Appreciate

When I came to this school, I was not happy. I was stuck in  a mentally desolate place. It was like the Sahara Desert.  There was never any sun. I felt very contained and alone, separate from the rest of the world that seemed to be doing fine. My first week at this school was like being thrown into water after years of drought. 

I promised myself that I would do all that I could to show Maria how much I appreciate her. I didn't just tell her. No. I got excellent grades, I helped out as much as I could, I did everything I possibly could to prove that I was extremely grateful.  

Then it hit me.

Maria gave me a second chance. 

Just like Jesus Christ did.

I never truly thought about it, but I was sitting in church the other day, and it just dawned on me how I should be doing the same thing for God. He didn't just give me a second chance, He gave me every chance. I don't ever want to disappoint Maria, I want her to be proud of me, to be able to count on me to do big jobs. I also want God to never be disappointed. I want Him to trust me with big jobs, to smile at me when I get to heaven and have him say "well done, loyal servant" to me. 

Its all about an attitude of gratitude. I can tell anyone I want how grateful I am for them, but its a whole other game to prove it. I guess the concept of "Actions speak louder than words" never really sunk in till now. Now I want to run around the house, being helpful. I want to obey my parents and show them that I appreciate the sacrifice they made for me. I want them to be proud. 

I want to represent Christianity the best I can. To do good thing, make a positive impact on my world that LASTS. 

My mom and I were watching "The Good Witch" on Hallmark last night, and Martha, the mayor, was trying to find her "Foundation Stone". She thought that it was the only mark she had left on the town. As the show went on, so did her understanding of the true impact she had had on the town. She saw all of the good things she had done for the town, and how the people appreciated it. 

I want to do that. I've been thinking about how I'm gonna leave my house and go to college, move out, and go off in the world. I want my absence to be noticed. I want people to do things, and think of me. I want to make lasting improvements, relationships. My whole life, I've been thinking of how someday I would grow up, move out, and change the world. I don't have to grow up to change the world though. 

Maria has changed the world, by giving kids a second chance. All she had to do was become a teacher. My mom has changed the world, and all she had to do was be a mom. I've had such a huge mindset, that I forgot that I can do things HERE to make a lasting impact. Maybe me helping out in the church nursery is gonna impact those little kids. I don't have to become a hugely popular singer/song writer that writes songs that feed peoples souls, a house hold name, to change the world. 

All I have to do is love Jesus, and strive to make Him proud, follow in His will, and that in itself can impact the world. 

I know I haven't talked about my faith on my blog before, except for in short passing, but I hope to share more and more as I grow in my faith and my relationship with God. 

There is a whole entire crazy world out there. Art is splashed across walls, names are written on water towers, and everybody is in a constant race to make sure that they can make a huge and important impact on the world. Sometimes its the smaller things that make the largest impacts. Stay true to who you are. Maybe the whole world thinks your crazy for having this big dream, but maybe your showing someone else how to believe in something bigger than them.

 Maybe your a mom, reading their kids blog, maybe your a teacher, maybe your the guy that drives a tractor for a living, or the guy painting roads. Maybe you pump gas, maybe you are customer service. Whatever your job is, where ever your job is, you have a chance everyday to impact someones life, to change the world. So do what you do, and do it the best. 

When my brother and I go into a store, if we notice that our checker is having a bad day, we make it our mission to make them smile, even if its just for the four seconds we stand in line. Small things make a large impact. So tell me, who are you when your done being everyone else? 

Ode To The Farmer

Farmers are some of the strongest, most intelligent  people I know.

To be a farmer, your have to be a vet, you have to know crop value, crop management, and crop yield. You have to understand the politics and the economics, you have to know how to take chances, keep faith, and rebuild an entire business if need be. You have to be good at check and balances, making investments, and turning a profit on all of it.

They have to understand irrigation systems, they have to understand machinery of all types to its full extent, not just how to operate it, but the mechanics of it as well. They have to understand GPS and geography, topography, and temporal zones. They have to understand chemicals, fertilizers, vaccinations,  and animal systems.

You have to be committed and motivated. Farmers are up in the dead of night, calving, making sure that their livestock is safe and healthy. Farmers have to feed the world. They are the key to civilization, agriculture is the staple. Farmers invest thousands of hours and dollars in producing a product that is deemed worthy of being marketed to the public. Farmers have a hand in producing every item of food.

Two percent of America is made up of commercial farmers. Of that 2%, 31% of all profit comes directly from exports. Farm budgets get lass then one half of one percent of the American Budget. That means that if the American Budget only had $100, Farmers would get pennies on a dollar.

With a steadily growing population and decreasing farm land, farmers are under more pressure than ever to produce a larger crop on less land, with a lower budget, and still keep it high quality for the public.

I do not aspire to be a farmer, but I live and work on one. There are a lot of rules and regulations that farmers have to follow and keep up with in order to have a product that the world population can safely and abundantly consume. I think that there is a huge misconception on farmers.

Farming is not an industry that has room to abuse their animals, because they need every dollar of profit. Farmers can not afford to break chemical or labor laws. Yes, there are some people who abuse their animals, just like their are parents that abuse their kids. It doesn't mean that all parents abuse their kind, in fact, majority of families do not abuse their kids. There are only a few farmers that abuse their animals.


I know that this is not like my typical blog posts, i just felt it was an important matter to address, especially since I love growing up on my farm.

It Finally Happened

Guys

It happened

There was no warning. No flirtatious teasing, no battle cry to announce its arrival, nor a feeling in the air that joy was about to burst through the door. No notifications. None of that. It just... Happened.


Summer

The celebration stirred me early this morning. Birds were cheering, songs and chants oppressed the quiet. The sun concord the clouds, and cast out all that was left of the cold. On my way to school, the trees stretched, doors and windows were thrust open, and the presence of summer was allowed to overwhelm the quiet of winter.

Tired muscles flexed, shaking off the dust of a long winter at rest. Pale skin came out from hiding, my world hummed with the sound of lawn mowers, the smell of fresh cut grass the best kind of coffee I'd smelled all winter. Every single yard was green plad. Smoke wafted through the air, the straw and death of winter being cremated under the same power that would soon bring life. Warmth flooded the world today, and it was beautiful.

Its arrival was rapid and extreme, all at once, the winter was over. Suddenly, boxes were brought up from the must of basements, no longer were the arctic streets full of Eskimos, gone were the fur hoods, and the chatter of teeth. The streets were no longer desolate, like the people were scared of an unnamed beast that was coming to devour them.

 I don't usually post selfies on my blog, or any pictures, but I felt really pretty today. Like the sun shine was shining through my skin. I just feel really good.





Summer is here guys
             I'm awake and ready for it
                                           Are you?

Noise

I'm a really emotional person.

Like, I'm not Bi-Polar or anything, but my emotions are really magnified.

My joy is like the brightest star in the sky. Its hot and loud and consumes me in its flames. It makes the sun brighter, the air more electric and enthusiastic.

My sorrow brings rain that drives into the ground, flooding even the safest homes. It crashes through valleys, covering them in a thick fog of suffocating darkness.

My anger is lightning flashes and natural disasters. It starts fires and rips the world apart. It surges with power, and sometimes sucks the light out of homes.

I don't have to say or do a think. I make noise, and its just because my presence is so loud. I don't even know how to explain it.

I'm really intense, and that is something I battle with a lot. I often find myself being "too much". I admit it. My 1 is probably closer to your 5. I take things really hard. Mask it with over the top laughter. The little things seem like a big deal. It leads to a lot of jumping to conclusions. It also brings pretty extreme mood swings. I can be really confident one moment, and the next laying on the floor of my bedroom, unable to look at myself. Completely consumed with self hate. I can wake up in the mornings in a really good mood, something small goes wrong, and its hard for me to recover.

I've learned to utilize my writing and music as an outlet for some of that. Today in class, we did an assignment called "Before I Die..." and it was about this girl who lost someone very close to her. It got her contemplating birth and death and the spaces in between. There was an old abandoned building by where she lives, and she painted it with chalk paint. She wrote "Before I Die, I Want To..." and then people filled it in. It started out small, but then grew. The whole wall was full on the first day, and now other countries and states have this wall. Here is a link to the website that has some of the quotes on it ( http://beforeidie.city/responses )

It really moved me and got me thinking about how the whole world experiences emotions. I know I'm not the only kid who feels really intense emotion. On that wall, I would have written "Before I Die, I Want To Positively Change Someones Life" Then I just started thinking of like, everything I want to do before I die.

I pour out my soul in my songs, as quite a few artists do. Music reaches people in a way nothing else can. In a world that is mostly stuck inside of itself, everybody hears music. Its shared, bought, sold, quoted. Its not just the words. Its the movement of the entire masterpiece.    Its all the pauses, the voice breaks, the raw realness of the melody, the vibration of the bass, the peaks in the instrumentals. Its like it can somehow flood your body and take all of that raging emotion and make it into something that can change someone else.

I love sitting in class and seeing a kid go from a troubled look on their face to a grin practically bisecting their face. I know exactly how that feels.  Or like, when I finish writing a song and it feels like the whole world just opened up its skies for me. I also love it when I play piano and my veins flex under my skin. Its like my body is dancing with excitement at the notes I'm letting out.

Its really cool to know that maybe someday I might be able to reach someone else with my music and cause that smile. Help them reign in their emotions. provoke creativity, send peace into the soul. I love it when people talk about their passion, because you can just see that light come on inside of them. Can you imagine being an inspiration to a pair of big beautiful eyes, ready to drink in the world? I don't remember what sparked my desire to be a singer/song writer, but every single time I see another person changed by music, every single time I hear an artists story, it just adds fuel to that fire.

There is really one question to ask yourself:
Who are you when you're done being everyone else?