Thoughts and ramblings from a mostly unfocused mind.
In the late 1980s, my mother was putting herself through nursing school while raising three young kids by herself. Every dollar that came in had a job, and there wasn't much room for reassignment. One day, my middle sister, Kylei, told my mom that her shoelaces broke. Shoelaces are inexpensive,…
There were a few complications with my birth that caused me to have what was later diagnosed as mild cerebral palsy. To a casual observer, I would just look like clumsy kid that moved awkwardly. I was also born with polymorphous light eruptions, an allergy to the sun, in Florida,…
To the Buffalo Dream Center, specifically the Johns family: Thank you for giving us the opportunity to serve the people of Buffalo last week. At times, it was physically and emotionally stressful. Even more, it was incredibly fulfilling to be welcomed to join in the harvest you have been sowing…
I grew up in Florida, the sunshine state, with polymorphous light eruption (PLE), an allergy to the sun. Besides being all the proof I need that God has a sense of humor, this fact is also what caused a particular nickname to follow me throughout childhood and adolescence: vampire. Although…
At sixteen, I felt a call to speak. The idea terrified me, as I was still ignorant of a lot of social cues and had a habit of carrying around printed sheets of jokes and interesting facts that I could refer to during conversations. (At least I had the sense…
Growing up in the church, there were certain stories that were repeated often enough that I could give an overview, potential lessons, and memory verses for each one without the hint of a pause. It wasn't until I began to study for myself that I realized that many of the…
When I first moved to Knoxville, I spent a lot of time with my friend Craig. Craig loved to blast music whenever we drove around. He introduced me to quite a few bands I had never heard of. I wasn't particularly fond of most of them, but he certainly expanded…
The following work is an uncensored look at roughly a year of childhood. It touches on some heavy subject matter and contains a fair amount of vulgar language. Even though it is about children, it is not necessarily any more appropriate for a child to read it than it was…
Last night, Awaken City Church's youth group was officially given a name: Wake. I understand if you just groaned slightly because, at first glance, this seems to be just a lazy alteration of the church's name. In fact, that's why this name was passed over for so long. For some…
It was moving day. We were leaving our little, loop-around street and moving to the Windover Oaks apartment complex in Titusville, Florida. Now, the idea of moving conjures images of heavy lifting, carefully boxing up half of the house, haphazardly boxing up the other, and realizing that it's been six…