90/10

10% of our lives is what happens to us, the other 90% is how we deal with what happens to us. As human beings we choose to wrestle with the 10% of our life that can easliy be pinned, given the 3 count and defeated by what we choose to do with the other 90%. It all has to do with attitude and how positive we are about the life we live. Every day is a struggle and god gives the strength to handle those struggles, he gives us the opportunity to work for him through our positiveness. Positiveness gives us the ability to garner attention and that's where God recieves the glory, through the attention that is paid to us. That's when people ask questions like: how is she getting out of bed after he left her at the alter, how does he still smile when he has no job and no money to take care of his family, how can you continue to live when your love one's death came so quickly and suddenly, they were so young, y'all had a long life ahead of you. It's because Jesus dwells in that person, and the only way he can dwell there is through the positiveness and the faith that person clings on to. The lord cannot dwell in any unclean place and the reason we feel so disconnected from him is because there is no room for him to dwell in our heart when it's cluttered by negativity. The bridge to understanding our life and how we continue to find him amongst the trouble, the heartache, the impossible moments, and diffculties is through positive moments in a not so positive place. The souls of men and women are found during the great diffculties that cannot be explained or that can't seem to be defeated. America's greatest generation defeated the greatest war in history and a baffling depression, America's greatest presidents are known for what they did in a time of crisis not peace, and Jesus most defining moment was escorted by pain and suffering. And if our god is for us then what and who could ever stop us, that is a positive thought and you cannot believe that truly without thinking positively. With those words we gain great power, with those words we are a avalanche of faith that cannot be stopped, with that faith we cause destruction that changes the world for the greater. It all starts with positiveness and the attitude we use today to defeat tomorrow problems that God turns into a story to change one soul at a time! What can stand against us when we are positive? Nothing! I don't know what I will do with my life, but where ever I live it from I will be a mountain of positiveness. I've been to negative for this portion of my life. So God shine through me whether it's from a house on 1600 Pensylvania Avenue, whether it's from the rolling plains of Alabama, whether it's from southwest side of Clay, whether it's from a city street corner, let me be positive in your image so I maybe used for the good of the world. God bless you, God bless the good ole USA and may god make us positive every day that we live.

From 30,000 feet, Ich bin ein Berliner

From 30,000 feet you can see miles beyond the natural road blocks that prohibit our fore sight on the ground. From 30,000 feet our adversities are small hills compared to the mountains we see from the ground. From 30,000 feet the vision you obtain from the ground seems to be useless. I do think that one reason God made it possible for man to suspend from 30,000 feet is to get a inch of a glimpse of how high he sits as we wonder the maze that we call life. Being this high gives a whole new meaning to a lot of things, for example; I think when God said if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will be able to move mountains. I truly believe that he meant if you trust in his vision from way above 30,000 feet there is not a mountain that can hender you, essentially saying that they have been moved to provide a path for the life God has in store for you. For some unknown reason God gave me this amazing best friend (Jacob Morris) who is allowing me to escort him and his wife to the beautiful mountains and valleys of South Germany. During this long 8 hour flight that I am currently in the midst of, I've been able to acknowledge how small I am compared to the large movement God is trying accomplish on the ground. I recall President John F. Kennedy standing before a wall in Berlin on June 26, 1963 and saying that, "Freedom is indivisible and when one man is enslaved all are not free." He went on to say that Americans from across the ocean are as one with the free man that stands on the free side of the Berlin Wall. Our fallen president then let go of some of the most famous words an American has ever said in the German language. "Ich bin ein Berliner!" meaning WE ARE ALL FROM BERLIN or we are all Berliners. What a pleasant sight it would be for the Lord that has given his all for us, to look down and see a world where all men wasn't just free but saved by the blood of his son Jesus Christ! This may seem like the impossible and is an accomplishment that couldn't take place in any man's lifetime but if we all lived by the thought of IF ONE IS ENSLAVED by the darkness of this world then NO MAN IS FREE. We would work tiredlessly to find freedom for one soul, so that we may find freedom. We would work as hard as a woman who went to be a missionary in Iraq in the middle of the War on Terror.  Her and her husband dug wells for the waterless Northern Iraqis who only recived water from Saddam every few months. On there way out of  the village some terrorist lined the highway and fired machine gun rounds into their truck. She awoke from her comma months later only to realize she had a body full of bulletts, that 3 of her fingers were gone, and her husband was killed. After mourning her losses she found a way to realize god was way above 30,000 feet and is currently tring to become a missionary once again. Ich bin ein Berliner!" We are all from Berlin. How great would it be if we could scream amidst our life full of mazes filled with mountains and natural roadblocks with useless vision, Ich bin ein christen! We are all Christians! May God bless you, May God bless these States that are United under him and May he continue to love us from way above 30,000 feet.          

Not me but we, which turns into HE

Years ago a 16 year old young girl stood in a bathroom shaking from the thought of herself being with child. She paced back and forth nervously as she shook the stick that would determine her life's fate. When the reading finally showed itself to my mother she dropped the stick and before it could hit the ground she knew she would not stroll the stage of her High School graduation, nor grace the halls of any university. There in her belly forming, was all the hopes and dreams that she had left and Marion Clark Thomas was later born into the world. Even though the young father of my brother promised to be around he later took off after graduating and my mother knowing before he ever left that she needed to quit school and begin caring for her child, she was ready for the responsibility. Later came Sherrie Thomas by way of the same father and later me when my mother met the lanky love of her life in my father. My mother is THE STRONGEST WOMAN I know, she has suffered loss after loss and she continues to move forward. First it was the loss of her dreams, then it was lostness of the door shutting behind the father of her two children, and the heartfelt loss as she stood beside a casket with the man of her dreams within. With all these losses it's amazing that she could still stand to live this life and I marvel at this beautiful woman everyday. The reason she still stand are many and I believe it has all to do with god but as far as rewards I finally saw why she is so satisfied with a life with no fulfillment, at least that's what I call it. A wise man once said that the greatest gift you could ever give the world isn't your services or efforts but it is the gift of another human being. If you could give this world another person who will continue to push forward the efforts of truth and service years beyond your living then you will change the world more than any Nobel prize winner or president. When you have the chance to mold a person to transform human being after human being it leads to change beyond years, decades, and generations. My mother's joy and rewards was for a trophy case of accomplishments or for degrees of acrediations, but it was turned into pushing her children to do well to this world every since she drop that stick when she was 16. Her trophy case is filled with the image of a high school Valedictorian and a degree and masters won by that Valedictorian from the University of Alabama that made her the most sought after tax manager in the city of Birmingham and on the edge of CFO. I believe there is an image of a solider who went from the battle field to building government ships as a private citizen with a degree in engineering for the betterment of the strongest Navy the world has ever seen. In the recent part of that trophy case is the image of a younger Thomas who was to prove wrong his caring school counselor who called his mom after hearing of his acceptance to Auburn to debate whether he should attend or not. The counselor argued that his ACT score was to low to finish the increasing toughness of an Auburn University degree, but she pushed her son forward and in a couple days I'll walk across a stage to shake the hand of the president of a university I love and as a memory in my mother's mental trophy case. Matter of fact it won't be me but we who walk across that stage. As in we I mean Elizabeth,Ronald, Marion, and Sherrie. For we forged this life together and we stormed the gates of difficulty together all for the betterment of this world and to my mother she should receive all the glory. If I know Elizabeth like I think I know her she would add not me but we turns into he. She believes that through all things, through all that this world brings and it's impossible moments and the days where you lose all hope and all dreams. That life is possible through Christ that strengthens her, me, our family, and the life we continue to live. It's not about me but we, which turns into he, and he being our lord and savior Jesus Christ. God bless you, may God bless these great states of America and May god continue to let us all be trophies to our parents.

The Small Things

There is something that always take us down, I don't care who you are and how holy you are, there is this one thing that you can't beat no matter how hard you try to dominated it. That one sin, that one mess up, that one uh oh, or OMG that as long as you can remember has led to you finding some kind of disbelief in the one true God, and leads to a network of future sins. For instance a huge problem in my life has always stemmed from the lost of my father, not that its my fault or its because of my sin that he is no longer with me. Since I lost my father I've been hell bent to find a mate so I could make sure that I wouldn't experience the nights of loneliness that I witness my mother go through. Due to the fact that he left this world early in my childhood, I would say that my life has lacked a manly presences. I was raised by three woman at different stages of their life. I had a sister who was in high school and college, a mother at middle age and a grandmother. So to often I depend on women, a lot of my life has been defined by the girl I'm dating and when they leave, my world is shattered because my girls, My mother and such has always been there. I also confide in women way too often, for the most part the girls in my life has always known more about who I am then the men in my life and that's not right. I didn't know that it wasn't right until recently when God confronted me through my own actions. He set a scenario that the devil had a trap in and I fell right into it. The beautiful thing about this misery that I'm going through now as I wait to leave this trap is that he is changing me for the better. Females is my problem they should not be as high of a priority that I make them and I'm going to change that now. Knowing that, I'm more than eager to have a son, so I can make sure he knows what I didn't know, and have the manly guide that I didn't have. The thing about tragedies and traps in our lives is that they give us scars that become souvenirs we never lose and those scars remind us that our past is never that far away. I once heard a song state so truly that, "To live is to suffer but to survive is to find meaning in that suffering." To often we let our sufferings define us and that's where our one thing we can't defeat develop. By trying to be in control of my life and being so aggressive in going after girls, dreams, and materialistic things I lose myself and my purpose. Jesus used the perfect parable to describe this wondering and losing of self in John. He says something to the effect of I am the shepherd, who watches his flock and when one of mine stray from the pack they wonder towards the evil one. That's what we do when the littlest of things distracts us from the path we were made to tread. Just the hope of being a mother one day can lead to a unhealthy relationship that can find pregnancy before marriage, just one drink can lead to addiction that takes years to break, and the dream of marriage can turn into a deep lust that's hard to shake. The smallest things can cause the biggest disasters. February 1st 2003 a shuttle filled with mothers, father, sons, and daughters made it's way back through the atmosphere that has protect us for so long, but that day it brought destruction. As the Columbia Space shuttle made it's way back home, a couple of tiles as big as the ones on your kitchen floor was broken off as the shuttle entered space weeks ago and was now missing. These specially design tiles keep the bottom of the space shuttle from overheating and breaking apart, well on that day the smallest part of the ship led to one of the biggest tragedies in the history of the space program. The smallest things makes god withhold blessings from us and every time we miss a blessing it's a small tragedy in life. God has to know the blessings he give won't be wasted, he has to know you will use it to bring those in who are lost. Just like the parable of the talons, god gives us these things we treasure and it's up to us to bring the glory back to him. Some of the reasons the people who desire fame haven't found it is because fame defines their life not Jesus. The reason most girls can't find that happy ending is because the wedding ring and the story defines you and not Jesus. Some of the reasons those like me who seek that girl and can't have her is because she defines you and not Jesus. At the end of that parable above I mention from John. Jesus finishes by saying I will search for the lost lamb and save them from the evil one that stands at the gates of my pastures. Today me and you need to let that one thing go and not let the evil one lure us beyond the pack and through the gate where he awaits. He takes us past that gate and deeper and deeper into the woods where a small hill becomes a mountain range. For I can witness to that fact, I let the smallest thing like my mother, sister, and grandmother love lead to the trap in which I lie now: broken, apologetic, and humble. The Lord is speaking to us who are in the trap and beckoning us saying find me, look for me over those small things, search for me over the little things, Seek ye the kingdom of heaven and all those small sins will be erased and all of your small wishes shall be given. For there is great power in small things and great faith and praise is given to our god when we abandon them, only to get them back! May God bless you, may God bless these United States and may God bring the small things to our attention.