Islam+Deerborn=Stonger Christian???

God has been coming to me a lot this past week. Every week I have a Bible study, and a topic that constantly gets brought up is that God will try to make you uncomfortable but in those moments, you'll grow closer to God. This was very true during this past week. You see, I was in Deerborn, Michigan which is a mostly Muslim suburb of Detroit. We were learning about Islam and throwing these party-type-thingys for kids in a neighborhood. We had to go door to door and invite people to come. Occasionally, the people would come out and ask us about the things we were handing out. So, there were 2 problems I was facing: 1.I really don't like to talk to people I don't know. 2. A lot of the time, they couldn't speak english. This is where the part about being uncomfortable comes in. I was able to do it and I really was closer to God, just by talking about Him. It was amazing. It's wierd to think about, but I was bought closer to God while learning about Islam. I'll put this on record: This is probably one of the first of many steps in my spiritual journey.

Let It Go!!!

Not everyone is going to like you (harsh, but true). Not everyone will try to be your friend (once again, harsh). Your life can be defined on how you respond to it. You could dislike them back, and let that hatred boil up inside to where you explode. You could even be depressed, wallow in self-pity, and let it stay inside to where you explode. With either of these choices you will detonate your mind (another phrase for explode). If you think that being rude to the people that don't like you is alright, what would make them to want to like you? Don't hold things against people, Let It Go! If it feels like no one likes you, just remember, God LOVES you.

Be Open

When you're put into a room with a bunch of people that you don't really know... what do you do? It's hard to think about being in a situation like that, but really think about it. You can joke around, get to know them, and have fun.....or you could be quiet, isolate yourself, and hope to go unnoticed. I tend to go to the second option, unless it's with people I know. I find it hard to be open to new people, however I want to be in the process of acting like myself all the time, instead of when I'm just comfortable. How are you going to have people to be comfortable with, if you don't even give them the chance to be comfortable with you? I guess if you want to make new friends, you have to be open. And you should always be willing to make new friends, because God put them in you life for a reason.

just sayin

The next 3 posts were all written within the past week on the Deerborn trip. I didnt have a computer so i wrote them all by hand so then i could copy them now. So, it'll look like i wrote them all just now but i didnt. so, yea.....

Dinosaurs

well, I seem to running out of things to talk about so this post is gonna be really short. I'm going on a trip to Mischigan with 180 this week until Thursday afternoon so there probably wont be a post until then. Hopefully, I will have an expierence that will change my life and I'll be able to write about it. :)

P.S. you won't understand the title of this post unless you're Ali Beeson haha

Decision Time

I know that I've said this already but I'm the kind of person that wants to be everyone's friend. Realistically, this won't ever happen, but for some reason I still try. In my first post, I said that I was going to do Drama instead of Tennis. Unfortunatly, this was a very difficult choice. I understand that it is good for me to get exercise but I shouldn't have to do it if I don't want to. However, there a people who pressure me as much as they can into doing what they want me to do (tennis). I want to make everyone happy, but I really don't want to do it. Its hard for me to upset other people because my biggest fear is to be judged by others. I don't want to face the music but either way someone is going to be upset. And I don't want to be that person. So I'm sorry to the people who pressured me because it didn't work. I'd rather do what makes me happy then what makes other's happy but upsets me. So I guess what I'm saying to everyone, I follow your heart and don't let others get to you.

Build Up

Emotions are very diverse. There are the positive emotions that you often let other people see, such as happy, excited, stok'd (whatever you want to call it), and there are the emotions that you don't let people see. Those are the most dangerous. Things can take a turn for the worst very quickly when you don't let those emotions out. Im a very private person. Almost no one knows what I'm truly thinking about, with exception to a couple people. I actually just within the last couple days fully talked with someone about my life and it was really "refreshing" with lack of a better word. So, back to the emotions. You need to find someone who you can truly be honest with, which is why I brought up the whole thing about me being a private person. If you don't let it out, it'll build up to a point where you just lose your mind and go crazy. I have exploded before and it felt great, but once I saw the damage that I had done, I felt worse than I did before. But now I have help letting things out, which I'm very thankful for. So I guess the moral of the story is to find someone to help you let out your emotions because if you don't, it will lead you towards a path of self-destruction.

Trust

Faith and trust are probably the most difficult things in the world. When have you ever been able to fully rely on someone, and not have any doubts about anything? I can honestly say that I have never been able to put all of my faith and trust into someone, not even God (which I'm trying my hardest to change that). There are always going to be doubts about things, but you're just going to try to think the best of people. Even though I tend to look of the worst. It really is a hard concept to grasp. Imagine if you had no control over anything in your life, not even your own body, what would you do? Would you be able to believe that someone is willing to take care of you with no secret agendas? Or would you just sit there.............................do nothing.........................and be alone? Now when you think about it, you're probably like, "Well duh! Why would I ever want to live on my own?" Well it's a lot more difficut than that. Every aspect of your life being controled by someone else, it's something that I couldn't even do. Its all around hard to do. Trust is what people need, and what others should respect. Don't take advantage of other people. There needs to be trust in the world.

I love having people to talk to. Its often very hard to find people who you can truly talk to. I love being in a goup of people and actually getting to be yourself around them. Ask yourself this question: Would you rather have many friends, but have to act like something your not to impress them, or have few friends and be able to have them like you for you? Unfortunately, I often find myself in the first option by putting on masks to try to be friends with everyone. This will sound cheesey, but it was hard to look myself in the mirror because when I did, I didn't know who was looking back at me. I would often forget who I was with each person. Sometimes, I would put on the wrong persona for the wrong person and they would ask me, "Why aren't you acting like yourself?" I wanted to scream, "That's what got me in this postion in the first place!!!" Luckily, I've been narrowing down to the group of people in which I can be myself. I'm not saying that I still don't struggle with that but I'm more aware of my actions. I think this is easy to fall into your Freshman year, because you want to have some sort of reputation in high school. To all of the Freshmen going into high school this year, please don't follow in my footsteps. This can actually make high school harder. Be yourself and believe that eerything will turn out the way God wants it to be.

My First Entry

Seeing as though this is my first blog and I honestly have no idea what exactly it is im supposed to be doing, Im just gonna give kind of a backround of my life but not enough information in which a creeper will find me. :) My name is Tyler and Im 15 years old. Im going to be a Sophmore who is trying to recover from a crappy Freshman year. I play tennis, but I won't be playing for the school because that was one of the things that contributed to the crappy Freshman year. Instead, I'm going to be part of the school's Drama Department. I guess you could call me a nerd, but Im one of the cool ones if there are any. I'm a Christian who is in the process in growing in his relationship with God. Im definately not "popular" in my school and Im fine with that because I already have awesome friends. So other than that, Im really boring!! So now that you know more about me, it will be a lot easier to understand whats going on in future posts.