it is official - Ghetto Booty has been totaled and is no more. (my toyota echo - car)
I am now going to take this time to remeber Ghetto Booty and his past brothers and sisters (past cars that have moved on).
GHETTO BOOTY - 2000 toyota Echo
- Was named Ghetto Booty due to its enourmous butt! I always said that I would ram a car if it had a butt as big as mine - someone else had the same goal.
SNOT ROCKET - 1996 toyota tercel
- was named because it was snot green and was a manual (I felt cool and like i could drive fast because it was a manual - i couldn't - but the squealed tires made it sound like i could.
*died by a head on with a buick (i am just sorry it had to be a buick - tear*
CU-SNEE-FAR-GO-BU - 1988 chevy nova
- This car was named because it was the kid of smurf poop and a go cart. smurf poop was a chevy malibu and when i first drove it I pulled onto the expressway next to a truck and pretty much shit my pants (it was so small - i felt like i was driving a go-cart).
*Nova means "no go" in spanish. This was true much of the time - she was given to someone else in their adventures of go-cart fun and the stubborness of moving only when she wanted to.*
SCICK - 1989 thunderbird
- was named as ricky and I ran out of the house singing our superhero theme song as we were headed out to go and resucue a friend. this car had every gadget that you could think of and every gadget worked the opposite of what it was supposed to :)
*Scick died of F.O.R.Dness(fix or repair daily*
SMURF POOP - light blue 1978 malibu classic
- the best car a man could own. was named becasue of his light blue color. Brought many fun, crazy, and exciting adventures. a car that truly turned heads, that people tried to by off me constantly, cruise before cruise was invented - people would stop by wherever I was at just to say hi because of smurf poop. all it took was a coat hanger and needle nose pliers to drive. (VERY BIG TEAR)
*died by drunk driver - dumb grand prix*
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Monday, August 21, 2006
God is Good - Ghetto Booty Hurt
After a week of interesting relaxation, enjoying the beach, sleeping, eating, more sleeping etc. we were headed home. Our vacation was over and we were leaving the island and getting ready for a 12 hour/650 mile drive home. We weren't ready to leave but we were ready to be home.
We had left the place we had been staying at about 9:30 and had just left the island and was now on mainland, driving down a two lane highway getting ready to get on the expressway when all of a sudden you hear the screeching of breaks, a crunch and then another crunch as sarah and I get jerked forward and then i find myself slamming on my breaks and trying to gain control of our car so we didn't hit keith and betsy who had been driving ahead of us. WE HAD BEEN HIT! 650 miles from home and we had been in a car accident that caused Ghetto Booty (our car - the toyota echo) to become undrivable. There had been a big toyota SUV that had slammed into a Ford Explorer that slammed into the back of my car.
I had been in an accident in cincinnati but never this far from home. I didn't know what to do. So, sarah had called AAA - they weren't helping us out and so we allowed ghetto booty to be put on the rotation to be picked up by a random toe truck. The toe truck man (preston) had given us and our car a ride to the local car rental place where I called my insurance company, who was being of no help at all, and found out we were standing in front of a car rental place that had just closed. yeah! we were afraid we would be stuck in hilton head until monday.
**But this is how cool God is**
Preston (our toe truck guy) knew some of the people that worked in the car rental place and had convinced them to stay open so that we could rent a car. They stayed open for at least 45 min. longer then they had to so that they could help us out and try and work things out with the insurance company. Then once we got a renal car, preston toed our car to the carriage shop which is where they were going to look at the car and fix it. Well, they had also already closed but preston had called and asked them to re-open. They ended up reopening so that we could bring our car in and leave it so that they could look at it on monday. The lady at the carriage shop was very loving and motherly - it was a family owned shop and she was very concerned for us and not our car. she said they would try and fix it but not to the point that it would affect our safety.
During that time preston slipped us a $100 to help us on our journey. he said that he wished he could have helped more. AFter that the lady from the carriage shop said that she didn't want us driving home in our condition and told us to go next door to a local food place to eat and that she would pay.
WOW! God took a bad situation and made it good. he showed us that he is always there. in fact i was frustrated at first because sarah and I had just prayed and asked God to keep us safe and to keep us out of car accidents and then we get hit. i wasn't mad at God - just a little confused. But, I see that God really does love us and was really watching out for us. he was very much present and I am very grateful. he really has never let us down.
we can't deny how much God was moving that day
our safety - could have been a lot worse
a free meal
extra cash to help us with crazy expenses
a loving/motherly woman to help and bless a couple of younger people trying to get home
a toe truck driver who helped us get into closed places and bless us with some crazy stories and a lot of help - a man who helped us smaile and laught - who spent many more hours then he had to helping, talking, and sharing life with us
great friends who stood by us and were comforting - keith and betsy
the opportunity to be a witness who had seen God's hand move but might not have realized that it was God
THANKS GOD!
We had left the place we had been staying at about 9:30 and had just left the island and was now on mainland, driving down a two lane highway getting ready to get on the expressway when all of a sudden you hear the screeching of breaks, a crunch and then another crunch as sarah and I get jerked forward and then i find myself slamming on my breaks and trying to gain control of our car so we didn't hit keith and betsy who had been driving ahead of us. WE HAD BEEN HIT! 650 miles from home and we had been in a car accident that caused Ghetto Booty (our car - the toyota echo) to become undrivable. There had been a big toyota SUV that had slammed into a Ford Explorer that slammed into the back of my car.
I had been in an accident in cincinnati but never this far from home. I didn't know what to do. So, sarah had called AAA - they weren't helping us out and so we allowed ghetto booty to be put on the rotation to be picked up by a random toe truck. The toe truck man (preston) had given us and our car a ride to the local car rental place where I called my insurance company, who was being of no help at all, and found out we were standing in front of a car rental place that had just closed. yeah! we were afraid we would be stuck in hilton head until monday.
**But this is how cool God is**
Preston (our toe truck guy) knew some of the people that worked in the car rental place and had convinced them to stay open so that we could rent a car. They stayed open for at least 45 min. longer then they had to so that they could help us out and try and work things out with the insurance company. Then once we got a renal car, preston toed our car to the carriage shop which is where they were going to look at the car and fix it. Well, they had also already closed but preston had called and asked them to re-open. They ended up reopening so that we could bring our car in and leave it so that they could look at it on monday. The lady at the carriage shop was very loving and motherly - it was a family owned shop and she was very concerned for us and not our car. she said they would try and fix it but not to the point that it would affect our safety.
During that time preston slipped us a $100 to help us on our journey. he said that he wished he could have helped more. AFter that the lady from the carriage shop said that she didn't want us driving home in our condition and told us to go next door to a local food place to eat and that she would pay.
WOW! God took a bad situation and made it good. he showed us that he is always there. in fact i was frustrated at first because sarah and I had just prayed and asked God to keep us safe and to keep us out of car accidents and then we get hit. i wasn't mad at God - just a little confused. But, I see that God really does love us and was really watching out for us. he was very much present and I am very grateful. he really has never let us down.
we can't deny how much God was moving that day
our safety - could have been a lot worse
a free meal
extra cash to help us with crazy expenses
a loving/motherly woman to help and bless a couple of younger people trying to get home
a toe truck driver who helped us get into closed places and bless us with some crazy stories and a lot of help - a man who helped us smaile and laught - who spent many more hours then he had to helping, talking, and sharing life with us
great friends who stood by us and were comforting - keith and betsy
the opportunity to be a witness who had seen God's hand move but might not have realized that it was God
THANKS GOD!
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
LOVE?
God has been teaching me a ton as to what it really means to love someone or what it really means to love.
Background: A little bit less than a year ago we invited a couple to come and live with us. We thought it was to help them financially and later found that not to be the case. One of them recently moved out (moved away from her husband)and it didn't seem right. Her actions and words didn't make sense to how God works or the commands that God calls us to obey. We went to confront her about her actions or at least gain understanding but she would not take the time to share that understanding. So, we let her know that we loved her and wanted to still be there for her but that we could not allow her back into our house because we felt that the reason for us opening our house was to help and it didn't feel that she was open for us helping her. We also didn't want to encourage what we understood and felt in our hearts to be wrong. At the same time though we have always been open towards listening to her heart and gaining understanding if we were wrong.
This is when she told us that we were not loving her and that we were not being obedient to God!
OUCH! we really felt that we were trying to love her the best that we could but didn't want to encourage what we felt was wrong. It seemed that she believed love to be equal to agreeing and we couldn't do that. This really led me to pray and contemplate over the idea of what it really means to love someone
the Journey:
as I prayed and contemplated over what it means to love someone I realized that many people, the church (generalized comment), and myself had kind of a skewed idea of what it means to love. We have the idea that "to love" means you must agree or allow but I don't believe that to be true. (this was rough ground for me to jump into because I didn't want to be a judgmental Christian) But, after a lot of prayer and contemplation I realized that you really can - not agree with someone, love them, and still not be judgmental.
If a Christian is not obeying God's commands I don't think that it is right for us to encourage or agree with that person's actions. You don't have to judge them and tell them they are going to hell but if they are truly follower of Christ then I would guess that they would desire to live passionately and obediently for Jesus in all that they did - especially if it is true that one way that we show God that we love him is by obeying his commands (john 14:21), or if Jesus says he came to bring life to the full (john 10:10) then by obeying his commands we are living the best life possible. If these are true then I would assume that as their friends we would want to encourage them to live this way (I would assume that anyone would want the best for their friends and for them to live the best life possible). As I thought and prayed about this I really felt that for us to agree with actions that didn't seem right to what God commands it would be wrong or not loving to agree or encourage these type actions. It would be the opposite of love instead of true love. I mean God loves us even when we are not being obedient but that doesn't mean he will agree or encourage those actions. I mean we see a pic in Hebrews 12 to where God disciplines us because he loves us (I don't know if it is our job to discipline but at least be honest and real with them - right?) or see a TON of pics in the gospels of how Jesus loved people but didn't agree or encourage their actions - so if we are to follow his example then loving someone and agreeing/encouraging are not the same. correct?
I have no clue if this makes any sense - God is still teaching me. But, I love when he does that. I just hope and pray that I am being obedient and truly loving as God has called me to love
Background: A little bit less than a year ago we invited a couple to come and live with us. We thought it was to help them financially and later found that not to be the case. One of them recently moved out (moved away from her husband)and it didn't seem right. Her actions and words didn't make sense to how God works or the commands that God calls us to obey. We went to confront her about her actions or at least gain understanding but she would not take the time to share that understanding. So, we let her know that we loved her and wanted to still be there for her but that we could not allow her back into our house because we felt that the reason for us opening our house was to help and it didn't feel that she was open for us helping her. We also didn't want to encourage what we understood and felt in our hearts to be wrong. At the same time though we have always been open towards listening to her heart and gaining understanding if we were wrong.
This is when she told us that we were not loving her and that we were not being obedient to God!
OUCH! we really felt that we were trying to love her the best that we could but didn't want to encourage what we felt was wrong. It seemed that she believed love to be equal to agreeing and we couldn't do that. This really led me to pray and contemplate over the idea of what it really means to love someone
the Journey:
as I prayed and contemplated over what it means to love someone I realized that many people, the church (generalized comment), and myself had kind of a skewed idea of what it means to love. We have the idea that "to love" means you must agree or allow but I don't believe that to be true. (this was rough ground for me to jump into because I didn't want to be a judgmental Christian) But, after a lot of prayer and contemplation I realized that you really can - not agree with someone, love them, and still not be judgmental.
If a Christian is not obeying God's commands I don't think that it is right for us to encourage or agree with that person's actions. You don't have to judge them and tell them they are going to hell but if they are truly follower of Christ then I would guess that they would desire to live passionately and obediently for Jesus in all that they did - especially if it is true that one way that we show God that we love him is by obeying his commands (john 14:21), or if Jesus says he came to bring life to the full (john 10:10) then by obeying his commands we are living the best life possible. If these are true then I would assume that as their friends we would want to encourage them to live this way (I would assume that anyone would want the best for their friends and for them to live the best life possible). As I thought and prayed about this I really felt that for us to agree with actions that didn't seem right to what God commands it would be wrong or not loving to agree or encourage these type actions. It would be the opposite of love instead of true love. I mean God loves us even when we are not being obedient but that doesn't mean he will agree or encourage those actions. I mean we see a pic in Hebrews 12 to where God disciplines us because he loves us (I don't know if it is our job to discipline but at least be honest and real with them - right?) or see a TON of pics in the gospels of how Jesus loved people but didn't agree or encourage their actions - so if we are to follow his example then loving someone and agreeing/encouraging are not the same. correct?
I have no clue if this makes any sense - God is still teaching me. But, I love when he does that. I just hope and pray that I am being obedient and truly loving as God has called me to love
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