Just a quick update...

At least for right now, it looks like Opi is doing better! Praise GOD! We'll see what happens from here on out, but thank you all so much for your prayers and thoughts and such. Last week we had some close and scary calls though. Keep the prayers coming!

My attempts at a tribute to a man I love a whole lot...

For those of you that may or may not know, my grandpa, Opi, has been in and out of the hospital. My mom called me this afternoon to tell me he was back in the hospital and was being transferred by ambulance from the hospital in Newberg to OHSU... Apparently its really not good this time. When she called I was driving to a park to go read for a while... I ended up just writing. It sucks to not be there with my family but writing always helps me... and wanted to share what I wrote in my journal with all of you:


"Mom just called. Opi is currently en route from the Newberg hospital to OHSU. I have a sinking pit in my stomach thinking that this is really it. And ya know, I can't help but run through in my head thoughts of how I could have loved better, laughed harder or spent more time with him. I know he's still alive and he could live for months more, but it just seems like this is it, and I need to prepare myself for that... but for some reason, I don't think anyone is ever prepared for things like this.

My Opi is an incredible man. He loves his wife, his family and his God with everything that is inside of him. And it's so hard for me to think that one of the strongest men I know is sitting in a hospital room super, super weak. And I can't kick the desire to be there, right by his side with everyone else in my family. God why have you stripped me of everything I know and everyone close and put me here in Boise?

When I think about my Opi, I think about a man who has given unconditionally and selflessly to his family. He is a man who does not always verbalize his thoughts but displays his love and his pride for you by the look on his face. Since his hearing has gotten increasingly worse, it is hard for him to be around the big group at family parties. So he always finds a comfy chair and just watches oer all of us. Some of my favorite moments come when I would go and just sit next to him. He loves just being with you. He always asks me about my life and he is so proud of what I have accomplished and continue to accomplish.

Man, I miss my family."

Ya know, we never know when or how we will lose the people we love. And we are never, ever prepared for it either. And I don't know how many times I'm going to need to learn this lesson until I get it. But it would be my hope that I can learn to take full advantage of every moment I have to love on people.

So, I've been slacking...

... it's been a while. My apologies to those of you that read this... if there is anyone. I am sitting here in Diva's Coffee Shop. Love this place. It feels like such an Oregon-esque day today. All overcast, it was raining a bit earlier. I love it so much.

Yesterday, I was sitting on our couch, and I realized that I graduate in just one month. It hit me. Where in the world have these four years gone?! Seriously. I bought my cap and gown, my parents have purchased plane tickets for graduation, game, set, match, I'm gonna be done! It's such a weird feeling. The impending real world, or idea of the real world is crazy.

I really don't have anything super profound to share with you right now, more just a feeling that I needed to update this blog. I've been awful at keeping it up to date. I'll try better. I've run out of words though... and I need a shower.

Conditional Love

I have been reading the book Soul Cravings by Erwin McManus. Good stinkin' book. It goes through the deepest desires of our soul. Right now I'm reading the part about our souls desire... no, need, for love. God created us to be human beings that need love to survive.

The problem is though, the world, and I would argue even religion have taken love and created a subtle premise that love is conditional. And we've come to this point where we are more comfortable with conditional love than we are unconditional love. If it is conditional, we can control our actions and our thoughts and we can control the things about us that people will love. We have no sense, no understanding of an unconditional love. How can we accept the greatest love of all when we and others can't love every part of us?

A passage of this book says...

"Its just too hard to believe that if you come near to God, you will find yourself not drowning in condemnation, but swimming in compassion. Jesus called to all who were weary and who found their souls exhausted to come to him and find rest. He is telling us that God will be for us our place called home. We run form God because we long to be loved and we have convinced ourselves that the One who is most loving could not and would not embrace u. We run from the one our souls crave. It is insanity to run from God and search for love."

We run from the God of the universe that gives an amazing, unconditional love because we know what we have done. We know who we are. And therefore, we think, because other people don't love us, because we can't love ourselves, that God wouldn't either. That is so untrue.

How can we break free from this feeling of being unloved. How can we convince our friends who feel so very, very unloved that they are loved beyond all measure?

Simple Things

The Christmas season is upon. A time for laughter, cheer, love. It is during this season that people often open up the Bible to read the accounts of Jesus' birth. People who wouldn't normally go to church, step inside the walls of church for one special day to celebrate the birth of a man. It's funny how this one man unites believers and unbelievers one day a year.

I grew up in a Christian family. Every Christmas, my family and extended family act out the Christmas story with wise men dressed in towels and a baby doll Jesus. It's a story that I have heard over and over and over again. It's a story that we grow numb to.

Twice today though, I was hit over the head with the stark irony of this Christmas story. I don't know if people fully realize how perfect it is that the Messiah, my King, chose to make His entrance into the world in a manger! You see, he's God... he could have been born in a palace, in a place of pristine condition for that time period... but no, he chose to enter a messy and dirty world in a messy and dirty barn. And not only that, he came from parents that were not well known. It's so perfect.

And if you look at the scandal of the virgin birth... Jesus' coming was supposed to be sin, it is ironic though, that through His coming, sin was conquered.

Following God is not going to bring a life of extreme extravagance, or fame. In fact, following God may very well lead to an unpopular life. But that's a life that is beyond worth it.

God wants to save a lost and broken and messed up generation. People get sooo wrapped up in the idea that Christians have these perfect, comfortable, put together lives. But no! There are days that Christians doubt the existence of God, heck there are days even I myself don't even believe in a God. But that's what's so perfect, in all my doubt, I faith and I cling to the fact that I KNOW he exists and I know He is CONSTANTLY with me.

So this Christmas season, I want to follow my Jesus, who chose to enter this messy world, in a messy manger.

I want to hunger and thirst...

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled."

Matthew 5:6

A couple of weeks ago, as a Young Life staff team, we fasted for 24 hours in order to focus on praying for the kids of the Salt Lake Valley. We were allowed to drink juice and water and such, but man, I'll tell you, when the afternoon rolled around and I was sitting there doing homework and able to think about how hungry I was, there was nothing else that could replace the thoughts of my hungry stomach!

What if we were to have a hunger for God like that? Where we had this ache to feed a burning fire for Him? How much different would we be? How much more awesome would our lives be?

John 6: 35 says "... I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes will never be thirsty."

Now, I know I have never really experienced what it is like to be truly hungry and truly thirsty in the physical sense. But I do have a glimpse of what it is like to have an insatiable desire for more of God. But after going to church tonight and hearing the message, I feel like all too often I fill that hunger for God with things other than seeking God. And, I'm fairly positive, I'm not the only one doing that.

I want to have the kind of hunger for God all the time that I did the day I fasted. Because like that verse in John says, whoever comes to him will never, ever go hungry.

Just something to ponder.

A Utah Man Sir, a Utah Man am I!

Before a sold out Rice Eccles Stadium, the University of Utah Utes did what they have been unable to do for the last three years... Beat BYU. Not only did they beat BYU though, they totally blew them out of the water. And with that win, they completed a perfect season. And, to add icing to an already overly frosted cake, we've busted the BCS. So, Sugar Bowl, Orange Bowl or Fiesta Bowl, here we come. We're ready.



It's funny to see the way a student body and a city can be united around one common purpose... seeing your team on to victory. Tonight, from the first U-T-A-H we yelled, we were one body of people united around a common purpose. It was amazing. I can not explain to you the feeling of rushing the field after a perfect season with chants of B-C-S flying up in the air. No one noticed that it was 28 degrees. No one cared that we had half of the student section on the field with two minutes left in the game. Nothing other than Utah beating BYU mattered.


I have always felt the most collegiate during football season. I have kind of defined my college career by football season. And tonight, after an interception and a short pass by Matt Asiata into the end zone to put the Utes up 41-24, I actually cried a little, weird, right?! I know! But seriously, it really hadn't hit me that my college career is ending until that very point where I was sitting by Phil and Kyle who I've known since my freshman year of college and looked at them glowing with this anxious anticipation of a huge Utah victory. It was a weird, but amazing moment.

I feel like a lare part of my college career ended tonight when that clock hit zero. Or perhaps it was just because it was really truly the first time I was able to think about the fact that college is ending. Regardless, I could not have asked or dreamed of a better season to leave this fine university on! Wow. I can remember back my freshman year when I realized the BYU vs. Utah game was going to be at home my senior year. There was no way I was missing it. And I have been so excited for this day since then. And it lived up to/exceeded my expectations!

Man, it feels good to be a Ute tonight.