It's October!

It's fall all across America and fall is my favorite time of year! Just thought I would share a few of the reasons why.

I love the outdoors, I have always preferred to be outside than inside. I especially love the scenery of the outdoors, trees, lakes, ponds I just love everything about it! So this time of year when the temperature is a little cooler, the leaves have started turning colors and there is just a crispness in the air really puts me in a happy place! I love to get out and go camping (I wish I could do it more) and this time of year for me is without a doubt the best time to pitch a tent and stay out in creation for a while!

The Ohio State football! Usually by this time of year the Buckeyes are 6-0 and getting into the heart of their conference schedule playing powerhouses like Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin and Michigan (BOO). There's just something about watching the Buckeye's play that makes me happy, I don't know if it's the Scarlet jerseys or the metallic sparkle of the helmet, or the history and tradition that they have but I love Buckeye football and this time of year gives it to me!

This is a picture from October 6th 1997. The Cleveland Indians has just beaten the New York Yankee's in game 5 of the ALDS to advance to the ALCS. I was at that game sitting in the left field bleachers with my Grandpa, Dad, Grandma and two Aunts! It was awesome! I love the game of baseball, I love the Cleveland Indians and I love playoff baseball. It brings a whole new level of excitement to the game that it just incredible to watch!

Since my Indians haven't showed up to play since the mid 90's and I married into a die hard St. Louis Cardinals family I have thoroughly enjoyed watching the Red Bird's play in October last year and this year! It brings me back those exciting feelings of watching my team in the playoffs again! The Cards are a scrappy team that just refuses to die no matter how far behind they get. Watching them play with their backs against wall for the last month of last season all the way through winning the World Series was awesome! If my Indians cant be there I am completely happy rooting for the Cardinals!

So there's just a handful of reasons why this time of year really makes me happy!

Wild At Heart: Grace Community Church (Goshen, IN) Men's Retreat

 

     Today I am extremely excited and pretty bummed out about Grace Community Church's Wild At Heart men's retreat that leaves for camping in Western Maryland this afternoon. I'm excited because this is an awesome time and opportunity for the men of Grace to link arms with one another in a safe environment where men can come together and experience God firsthand and see incredible breakthrough in their lives! I am pretty bummed out because for the first time in four years I will be missing this one.

 

     Wild At Heart is a weekend of men getting together and being men! It's shooting shotguns and pistols, it's 4 wheel drive climbing up a mountain, it's running through the woods, camping out under the stars, 40 foot fires, canoe trips in the most beautiful environment I've ever seen. It's camaraderie, team work, fellowship and personal time with God and it is without a doubt one of the most awesome times I have all year long!

 

     It was four years ago that I went on my first Wild At Heart and I got grouped up in a pick up truck with three other guys I had never officially met before. Usually somewhere between 12-15 pick up trucks, SUV's and 16 passenger vans caravan to Maryland and the driving assignments are completely random. We drove the 10 hours (one way) to get to Maryland at about 1:00 in the morning and set up camp by head lamps and headlights shining from the vehicles. This particular trip four years ago found me in a weird place in my life. Anna was about six months pregnant with Leyton, I was drinking far too much as well as being wrapped up in a few other vices. As far as my walk with Jesus went I was luke warm at best. We went to church on Sundays but that was about it for me. I believed in Jesus and what he did for me on the cross but my every day life did not reflect my gratitude for that at all. I was in a scary place for a married man who had his first child on the way. While I was there I was in a group of men with a leader named Jason and Jason was (and still is) a really awesome guy. Someone I knew of, but didn't know well and my time with him in this group only showed me how awesome he really was! We had some very real talks in our groups about things that men struggle with. Most importantly, for me, I learned that my struggles were not just my own that quite a few men in my group plus the whole large group (about 75 men that year) struggle with. We were able to come together as a group of men and link arms and say "you are not fighting this fight alone brother, I a fighting it with you. And if you'll keep fighting for me I'll keep fighting for you." I can't begin to explain in words the overwhelming feeling I got when I realized that these guys all wanted to link arms with me, right where I was, and press on fighting this fight together. One of the biggest tricks the enemy tries to pull on men (and women too I'm sure) is to try to get us to believe that the things we struggle with are so bad that we are the only ones who are hurting in that area thus keeping it to ourselves. Once a few guys got transparent with me and told me their hurts, their struggles, their shortcomings it made me realize that I'm not the only one who falls short in these areas. Some of us struggle in different areas, some of us fight the same fight but what was most important for me to realize was that we are all fighting and now we are fighting together!

 

     Back to those guys I was in a pick up truck with for the 20 hours of driving round trip. (Well what should have been 20 hours, somehow my driver did it in like 11!) Two of those three men in that truck plus myself struck up a friendship that lasted long past that weekend. We came home and stayed up with one another, went to breakfasts once a month, sent multiple texts a week, saw each other face to face a couple times a week at church and ended up becoming an accountability group. Those two men have celebrated some of my highest highs with me over the last few years. Just as importantly they have walked beside me and even carried me through some of my lowest lows also. We have been able to be 100% honest with each other without the fear of judgement but with the love of an accountability partner who will kick you in the teeth when you need it. I have enjoyed doing life, closely, with them and having them do it with me. I have celebrated births of children with them, graduations, anniversary's, breakthroughs and my own sobriety. Together we have also battled the enemy and his attempts to get into our lives, we've fought through tough times and even picked each other up when we fell. You see when you can be 100% honest, show who you really are, even the ugly stuff to someone knowing that they would never break that trust, never air your dirty laundry to the world you gain the power to fight against those things in a group and believe me when I say that once you get those things out in the open they are much easier to fight against. If you know me, or have followed my blogs or Facebook page you know that accountability is something that I take very seriously and hold my accountability partners very close to me.

 

     On that first trip for me four years ago I planted my flag in the ground on that mountainside in Western Maryland and said I will no longer let the enemy have a stranglehold on me or my life. With the help of Jason, my accountability partners and every other man that I linked arms with that weekend I decided to make a life change and it has been the best thing I have ever done for myself, my wife and my sons. God shows up in a huge way every year on that mountainside and moves in the hearts of men, I have seen it firsthand. I just pray right now that as men are getting ready in Goshen Indiana to take off this afternoon God start moving, move in their hearts and I pray that the holy spirit be there on that mountainside when they arrive at about 1:00 in the morning tonight.

 

     Here's a video from a Wild At Heart from a few years ago to give you a small look into what it's like there!

 

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