This, my dear friends, is life.

The risk of gratitude runs deeper than we are willing to feel. Have you ever been truly grateful for someone? I'm talking like you know without a doubt they are a Divine placement in your life. Sure, we're grateful. We use manners when someone opens a door for us, buys us lunch, or whatever other circumstance arises that permits a "thank you." Look beyond the mundane circumstantial gratitude. Have you ever been grateful for the Divine placement in your life? Regardless of what they do, you're grateful for them? Woah woah woah Ashton...That's kinda sketch. I mean, they haven't done anything for me to be grateful for them. Yeah, I know. I don't think I began to get a true picture of God until someone told me they were grateful for me. I replied with "What did I do?" They said "nothing, that's the point." God is grateful for you, before you even choose to love Him and accept Him. Well yeah, Ashton. Duh. Yeah, exactly. It...

Does desperation ring in your heart? Friday afternoon, the ten of us gathered under the impression that this would be a poverty simulation. Man, was it ever. It was an intense poverty simulation by the name of "Jubilee Village" that, little did we know, would actually place us in the position of locals in a third world country that live on less than a dollar per day. The first thing we were told was "Your standard of living will go down, but your quality of living will go up." We were immediately divided into three countries and were given a "baby" (water balloon) and one of our people was designated to be sick. You see, the problem with this, was that our villages were so tight knit, that we didn't believe in eating until the sick person was well, so we had to go pick flowers for their medicine. I believe it was at this point that I said "What percentage of our grade is this weekend?" (30%, in case you were curious.) Our village received 3...