FIRST POST!

well then, here i am at my new digs. i'm gonna try a new blog. i'm kind of nervous about starting a formal "blog" because i don't want to come off as pretentious. one of the reasons i am starting a new one is because my old xanga username was genius33, a nickname i started as an egotistic middle schooler, and has stayed with me to this day. it doesn't get any more pretentious than that so i guess anything is an improvement, eh?

i will fully admit that i have no giant revelations to share with you. i'm just a young man gradually grasping onto his identity and this is a chance to document that. lately i have been so blessed to see God reveal parts of myself to me that i never knew were there. isn't that exciting? we are so beautifully complex.

i named this blog extraordinary hope after a phrase i have increasingly seen as a great descriptor of my life's journey: "hope, no matter how vain, exists in the possibility of the extraordinary... and that hope is necessary for living." hope is my fuel. it is what allows me to wake up in the morning and actually want to face the day. without hope, we would all be dead.

quick summary of myself: i am 21 years old, three years into my undergraduate work in youth ministry, and seeking God's will for my life. i sometimes wonder why God has gifted me in some of the ways that he has, it's scary to know the expectations of God's gifts. however, i can only try my hardest to live each day up to the example God gave to us in the person of Christ. i really appreciate your visit here and hope you can come back when something a little more exciting is here.

by the way, get used to the lack of capital letters. this blog is home to my personal reflections, and i wish for them to be as informal as possible. i'm much more comfortable writing without having to worry about hitting that danged shift key every few words. you should try it some time, it's quite freeing.