Rocky Soil?
I don't even no where to write anymore.  Not that I write very often, but on the occasion that I do, I'm confused. Not many people Xanga anymore, and few have made the jump to MySpace. And this isn't really the kind of thing for Facebook or my photoblog.  It sounds like a lot, but I never update any of these things, so it's really not.  Anyway...

So I was cleaning my room tonight, and listening to my music on shuffle, when "Never Bow Down" by Third Day started playing. It made me stop and think.  I fell in love with that cd over the summer of 2004, when I spent my summer on a stateside summer mission project in Ohio... of all places.  With a team of 24 other students, I ministered to tourists and workers on a vacation island in Lake Erie. The song, and rest of that cd, along with a Shane & Shane cd, and towards the end of summer one by Jennifer Knapp, became my musical lifeblood.  I listened to them daily as I drove the to work, and anywhere else... which wasn't much, since we were on a tiny island.  Now the song is burned in my memory, associated with so many joyful and trying memories.  What an incredible summer. It was so hard... but so good.   As I listened to it, I began to think, "where has my joy gone?"  Life seems to lack that vibrancy that it had then. There are highs and lows, but it all seems duller, muted... in a sort of haze.  I don't know how much weight to put into this kind of thinking. Maybe I should just brush it off and move on.  This is what life is like, perhaps.  But maybe it's not supposed to be this way.  Maybe it's not having the same kind of friend base around that I had then. That contrast is black and white, without a doubt.  I lived with six AMAZING guys that summer.  And even though I didn't know them as well as my friends from college, I would've done anything for them, anytime, no questions asked. And there was comradery, and sacrifice, and joy, and heartache.  I dunno... maybe that's part of it. I miss that. I'm confused sometimes. There's what seems like great opportunity here... great church, opportunities in ministry, etc.  But All my best friends are hundreds of miles from here. Family is as far.  I just don't know sometimes. I preached to the college group yesterday on Hebrews 6:4-12, talking about those who have Christian-ish experiences and fall away permanently.  I talked a little about the soils Jesus talks about in parable, and sometimes I feel like the rocky soil... beginning with joy and excitement but dulling, and when the time of tempting appeared, fell away.  I feel like the joy is being sapped. But it's hard to gauge and not confused it with simple, pure emotional excitement. I don't think I'm unsaved and falling away to oblivion, I just feel like there's a loss of joy. And I can't help but feel like I'm just wasting my life being here.  I spend 55+ hours a week on my job. That's the absolute minimum: 55 hours. What do you DO with that? Dan, the pastor who leads the college group and I get the privelage of working with tells me frequently that if he wasn't married and didn't have kids, he'd probably sleep in his office because he loves what he does so much.  I'm not being mopey or pesimistic, if I sound that way.  This is actually me in deep, deep contemplation about the state of life right now and my position along the path.  There's a greyness to life, and I don't like it. I want to find out what's going on and see what can be done about it.  And I wonder if I'm doing the right thing by being here.

Interestingly... I just noticed that the three pieces of glass on my window sill are each different shades (hues?) of blue. Huh.  Fancy that.