Just wanted to let you all know that today’s Winter NoWimpics Event was a huge success! We had a good turn out at the event! The kids had a lot of fun building snow forts and sledding! Below is a photo from the event today! This is a photo of just a few of the kids that came today! I am down in front!

Random Snapshot taken last night before KidZone opened!
You can barely see me in this picture! Love these kids!!

Over the last few weeks I have read many “10 things you didn’t know about me” type posts. I must say that many of them were rather interesting and because “people” are nosy … we all tend to enjoy reading the posts. With that in mind I have decided to take it up a notch. Below I have listed “30″ tidbits about me. I have broken the 30 tidbits into 3 lists. Enjoy!

10 Odd Tidbits About Me

1. I walk and talk in my sleep. I know there are millions of people in world that do this but I find that discussing things I have done in my sleep seem to be great conversation starters. BTW Did you know … According to a Finnish study published in 1997, children sleepwalk more frequently than adults. Sleepwalking was reported for 6.9% of female children and 5.7% of male children, compared to rates of 3.1% for adult women and 3.9% for adult men. Interesting eh? You just learned something!

2. I have two hitchhikers thumb’s. Basically this means I can bend by thumbs back with ease. Most people’s thumbs go straight up while mine curves back. I could balance a glass on my thumb if I wanted to. My own little serving tray!

3. I don’t eat meat on a bone. This is one of my little quirks I guess. I just think it is disgusting. I will eat boneless chicken and beef and such but I don’t eat anything that is on a bone. Simple as that. Especially chicken. UGGGG

4. I love the smell of Vick’s Vapor rub. There is just something about the smell that get’s me. LOL I love the smell of Vick’s Vapor Rub, nail polish remover and real leather. Is this wrong? LOL

5. I watch more cartoons than the average 10 year old. This is true. I use the excuse that I have to keep in touch with what the kids are watching but really … on the inside … I really enjoy the cartoons myself. Especially Spongebob!

6. I have an odd attraction to females who wear dresses often. Not skirts but dresses. I don’t know if this is because of the lifestyle that I was brought up in or what but a lady looks so much prettier to me in a long dress. Just being real!!

7. I only eat CRUNCHY PICKLES. I hate soft pickles. If it doesn’t crunch I will probably spit it back out. There is just something about the crunch of a pickle and the juice that resides inside. LOL (I am starting to scare you now aren’t I)

8. I love nature but enjoy skylines. I really love being outdoors. If I could live in the mountains or out in the woods somewhere I would be in second heaven. I just love the peace and the beauty of the outdoors. HOWEVER, I also love big city skylines. They are beautiful. From my current home I can look out any window in my house and see the Milwaukee Skyline. It’s gorgeous.

9. I haven’t found the balance between childhood and adulthood. I have this war going on inside of me … part of me wants to be this very serious and stern adult while the other part of me wants to constantly make funny jokes and goof off. LOL

10. I sleep with my feet sticking out from the covers. I know this might sound odd but if my feet are under the covers I sweat. My feet control my body temperature. If my feet are cold … I am cold. If my feet are hot … I am hot. Just the way God made me. Stop laughing!! I am fearfully and wonderfully made. LOL

10 Serious Tidbits About Me

1. Since I was 16 my hair has been thinning more and more every day. HOWEVER, by faith that is ending and I am growing a fresh thick head of hair. PRAISE HIM!! ((sorry this is suppose to be serious now)

2. I am single but looking. I enjoy being single. I love the freedom and the opportunity to spend my own money and not make my bed every day however … a companion would be wonderful. ((I am not desperate though))

3. I have huge dreams and visions. I live off the dreams and visions that God has given me. I refuse to settle for anything less. God says that He is going to blow my mind away. I can’t even imagine what things He has in store for me. What He has given me in dreams and visions is nothing compared to what He has for me.

4. I am currently enrolled in a “Biblical Studies” course. Thought I would work on getting some degrees under my belt. This is the only degree I am working towards but yet it is an important one.

5. I am thinking about getting a degree in elementary education or counseling. Weighing out the financial aspects of it but really seriously considering it. I would love to have some kinda degree in these areas.

6. I surround myself with leaders and can do people. I recently sat back and looked at all my close friends (even my students). I surround myself with people have a drive to be a leader and who are always pursuing a future or a dream. Leaders shape our world. Leaders have always shaped our world … since Genesis!

7. I embrace the motto “Innocent until proven guilty”. I embrace the motto because we live in a very judgmental world where everyone is always trying to point the finger even where there is no evidence to prove them guilty. It’s not fair.

8. I need organization in everything I do. If I am involved in something and it’s not organized, …. well …. I tend to get very frustrated and stressed out fast. That’s just the way I am.

9. I am very analytical. I look for reasoning or explanations in everything it seems. It’s a downfall of mine sometimes but other times it’s a great benefit. Just have to find the balance.

10. I desire to be a metrosexual. I want to be that single/or married young man with a high disposable income, that dresses really nice, looks really clean and cut. The guy that doesn’t look ruff but looks like a duck. Cool, calm and collected… aka Eric McCormick.

10 Tidbits About My Future

This last section is more less a section of faith. It’s a section that speaks my confession. It’s what I want for the rest of my life. Many will read this section and laugh and say that I will never have all that I list here but I believe that my confession and my faith will produce these things in my life. These are the desires of my heart in no particular order.

1. I will marry the most beautiful woman in the world. ((Haha and you thought you had her. LOL)

2. My wife and I will have children. Preferably 1 boy and 1 girl. Maybe we can adopt a dog too.

3. I will own a minimum of 5 homes around the United States. Preferably Wisconsin, Florida, Texas, California, and New York. The Word says I will have Goodly Homes (plural).

4. I will travel the globe ministering to children and their leaders. (This is the vision)

5. I will have a full head of hair.

6. I will be a great husband and a great father.

7. I will bless my wives family and my family as the blessing from God doesn’t just fall on me but flows to those closest to me. (Duet 28)

8. I will have six successful streams of income coming in at all times. (This is a vision)

9. I will never divorce.

10. I will be in my children’s lives both as children and as adults.

So now you have learned 30 new things about me. Hopefully it gives you a better perspective of who I am and where I am going in life. Connect with me. I love networking and meeting new people. Looking forward to getting to know you a little better.

This morning was an exciting experience for me. When I awoke this morning it was already 49 degrees out and I had seen 4 robins on my way to the transit stop. I believe the temperature here in Milwaukee actually hit 60 degrees today which is huge. Spring is on it’s way but with spring comes cleaning.

From November through March in Wisconsin snow usually covers the ground. It’s odd to see the snow all melt so early but with the snow melting we begin to see the mess of the previous season. The mess that was constantly being covered by the snow.

Below are some pictures of what I am talking about. These were taken this morning at the transit stop.

I sat there in awe of the mess on the ground. Beer bottles, hair bands, soda cans, broken glass, bags, Band-Aids, etc. Immediately the thought came through my mind that these things were hidden all winter long. Nobody really knew they were there because they were covered. Sometimes God has to melt the covering a bit so we can see the mess that we have become.

I just wanted to encourage you to look inside yourself and do some spring cleaning. There might be messes in your life that need straightened out or there might be things you can do to keep your life in better shape. Take the time and change. Allow spring to truly be a season of change.

If the ground stays covered in garbage … grass won’t grow … flowers won’t grow. In the same way, if you don’t keep your life clean and pure before God … fruit won’t be able to grow in your life either.

Monday’s for some reason seems to always be a hard day to get through. You get up Monday morning and immediately you are hit with the reality that you have a lot to get done this week.

With that in mind, I have decided start a weekly post here on my site for those horrible Mondays. Each Monday from here on out I will be posting a blog entry called “Mirthful Monday”. This blog entry will hopefully lighten your day. It will be filled with clean humorous jokes and videos. Things you can share with your colleges on the job or at work. I hope that through this I will be able to at least give you a few seconds of joy on those dreadful Monday mornings.

Since today is the first day of this wonderful “series”, I would like to share with you a few humorous videos I found on the web. Enjoy!

The Mom Song
And then the Tithe Rap

Hope you enjoyed these videos! As a reminder, every Monday I will be posting new videos and humorous jokes. Make sure you stop back often. If you have something you think would be funny to post on Mirthful Monday let me know via my contact page.

Have you ever felt like you didn’t fit in? Or that it’s hard to fit in? You know, there is a reason for this. It’s because you aren’t normal. I have always grown up a little strange. I had a crazy childhood and my teenage years weren’t any better but I remember even as a small child I found myself not fitting in with the rest of the crowd. It wasn’t cause of my family but it was cause of me. I remember whenever I would do something stupid or funny my mother would always tell me “You’re not normal” or “Normal people don’t do that”. For years I laughed at this statement. It became a joke in my family. What my mother didn’t realize is that she was speaking truth when she made those statements. I am not normal. I don’t want to be normal. I wasn’t created normal … and neither were you.

What is normal, anyway? Is it bad to be “not normal?” I went and looked up the word normal online and Dictionary.com defines normal as “conforming to the standard or the common type; usual; not abnormal; regular; natural.” That is not me at all. I fit more into the abnormal definition which is “not normal, average, typical, or usual; deviating from a standard”. Which of those definitions sounds like you? For me, I am sooooooooooooo not normal.

In Matthew 5:14-16 we read “You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine!” You are a light in darkness. You are different than everything else around you. You’re not part of the norm. You’re not normal.

Now I have seen many people use this scripture to enforce “holiness” standards in peoples lives. I use to attend a church a few years ago that regulated your life even to the point of saying what you should and should not wear according to old testament customs. They said that people should be able to look at you and know that you are different without you even having to say a word. I believe that’s true to some extent but at the same time … people look at me today and know that I am different without me saying anything. It’s in how I carry myself, how I smile at people, my facial expressions, my care and concern for others, and the anointing that covers my life.

That reminds me of a situation that took place this past summer. Please note that me sharing this with you isn’t to boast of myself nor anyone else that was with me. A friend and I had just left a conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We had about two hours of free time to go get something to eat before the next sessions started so we decided to walk down the street to the mall and grab something quick. On our way there we had something very unique happen. We were crossing a street and another guy was coming towards us. He was glaring at us. Then as he got closer he got vocal shouting “I would rather be poor and dead than to be called a Christian”. We didn’t say a word to this guy. As a matter of fact we barely even looked at him. Obviously there was more going on in the spirit realm than what meets the general eye but goes to show that even the anointing on our life is visible to those around us. Many people even try to hide and try to be “Normal” but once you are filled with God’s presence and His anointing there is no hiding. The world can tell you are special.

When we accepted God into our lives we became unique. We became the minority according to the Word. We became remarkable because of who is in us. Not only that, but if you really want to get “technical” we have NEVER been normal. Everything that God has ever created has been different. Our DNA is completely different, the number of hairs on our heads are different, every snowflake that falls from the sky is different. Even our finger prints are different. God created us different. Stop trying to be normal.

Seth Godin wrote a book called the “Purple Cow”. The book was written for those involved in the corporate world but it talked about being “Remarkable & Unique”. He tells the story about his family driving through France a few years ago and how they were enchanted by hundreds of storybook cows grazing in the fields. He and his family were captivated by the remarkable scene but 20 minutes later … the cows became boring. They became common.

We aren’t common. 1 Peter 2:9-10 tells us “You are chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy person, you are God’s instruments to do His work and speak out for Him. To tell others of the night and day difference He has made for you – from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted.”

A great minister of the Word recently said “God isn’t going to use your life because you’re just like everyone else. The thing that makes you unique is the thing that makes you powerful.”

God made you unique. He made you as a light on a hill in the midst of darkness. He made you stand out. You’re not normal. You are peculiar. Don’t try to conform to this world or to everyone around you. Always be you! Always be unique.