My Christmas Update

Hello my friends what an amazing holiday season its been!  Christmas truly was a great time of year for me and my family.  It couldn't have started any better, because on December 23rd, just hours before Christmas Eve, I worked up enough courage to ask someone who I had been talking to every night on skype for a month and a half to be my girlfriend.  The amazing thing about this is that she had been praying about this for quite some time.  Even more incredible was the fact that one of her friends dad's had said this summer that the two of us would be together eventually.  Well he was right, and I am now in the first serious relationship of my life.  Kayley, I am so glad that I met you and that God has given us the chance to be together.  It is only through His divine power that both of our prayers were answered.  I've been waiting for God to show me that special someone for quite some time, and it makes sense that He would give me the answer the day before his Son came into the world to save us from our sins.  I am so grateful to Him for everything he's done for me.  As for Christmas itself, it was great because I got to see my aunt and her new husband, and my cousin and his wife from Tennessee.  The food was great as always, and in large amounts, because my grandma Lois could easily run a restaurant if she wanted to.  Then on Christmas Eve we visited my grandma Lucy at the Edgerton Care Center and had pizza for dinner.  Then my family had our Christmas, and we opened our gifts, I got some CD's, the new Legend of Zelda game, a new photo album, and other things.   Then the next day we had Christmas and my aunt Lynne's birthday celebration at the Hospital, then we went back to my Aunt's house for more presents.  After that we went home and watched the Packers beat the Bears on Christmas Night.  What a Christmas Day gift.  I will write again after this weekend with my girlfriend and all of my camp friends.  Talk to you guys later!  

Romans 11:22-24
Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: Sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness.  Otherwise you also will be cut off.  And it they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.  After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree.

In Christ, Amen

One road ends, a new one begins...

 Hello my wonderful readers, welcome to another post here on Tyler's Thoughts!!!!  I would like to give a shout out to my great friends in Michigan, Bekah, Katelyn, and Kayley, you guys are all awesome, and I love you all!!!  So I can't believe that I am saying this, but my journey at Carthage College in Kenosha Wisconsin has reached its end, baring any unexpected circumstances.  It has been a three and a half years of both good times and bad times, joy and despair, triumph and failure, and most importantly sinning and being forgiven.  These years at Carthage have been good to me, for the most part, and I have learned many things that should help me to be successful in graduate school.  While all the things I learned in my classes were important, they were all overshadowed by the amount of spiritual growth that God has blessed me with.  There are several things that I credit this to, other than God's power in my life of course.  The first and most important is Inspiration Retreat Center, which I will probably discuss in later posts.  The second would be the sensational choir known the world over as the Gospel Messengers, who I was greatly privileged to have been a part of during my time at Carthage College.  I am greatly blessed to have two "families" outside of my home.  If the first is all of my fellow camp staff, the second would have to be the Gospel Messengers.  I can honestly say that without the Gospel Messengers, I would not have made it through my time at Carthage.  There is just something that is beyond this world that happens when so many people gather to sing praise  to Jesus, and every Thursday night I knew that it didn't matter what had happened the week before, I was going to go to the chapel, and sing my best to give Jesus all of the praise and the glory.   If I was feeling down, I knew that I could always look forward to Thursday night to pick me back up.  The best thing about it was, when I first started singing with the choir, I had probably heard gospel music one other time in my life beforehand.  When I heard the choir singing "Bless the Lord" at the freshman introduction to religious life ceremony three years ago, and was told that the Gospel Messengers were the only non-auditioning choir on campus, I figured, I love to sing, so why not give it a shot?  Needless to say, I was hooked after the first rehearsal, and I kept coming back every week after that.  What makes the Gospel Messengers special is that we do not just sing to impress people, or to make our school look good (which we do, by the way) we sing because all of us in the choir believe that it is of the upmost importance to give Jesus all of the praise and all of the glory by sining his praises so that the world can hear of the things that He has done.  We've sang his praises in at a women's prison, to people in Puerto Rico, to vacationers at Disney, and to many a congregation.  We also have had the opportunity to minister to many people at the annual Carthage Christmas Festival, which I highly recommend you see at least once if you get a chance, because it is something you will never forget.  That's all I've got for now, keep on the lookout for a new post!!!  I'll post on facebook when my newest post is up!!  Peace, and Christ's love with you all,

Tyler

Isaiah 5:1-3
I will sing for the one I love 
   a song about his vineyard: 
My loved one had a vineyard 
   on a fertile hillside. 
² He dug it up and cleared it of stones 
   and planted it with the choicest vines. 
He built a watchtower in it 
   and cut out a winepress as well. 
Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, 
   but it yielded only bad fruit.