Monday, January 1, 2007

Emotions

Hey Everyone (anyone)! This is my first entry ever. I hope you enjoy reading it. I will try to update it every so often. I'm going to use this website to get stuff off of my chest that I wouldn't noramally share with everyone. It's going to be like reality tv but more insightful!

Here we go:

I'm usually a pretty relaxed and emotionally stable person. The past few days have almost been rollercoaster like in terms of my emotions. There are a few reasons why and a few that I don't even know yet. I just got back from Campus Crusade for Christ's annual Winter Conference in San Diego. Going into it I was honestly more interested in hanging out with my friends that growing closer to God. My motive last year was totally different. I didn't like the state that I was in spiritually and desired a radical change. God totally answered my prayers. The main speaker Mike Erre, who is the teaching pastor at Rock Harbor in Costa Mesa, presented the Gospel in a way that I had never heard it before. He talked about the "Revolution of Jesus" and how He is way more interesting than what most people would tell you. He was a nonconformist who went against the grain of the religious elite of His day. Mike spoke at almost all the main sessions and at the men's time. I was deeply impacted by God working through Mike's sermons. I consider him my favorite speaker in the world. He is extremely good at communicating the Gospel in a relevent way. Anyway, this year was not as great to say the least. I don't mean to be a complainer but a lot of the speakers this year were boring! I was excited before the conference because I knew that Mike was coming back but the day before the conference I looked at the conference schedule and noticed that Mike was only speaking on Friday. That bummed me out but I'm not so narrow minded to think that I can only learn from one speaker. I thought Dr. John Hannah was a poor choice to speak to 700ish college age students. If you are going to be having a conference for 18-26 year olds you should probably have some who isn't around 50 years older than most of us. He was not very energetic and I probably would have fallen asleep on multiple occasions if I had a pillow. I don't think he is a bad guy or anything I just think he was a poor choice for a college age conference. He communicated Gospel truths which is the most important thing but I feel like someone else could have said the same exact words and I would have gotten more out of it.
Like I was saying earlier my emotions were up and down. I think a lot had to do with the fact that I only got about 8 hours of sleep during the 1st couple of days. It seems like I get apathetic and cynical when I don't get a decent amount of sleep. I enjoyed hanging out with my friends but sometimes I would question if they really wanted to hang out with me at all. Sometimes I feel like I can be a drag or a downer since I'm fairly quiet. I'm very fortunate to have some awesome friendships that I value more than almost anything. I value them so much because I have not always had a decent amount of solid frienships. In high school I hung out with people who at the time I would probably describe as friends but in reality were nothing more than acquintances. The biggest reason for the fluctuation of my emotions was most likely
because I was comparing it to last year. The changes that happened in my life last year are still evident in my life right now. I hope all of you can experience something as life changing in your life if you have not already.

Thanks for reading my 1st entry. I genuinley appreciate you checking this out.

8 comments:

Amy Grace said...

Well Ryan Maguire...
I was just about to get rid of my blogger... I was feeling the pressure of way too many blog-like things...
but then I saw that you made one.. which has inspired me to keep mine..
so now, being the perfectionistic person I am.. I will have to make it more spiffy!
Anywho-
Enough about me..
I'm terribly sorry that you didn't get more out of conference. =(
But on the brighter side, you made Merrilee and I happy by praying with us.. and Merrilee & Jessica (and not me... *cough*) happy by SINGING!
And I have heard that it is better to give than to recieve...
and I don't think you are a burden to any of your friends! Your sometimes silence is totally worth the very significant things that you do say!! And take it from a blabbermouth.. speaking a lot can burden people more than silence.. woo.. yeah even my comments are long... eish.

Dj said...

rymac. love the blog. we'll talk about your core. Eat cheerios!

dj

Jessica said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jessica said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jessica said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jessica said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jessica said...

Hey Macgyver!
Ok so you may or may not see a lot of deleted comments! haha those are from me! I'm still new to this too! But ANYWAYS, I just wanted to add on to what Amy Grace said about you not being a burden, because it's true! Just because you're quiet doesn't mean you're a downer! Remember? I told you that you are actually quite funny! So if you ever feel that way give me a call and I'll reassure you of that ok? Ok take care, see ya soon!

Mike Morabito said...

Hey dude, emotions can be rough and good at times. In terms of the conference, I think each year has something different from the last. I actually thought that the year Mike Erre was going to speak was going to be pretty bad as compared to the year before when Donald Miller came and spoke but Mike Erre surprised me. So that was really cool.

I think this year the thing that really spoke to me was the community of people that we have from fullerton, I have no doubt in my mind that this year was probably the best ever that I have been to from a purely community stand point. (Although Ryan I didn't see you very much which kinda sucked)

In addition I have found that when going to the conference again it is good to be mentally prepared to expect it to be different and then see what different lessons God teaches us.

-Mike