I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me... ~Philippians 4:13

Hey, y'all. I don't have time to make a complete entry, although I've got about 3 really good ones swimming around in my head. So for now, I'll just leave you a friendly reminder to go sign my yearbook if you haven't already. Thanks y'all.

Check ya later. I'm out y'all.

Oh my word! Check these out now!

Here's a link to four trailers for the Fantastic Four video game coming out at the end of the month. It has one for each character. Just start with Reed and work your way up to Ben. Maybe now y'all will see why I love the Fantastic Four so much. And the music is great, too! Each one has a theme perfect for them!

It's Clobberin' Time!

Schweeeeet!!!! I got tickets to Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith in the evening on opening day!!!! I can't wait. This is gonna rock. I've been waiting for this for years!

Finally, a good, dark Star Wars movie with an all new, kick-butt villain. Plus, rumor has it Yoda is gonna kick some serious tail again in this movie and Ian McDiarmid is supposed to rock the screen and steal the show as the greatest villain of the Star Wars universe: the evil Darth Sidious!

Well, my Friday the 13th pretty much sucked... a big one... majorly... Pardon my french, but it was just that bad. I hated it for the most part. I mean, it had its moments, but... uggh, it was just bad overall.

I woke up to all kinds of crazy stuff going on... some of which I can't share with y'all... I want to but I have to protect a few people from embarrassment here... although a couple of you know what I'm talking about...

So, crappy, crappy, crappy stuff in the morning. I couldn't stand it, it really scared me. Then I overslept until 9:45, which only gave me 45 minutes to get ready for my driving instructor to show up for my driving lessons... so, I didn't have any time to eat breakfast or read my Bible, and that's never a recipe for success... forgetting to do those things. I felt... out of focus... off kilter, so to speak.

I got picked up for my driving lessons, but my mom hadn't left the money or the paperwork, so I had to take like 20 minutes out of my time to go out of our way down to Waffle House to meet her and pick the stuff up! And then she wanted to talk... apparently she was already feeling stressed and nervous for the day, because she was doing her nervous talking thing. It didn't help me out a bit because I was stressed to the limit already after what went on in the morning and after the previous day... in which I think I had a panic attack... I'm not sure, but I seriously think I had a panic attack. I was way neurotic on Thursday night.

After my test, I scarfed down some Campbell's Chicken Noodle and ran off to Baccalareate practice. Went with Lindsay and Sarah to eat lunch, some more sorta bad/sorta good stuff happened. Then I get home and somewhere in here I find out that my dad has been in a emergency center all day for chest pains!!! That's always a good thing to drop on someone all of a sudden.

Some REALLY good things happened in here somewhere, but I can't talk about those either... sorry, I know this is cryptic... but it's better than nothing.

I went to pick Lindsay up for the battle of the bands missions fundraiser concert thing that we were headed to... and I kicked total driving butt, by the way, just ask Lindsay. But on the way, my mom told me that she found out that my dad might have had a heart attack! Yeah... that threw me for a loop. They were transferring him to Memorial by ambulence, but my mom couldn't even go see him because two of my brothers occupy ALL her time so she doesn't have any time OR energy to give to my dad, my other brother, and myself. And when she does, it gets eaten up so fast, she's left with no energy at all. She's exhausted.

So, at the concert, I tried not to concentrate on all the bad things that had happened that day. My mom was doing this nervous laugh thing the whole time I was driving and she could barely leave messages for people as she desperately tried to track someone down to go be with my dad.

The concert rocked, actually. I won $10 in a raffle as a door prize. A Maj almost won... his ticket was one number lower than mine... I bought an E26 shirt with the money. Somewhere along in there though, I had to step outside... all the moshing and jumping and rockin' out got to me and then I think I had another panic attack because I remembered what all was happening in the day.

After the concert, I went home to an empty house. No one was here. At all. It was completely empty. I had no idea what was going on... no note, no message, no email, no nothing to indicate what had happened or where they'd gone to. For all I knew something had happened with one of my brothers or my mom had had a heart attack from the stress of it all... I had no idea how my dad was doing either! Then a guy from our church called and let me know that my dad was doing fine, except he was having major headaches from the nitroglycerin they were giving him. They had been there to pray over him and he said he thought my family had gone to dinner... well that was somewhat relieving, but by now it was almost 11:30 at night and they were still gone. I tried to call my mom's cell phone as well as her friend's that she had used and no one answered either one... again, I'm a little scared. If something had happened to either or both my parents... my family would be sunk!

I talked to Sarah for a little while then they showed back up, coming in the door yelling and screaming (my little brothers, they just kind of tend to do that) as if nothing was wrong, so I was a bit relieved. Everything turned out okay in the end, but it was like some big comedy of errors. My dad didn't have a heart attack according to his enzyme levels, but something was serious enough that they had to keep him overnight for observation in the Cardiac Care Unit at the hospital.

God definitely was watching out for me and my family yesterday, though. He totally had us in His hands because it all turned out fine in the end. My dad's still at the hospital and a few other things are going on this morning, but it's so much better than yesterday it's not even funny.

I realize some of you out there will probably respond to this by telling me how good I have it and how I shouldn't be whining or complaining about my life... how there's so much worse stuff going on in third world countries, etc. Well, to an extent, you're right, but I left out a lot of details that I think might send your head spinning a little differently. Remember, you are not me and suffering and pain for a person are relative to their own experience. So, unless you've got something encouraging to say, shut your trap. I'm not whining, I'm not complaining, I'm actually taking this all very well, considering my personality and all. I'm coping with it in the way that I best know how. I realize my life is great. I have it good and all and I have no place to complain about everything that's going on. People do have it much worse than me, and they won't complain a bit. So, neither will I. My mom kept calling yesterday the "Job Day." It certainly felt like it, but like Job said, "The LORD gives, the LORD can take away." So, I'm not complaining, I'm just relaying a story to you. I'm just letting you know what happened. I don't want to minimize or take away from what's going on in other people's lives, from their suffering, from their pain that I guarantee is worse than mine, but I just thought that there might be a few of you out there who would like to know what happened in my life yesterday... but, please, don't feel sorry for me, that never helps anyone, it's not that bad anyway.

In Christ's peace and comfort and love (thank God for it), Ben.