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I know, I know…It’s that time of year again, New Year=New me! Well guess what, every year people make many resolutions they never intend to stick to. Why? Simply because they get caught up in the whole peer pressure that at the beginning of every year you have to do something to better yourself. Why do most of these resolutions fail then? Simply put the attitude and mindset do not align with the goal set.

Say for example I say this year I want to lose 60lbs, I’ll be happy with my body, how I look and I’ll be more attractive. It’s a nice goal, healthier, slimmer, and even more attractive. However this goal will likely fail because the core of the goal is simply to lose weight, in HOPES of being happy. So how does one actually set attainable goals? The first step is to be happy with who you are at your core. Have a core set of values, check everything you do by these values and you will not have to go around feeling guilty or shameful all the time. The second key is to get a positive mindset. 90% of our battles take place in our head, our enemy Satan will put temptations in front of us to hinder us. The bible says resist temptation and it shall flee, this is the truth, but we must also decide that just because temptation has come our way or because we’ve had a rough day that we will not let that detract from our growth. If our mindset is to grow into a better version of ourselves and we fall short. Our first step is to ask God the father to forgive us of our uncleanliness, we do this in prayer. After petition God and become clean we ask the Lord to give us strength to fight the battle next time. That’s all! Now the battle has been won in the heart and in the mind and we no longer have to worry about our eternal soul. And we can go back to be our happy self again.

Well if you’re looking at your calendar, you can already tell this is written during the Christmas season. This is a season I have despised for years. However this year I have decided to embrace the Christmas spirit. I’ve bought several Christmas cards and will be sending them out soon. I was actually semi-happen to see the Christmas tree go up. Today my wife and I drove out to Tulip to the Tulip Trestle and watched the Santa Train pass overhead. We then went to the craft show and looked at Christmas tree and ornaments, why we decided to not purchase those items today we did come home and put up Christmas lights outside.

Yesterday when I came home, I checked the mail in the mailbox as usual to see what the day had brought. In it I received a card from my work. Upon opening it was a card entitled “Thank you” The card had a handwritten note thanking me for being so flexible with them and doing what they had asked of me and not complaining much of it. Inside the card though was also a folded piece of paper. It was printed a e-mail. I had taken a resident out as is standard business in my line of work, and I encountered a family member of that resident. The family membered emailed the staff at my company to say that he appreciated the attention, and patience I had given to their loved one in their time of need. He wanted to make sure that it got back to my supervisor that in their eyes I was an asset to my employer.

After having worked what felt like a day in forever, to come home to such a nice letter just made my day.

We all love having a clean house, car and even a clean church. But to get these things clean, we must work at it. We must remove all the filth that makes them impure.

In our spiritual life we need to do the same thing. We must remove all the filth that makes us impure. Things like unforgiveness, bitterness, anger, and even revenge. With our earthly things you must cleansers to remove filth. It can be anything from soap to using a sweeper. With your spiritual life you must use only the purest cleansers. We must remove that filth with prayers and forgiveness.

God is our cleaner. He will come in and clean out the old filthy hear. If we go to him in prayer and we have forgiven others, then he will purify our heart again. So if we love having clean things, then we know how to get them clean now. Keep using the cleaner (God) to keep our heart pure. No one likes to stay in a dirty place, and neither does the Holy spirit. Let’s keep a clean heart, like we want our other things to be kept clean.

How many times have we heard the words ” I’m only human, I’m entitled to mistakes” This is true, but once we become Christians we need to quit using that as an excuse.

I’m not saying we will never make mistakes. I’m saying that when we become Christians we are looked at differently. People will be watching and just waiting on us to make a mistake. And when we do make that mistake, they are there to point it out to us.

Let us stop using excuses of why we make mistakes and start using that time to share the Gospel with others. You will find that if you dedicate your time to spreading the Word of God to others, then you will have less time to make mistakes.

When we do make mistakes we can go to our Heavenly father for forgiveness. When we meet Christ for our judgement, will we be rewarded for teaching the Gospel to others? Or will we stand before him and make excuses of what we spent our time doing on earth? I want rewards, I do not want to have to make excuses for my life. Let us all make a difference, by doing away with excuses.

So I just completed the first of four interviews this week. The first interview was at the local hardware store which would be idea for a commute. Only about 6 mins down the road and technically all downhill from my home. Tomorrow I after an interview for another remote position and then later that day for an insurance position. Wish me luck as I conquer these interviews.

Here’s to hoping I start getting income coming in again and can start sharing house responsibilities with my wife again.

I’m sitting here twenty years later. It’s that day every year that American’s adult’s heart strings are pulled. We are now twenty years since once of the most devastating attacks of terrorism that have taken place on American Soil. I can remember where I was. I was in Mrs. Chastain’s 3rd grade class. I remember that the school tried to insulate us from what was going on. Our school went on lock down, at the time no reason was given, but looking back I know it’s because the teachers were unsure where the next attack on America was coming to.

I don’t remember everyday of 3rd grade or many days of elementary school at this point in my life, but I still remember this day. The school didn’t let us know what the issue was. It was the one day we ate our meal inside our classroom at our desk instead of travelling to the cafeteria. It was a day that we didn’t have recess but rather spend the day in the classroom. I still remember all of the teachers and staff that were coming around to check on students all being very sad but none of them told us what was going on. It wasn’t until I arrived home and saw my mother crying watching the TV that I learned what was going on. There had been an attack on American Soil and America didn’t know what was next to come.

Each year I watch videos about the attacks on 9/11. It’s an event I’ll never forget. I scroll through my facebook and see firefighter friends that actually lost people they were close with that perished that day. Each year I make it almost a mission to watch a documentary and reflect on the events that took place that day.

Am I still proud to be an American, you better believe it. I’ll be a proud American for as long as I keep my freedoms. I don’t always agree with what’s going on in America. I don’t agree with a lot of the politics that take place inside Washington D.C. I feel there is a lot of attack on American Christians and I feel like many of the laws that are covertly passed are trying to chip away at American freedoms and our God given rights as an American to worship God as we please. I do understand that we in a pandemic but when the government and mainstream media want to dictate what our churches are saying and preaching thats when I start having issues with them.

To all those that perished on 9/11. I pray your families continue to honor your memory and legacy. To those of us who watched from afar as history was made. I pray that you never forget the day, that you remember to love your neighbor, to put your differences aside and remember that we are all in this together. In fact that is what our government leaders fear most, a nation that is united and expects them to work for us and not the lobbyist. I will continue to pray for my local and national leaders. And I pray that God’s favor remains upon this great nation.

Looking forward to a fabulous church service tomorrow over at Lyons Community Church and hope to have a fire burning in my soul that no man shall ever be able to extinguish. Our church is located at 165 N Kirk St, Lyons, In. Service starts at 10:30a. As my Pastor Leslie says…Be blessed on purpose.

So I’m currently staying at my sisters house for the weekend. She and her husband went to Ohio for some sort of dirt track racing event they go to every year. The reason I’m staying here. A child and two dogs. My nephew, who sometimes reminds me of myself. Pre-ordered the new NBA game. #NBA2K22. He didn’t wanna go camping with mom and dad because he knew the game was coming out so he had his mom try to find someone that could stay with him during the nights so he didn’t have to go. He didn’t want to stay elsewhere because he wanted to be able to play his game. So my sis asked me and since it’s a stunt I would pull for a new game or new tech… I had to say yes lol.

So here I am spending an evening waiting on my beautiful wife to get off work and listen to my nephew talk to all his buddies on the playstation network while I fool around on my Macbook.

So my wife & I decided to travel down to Alabama to see her father for a vacation. Since my birthday fell on a holiday weekend and it wasn’t her assigned weekend to work. We’ve enjoyed sightseeing in both Alabama and Southern Tennessee. We’ve enjoyed a swim in the salt water pool and a couple dips in the hot tub. This vacation has been awesome and Mykle along with her father and step-mom surprised me on my birthday with cake and ice cream. It may not sound like a huge deal but I just enjoy knowing that I’m cared for.

Anyways, we are starting to pack up to head back north so I’ll try to save a few images and upload them to the site later. Have a blessed day ya’ll and BE BLESSED ON PURPOSE!!