A Shocking Similarity

It's been waaaaay too long...

Okay, I don't know what this Sonic Talk thing is all about, but I needed something to express how long it's been since I wrote a post.  I figured it would be ironic using the world's fastest hedgehog to say "better late than never," so there.

All right, seriously.  It's been way too long since I last wrote a blog.  Heck, I wrote my last blog last year!  That's really not saying much since this is being written 17 days into 2013, but the last post was in early November.  Even then, I didn't write that post; someone else did, I just shared it.  The last post that I wrote was last October.

Butterballs.

Well, I'm writing this post now, and what is it about?  How I haven't written posts for a while.  Does that sound lame?  It might at first, but just hang with me a moment...

I made a New Year's Resolution to write one blog post two days a week.  I say two days instead of two posts because if Saturday comes up and I haven't written anything, I couldn't just write two posts and give myself full credit.  No, it doesn't matter how many posts I write on one day of the week.  I write at least one post two days a week, and I've met my minimum goal.

Of course, with college coming up in a matter of days, I've made another Resolution: go for 100% in whatever I can (this is impossible with living for Jesus, so I'll go for 99.eternal9% on that one).  If I can write 7 days a week, that's great, although I'm not entirely sure it'll work out most of the time.  Come summertime, sure, but during school I wouldn't count on it.

Here's a word of advice: don't wait until the new year to resolve to change your life.  You might talk about changing in the future but not right now because right now you don't want to change.  Well, here's the thing...

The future is only one instant away from "right now."

Your resolution you made to change "in the future" is now in the past.  Don't wait.  Change now, because tomorrow could be too late.

PS: Here's a little something to inspire you to change:
http://www.blogofmanly.com/2013/01/07/the-line/

A Call for Revolution

A Third Option Man, upon seeing the American people choose death over life on Tuesday, snapped.  He's absolutely right.  We can't afford to be watchers on the sidelines anymore.  Time to get down on our knees and start a revolution of prayer, righteousness, faithfulness, and love.  He cites Les Miserables about the future being tomorrow, but I say that the future isn't some abstract concept miles away.

It's only one instant away.  If you want a brighter future, work in the here and now, because the future is only an instant away.

A Call for Revolution:

'via Blog this'

An Open Letter to My Sisters This Halloween - Life Teen

Any way that brings the truth of this home works with me!  Ladies, please read!

An Open Letter to My Sisters This Halloween - LifeTeen.com for Catholic Youth:

'via Blog this'

Goretti Group: The Church's Position on Contraception is Actually Pro-Woman and Pro-Marriage

This is a well-written argument on why contraception isn't a good thing and why Natural Family Planning (NFP) is a better alternative.  Please read!

The Church's Position on Contraception is Actually Pro-Woman and Pro-Marriage

Scars

While I was chewing gum today, I bit my tongue.  That may not be so painful normally, but I bit mine hard this time.  It caused me to wince and squeeze my eyes shut; it was that bad.  After the pain eased, I put my fingers to my tongue to see if there were any side effects.  Sure enough, there was some blood on my fingers.  Fortunately, it wasn't that bad.  After a few minutes, there was no more blood, but I kept my tongue away from between my teeth for a while so I wouldn't do it again.  The wound's healed now, but it was a heck of a lot of pain.

How did I keep it from hurting again?  Simple: I didn't pick it.  When you were younger, you got hurt, no doubt; it happens to everyone, no matter what age.  I have an 8-year-old brother and a sister who's turning 4 this Saturday.  They occasionally get hurt and cause wounds to appear.  After Mom treats the wound, she tells them not to pick it so it doesn't start bleeding again.

They've disobeyed her before, and it hasn't gone over well.  They came back to her, whining about their reopened wound.

"You picked it, didn't you?" she asks, frustrated.  "I told you not to, didn't I??"  She re-treats the wound.  This would repeat itself a couple times until the kids got it into their heads that they needed to stop it.  This is what I was thinking when I was holding my tongue: just don't pick it.

I think this advice could be useful in other areas of life as well, where wounds can be much worse than a simple scratch that bleeds when provoked.  These wounds are similar to scratches, but the blood that comes out of them brings much more pain than any scratch in the flesh (you know I'm getting serious when I start using the word "flesh." ;) ) can bring.  Call it what you want: sin, regret, the past.  We've all got them: wounds that will never fully heal.  No matter what we do, there will always be the faint remains of a wound of some kind, a scar on our life.

Thankfully, this is not what defines us.  What defines us is what we choose to do with this wound: cover it up and move on, or pick it.

My older brother never sported a beard in high school except for a play he and I did.  After that, he sported a small goatee for a while until he did another show for which he shaved it off.  A couple of years later, in a game of football, he bit the dust hard and blasted his chin open.  He got stitches, and he's okay now, but the wound took its toll.  Where the stitches were, there is now a scar.

Don't count on using this scar-on-the-chin physical description to identify my brother should you run into him.  Ever since that scar made its mark (literally), he's sported a nice little goatee that nicely covers it up.

Generally, the topic doesn't come up anymore.

That's the right thing to do with a wound: heal it as best you can, cover it up, and move on.  Picking it is the wrong thing to do.  I wonder if my brother ever gets the itching feeling to pick the scar?  I don't know.  How could I?  I don't have a scar to cover up or pick.  How should I know?

Well, not a physical scar, anyway.  Not all of us have physical scars (maybe most of us, I'm not sure, but not all), but we all have emotional and/or spiritual scars.  Somewhere inside you, you've been wounded in some way or another.  What have you done with that wound?  Have you simply ignored it, neglecting to heal it and just trying to move along in life while it bleeds without restraint?  Have you healed it but failed to cover it up?  Have you picked at it, causing it to bleed after it's been healed?

These are the wrong things to do.  The right thing to do is: heal your wound, cover it up, and move on.

Note that when you cover up your wound, that doesn't mean you just forget 100% about it.  It means you don't let it define you anymore, just like my brother's scar doesn't define him.

The best place to take your wound is to God.  God can heal any wound, and He will heal it if you will let Him.  If you pick it and make it bleed again, He'll be right where He was, ready to bind up and heal.  The healing may be painful: it may require surgery, or even a transplant, but in the end you will be stronger.  Why?  Because it won't kill you.  And you know what they say: what doesn't kill you makes you stronger!

This past week, I've been struggling with my past a little.  As I'm writing this, I realize that I've been picking at a wound that healed a while back.  Time to bind it up, cover it, and move on.