Well I've never blogged before, and I don't think this blog software like my Mac for some reason. I don't what just happened, but this is gonna be the second time I have typed all of this because I tried to backspace a phrase, but for some reason it went to my home screen…. Oh well… I am 21 years old and will graduate from Louisiana College this year with a BM in Vocal Performance. I was born and raised in Ruby, LA, which is near the Alexandria/Pineville area. I absolutely love my family, even though I am the complete opposite of them. My family is very country, and I mean, hunting, fishing, farming, raising livestock, and anything else country you can think of, they do it. I do like being outdoors, just not hunting and fishing. I will be the first one in my family that doesn't have a bachelor's degree in agriculture of some sort. I'm not saying anything against that at all though. I really do love my family 🙂 I have one older sister and brother-in-law, who live in northern Arkansas. My sister and I used to absolutely HATE each other, and I don't say that lightly. We are 5 years apart, but now, we are actually really good friends. My parents, when I went off to college, went on the mission field in Eastern Europe with the International Mission Board. My family has always been supportive of me and what I do and I am so thankful that I was raised in a Christian family.
This is my parents in their kitchen. I been to my parents' place twice since they've been on the field. I went Christmas of 2008, and my sister and I went for last Christmas. When I saw this kitchen, I put a hand on each of the two walls and told my mom,"This isn't a kitchen, this is a closet with a stove in it." She appreciated that one 🙂
Well, I don't really know what else to say except my testimony I was raised in church and was always dragged to church every Sunday. I "prayed the prayer" and was baptized when I was 14, but it wasn't a real commitment; it was simply me going through the motions of being a "Christian," and also being a preacher's kid (My dad was a pastor for 4 years before they went on the field). High school was very rough for me, but I was good at clinging to books and being a teacher's pet and thats what got me through. When I went off to college, things were very different and I changed a lot even before I was saved. At the end of my freshman year, I lost my parents and my roommate. Unlike my roommate, my parents simply went on the mission field, or abandoned me as I saw it. My roommate, however, passed away over spring break that year of complications from Crohn's disease. I wish he could have lived to see me saved. I was not the person I am today when he was alive and I didn't treat him as he should've been treated as my roommate. I wasn't rude or anything to him, I just wasn't the kind of person I should've been. Anyways, that hit me very hard and it was definitely something that God used to drive me to my salvation. My sophomore year was a lot better after that. I kind of had a strange drive to be a better person after Matt's, my roommate, death. I don't know why that was, but I wasn't growing at all, obviously; its kind of hard to grow in Christ if you're not saved in the first place 🙂 Well, my junior year started off great. I had the opportunity that summer to study with a world renowned opera singer for a week and the following semester was just great in terms of my academic career. At the end of the year, things started to feel different for some reason, I didn't know what it was, but they just felt different, and when the spring semester started, I just wanted it to be over all of a sudden. I didn't care about much of anything, not suicidal type stuff, but just a general sense of meaninglessness and lack of purpose or anything of that sort. By this time, I had very well convinced myself that I was saved and had put up that mask so well to everybody else that I fooled myself. After a week of this awful, foreboding sense; thats not even really touching it. I don't really know how to describe it, other than that though. Anyways, at the end of that week, I went back to my room on campus and opened my Bible. It fell open to Psalm 55, of which the first part was basically like my week written down in Scripture. I fell on my face in prayer and cried out to God to show me what was going on, what are You trying to tell me. When I prayed that, my mind went back to the night in my dad's office and I remember that it was not a true commitment, that I had not really committed my life to Christ. When I realized that, God said, "I showed you for what you really are this week, I ripped your mask away so you could see what you really look like in the mirror." When I felt Him tell me that, I knew without a doubt that I was as lost as any other lost person in this fallen world. I really did see myself as the ugly, sin-filled man I was. When I saw that, that was enough; when I saw myself how God saw me, I didn't need anything else and on January 29, 2010 I was born again under the blood of Christ!!!!! From that moment on, my entire perspective on life changed completely. Instead of me wanting to be a professional performer, as I had my entire college career, I wanted to be wherever God wanted me to be and it didn't matter where.
I feel like I've written way too much, but oh well. I tend to be a talkative person, once you get to know me that is 🙂
I guess all thats left is just a few random facts about me:
1. Lord of the Rings is a hobby for me. I do not only like to read the books and watch the movies, I am all about the history of Middle-Earth 🙂
2. I am a Star Trek fan, especially of Next Generation and Voyager. I am not ashamed of it either 🙂
3. I absolutely love to travel and experience other cultures and being able to work side by side people of other cultures.
4. I love thunderstorms, so relaxing.
5. My favorite Scripture is Galatians 5:1
6. I love music and have a variety of tastes, but I love almost anything classical.
7. Late nights and lack of sleep will do one of two things: make me very cranky, or make me completely crazy and very hyper 🙂
