Entry the First (sort of)

(This will be a bit longer than mosts of my posts...some history is necessary to make everything relelvant)

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away (aka sometime around the year 2000 in the Southwestern College dorms) I started a journal of sorts. It was something of a prayer journal blended with a "diary" of my spiritual walk.

Let me just tell you that the journal hasn't gone well.

The reason I started the journal in the first place is two-fold. My Dean of Students and supervisor as an RA, coach Steve Morley, once commented that he hadn't encountered a person of greatness or of high repute that didn't keep some sort of a journal. Shortly after that my roommate and fellow RA, Brad Petry, quoted a book that he'd read saying, "People who write things down get things done."

It's rather uncomfortable for me to say that I've found both of their statements to be true; when you look at my journal, there might be ten entries in it. I'm not even sure if I know where it is any more.

While I was spiritually strong while I was at Southwestern my walk greatly diminished upon graduation and entering "the real world." My testimony was further tarnished after my divorce - I made some pretty poor choices out of my emotional distraughtness during the following months.

I've been attending Open Door Fellowship for the past few years - sometimes off-and-on, sometimes more stabley (is that a word...eh, screw it...I majored in English so it's a word now). Their body has been patient with me, accepting me as I was and allowing me, encouraging me to grow strong in the Lord again. Slowly that happened, and slowly that happens. Both past and present tense.

Hooray God for being patient with me.

All the while I've been slowly focussing my attentions back to where they should be, I've also been blogging. Some friends of mine in the game industry initially piqued my interest in it so I started one of my own. That was over two years ago. I wasn't sure if it would maintain momenum or not as I've traditionally hated writing, but it's mostly thrived, averaging about one post every other day. Slowly the blog developed from a way to allow my friends and I to share our chronicles into filling a need to be heard, as well as a recultivated drive to be active and successful. I've always been interested in radio and broadcasting which harkens back to this inherent desire...no, need I have to communicate. So my trusty blog filled all of that.

That is, of course, until someone mentioned that I swear a fair amount in my blog.

*ouch* That stung a bit. Then again, healing salves and truth usually do.

I realized that my blog is one area of my life where I haven't really been walking the walk, or even talking the talk. If you care to download the past couple years of my life to see where I'm coming from, visit onefinalfantasy.blogspot.com. I warn you, though...a portion of the content is R rated. Nonetheless the blog as a whole is a fair representation of what I've spent my time doing for the past two years. A fair representation of me.

So now I start a new blog. Included in it shall be all of my same snarkiness, odd thoughts, and love for football. However this one shall have a spiritual element as well. Where in my previous blog I never really touched on spiritual topics, here I won't be afraid. I find myself chuckling a bit right now, really...it's funny how I can go ahead and spit out my thoughts on everything else, exposing myself to the world, yet the one thing I shouldn't be afraid about at all I hid like it was a virus. Go figure. Stupid fear.

This kinda picks up where my old prayer journal of ten or so entries left off. I strongly suspect this one will be more successful (if for no other reasons than that I can type faster than write, and that I can access the net from just about anywhere).