I can say that my break and time away. I traveled to Cairo, MO to spend some time with my Youth Pastor and his Wife.  The week was mainly filled with nothingness and sleeping and then the week came to a close with a trip to STL with Cairo Baptist to Dare 2 Share.  The weekend was great and even as a Leader, I was challenged to consider the cost of Following Christ.  I just wanted to post these song lyrics that made a huge impact on my life!

You made a way when there was no way
You covered heaviness with garments of praise
You wrote a song and You’re singing it over me
I feel a dead heart beating now
This revelation makes me want to shout
that Jesus has been sent
and everything is different.

I have realized that there are many relationships, actions, disciplines, and passions that need to be different in my life.  I have ran from the Lord, I have neglected to spend time with Him, and I became Frustrated at the Living God.  I felt that I had some kind of Power over the Lord and had a Right to be Mad!

I have treated many people badly, acted out in anger, stated the inappropriate jokes, and not been an advocate for the Lord in my life and yet he has provided for me! He has blessed my road here in Springfield.

My prayer is that my Dead Heart will begin beating now! That I will have the discipline to seek first the Lord and His Righteousness over EVERYTHING else in my life.  That I can begin to stand up for My Faith and My Desire to serve Him!

And Everything Is Different

I am broken for those less fortunate, I am broken for those that have to walk through months of illness. Last night, I tasted a small fraction of what my career choice will be like.  Life with families dealing with terminal illnesses.  I had the chance to see, watch, attempt to love and care for, and help a family that just found out there child might have cancer.

I was taking for a curve when the mother asked me, Is this normal? She is so young?  How good of a Hospital is St. Jude?  What is it like there?  As the bombardment of questions rolled in, I could not think of but one question to ask, “Do you go to church anywhere?” To follow with, because there is only one way I know you can get through this, “Prayer.”

I never thought that my loud, obnoxious, running mouth would be speechless but on many occasions last night, I was just that. Speechless.

Life like for this family has been a huge curveball for me over the past few months. I have battled to spend time in God’s word, I have aimless spent finances I should not have, I have worked way more than I have had time for, and I have fallen behind in school.  I have then proceeded to donate more time to other activities that I did not have.  Then my car breaks down and in the last 3 weeks I have been humbled because of the care of friends that would drive me around from place to place.  I was humbled because I no longer had control.  I was broken because I felt as children do with there mother!  “Alright son, Its time to go.”  “Come on, we have to get in the car.”  “Alright, enough, get in the car.”  “Well sorry son we can not stay longer, we have to leave.”

Sometimes there are events in life that spin out of control and we are expected to adapt, change, and keep pressing forward.  I hope that even though the simplicities in my life were a mess, it does not compare to a family I know, getting ready to walk through cancer with there child.

God showed me a taste of my years to come in the ministry of nursing! I hope that I can just make sure and always take the opportunities to share his love, truth, and grace to those I get to care for because it is not about what I can do but what God can do through me to touch a families life.

Consider those around you today that are fighting the curveball’s of life.  How can you make a difference? How can you love and show mercy?

I did actually ride in the MS 150.  It changed my life! I will do it again next year and am looking for people to come along side me and sponsor my ride.

I still work at St. Johns Hospital in the Rehabilitation Unit.  I am starting to dislike being a Nurse aid more and more.

I am going to pass/complete my first semester at St. John’s College of Nursing.  I like Nursing, school is at a slow pace.  I am ready to be done with school.  It has been very easy thus far.

I got to go home and spend time with my Mother and Sister for Thanksgiving.  It was a blessing to see them and spend time with them.

I started, dated, and had a Relationship that ended in the last 4 months.  It was a crushing to see it go by.  Thought of it as a phenomenal chance to date a phenomenal girl.

One of my best friends from High School married a very beautiful girl named Katie!  They are an awesome couple.  I had the chance to be a Groomsman in his wedding.  Super blessing!

There is only a hand full of weeks of school left this semester.

A Friend of mine very dear to my Heart, Tom Denton, Is moving on from FBC Owensville to pastor a church in Cairo, MO.  This is an exciting time for him and his family.  A much needed step of growth as leaving there “home” for the last quite a few years will be very tough.

I deeply care about my roommate Nick Daigle and have had a chance to get very close to him, or so I think! He is a great man after God’s own heart and its challenging/beautiful to see!

I still love going to Bolivar to see some very close friends of mine, Mary and Dallas Jenkins.  They have been around to help me through the ups and downs over the last few years and over the last few months especially.  Great family that mirrors/echoes what a Godly family should look like.  It appears as if they actually have there junk together and if not, at least they tell me about it.

Well that is all I can really think of and to jot down as a recap of the last few months.  Hope it is a good start.  I will try to jump in from time to time and throw some updates of my life, what is going on with me, or what is jogging my mind for the time being.  Have a wonderful day and hope that you are blessed by God this week!

Multiple sclerosis (or MS) is a chronic, often disabling disease that attacks the central nervous system (CNS), which is made up of the brain, spinal cord, and optic nerves. Symptoms may be mild, such as numbness in the limbs, or severe, such as paralysis or loss of vision. The progress, severity, and specific symptoms of MS are unpredictable and vary from one person to another. Today, new treatments and advances in research are giving new hope to people affected by the disease.

Why We Want a World Free of MS

Having multiple sclerosis means that you may suddenly have blurry vision. Or that your memory will fail you for no apparent reason. Or that you may not always be able to walk, let alone ride a bike. The symptoms of MS are different, and devastating, for everyone – the only certainty is that it will affect yet another person every hour of every day.

Why I Ride

I’ve registered for Bike MS: Ozark Ride 2010 because I want to do something for the people who have been diagnosed – and because I want to help prevent more people from having to learn what it means to live with this disease. Today, there is no cure for multiple sclerosis, and with diagnosis occurring most frequently between the ages of 20 and 50, many individuals face a lifetime filled with unpredictability.

Why You Should Sponsor Me

The National Multiple Sclerosis Society will use funds collected from Bike MS: Ozark Ride 2010 to not only support research for a cure tomorrow, but also to provide programs which address the needs of people living with MS today. Because we can fight this disease by simply riding a bike, because we have chosen to help thousands of people through a contribution to the event, we are now getting closer to the hour when no one will have to hear the words, “You have MS.”

I will be riding in a “Century” or 100 miles on Saturday September 18 from Clover to Joplin and then another ride around 75 miles to return back from Joplin to Clover on September 19. I can not however make this adventure possible without your help.

Please take some time and make a contribution on my behalf that will allow me to Bike MS this year and help to find a cure! Thanks for your time and your contributions. May you be blessed for giving to bless those who have been affected by MS.

Please take the time to consider contributing to the cure. If you have questions please feel free to e-mail me via Facebook message or at robertcmix@gmail.com. Thanks.

Anyways, I am really starting to love and enjoy my job on the Rehabilitation floor  at St. John’s Hospital in Springfield.  It is by no means the basic acute patient care but we do get a wide range of patients on our floor. There is one patient on my floor that stands out particular to me!  She is a middle aged woman with a couple kids but was in some kind of multi-trauma motor vehicle accident.  I can not go into depth of her life but she teaches me much about life every time I see her.  She desires to be independent again, to be on her own, to GO HOME, and be a MOM and see her kids however, she is still going through Therapy to get her physically, mentally, and emotionally capable of going home!   She is doing very well with her mobility and getting around.  She walks to much on her own (She is always suppose to be assisted) and starting to get her mental focus back and I find it hard to consistently keep watching her and keep her on the floor.  She has been in the hospital for at least a month.  I hurt for her, feel for her, because she just wants to go home yet she can’t.

Now, you might be asking what does this have to do with anything.  Well, when you consider the freedom to walk, go, work, think, play, and run around as you please everyday being stripped away from you, having to relearn all basic tasks of daily living, and then add on the fact that your a mother of a couple children it becomes incredibly frustrating to be in the same facility for a month time frame.  I have the chance to come home, eat my own meals how I want them (No specific diet), and talk with who I wish but this lady can only merely sneak to the restroom when we are looking, can not leave the floor, and has to have permission to be let out of her locked down hallway.

I just wish I could experience what she goes through for one day.  Oh, how much more grateful would I be? How could I complain about my life?  Questions to ponder, but it does always astonish me how much my little bit of care for the patients makes the world of difference.  WOW.

Sitting in church this morning, Pastor Rayden Hollis, spoke directly to the personal selfishness that everyone has the chance to embrace as they age, grow, and become comfortable.  The struggle with the message was that it was simply way to convicting.  One of the questions asked was “What are you most Passionate about?”  This question in the context of the message was a little weak but the question itself paired with what I had been reading in the past week challenged me HUGE.  Then it all came back together with the message this morning.

I realized today that I am not the most passionate and care the most about the very essential things of my faith such as a revitalizing relationship with God and the furthering of the Gospel through my life.  I realized this morning that I am more concern, obsessed with, and busy with what I care most about and those dont really need to be named but you can fill them with any of the (XYZ) of things you spend the most of your time doing.  Then through situations and conversations I have had throughout the day brought me to an understanding that I do not live righteously.  I do not live with the mindset and the idea of doing the right thing but generally what is most beneficial to me!

It is a super challenge to me to begin to think of ways and come to understand ways, areas in my life, and places where I can become more like an adult and do the right thing.  Even if that costs me comfort, rest, sleep, money, pain, or any other outcome for my actions or words.  I want to become a man that has integrity, that is known for doing the right thing.  Not because I want to be talked about, remembered, or cared about but simply because that is what Jesus calls us to do.  To live righteously, do rightly, and obey his commands.  I do not believe that we can successfully love Jesus and do wrong.  How do we sleep at night?

Here is a small, minuscule thing that now haunts me to the bone.  I moved into a house in Bolivar that had beds provided by past roommates however, these beds did not come from the financial investment of past roommates but somewhere down the line they were taken (Brand New I have to add) from SBU and placed in the house.  I now have “inherited” the furniture and have actually slept on them all year and come moving time to move to the new place and a great friend of mine challenges me on where they came from.  I was like well they came from SBU, and this was not really the issue.  The issue lies in the idea that I have allowed myself to sleep, fall asleep on, and use an item that was in fact stolen and wrote it off as no big deal.  I have used something that was stolen.  It is little things like this that I have said… ahh… That is no big deal.  I plan to try and give the bed back to the school sometime soon and to do what is right now that I have been convicted about this.  There are other things in my life that has been that way as well… MUSIC is another.  I pirate sooo much music because simply I could not afford the cost of owning all the music I have on my computer.  Yet, I want to go through and repurchase all the songs important to me over the next few months and delete all the music I have wrongly taken and will do the same for useless software that I have downloaded.

If I want to practice an old saying I said in a church, “I may be the only bible some people will ever read” then I need to be a man of integrity.  I need to live, walk, breathe, and seek righteousness and not a self righteousness but a righteousness that is given from God objectively  (Justification) and subjectively (Sanctification) for my obedience to following Christ and his great commission.  The rubber hits the road when you come to understand, I have lived for my own comfort for far to long.  There are many decisions I have to make in the upcoming couple weeks about living arrangements for the next year.  What price am I willing to pay for what is right?

My challenge for myself and could be for you as well is where else am I living unjustly? What is it going to cost to live righteously?  What other changes do I need to make?  How can I become as passionate about Christ and the proclamation of the Gospel as I am about medicine, or caring for children?  Or else the blood of Jesus Christ was spilled and given in VAIN.  It is righteousness or sinking sand.  I am not choosing/wanting to live a perfectly righteous life that it rules me but I want to choose and follow righteousness when I can realize this is not about me but about my Lord.  Thanks and hope my jumping thoughts were in some sense an encouragement to you that the hope lies in Christ and Christ alone.

The semester has finally came to an end!  I finished out the semester with a 3.5 and did well is my classes.  I should have done a little better, but I did slack off throughout the semester and had a rough time through the dying and death of my grandmother.  I have finished the school year term at BASE and did not have the special closure I was wanting of the kids I had the chance to be apart of in this season of my life.  Now I am well into the summer and starting to really kick the work and load of busyness in high gear.  I will be working 3 jobs this summer between the BASE Summer Program, Hospital, and Umpiring throughout the month of JUNE.

Last week was a 50 hour work week at BASE and was very exhausting having to transition from getting up early and taking naps throughout the day to getting up early and working ALL Day for 10 hours for 5 days.  However, it was a great week.  This past weekend/memorial day was filled and will be filled with packing, moving, and cleaning since we have to do all of the listed in two places (Old and New Living arrangements).  Then I start the 3 weeks of training at the Hospital on June 1st.  I am excited about this new job and new season.  I am fearful of the move and the change from Bolivar life to Springfield life but I do believe that this new season will be a great thing.  I just need to learn to trust God more and rely on my Flesh less.

I will try to do better but most likely will fail at consistent blogging however, this is mostly for me to shed light of my life on others so they can learn from my mistakes.  Maybe, just maybe, the less frequent blogging means less mistakes?  AHH, who am I kidding?

Today was the Championship Intramural game!  It was a tad bit cold but there was much mud and water on the field which made it for a fun game.  We were not expected to win, nor did we believe we could win since we were playing against the Team that has only 2 gold scored on them the entire season.  The team was made up of many graduates from SBU and some of them even played for SBU back in there undergrad studies so needless to say they were very good.

Defensively we played very well the first half and only allowed them to score 1 goal.  In the second half though the game really seemed to fall apart and where they seemed to play a bit more aggressive offense and ended up score 3 more goals.  We did have our chance to put one shot in the goal on a throw in but the player on our team cleared it over  the cross bar while standing on the goal line.  It was impressive that he could actually send a ball over the crossbar at that angle.  Great time to get down and slide around on the went grass and feels much better than the hard grass at the beginning of the season.  It was good to close the season in 2nd place again for the second year in a row.  I am already looking forward to Intramural’s again next year!

Tonight ended up being a great night since I finally got my car back and in my possession after a month of being in the shop.  There were many problems I saw for paying 1400 dollars however, I guess he did what he could.  I do not have the trim that was on the original door and according to the body shop, it was a custom piece and could not find one.  The door ended up costing 300 dollars more than expected and 2 weeks later than originally quoted.  All in all though, it is great to have my car back.Destro Lock LF 3s Team… PST
Renovare was pretty good tonight even though we were down two members.  David and Nikki spend the time in KC car shopping.  Hope it went well, and from what I understand but have yet to hear from them, that they have in fact bought a 2002 Volkswagen GLX Passat.  He seemed to have received a great deal on it though.  It was great to pray and spend time with Stephen and Zach though but I do struggle sometimes with PH’s ADD but it was indeed a great time!  I feel that our group has grown much and has been a spiritual benefit for everyone.  I am excited to close out the semester and finish classes.  Only 3 finals this week and two of them on Thursday.  Going to be great!

This is a powerful truth that is so much forgotten.  Here the Corinthian church was enriched in many spiritual gifts  such as speech and knowledge but they were using the gifts in the wrong way and brought much disunity among them.  Paul thus writes these words as a way of encouragement and gratification to the Lord for what he has done to the believers in Corinth and in many ways it rocks them to the bone.  Its so beautiful these words stated in verses 8-9 because we have been given all justification and sanctification needed to be in perfect harmony with the living God.  God has given us his spirit to sustain us till the Coming of the Lord.  He has redeemed us that all guilt is thrown tot he waste side, he has redeemed us so that no judgment can be passed on those who are in Christ Jesus.

It just amazes me the promise here that God is faithful to transform us into the perfect, righteous beings he has made our souls.  The identity issue with Christ and God is taken care of, so that all believers are redeemed.  Then God is still faithful to transform us and change us as we become and live up to the identity he has made in us.  Just like those in Corinth we have been redeemed and our identity is secure however, there is much work, much laboring till our behavior matches our status with God.  Take time to allow God to transform your mind and thus transform your behavior this week to be more like him.  To be like Christ.

I was reading in a fairly new devotional book I have been using called, “A Year with God,” and the above quote caught my attention for several seconds.  Pondering and praying for the appearance of the Holy Spirit in my life has been the topic of Renovare and the focus of growth for me for several weeks.  I seem to constantly forget and castrate the focus of living the spirit-filled life and that is the Holy Spirit.  I am always quick to pray, run my mouth, and profess my thoughts about life and circumstances before every allowing the Holy Spirit to live and speak through me.  The fruit of gentleness and meekness come from dependence on the Holy Spirit and that is an area that I have neglected.  I just constantly negate and remove the Spirit from my life and try to go about Godliness alone.   Knowing that there is no Place I can run from God comforts me, and allows me to refocus my thoughts to remember that God is in control, that is Spirit is alive and well.

This next week is going to bring to an end an extreme amount of time, heart, and passion spent at SBU Bolivar.  I am finishing my last semester on the main campus at Bolivar and will be moving on to Nursing school in Springfield, Missouri.  Now, that has some struggles because I have spent much time here and it pains to know that there is an unknown of what is coming for the next few years of college.  Now, not only do I have my time spent with SBU coming to an end but also my time at BASE with the select kids that will not be sticking around for the summer is quickly coming to an end.  Reflecting on the time I have spent at BASE has been hard, and I hope that I have been an example of what a “Godly” man looks like.  My entire time working there I have enjoyed the chances to pour into these kids spiritually and to teach Godliness through the circumstances, games, and discipline that happens at BASE.  It is easy for me to focus on what I could have done different or changed but I need more to remember that I have taken advantage of each moment and professed Godliness in all circumstances.  Regardless if I have failed or succeeded. Self regret is one of my major insecurities and Evil loves to challenge me on those type of thoughts.

Well, I am going to spend the rest of this evening reading through 1st Corinthians and spending some time meditating on what God wants to speak to me or make me think about.  Hope you can remember that God is in fact all around us, and there is nothing we can do about it.  Lets start to choose to accept this vital truth and move into a growing relationship with the living God.