So yesterday Kirstin and I went to the movie theater to watch the new Chronicles of Narnia, Prince Caspian. I throughly enjoyed the movie. It was good not only for entertainment purposes but also for spiritual reasons. There were several lines in the movie that were very convicting. At one point I broke into tears not because of a sad scene or the expression of love between two lovers or the intense joy of character, but because the Lord reminded me of my relationship with Him. He reminded me of truths I so easily forget. Even the character development in each of the four kids portrayed aspects of my self as I have related to Christ. There were displays of ungodly pride and unbelief. There was scene where susan depicts the idea of getting comfortable back in england, just as I am so often comfortable with the worlds way of living. However, there were displays of lessons learned, courage, faith, and focus on the one who really takes helps us win our battles and not our selves. At times these things have been true of me and I long for a day where they are true of me again. Needless to say it was a good movie. I have never read the actual books, so kirstin and I started reading them together last night. I want to have the entire story not just the movie version.
In other information, kirstin has a few people interested in her night shift position so hopefully she will soon be able to move to a day shift. The new person would still have to get trained and all, but it would be nice have someone in place so we can get a date in place. Kirstin is really getting tired of working the night shift and it is really taking a toll on her body. Plus it would be nice to see each other more.
As far as jobs go I have an interview on tomorrow(Tuesday) for a full time CT Technologist position, first shift at the University of Louisville. For several reasons I want to land this job. 1-It is a first shift position. 2- It is full time job. 3- It is in CT (Advanced training). 4- There is probably no better place to learn this modality. However, the hospital is not somewhere I want to work. I do not like the facility at all and it seems really dirty. I am willing to forgo that concern to become a good CT technologist. So I am hoping I land this job.
Kirstin and I are moving on June 21. We are moving to a bigger apartment with-in the same apartment complex. It has a kitchen twice the size and storage as our current kitchen which I am super excited about. Also, it has a fire place and a much bigger deck than I current apt as well. However, the real reason we are moving is because my brother in law is coming to live with us so he can go to school down here. We need more space and we needed rooms on opposite sides of the apartment for privacy sake. Long story short...we are moving. Oh and I getting a grill for my birthday so I can enjoy the large patio with some awesome food!
You know there are so many things I want to blog about and I often tell kirstin that I want to blog about whatever it was we just experienced. However, most of the time I think about the blog in my head, but when it comes to writing it I just don't want to think about it anymore. So there are ALOT of blogs that have been written in my mind that you all never see. oh well. To bad I forget what most of them are or I would give you a snippet for the sake of having a laugh or two, but I just can't think of the anymore. Oh oh, I almost forgot I also this past week sent in my application to The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. We will see how that goes. I still have to get one letter sent out for a recommendation as well as request my transcripts to be sent to the school but other than that I have done most of the leg work needed to apply to school. Which by the way my last blog entry was something I had to write for the application. I just though I would make a blog of it just so you could have something to read because I blog so few and far between. Ok I think I am done for now.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
Spiritual Autobiography
Spiritual Autobiography
My spiritual autobiography begins with one word: providence. Throughout my Christian life, I have always felt that I have been graciously chosen to serve the Father. It is clear to me that God had my story mapped out before I was born. Even my name, Joseph Martin, demonstrates His providence. Joseph means “increasing faith,” or “God will increase,” and Martin means “from another place or planet,” much like the word “mars” or “Martian.” I do believe that God is constantly increasing my faith—just as he did with Mary’s husband Joseph during the difficult circumstances they had with the Virgin birth. I also firmly believe that I have been made for a different place than this earth and that I am not to conform to the ways of this world but to anticipate the life I will live with with my Father in heaven.
I did not, however, always live with that mindset. From the beginning of my life, it seemed I was headed toward destruction. Born into a drug addict’s home, I had a few years with my biological parents; shortly thereafter, my father divorced and remarried. I continued to live with him and his second wife, but it was not much later until he went to jail for shoplifting and his second wife divorced him.
I was in second grade when I went to go live with my aunt in a small town. Things were going to be okay. I had a cousin my age to play with, and my aunt had a college education and a job to support my cousins and me. That only lasted four years, which took me to sixth grade. I was twelve when my aunt lost her job. She was worsening as an alcoholic and finally went into a mental health rehab facility. My cousins had a father to go to; I had no one left—or so it seemed, but God had a plan.
During the four-year period in which I lived with my aunt, I was introduced to church. A kid I did not like very well asked my cousin and me to go to Sunday school with him. It was a strange experience, but it was a place where my cousin and I found love and attention, so we continued to go. At the church we met a particular teacher and his wife and their three kids. Ironically, the three kids were the same kids my cousin and I used to throw snowballs at when walking home from school. One day, their mom had a talk with us, and she had her kids pray for us. Little did any of them know what God had in mind: it was this family that took me in after I had to leave my aunt’s house. They became my family. And because of their influence in my junior high and high school years, I came into contact with a real God and a real Jesus. I learned what it meant to become a real Christian—however, I did not become a Christian during this time. I wanted nothing but to be a part of the world and its idea of fun: drinking, smoking, sex, and etc. I remember times in which my youth pastor would walk in the front door of the house and I would walk out the back door—all so I did not have to talk to him. I still had much to learn.
During my senior year of high school, I went on a trip with Youth for Christ. After one of the group gatherings, we had a cabin discussion just before bed. At this time I confessed to my group, friends, and youth pastor that I would be willing to go to the lowest place in life if that is what it would take for me to follow Christ. It was the same year that I stayed up at night crying before God because He was calling me to follow Him and I just could not do it. My friends were way too important to me, and I could not give up my lifestyle. I told God, “No.”
My freshman year of college (about a year after the Youth for Christ trip) found me depressed and feeling lost. I had just gotten out of a really bad relationship, I was getting drunk all the time and I was experimenting with marijuana. I was at the lowest place of my life. I remembered that a classmate had invited me to Bible study one particular week and decided that I would go. It was during the closing prayer that I unexpectedly gave over my life to Jesus. I didn’t expect my response to the gospel! My life has been changed from that point on. It is because of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection that I was instantly given a new life and new desires. Over the course of the next several years I plunged into the Christian life: leading small groups, attending prayer meetings, going to campus ministry events, sharing my faith with non-Christians, and discipling and encouraging other Christians to seek after God. I am a perfect picture of God’s grace and how He can work through anyone, no matter where they come from.
Since the very beginning of my conversion, I have felt a strong leading to do God’s work. It was about a year after becoming a Christian that God started stirring within me a desire to do full-time ministry. I developed a passion to see adult Christians being continually transformed by God. Seeing people’s lives transformed by the Gospel of Jesus brings abundant joy to my heart; that is why I am pursuing higher education at Seminary. I chose Southern because I learned of the quality of faculty. I feel very strongly that I have much to learn from these leaders. I want to develop deeper disciplines, while also learning ministry essentials. I believe an education at Southern Seminary will aid me as a man of God who will lead others in ministry. I trust God’s providential handiwork to continue to increase my faith as I follow in obedience to His commands, and I anticipate what God will do in and through me at Southern.
My spiritual autobiography begins with one word: providence. Throughout my Christian life, I have always felt that I have been graciously chosen to serve the Father. It is clear to me that God had my story mapped out before I was born. Even my name, Joseph Martin, demonstrates His providence. Joseph means “increasing faith,” or “God will increase,” and Martin means “from another place or planet,” much like the word “mars” or “Martian.” I do believe that God is constantly increasing my faith—just as he did with Mary’s husband Joseph during the difficult circumstances they had with the Virgin birth. I also firmly believe that I have been made for a different place than this earth and that I am not to conform to the ways of this world but to anticipate the life I will live with with my Father in heaven.
I did not, however, always live with that mindset. From the beginning of my life, it seemed I was headed toward destruction. Born into a drug addict’s home, I had a few years with my biological parents; shortly thereafter, my father divorced and remarried. I continued to live with him and his second wife, but it was not much later until he went to jail for shoplifting and his second wife divorced him.
I was in second grade when I went to go live with my aunt in a small town. Things were going to be okay. I had a cousin my age to play with, and my aunt had a college education and a job to support my cousins and me. That only lasted four years, which took me to sixth grade. I was twelve when my aunt lost her job. She was worsening as an alcoholic and finally went into a mental health rehab facility. My cousins had a father to go to; I had no one left—or so it seemed, but God had a plan.
During the four-year period in which I lived with my aunt, I was introduced to church. A kid I did not like very well asked my cousin and me to go to Sunday school with him. It was a strange experience, but it was a place where my cousin and I found love and attention, so we continued to go. At the church we met a particular teacher and his wife and their three kids. Ironically, the three kids were the same kids my cousin and I used to throw snowballs at when walking home from school. One day, their mom had a talk with us, and she had her kids pray for us. Little did any of them know what God had in mind: it was this family that took me in after I had to leave my aunt’s house. They became my family. And because of their influence in my junior high and high school years, I came into contact with a real God and a real Jesus. I learned what it meant to become a real Christian—however, I did not become a Christian during this time. I wanted nothing but to be a part of the world and its idea of fun: drinking, smoking, sex, and etc. I remember times in which my youth pastor would walk in the front door of the house and I would walk out the back door—all so I did not have to talk to him. I still had much to learn.
During my senior year of high school, I went on a trip with Youth for Christ. After one of the group gatherings, we had a cabin discussion just before bed. At this time I confessed to my group, friends, and youth pastor that I would be willing to go to the lowest place in life if that is what it would take for me to follow Christ. It was the same year that I stayed up at night crying before God because He was calling me to follow Him and I just could not do it. My friends were way too important to me, and I could not give up my lifestyle. I told God, “No.”
My freshman year of college (about a year after the Youth for Christ trip) found me depressed and feeling lost. I had just gotten out of a really bad relationship, I was getting drunk all the time and I was experimenting with marijuana. I was at the lowest place of my life. I remembered that a classmate had invited me to Bible study one particular week and decided that I would go. It was during the closing prayer that I unexpectedly gave over my life to Jesus. I didn’t expect my response to the gospel! My life has been changed from that point on. It is because of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection that I was instantly given a new life and new desires. Over the course of the next several years I plunged into the Christian life: leading small groups, attending prayer meetings, going to campus ministry events, sharing my faith with non-Christians, and discipling and encouraging other Christians to seek after God. I am a perfect picture of God’s grace and how He can work through anyone, no matter where they come from.
Since the very beginning of my conversion, I have felt a strong leading to do God’s work. It was about a year after becoming a Christian that God started stirring within me a desire to do full-time ministry. I developed a passion to see adult Christians being continually transformed by God. Seeing people’s lives transformed by the Gospel of Jesus brings abundant joy to my heart; that is why I am pursuing higher education at Seminary. I chose Southern because I learned of the quality of faculty. I feel very strongly that I have much to learn from these leaders. I want to develop deeper disciplines, while also learning ministry essentials. I believe an education at Southern Seminary will aid me as a man of God who will lead others in ministry. I trust God’s providential handiwork to continue to increase my faith as I follow in obedience to His commands, and I anticipate what God will do in and through me at Southern.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Winters, Yonkers, and Rousselle
I was reading one of the comments I made on one of my friends blog and the blog was about punctuation. Anyways, she is a little bit freakish about grammar. Which is ok by me, what ever floats her boat. Anyways, a long story short, My comment was only two or three sentence long and there were SO many mistakes in it. I bet she was feeling nausea just looking at my post. I am completely horrible with any sort of grammar.
After having five days off in a row I have to go back to work tomorrow and begin my ten days in a row working stint. In the five days that I have had off I have been bored like no bodies business but I am dreading having to go back to work tomorrow. Why is that? I hate it when I am tired of time off but don't really want to go back to work either. It really is a sickening experience. The way our schedules have worked out Kirstin and I have not had the same days off. I really am disappointed with how that works out. But I guess that is what needs to be done to pay the bills.
Speaking of jobs Kirstin applied for a first shift job at her current facility. We really hope that she gets it. It would be so much better for her health and for us to be able to spend more time together. At this point all we can do is pray about it. My jobs situation is kind of up in the air. I am starting monday at a new organization for another PRN position. Unfortunately I am not full time at either of them and I really am unsure of my hours. I am glad to have job opportunities in my field which I was not getting at all for the longest time. I will just keep waiting to for that full time position. It will come eventually.
My car has been broken for the past few days, which is no fun at all. I went to replace my starter...but the new starter is not lining up properly. So we will see how all that plays out. Infact, I think I am going to go work on that right now. Today is perfect out side and I need to take advantage of it. Plus I really don't feel this blog. Which leads to boring reading
After having five days off in a row I have to go back to work tomorrow and begin my ten days in a row working stint. In the five days that I have had off I have been bored like no bodies business but I am dreading having to go back to work tomorrow. Why is that? I hate it when I am tired of time off but don't really want to go back to work either. It really is a sickening experience. The way our schedules have worked out Kirstin and I have not had the same days off. I really am disappointed with how that works out. But I guess that is what needs to be done to pay the bills.
Speaking of jobs Kirstin applied for a first shift job at her current facility. We really hope that she gets it. It would be so much better for her health and for us to be able to spend more time together. At this point all we can do is pray about it. My jobs situation is kind of up in the air. I am starting monday at a new organization for another PRN position. Unfortunately I am not full time at either of them and I really am unsure of my hours. I am glad to have job opportunities in my field which I was not getting at all for the longest time. I will just keep waiting to for that full time position. It will come eventually.
My car has been broken for the past few days, which is no fun at all. I went to replace my starter...but the new starter is not lining up properly. So we will see how all that plays out. Infact, I think I am going to go work on that right now. Today is perfect out side and I need to take advantage of it. Plus I really don't feel this blog. Which leads to boring reading
Thursday, March 20, 2008
"Chicks, Ducks, & Bunnies"
Easter is coming up this weekend and it has come quick. I have been thinking about Easter the past day or two and what it means. Superficially some thoughts have included the idea of Spring and all that comes with Spring. Things like flowers, warmer weather, bright sunny days with a cool breeze, longer day time hours, color coming back to the trees and vegetation. Also, other things have come to mind like the idea of new life. Spring is a time when the animals have babies and eggs are being hatched. Spring seems so fresh and new opportunity appear to be more abundant. Spring brings hope. I am not sure what about Spring that brings hope, but it almost seems as those it is in the air. I had the door open the other day and let the air come into our home. It was refreshing and it brought a new atmosphere to our house...Hope. It is interesting that God has guided us to celebrate Easter in the Spring. I don't know how it all came about or why we do it in Spring or even if it chronologically lines up with the actual resurrection of Jesus, but I do know as Spring brings new life, so does Jesus. In fact, that is exactly what Jesus did for us, to those who trust in His name and confess with our lips that Christ is God, He gave us a brand new life. The bible teaches us that the old is gone and the new has come. "You used to walk in these ways in the life you once lived" Did you get that? The life you ONCE lived signifying that there must have been a change. You now operate in a NEW way. That new way is a new life through Jesus. Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the LIFE. No one comes to the Father except through me". So this weekend we celebrate the actual event where Jesus physically made it possible for us to come to GOD. Do you hear that? Jesus paid a very real, historically accurate, physical death, burial, and Resurrection that made it possible for you and I to come to the Father, our Creator. So...Easter, really celebrates the one event that sets Christianity apart from all other religions; the Resurrection, the conquering of sin and death, the triumph of life over death, and the Hope. Do you have Hope this Easter? My resolution for this Easter? Finding my Hope in the Resurrection of Jesus, and re-discovering my New Life, as I have so flippantly let it go to the way side.
Does anyone know what I got my title from? I know Kirstin will know.
Does anyone know what I got my title from? I know Kirstin will know.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Torn Iris
Today is a gloomy day. The clouds are covering the sky and it is cold and damp. Oh well. Once again it has been awhile since my last blog and there has been alot going on in my life since. I will try not to write such a long blog. As for last time I did not get many comments, prolly because people were tired of reading it before they finished. Just in case you don't know, I LOVE comments on my blogs, if there is one way that I am loved it is by words and people responding to what I have to say. Just a side note to encourage ya'll to leave comments! Haha.
Last week our cat and dog were messing around and the cat somehow scratch or bit the dogs eye. He ended up needing to get emergency eye surgery. Lucky for us there is only one vet qualified in the state of KY and she practices in Louisville. Anyways, it cost alot of money and all I get out of is a dog with a cone on his head that has been puking all over the place. As well as laying down a "log" or two. Makes me wish we didn't have the dog. I do love that darn dog, but I am a little frustrated right now with the situation if you can't tell.
In less than two weeks we will be heading back up to MI for a friends wedding. I can't wait to see all my old friends again! What a time it will be.
Just wanted to also write a blip about our friends blog, she has all these pictures and nice writing in her blog...I was very impressed. Don't expect such great things out of me. haha
Last weekend we also joined a church for the first time for both of us. It has been a blessing to go through the process and the people have been so kind to us. We do look forward to serving in what ever ministry God has for us.
Speaking of serving in a church, Kirstin and I both took a spirtual gifts inventory. It was interesting to say the least. According to the inventory my gifts are: Giving, Serving, Shepharding, Hospitality, Leading, and Discernment. Those of you who know me, what do you think? Does that match what you know about me? Part of me was hoping for one of those gifts that everybody sees and knows about like prayer or preaching or something, but that is not the case. God knows I prolly would not handle all the attention very well so He gave me more behind the scene gifts. Really though, I am happy for such gifts if they are true of me. We wanted to get a little direction before we starting serving in the church. We will see how it all works out.
Anyways, I will end this for now. I don't want to make another really long blog.
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