I have come to this place in my life, where I have realized the things that really matter. Even though we still don’t have our own place, I am thankful for the friends and family whom have helped us make it more bearable. I have learned a lot about myself and have grown a lot spiritually. I look at my “problems” and they pale in comparison to some of the things my other friends and family are facing. I have a family member who has been rejected by his parents, I have another who is facing divorce. I have friends who are sick and may be facing the unknown. So, when I look at the world and I look at myself I really don’t have it that bad. I have my beautiful wife and my daughter. I have friends and a job. Does this mean to settle for things the way they are? No, it simply means to not get discouraged and to be encouraged, to not focus on what you DON’T have and focus on what you DO have. It will change the way you look at EVERYTHING. I am called to encourage and support my brothers and sisters. The trials I have faced in life, I will NOT let them turn me into a bitter and beaten person, I will use them to lean and grow and become stronger and better. If the road is easy and smooth, you many be on the wrong one. Just food for thought.

God never promised us that it would be easy, just the opposite in fact. following Him was a road that is filled with adventure and chaos. Like working out and training, there is pain in the process, but that pain means that we are stretching our muscles out and that they are becoming stronger. It’s like life, through pain and trials we grow. We become better and stronger IF we learn from the situations. But if we don’t learn and we hold onto things, we become bitter and spiteful. We slowly die and it becomes a poison to ourselves and eventually others around us. I am here to tell you, it isn’t that bad. sure, things may be rough right now, but it’s for a reason, learn from it, become stronger and grow. Lean on your friends and family and when the smoke clears and the dust settles, stand strong and victorious over what has happened. I have seen my fair share of junk and life is by no means, perfect. But I refuse to give up and give in, I will continue to push to become better and to achieve greater things. Through Christ I can do ALL things.

^{Phil 4:11-13}

¹¹ I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. ¹² I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. ¹³ I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

Why is it that as we grow up we stop dreaming, we stop wanting to discover and essentially, we stop growing. The very thing that God wants us to continue doing is the one thing we stop. Oddly enough as i watch movies with my daughter, I have noticed a major theme in all these cartoons, so simple, yet so relevant. The core message of them all is “Never stop dreaming and believing”. As kids, we believe that we can do anything, that we can be anything and that NOTHING can stop us or hold us back from achieving our dreams. As we grow up, our parents and teachers and other adults tell us to stop believing, to be more realistic. Why do we simply sit down and accept this as the norm, as the “way it is”. God created us to believe and to dream. As of recent, i have been trying to figure out how to get myself back to the core of things. I have to be careful to NOT lose my creativity.

This has been my focus as of recent. I have been trying to figure out how to get back to my creative core. See, i have always been good at the process. My old boss said that he could give me a project and a final vision and i could figure out the process of how to get there with little to no direction. I can get a project and see its process in my head before i even begin filming it. While i am filming i can see the editing timeline in my head before i even start. The place I lack the most in is the initial idea, the initial creativity. so, how can i get to that point? That is the question. More to come as things develop.

so, all that being said, it brings me back to my wordpress page, my blog. ( i still hate that word -.-) I have found that writing lately has been an amazing remedy for me, something that i have lacked for so long now, so its time to get back to my core. This is not just limited to writing, it also includes my physical and emotional states…yeah that sounds right. I have come to the conclusion that i need to start working out again, i am going to start with just running and sit-ups, then i will find a gym and get back into shape. It really is true, for some reason when you get married, you put on weight, why is that?! well, for one, its because i am lazy, i lack the motivation to go to the gym daily and run daily. BUT NO LONGER! I have already begun to change my diet, little to no fast food, if i do, its something like Chick-Fil-A or a salad from McDonald’s. This, the exercising, will help with my depression, it is a way for me to let out my agressions and frustrations. A healthy way, its also a time for me to spend alone with God, meditating on his word, listening to sermons on my iPod or praise and worship. 

The next hurdle i have to tackle after my weight, is my staying up late. Hello, my name is Taurin…and i am an insomniac. (N. someone who can not sleep) Yeah, i have been struggling with this one for a while. When i was in college…all my life i have been a night owl, i am just not one of those “morning persons” as much as i love to see sunrises and the cool breeze and crispness of the morning air, I just cant get myself to go to bed early. The strange thing, is its not because of distractions, sure, sometimes i stay up late to play a video game or watch a movie, but there are nights i stay up just because. No rhyme or reason to it, i just stay up. I have found that if i am in bed by 12, I am golden the next morning. This is a wonderful thing because my three year old feels it necessary to wake us up in the middle of the night and then proceeds to kick me in the ribs in her sleep. so the earlier i go to bed, the better chances of me getting a good nights sleep. Now, my beautiful wonderful wife, is a morning person. She loves going to bed at ten or eleven o’clock and getting up at seven or eight AM with my daughter and then out the door for work by 8:30. We don’t get along well in the mornings, usually involves me staying up until about 2am, for no good reason and then her pulling the covers off of me or the unnecessarily large german shepherd of ours, jumping or licking me in the face. needless to say, i am not the most pleasant person in the mornings. So, the point of this is that i need to FORCE myself to go to bed early, for the sake of my health and my marriage (lol) but seriously, it will be a lot better over all, i will feel better, my wife loves falling asleep with me ( I wont lie, i love falling asleep with her also) and then we can both get to work earlier in the day. This is also laziness.

The next thing i need to improve is my laziness around the house. Sure, i clean and do the dishes, sweep and mop the kitchen, and vacuum the living room. But i need to take more initiative to help her with dinner and general maintenance. Now, she will admit, she is not a clean person, as in she is not as OCD as i am. I think another thing that causes my depression is things not being clean and organized. I used to be very organized and clean at my house. clothes hung up or folded and put away. Now, its an adventure to find my socks or even to distinguish what is clean and unclean. This is something i can help with, i can take the initiative and do laundry more, when it is finished, i can take it fold it, put it away, and clean up the bedroom. If anyone of you are OCD also, you know how i feel about this. But, lets admit, its kinda hard to keep things clean with a three year old, seven month puppy, and my wife’s brother and a friend of ours who lives with us who is not very clean in her nature either. well, i am the only one who is  come to think of it. hmm…what did i get myself into!

Another thing i can do is not be so lazy with my family. as a result of staying up late i am tired during the days and on my days off, all i want to do is sleep. My family is amazingly important to me. I have has so much fun playing with my daughter and spending time with my wife in the past few weeks. sure my wife and i still argue, a lot, but you know what its because we are two completely different people. No matte HOW much we have in common, we are still not the same person. There will be arguing, but at the end of the day, we love each other. I can genuinely look at her and say, “i love you more today than i did yesterday”. My relationship with my daughter has also grown. It’s not easy coming into a relationship with someone who already has a child, I have had to work my way into her heart and her mother’s heart. But, it is amazing when she asks my wife if daddy is going to stay home with her today, because she “likes spending time with daddy”. It melts my heart to know that she WANTS to spend time with me and that she loves having me around. 

The next area, which is one of the most important to me is my studies. Sure i still read and study and pray, but not nearly as much as i would like to. At my new job we have an amazing scholar. He is the type of person whom i can ask one question to and it will snowball into a two or more hour conversation. This happened yesterday. I went into his office, asking him about the fall of man, because as of recent, it has been a big discussion with myself and a few people. The core question, if man was not supposed to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, how did he make a conscious decision to choose between good and evil and eat the fruit with no knowledge of good or evil. (I will actually be posting a new blog about this after i finish this one.) Now, we talked and I had walked out of his office feeling more refreshed than i have in a long time. I LOVE learning and i had missed it so much. I didn’t walk out with my brain hurting, but i walked out wanting to talk more! I could have sat there for hours more. i mean, the discussion went into the infiniteness of God, metaphysics and logically explaining God’s existence through science and space and time. (more on that later also) I was challenged and i am hungry for more! Now, i was 2 hours late for picking up my wife for lunch, so, that wasn’t good, but she understood. This is such an area that is so easy to get lazy in but its so important for all of us. I truly believe that when we stop learning we stop living. So this is something i want to get disciplined in. I have found that writing and learning helps relieve my problems, it makes me happy. This is something i NEED to do, exercise for my brain. 

SO, i will keep this place updates as i progress. If i stop writing its probably because I am depressed again, if that is the case, please check on me! I love writing, it comes so naturally to me, its therapeutic. so, i will do more of it, i don’t know if anyone even reads these things, but if they do, i hope they can take something for their own life away from it. If you ever need to or want to talk, feel free to contact me. I love talking to people. So, stay tuned, there is much more on the way. I appreciate all your prayers and the opportunity i have to write.

Until next time… Keep learning

I have been wrestling for a while with Hearing God’s voice. I have come to realize that most of the time, i dont hear his voice because i am too busy asking him and not quiet enough to hear his answer. i think we spend so much time crying out to him that we drown out his answers with our own lamenting and self-pitying. I hear people all the time cry out, “Lord, i need an answer. Shoowww mee the path! please i want to hear you i wan to see the path you have laid out for me.” now, i admit, this was me not too long ago, but what i learned to do, was not to spend so much time crying out to him and spend more time, being quiet and listening to him. It is amazing how the answer can be so clear in front of us but because we are too busy in out heads we dont hear that still small voice that is God whispering in our ear, His plan and His purpose. It is such a beautiful thing when you see someone come to the revelation of what God wants us to do, or the purpose that he has for our lives. What is even more amazing is how we can harm ourselves more than anything else by not setting our focus right. I was listening to Mcmanus last night, which i seem to be doing more and more, his sermons speak so much to me and they seem to always be what i need to hear at the time i need to hear it. But, the point is that if our focus is not in the RIGHT place, then we will make mistakes, it is so much easier to get off the Path that God has put in front of us. The story he tells us is the one of david and bathsheeba. see, we always get the point in church that David sinned, he committed adultery and the consequences of sin. But, why? why did he do what he did, what is so significant about this? His focus was not on the right thing nor we he in the right place. He was not fighting in the war, but rather he was back at his palace and he was walking around on his rooftop. He saw bathsheeba and rather than turn away, he stared and then desired and eventually took what he wanted. His focus was NOT on God, it was not on the war at hand. Because his focus was not on the thing that it should have been, and as a result he fell.

What are you putting your focus on today other than God? what has taken His place? what battle are you avoiding (so to speak). Be careful not to take your focus of the task that God has for you. We need to daily strive to re organize our priorities. We need to make sure that we are seeking God and the plan he has for us, we may need to take a few steps back and be quiet long enough to listen. God is speaking to you, are you listening?

As i said, this was something i had been struggling with, i finally learned how to stand back and listen to God, my wife was very helpful in this. But, i stopped and realized that it was my time to move on in life, step out of my comfort bubble and embrace a new job and a new location. Time to start a life with my family. So, as a result, i have realized that it is time for me to move on, i will be moving to south carolina soon and working at a new church. I am grateful for the time that i spent at my old job, but its time to move on. I learned a lot about video and production, i learned about how to do church and how not to do church. I am excited to see what God has planned for me and how He will grow me, but i know NONE of this would have been able unless i was able to stand back and listen to him, and to keep quiet long enough for God to speak to me.

I sit at church and i produce the service, it is still kind of funny to me because i have been doing the “floor director” position for about six weeks now and people are still like, “we don’t really know what Taurin does” interesting, BUT that is not that i wanted to write about, this is something near and dear to my heart and has been more and more every day and every weekend, every time i sit in a service i cant help but to think about all of the people out there. I wonder, how much hurt is out there, how many people are just dying to be hugged to hear “i love you”. Its amazing the hurt that pours in and out of these doors weekly, and i am at just one campus of the 3. I am amazed that i am in such a place to be able to share what God has done in my life with others who need to hear it.

I was talking to jessica the other day and i just broke down and cried (i will be man enough to admit that i cry on occasion, but it is manly crying… whatever that may be) I have not been happy for a while now, my friends and family could all see it but i could never place it. I am not ministering in the capacity that i was made to. Sure, God has gifted me in the world of video and graphics, but i am still not fulfilling my calling. I was wired to minister TO people, to council people and to speak into their lives. well, i have not been doing that. Sure i make videos, do graphics and people like them, sure i may make a video that speaks into someone’s life. But, i was the happiest when i was socializing with people at cityplace and when i was speaking into people’s lives. This is the point in my life at which jessica met me, She fell in love with me because of who i was. Not too long ago she told me that i was not the man she fell in love with, that i was different that i had changed, and that she knew that the man she married was still there. Well, for the past 6 months or so i have been wrestling with this, nights where i could not fall asleep because i was rolling around trying to figure out how to pay the bills and why i wasn’t happy. Sure i have added stress from my job, but that is something we all have. I mean there are circumstances at work that are kind of ridiculous but oh well that is not for this post. But, something was bothering me, something was unsettled. i finally drew this conclusion. a while ago, i was pulled from city place and went to working just during the week. The weekend socialization was gone. Then the people in my life slowly dissipated. So, i lost that social part, now that was mainly my fault, life happens, i got too wrapped up in work and in my relationship that i let a lot of friendships slip away. I want to bring those back and i want to make more of an effort to be a better friend to people. I mean, there is no reason i should be sad. I have a beautiful wife that makes me smile every single day that i wake up, who wants to fall asleep me to every single night, who would sacrifice anything to make my day better. I have a wonderful daughter who daily is getting closer and closer to me, she runs to me calling me dad, cuddles up next to me on the couch while we watch movies, and runs to give me a hug every night before bed. Sure, i may not be able to pay my bills all the time, sure life may stink a little on the financial end, but the fire is soon to be over, i can sense it in the air, i feel a change coming, and every single day, my wife takes my hand and tells me that “It will be alright, we will make it, things will get better. ” She is my source of strength, well Jesus IS my source of strength, but she is something that God has put in my life to help me push through and keep climbing through what feels like a landslide.

so, all in all, i am pushing through things. I have finally figured out how to fix things in my life and it includes helping people, it goes back to what Andrew Oates taught me years ago when i was an intern in high-school. I need to be a flowing source of water, a Stagnant pool is not something that brings life, it is not something that you want to drink from. I need to constantly pour into myself and have people pouring into me so that I can be a fresh well of water. We need to be people who are constantly jumping into God’s word and reading books and listening to sermons so that we can pour back into people and encourage them and help share the love and hope that is found only in Jesus.  These are my thoughts on church, kind of a personal rant about my life, but it is showing you where i was and how i got to where i am. I want to thank you all for your prayers and friendships, especially my wife for standing by me through all this, i know she is with me through the good and the bad, she is with me until the end. i could not have asked for anyone better to get through life. 

Thank you and i love you all.

-Taurin

come Thou Fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace
Streams of mercy never ceasing
Call for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious sonnet
Sung by flaming tongues above
Praise the mount I’m fixed upon it
Mount of Thy redeeming love

I was lost in utter darkness
‘Til You came and rescued me
I was bound by all my sin when
Your love came and set me free
Now my soul can sing a new song
Now my heart has found a home
Now Your grace is always with me
And I’ll never be alone

Come Thou Fount come Thou King
Come Thou precious Prince of Peace
Hear Your bride to You we sing
Come Thou Fount of every blessing

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be
Let Thy goodness like a fetter
Bind my wandering heart to Thee
Prone to wander Lord I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Here’s my heart Lord take and seal it
Seal it for Thy courts above

You know I feel that a lot of us complain about our churches, that the pastor doesn’t speak to us, and I don’t mean that he doesn’t say hello, but that his sermons don’t have anything that speaks into our lives. Even those of us seasoned Christians do this. We even do it with the bible. We say, it doesn’t speak to me anymore. Maybe this is because we don’t let it. We shut out hearts out and we chose not to listen to the messages. I feel that the Bible becomes stale to us because we don’t listen anymore, we don’t open ourselves up to what God has to say and what He wants to say to us. We sit here and whine and complain “God isn’t working in my life, he doesn’t hear me anymore, what do I do? Please help me Lord.” We don’t hear the answer that God has for us is because we aren’t listening. Now, he doesn’t always speak to us directly, it isn’t always clear, BUT that is why we need to listen and learn how to hear Him. He may speak to us through His word, through other people, through experiences in our lives. We just need to be open and willing to listen, since I have gotten married, I have learned that God speaks through my wife more and more. She supports me in all the decisions I make and she is always there to provide her opinion and wisdom, even when I don’t want to hear it. I have learned what it means more and more to be a Man of God, I am learning what it means to be the head of the house hold. This is something that I have heard about for years and I am now LEARNING what it means to be these things.

My challenge to you, be someone who listens, Be still and know that He is God, He is in charge. If we are just willing to listen to him, whether it be through people, experiences, or even as simple as His word. Listen.