Saturday, May 16, 2009

shoot for the moon and land amongst the stars

This last week has been incredibly busy, hence the absence of posts. I took several finals, wrote about forty pages worth of term papers, worked multiple shifts at the Hilltop, and missed the graduation of many friends due to having to work a catering event. I have had about ten hours of free time this entire week (minus sleeping hours, of course), but the business is almost over. Tomorrow I am preaching again at the church in Dayton, and I’ve spent the evening throwing together a sermon: “The Hope of the Glory of God.” I actually used an old dorm devotional as the template and expounded on some material and used excerpts of an old sermon to piece it together. It sutured up pretty well. I’m excited about the opportunity to preach again, and I am praying that God will bless it, encouraging and convicting and strengthening His people.

 

Today was Graduation 2009. I was supposed to graduate, but I have two classes I still need to take. I was really bummed out and feeling inferior until I realized that ¾ of the people who started when I did are going to be graduating in December alongside me. I didn’t have much time to think today, being busy with working and throwing together the sermon, but it all hit home when Mandy came by the house one last time to say goodbye. I was very composed, but my heart was breaking. I really will miss her. I realize that over the last two weeks I’ve kinda distanced myself from her and been closed-off around her, and I’ve likewise realized that I do this when I am pushing away the inevitable. But the dam I had constructed broke and the emotions poured forth. I really will miss her; she is a great friend. I also got sad thinking about how I was supposed to be graduating, how I wanted to be involved full-time in a ministry right now and married or at least engaged. But life doesn’t work out the way we want it to sometimes (eh, most of the time); it’s a lesson that must be learned.

 

A good friend and I talked for a bit last night. Both of us have been depressed lately and for the same reasons. We’re not where we want to be in life, we are underachieving, we’ve abandoned our dreams due to the rigorous nature of life. I remember when I was a dream-filled boy, and I want those dreams to come back. One of them is slowly returning, but I am hesitant to fully embrace it; perhaps because I don’t want to be met with failure as I have been with my more recent dreams. They say that if you shoot for the moon and miss, you’ll land amongst the stars; that’s the biggest load of shit I’ve ever heard. If you miss the moon, you end up in a dark and silent and airless vacuum with just your thoughts and over-the-shoulder glances at the dwindling moon which you missed. And the stars? You can see them, but they’re too far away to touch. I think that phrase should remain as it is but be reinvented into what it means.

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