Christ Follower, Husband, Father, Writer
Whew! It has been a long time! I have had an odd couple of months.
I did my first open mic – in nearly 6 years – back in August at Side Splitters in Tampa. It’s a great club, close to home and they offer a lot of opportunities to new comics to get on a stage and work out their material.
I bombed!
THE BEGINNINGA few years ago, 2005 – to be exact, I swallowed my pride and pushed fear as far down as I could, and found myself on a stage telling jokes – to actual people.
I never wanted it to end. People laughed in almost all the correct spots and in some I had not intended. It was magic.
Never in my life had I felt the rush or satisfaction that I felt that night. I have never done drugs but if that feeling is what heroin addicts feel…I GET IT!
My #dontbreakthechain calendar as it looked on 10 JUNE 214
**Editors Note**
I wrote this back in June so some of the numbers and dates are old but the sentiment is the same. I took me this long to pull the trigger on posting this because I had grown so comfortable with the My 500 crew and was hesitent – to say the least – about making any changes.
God Bless you All
MickHolt
Photo By: Abdillah Wicaksono (Creative Commons)
Not sure how or when it happened but I have out grown my own skin – though not in a “I am to heavy” kind of way, though I am too heavy. Maybe that is the wrong way to phrase it, it might be better to say I have grown to comfortable in my own skin – but no, that is still not really what I am thinking. I might just be too old, though in my experience once you reach a certain age – might be different for each person – is that you just don’t care anymore what anyone thinks about anything. So, I doubt that is what I mean either.
This is not working, let me give some background.
I don’t talk much about my time in the Marine Corps. It is not a particularly easy time for me because I see it as one of my biggest failures – and that is saying a lot. So, every year I struggle with feelings of guilt and remorse on Memorial Day and Veterans Day. There are other times during the year that these feeling overwhelm me but especially on these two days I feel the most regret for not completing my tour when I was a Marine while so many others not only completed theirs but died in the process.
**NOTE** Not only is today National Star Wars day – May the Fourth be with you – it is also the one year anniversary of mickholt.com. I have learned a lot over the last year but still struggle with some questions – as you’ll read below. Thank you, to everyone that reads PADAG regularly, has read in the past or will be reading this for the first time – I hope you find something of value here and if so, I would love if you joined in – or started – the conversation below. Be blessed and I look forward to building this community.
Y’all keep the acorn spinnin’
#dontbreakthechain
**
Ecclesiastes 3: 1- 8 (KJV)
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
Photo from Noli Noli
God has spoken to me in the past – not audibly but I could hear him in my heart. I have talked and written about that in the past.
The first time he told me that I had built a wall around my heart and I was not allowing him to enter – then he told me how to change that. I walked out of church that morning drove home and did what I was told.
The next time was a year or so later and I was struggling to find my lace in his will – or as I like to say , finding His will for my life. The thing is though, that I was not doing anything. Rather, I was spinning my wheels doing nothing waiting, as I have said for God to speak to me through a burning bush or a billboard or – and I really looked for these too – scripture references in license plates. I wish I was making that up.
You know because God always hides messages out in the open for you to see if you really want to find them, right?
The idea for the pet rock was a stroke of genius!
From time to time I talk about goals and the one thing I harp on most is importance of writing them down. I believe that if you don’t write it down it never existed (thank you Tom Clancy – Debt of Honor).
Our minds run so fast that a great idea right now will be replaced by another in a minute and after that – Hey! Anyone want cheese fries?
See what I mean?
So I came up with 5 things you can do to help ensure that you see your dreams come to fruition.
My #dontbreakthechain calendar
For the last 90 days I have been participating in a writing challenge started by Jeff Goins and I have to say that I am beyond pleased with the results. He called it “My 500 Words” and basically we were challenged to write 500 words everyday for the month of January. Many, many, many people took the challenge to heart and began to write every day and a whole bunch of them have continued to this – the start of the fourth month of 2014.
That’s no planet
Have you noticed that there is no shortage of people wanting to give you advice about how to make your blog the next big thing (NBT)? Seems like everyone knows “the secret” and for a price, they’ll share it with you. Speed up, slow down, do more, do less, procrastinate, multi-task, don’t multi-task, give things away, don’t give anything away, guest post for everyone, comment on blogs, only comment on your blog – AAAAGGGHHH!!!
It is enough to make you crazy – this world of blogging.
BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH
On Writing, Ideas, and Making a Difference
Daily Thoughts and Meditations as we journey together with our Lord.
Mick Holt 