Drowning in Jeans and a Sweater

Right now I'm typing in an environment that is hectic. There are bullets flying, claymores are being planted, and AC-130's are in the air. You might think I'm on the front line of a battlefield, but I'm actually in my basement. I'm playing Modern Warfare with my brothers at my house in Topeka! Yesterday I left southern Indiana at 5:30 in the morning to drive about 9 hours to good ole Kansas to hangout with my family for Thanksgiving. I'm so excited to be around family! Even though I got up early and drove 9 hours, I was re-energized when I hung out with my brothers. I ended up staying up until about 2 in the morning just playing x-box and talking with Jim and Sam. Its good to be back in Kansas.

Often when I tell people that I'm from Kansas, the person will quickly say, "I hate driving through that state." Usually, I apologize for the boring-ness of my state's geography and quickly bring up the fact that Wizard of Oz was set in Kansas to try and leave a positive thought about Kansas in the person's mind. But no matter how flat and boring it might be to drive through it, I will always love Kansas!

In my previous post I said that I carried my Driver's License with me where ever I go, and I said I would discuss this in a later post. Well, here is the later post. My girlfriend, God bless her, has a very morbid outlook on life. After typing that I feel like I picture Christine as some kind of girl who dresses in black all the time and mopes around contemplating death all the time. This is not Christine at all. She always smiles and is one of the most optimistic people I know, but she does think about death a little more than the average homo sapien...which isn't a bad thing.

On one occasion she told me her three tops ways NOT to die. Personally, I just think about how I don't want to die, but Christine likes to take it a little farther. (Drum Roll Please) Christine's #3 way not to die is......Suffocation! Honestly, I think this would be a horrible way to kick the can. Number 2 "Way-Not-To-Die" for her is being caught on fire. Death by fire kind of makes me sweat just thinking about it. And her number one way not to die is the exact opposite from death by fire. Christine would hate more than anything in the world to die by falling into a large body of water and drowning. But that isn't it...she has told me that she would hate to drown while wearing a sweater and jeans. Why? I have no clue, but Christine is terrified to go out that way.

But that is not all. One time we were getting ready to go somewhere, and Christine said, "Hey...hold on. I need to go get my I.D." As she was getting out of my car, I realized I was driving and she had no reason to have her I.D. with her. When she got back in the car, I questioned her about my observation and she quickly replied, "I need my I.D. so that in case I die, they can identify my body." Who thinks of that? My beautiful girlfriend.

But on a serious note, even though I make fun of her for her heightened sense of death, I think Christine is on to something. When I brought up this whole thing to her she gave a very insightful answer. She said, "I think life is precious. I just know I am not guaranteed a certain amount of time, and I need to be ready." Life is so precious! God of the universe has decided to breath life into these bodies that came from dust, so why not be careful and realize how good we have it? Now I like to make fun of Christine about this whole death thing, but I agree with her. We really do not know how much time we have on this earth.

Christine might sound a little morbid (but she isn't!) but in the New Testament, James calls us mist. James 4:14 says, "What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes." James says our lives are very short and we can't take it for granted, because we might not be here tomorrow. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that my girlfriend and the half-brother of Jesus agree on that life is very short and that we shouldn't take it for granted. So just remember that you are mist...and be happy about it!

Also, I just realized I used 8 hyphens in this post. If I don't watch out, I'll turn into the Message.