Day in the life of a Snow Birding LT

So right now I am at Fort Benning, GA. Waiting for IBOLC to start (Infantry Basic Officer Leadership Course). This time now before I start IBOLC is called “Snow Birding” do not ask my why but it is. I am going to walk you through what my week day looks like.

0415 – Wake up: I get up to do my quite time. I am getting my body used to getting up early and doing my reading so when I have a full day I am used to it.

0545 – PT formation: we have formation every morning at this time for PT, which I live all of a 4 minute bike ride away from.

0610 – We start PT: it takes about this long to do accountability and revelry, then we finally stretch and go to run. We normally run about 3 days of the week. Tuesdays is our combative days and Thursday is our squad competition days.

0730 – Releases to shower and breakfast: this is when I ride my bike home to shower and eat breakfast.

0830 – Head back for 0900 formation: normally the last people in the squads get picked for details so if you get there early you can stand next to the squad leader and get out of details.

0900 – Formation: this is when SFC K hands out information, schools, and details.

0930 – Normally when we are released for the day

1000 – Smith Gym: this is when I head over to Smith Gym and get a lift in.

1200 – Lunch: I am still working on cheap health bachelor lunches. Right now my favorite meal which I had all last week was hamburgers and zucchini with feta cheese. It is great.

1200 – 1700 – read/nap/read/hang with Judd

1700 – Normally cardio workout: this is when I go for another run or go out on my bike depending on the day and when we did for PT and what we have tomorrow.

1830 – Dinner: which for the last week it has been steak and zucchini and or yellow squash with feta cheese.

1900 – 2100 – read/watch movie/call people

2100 – Bed time: I normally try and go to bed at or just before 2100. It is great to get all that sleep.

I have so much free time right now it is great. God is doing some big time renovations in my life, teaching me to rely on him and to trust his plan for my life. I do not have much to do here but grow my relationship with Him so that is what I am using this time for. I am never going to have this kind of free time again; I am going to enjoy it for all it is worth right now.

Well that is what a day in the life of Joey lambert looks like during the week.

Plebe Year Part 2 – Beast

My family and I arrived in New York a couple days early for R-Day. The night before I went into Beast I watched Gladiator still one of the most motivating movies in the world right behind Man on Fire. The next day I walked down the steps into Ike hall in the big auditorium we were told we were to go through the huge double doors and we had 30 seconds to say goodbye my mom had been saying goodbye all morning and crying all the while. I walked through the doors and started on one of the greatest experience of my life to date. That first day was a blur but I do remember meeting my roommate and trying to make my bed as soon i got there and he told me slow down Turbo we have time for that, that name would stick with me for a long time and would be what I was known for in Foxtrot company during Beast.

There is little that stands out to me of my beast experience some highlight here and there. But mostly I remember it as an experience a set of emotions and feelings not as specific events. I remember one time huddling up with my squad out in the rain our squad leader called us in and we all got really close trying to stay warm. I remember one day playing ultimate Frisbee, the CO was on my team and he called for me to pass to him, “hey Turbo over here.” I remember Sunday morning and crying to the chaplain because I felt so alone and incapable to do what I was required. I remember the repel sight and talking crap to the repel master and racing him. I could not start as fast as him but once I got going I hit the ground literally inches behind him.

The biggest thing I remember from beast was on developing a name for myself as the loudest and most motivated person in the class of 2011. The feelings of fear, self-doubted and not measuring up were growing and continue through Beast and into Plebe year. Those feelings for doubt and fear where to become a driving force in my life over plebe year.

However God as always proved himself too good to me over Beast even with these feelings racing through me I was able to enjoy every minute of Beast and have nothing but fond memorize of it. God gave me success that I did not deserve during our activities during Beast.

This success would and the lies in my heart I believed would make my first couple years at the Academy very painful and a time of struggle and turmoil for me.

“FOXTROT!!!!!!!!!!”

Desuire/Longing/Passion For/The Cry of My Heart

So I was out at lunch with some guys and they were talking about X and you could see the light in their eyes and they discussed and talked. Getting more and more excited about X. i was excited for them but at the same time it hurt so much because i do not have X in my life like these two guys do. I love it so much where they are and i am so happy for them and while i was with them the overwhelming feeling in my heart was joy and happiness but as soon as i left it hit me. I do not have X and right now do not have the potential for X in my life.

As i was driving away i was crying to God to remove these desires because right now i feel that he has called me to be content without X in my life. But my heart was crying out no....NO!! As tears were coming down my face wanted to know why God would keep this desire in my heart if he is trying to make me content and to grow me without it.

I have no idea. All i know is that my heart is focused on Jesus and becoming one with Him. The cry of my heart is to be close to him in everything. But whenever something reminds me of X i am lost in longings of my heart and the passion i have to find X and to have X in my life.

Well waiting on God is not a bad thing it just sucks some times. But if the season i am in is waiting for the train then i am going to have to wait for the train....all i ask God is that you do not have me wait too long!!!!

Plebe year Part 1 – Applications process

WOW I was thinking back over my four years at the academy and I struck me that I should write about my times there by year, so here it goes.

Any story with me and West Point needs to start with the application process because that was a battle in and of itself. The first time I saw West Point was my freshman year of high school and while I was there I cried and knew that I was supposed to be at this school. Thus started the journey that I ended just a couple months ago. I opened a file with West Point the first day of my junior year. My SAT scores were no good at all so for almost a year straight I took a section of math and a section of English everyday trying desperately to bring my scores into the competitive range or better. Then I applied for the summer seminars I was rejected from the West Point on but I got into the Naval Academy one and believe it or not it was a great experience it cemented in my mind that I was meant for the military and it was only a matter of which academy I was going to go to if I got into either. Then the medical test I was disqualified for a couple things and I got waivers but sat on them for a long time so I started to call Dodmerb every day to try and get my paper work moving forward and either because I bugged them so much or because it was time I was cleared. 

I received two separate rejection letters from West Point but that was never the last word for me. Something I learned from my mother is that no is just a yes waiting to happen. So I fixed the problems played a team sport just because they wanted me to, I had done karate for 3.5 years and had got my black belt and was teaching it but they wanted a team sport so I did track and football even though I had no idea how to play.

Finally the battle in my mind was over I was going to go to West Point no matter what, I would do ROTC for  year and the reapply then I got the letter and I was not accepted into the class of 2011 at the Naval Academy and I was like ok this is fine. Then I got the letter that was NOT accepted into the class of 2011 at West Point, however I had the option to go to Marion Military Academy to improve my English scores and I could reapply and coming to the class of 2012. So I was like ok I can do this this is great I have an in. then then a miracle happened. Two kids in my district who had gotten into to West Point decided to go to Harvard instead of West Point. I call them the “stupid smart kids.” It is because of them that I was called 6 weeks before the start of Beast and while high on pain killers because of my wisdom teeth was told by my congressman’s office that I was accepted into the class of 2011 at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

This was a road that I could not have completed without my mother I learned from her that if you want something if you really want something the only things that truly stands in your way is hard work and it is the ones willing to do the hard work that are going to succeed.

Teddy Roosevelt said, “There is not disgrace in a failure only in a failure to try.”

Am I the One? Part 1

Focused on the cross

“Am I the One” by James R. Lucas is an amazing book about relationships and has some really good questions to ponder before marriage and while in a relationship.

One of the main premises of the book is that you should stop looking for the right person to marry and start becoming the right person to marry. This thought resonated with me when I read it for the first time. That makes so much sense. Instead of constantly looking around me for God’s plan and becoming discontent with where God has placed me instead to be content and rejoice at where God has placed me. I can grow closer to him and when the time is right and as I run towards the cross someone with be running next to me and as her and I run towards the cross we will grow closer together because that is our path, our eyes are fixed on the cross and God is moving us closer. And eventually God is going to whisper in each of our ears look to your side and see the plan I have for you!!!!! WOW!!! I have talked to enough people to know what that moment is going to feel like. My dad said he saw my mom with new eyes like he had never seen her before in his entire life. A fiend of mind said she seemed to literally glow and all the other girls around her seemed to be dim in comparison. I love these stories but I want to live my own story. I am tired to hearing it I want to be me telling someone else the story.

But that is the point I need to keep my eyes straight forward and focus on the cross not because I am hoping that God is going to have me look to the side soon but because God wants all of me. Not part of me, but…ALL OF ME!!!

Mentors -- great to have, scary to be

What is a mentor??

A mentor is a person who you look up to someone you aspire to be like to emulate. A mentor has character traits that you would like to proses or emulate. A mentor is someone who has been through the journey you are going through and can give advice and council based on experience and wisdom. Wisdom is the application of knowledge and experience. It is taking the knowledge you have learned and the experiences you have had and molding them together in order to create wisdom for the future.

I have had many mentors thus far in my life and I am sure I will have many more as I progress in my career and in life. To start with the most important ones:

Mom and Dad: taught me so much lessons that they had learned through hard experience and painful times. How to live. How to love. How to aspire to greatness. How to never give up even when you are only 300 strong and facing the entire Persian army of 1,000,000!!!

David Penskar: Second semester Squad leader (08) at USMA. He was a role model of what a servant leader was. He cared for us and was willing to do work for us. He would talk with us like we actually mattered to him even though he had enough work of his own to do.

MAJ Blackmon: a great instructor who was an officer I would someday like to emulate. He was competent and fun loving but also he knew what was right and he made sure everyone did it.

MAJ Ralph: he had a real view of the world and he would BS with you but when it came time to work he would crack skulls and kick people in the butt to get things moving and the job done to standard. He also wanted people to learn and grow and develop. He had some a clear picture of where he wanted his people to go and how to get them there, I was blessed to get to spend time with him this summer and have a good relationship with him.

These are only a few of the mentors that I have. But here is the scary part for me. I see these guys as mentors and to know how I look at my mentors and how I follow their every move and listen carefully to their every comment. To know that there are people who view me as a mentor is scary because what if I mess up what if I do not live up to their expectations of me? I once had a father tell me that I was a role model for his sons. I was scared to death, what if I mess up what if I do something terrible.

I came to realize that I did not have to be scared. I had to remember the extreme gravity of the position I am in in this person’s life but to understand that I have to be me. I have to live my life now worrying about what other think about me but focused only on what God thinks of me. I have to dedicate my life to living to the best of my ability and leave the rest up to him.

So not so scary as first anticipated but still a great responsibility but an even greater honor and privilege that God has led me to someone who can benefit from seeing my life the good the bad and the ugly.

Welcome to the real Joey...if you want to watch just remember i am only human :)

Content being where I am...what about Joy-filled

Contentment is something you have without being happy in that place or really wanting to be there. However to be joy-filled you have to be content and happy. To be happy is about attitude. You decide you attitude every day. whether you are going to have a good attitude or have a bad attitude whether you are going to be look at the experience of the day as something to learn from or something that is there to bother you and bring you trouble.

This past weekend God throw some experiences in my life for the express purpose of me learning contentment and to be joy-filled with where i am and the place God has placed me. Specifically being single.

So now i find myself being single again after a relationship with was great. It was healthy and open. We could both say at the end of the relationship that we are both better people for knowing and dating each other. Which is a successful relationship. There are two outcomes to a successful relationship: 1. marriage & 2. Not marriage. Either way you are discovering what God's will is for the two of you. While you are listening and following God's will you are getting to know the other person and learning and growing with them. This is what a healthy relationship looks like. you are not feeding off of each other and taking advantage of each other physically or emotionally (both are just as harmful) but you respecting each other as a brother or sister in Christ.

So now i am in a new stage in my life God has placed before me a new task a new destination and this is a strange fact about where i am now as compared to other times God and i have set out on a journey. I know where i am going and what i am supposed to learn along the way.

However here comes the rub....i just do not want to do it!!!!

I do not want to be content being single and being where God has placed me. Right now in my life God has given me an amazing opportunity to grow and build my relationship with Him but i would rather stick to my own game plan, keep doing my own thing.

But over this weekend God brought me to my knees literally and i gave it all over to him. All of my dreams and ambitions, my desires. I was not happy about it but i am willing to do it. I am far from having completely done it but i am on the journey. It is like i have dropped the pack from my back but i am dragging it behind me by a strap and i am refusing to let go. I want to keep holding on to MY dreams and MY hopes. but i am starting to realize and actually embrace that GOD's dreams and GOD's hopes for me are so much better but i can only fit one set of those in my at once and it has to be ME or GOD there is one mixing or taking them by portions. All or nothing.

So that is the journey ahead of me. like Pilgrims Progress right now i am working on moving towards the cross to cut my weight from my back and fully leave it at the cross not carrying any part of it along with the road with me.

Well you will know the rest of the story when i do and i will continue to share it with you. some of this is very personal but i feel that if i write this all down and by my sharing everything someone somewhere is able to avoid even one of the holes i have fallen in or battles i have lost all this writing and sharing with have been worth it.....also i really like to write.

See you around the playground.

Back From the Dead...or just from the end of West Point

So my plan to Blog everyday for the last hunder days of firstie year was a fail but now i am going to start again.
so long story very short.
- there was graduation it was amazing
- working at CLDT (5th deployment to Bucknam) great learning experience
- Haiti was a good time (learned about myself)
- Ohio with Judd was a great time
- time at home was relaxing
- Camp illumination & Judd's wedding both epic events
- relationship (growth, learning, amazing)
- road trip from West Point to benning with dad...good trip
- starting Snow Bird time at benning
- Plebe retreat (what a weekend) 1. travel 2. spiritual attacks 3. morning talk 4. end relationship 5. find plebe family (great kids) 6. lose a fight(s)
- STILL TRYING TO DIGEST ALL THAT HAPPENED...this past weekend

WOW...so i am going to try and pick this back up and keep writting because i have heard that out lips and through the finger tips. and when i have to put my thoughts into words i have to think through them so much more. they have to become fully developed.

well until i have another thought to share with you....see you around the play ground.