Healing Rain

Sunday May, 18th 2008 marked six years since my mom went to heaven after battling cancer for almost five years. Six months before she left us, my mom was filled with the holy spirit and was baptized and all. My family was all outside in the backyard, my dad and my sisters, when she arrived home and I still remember her face and the joy that it contained. It was unlike any mood I had ever seen her in, she was simply bubbling over with happiness and laughter. I felt like I had missed something really big but she told us what it was she was feeling--that of being anointed with evidence of speaking in tongues.

She soon left us because her cancer got real severe but there was a moment filled with an overpowering sense of the spirit of God in that little bedroom outside our dining room as she spoke to each one of us the night before, barely able to breathe and her words were spoken from a parched mouth. But despite all that, her focus was not on her need for earthly things like water. She was praising the Lord right there in her horrible conditions. On the wall beside her bed were pictures the girls had drawn and bible verses we had written out and stuck up. She pointed at that wall and said "make a window. I want to see Jesus." So we removed one of the posters leaving an empty rectangular space but she saw deeper than that. She was right then and there having a vision of the kingdom of heaven she was about to enter and the loving savior waiting to receive her as he smiled at her. She mouthed the words "Jesus, Jesus." I stood in that room with my three younger sisters and my dad, tears streaming down my face at the scene before me. I could just feel the lump in my throat and it was all I could do not to break down right there.

She spoke to each one of us and she wanted Brianna, my youngest sister, to accept the Lord right then and she did. She told us to live our lives for the Lord. She spoke to my dad and me, telling us to love each other. She was right and yet I wanted so badly to crawl up beside her and tell her to not go. To ask her to hold me and not leave me. Don't leave me mommy. I needed her and I could not bare the thought of her leaving this world for good. the tears began stream down even harder.

Six years later and I've grown a little taller and I'm 20 years old and yet I am living out my life for the Lord. he has my heart. I've cried for help and he has come to my rescue, tears in his eyes and his heart breaks to see me and my heart broken. He longs to pick me up and fill me up with a spirit of healing. I've wanted very much for a spiritual anointing from God and Monday, May 19th 2008 at 8:00 pm was apparently that time and sitting in the basement of Randy and Kate Hendrikse's house was most certainly the place. After worshiping with them Kate, this kind motherly lady, asked if anyone wanted something new--like a special gifting--from the Holy Spirit. And knowing that this was it, this was my time and all i raised my hand up high and closed my eyes. They came by me laying their hands on me and I began weeping. I shook with the need for this moment. As they prayed I could feel the holy spirit come to me and it was like heaven was raining down healing rain on me and i felt so free and light and I desired--I craved this so much. This went on for several minutes or maybe a half an hour. I don't even know. But it was beautiful. I was baptized in God's loving spirit and such a bold and amazing feeling came over me. It was like a spotlight was shining on me and my father, my savior Jesus Christ was standing there smiling so hard. The lady prayed prophetically, realizing that I'd lacked a true kind of love in my life over the years. That every time I was sad and rejected, God cried and his heart was broken. She spoke and told me that God just ravished after me and I almost couldn't believe it. I mean I've always know that God loved me and all but this was almost too much.

In my excitement at this glorious encounter and filling of the spirit I worshiped the Lord and jumped in his presence. I was flooded with tears but for some reason I could feel the radiance of a smile coming from Jesus' face. We sang and worshiped the Lord some more and I felt so light and so made new I just wanted to dance. It was a time of healing--a promise that God was giving to start making things new right there.
Somehow.

I am moved
by the good things you have done
by the mercy you have shown to me...
I am changed
by the greatness of your love
you've inspired every melody that I sing

This race is worth running with you by my side.
And you promised to never leave me or pass me by...

Oh but by the grace of God go I
Your mercy and your goodness follow me, all of my days >(travis gandy's song...)

Hip Hoppity Green Screening

That's right, it's gettin' hip-hoppity in here! i'm building a studio in the basement and i am having the worse morning in the history of mornings today. i went to bed @ 4pm. up at midnights. came here to church to work work work! I've been working on this thing since friday and have made a lot of progress. the walls are up, the back walls are black washed, i built prop-up stands for the screen. yeah, and so i go out to walmart this morning at around 3. and then there's these new european turn-about things that you glide right through and i pull into the road thats pretty much walmart parking lot and BAM! i get nailed for blowing a walmart stop sign. what idiotic trooper gets his kicks off nabbing poor 20-year old college kids like myself and IN A PARKING LOT?! come on, i thought, and i said to myself in the car with confidence, i won't get a ticket, i'll just do my usual respectful presenting of my case and whallah! i'll be home free. .. . ... ...

yeah... 1st of all, my front passenger door just broke from the inside out the other day ago .so i can't open it. secondly my power windows are currently out of commisions as well so the whole, confrontation with Officer Bimbo-head wasn't as smooth as it should of been. i reached back to the backseat door and pushed the door open then said, "hey officer is this alright if we talk through my back door?" (derrrrrrrrrrr!) he's like yes, can i see some I.D... oH & then my 3rd strike of the night, i didn't have my license with me but i did however have my old old 16 year-old one so i shrugged my shoulders and handed them that with a candid smile.

he was back 3 hours later with my ticket and a business-like nod that said "i'll catch ya again when you least expect it, i'll be hiding behind the shopping carts--my squad car camoflauged as a giant cart and i will get your 1st born child and ...." yep.

back to work if i can find the right tools, i made 3 trips back and forth to walmart because they kept cutting me the wrong sized fabric. i'm really frustrated right now and need a hug. please, someone ...mail me hug. yep

here it is...

Freshbrands--the warehouse with a promise!

--> Cheesy title, I know!

well, yes. all i can say is that i am so grateful for what Jesus is doing in my life right now and since the end of january, i thought it'd be impossible to pick up a job or even hold a job since i'm such a failure at life (he he...). but thats not what God thinks. yeah i've had to work a lot more than the average kid over the years and a bazillion different jobs. i've thought of being a real sport and posting every single job and position i've held on facebook (just to look cool and promote my awesomeness) but then i'm like well, yeah that'd be rather gay because it'd take up like 3 miles plus another half km.

I started at an sweet basil (an italian) restaurant. thats been fun. great people--and my sister Mallorie started working with me so that is great because now i can spend more time with her!!After filling out applications at over 25 different industrial and commercial full time jobs and sitting down for 3 different interviews I ended up landing a job at a Piggly Wiggly warehouse. i would have to drive a stand up fork truck around all night from 7 pm to 5 am 4 nights a week with much overtime.... and i mean alot. after a week of light training i started up in february on a sunday night from 9 pm to 11 am the next morning. that was hell in handbags...14 hours.. i could barely drive home i was so fatigued and stopped block by block to nap. and then only come back a few hours later.

OK...so what i'm getting at here is that as of last night, i received the news that i have passed all requirements to get off of my lengthy probationary period and get a raise and all. its all about making a rate where they give you so much time to get orders done and break your back in the process. wow, it is intense. this job has really gotten me into shape. i feel more fit and stronger. i feel like richard simmons after he realized how breathtaking his greased up shaven legs were...yep! But i was so excited when i first made rate (as they call it). it is extremely hard to do and it takes time to adjust and psyche yourself out every night but GOD WAS there for me all the time. he's given me the strength to do what i must do. the 2nd day, my trainer dude told me that i was more brainy than strengthy (or something like that). i was offended. i've always been a go-getter. when i want something, my strong willed spirit will do what it takes...not that i'm perfect by any means but...yeah, now this trainer guy takes back what he's said and cannot believe becaus 12 out of 14 employees leave within the 1st month of being at that place.

the people have scared me. but many of them are hurting and in need of a deep connection with something more. i feel determined to let my light shine- but Satan tries to make me look like a goon all the time. and i get made to look bad sometimes by the guys there. then i remember what Jesus must of felt like and i brush it off. this one time, i banged my knee into something because my fork truck brakes failed and my knee was full of pain. i prayed right then and there that God would heal it so that i could do my best for him and worship him through my work (even though it's not my dream-come-true-line-of-work...I'd much rather be making comical films featuring the characters that i have to wokr with) but i trusted in him and he healed my hurting knee and i could walk fine after that. i was filled with so much joy from that and i am right now knowing that when Paul said to 'keep your eyes on the prize' he WASN'T kidding!

i have much debt to pay off, but the lord is so good to me and provides me with evertying i need. Even Freshbrand warehouse with the pig! (i am gonna sneak a cam in sometime and record some of the weirdos and my crazy acrobatics on the fork truck and put it up as PIGS...the next NOSE KNOWS production documentary...maybe)

Well...Yeah, um. Sure, okay? Yes.

I've been having one of those weeks. Not too bad, nothing too chaotic. But still, I seemed press to achieve an objective that would include doing anything & EVERYTHING. (Otherwise known as the impossible.) Whatever! i'm still having fun and that's cool too.

My good friend Jim S---okay i'll give him a fake last name--Fitzgerald. (so as to keep his name in the confidential). Anyway, he leaves this weekend to go to costa rica. I tell you this guy cannot sit still. He goes away on new year's to Europe and stays through March, comes back, then realizes he needs to get out to do an internship down yonder...."Okay, fine." i told him. "But not until we've had fun climbing buildings, getting in trouble with law enforcement, taking pictures and a canoe trip, smoking cigars, and driving to MO on no sleep, staying up all night watching scientology movies, and the list goes on..." He agreed. And so I kept my end of the bargain and allowed him to leave. He should get back mid-summer sometime...But with the time going by so fast. It seems like the weeks just fly by with my weird schedule.

I'm always up nights. And when I don't work at the warehouse, i'm just screwed b/c then i just sit at church and write blogs and edit vids and do work. but it's nice and quiet too.

I love my church! Praise fellowship is unblievable. and the connections I've made here and the opportunities that are in front of me are endless... We built some unbelievable cubicles in the upstairs this week. It all started with the one i built from the crapload of cubicle material in the basement. I hauled them up and connected them and made myself a sweet office space! it was pimped out. Brent and Gary (the other tech guys) got jealous and wanted one. So i built them some last sunday but.... it wasn't good enough. I came back in and Brent had this executive style rounded glass corner attachments on his and i was like "hey...whihihihis...nice!" And so I pimped mine out even more and we built Gary an almost-all glass partitioned cubicle, which he loved, and they are so awesome that I think I'll move into mine and soon raise a family from within these walls....My wife and I will bond here and my kids will --okay, I'm done with that one.



...here i am again...