Change?

We say we want change or were changed because of our experiences, but what does that really mean?

I went through a season of life that challenged me and taught me to do things different.

Change...yes, but not of what I do or what I act like.

I still do things that I did years ago.

I still drink my favorite drinks and eat Swedish fish.

I still laugh at dumb jokes and say "that's what she said", if necessary.

Immature at time; I am aware.

But I am still, me.

What has "changed" is the way I think, or how I respond to things at certain times.

I do like to read and write now (and for those that have known me I hated both for the longest time)

Other then those minor things, I am still the same. Kind of.

I looked deep into who I was during this time, and found I didn't like who I had become.

I had a past that need to be transformed. It all started with the willingness to admit I was wrong, broken and lost.

I was living on repeat, everyday.

But enough of that. My point in all this is about something greater.

Just living life.

I just finished Donald Millers new book "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years"...it inspired me.

He is writing about his story and the things he went through that made his life more "story" worthy. He claims he was doing nothing that made his life valuable and interesting, so he starts doing a bunch of different things.

Something I took away is that I am just living life, and within it we need to have good experiences to fully live.

Okay, that blows my own mind......I am living, and because I am living I should make the most of it and do it to it's best. This is also God's purpose for us. But it hits me about where I am at today.

I'm in a library writing on a blog, so you may be thinking...really Aaron??

Well I am in Montana and just returned form Asia. I never thought or wanted to be in Montana. It snows all the time, and no one lives here.

But that's something I realized. It may not be that big of a deal, but it's different. New.

An out of the ordinary thing to do. To come here, learn how to be with people in another country, and then move away for another 2 months to a foreign land!?

It's one of these things I can't believe I just did.

And those are the kind of moments that make us aware we are living a good story.

My old youth pastor used to ask us about graveyards and what things are written on the plates in the ground. I never got what he was talking about...and I still don't fully know what it means in many way's.

He would say, "You never see things written on it that talk about how good their job was, their work ethic, the car they drove, the cloths they wore, things of that nature."

Continuing he would talk about the dates of when they were born till the day they died.

Kind of morbid? Yes. But true.

It's the things we do in between those years that dictate what is remembered or written on our slab. It may not say much but they tend to look like this:

"Amazing Father, Loving Wife, Kind Hearted Man, Adventurous."

Those are words that describe the action the person took during their life.

And I want to me remembered as a loving and genuine person.

I know I want to do things that may be crazy, because that is living how we were made to be.

Out of ordinary, and into a good story...our own story, and we get to decide how we want it to be read.