A confession, a thank you and a plea.

November 29th, 2007

How do each of you pray? Where do you pray and how loud do you pray? I want you to think about that for a little while.

I will start with a confession. Most of you already know this. Most of you heard me tell you over the phone. I am so ashamed, so scared and so humbled by God for even considering. A little less than a month and a half ago, it came to a point in my life where I relied on school, to keep my mind off anything that would depress me, attack me. I relied on it keep my mind from thinking about stuff that aren't true or not Godly. I won't lie, I even relied on watching my collection of "Friends" dvd's to make me laugh, to make me think about other things, positive things. One day, I had a midterm. To be frank, I was thrilled. I said "Yes, 50 minutes of freedom from this "retardedness" that is me. That is my sadness and pain." I was let down. I lost 10 minutes of my test time. My one escape failed me at the time and I was devastated. When I got home from lunch with my sister, I look up something on the internet. No it was not pornography. I looked up sleeping pills. Not for the purpose of sleeping. I must apologize for that. Especially to those who didn't know yet. It scares me to this day that I would even consider that. That is my story.

Now that you know this. I want to thank you all for being there for me. Jonny, Roni, Melissa, Nathan, Jordan, Dan, Katie, Katie, Trevor, Nolan, Cyler, Heather (keo keo!), RJ, Susan, Jo, Nick, Alyssa, Nathaneal, James, Matt. Thank you all. I praise God for each of you whenever I can.

I can say that I appreciate your prayers, your presence, your love and your willingness to listen to me whine and complain at 3 in the morning.

The desire of my heart, in which Nolan has asked me earlier is to be free. Free for God. Free from this pain, this...anger, this bitterness, and this sadness. I want to break these chains, I want to fight for myself, so I can begin to fight for God again. I want to have the strength, God's strength that he's given me to carry myself, so I can help others and love others through Him! That is my plea to God each day, each night each minute of my time here.

My plea to all of you now is to keep praying for me. My plea right now is that you meet with me on saturday. 2:30pm at my house to pray. To talk. We'll be praying for each other, for me and for God to work in all of us. Times are hard, times have changed, people have grown up, gotten married, moving around, leaving town, but we must, as a group as the same group from way back when, keep holding on to him. Hanging on the strength that we've all found in Him. If you are not comfortable with praying in front of others, please remember to pray around this time for me. Or maybe take this as an oppertunity to try and to share anything that you may need prayer for. I know most of you don't mind at all. This needs to happen, I know it does. God knows it does. Please be here if you can.

That is how I pray. I confess, because from the moment I wake up, i have sinned. But already forgiven so I thank God for it. Then I ask God for whatever my heart needs, whatever my soul, my mind needs.

"I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers because I hear about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints. I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ. Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the saints." Philemon 1:4-7.

See you Saturday.

-JP out
"All that I have is Yours, all that I am, is Yours"