The Beginning

I have been absent for a long time and for that I am sorry. I have finished IBOLC, Ranger School and I am not in Airborne and will graduate on 10 Aug. I am about to finish all my training it has lasted 5 years and I am about to head to my unit and actually start doing what I was trained to do, lead. WOW I am actually going to go LEAD! A scary thought once you actually sit down and think about it. But I am ready and I can’t wait to get out to Fort Lewis....for more than one reason. I also met the woman of my dreams, which you will hear a lot more about in future. Her name is Jennie Brown.....or excuse me Dr. (CPT) Jennie Brown. I have to salute her which is really hot and she is so much smarter than me. More to follow on her....a lot more for a really long time.

Ranger school was an interesting school I am so glad it is over and done with. I can finally say, "I’ve got mine!" which is a phrase that I hate but I have my tab. but now the hard part starts. I am part of that small community and I am held to a very very high standard. So no pressure.

Glad to be back.......

WHY

I was talking to a friend last night and she said something that made me think and has altered my perspective. She something to the effect that when she is at school she is normally really stressed out, but when she is at school she is also stressed out even though she has much less going on. She said that it really did not matter what the situation was or what you were doing there will always be stress.

I was thinking that this battle that I am fighting will come to an end if I stop fighting but it will not. I will always be in this battle….so I have every reason to keep fighting. Because this battle will destroy my life so I have to overcome it and move on to the next battle. There will always be a battle to fight.

Why do I fight? Because I do not want this fight to interfere with my relationship with God, I want my relationships with others to be full and complete. I am fighting for people I do not even know yet or that I do not know that I know (that is confusing).

I fight because I have to I fight because that is why God has called me to do. He has not called me to live a life of peace but a life of war and of strife, A life of a warrior for him. That is who I am, that is what I will do.

Gladiators do not fight by choice they fight because they have to. They are placed in the arena and an enemy enters they have to fight but they do not fight just for themselves. They fight for others and that is where I draw my strength I am fighting this battle by choice I am fighting it because I have been thrust into the arena. So I will fight with all my might and no matter how many times I am knocked down and now many times I am cut and defeated. I will never surrender I will never give up while there is breath left in my body.

Fighting

Why is it that everything in life worth having you have to fight for? Sometimes I wish that the things that I wanted would just be handed to me so I would not have to go through the pain to get them.

I am in a battle right now that is so amazingly painful that I despair of ever over coming it. I know that others have won but for me I see no hope in sight. I know what I must do but I don’t do it. Why….. IT HURTS!!!!! I do not want to be in pain any more. I feel like I have been in pain for so long I just want to be at peace. I want to be live at peace for a period of time. I am not a fighter I am a guy who wants to live at peace. But my life is full of battles and struggles and I hate it. I do not want to fight, those around me do not fight and they seem to be doing all right but I know that I have been called to fight so I must go back into the battle. But I don’t want to at all. I want to surrender and ask both sides to leave me alone for a while I pull my life back together.

Have you ever been walking towards a cliff and known that you were about to walk off the edge and even seen it coming and STILL WALKED OFF ANYWAYS!!! What is that? I do that all the time. I see the cliff coming and what do I do I may slow down or I may not I may just speed up so that I can get the drop over with sooner.

What is the answer?

Well if you want to hear what the books says,

“Trust in the Lord and he will renew your strength,”

“Pray for the strength to overcome and Jesus will fill you with his power,”

“Memorize scripture and have it constantly running through your mind,”

“Read the word of God and he will encourage you,”

Well all of these are true and there are many more and much better ones. But all these short sencences are incredibly hard to actually do!!! Everything is pushing against me when I try or when I even think about do any of those thinks. And you are saying sitting there reading this in your chair well just go forward that is the only way you can go. But as you are arm chair quarter backing it i am actually here fighting and it is not that easy. I would like nothing better than to do all of this and to listen to all the advice that I have received and to get out of this battle but I cant. I am stuck in a circle because I give out just enough effort to start the momentum then I run out just in time to fall right back around to where I was creating a huge circle of bull s#*%!!!!!

I sound very discouraged and despondent right now which is not actually how my life is right now but it is how I feel right now. I feel this way and I don’t like it but I do know how to feel any other way right now.

Well I had to unload this or I was going to explode. Thank you whoever you are who is reading this for reading if you even got this far.

AUG 11 - Plebe year Part 3 - Academics

So to understand plebe year academics in my life fully you need to know what my academic career looked like before. I was homeschooled from the start to the end until I graduated from high school. I had some problems starting out. I did not learn to read until I was 11 years old. My mom tried everything she could think of, every curriculum and she and my dad even took me to several doctors and physiologists to make sure there was not something wrong with me. Instead of reading science and math were my friends. I could explain the principles of lift and aerodynamics before I was 8. I started and finished an entire algebra 2 course in a month and a half period.

When I was a junior in high school i was kicked out of the house in regards to math because I had out stripped the stuff my dad had time to teach me. So I started taking college algebra at a junior college and by the end of my senior year I had finished calculus 2. At the same time I was taking calculus 1 and 2 my senior year I was taking physics at a different junior college.

Being home schooled made my very self-motivated and self-driven. I wanted to excel and I understood that my focus at the academy was academics. That was why I was there. I was there to be a student and to learn about leadership on to have fun.

However all you need to do is call my mom to know how hard academics and academy life was on me. I called her every day with some problem some worry all of them were about reading and writing classes. Western civilization was the worst class plebe year. I could not do the reading to keep up and I could not remember what I needed to pass the tests. So my mom devised a plan to help me survive. She ordered my history books and had paid a friend of ours to read the lessons into a digital recorder and email them to me where I would religiously sit down and listen to him read the books to me taking notes and trying to make it all stick.

This was the story of all four years for me at the academy. I always had a class that was for me a matter of survival for me. Do not get me wrong I never settled for anything but my absolute best but sometimes my best was only passing.

That was something that defined my academic career at West Point. I never settled for anything but my best. My mom once told me when I called her about how nervous I was before a test she would say before you take the test sit down and ask yourself could I have done any more? Was there any wasted time; was there anything I could have done to improve my score? If the answer was I did all I could, I could be happy with whatever grade I received because it was my absolute best.

There is so much more to tell about plebe year academics. All the times God pulled me from the edge of absolute disaster. All the times I was able to help others. All the great experiences I had working on projects with partners. I know everyone hates group projects but maybe I was just luck or maybe I was smarter in picking my partners but I do not every remember having a bad partner in any class.

Well that is all for know about academics…however there may be a plebe year part 3.1 – academics

See you around the play ground

AUG 11 - Plebe year Part 2 - Beast

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!!!!!!!!!!”

AUG 11 - Am I the One Part 2

In the book, “am I the one” they lay out some steps to look at in becoming the right person to marry.

Step #1: Become passionate about God – This means making God the center of your live not a thing you do on Sundays and another day of the week. If God is not the center of your live it could become someone and that would be terrible.

[Note – a great analogy for this one is: a women’s heart should be so entwined with the heart of God that a man has to become one with God to get to the women’s heart. (I think I can turn this around for me? Well I am going to look at it like that any ways)]

Step #2: Know the truth – babies do not know the truth it takes time to see life through God’s lens do you like the truth. Most people do not really want to know the truth unless it is pleasant. If you know the truth—really know it and love it and believe it—“you will become free” (John 8:32).

Step #3: Live in Freedom – are you living in freedom—free of the power and plague of sin, free to say “no” to temptation, free to think for yourself, free of the always-lurking Christian Pharisees and their petty rules? You weren’t put here to place people in Bondage of a bad relationship. You were put here “to proclaim freedom for the captives” (Isaiah 61:1).

Step #4: Become passionate about others – are you spending yourself on others? Are you investing on others? Is the world around you—at home, at work, at school, at church, in the community—at least a little better because of your drive to make it so? If you don’t have the humility to “consider other better than yourselves,” you’re not ready for serious relationship. Most people who get married don’t have that humility, so their relationships are all about rights and resentment. You can do a lot better than that.

Step #5: Become passionate about your responsibilities –are you looking for the work and career that will resonate with your soul? Have you refused to absorb the lies, like the idea about “full-time Christian work” (if you’re a Christian, all work is), and “I’m just working to get money so I can serve God” (the work is the big part of your service: see Colossians 3:17), and “it’s not all supposed to be enjoyable—that’s why they call it work” (joy is a choice, not just an emotion).

[Note – attitude that is the one thing that you decide every day. To have a good attitude to be joyful in the situation you are in or not to be.]

Step #6: Find a greater cause – have you found something bigger than yourself that you can devote yourself to? Have you at least made a stab at the question about impact (“what am I here to change?”), significance (“what am I here to build?”), and legacy (“what do I want to leave behind—when I graduate? When I leave my first job? When I die?”). if you don’t have something outstanding reason to be here, your life will be too insignificant to have any outstanding relationships.

[Note – this is a great question one when answered by God shows a direction for course of your life]

Step #7: Learn the power of redemption – Have you learned how to make a comeback? Have you learned that mistakes aren’t fatal, that you can learn and grow and improve, that failure comes from quitting rather than from making mistakes? Do you know forgiveness—how to experience it and how to grant it? Do you cut people slack when they foul up? Have you learned how to meet in the middle?

These are good steps and it is interesting to look at these and see where I fall short and need to work and which ones I can look at and say I got that one.

Side thought – I find this whole series I am starting to be very funny actually because I am learning how to be content and joyful being single but I am going through a relationship book looking at if I am ready for a relationship? Well these will not only get me ready for a relationship but will make me a better person. Healthy and well-rounded aware of my emotions and feelings. WOW an emotionally aware guy, can the world handle that J

Later all

gone for a while

hi everyone, well all 1 one you that read this. i have been gone for a while and now i am back. i am going to post the blogs that i finished while i was away. i will be putting the dates on top of them.

enjoy

out reach - take up your cross

telling some one about Jesus is easy, what is hard is taking up your cross ever day and loving those around you, those you live with, it is hard to live day in and say out as a man of chirst.

yes it is a good thing to tell people about Jesus and to pursie men and women for the kingdom. but if you do not daily take up your cross and love those around you and live each day as Christ would have your work advancing the kingdom is like spitting in the wind.

without the live the action is nothing. Jesus actions of sharing with people would have been nothing if he had not love those around him and had not every day lived a blameless life.

i know of to many people who have focused on their ministry and have gone nowhere because they ahve destroyed their life or the lives of their families. people who spent their lives in ministry and their children turned their back on God or commited suicide or ran to drugs and alcohal. what went wrong? they lost sight of the whole picture. they did not live each day picking up their cross and loving their family and loving their wives and loving their children.

the greatest commandment is to love the lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul. the second is to love your neighbor as yourself.

the purpose of hte christian life is to love Jesus with all wo who we are. it is to trive to be like him in always. the first goal of a christian is to pursuie a relationship with Jesus Christ with all of who we are. the second purpose of the christian life is loving our neighbor it is the great commission. it is because we love Jesus so much and are growing to be more like him. we then know how to love our neighbors and to bring people into the kingdom. we are overflowing with love for Jesus and excitment in the life that we have found in him that our cup is full and we have to share that live and love with those around us.

we have to start by picking up our cross everyday, day in and day out. that is what is hard, really really hard.

we as christians have to keep the first things first and make sure we are running after the right things. there is so much i could write about this i have spent the last couple of years thinking about his and hte past 3 months actively wrestling over this and engaging in discussion and debate, but i have to stop now. if you have questions please ask, comment, email (forfreedomifight2011@gmail.com) or call 951 440 4293.
Jesus i pray that you will help us to pursue you will all of who we are. to focus on you and everything else will follow.

Living with Guys

I will be down here at Fort Benning for about a year. I am living in a Navigator house it is a great expereince. because in this time i am not only surrouneded by great men and great christians but i am learning how to deal with conflicts and with issues that arrise in the house. i just moved out of my house and into another house because there is a dog in the house i was living in. it was me or her.

i have learned in a house with men or with any one is that you have to have rules and you have to have strong leadership to follow through on the rules and if necessary you need to enforce the rules and if some one is not following them. they have chosen to not live in the house and they need to leave. this is not mean or cruel it is real love. we as christians can not be door mat and allow people to walk over us.

Jesus loved people but he did not coddle them he love then in the way htey needed love. i am learning what it means to have tough love for those around me.

step back up to the plate

you know when you feel that God points out his plan for you and as you move towards it the door gets shut in your face? Well that happend to me and i am not sure what to do about it. when hte door was shut i was content to say ok i thought that was right but now it is shut so that is it. but i keep asking God to answer this question in my life and all i can think about is the door that was shut. it is all i can do to throw my heart into the purpuit of other things. i want to go back and try for round two.

i keep praying and i keep going back to where i was. may be that is the way it is supposed to be but the time is not right. i need more time wondering in the wilderness to learn and grow into who God intended me to be.

well i hope God makes up His mind soon or he speeds up my growth even though that will hurt a lot but i want to know. the constant cry of my heart is to know what he wants for me. i see it every where and am constantly reminded of this cry!!!

should i step back up to the plate and if so when is the right time? i guess that is the dance of hte holy spirit. i need to stay in step with him and when it is the right time i will know, without a shadow of a doubt that this is what God wants for me.

"Please God what ever you are working on in my life please bring it to a conclussion and move me back up to the plate!!!!!!!!!"

Long time to talk/write/anything

So i am still here at Fort Benning snow birding.

i actualy have nothing to write tonight. i just wanted to get on here and update put something up here. one of my roomates just turned 26 on tuesday and we are going to celebrate his brithday tomorrow night. i have been trying to get our house in order for that party but it is hard when i as 25% of the house am the only one who is trying to get it ready and the other 50% is doing nothing the other 25% wants to help but has a real job unlike the other 50%.

i have to practice self restraint every day to keep from hurting anyone when they push my buttons i have tried to show love to them. even though i do not feel any love what so ever towards them. we have house chores and mine is not sweeping the common areas but i did it again today because my roommate can not seem to find the broom which is right in front of him.

i really do not have anything nice to say so i am going to stop here. this was not a good blog so i am going to stop now.

i am sorry to all how read this.
joey

Long weekend - Navigator Retreat - Great Commition

Hey everyone (or at least those who read this)



We just finished a long weekend and i had some great adventures i wanted to tell you about. I finished work on Thursday afternoon and jumped in the car with a friend of mine and headed up to Atlanta to pick up his girlfriend. Then we drive up to his family’s lake house. We were up there with me and two other couples one married and the other dating. Friday we took his families boat out on the lake it was as great i tubed and knee boarded. then we all swam around for a while it was great, well they all had someone to do it with but i was fine because i got to drive the boat and it was amazing. I have decided i am going to have to own a boat one day. It is not an if any more it is only a when. The rest of our group showed up late Friday night and we made dinner, it was another couple who is dating and two other single guys. Saturday morning we boated again and swam a lot it was a lot of fun. The three couples, one married and two dating and then me and this other single guy but again i got to drive the boat so i was in heaven.



We then headed up to the Navigators conference Saturday night. Checked in went to the first session, roasted marshmallows, swam in a lake we were not supposed to and had a great time. we got up on Sunday at an ungodly hour to run up Currahee (the hill from Band of Brothers) it was a great time.it was dark so i could not even see the group beneath my feet but i could see the vagu out line of a white road and that is where i went and supporsingly i did not fall or twist anything. Then we got back and had two workshops which were good.



That afternoon/evening i had a minor melt down. This may take more than one post but the BLUF is: we are all human and no one is perfect.



The navigators have developed an amazing way to witness to people and to disciple people but at the conference i was reminded of why i left the navigators while i was at West Point. The Focus of the retreat was on disciple ship. Whenever i would bring up the direction that God has been taking me and the cry of my heart i would be shut down (most times in not so graceful or loving a way) and told that i needed to relook at my way of following Jesus.



What is sad to me is that what i feel is the cry of my heart is where all these people came from and they have such a clear grip on. There are basic truths that are infallible however how each of us takes those truths and applies them in our own lives is going to be different we are all individual and unique people.



the cry of my heart, the reason i wake up every day and read my bible and pray, the reason i go to battle everyday with my mind to have victory is so that i can be one with God! The cry of my heart is to be in a relationship with Jesus Christ and to be close to him.



I believe that is our mission that is our journey however while we are on this journey we were "commissioned" to bring other into the kingdom to join us on the journey.



if my focus is on Jesus and to be close to him to have him fill my cup to over flowing then from that over flow of my heart i will be so excited about Jesus who i know that i will have to share it with others and bring them into the kingdom.



Here is the problem how do you get 100% of the body of Christ doing Great Commission work 100% of the time??



Only a small percent about 5% of the body of Christ is called to be missionaries or pastor or called to full time ministry. But what about the rest of us? What about us in the trenches?



well in the normally use of the word we laborers who go to work every day and have a normally job are not in full time minister...however this is where i would raise a red flag and ask you to reevaluate. I would argue that we in the trenches, we laborers are called to and can do Great Commission work 100% of the time.



When I go to work i devote myself to my job 100%, when i am working out i devote myself to it 100%, when i am working on relationships with people i am there 100%. That is how we obey.



The cry of my heart is to obey, not to go. Yes it is hard to go to Africa or some other nation. However i would argue it is just as hard if not harder to go to work day after day working at it with all our hearts as working for the Lord and not for men. Being faithful. Being a light for those in the dark of how a man or woman of God should live their lives. Now do not get me wrong this does not mean that we on the line do not have to be ready to go for the fumble at any time and run for the in-zone but our focus is giving it our all every play. If you have ever played D or O line in football you will understand this, you have to sell your body every play. You have to sell out every single time the ball is snapped. There is not holding back and going half speed. That is what i believe living for Jesus looks like.



One day i hope that someone will look at me and i do not want them to day that was a man who disciple people, or who told people about Jesus.



I want people to look at me and say,



"There is Joe Lambert; he is an Infantry officer who is squared away and excellent at his job. That is a man who is a PT animal. Joe Lambert is a Christian. That is a man who has something different and something i do not have and that is what i want."



Well now you have my two cents. I am not down playing any other point of view and i hope that i have not offended anyone. However if we can agree on the base line truth:



1. Our relationship with Jesus is our Number one priority



2. As we grow close to him we will bring other into that same relationship



These are true. However how they are manifested in my life is going to look different than they are going to be in your life.

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.