My Review of Custom Messenger Bag

Originally submitted at Timbuk2

Customize your own Messenger

Custom Messenger Bag

Swell Bag

By Mandrew_ from Oxford, AL on 2/3/2011

 

4out of 5

Pros: Attractive, Durable , Good Strap Length, Lightweight , High Quality

Cons: Uncomfortable , Too small

Best Uses: Commuting, Office, Computer, School

Describe Yourself: Practical, Stylish, Modern, Career, Comfort-Oriented

I use this bag almost everyday going from home, to work, to church, to school, etc. It's literally attached at my hip. I love all the compartments but I have lost my keys inside it once already. It takes great care of my Mac Book Pro and seems to be made extremely well. The only negative is that I wish I wish I would have gotten the medium. Ovearll great bag.

(legalese)

It's time to get busy

Wooo hoooo!  I'm really excited, just made plans to go lead the music for a revival in New England at my brother's church.  I love going north even if they are under twenty-seven feet of snow at the moment.  Lots of exciting things coming up now that I think about it, Common Ground Saturday night (a worship service at Hill Crest), our love series in Merge (always draws a big crowd when we talk about sex), three DNow weekends in two months, Merge Unplugged, and the band is headed to one of my favorite churches for a night of worship in Ranburne.  God is really blessing with opportunity after opportunity for me to share his love through music over the next couple of months.  It's kind of overwhelming the more I think about it.  Just the fact that God continues to allow me to do ministry even though I'm a nasty sinner.  Grace is a great thing though and I just want to be faithful.  Hebrews 11:6 says it is impossible to please God without faith.

I've heard some great messages this week, one about staying in the boat and growing where you are planted.  Ironically to be followed by, "don't be afraid to get out of the boat. " Take courage, I Am, fear not! That scripture makes me want to punch the devil right in the face.  Then I got super convicted Tuesday night when I heard a message that really challenged me to get back to set quiet time and how powerful the Bible really is.  Simple but effective.  Who would have thought a message about how powerful the Bible is would have been effective. (sarcasm)

I got to do a little writing last weekend with one of my favorite drummers and we really came up with some pretty descent stuff.  I hope we can share a couple at Merge Unplugged. One specifically talks about God's unconditional love and how that there is nothing we have done that He won't forgive us for or restore us back to.  I think a lot of times we understand the forgiveness part but we don't understand the restoration part.  Restoration is huge.  If we live defeated lives then we can not be effective with the Gospel.  My prayer tonight is to be more effective with the sword that God has placed in my hand.  With that being said, it's time to get busy.


Andrew

Deep Thoughts by Hack Jandy

Ok, so it's Saturday morning and I'm just chilling watching dad snooze while HGTV is playing in the background.  These last few days have been a whirlwind for mom and myself.   The doctor decided while he was putting the second stent in that he would go ahead and do the third.  He said it was going a lot better than planned so he went ahead and did both.  Mom and I were both relieved.  He actually gave me the before and after pictures of the heart, which I thought was a little odd, but I gladly took them a placed them gently in my murse.  So to clarify, dad had three total stents done and seems to be doing fine at the moment.  If all goes well he may get to go home late Saturday evening or early Sunday morning.

We hear a lot about the peace of God, or having a peace that surpasses all understanding.  I'm not sure that I had ever experienced that first hand before Wednesday morning around 3:00AM.  When I saw my dad sitting in his chair obviously hurting and pale, I began to pray that God would take control of the situation and that what ever happened would be for His glory.  There was about an hour period there where I wasn't sure what the outcome was going to look like.  It was scary.  I remember getting in my car to follow the ambulance and it just seemed like everything was going to be ok.  You may say I under reacted but I honestly believed that he was going to be fine.  As I sat at dinner tonight it really hit me that I hadn't worried but one time over the past 36 hours.  Today after they transferred him to RMC his blood pressure wasn't stable and I begin over analyzing things.  God took care of it.

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! ⁵ Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. ⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.


This was it, this is what happened!  It's mind boggling even as I type this very blog.  I got to experience a peace that didn't make sense.  A peace that wasn't logical.  Often when I pray, I pray that God would allow unbelievers to understand the Gospel and that they would get to enjoy the peace that only God can offer.  I think I need to add to that prayer that the believer would also get to experience that same peace. The only way to explain it and it often sounds corny is that it was a "God thing."  


I'm beginning to doze off so I'm going to wrap this up with a huge thank you to friends and family for all of the visits and prayers.  Especially a few of you that have spent countless hours here with me and mom.  God has a reason for all of this and God is not finished with my dad.  To God be the glory for  his healing and recovery.  Please continue to pray for his recovery and for his up and coming diet/exercise change.


Andrew

Dad Update #2

Hey guys, just wanted to let you know that we just spoke with the doctor and they are going to try and get him a room tonight here at Stringfellow.  Tomorrow they are going to transfer him to RMC and they will do another stint around 6:00PM.  We did have some good news, my mom and I evidently were mistaken on the number of blockages, he actually only had a total of three and they stinted one yesterday so he has two left. The one they are going to stint tomorrow is 75-80% blocked and they will worry about the other one latter.  The doctor doesn't want to do both stints at the same time because of the possibility of complications.  Please continue to pray for healing and for everything to go well tomorrow.  Thank you for your prayers and visits.

Andrew

Update on dad

These last 30 hours have been pretty crazy.  Overwhelmed by the amount of prayers, visits, and concerns by friends and family.  I just wanted to give a quick update and recap of what has been happening over the last day.  Most of you know my dad had a heart attack early yesterday morning and was taken to Stringfellow Memorial Hospital for care.  They did a heart cath yesterday around lunch and found that he had four blockages.  One of which was on the right side of his heart and was about 95% blocked.  The other three are on the left side and are between 70-85% blocked.  They put a stent in the one one that was on the right side, aka the one that caused the heart attack.  I'm currently waiting with my mom on the doctor to come in and decide what will be our next move.  His nurse said that it looks like they will most likely keep him overnight and do the other three stents late tomorrow evening.  The reason they didn't do all four at one time was because of the dye that they use for the stents could cause kidney problems if they use too much.  All this is new to me so I'm merely repeating what I hear the doctor and nurses say.  We are waiting at the moment to see what the next move is.  They may move him into a different room just for tonight but we will know more when the doctor arrives.  I have been overwhelmed by the level of excellence that the staff at Stringfellow has shown over the last day or so.  Again, thank you guys for your prayers and visits it has made this process a lot easier.  Continue to pray for my mom, she has a tendency to 'freak out' easily and pray for me that I can continue to offset her with my nauseatingly positive attitude.

Andrew

Turkey for me, turkey for you, I eat my turkey out of my big brown shoe.

So it's almost Turkey day so I thought I should compile a random listing of things that I am thankful for.  I have a feeling this will be difficult to read due to the graphic randomness.  I do apologize in advance.  Let's get the serious things out of the way first so I don't look like a complete jerk.  

Saviour/redeemer-nothing even compares.

Family-blessed to have an amazing family and two grannies who are still around.

Friends/close & not so close-accountability and old friends that I can pick up with at any any time.

Church family-even though that's a pretty large family, love the encouragement I get from those guys.

Student Ministry-especially Jr. High but the whole thing is pretty amazing, they love Jesus.

TRIBE Leaders-these guys never cease to amaze me, volunteers that love God and love students.

Church staff- a Godly group of men and women that I am blessed to serve with.

Band members- selfless guys that serve God faithfully and have an amazing heart of worship.

Jobs-Hill Crest & Sound Solutions, honestly I couldn't dream it any better.

Health-can't take that for granted, ever.

Home-love where I live, who I live with, and what I live in.

I'm sure that I could compile multiple pages of things I'm seriously thankful for but that could get old after a while.  So here are a few small things that really make a difference in my life.

Mountain Dew in can, did you honestly think anything else would be first.  That one almost made the list above, jk.  White Chocolate Mocha, sissy drink and I don't even care.  Technology would be a little broad so lets go with Apple in general; MacBook Pro, iPod Touch.  Martin guitars, Gibson guitars, AT and Sennheiser mics, Shure in-ears, Aviom, EV speakers, okay so I got on a Pro Audio kick.  Rammon Noodles (chicken flavored), Oreos with milk (no imitations, must be the real thing death will come to you!)  GPS is a love hate relationship so I wont go there.  Backpacking stuff, that could go on for days, thank you Cody Hale.  Funk Christian music, not enough funk out there.  By the way, one of my dreams is to be a bass player for a funk band. (I don't even play bass)  New shoes (again the woman side of me comes out, I get this from my grandmother Dot).  Razors, toothpaste, hand sanitizer, great food, BBM, youtube.  Let me stop here and say that I really think I could be a youtube advisor, if you need a laugh, call me and I will send you to a funny youtube video.  Current youtube laughs: Bed Intruder and Double Rainbow with addition to the auto tune remixes are a guaranteed laugh.  Really thankful for my inserts that my mom bought me because inherited jacked up feet from her and my granny Dot.  That's two points for granny Dot.  Thankful for shoes on my table and food on my feet, ha ha.  Fingernail clippers, a life with long fingernails would be horrific.  The interstate system, airplanes, gas, electricity, windmills, coal, and hot brownies with vanilla ice cream.  I honestly think when I enter heaven, God will bless me with a plethora of Mountain Dew and brownies/ice cream.  Spellcheck, which I mentioned in a tweet earlier this week.  I wish they would come out with a content check.  Beer, meth, cigarettes, jk, just seeing if you were paying attention.  

I figured that 18 sentences were enough to get a new paragraph.  Lets continue.  Snickers, trailers so I can pull them (makes me feel like a man), Filet-o-fish, making crazy games for my Jr. High students, butter, mayo, turkey sausage, turkey and avocado burgers, grilled shrimp, fried shrimp, baked shrimp, shrimp sandwich, Forrest Gump (minus the "F" bombs and length of the movie), flying (not like super hero flying but actually on a plane), instant grits on the morning after a hike, Salamon foot wear, smart wool, watching old videos of me and my friends being morons, fingers (I couldn't write this amazing blog if I were nubby), iChat, the dollar movie theatre (which is now a church, sad times, but it's a good church), pasta (literally any kind, Olive garden hates me), did I mention great food, live bands, people that sing on pitch, and the fact that no one is grading this for grammar.  I'm sure there are a few things I've missed that I'm thankful for but this is definitely a good start.  Maybe I will continue on the next post.

God's Will

I love how the thing I've been struggling with the most over the past two weeks is what I will be teaching on in the AM.  I've been studying on how to teach students to understand God's will for their lives and tomorrows lesson hits me right in the grill.  I feel a little overwhelmed that I'm teaching something that I'm currently dealing with.  I'm hoping this is a common feeling among teachers who are currently deal with issues that that are about teach on.  There are three points.  I won't go into detail on all three because I'm just using this blog as another opportunity to get things out of my head and on to a page.  First, we don't ask God what His will is.  Seemingly almost too simple, we just don't pray enough, or at least I don't.  I desire to know God's will and I feel as though I am passionately concerned about what He wants to do with my life, but I don't know if I'm passionately, consistently, seeking His will through prayer.  James 1:5 puts it pretty simple, we just need to ask for wisdom.  My problem is I often seek wisdom from others first.  It seems to be the easy way out, maybe the lazy way out.  I found out this past week that I'm kind of lazy... little concerned about that one.  Seeking wisdom from others isn't bad, but we should seek God's wisdom first.  Second, we rely too much on logic.  We try to figure things out on our own or we try to figure God out.  I'm really glad I can't figure out God.  The material that I'm teaching from (which is where the three points came from, not me) brings up the example of how the disciples must have had a battle with logic often with Jesus.  Especially in instances like the feedings of the 5,000.  I can hear them now, "Ummm, yeah, feed them, with what? Ok Jesus, let me just wave my magic staff over this here land and maybe a hot dog stand will pop up and come rolling through."  Not saying that couldn't happen either, but logically it didn't make sense that five loaves and two fish could feed 5,000.  That's where Isaiah 55:9 comes in.  Go read it.  Lastly, or third, or 'C' if you prefer letters, is that we hear what we want to hear.  That's a swift kick right there.  I read too much into things. This was brought to my attention this past week but I denied it... but it's true.  We often read too much into things, blame God, and say that's what God is showing us to do.  However, in reality, it's something that we read too much into and wasn't even there. We want to hear what makes us feel good so we twist and turn things to make them fit our moronic lives. The crazy thing is that we believe it.  2 Timothy 4:3 warned against this.

We often hear that if we seek Him we will find Him, I don't understand why we never finish that verse.  Scripture says," You will seek Me and find Me when you search for me with all your heart." Jeremiah 29:13 NASB.  We live out a huge part, we find Him when we search for Him with our whole heart.  Our heart has to be fully devoted and fully searching before we can find Him.  That's where I want to be, seeking God with all my heart.  I'm excited about teaching this tomorrow because I'm burdened about it, and good friend told me that's called a "preacher's burden."  I want more of those.

P.S.
Laziness kicking in=not taking the time to use spell check or look for any other issues.