A little Monday morning humor from my favorite (and probably Matt’s, too) web comic, XKCD.com. This one is from a little more than a week ago, I believe. I hope some of you get the reference. (:

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For 4 years now Life Teen has been the biggest part of my life and now that time for now has come to a close, and in all honesty I can’t accept that it’s over. This is the only reason why I did not attend the senior dinner and I am very thankful for all the worries about where I was but it was the right choice for me.

For most people that attend Life Teen, it’s just a thing they do, but for me it was truly my identity. All the other teens had something else that was important to them, but for me Life Teen was my thing and I think that I made a great choice with where my focus was. I don’t know how different my life will be without my Sunday nights. It will be a very weird change for me but I look forward to it.

To all the core members I thank you for all that you have done to help me grow not just in my faith but as a man. If I could have my way I would have been making all of you food because you all are always there for me when I need it and I am very appreciate of that.

To all the teens. Thank you all for being a huge part of my life. Until I started Life Teen I really didn’t have friends, but you all showed me how to be a good friend and I thank you all…………….

Steven Humphrey

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While hanging out with a friend today we got watching the Olympics. After sitting around watching them for a while we decided that we should get up and be active instead of just sitting around watching other people be active. So we decided to play Dance Dance Revolution (DDR).  As we got started though, she decided that I was done with playing beginner (the lowest level).  She told me I was never going to get any better if I just stuck with beginner and that I would just have to play on light (the next level of difficulty up) and just get better by practicing.

And the practicing paid off.

While I’m definitely not the best at DDR after playing it as much as I did this afternoon, I am better at it than I was before. And it was all because my friend pushed me. Pushed me to do better. Pushed me to try, and even though I failed many times, she kept encouraging me. So much so that between songs one time we got off the mat and she showed me how to dance to the beat of the song that we were doing (I did one song over and over because it pushed me and helped me to improve at the same time). We did the motions over and over and while I wasn’t able to keep the beat she had taught me when I actually played, she kept encouraging me and didn’t give up on me, and most importantly didn’t let me give up on myself. It was the hardest I had pushed myself in a while, and it was all because I was pushed beyond what I thought I could do.

I think God does this many times with us throughout our lives. He pushes us beyond what he knows we can do so that we can improve ourselves and our relationships.  He doesn’t give up on us, no matter how many times we want to give up on ourselves. God is always there to encourage us and cheers us on for the little accomplishments.  He sent Christ to show us what to do, and even though we don’t always live like he taught us to live, he is still there pushing us to do bigger and better things.  God doesn’t give up on us when we fail, he just wants us to do better next time and learn from what we did wrong the first time. He doesn’t want us to dwell on the fact that we messed up, he wants us to move on to the bigger and better plans he has for our lives.  Who doesn’t want to be pushed to be the best person they can be? I know I want to. I want to try and fail. I want to push myself beyond what I think I can do. I want to be tested and to be on the verge of quitting. I want to push through the pain. I want to give it my everything.

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A lot of stuff happened to me while at Covecrest. I’m not sure I can really explain it all fully. But I’m going to try and describe a little bit of it now.

The first week was training week. We, as summer staff, took on the role of campers. The interns took on what would become our role as summer staff. They knew everything, the schedule, what was going on, what we would be eating, everything. And they let us in on nothing. All they would tell us… “be at this place at this time.” What will we be doing? “you don’t need to know” Where will we be going after that? “doesn’t matter” How long will we be there? “however long it takes” How long what takes? “stop asking questions!” They told us nothing. It sucked (until we got in that role and got to hold stuff back from the campers, then it was great!)

I remember when we complained about not knowing what was coming, Robert, our fearless leader told us: “If you are worried about the future then you can’t truly enjoy the present.” Makes total sense right. Didn’t keep us from questioning, but I really tired to enjoy the present during that week. And in the following weeks, when campers would ask us tens of millions of questions, I would tell them – if you’re worried about the future, then you can’t truly enjoy the present.

Last night on my way to encounter, the song Miracle of the Moment by Steven Curtis Chapman came on. “Breathe it in and breathe it out, listen to your heartbeat. There’s a wonder in the here and now, it’s right there in front of you. And I don’t want you to miss the miracle of the moment.” And it hit me. I was the worst about following Robert’s advice and that song after campers started arriving. I was all about preaching it to others, but I sucked at following it. And while I did enjoy my time at camp, I didn’t truly enjoy it like I did that first week of training, because I was constantly worrying.

So I did a little talking to Jesus at encounter. And vowed to stop worrying about the future. I was going to enjoy every moment, because every moment is precious. And, sadly enough, that vow didn’t even last a full day. The second I started worrying again, the song Ironic by Alanis Morissette came on. One little part of the song stuck out to me “It’s the good advice that you just didn’t take.” Isn’t it ironic how God works? (: So I’m going to try for a second time to make a vow to stop worrying about the future. Hopefully this time, I can keep it.

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This post may not pertain to you now but I promise you that it will in the future….

No matter how young you are, no matter how perfect you think you and your girlfriend/boyfriend think you are for each other, You will fail in love…

Reasoning: To learn.

I have made a lot of mistakes in my past but none so relevant as to think that I was the exception to this rule. I always said that I would never fall in love with the wrong person, I was gonna find TRUE love right off the bat and we would live happily ever after…..

As awesome as that sounds, I failed in that wish but I decided that I would let you all in on the things I learned.

The most important thing I learned is that it is best to have a core group of friends that you can talk to about anything because you will need them. What I mean by that is that do you have friends that will drop everything that they have planned and have some pizza with you and just talk about it, or a friend that even though you have complained to them 1000s of  times about the same problem you are having, they still listen to you and they don’t get mad at you for it. Or maybe its a friend that just wants to hang with you because they know you could use a night of fun…

The next thing I learned is what brought along the name of this blog. Love is not like it is in the movies. In the movies, we see a couple breakup and then the sad music comes on and we see the guy and girl all sad and stuff (usually it is raining) and then we see the guy and girl in their homes sitting next to the phone deciding if they should call the other one. Finally towards the end they randomly meet somewhere and they decide to get back together. Sadly, real life isn’t so sweet. There is no rain, there is no sad song, there is no sitting by the phone. In real life there is pain and hatred. In real life there are angry texts or voicemails. But most importantly there are no random meetings that end well. In fact all meetings are just awkward. In the real world there is a lot of pain, which is gonna suck– I’ll let you know that now– but it’s important pain. The pain lets you grow stronger, it helps you prove to yourself that you can get over the other person.

Next, that the first week is the hardest week. It’s full of days when all you want is to hear their voice or see their face. It’s full of killing yourself so that you don’t make a stupid phone call or send stupid texts but more than likely you will….. The good thing about the first week is that IF you have that core group of friends this is where they come in and they help you…

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