the irony

so, i'm absolutely disgusted by politics and america and the like at the moment. i'm tired of listening to convo speakers tell me how to vote and people bicker over small, insignificant political agendas that will never really matter that much anyways. this is a rant. i don't wanna hear back about how i should be more bipartisan or understanding or (my personal favorite) "tolerant" of people who will never tolerate my beliefs. if you disagree, go write your own blog, and don't expect me to care or read it. this is my rant, and if you don't like it, click the little back button and go google something else. you've been warned.

i'm so sick of politics. i hate it. none of the so called changes proposed are actually the problem anyway. and for the record, i challenge anyone to give me convincing statistics that will prove that an actual significant percentage of america is EVER persuaded by debates (both formal and lunchroom) or worse convocation speakers! it's ridiculous. no one cares what your opinion is because no one listens to anyone else speak. that is proved merely by those already in power -- on BOTH sides!! don't misunderstand me, i hate hitler and everything he stood/stands for, but i really do think he said it best:

"what good fortune for those in power that people do not think."

it's sooo flipping true. i'll be outright, i'm a mccain supporter (technically), though i'll also admit i disagree with him on a number of things and find him only to be the lesser of two evils. now, i understand that the words politician and liar generally go hand in hand. i know they all lie; this should come as no shock. but obama takes lying to the next level. i mean honestly, i disagree with most of the democratic stance on politics, but at least i can respect the ones who take a firm stand for their liberal beliefs. that's not necessarily a bad thing; you're entitled to your opinion. but i hate lying, particularly constant lying. i'm absolutely disgusted by how wishy-washy obama has been. i simply cannot respect the man. seriously? is the public opinion so important that you say six different things you "unwaveringly believe" to six different crowds, all of which contradict each other?? besides the fact that anyone with half a brain -- that will actually use it -- should know that most of what presidential candidates promise is never actually within their power. you want things to change? change congress. but realize congress rarely agrees long enough and works long enough for things to actually happen. you want environmental changes? that's all congress. you want gun control? that's all congress. you wanna change abortion laws? congress. i love the way dr fowler put it this morning; political elections in america have become nothing more than billion dollar pep rallies and popularity contests. meanwhile there's mass genocide in darfur and mass starvation in india. but we, the elite, sophisticated, educated, power-house of a country sit and debate and philosophize about how to solve these great problems over coffee at the country club, spending more money on the letters that follow our name than we manage to drop in the salvation army donation bucket outside walmart. yes, indeed. we really have risen to become the cream of the crop.

our forefathers would be ashamed.

now, i firmly believe in voting. i believe we see even through scripture that we are to exercise that right, to vote our biblical convictions and pray for the leaders of our country:

"Then He said to them, 'Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's.'"
-- Matthew 22:21

but notice that Christ says caesar, not republican or democrat. and caesar was definitely not in line with jewish beliefs or persuasions. so, then, vote what you're sure to be the right path morally and ethically, and for heaven's sake, pray for the election. but know that above all, it's in God's hands. and stop peddling your beliefs to people who neither care nor are listening...

and remember, despite whoever may win tomorrow, God is still in control -- even if YOU aren't. tomorrow's outcome won't shock God at all.

"Counsel is mine and sound wisdom;
I am understanding, power is mine.
By me kings reign,
And rulers decree justice.
By me princes rule, and nobles,
All who judge rightly."
-- Proverbs 8:14-16

"Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience' sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor."
-- Romans 13:1-7

"Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men."
-- 1Peter 2:13-15

less than 40 days...

well, again, it's been a while...probably like a month or something, i didn't check.

it's been a long month. and yet, it seems like the weeks are flying by...it's odd. the leaves have already started to change, the weather's been freakishly cold lately, and tomorrow begins officially the christmas season...and i'm so excited! i love christmas! it's my favorite time of the year...the sounds, the smells, the cheery people (and some not so cheery) christmas shopping, the pretty lights on all the houses, christmas on the mountain with christmas convo and coffeehouse and open dorms, flying home and seeing all the soldiers in the airports on holiday leave...it's just the best! and i can't believe it's so close...it freaks me out. less than forty days and i'll be a college graduate. i can remember how terrified i was the night before i was supposed to leave to drive up here...i couldn't begin to imagine being this close to graduating...and then i blinked. and now it's three and a half years later and i'm just over a month from being done. and yet...

it seems like an eternity. not to graduation, that's close. from the beginning of the semester. i knew coming into it, this would be my hardest semester, academically speaking. i didn't figure i'd be that homesick, since i knew this would be the end. and i knew it would be hard to say goodbye to my friends. and that will be hard. but i wasn't anticipating the strain this semester would put on me from home. that was a low blow.

it's funny how sometimes you have this one defining moment in time that everything else just revolves around. it's like time just stops, and, from that moment on, you just know -- nothing will be the same again. it may go back to "normal", but that moment has become this defining moment for your life, something you'll judge everything that happens against. and sometimes those defining moments are good: graduating high school, turning sixteen, your first real job, etc. but it seems our lives are best defined by those moments that challenge us. not those wherein we've reached a mountain top, but instead those wherein we are forced, not to look down at ourselves, but instead up to our Rescue. it seems most defining moments revolve around some kind of rock bottom, a helplessness that demands nothing less than every bit of our surrender to the only One Who's arm is long enough to reach down into the whole we've fallen into and strong enough to pull us out.

it seems i've had my share of these moments. don't misunderstand me; i am by no means in a bad place, particularly not one i've created myself. i am blessed beyond measure. but my semester has been redefined by this moment God put into my life, a moment that begged nothing less than my absolute and total submission to God's will. and time stopped. and things will eventually go back to normal, but i doubt it will ever be the same. and that is what my semester has been defined by. my walk with God, my grades in class, my focus, my time with friends, my activities, my every moment; it has all been defined by this single point in time when my world collapsed around me and i was forced to face some of my worst fears and let go.

letting go. that's been a huge one this semester. transparency is hard for me, but if i'm going to be honest, that is one of the bigger lessons God has been teaching me these last few months -- He is bigger than and far more important than any earthly belonging i have or had or ever will have. and it scares me. and i don't really like dealing with it. in fact, it still causes me a slight pang, even to write. i lost pretty much everything. like, most all of my belongings. pretty much anything i didn't have with me (which was most of my stuff since i didn't bring much for my last semester) is gone, lost forever to that dadgum hurricane. and you know what, i can't change that. and you know, in the midst of my anger at God and my questioning His judgment, He had the audacity to love me. and then, to add insult to injury, He had my itunes shuffle start playing a song that inevitably brought me to tears...and it hit me: God is bigger than anything that hits me. and i haven't even got it the worse. i'm more blessed than a lot of people back home, let alone the impoverished world. and more than my material things, God is bigger than any storm i face.

and so here i am, month and a half later, still dealing. and at that not well. and just over a month left to go. and it hits me, all this stuff in the Bible seems to revolve around forty days. Jesus remained between ascension and resurrection forty days to get the ball ol' Petey dropped rolling again with His ministry and offer some instruction and encouragement. Further, Jesus was in the wilderness fasting, praying, and being tempted for forty days. But i think most applicable is that Noah sat in a boat full of seasick land-dwelling animals and grumpy shipmates for forty days, all the while riding out the biggest, baddest (and only) thunderstorm he'd ever seen or faced. so it seems logical then that if Noah can do it, so can i.

so here i am, with a God bigger than the storm i'm in behind me and nothing left to lose except my pride, forty days left to go in what has quickly become the longest and most draining semester of my life...

bring on the rain.

God is bigger than
the air i breathe
the world we'll leave
God will save the day
and all will say
my Glorious

the world's shaking
with the love of God
Great and Glorious
let the whole earth sing

and all You ever do
is change the old for new
people, we believe that

God is bigger than
the air i breathe
the world we'll leave
God will save the day
and all will say
my Glorious

clouds are breaking
heaven's come to earth
hearts awakening
let the church bells ring

and all You ever do
is change the old for new
people, we believe that

God is bigger than
the air i breathe
the world we'll leave
and God will save the day
and all will say
my Glorious
my Glorious
my Glorious
my Glorious...

God is bigger than
the air i breathe
the world we'll leave
and God will save the day
and all will say
my Glorious

glory, glory
send Your glory
glory, glory
send Your glory...

-- Chris Tomlin: My Glorious

longest weekend of my life.

well, needless to say, a lot has happened. just in the last four days.

so there was this kid ike. decided to take a personal vendetta out on my family. it wasn't pretty. i don't know what we ever did to him, but i'm pretty sure "eye for an eye" was an understatement.

first and foremost, thanks to everyone who's been praying for my family and that whole neck of the woods. your prayers and words of encouragement have been invaluable. you will forever have a special place in our hearts, and i pray God repays your kindness with more blessings than you can ever possibly count.

on to the update of ike. i'll start at the beginning -- thursday-ish.

so, it became fairly clear by thursday morning that ike was heading for galveston. it also was fairly certain at this point that it would only really be a high two/low three when it made landfall. so, like most islanders and even experienced houstonians, my parents made the confident decision not to evacuate. if you're not from an area frequented by tropical storms and hurricanes, you probably think this is insanity. allow me to clarify, then. most coastals will tell you that there is really no need to evac for anything less than a strong three. this has always been our standing, is the stance of most islanders/houstonians, and until very recently has always been a fine decision. in an ordinary situation, a hurricane like ike, making landfall as a strong two would not have been a big deal. this is why they estimate about 40% of the island didn't evacuate. for most cat twos, it would never have been a big deal. most unfortunately, ike it seems was not particularly ordinary.

so that's thursday. my parents made an educated decision not to evac. too much hassle (my dad's on a concentrator 24/7, if you weren't aware), and it shouldn't be that big a deal; also understand that the media always exaggerates in these situations about how bad it's going to be. it's what they do best.

friday morning: ike is supposed to make landfall late that night. but during one of my classes i get this text from my mom, "we r going 2 grandmas. the water was getting too high." ((cause that's not gonna distract me for the rest of the day...)) on the island, we anticipate flooding. shoot, a small part of our downstairs gets water when it rains hard. thus, it should tell you that if they decided that the water was getting "too high" that early...well...it's not good news, that's for sure. so they camp out at my grandma's house in south houston. which is, quite frankly, a fine idea anyway, since my grandparents probably shouldn't be left alone in this kind of situation.

friday afternoon: i make the mistake of looking online at precursor pictures. note -- mistake. that freaked me out probably more than anything. waves were already splashing over the seawall. since i'm gonna assume most anyone, if anyone, who ever reads this is not an expert on galveston, or even Texas, history, i'll give ya the quick, condensed, not-quite-adequate version. in 1900, the biggest recorded natural disaster in our nation's history (if i'm not very much mistaken, including katrina) occurred -- on galveston island. to be perfectly honest, they never recovered. before the 1900 storm, they were known as the wall street of the west, surpassing even houston in their economic might and progressive advances in all kinds of areas. only the elite lived there. i say all that only to say that the topography at that time is not the same as it is/was friday. the 1900 storm was a cat 5 -- estimated bigger than katrina. worse, they shockingly didn't have doppler radar. the most the meteorologist could do is guess at the direction of the waves, the wind, and make some estimates based on what they were told by ships at sea. [[an aside, just some info for the back of your head, the sunset that night was legendary. there's no real way of "proving" it now of course, but one of the journalists wrote of an ominous, blood red sunset the night before the storm hit...]] at any rate, the island was leveled. literally. there are a handful of houses that remained that are today maintained by the historical foundation and honored as "1900 storm survivors". but it's a big deal. i've seen pictures. it was sick. there was practically nothing. [[another aside, the balinese room was one such place.]] when the island was leveled, part of the rebuild involved one of the greatest engineering feats of modern history -- they raised almost the entire island 15ft. i do say almost. understand that the west end, which is currently less beach front property as it is...houseboats....is at pretty much sea level. and they know they flood. why anyone would live there, let alone ride out a hurricane there is beyond me. you couldn't pay me...anyway, i said all of that to point out that majority of the island is now at about 15ft above sea level (a concept lost to new orleans), with probably a few random high pockets at most between 20 and 25ft. anyhoo, this is when the seawall was built. it's a concrete wall that runs along most of the island on the gulf side at a height of 15ft, with a slightly concaved in arc to allow for give from the water.

friday night: timing is everything. another bit of common knowledge to anyone along the coast but probably something lesser known to you landlocked losers. this time of year for us, due to lunar cycles and such, creates an extreme high tide. always happens around the equinoxes. fall is extreme high, spring is extreme low. from what i've read (although i don't know how accurate this info is) that means that during high tide, our tides are already between four and six feet higher than normal. (incidentally, this was part of the issue with the 1900 storm. it likewise came in during september's high tide, making landfall the 8-9th of this month 108 years ago.) knowing this, ike came in during high tide -- extreme high tide remember -- bringing a 15 ft storm surge. well, considering that the seawall itself is 15ft, that's not good news. add to that the rainfall, the wind, and the already overly high tide, and most of the island was underwater.

this brings us to saturday. there's really not much to say actually until sunday night. the most i can really say is that it's been a struggle. saturday and sunday were pretty much hell for me (and from what i understand the rest of my family), and even this morning really wasn't much better. the only really notable thing is the support my family has gotten. from the emails and messages and fb posts giving encouragement and support, to the many calls my dad has now received from fellow pastors and churches offering full support and help in any way the second we step back on the island, God has blessed us so much through all of you. and for that my family is eternally grateful. i can't even begin to explain how revolting and devastating it's been to see some of the pictures and stories that have come out. it's got to be one of the most unsettling feelings possible to not know whether your house is there or not. and that's what it's been for us and still is for most islanders. to not know whether i even have a house to go home to come christmas has been about the worst, most anxious, nervous, and unsettled feelings i've ever had to deal with. i spent most of yesterday somewhere between a numb effort to do homework and random, unexpected outbursts of tears. finally last night, after reasoning out some things with myself and crying about it to God for a while, i was reminded of campus church last spring. campus pastor johnnie moore did this whole big series on job. if you know anything about job, well, he was way worse off than me. so i figured if he could find the words to rejoice through his pain, surely i shouldn't be so arrogant as to think God doesn't currently deserve my worship. so i took job's words to heart,

naked i came from my mother's womb,
and naked i shall return there.
the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away;
blessed be the name of the Lord.

-- job 1:21

this is by no means to be misconstrued as some courageous statement or even some "holier than thou" outlook i'm trying to piously portray. i am merely telling you what i chose to take comfort in, and i should add that although i can say that and even believe that, i was and am still a very long ways away from being able to thank God for putting me in this situation. the most i can honestly say at the moment is that i truly believe that nothing happens by accident and everything happens for a purpose. God's will is far superior to mine. from where i'm standing, this whole situation sucks. completely. i hate it. i think about it for long enough and it make me physically ill. but i'm not God. and i'm intelligent enough to realize that i don't see the big picture; He does. and i can't change it. fighting it would be foolish. i might as well accept it. everything i own -- including life itself -- is nothing but a gift from God. He gave it to me, therefore He can take it away at will. and i can question, but i may never in this life know why. and it's not my job to know. it is merely my job to understand that He is God. and i am not.

but i do have good news. this afternoon, noaa released satellite images of the island and the aftermath of ike. and, by the grace of God, my house is still standing. my church, my family's house, the house i'm moving into come december, the other house the church owns, our whole neighborhood -- it's still standing! and you have no idea how much of a weight that is off my chest. we know we have flood damage, but it seems to all still be standing with little to no structural damage. in fact, none of trees in our neighborhood are down, and most of the water has completely receded.

so, that's pretty much my update. this is by no means over. it'll be months. we're not even released to get back on the island yet and actually asses the damage. and while we were extraordinarily lucky, a good deal of the rest of the island was not. the balinese room i mentioned, is gone. wiped clean. the pier i worked on for several summers is gone. other historical landmarks are gone. i mentioned 40% of the island, it is estimated, did not evacuate; the death count is gonna be pretty high. there is no gas, no electricity, no water, and no phones throughout, not just the island, but a great deal of houston metro and the rest of the texas coast line. this is a huge blow to this part of the country and not just because people have lost their houses, but people are going to lose their jobs because the businesses are totally destroyed in certain areas. this is a huge economic disaster and that itself will take years to recover from.

but, please continue to pray for everyone down there. we need it. recovery will be long and slow, not to mention expensive.

oh, an interesting fact, i found the sunset friday night to be fairly intriguing, as well as ominous...

[[this picture was taken by daniel hatmaker. if you see this, daniel, and you want me to take it down, just say so.]]