Living Well
FROM JAROD:
Instead of writing today, I want to paint. I think I'm going to paint a picture of the man I want to be.....
Someday I want to be a man who knows his own name. Not the name my parents gave me, but the name my Father in heaven gave me. My destined personhood, my true self. The only name that I really am. The name that will forever mark the pages of the Book of Life, the name that God has written on the palm of his hand. I want to understand that name, to live that name, to bear that name with the honor it deserves.
I want to be a man who believes. I don't need to be perfect, I don't want to be nice. I just want to believe. I want to see the vision of the "for-all-times-and-all-peoples..." I want to believe in where I am traveling. And believe to the point of death and a fully devoted life in whom I am traveling for, to and with. I want to believe that the war we spoke of is going to be won by the good guys. I want to believe that I am a dangerous warrior on that winning side.
I want to be a man who loves fiercely. I want people to blush with insecurity when I look into their eyes, because they know I am also looking into their souls. And then I want to show them unusual love. Love that does not play by the social rules and damnable falsities of the world. I want to love my wife like ..... (actually, I better not describe this one in public....:) I want to practice a true carefulness toward others, and not a preoccupation with my own states.
I want to be a man who dies well because he knows that he has lived well and will live well again.