Be prepared

A post finally worth taking some time out to read is in the making.
Thoughts are a-stirrin' in my head....and they're good.

Just a little hint on my thoughts...and for my personal use of marking them:
-loving people
-spiritual gifts
-purpose




loveloveanticipation

Keirsey

I follow Stephen Christian's blog and he just posted a link to this website-- http://www.keirsey.com/ that supposedly indicates your personality type. He went on to say that his was about 95% accurate, so I decided, "Hey, why not? I'll go ahead and give it a shot," so I went to the site and took the quiz. And I also feel that this is quite accurate of myself and I am happy with that seeing as I tried my best to answer the questions as honestly as possible worrying that my result would be something I wasn't happy with seeing. This is pretty interesting, you should give it a shot.


Your Keirsey Temperament Sorter Results indicates that your personality type is that of the Idealist.

Idealists, as a temperament, are passionately concerned with personal growth and development. Idealists strive to discover who they are and how they can become their best possible self -- always this quest for self-knowledge and self-improvement drives their imagination. And they want to help others make the journey. Idealists are naturally drawn to working with people, and whether in education or counseling, in social services or personnel work, in journalism or the ministry, they are gifted at helping others find their way in life, often inspiring them to grow as individuals and to fulfill their potentials.

Idealists are sure that friendly cooperation is the best way for people to achieve their goals. Conflict and confrontation upset them because they seem to put up angry barriers between people. Idealists dream of creating harmonious, even caring personal relations, and they have a unique talent for helping people get along with each other and work together for the good of all. Such interpersonal harmony might be a romantic ideal, but then Idealists are incurable romantics who prefer to focus on what might be, rather than what is. The real, practical world is only a starting place for Idealists; they believe that life is filled with possibilities waiting to be realized, rich with meanings calling out to be understood. This idea of a mystical or spiritual dimension to life, the "not visible" or the "not yet" that can only be known through intuition or by a leap of faith, is far more important to Idealists than the world of material things.

Highly ethical in their actions, Idealists hold themselves to a strict standard of personal integrity. They must be true to themselves and to others, and they can be quite hard on themselves when they are dishonest, or when they are false or insincere. More often, however, Idealists are the very soul of kindness. Particularly in their personal relationships, Idealists are without question filled with love and good will. They believe in giving of themselves to help others; they cherish a few warm, sensitive friendships; they strive for a special rapport with their children; and in marriage they wish to find a "soulmate," someone with whom they can bond emotionally and spiritually, sharing their deepest feelings and their complex inner worlds.

Idealists are relatively rare, making up no more than 15 to 20 percent of the population. But their ability to inspire people with their enthusiasm and their idealism has given them influence far beyond their numbers.

Idealists at Work
Idealists, as a temperament, are passionately concerned with personal growth and development. They are naturally drawn to working with people and are gifted with helping others find their way in life, often inspiring them to grow as individuals and to fulfill their potential both on, and off, the job.

Because you live in anticipation of an exciting future, in your ideal job you will be asked to stretch your imagination on a continual basis. Existing ideas, individuals and groups of people, products, services, and the relationships between these things can trigger flashes of insight about how "what is" might unfold into "what might be." You feel rewarded where you feel free to share your insights with people who encourage your creativity and who support the unpredictable process by which you narrow down the stream of ideas into innovations that are meaningful within the scheme of your personal values. You are likely to be comfortable taking on a leadership role, so long as it doesn’t place you in an arbitrary hierarchy.

loveloveidealist

Life, Death, and the Pursuit of a Legacy

People today are trying to define themselves by what they can get out of life:
What they wear, how they look, how much stuff they have, what kind of car they drive.
I've been to a lot of funerals and have never yet eulogized for a person for any of that kind of stuff.

They never talk about what a nice house they had or a nice car they drove.
It's always about the relationships.

Were they kind? Were they generous? Did they help others?
It's always what they talked about because that's all that really counts in the end.

The people you touched are your real legacy. You're not defined by what you take from this world.
The fact is you won't take anything with you.
You're defined by what you leave behind, what you give to this world and by how you impact other people.

It's been said that there's only two ways to live: You can either love things and use people, or you can love people and use things.

I've made my choice. I'm going to love people and use things.

People, they last forever.

Everything else just burns.

-Shirock


Everyday I think about life and death. Not in a depressing way, but I am constantly thinking about the impression I make on people. How are people going to remember me? We discussed this Wednesday night at church, and I decided I wanted to be remembered as a positive person, somebody looking at the bright side of every situation, uplifting. But what else do I want to be remembered for? I always said I want to change the world, I still do, I just feel that I've drifted from that strong passion. It's still there, but now when I think about it, I see it as a far off dream that I strive for but will never reach. That's a negative way to view it, huh? I can reach it, I've just been discouraged because I feel that I'm not where I need to be in my relationship with Christ anymore, which is true. I love God, I'm struggling, but I know I can come out hand in hand with Him. He saved me, I want everyone to know that. My life needs to shine for Him every second of every day.




lovelovelegacy

Rain, come quickly.

You think about rain, it washes things away. Whether it's art you've been wanting to hold onto for just a day longer that you drew on the sidewalk or whether it's the dirt and grass left on the sidewalk from cutting the grass. Rain rinses things clean, sometimes leaving such things as water marks on the windshields of cars. So far, I have said that rain washes things away and sometimes leaves marks. Confusing because if something cleans, then why does it leave a separate mark? I feel that seeing these water marks, you know that rain has come, you know that something has been rinsed away. It's a sign that life has poured down from the skies.
Rain. Rinsing things away. You know that I'm going to get "Godly" with this sort of a topic, right? Well, if that's what you were thinking, you definitely were correct with your thoughts. God comes and he rinses away sin, the grass lying in our driveway, the seemingly wonderful artwork we created to create a new pallet, a clean canvas to start anew. And sometimes, God leaves watermarks, signs for others to see that he has come down into our lives to rinse away some bad. You might be confused, but that's okay, I tend to think in ways that only make sense in my mind and as of now, I am aware that I have been a bit out there with my words, but if you take time to try to understand what I'm thinking and saying, maybe you'll understand a bit better.

Lately, there's been a lot going on. Lately as in the past several months. I haven't blogged since the beginning of the year, so I have definitely had a lot building up on my mind. This is my release and I haven't released in so long, there's just so much I've thought about.
One thing that people have been talking to me a lot about lately has been dating. And I haven't really had much say in the discussion other than "I don't date, that's just not my thing," but I have noticed from a few people's reactions that they don't understand that as "Oh, okay, you're just not into relationships or anything of the sort at the time," but they take it a step further to think, "Ohhhhhh, you like to fool around with guys and be promiscuous, niiiiice." That is not what I mean when I say "I don't date," what I mean is that my mind isn't even on that issue. I do not think about dating or trying to get a guy to like me, that is what I mean. I don't wake up thinking about any guys other than God and my family. My focus is to keep my life straight and to always remember who created the wonderful life that I live. Eventually, this dating discussion turns into, "well, what characteristics do you look for? What are the qualities you seek?" Well, I don't seek any qualities since I am not thinking about dating, I have so much other stuff going on, however, I do have qualities that are set, basic standards if you may, of what a guy that I will date when the time is right. The quality that I realized is the only standard I have is that the guy be Christ-like. I feel that if he resembles Christ, then everything will fall into place. I don't want anyone who just thinks about God on Sundays, or on holidays, or three or even six times a week. I want somebody who is more in love with Christ than any other person, including myself. I want somebody who will drop everything at any given moment to live the life God called him to, with absolutely nothing holding him back. That's the kind of guy I pray for and know will enter into my life when God has that time set. With that quality, all the other qualities I could ever think of, will be there, everything will follow suit if his heart is striving daily to be like Christ.
While I say I would appreciate that quality in somebody, I also would appreciate that quality in myself. I need to remember to strive daily to live my life like that. I fail. I like to say that I'll try to live my life that way, but I always go back on my word. I need to say it and stick with it this time. I'm not only going to try to live my life completely Christ-like, I AM going to live my life 100% for God. Forget everyone else, humans are humans. I'm a human, I know that I let people down, I know that I go back on my word, I just said that I do, so for me to care so much about what other humans think or to try to please them is just absurd. My opinion is constantly changing on topics, so to try to please myself daily is a difficult task, I need to just focus on pleasing God. That is my life goal, to be more and more Christ-like each and everyday. I don't feel like that calls for shouting out about God at the top of my lungs in the middle of Wal*Mart, I feel like living my life this way is to just make sure that God is seen through my actions, through my words, through my life. I need to let his light shine brighter than ever before. This will happen.

Life is wonderful.
It always will be.





lovelovelove.