Meet Spots. My sister’s new dog (taken on my new iPhone). Spots looks sort of like a cross between Bolt (from the movie) and a HUGE white rat. Nonetheless, she’s pretty cute, and my sister spared no detail in telling me all kinds of stuff about her new pet that only an 8 year old would care about. Apparently, she’s only 10 weeks old, but she’s already 90% potty trained and can already play fetch with a ball (but good luck getting the ball back). Also, if you just let her run around in the backyard to go potty she gets lost (probably would get eaten too…), so you always need to walk her out and watch her. Finally, because she gets lonely at night, she has to sleep in a cage in my sister’s room where she remains quiet through the night and waits eagerly the next morning for Jessica to wake up.
Tonight, I came home. As usual, I’m not particularly excited to be home. But tonight is a rare night. My parents are out of the house, so I got to spend some rare one on one time with my sister. We played DS, watched movies, and played with Spots. She taught me how to fight with a staff (she’s taking some kind of kung fu performing arts class) and she almost hit me in the nuts and the head with it. Now as she falls asleep, her head is on my lap and Spots on my other lap. She just smiled at me. I’ve been missed. She’s been waiting for me to come home for awhile now. I’m glad I can make her happy. This is definitely a moment of pure bliss. I’m not sure what the rest of this week will bring, but as for tonight… it was a good night :o).
I had my first session with a Christian counselor yesterday. I wanted to do some counseling to just begin learning more about myself and figure out why I act and feel certain things. I’ve had multiple pastors in the past few months tell me that counseling is a wonderful time of self discovery and healing that every minister should go through in their 20s. Honestly, after my first session I’m pretty convinced that everyone should probably go through some counseling in their lifetime.
11 am on Sunday
Some have complained already that my post yesterday was too dark and scary. I still stick to my initial thought that the film presents a reality that we often try to avoid and ignore, but oh well… keep taking that 
I rarely watch a film (especially online) that both chills me and moves me at my core as much as this one (video and link at the bottom of the post). This short film by Joaquin Baldwin is about a voodoo doll that sacrifices itself for the sake of the other dolls in the basement. I don’t think this video in any way was intended to be Christian. In fact, even from the title and the dark sadistic tone it’s pretty obviously not your typical Vegetales CGI film. Despite all this it portrays a reality of Christ’s sacrifice and defeat of Satan (and sin) in a way better than most Christian portrayals I’ve seen. Makes you wonder why it seems like people who don’t even try to talk about Jesus in their films seem to do it better than those who actually try.
I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with blogging. I love blogging because quite frankly (not to sound cocky) I just love seeing my thoughts come onto paper in some form that I could actually reference back to in the future. I have so many thoughts floating up there (often forcing me to stay up till 5 am… yes you don’t want to see the mess they call my brain) that it’s just nice to see them come onto the screen in some actual coherent form. Also, I usually go through the day with 5 random, sometimes cool, mostly random thoughts where in the moment I think, “man I need to remember that one.” And what better way to file away the next ground breaking idea than in a blog! Yet I never get to it, and my brilliant nugget of truth (which could someday turn into my life changing thesis) is lost in the chaos of the next 5 thoughts. The other reason I love blogging is I just love sharing my thoughts with people. Granted at this point my audience is quite limited, I would someday love to blog and be part of a blogging community that just exchanges ideas and discourses on thoughts. Finally, I love preaching. HAHA. (I know, you’re like what’s that have to do with anything?). I love preaching, but unfortunately with my current stage of life and ministry I don’t get to do it much. So in my mind blogging could be a great medium to get my voice out there.
If you don’t know, I actually have a secret desire to church plant someday (well maybe not that secret). I know I know. It’s a ridiculous dream, and most of you think I’m crazy for dreaming it. Anyways, last night I was looking at the Vineyard Movement’s new publishing of their 
