8.25.08

is it really only 4 months until christmas? i cannot believe that. i refuse to. that means a whole new tax season and four months of no sleep and fourteen-hour days filled with stress. i feel like i just finished with this tax season. i think there is something that happens when we get old - thinking that life is passing us by too quickly. i have been thinking about that a lot lately. and about what kind of footprint i will leave on this planet. i am not talking in a recycle, earth-friendly, take care of the planet kind of way. but in a how will the time i get to spend on this earth affect the people that i will leave behind. not only my family, but the world in general, my church family, teens that i have (and will) ministered to, my neighbors, orphans in africa and russia. in the past few months i have really been wrestling with how God wants me to use the gifts He has given me so that i can make a change in this world that will long outlast the life i have been given. i want to love people the way i know Christ loves me - without one thought of how i fall short of perfect. i want to be a picture of that love that only sees a person as a piece of God's artwork. i want to be real with people. i want to laugh and cry and yell with them. i want to hurt with them and hope with them. i want to teach teens to love people that way. i want to be remembered for how i loved. i want to love so deeply that Christ is all anyone sees. i want to show that there is hope and that it can be found in a home for an orphan, in a well of clean drinking water, in a warm coat for a homeless man...