I've been growing my hair out for an undetermined amount of time until today. I played golf with some friends and I just couldn't take it anymore. Sometimes you just crave a change in your life. Whenever I grow a beard or my hair to a certain length I will inevitably be overwhelmed with the desire to remove it all at once.



Sometimes I desire other changes in my life too. I wish that I could control them as easily as I am able to control my hair removal. My heart for example. I wish that I could change my heart in an instant to love others more. It takes more than that though...it takes time...it takes prayer...it takes intention. I can't just flip a switch and be this ultra-loving person who sees people without judgment...it'd be nice though.

One thing I know for sure, it's that prayerlessness is my ultimate sign of pride. The more I think I can do things on my own...the less I'm praying about. I truly believe that I don't need God most of the time and it causes me not to talk to Him nearly enough. I'm changing it though. I don't want to be self-sufficient. I just want to live in the identity of who I am...someone who needs a lot of help along the way. Thanks be to Jesus that it's always there.

It took my mother-in-law and I four hours to complete it, but it's done. The playhouse is finished.

Wanna see the process?




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And now for another story entirely.

I was at Sam's Club yesterday (have I mentioned I like that place?) and as I was walking in I noticed an employee pushing carts into the store. I thought it was a man, but as I got closer I noticed it was in fact a woman. Her hair was short and she was muscular. She was built like a man and from behind...you'd be hard-pressed to make the right gender judgment.

I immediately thought to myself, Whoa...I thought that was a man. Good thing I didn't say something stupid.

Not 5 seconds after that thought did an older man stop her to grab a cart from the train she was pushing. She broke one off the front for him and as he turned around he said, "Thank you ma'am..."

I thought, oh good...he knew it was a lady.

Just then however, he turned back to her and said, "Oh, I'm sorry sir...I thought you were a woman for a second there."

I looked at her and she didn't say a word back to him. He just walked away and as I got closer to her she said in a mumbling undertone, "people always think I'm a man. It's my haircut...I always get my hair cut like a man."

I turned to her and said, "oh well...I wouldn't worry about it too much. That guy was pretty old...I'm pretty sure he thought I was a Buick." She grinned a little, but I could tell she was really hurt. And I just kept walking...

As I shopped, I thought about going back to tell her that God sees her as beautiful child, no matter what her haircut looked like. But I didn't and I feel like I missed it. If I see her today I'm going to tell her though. Because she's worth it.

AKA a completely random post.

Here is 90 minutes of my life compressed into 32 seconds. 1 photo was taken every 5 seconds while I ate lunch, did some web updates, and caught up on a little reading. Very exciting.



And here is an amazing poem I came across. It's called The Calf Path and it was written by Sam Walter Foss.

One day, through the primeval wood,
A calf walked home, as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail, as all calves do.

Since then three hundred years have fled,
And, I infer, the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.

The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bellwether sheep
Pursued the trail o’er vale and steep,
And drew the flock behind him, too,
As good bellwethers always do.

And from that day, o’er hill and glade,
Through those old woods a path was made,
And many men wound in and out,
And dodged and turned and bent about,
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because ’twas such a crooked path;
But still they followed — do not laugh —
The first migrations of that calf,
And through this winding wood-way stalked
Because he wobbled when he walked.

This forest path became a lane,
That bent, and turned, and turned again.
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.
And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.

The years passed on in swiftness fleet.
The road became a village street,
And this, before men were aware,
A city’s crowded thoroughfare,
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.

Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed that zigzag calf about,
And o’er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They follow still his crooked way,
And lose one hundred years a day,
For thus such reverence is lent
To well-established precedent.

A moral lesson this might teach
Were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf-paths of the mind,
And work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done.
They follow in the beaten track,
And out and in, and forth and back,
And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the path that others do.

They keep the path a sacred groove,
Along which all their lives they move;
But how the wise old wood-gods laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf!
Ah, many things this tale might teach —
But I am not ordained to preach.