About Me

My name is Joshua! I am 16 years old, going on 17 in November 2010! I’m not your average junior in high school. I went to East Ascension High School in Gonzales, Louisiana my freshman year in high school then made a drastic change in curriculums. I now attend Gonzales Baptist Academy. I went from a class of 400 to a class of 4, no exaggeration. My parents thought it’d be best that I be put in a school where there were less distractions and more discipline, so they were right. I just began my second year there and may I say, I cannot see myself at any other school in the world. Yes, I lost ALOT of friends when I left EA, but I gained a few good friends at GBA, which is all I need come to find out. I have friends I can talk to without being paranoid about my personal business going around school. The way God worked out these arrangements is amazing. But my goal is not to bore you about my life, but to tell you what my life-long goal is and why! So here it goes:
My goal in life is to fulfill God’s plan for me. I have trusted Him as my Lord and Savior and know without a doubt that one day, I will fall flat on my face before Him and worship Him for eternity in His Kingdom.
Acts 1:8 says, “and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” My ambition in life, is to follow this commandment. I want to travel to places that have never heard the Gospel, even places that it may be illegal. Some tell me I’m crazy for wanting to go places like China, if I don’t go, who will. The job is for Christians to take. If I get held captive, or if I’m tortured, or I am murdered, it won’t all be for nothing; for it will be for the glory of God alone. My goal is not to impress anyone, not my parents, friends, pastor, acquaintances, etc. but to tell people more about Christ that they might be there with me in His Kingdom giving Him all the glory. I have faith that no matter where I go, God will have His hand over me. For over a year, I have been being called to the mission field, and now is the time to begin preparing for that!
When I graduate high school, my hope is to go to LSU and major in biology, then go on to get a degree in oncology. When I have accomplished that, I feel that by then God will have shown me where He wants me to go, whether it be to a different country to do long-term mission, short-term missions, or to stay here in America where God is needed as much as anywhere else!

Life Action 1

I arrive on the 5th of June! I was really nervous and driving Michael crazy.
After the first night there I was ready to come home, just because I wasn't really fitting in and all these folks were weird to me. Well the first week came and gone and God began to work! That week I had a quiet time every morning before it was time to work! Just the extra time with the Father helped me feel more comfortable in this place!
In a lecture I had, I was asked if I allowed God to be apart of my life! Of course my first response to myself was YES! then I began to examine myself. I never spent near the time I should have in the word.
A year ago my pawpaw died and I had begun to think about all that went on last summer. I realized that at that point in my life my faith was shipwrecked! I never grieved the right way over it! Instead of allowing God to embrace me, I pushed him away! In doing that I just hurt myself in the long run!

I realized that God DOES help with EVERYTHING! even grief! If I had allowed Him to help me, I would have been able to see His mercy and Glory through it all!

So I look what I just typed and ask myself, I learned this in 1 week??? Yes it's true!!
Give it all to God! Even grief! One of my friends put it this way, "instead of pushing Him away, allow Him to embrace you and hold you through it!"


Sent from my iPod

Jesus is Coming Back!

When I was younger, I'd always pray that Jesus would come back in my lifetime so I wouldn't have to die! I've come to realize that either way, I will still go to the same place. O what a joy it gives me to know that I'm going to Heaven when I die. I would like to share a passage that comforts me and makes my belief that Christ is coming back firmer!

1 Thessalonians 4:16-18
For the Lord Himself will descend form Heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.
Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.
Therefore comfort one another with these words.

Wow, what a great passage. One day the Lord has set aside, that ONLY He knows, Jesus will come from Heaven on the clouds. EVERYONE will see Him. Every believer, unbeliever, child, and parent will see Him. No one will mistake it, when the time comes everyone will know. Then WE (christians) who are still on earth will be lifted up into the sky and be in His presence. From that point on, we will always be with Him.
The last part of this passage says, "comfort one another with these words." How often do we forget to do this. Why wouldn't tell people this. I believe that this is such a powerful passage that if you present it the right way, it can lead to salvation with the Holy Spirit.

Just Sitting Here on my Bed

So... I'm just sitting here thinking, I should post another blog, I mean after all, it's been a while. I began thinking of random topics then thought, I can share how my devotion life is going. About three days ago my alarm went off at about 6:30am. I was dreadfully tired and didn't want to get up and do anything. But then I saw my Bible laying on the chair right across from my bead. It dawned on me, I should start having morning devotions. So I opened my Bible to a random chapter in Psalms and just read the whole chapter. It was about having enemies and how at times our best friends can be our enemies if satan has his way. The next day I read a Proverbs and it was about procrastination. It just so happens that I had been doing alot of that lately, that reminds me... I have a World History test tomorrow.. Should I stop blogging??? Nah! Anyway, so when my alarm went off this morning i slept for another 30 minutes and I couldn't tell you what my devotion was this morning because I simply just don't remember, but I will say I do remember my prayer and that God answers prayer, when the request is as simple as, "Lord please allow me to have have a good day today and spare me the drama." The Lord has fulfilled my request. :)
How often do you pray? I must admit that I must pray more often but I don't pray as often as I should, which didn't make any sense but oh well. The point is, God answers the simple prayers and He wants us to go to Him for ANYTHING, meaning simple or not simple.

Abortion

Did you know that at the moment of conception, a babies' gender is determined? What about the brain, spinal chord, hair, and skin, did you know that these things are developed within the first four weeks after conception?

Forty-two million babies’ are aborted every year around the world, the U.S. makes up 1.37 million of that forty-two million. This makes for 3,700 abortions per day in the United States of America. One percent of these occur because of rape or incest, six percent occur because of potential health problems for the child or mother, and ninety-three percent occur for just not wanting the child.

Where do you stand on abortion? There have been many debates on whether abortion is murder or not. Many people don’t believe it’s murder because it’s still in the womb and not “alive” yet. But what people fail to realize is that at the moment of conception, a body is formed, and by three weeks, apart from the other organs already formed, there is a heartbeat. The little body inside the womb is called a “fetus”. This word is such an understatement when talking about a child in a females stomach. What people call a “fetus” is an actual body, a body in the shape of a baby.

By week eight of a pregnancy, the bones begin to form, as well as the tongue, toes, and fingers. At eleven weeks, breathing is now apart of life and so is swallowing, and will be until birth. When week twenty-four comes around, the taste buds have formed, the lungs are developing branches, and the child is about 11.8 inches long.

A man guilty of murder can be given the death penalty for taking the life of another. (This example does not reflect my views on the death penalty, its strictly an instance concerning murder.) How is it any different for a mother that has had an abortion or a doctor who has performed an abortion? It’s not any different, but it’s still argued that the baby isn’t even living therefore it’s not murder. Bottom line, what is there will eventually grow into something more, and even if it wasn’t life, it eventually would become life.

No matter how early an abortion is performed, it is murder. I say this because at the time of conception, when the sperm fertilizes the eggs, something is formed, and that something is a body of some type. That body is connected to the mother in some way, shape, or form. It’s life is being sustained by the mother’s body.

Babies’ can also feel abortions. When a doctor turns off the ventilator to someone dying, the body doesn’t automatically go limp, it continues to move and moves in rapid motions until the heart stops beating. Therefore, an aborted child does the same thing, just not such rapid movements because it is so little, from this it can be concluded that the child suffers throughout this process because of selfish decisions made.

There are alternatives to have an abortion. One is adoption. There are many families who would like to have a child but can’t, and would be willing to pay any price to have one.

Abortion is murder, that’s the million dollar phrase. You are killing something that would eventually become what you are today. People think they know better than God, therefore they take it upon themselves to kill the living organism in them and don’t think twice about. Although abortion is wrong, God’s glory can still be shown through it as it has in the past, but this is not what God intended for us to do to His little children He created. HIS little children, I would like to elaborate that He put us all here and when a child is born, it is another He has created in His own image.

The only difference between you and a fetus, is that you’re thinking about your future, and the baby (fetus) hasn’t a clue what it’s future might hold.

These days it’s cool to have sex while in high school. There are many girls you would find that are on birth control, as well as many guys with condoms in their pockets. You will even find a few girls that are pregnant.

Some people will tell you nowadays that they want an abortion for one of the following reasons: I was raped, I might die, the baby might be disfigured, or I don’t want to raise a child right now. There are woman raped everyday, and my sympathies go out to them. But to those who will say they don’t want the child that was conceived, i will say how could you do this to a child. I have never been put in this predicament so i can’t say “i know how it feels” but you have life inside of you apart from your own, and you would kill an innocent child because someone has hurt you? You would be doing something just as bad by killing the child.

Some would want an abortion because of potential health issues that would occur at birth. If you are a true Christian and you love Christ, you will die and give your life for another just as Christ did for you.

Some don’t want to have a “deformed” child. Whose to say it’s deformed? You, the doctor, the world? In God’s eyes it’s a beautiful child, “God saw all He had made and it was very good”.

This is the most selfish reason of all, “i don’t want to raise a child right now”. Apart from rape, it was your choice to have sex and your choice not to use protection. (My views on protection are not reflected on this paragraph.)

We should all abstain from sex until marriage, which is a God-given law. God commands us to be fruitful and multiply (when we get married of course). There are many views on birth control, and the way I see it, God knows how many children He wants you to have. There are many birth controls that can have abortive properties, they also can cause breast cancer. If you don’t feel called to have children but feel that you will in the future, then abstaining from some sexual relations may be in order, or use of other protection, (condoms). Some people believe that you should abstain until you are 100% sure you want children, then have that intimate activity that God intended between a man and a woman, but that is an ongoing argument that will never be agreed upon.

Abortion can be performed at any stages, but some states make it illegal after a certain point of the babies’ life. Imagine a baby at 24 months being aborted. A practically fully formed infant, being killed.

What about a partial birth abortion? Ever heard of one of those? This is when the child is birthed all except for the head and the doctors sticks a tube in the skull to suck the brain out.

It’s hard to think how someone would consider abortion. Images really are worth a thousand words. In this case, a thousand words of sadness when you see actual pictures of victims of abortion. The baby had hair, it was the size of a premie child, if not, bigger.

The doctor is just as guilty as the mother who wanted the abortion. I recently watched a short video clip of an actual abortion, it was really short and made it look simple and harmless, but I just about fainted when the doctor rolled the baby up in a towel and just threw it away. Surely, the doctor felt the heartbeat before disconnecting the child from it’s mom.

It’s interesting how our parents allowed us to live by not aborting us, yet we take it upon ourselves to kill children who are in a predicament we were in also. It must be the cool thing to do. I mean, it’s just a fetus, it can never talk right? WRONG! It’s a person that needs food, and water, and oxygen just like you.

Having an abortion is just as bad as going up to someone on the street and holding gun to their head and pulling the trigger and a bullet coming out. Not to mention that the 10 commandments state not to murder. Therefore it is a sin. Sin is sin and all sin is forgivable, but you will be judged for it.

Have you ever even seen an abortion? I don’t think you can be set on reasoning that it isn’t really a child unless you’ve actually seen an abortion.

Abortion is a topic I speak very strongly on and always will. Children are a gift from God and when a child is conceived, even though it wasn’t of your plans, it’s in God’s plans and no one will ever interfere in His plans.

Anxiety Christians Have

As christians, we often find something to worry about. (Or be anxious about.) It could be something huge, or something insanely small that's a big deal to us. But when you think about it, there is nothing worth being anxious for except for Christ's return. Philippians 4:6 tells us, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;" If only we prayed for God to comfort us in our times of worry. We often forget that God knows all anyway, and everything is in His hands and will happen accordingly to His will.

I have struggled with this a lot over the passed year, just with everything. Every night I'm up for atleast an hour after turning my lights out thinking of what I'm gonna do tomorrow or what might happen tomorrow, as if I have control over it anyway. Instead of going to God with it, I worry a lot about what will happen in the near future. I plan ahead to often that I tend to forget that I'm not guaranteed tomorrow. God can take my life whenever He pleases and my life shall happen according to His plan.

I also have a tendency to worry about other people, like my parents. I wonder what my life would be like without them, I can only imagine it'd be dreadful. So, instead of praying for them every day, I worry about them and think about the worse.

What do you worry about? Are you one of those people at church who zone out during the sermon, I am guilty of it also sometimes. Do you worry about the football game that will be on or your favorite show coming on?

If we just pray that God will comfort us during our times of anxiety, He will take the excitement away!

Feeling a Little Worried

What a comfort it is to have a God who cares for us.. There are moments in life that wear us down. We sometimes feel that we are alone, but forget who created us. The passed year was eventful for me. I got to spend a lot of time with my family, but it was also a bad year for me. I lost my PawPaw on June 6, 2009. I watched his last breath leave his body on a hospital bed.
For weeks after he had died, I questioned God, "Why would this happen now?" This brought a lot of pain to my MiMi and I. Why would God do this, and why at this time?... He is God, and He can do it, that's why. Just as He gives life, He can take away.
Lately, I've been thinking about my Dad. His health isn't doing real well, and he doesn't like following the doctor's orders. He's also not saved. He has no idea what could happen. I haven't been the most patient son in the world, and I admit when I have shared the gospel with him, I got emotional, which doesn't help. If only my daddy realized how much Jesus loved him, maybe he would understand. I pray every night that God would give me another opportunity to pour my heart out to him without being disrespectful and emotional about it. I really wish it wasn't so hard for me to talk to him in love, as Christ would. If something were to happen to my daddy today, I would be torn apart. One, for not being the son I should've been. Two, not being an effective spiritual source in his life. And three, my mother would be emotionally disturbed. So right here right now, I give it to God. I pray that He would do His wondrous miracles in my daddy's life tonight that maybe one day when I get to Heaven, I'd be able to see my earthly father again!

I've also been thinking of my MiMi. Although there are no blood connections, we have a love connection. I have a relationship with her that no one else ever will share. Ever since PawPaw Livingston died, it's been tough for us both, but for her more. I worry every night I'm not at her house that something will happen. Her health isn't the best and I know that I need to be there if something does happen. And if something does happen without me there, I don't know if I would ever forgive myself for letting something so awful happen. I pray for her every night and every day, that she will make it through safely and her blood sugars won't exceed their limits. I can't help but think how hard it will be when God takes her home. This is the lady I spend my weekends with, I go to the movies with, I talk to every day on the phone, and I go on trips with. Why would God EVER take her from me?? Because He is God, and He can, that's why. So that His glory still might be shown through her ashes. That one might come to know Him through the life she lived. Maybe that her life was a witness to someone. So right here right now, I give it to God, I pray that He would do His wondrous miracles through my MiMi's life. That when He brings her home, that I would have peace about it, as well as her daughter Tracey and her 5 beautiful grandchildren. That I wouldn't look forward to the days of sadness, but the days beyond this world we live, that I would look forward to the day I see her face again in my Heavenly Father's kingdom.

Lord, I lift this night up to You. You know the feelings in my heart. You have my desires. You hold every tear I have cried. I feel You next to me now and am comforted! You are my God and can do anything You want and I will trust in You all the days of my life and I will not fret over tomorrow, because I have faith that Your will be done!

Dear Mr. Bob,

I can't believe we entered 2010 without you. It has been almost 7 months. While this year has gone REALLY fast, it feels like you have been gone forever. I don't know how we went through the rest of this year without you. Tracey and Tommy, I believe, are still waiting on the OK to move to Charlotte, North Carolina for Tom's promotion. Clara is as beautiful as ever and you would be just as proud of her as your other grandchildren. Me, on the other hand I wouldn't be so sure. Remember that new school we were discussing about me going to? Well, I went and am there now. My grades aren't so great and they haven't progressed very much since the beginning of this school year. Mrs. Betty is preparing the house for sale in the next 5 years or so, it all depends on her retirement deal and if she can get healthcare.

I miss you, alot, alot, alot. We don't have movie night anymore Mrs. Betty and I. We don't go see all those movies that you would have seen. I have never seen Mrs. Betty more torn up than when you passed.

You were a grandfather to me, the grandfather that I never had. If I could rewind time, I would go back and I wouldn't give you lip about anything. I would say, "I love you Pop Livingston, and thanks for being to me what you are." Then I would say, "please don't drink anymore, I know it won't make a difference me telling you what to do, but it might would spare your life a little longer so you can atleast see your new Beautiful granddaughter, Clara.

Me and Mrs. Betty talk about you but not often. But, I do feel me and her are closer than ever before. I have done my best to take care of her for the time you have been gone, but now I can see she won't need me much longer because she is going up to Tracey's an awful lot. I know your dream for her was to move back home to wherever Tracey and Tommy are but I'm not ready for that yet. I just need a little more time.

I love you and miss you and wish I could go back in time and tell you that I love you, that I'm sorry for ever being disrespectful.

We all miss you an awful lot..

Love,

Joshman