by the older kids. We actually didn't mind it too much, it was fun pissing them off and then running away, but I was fat so I could never run very fast, or very far.
My favorite memory happened one afternoon during a rousing game of kickball. Of course the teams were divided according to our age. We knew going into it that we were supposed to be destroyed, and we were. There was this one kid on our team, BJ, he was the smallest in our group and recieved most of the punishment. You could see the look on his face this day, he looked checked out. Kinda like Squintz Paladores in the Sandlot, when he's finally had enough of waiting and decides to go get Wendy Pefercorn. BJ had had enough. He was going to do something about these older brutes. He was playing third base when this moment occured. One of the butt munches from the other team smashed the ball over the fence for a homerun and was making his way around the bases laughing at us like he was somebody. I mean come on...the score was like 56 to nothing. As he was headed toward third base, BJ moved into action. Our bases were those giant orange cones and just when the dirtbag was about to tag it BJ picked it up and....ran. I mean ran like a crazy man. He reminded me of the Jesus lizard from National Geographic that could run across the water...yeah that was BJ with a big orange cone. In a matter of seconds the entire older team was chasing him. Everytime I picture this in my head I chuckle. BJ running for his life carrying a big orange cone, knowing full well he was going to be punished for this, but loving every minute of it. Life is good.

thats MY song

I love how every song somehow becomes my story. Even if it really has nothing to do with anything that has ever happened to me, its still all about...me :)
I love those songs that have favorite parts to them. As soon as the song starts I'm waiting for that part. The one where everything but the drums drop out, the lyric says something that agrees with my soul, or a guitar riff takes me up and out of here. I love moments like that, moments that feel bigger than life. Or maybe they're moments that are just as big as life, they wake me up to life. Movies do the same thing for me. There are parts in movies where I hold my breathe because they're so good. The pool scene in Garden State is one for example and of course the infamous final scene of Its a Wonderful Life.
Maybe there's something here, maybe there's not, but reguardless...I love these moments.

Today

I'm bad at this, I mean really bad. I don't even know how many people read this (is it just me or is that at the back of every blogger's mind?), but letting down my "readers" isn't what frustrates me, its that I'm not friggin consistent at another thing. I can't tell you how many books sit on my bookshevles that are half read, or how many journals I have that jump from January to September with one entry in between, and they all start off the same way too..."Ok, I'm going to do this more often..."

I think that it has something to do with what Rachel called me last night, she was joking of course, but she called me the "deep friend." Maybe I don't blog all the time because I think that if I don't have something to deep to say then I don't have something to say. I've come to the conclusion that thats... well, CRAP. I'd love to write a book one day, but its always "one day." I can't tell you how many stories I have already told myself that I feel belong on some paper. If I'm honest I'll tell you that I'm afraid of telling them in ink. I'm afraid that I'll somehow manage to lose them in the transfer from my head to the paper, that somehow I won't tell it right, somehow I'll screw it up. I have a problem with risks these days.

So, with all that said...today has been a good day. I woke up early, I mean really early. I don't necessarily like the reason for waking up early, but I do appreciate seeing the sunrise every morning. Its incredibly different every time. Sometimes it creeps up on you. It desguises itself as night and then sheepishly mentions the morning. My favorite kinds are the ones that explode onto the scene. I can remember one like that two weeks ago. It honestly stopped me in my tracks and I just had to stare at it, and ask, "What are you doing here?" It began as a thin line of violent orange at the bottom of a dark purple sky. I took no notice of it at first and went on doing what ever it was I was doing, whatever it was wasn't important. The next time I turned around the morning had errupted. It was so...happy. It was almost as if this sunrise was laughing. I stood there on the dock, at a freight company, behind a 53 foot tractor trailer, with forklifts momentarily moving in slow motion, and I watched the sunrise. It was great.

Sorry, I think I did again...:) Hey, this is the Big Life. Welcome to my abrupt end.

Self-portraits and iPods

So Ive noticed a defining characteristic of the current generation. Besides being unable to function without an iPod, the future world leaders have a passion for taking self portraits. Myspace and Facebook are flooded with the typical aireal shot of the subject with the head slightly tilted to the side. So whats the deal? Why the obsession? Well, I have a few ideas...cue the evil sinister laugh...or dont.
1. It could be for the risk factor. The self-portrait allows one to throw caution to the wind and snap the shot without seeing what its in the viewfinder. Could this generations obsession with extreme sports be tied directly to our preference for the self portrait?
2. It could be all about the ego. You dont need to wait for someone else to take a picture of you, you can do it yourself. A digital camera is basically turned into a mirror.
3. Or could it be because we choose to define ourselves? I lean towards this one, because well it sounds deeper :) I think that this generation doesnt like to depend on outside sources to define; to depict who they are. We can take the picture ourselves thank you very much.

Loud

I'm really bad at doing this blogg thing consistently. I feel like I need an accountability partner or something. I recently heard Tony Campollo quote Abby...or something like that...Hoffman, and it has changed my life. When he was brought in after the Chicago riots the judge asked him, "So, what happens to all the innocent bystanders because of this revolution you're trying to start in America." Hoffman replied, "In a revolution...the bystanders are never innocent." Wow. God has really been challenging me to not just be someone with ideas, but someone with passion. I want what I believe to be understood by how I live. The word is bleeding so bad in so many places and I sometimes find myself watching...feeling bad, yes. Caring, yes, but too lazy to do anything about it. I'm often able to squirm and eventually convince myself that I do enough. I hide behind what I'm already doing in order to ignore what I should be doing. We are called to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves, to be a voice for the voiceless. In the words of Adrian Despres, "God give me the compassion of Jesus when He wept over Jerusalem, but also give me the passion of Jesus when He turned over the money tables in the temple." There are plenty of things that aren't right with the world and if I sit back and do nothing the blood is on my hands. The church cannot not be an innocent bystander, not when God has called us to be the salt and light of the world.

I Dare...

I know that I don't have the right to ask in light of the fact that I've been given much, everything in fact, but I stand here boldly and I do...dare to ask.
I ask that I may be this man that You hold out before me. That this is the last time I trade in Your forever for my right now. I want to be used by You to do the impossible. I want to toss mountains in the sea and usher in the very Kingdom of Heaven. I want to shake the dead of this generation awake from their sleep, give life to these concrete statues who have somehow tricked themselves into thinking that this is as good as it gets. I want my life to speak louder and more often than my words. I want to live and I want things to change because of it. Most importantly, I want my motive, my inspiration, my purpose to be You. An encounter with me would be devestatingly You. That I would be a foggy memory, a "scratch your head moment", but that You would be painfully real. That my life would scream You and hush me. I'm far to small to live a life for, but You...You are everything. I'm tired of copping out, giving in, and falling short. I need You, I want You. In then end I stand here before my God, asking. I do not ask because I deserve. Honestly, I can only stand here because of what You have done for me, but...I do dare, I dare to ask, ask to be what You have been forever asking me to be. I dare to dream, dream what You have been forever dreaming of me. I dare to live how You have been forever daring me to live.

Lean Wit It

Alright, so the title is lame, but it might make sense in a few minutes. I have some confessing to do. I wore Hammer pants. It's true. I also had "race tracks" shaved into the side of my head while sporting the infamous rat tail. I donned the slap bracelet, rocked the pumps, and there was even a time when you could find a Don Corlione (how do you spell that?) resting on my head. I guess I'm what you might call a poser. I have a tendency to get caught up in the latest fad. In fact I just ordered this sweet hat from Urban Outfitters...no joke. I find it funny how we can convince ourselves that what we're into will always be "cool." This is what I have to do to stay up with the times, and then a little time passes and we're hiding pictures, giving away clothes, and practically laughing at ourselves on "I Love the 80's."
I guess this post is inspired by people who look at Christianity as nothing more than a fad, or my favorite...a crutch. A few thoughts... I guess first of all, fads are temporary, they fade away, become dusty memories. The world is still living in the aftermath of Acts chapter 2. What twelve men did 2,000 years ago is the complete opposite of a distant memory, it is the present reality. In two thousand years nothing has stopped the church, not even itself. Yes, we've made mistakes, lots of them, horrible ones, but the church never fades. Jesus told Peter that He was going to build His church on Him...ouch...and not even the gates of hell would be able to stand against it. Jesus' words stand tall. Not Nero, not the entire Roman Empire, not fallen Christian leaders, not John Lennon, not Nieche, not Hitler...NOTHING has or will stop the church. It's far from a fad...it will always be here.
Some people think that God is just the product of the human imagination, we need to understand things and so we make up this idea of God to explain what we can't. A crutch if you will. I don't quite see how the human need for the concept of God disproves His existence. Think about it, you can find this need in ever culture, at any time, and in any place, did they all get together and decide that God was the correct answer to thier questions? I think not. They fact that people have a need for a God doesn't disprove Him. Its like a tree's need for sunlight. It will twist and bend itself, grow in quite peculiar directions so that it can compete with the other plant life around it for sunlight. Now if a tree were to ignore this need for sunlight the chances of it surviving are not good.
Crutch...I understand what you're trying to say, but you need something bigger, a crutch falls awfully short. Jesus offers us much more than a crutch, an aid...He offers us... everything. He is how things are. I have to admit, its cute...crutch, but you have no idea. He doesn't just offer a clever way of thinking or solutions to the worlds problems. In the words of Rob Bell, Jesus shows us reality at it most raw. It's how things are supposed to be. A crutch? Tiny Tim could manage to get around without one, he could crawl if necessary. Breathing would be impossible without Jesus "holding all things together" (Colossians 1) I'm ok with that, I'm ok with needing Jesus, in fact I desperately need Jesus.

Then...and...Now

So this weekend I get to home. It's been a long time, I was 22 for most of my last visit, translated that means that I haven't been home since June. I'm looking forward to it, but something struck me the other day while I was driving. I don't know if its the wanna-be preacher in me that is constantly looking for an illustration or what but you shouldn't be surprised to hear me say this again.
What struck me as odd was that suddenly all at once I noticed how "built up" Lexington has become. I've been down here for almost four years now and the place has exploded. What I find odd though is how it snuck up on me. For instance the other day I was driving my normal drive home from work and I noticed this huge steel frame building being constructed. This frame didn't just suddenly appear out of nowhere, no it has been assembled for months.
Here's the kicker. Whenever I go home after being away for a while I am flambasted by how developed Lafayette has become. Lafayette is my hometown and is quite rural, but never the less, its exploding. Now the growth is really not all that different between the two towns, they are relatively the same size, but I don't see the constant every day growth of Lafayette. When I go home I just see the product of a month's or even a year's worth of work. I don't necessarily see drastic change taking place in Lexington because of the slow and steady work that I live around every day.
All of you clever people out there are like, "Oooo I know where he's going", and that's fine, I'm really not all that clever, but I think that often there are times in my life where I don't feel like I'm growing, I feel stagnant, but that's because I'm comparing today to yesterday. Chances are there hasn't been a lot of change. Maybe we should start looking back to where we haven't been for a while. Where was I last year at this time? Something I learned while in college is that God grows things. He really is in no hurry. I think we need to take a look at back THEN before we can appreciate right NOW.

Ladies and Gentlemen...

Here's the thing. Girls...I know guys can be frustrating, but the thing you have to understand is that we are honestly clueless when it comes to your ways and for the most part we don't even know it. I have learned a few things in the past year or two that I can classify as tendencies, differences in the sexes if you will. Allow me to share...

1. Ladies...you have a tendency to read into things way too much, while us fellas tend to not read into them at all. Now yes, there are some guys, myself included, who do always suspect there to be more to the situation than there actually is, but hear me out. If a girl asks a guy a simple yes or no question and he responds with either one, a girl quickly begins asking herself, "what does that mean? why did he say that? did he really mean this? or did he really mean that?" When a girl answers a simple yes or no question she rarely means just yes or no, and guys rarely suspects the hidden deapth of information hidden below the surface answer. But, here's an example of how this principle looks besides the answering of questions. Just the other day some of my small group guys decided it would be funny to put a protien bar, still in its wrapper, on a young ladies car. I have no idea why we would find this funny, but we did. After discovering the protien bar on her car, the young lady stormed into the youth room rather ticked off, and seemingly a little hurt. She asked the young man, who happened to be a relative of hers, why he would do something so mean. He defended himself by pointing out that the protien bar was still in its wrapper. It was quickly noted by another individual that this was no ordinary protien bar, but it was in fact a South Beach Diet bar. GASP! The young lady thought her weight was being insulted when in fact she is the walking definition of everything that is not fat. As you can imagine the young man was clueless of his actions and quickly apologized.

2. The second trend I have noticed in my 23 years has to deal with problem solving. I have learned that just because a woman shares her problems with you doesn't mean she is looking for your advice. Ladies, let me inform you of how the male mind works in this situation. As men, we don't like to necessarily discuss our junk, problems, etc., until we are ready for advice. We tend to wrestle with it in our minds, this is probably why we do not like to ask for directions, until we realize we are unable to fix it. We then will confide in someone for advice. So, when a girl is talking to us about her problems we have a tendency to think that she is looking for advice and step in to help.

Well, in 23 years I have accumulated two tendencies in the female sex. I hope and pray that there will be more insights to offer in the future. Peace!

Whisper

Call me cheesy, cliche, corny...kinda strange all of these words begin with "c"..., but my amazing girlfriend (Amanda Lane) and I drove to the mountains this past Saturday to watch the sunset. Our destination was a spot known as "Pretty Place", no seriously. The place was definitely pretty, and came complete with a cross and plaques offering insightful poetry. Amanda and I noticed that for some reason it felt necessary to whisper. We weren't the only ones, but as we sat there looking at the breath-taking view, everyone was whispering. It was almost as if anything more than a whisper would cause the beauty to vanish. When I think back I see a trend, perhaps an unspoken rule that when ever I am before beauty, greatness I must whisper. Why is that? Perhaps it is from recognizing my place. That there are things out there bigger, greater than me. Maybe its because too many words can ruin the experience. Or maybe its because silence is our way of paying tribute to that which is greater than us.
Regardless of why, it just feels right. So God, I offer you not only words of praise, but also the beauty of silence for You...are...great.

Fiction

I don't where my obsession with the imagination comes from, but as far back as I can remember a good portion of my life has been spent lost in an imaginary world where I more often than not vanquish an evil villain and save the day. If I'm honest I'll admit to you that I played with GI Joes until...well lets just say I was old enough to legally be one before I retired them in the shoe box underneath my bed. I just love the ability to create whatever I want, be whatever I want, and do whatever I want. I determine what is real, I choose how things are.
I have nothing but respect for people who have mastered their own imagination. People like C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien has actually created an entire world out of his mind. This world is complete with history and language, its almost too much for me to handle. The imagination is the escape for the human heart, in fact its where our dreams are able to stretch their legs and walk around for a bit.
I guess I say all of this because when I'm confronted with the products of God's imagination I am floored. Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God created..." The Creation that we live in is nothing less than the product of God's imagination, and what really baffles me is that God had nothing to work with. Even the greatest artists, authors, musicians have things to work with. An artist usually paints people, or maybe landscapes. An author, even one who writes fiction, is inspired by actual events, or other stories. Musicians listen to the music of others. But you see God is before anything was. God not only painted the picture, but He crafted the paint, the canvas, the brush...and even art itself. He decided what a tree should look like before there was a tree. It was His idea to put into creation secrets, tendencies, patterns that science now is able to unlock.
Our God is a dreamer, an artist, and we are His masterpiece. In Ephesians chapter two Paul says that as believers we are God's "workmanship." Another definition of this word is "fiction." We are straight out of the imagination of God. When the Almighty decided to make something in His image, something to that would reveal His glory, and be in a relationship with Him, He created man, and woman. He wasn't forced to work with unwanted stuff. He's God. With His limitless resources and infinite power God and His IMAGination created us..in...His...IMAGE. You are no mistake. You are the walking, talking, breathing, singing, dancing, laughing, crying dream come true of our awesome God.