Something in the making...

God is so big. Just when I think I understand how big He is...He gets bigger. The past two weeks have been weeks of illumination. God has spoken and I heard Him...Loud and Clear! The past year God has been trying to tell me something but I always thought it was just a selfish desire. This past week God finally got through to say "It's me!" Jamie and I are now on a journey. A journey to see lives changed. Project One Forty Three has been created and through it, life will never be the same. Jamie and I have launched what will become life as we know it. We have started a organization that will forever change the lives of orphans and the communities that they live in. Together we will raise money to help impact the lives of ONE hundred and FORTY THREE million orphans. The day is coming when God will say...Go get them Chris...I will be ready...Because something is in the making!

Funny!?!?

Good morning world...Seriously? 1:30am!!! God you must be preparing me to be a daddy. I have to admit, it is a wonderful feeling waking up thinking about little Eli and how much I already love him. He is not even here yet and I think about him constantly. He captivates my thoughts, turns stressful moments into joy and when everything seems to be going wrong, just the thought of him and everything changes. As I sit here and write, I am starting to cry. I am so in love with a little boy and he is not even here. God thank you so much!!! We have prayed for so long that you would give us a child. Now we are only 4 months away from him being here. I find it amazing that you know his days. God I pray that I am an example of you. That everyday Eli sees Christ in me. God I pray that you protect his heart. That in these early years he develops a foundation that is built on you. I pray that his child-like faith will grow all the days of his life. May he be a servant to you.

I find it funny that it is now 2:00am and here I sit on my couch dreaming about the time that I will hold my little boy. The day I get to look into his eyes and meet him for the first time. What will he think? Will he recognize my voice? Will he feel comforted in the fact that his daddy is holding him? Does he know that I will do anything for him? Does he know that I will always protect him, I will always be there for him? Does he know how much I love him? Now I am starting to laugh as I ask myself "will I cry?" OF COURSE! People say that life will never be the same. That excites me. I have longed for this change. I have longed for this responsibility.

God help me remember that Elijah is your gift to Jamie and I. Though we are responsible for him, he will always be Yours.

Love can change everything!!!

I woke up this morning with so many different thoughts on my mind. What, when, where, who, and how seem to be the beginning of everything I think. God is working and I can feel Him, but the answers are still not clear. So I will be patient. The one thing that keeps turning in my head is how this all began. This journey of following God to do things that were so beyond me. Things that I would never do, or ever dream of. It started with the move to Savannah. But that was just the beginning. God brought us here for a reason unknown to us at the time. It wasn't until September 2008 that we would embark on something that would change our life forever. This life change would come in the form of a little boy named "Aleks". Jamie and I decided to host this little boy from Latvia for 4 weeks and allow him to experience Christmas in America. Who knew that this little boy would cause a beautiful disaster. Anyways, my story actually begins the night of January 14th 2009. This was our last day with Aleks. We knew that the next day we had to drive him back to the airport and send him back home to the life that he so desired to leave behind. It was quite a helpless feeling. Here were my thoughts... 

(January 14, 2009)

I wish I could explain the feeling I have in my stomach. I lay here with so many thoughts. I have to admit I am angry. Right now nothing makes since. I have the desire to do so much, yet there are chains that bind me saying NO. But Why. All I can do is cry... and when I finish crying, I cry some more. Right now 10 feet away from me a little boy sleeps. A little boy who deserves a Mom and Dad that love him. For the past 4 weeks that is what he has received. Unending, unselfish love. But it all stops tomorrow. Is that possible? NO! We will never stop loving him. But does he know that? Does he know how much we care for him? My anger is fueling, my hurt is devastating. But the person I turn to is SILENT! God!?!? Why??? Doesn't he deserve a family that loves him? Doesn't he deserve to be raised in a family that loves you? I am laying here begging you to do something...anything. Please don't make me send him back home with no hope. God I can't handle this! Why would you do this? We love him. We know you love him more. So please do something! 

I had no clue at the time that God was working in a way that was much bigger than I thought. The morning of January 15 was a horrible day. I remember the numb feeling all over my body. It was as if I was being forced to do something that I did not want to do. I have never felt so much pain in my life. But I was without a choice. We packed up Aleks and got in the car. He seemed pretty quiet this morning. Not his normal self. I wish I could have known his thoughts. Was he hurting, did he understand, did he know that we loved him? These questions almost killed me. If they were doing this to me, I can't imagine what he was going through. But again I state, God was working!

I am going to move on in my thoughts. If I don't I will be here all day. We said our good byes and Jamie and I drove back to Savannah. It was a quiet ride. I longed to do something, anything. I couldn't live with the fact that I just sent Aleks back to an ORPHANAGE! I was so mad at God. I kept telling myself... I refuse to allow him to live there. But, what was I to do?

FACEBOOK! That was it! I had to find someone. Someone who would listen, care, and DO SOMETHING! God is so Amazing! I posted on Facebook..."Is anyone interested in Adoption?" This was the only thing I knew to do. And it worked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

What is so crazy is that this story is just the beginning. God radically changed my heart. He taught me that it is possible to love someone with out even knowing them. He also taught me His love for me. God loves us more than we can even imagine. It's a love that never stops, ends, or fails. Now I want to share this love. I want to change the lives of orphaned children around the world. I want them to know that they are loved and that they are worth loving. I want to hold them in my arms and let them know that someone cares. They are not forgotten! I truly believe that we can change their lives with love. Love can change everything...

Communion?

I woke up early this morning with this thought in my head. Are you truly ready for communion? This question seem to pull me out of dead sleep. It was like I was sleeping then suddenly I was awake and this question was resonating in my mind. To be honest, I believe God is trying to tell me something. My second thought is this... I just bought the new Tobymac song "city on our knees". I am not a huge Tobymac fan but this song keeps playing over and over in my head. The part I can't seem to shake is, "If you got to start somewhere why not here? If you got to start sometime why not now?" Its as if God took those words I was singing literal? At 4:00am He said I here you! So, back to this communions stuff... 1 Corinthians 11:27-30 says this, "Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself." I know that communion is not to be taken lightly, but to be honest, have I ever fully examined myself? Maybe this is why God has me up. I need to spend some time reflecting. I need to place myself beside Christ and see all the things that do not line up. I can name quite a few flaws right off the top of my head. The words of Paul are running in and out my head as I write this. Why is it that all the things I want to do, I DON'T DO...and the things I hate to do, I DO! I pray that God humbles my heart and that He continues to remind me that I am in need of Him daily. If only I could live every moment in the attitude that I am right now. God Please...less of me, more of you!

Today is a NEW day...

I have been dreaming of this day. The day that God would change everything. To be honest I was starting to believe that God wasn't going to come through. I was beginning to believe that No was His answer. But what he required of us was more than a yes or no answer, it was patients. Patients to wait on Him. Patients to wait for His perfect timing. I wish I could say that I was exactly what God would have wanted me to be. I wish I could say that every morning I got up and I layed my trust at His feet. But unfortunately I cannot do that. This process has been very long and hard for me. What I can't do is take any credit. God has clearly led and guided me through this time. This is a total God thing.... BUT, now what??? God!? what do we do now?
I have learned that trusting God takes away the pressures of the world. If I cast all my cares on Him, then I can walk through this world knowing that I am taken care of. God is good and today is a NEW day...Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding but in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths." God WE trust You!
Thanks Elijah and Lilly Kate for all your help through this!!!

Woe is me....

In the past two weeks I have managed to complete one whole book and start another. For me, this is a major accomplishment! What is crazy is how God is using these two books to radically change my life. This second book I am reading now is making me stop and think about creation and my Creator. The more I think the more I realize how insignificant I am, and how unimaginable, amazing, astonishing, unfathomable our God is. Even more amazing than this is that He has a Crazy Love for me.
So I was laying in bed and I was thinking about all this stuff and I couldn't sleep. How can you sleep when you begin to think about God and His attributes? It has taken over my mind. I want to go out on my roof and shout out how much I love him. But is that enough....No. I can never do enough. But yet God still loves me... Its hard to comprehend.
So... I have always been the kind of person to try and buck the system, but I feel the urge now more than ever. I don't think half of us have a clue of God or what He is about. I mean...if we did, then I don't think we would continue to do what we do. We get up and do our same routine over and over and over. Its monotonous... We live the life as a good Christian... We go to church, we pray and worship, we even read Bible stories to our children. These activities even "fulfill us"... But is this the Life of a Christian... If so, then I quit! Because God didn't create me to live on this magnificent ball we call Earth to spin around the amazing big ball of fire we call the Sun, just to live a NORMAL Christian life. He created everything so big and huge that I have to believe He created me that way to... I don't want to live and die just to be known as a good Christian... I want to spend the rest of my life changing the lives of others. I want to make sure I take care of the widowed and the orphaned. I want my life to be NOT about me. If I live life to gain something then I have lived it for the wrong reasons. What if when Paul said "to die is gain", he didn't mean a physical death. What if he meant a death of all his desires. The death of selfishness. Most of us, including me, live life to pay for our nice house, to pay for our nice car, to pay for the nice school for our children...We save up money in our savings accounts and our 401K's so that "we" can have a good retirement...But when was the last time we paid for someone in need, or took care of a child without a hope and a future?
GOD please HELP me... I hate who I have become! This world has transformed my thinking into caring more about myself than others. I have missed the message of the Bible. And the only person to blame is myself. Woe is me... for I am a man of unclean lips...
Welcome to my heart... I hope you get it...

Where am I?

Hey all my peeps...

 It feels like it has been forever since I have written something on my blog. So I am sitting here in my office and I had the urge to write. The past couple of days have been liberating. I finally finished this semester of school. I honestly thought it was never going to end. I found myself asking this question everyday, "God, do I really have to go to school for 2 more years?" To be honest, I don't think God has responded. So I will continue through school until I know God wants me to do something different. 

 It seems as though everything in my life leads to this word  we call patience. I have been learning this word for the past 6 months or so. I think I am just now coming to a place in my life where I am okay with it most of the time (some days I am not okay with it). Right now I am surrounded with the works of God. I see him working in all these areas of my life. For awhile I was so frustrated because, from my eye sight, God was not working in my life. All these amazing things were happening around me but I wasn't experiencing the joy that everyone else was experiencing. But a couple of weeks ago I realized why I was seeing things this way. See I was raised to believe that God has amazing things in store for my life. I was taught all the promises in the Bible like Proverb 3:5-6 where God says he will direct our paths, and Jeremiah 29:11 where we have the promise that God has plans of a great future for us, and even 1 Corinthians 2:9 that speaks of God having things prepared for us beyond our comprehension. My whole life I have been looking ahead in time asking God, "when will I get to these great promises you have for me?" Here is where I found my problem. I have been so focused on WHEN God was going to do these great things in my future that I have missed all the small things He has been doing in my midst. 

 For me, I want to be used by God to do GREAT things. I want to impact this world for Christ. In my head that means being the next Rob Bell or Francis Chan, but that is not what God has in mind. He doesn't need another one of those guys , mainly because He already has them, but what He needs is for me to be obedient to Him right now. One day I will look back over my life and see that God has done incredible things through me, and I will be able to see that it was nothing of my own works, but of Christ through me. All I need to know is that at the end of the day, if I was obedient to the will of Christ... then I have accomplished what God wants for me today. 

 So to answer the question "Where am I?"... I am exactly where God wants me for today...