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.

32 Days - THE RACE

THE RACE

Quit, give up, your beaten, they shout out and plead

There is just too much against you now.

This time you can't succeed.

And as I start to hang my head in front of failure's face

My downward fall is broken by the memory of a race,

And hope refills my weakened will as I recall that scene

for just the thought of that short race rejuvenates my being

A children's race

Young boys, young men now I remember well,

Excitement sure, but also fear, it wasn't hard to tell.

They all lined up so full of hope

Each thought to win the race

Or tie for first, or if not that at least take second place.

And fathers watched from off the site

Each cheering for his son

And each boy hoped to show his dad that he would be the one.

The whistle blew and off they went young hearts in hopes of fire

To win, to be the hero there was each young boy's desire

And one boy in particular, his dad was in the crowd

Was running near the lead and thought

My dad will be so proud.

But as he speeded down the field across a shallow dip

The little boy who thought to win

Lost his step and slipped

Trying hard to catch himself, his hands flew out to brace

Amid the laughter of the crowd he fell flat on his face.

So down he fell, and with him hope, he couldn't win it now.

Embarrassed, sad, he only wished he could disappear somehow.

But as he fell, his dad stood up and showed his anxious face

Which to the boy so clearly said "get up and win this race".

He quickly rose, no damage done, behind a bit that's all

And ran with all is mind and might to make up for his fall.

Still he gave it all he had and ran as though to win

Three times he'd fallen stumbling, three times he'd rose again

Too far behind to hope to win he still ran to the end.

They cheered the winning runner as he crossed the line first place

Head high and proud and happy,

No falling, no disgrace,

But when the fallen youngster crossed the line last place,

The crowd gave him the greater cheer for finishing the race,

For all of life

Is like that race with ups and downs

And all we have to do to win

Is rise to our heavenly father each time we fall,

Quit, give up, your beaten, people shout in my face,

But another voice within me says, "Get up and win this race".

Day 44 - Run in such a way to win

I am so tired…I have been getting sleep this week and last week but I a tired. i have been at this school for almost 4 years, I have been pushing with everything that I have in my for 4 years. I am tired. this week it is all hitting me and I can barely stand.

it is discouraging to listen to people who just walked into West Point and not truly appreciate the gift that they have or do not do work here and blow off grades and work and leader development. I can honestly say I want to break them more often than not (that is being very polity).

For the past 4 years I have pushed with everything that is in me. I have never given up an inch of ground I have worked my classes like crazy, I have squeezed the most out of my leadership positions.

Over all I have gone from class rank plebe year mid 600, yuk year mid 500, cow year

Academic Program		Military Program Score		Physical Program		Cadet Performance (overall)
Score (APSC)	Rank in class (APR)	Score (MPSC)	Rank in class (MPR)	Score (PPSC)	Rank in class (PPR)	Score (CPS)	Rank in class (CPR)
2.972	510	3.331	380	3.128	267	2.963	404

to where I am now

Academic Program		Military Program Score		Physical Program		Cadet Performance (overall)
Score (APSC)	Rank in class (APR)	Score (MPSC)	Rank in class (MPR)	Score (PPSC)	Rank in class (PPR)	Score (CPS)	Rank in class (CPR)
3.148	425	3.636	171	3.391	107	3.131	246

(these scores as of start of firstie year)

I am not posting this to brag but I am posting more for myself to see what it is that I have accomplished to know that I have not run in vain.

I want to be able to stand on that stage in 44 days and know without a shadow of a doubt that I did my absolute and unfettered best and I left nothing on the table. when I cross the finish line in a race I what to know what I have nothing left if I know I have something less than I did not do my best.

When I see people who are costing by and not giving it their all it is so discouraging and infuriating to me because they are not doing their best and sometimes they make fun of me for doing my best and working so hard.

I believe my soldiers deserve my best and they deserve for me to be the best officer I can be without a question or doubt so that is what I am working to give them.

I am at the end of the race and I do not know what I have left. I can barely work anymore. I want to give up. I want to stop and rest. I want to know I made a difference. But there are 10 meters left and I have to pick up my knees, pump my arms and truck forward because it is in the last 10 meters of a race that you have to sprint with all that is in you because you have nothing left and you want to quite but you cannot, you will not.

RUN THROUGH THE TAPE, FINISH THE RACE MARKED OUT FOR YOU WITH ALL THAT YOU HAVE AND WHEN YOU HAVE RUN THROUGH THAT TAPE AND HAVE COLLAPSED REMEMBER THAT YOU GAVE IT YOUR ALL!!!!!

ALL IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

47 Days - WOW this really is going to happen

I took my ASU (army service uniform) into be tailored the other day and it started to hit me that this is really going to happen. I am about to graduate and become an officer in the United States Army. WOW

I finally realized that I hate working out with no purpose and with goal of some unattainable physical fitness level. So I started training for my grappling match on the 26 of April. It is double reg championship I am hitting it hard and I will be ready. I have been watching the Rocky's this week and it motivated me so much to watch him working out with a purpose and a measureable out come at the end of this time. I love to fight I want to fight all the time. I think some day I want to get into cage fighting.

WOW almost there!!!!