Off.Topic.Thursday.
Welcome to Off Topic Thursday... what is that you ask? Well it's only the greatest thing to hit this blog since... well... guest post Monday. Okay, that was lame. Anyway, the purpose of this O.T.T. is to deviate from the norm, i.e. me writing about some recent revelation or thing that God has taught me in the last few days, and talk about the way I see Christ working in others. I've never had a younger sibling, I have one younger cousin who is like a sister to me, but we are close enough in age that it's not the same. However, about 5 1/2 years ago I started hanging out with this girl. To this day, that girl is one of my best friends and one of the most amazing women I have ever been blessed to know. That girl has a younger sister, who in turn, has become like a younger sister to me as well. When I met my little sister she was getting ready to turn 13 years old. I could go on and on with stories about young Hammie (a nickname bestowed upon her by me) but instead I'll get to the point. I treasure every moment I spend with her family, because in a lot of ways they are like a second family to me. Her sister is my best friend, she herself is one of my closest friends, her mom is... well, a mom to me (a very cool one, just like the O.M.-original mom), and her dad is someone I admire, I can go to for advice, and that I play golf with. Of all the experiences I've had with this family though, I think I have been incredibly blessed to watch her grow into the person she is today.
Time.Changes.Everything.
This younger sister of mine was awesome even when she was 13, there were honestly days where I wished she was my younger sister. I guess I spent enough time at her house that it began to truly feel like she was. I got to watch her story unfold, I watched her grow from a somewhat shy, quirky, funny, 13 year old girl, into an 18 year old adult. I can remember as she got older I had some opportunities to give advice to her, to encourage her, and to laugh at her when she made silly mistakes (all in good fun, of course). The cool thing, is as she has grown, I have found the roles have reversed a little. Her faith far exceeds what mine was when I was 18. I find myself wrestling with decisions I made then, or questions I still ponder from then, and sometimes I go to my little sister for advice, encouragement, and ALWAYS for support. It blows my mind, I guess mainly because I had never really gotten to experience such a thing. To be honest, I don't put a lot of stock into Facebook in the first place, only because many times people post useless updates about their lives i.e. Brad Robertson ate a bowl of cereal this morning, yum!... honestly? I don't care that much, BUT one thing I do like doing is keeping track of friends at college and seeing how I can pray for them. In my little sister's case, I end up having prayers for myself answered in reading things she shares. Her faith is just awesome.
Blogger.Alert.
You might be wondering why I am yammering about my pseudo-little sister. Well, because she's new to the blog scene. She's a journalism major who absolutely rocks at life. We have talked many times about the idea of blogging, the other night she told me she was going to start one. I started my day off today by reading her blog before I crawled out of bed. For that I am thankful. She has great insight, it's raw, and she's not afraid to be transparent (all the things I love about blogging). I am proud of her for taking the initiative to use her talent to glorify the Kingdom.. in fact, she even talks about how that's her goal in her first post. Her cheesy imagery and examples play well to her goofy sense of humor, and then she throws a little theology, some spirituality, some Jesus Juke your way and you can't help but say to yourself "Boom.Roasted". So do me a favor readers, go check out her blog, the link is posted below. It's insanely legit. Hayli Goode, this friend, fellow blogger, and self-proclaimed older brother is proud of you. Keep spreading the light of Christ in this dark world.
Grace and Peace
To find Hayli's blog, copy and paste this link into your URL http://hayligoode.blogspot.com/
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