10 Animals I Would Never Eat (Life or Death)

A friend and I were talking about animals and how people decide to eat them. Have you ever thought about it? I mean, who was the first person that looked at a chicken and decided that it would taste good. Did the first pig eater really think they were going to get a good meal? How about the person that saw a crab and figured it would be tasty.

Then I wondered, what animals would I never eat? What are the most disgusting animals, that if even my life depended on, I wouldn't eat. So I did a little research. The key word is little, because I only have 10 on this list, and I promise you that the list is sooo much longer than that. So here's the list of disgusting animals I found, that you couldn't pay me to eat.

10. Alligator

People Actually eat this thing. Can you believe that? I really don't know how people could look at this and say, "this is gonna be a great meal!"

Stand Up: Part 2

John stood there. He was scared. He didn't know what to do. He certainly wasn't ashamed of his Christianity, but he knew that if he said yes that he would go to prison. He looked the officer in his eyes, remembered his favorite verse, and said "I am a Christian, and I'm certainly proud to be!".

The officer grabbed him by his arm and said that he was under arrest for being a Christian. John's uncle yelled:

"You can't take my nephew, you have no proof!"
"Sir, your nephew clearly stated that he's a Christian. Now you know the laws, so get out of my way. If it makes you feel any better, he'll get a trial"

The trial date came. Citizens from the town served as witnesses for the trial. For John, there was more than enough proof of his Christianity. Neighbors told stories of Bible lessons that they received from John, many times he would pray for them when things were wrong, and countless times they saw him reading the Bible.
Everybody said that his characteristics were that of a Christian, and that John's lifestyle was indeed of a Christian. He was a warm individual and he always was cheerful. They said that even when he lost his parents he constantly prayed. They even explained that they have seen God work in their lives through John.

Stand Up

If you were accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you? The truth is, many of us are scared to really answer this question. There's a lot of individuals out there that wear the name of "Christian", but they only practice it when "the right people are around". What would happen if somebody secretly put up cameras in your house? Followed you around? Tried their hardest to find evidence of your Christianity? I have a scenario that I want us all to consider:


Let's say the year is 2098 and the world has united under one "World Government". They've grown tired of the "Jesus talk", the "Jesus activity", and they want it to stop. "All Christians are to be arrested!" they demand. Cops are scouring through every neighborhood, looking through every house, for any evidence of Christians. In a small town that hasn't been searched yet, lives a young man by the name of John. When John was 9 he lost both his parents in a car crash and was taken in by his uncle.


The passing of his parents was pretty hard for him to deal with. Obviously it's not easy for a boy to lose both his parents (at the same time), but it hurt John more because his parents crashed while they were on his way to pick him up from his after-school program. In a way he almost felt like it was his fault. Although he was very young, he was exceptionally smart. He knew all about God because of his parents. They taught him a lot, and he even read the Bible on his own so that he could learn even more.


John's favorite verse was Jeremiah 29:11 - "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." John didn't know why he lost his parents, or why he had to endure so much pain as a result of it. He did know this: that God had a plan for him.

It'll Never Be The Same

Over the past few months I've gained the most time on my hands since I was maybe about 13, before I went to Academy. See, I didn't have a job then so I had so much free time. Sure I had school, but how hard is school going to get for a 13-year-old? I didn't have many responsibilities and I could just let my mother handle mostly everything. When I got to Academy though, things started to change a bit. School got harder, I had more choices than before, and before I knew it I was thrown into what they call the "teen years". The teen years wasn't that bad though, I think I'll give myself an "A rating" on how I handled everything.

Before I knew it four years flew by. I got a little taller, my voice was a little deeper (or maybe I just made it deep when I was on the phone with a girl, I don't remember), I was wiser, and I was ready to take on the "hard part": College. If I thought school was hard in Academy, then I was a fool; because the workload in College was ridiculous. Every teacher thought it was the cool thing to do to give you papers to write. Papers that really didn't make much sense to me. I didn't understand why I did most of what I did in college, but I did it. You know why I did it? Because Mr. Smith said I had to. If I didn't do it? Mr. Smith said, through his syllabus, that 50% of my grade would automatically be deducted and I would be seeing him next year to try to solve his mind-boggling class. All the random work and all the random rules I had to follow helped me realize something. A lot college is just busy work (with exception to certain majors), and the teachers are really just preparing you for the real world; the real "hard part".

God Knows What He's Doing

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. - Jeremiah 29:11


Whenever you think that things aren't going right and you're thinking to yourself that you just don't know what to do anymore. Just remember this text. God knows His plans for you and me. It's amazing, but it's so true. He works in mysterious ways and He'll never fail us. This is one of my favorite texts, because I often find myself saying that I don't have a plan. Sometimes I say that I don't know what I'm going to do. This text here helps to ease my mind.


Just remember, there's a future that God GAVE us. All we have to do is take it.

Social Networking, Everybody's Doing It

Recently I've been on the computer a lot more than I have before. The thing is, I didn't know about all the social network sites. I was a little bored, and then all of the sudden, all these new sites hit me. There's a countless array of social networks out there. Everybody obviously heard of Facebook. I guess nowadays if you don't have it, you're pretty lame. You've also heard of YouTube. I'm almost positive that most of you go there to search for a new song, or just to see somebody do something stupid.

I thought at most we had about maybe four serious social networks out there. Facebook, Myspace, YouTube, and Twitter. Boy was I wrong. There's www.stumbleupon.com (one of the best sites period), www.digg.com, www.reddit.com, www.delicious.com, www.twitter.com, and the list goes on and on (HUNDREDS OF SITES). You remember the days when you could go on the internet and you would get bored after maybe about an hour? There were only so many scores I could check and so many sports articles I could read before I got bored. That problem is gone. The internet is now setup so that you don't have to leave your computer for information. Then it hit me, the world is starting to become lazy and indeed unsocial.

Cat In Sink (Came across this on owned.lv while "stumbling")

Fly Like An Eagle

Have you every watched the birds in the sky? I'm not talking about that hobby where you have a book to help you identify which bird is what. I'm just talking about looking at birds fly and be free. When we're young, our teachers ask us what our favorite animal is. There's those that choose the lion because they could beat up everybody else in the jungle, the gorilla because they're so strong, or maybe you were one of the weird ones that decided the hyena was the most elegant creature out there. For me, it was a bird. The eagle.

I love eagles. How I see it, eagles don't have much to fear. They could fly in the sky and look down on everything and everyone else. Could you imagine flying? The closest most of us get is flying around in a plane, but that isn't nearly as fun as what eagles do. Others get even closer, they go skydiving. I've never been, but I'm sure it would be a blast; but even that's a far cry from having wings. It has to be amazing being able to flap your wings, look down on the earth just observing it.

Thriller: A Classic

This is one of the classics. Although the video was a little weird, this was some good music. Can you do the dance?

My Role Model

I want to talk to you today about my Role Model. Everybody's got one, or at least everybody should have one. Somebody to look up to and to follow after their footsteps. A lot of people like to say their role model is one of the parents. You've seen your parents do whatever it takes to raise you and put food on the table. My mother was single mother and she did just that. She worked hard and did everything she could so that we would live great lives and grow up to be great people. Although my mother is one of my role models, she's not the main one.

Some people even have teachers as role models. I know it's hard for many of you to believe that since most of your teachers tortured you with an array of assignments with deadlines that you thought were insane. As hard as it is to imagine for some of you, teachers are role models too. They help you to challenge your brain, whether they mean to or not. Teachers mold us so that we can tackle situations head on. I've had many teachers throughout the years that helped me, challenged me. So many of them gave me encouragement when I didn't even want to hear their voice. Although my teachers played an important role in my life, none of them is my main role model.

My role model? Well my role model is special. He's been my role model since I was young. I had a type of appreciation for my role model that others at my age probably wouldn't have. We always hung out and talk. The best thing is we still do. He's still helping me out here and there, and still encouraging me to do good.

Quote

"A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them." -John C. Maxwell

Writing: A Peace of Mind

When I was younger, I honestly couldn't stand writing. It was a pain in the butt. When the teacher asked us to write I thought that I was going to go crazy. I really didn't understand why so many people wrote. There were so many books and I didn't like reading either. I just thought that people used too many words to say something so simple. To me, even Dr. Seuss books had too many words.

As I got a little older I started writing more than I thought I ever would. I grew up around the time when AOL became a hit. The most popular thing had to be chat rooms. Do you guys remember that? I remember so many people (I won't list any names) trying to find their soul mates through chat rooms. It obviously got a little creepy sometimes when you received a "a/s/l" (which stood for "age, sex, location") from a girl that said she could be at your house in an instant with "Titanic" so the both of you could watch together. I'm of course not speaking from experience. I wrote notes in High School so that I could convince a girl that I was "amazing". They wrote back to let me know that I wasn't.

When I was a freshman at Andrews University I took an English class and our teacher forced us to do reflective writing. I believe that class made me despise writing even more. She made us write about how we felt that day. I had no interest in doing that, but I figured it wasn't that bad. Just when I thought she did her worst, she surprised me. She would then ask me to write how I felt while I was writing how I felt. Are you kidding me? I lost it. I couldn't believe that a sane person would ask anybody to do such a thing. I wasn't the only that thought this, there were a number of students in my class that shared the same sentiment. I then told myself writing was foolish.

The State of Music

I love music. I'm probably one of the rare few young people that enjoy listening to classical music or sit down and relax with an instrumental playing in the background. It takes a lot of talent to play good music. I know, because I've tried. I use to play the piano when I was younger, but I quit that so that I could play the violin, but then I quit that too. I picked up the guitar and tried to do something with it, I did alright but I haven't played for a while. I'll pick it up again someday, well maybe. The point is that just because you pick it up doesn't mean that you're going to follow through with it, and even if you follow through with it, you have to be dedicated to be good. Good music really can soothe your mind.

I love words. When I say I love words, I mean that I love when words are put together elegantly so that they flow with one another. I love when somebody understands the meanings of the words that they use and how to relate them to life, which isn't easy to do. That's why when I hear good poetry I have to replay it over and over again. Some people are talented enough to put together poems in the span of 15 minutes or less. Not just any poems either, poems where you can feel the passion and see the heart through the words.

When you could put those two together, now that's an awesome thing. That's where you get songs that you'll remember for all of your life. The combination of the two helps you feel something that you probably can't any other way. Good music is that music that illustrates what you wanted to say for a while, but you just didn't know how. You found that song that shows exactly how you feel. Crescendos and rhythms skillfully blend with syllables to make masterpieces.

Why Is Life So Hard?

Do you have an answer to the question above? I know I don't have a definitive answer, but I sure do have a couple theories:

If life was easier, I guess we wouldn't know what it is to struggle. It would be a whole lot harder to appreciate something. I actually wonder if we would even understand the meaning of the word appreciate. In case you were wondering, appreciate means (according to meriam-webster.com) "to grasp the nature, worth, quality, or significance of". Think about it, don't you appreciate something when you have to work harder to obtain it? Don't you appreciate something when you know it's a struggle every day to keep it going?