I have much on my mind this Sunday morning. There is so much to be done. My plan was to travel down to Tecumseh today to start setting up the new location. However, I feel compelled to not miss church this morning. I know that baffles some people but that is okay. Each of us needs to follow our heart and conscience. So anyhow I will attend service this morning as I feel I will gain more knowledge and confidence in my decision. Then we will start gathering supplies and such and head down tomorrow morning. Our goal is to open around March 1st and have already begun recruiting customers in the area. The awesome part is we didn’t try to recruit them…they walked in our door here in St. Helen. How awesome is that to be encouraged by unexpected actions of others! How many coincidences do we endure before we realize they are not coincidences?

This has been a very unstable winter for us. Often times the deck seems stacked against us. Generally we see a prosperous spring and summer in this part of the world yet winter comes and business slows to a crawl while utilities are much more expensive, taxes are due, and it sure feels like things break more during this time of year. To have doors open during such struggles, to have opportunities be available while the bank account dries up is to hard to not attribute to a blessing. For me it truly defies reason. But I feel God’s intervention and desire for my happiness. Though I know my trade is not one of a spiritual nature but rather a novelty business, I believe we all have a purpose and that purpose is delivered in many ways no matter what our job or trade may be. I am an example. I am a man who struggles, works hard, fails, and needs. I will never achieve perfection. I will always yearn to do better. But I now feel an inner peace that no matter my hardships this journey can include peace and joy.

In my limited free time I have used that time to not only read and study scripture but to research validity. I have found incontroversial evidence provided by people with much more knowledge and experience than me that proves so much. The Bible is real and in my mind a true textbook of knowledge. The existence of Jesus is real, the existence of a creator is real, the simple lives of the disciples that recorded the life of Jesus is real. I don’t want to just believe something. We as humans are very good at that. “I believe….in my own mind.” I listened to one man explain that we flew in on a comet and came from stardust. A huge explosion into earth happened and all this complex order came to be. But he offered no evidence of any such occurrence. I have read that though scientists know Jesus existed as a man and that he was crucified as a criminal like any other criminal during Roman times and then was documented as being seen following the date of His execution that he simply did not die on the cross but faked it or passed out. Yet I learned that the circumstances of this execution was studied by doctors and medical professions in modern time and they documented in the American Medical Journal that he did die. They determined that the wounds sustained were not survivable. How much do we ignore facts over “beliefs?” This is just one simple example among so many studies and findings. Timelines have been proven, prophecies made came true as documented hundreds and thousands of years later.

I pray all of us seek truth and understand salvation as our time is so limited on earth. Lose the taboo feelings regarding religion and just look within yourself to understand you are so much more with so much more purpose than we realize. Once you feel an inner purpose take the journey to discover what it means and what so many others before us have found to be truths rather than just beliefs.

Have a blessed day and if you are unable to attend a church today there will be many hosting via live feeds online. I will post the link for the church I attend as soon as it is available. Please listen. Please be curious. And realize I have nothing to lose or gain by sharing with you and you accepting it. But you have so much to gain.