Stardate: -317816.11

I managed to alter my work schedule today so I could attend Eugene Faith Center's Wednesday night service. While I was there I had a couple reflections.

I talked to my former youth pastor, Andy Gilbert, for the first time in at least three years. Seeing him, and thinking of his investment in my life, reminded me of how many people there are who have had some positive impact on me and their vested interest in the life that I live, even if they don't get many chances to express it. I don't know where many of them are now. But it reminds me of how much of a cascade effect others have had on me, and subsequently I have on others. Everyone is tied together, for good or not, and I hope that I will live up to the most amazing, God-given hopes of all those people who have touched me in some way in my twenty-three-plus years.

I also found myself wondering where the disabled people are. I'm around them for such a large portion of my week that I really am growing comfortable with them. I'm not awkward around them socially like I am with all the "other" people I come in contact with in other areas of my life. I may be overstating it a bit, but nonetheless, the genuineness of self-identity and transparency that many disabled people live out regularly is contagious, and I find myself wanting to see those same positive qualities reflected not only in myself but in all other people I talk to. I really do believe that it takes humanity to another level of sorts when we accept who we are and live completely within those created boundaries that God gave us when He made us -- the things that make each person truly just as they are and not exactly like anyone else.