One Year... Roughly

It's been roughly one year since I've last written a blog entry. Why you ask? For many different reasons, but mainly it was focused on taking a break from constantly analyzing life through writing and finding out how I could handle just living. Since I'm a person that loves change and embraces it every chance I get... let's just say it's nice to be back to writing :).

This past year has been extremely foundational for me. I settled into Houston without too many pains. For once in my life I was truly overjoyed with the opportunities that lay ahead of me instead of regretting the ones that I had left behind. I started going to Houston's First Baptist, met a beautiful old girl named Becky (She's about 2 years older than me... not that I old but still I tease) and a few months later I found myself in a relationship. The funny part was when we first started getting to know each other one of my first questions was, "Have you read my old posts on my blog?" How sad, huh? I kid you not. Through that I found myself wanting Becky to do the work to get to know me (at least the person I showed myself to be) through a computer instead of hanging out with me. Thus the typical Chris freak-out moment. Without consiously knowing it, I rebelled against the blog world. I have to be me instead of always writing about who I want to be.

The next year and a half went largely unrecorded. Yes I do have entries in my normal journal and also a journal that Becky and I wrote in simultaneously (without reading what the other one wrote until we got married... and in case you're wondering no we haven't gone back to read all of the old journal entries. Oops...), but I don't have near the volume of work that I produced in college. Now that I lay next to a sleeping Becky and think back on my choice not to write, I don't regret it. Yes I would love to have it so our kids could read it one day. I'd love to see the intricate details of God's inner-working in both of our hearts and analyze it to death, but knowing what I know now is something truly special to me. I have memories of our time together, different dates we went on, different friends we hung out with, moments with family, babysitting, trying to show off while playing softball, our first Valentine's Day, our elaborate engagement, the exhausting wedding planning and now our marriage together. It's a special bond when the two of us are the only ones that know most of the details.

So, at my wife's prodding and my largely unspoken yearning to get back to writing, here I find myself again. I hope to accomplish a couple of things with this blog that will be different than past ones.

1. I'm going to do my best not to write about someone I want to be but write from the perspective of who I am and who God has created me to be. I found my people-pleasing attitude getting in the way of truly making sense of what was going on around me in the past and really have no desire to play the game anymore.

2. I want to write about the Lord. His works throughout one day blow my mind when I really slow down to dwell on them. The problem is I don't stop long enough to really understnad or act on what's going on around me anymore. I live halfway in survival mode and the other half in planning mode. I struggle immensely to live in the present. I want to see what He does on a daily basis again and writing is the best way for me to see that (unless He shows me differently now than I did back then).

3. I want to fully love my wife. I'm different when I don't process life. I'm not fully myself. I don't see simple beauties, I don't appreciate small things and I'm consistently bombarded with the thought that something has been left undone. The act of being stuck never allows me to move to the next thing. That adversely affects Becky because when I come home, she gets whatever percentage of me that I didn't give away to my co-workers, dinners with friends, the TV, cleaning, or the Lord. However if I process life (which mind you takes a considerable amount of already crunched time), I'm able to fully be with her (which again takes more time). So it's funny to me that I think I'm always stretched for time, but when I make time to do the things that are most important there seems to be an abundance of time at my fingertips. It's almost like it's designed to be that way... weird.

4. My final goal is that my posts will be long. I'm not a surface level person and therefore not a surface level blogger. I want to go deep because I believe that's where you gain value and understanding into matters that you normally would not take any part in. It'll also lead to fewer comments because few people will have the time or patience to read through the blog, which will help my people pleasing ways to not meet up with my ego. Anything I can do to help I'll gladly do it.

I'm glad to be back... I'm looking so forward to what the Lord is going to do through these words.