I accepted Jesus as my personal savior on November 13, 2005. The memory is still fresh in my mind because I have never experienced anything so life-changing as deciding to surrender my life to Jesus.

In the weeks leading up to my decision, our pastor, Jim Hutchison, talked to me about salvation. I had a lot of questions, and opinions. I kept telling him that I didn’t think I could become a member of a church (Bedford Acres) that was so different from the church I grew up in, which was the Bible Holiness Church (a Holiness Church that doesn’t speak in tongues). I remember telling him that my mom would never believe I was saved if I didn’t do it at the Holiness Church. Jim’s wise words to me were “Kevin, no church can save you. The Bible Holiness Church can’t save you. Bedford Acres Christian Church can’t save you, nor can any other church save you. The only thing that can save you is Jesus. You need to make your decision for Him, not the church.”

At that point, I was dumbfounded. All of my questioning seemed more like an attempt at making excuses after hearing Jim tell me that. He was right and I could no longer deny what I needed to do. I fought with myself for two weeks after that, trying to find some hole in Jim’s logic, but I couldn’t. At this same time I had been listening to Pastor Jeff Fugate (Pastor at Clays Mill Road Baptist Church) for many months and I heard him say the very same words Jim had said about the church not being able to save a person.

I also remember a woman in the congregation coming up to me right before the worship service began and she asked me “Kevin, how is your relationship with God doing?” I told her “Well, right now I don’t have one with Him.” She asked me why, and I told her about my family and the Bible Holiness Church and how different they were from Bedford Acres. She then told me about how she was raised in a Mormon church, and she went “against the grain” with her family when she decided to leave their church. She gave me a lot of encouragement, and it seemed very ironic to me that she would come to me and ask me about this when I hadn’t discussed anything like this with anybody other than Jim, so I decided to ask her why she decided to ask me about my relationship with God. She said “I just felt lead to ask you about it. I kept feeling like I needed to ask you.”

At that point I was fully convinced that God was after me big-time. I still fought with myself about it, but I finally accepted Jesus as Savior and I’m so thankful I did so.

I often look back on my life and see times in my life where it was obvious that God was always looking out for me. With all the things I grew up around, I could easily be an alcoholic, a drug-addict, or who-knows-what, but I never did those things despite my environment, and I thank God for that. For some reason (unknown to me right now) He set me apart from that kind of lifestyle. I continually pray that God will put me to use for Him. I’m not sure that He hasn’t already started me down the path to making that happen, but He will reveal it to me when He’s ready.

So today I complete one year as a believer in Christ. I love Him, and thank Him for everything He has done, and continues to do, for me. I don’t want to take a single blessing for granted.

I’ve been torturing myself about musical equipment lately. There are soooo many things I want to get, but I have to save in order to get things (I refuse to go in debt for musical equipment, or anything else for that matter). So I’ve been thinking about getting a part-time job in order to get this stuff. In the meantime, I thought I’d post the list of items I want right now. This list is order of how badly I want them.

Ibanez Jem (Bad Horsie). I’ve wanted a Jem for about 16-17 years now, but I settled for an RG550 back in 1990. I was fresh out of high-school, so I couldn’t really afford to buy a nearly $2000 guitar back then. However, it’s been on my mind since then. I think my RG plays better than any guitar I’ve ever played, but I still want the Jem. I can’t really describe to anyone how much I want this guitar. I’ve been tempted to just go get some EVO pickups and put them in my RG, but that’s just not the same. I have had the honor of playing a Jem recently as a friend of mine has a Jem (the white one, like Vai actually plays) and I just haven’t been able to get the guitar out of my mind. I think playing Terry’s Jem has made me want one even more than ever before. Price: $2,329.95

I seem to be saying this way too much these days, but I’m not really a true bass player. I’m a lead guitarist that happens to be playing bass for a band in need. However, I still want to play through top-notch equipment when I’m playing. I’m currently playing through a small Peavey Minx 110 at home (for practice) and through a Hartke 4×10 cabinet with a Behringer head. Actually, I haven’t tried the Behringer head, yet, but I will soon. This Ampeg bass rig seems awfully nice to me. The only thing I see that looks better to me than this is the Ampeg SVT series. I don’t need anything that nice, but this rig (pictured) is the B2RE head, with the B410HLF 4×10 cabinet. I’ve been drawn to it since I saw it in my Musician’s Friend catalog. Price: $1,079.99.

The Korg Triton has left an impression on me since the first time I’ve played one. I personally like weighted keys, so I insist on having them. I was very close to getting a Triton for Christmas a few years ago, but some things fell through and it didn’t happen. I still get an overwhelming feeliing of disappointment whenever I think about how close I was to getting this awesome keyboard. Anyone who hasn’t heard one of these machines should just pay attention to nearly every band they see playing anywhere. I’ve seen them everywhere. The keyboardist in our band (27 South) has one, and it’s so nice. I played it again when Gerald brought his to one of our gigs, and I’ve been wanting one again ever since. Price: $2299.99.

The Taylor T5 is the most incredible guitar I’ve ever played. My father-in-law decided to get one of these guitars a few months ago, and I thought he was making a big mistake. But I soon changed my mind after I played it. This guitar can do any style of music. It can sound like any guitar you want it to be. I first played it through an acoustic amp, and it sounded awesome. The action on the neck was so fast that I was able to shred on it while it was plugged into the acoustic amp. Then the guy said, you should hear it in with distortion. I thought the guy was crazy, but then we plugged it into an amp with distortion and this thing wailed. This guitar is so incredible that I’ve actually had dreams about it. (Well, I’ve had dreams about the Jem, too, but anyway…). Anyone interested in getting a versatile guitar that could easily replace many other guitars, check out the T5. Price: $2899.99.

So as you can see, my taste isn’t cheap. I definitely need a part-time job in order to get all this stuff. Maybe I’ll start in on it when the Super Wal-Mart opens here in town. Until then, I can dream…

Richard Burmer, one of my favorite musicians of all time, has passed away. I’m late in posting this information, but it’s really taken me a while to actually decide what I want to say about this incredible musician, and what his music means to me. I’m still in a little shock over this, kind of like I was a few years ago when I heard Michael Hedges had died in a car wreck. The deaths of both Richard Burmer, and Michael Hedges have stunned me, even though I never knew either of them personally.

I first heard Richard Burmer’s music on “Musical Starstreams” back in the late 80’s. I remember being immediately drawn to his music as though the songs spoke to me with no words necessary. I didn’t buy any of his music until a few years later. I was looking for “On The Third Extreme”, but I could only find “Invention”, so I bought “Invention” while feeling a little disappointment in not getting what I had been looking for. Wow, was I surprised!

The songs on “Invention” became a sort of soundtrack to my life. I remember reading the liner notes for each song, and just being amazed at how Richard was looking at the world and perhaps putting some sort of “soundtrack” to it as he went along. I can still remember the first time I heard “This Picture Will Never Fade”. I heard that piano at the end playing a simple little melody over a couple of chords. It was so simple, yet it spoke to me. I remember thinking it was one of the most beautiful songs I’d ever heard, instrumental or otherwise. I also memorized the liner notes for each song so I could put myself in the mindset that Richard was describing while I was listening to his music. (Yes, I was a BIG fan).

I ended up buying all of Richard’s music on tape, and then eventually tried to buy all of them on CD. I special-ordered the tapes, but I’ve yet to get all of them on CD. I don’t even have a tape player anymore, so I can’t really listen to some of the older stuff I have. I currently have “Mosaic”, “On The Third Extreme”, “Invention”, and “Treasures Of The Saints” on CD. I’ll have to look around on the web to see if I can find the ones I don’t have.

I guess what I really would like to say about Richard Burmer is that I would have loved to have talked to him to tell him how much I enjoyed his music. I did sign his guestbook months before his death, but I have no idea if he would have read that or not. I wish the best for his family, and for the other Burmer fans out there who will miss his musicianship as much as I will.

A couple of weeks ago, my Relic watch stopped keeping time. I could only assume the battery had died, so a few days later Jessica and I took the watch back to where she bought it to get the battery changed. They couldn’t get the back off of the watch, so we took it to Wal-Mart and they couldn’t get the back off either. Our only option at this point was to take it to a watch shop and have it changed there. In the meantime, I needed a watch.

The first thing that came to mind was a Timex Ironman watch. Actually I thought of it at the same moment I realized the Relic’s battery had died. You see, I’ve had several Ironman watches in the past, and I’ve always loved them. They’re durable, and have a load of functions. The last time I had an Ironman was back when I was in college (about 5 years ago) and I’ve missed it ever since. This is not to say that I dislike my Relic, but I’ve missed the functionality of the Ironman. So I bought a new Ironman while we were at Wal-Mart.

After I put it on, I started messing around with all the settings (there are quite a few differences since the last one I owned). The first thing I did was set the alarm to go off at 3:30pm every day. I used to have the alarm set like this on my old ironman watches because I wanted to have a 30 minute warning before it was time for me to go home. That way I could tie up any loose ends, and get out of work on time. I’ve missed this a great deal. Another setting I made was a Timer set for 1 hour. The reason I have this set is because I like to be able to take an exact hour for lunch. Again, this is another setting I had on my old ironman because even a minute over an hour for lunch would be grounds for some type of verbal reprimand. The last setting I changed was for the watch to beep at the top of every hour (another setting the same as my old one).

So now I’m all set. Even though I’ve changed jobs, and I don’t have to worry about a reprimand if I’m a minute late back from lunch, I still use the timer to keep track of my lunch hour. The 3:30pm alarm is helpful, too, as I leave every day at 4pm, so I still make use of that 30 minute warning. As I’m sitting here working, I hear the watch go “beep beep” at the top of the hour. Now that my watch beeps on the hour, I’ve come to realize just how fast the hours of my days go by.

Time seems to really fly by when I’m working at home. I usually work without wearing my watch because it’s uncomfortable when I’m on the laptop. So while I’m sitting there working, I hear the “beep beep” of my watch from the other room. I then tell myself “I want to get *this much* done before it beeps again.” This is sort of strange to me, but it seems like I’m actually relying on the watch to beep in order to direct my days. It’s amazing to me that I’ve only had the watch for about a week, yet I’m as addicted to this watch as I’ve ever been to any of the ironman watches I’ve had before. It’s like the Ironman watch has some sort of connection with my psyche. As soon as I got the watch I started doing the same things I had done before, as if I’d never been without it. I catch myself wanting to use the “chrono” function to time myself on everything I do. I’ve been using it to find out how long it takes for me to drive somewhere, or how long it takes to get through a drive-thru, or how long it takes for a particular traffic light to cycle. I’ve even kept track of how long it takes to complete each leg of my trip to work and back to see the difference between the two. Is this normal?

Regardless of whether it’s normal or not, I’m glad to have this watch back!

I was on my way to work this morning when I got behind a flat-bed truck that had “Romans 10:9″ painted along the back edge of the bed. It got me thinking about an ex-member of our church that had Nehemiah 8:10 printed on his work vans. I was impressed with both of these guys, as I get a certain amount of joy when I see people professing the Gospel publicly like that.

So I started thinking about what Nehemiah 8:10 actually says (paraphrased): for the joy of the Lord is my strength…

That verse has a lot of meaning to me, not only because I find it to be true, but also because it was used in my wife’s senior newspaper when she was a senior. There was a section where seniors were allowed to give their last statements for the entire school to read (sort of like getting the last word). I remember reading some of the entries that talked about living only for the moment, partying, and there were even some derrogatory remarks that some students made at each other. However, among all that garbage was a single remark that read: “The joy of the Lord will be my strength. - Nehemiah 8:10″.

I was kind of surprised by this as I hadn’t really seen any Christian remarks among all the juvenile trash talk, and I was even more surprised to see that it was my girlfriend who had done this as her “last statement”. At the time, I was not a born-again Christian, but she was, so I was pretty impressed that she had taken such a bold step forward to profess her faith among a student body that would most likely ridicule her for it. But that’s just the way she was, and still is.. I know this because that girlfriend is now my wife.

When I look back on my life, I can see so many times where my life could have taken a terrible path, but I somehow took the right path. I believe God is 100% responsible for this. Other than God curing my mom of cancer (the doctors gave her only 3 months to live, but God gave her 30 years more), I consider the greatest miracle to happen in my life is that God put me in place to meet my wife. She is a blessing to me, and she never gave up on me becoming a Christian. She kept encouraging me to go to church with her, and I did, even though I always had some snide remark about “her” church. Well now “her” church is “our” church, and I couldn’t be happier.

The providence in all of this is that I had been dating a girl that was the exact opposite of my wife. I won’t sit here and trash her, but I remember thinking “I don’t ever want to date another girl like that again. I want a girlfriend who goes to church, and has morals, etc., etc.” Well I met that perfect girl for me when she and I worked at Food Lion, and I remember finding out how she was a devout Christian, and how she asked off at work for church activities, etc. I also remember thinking that a good girl like that wouldn’t have anything to do with me (not that I was some horrible person, mind you..). But she did have something to do with me, and we dated for 2 years, and then married 1.5 years after that. I love her, and I’d be lost without her. Now we’re going to have a child and that makes her even more special to me.

All of this I can see as providence… God putting me on the path to do something for Him. I’m not sure what that is right now, but I look forward to doing something to bless Him in return for the blessings He has given me.

I struggle every day with the thought of not doing a work for God. I constantly pray that I’m doing God’s will. The frustrating part is that I don’t really know what God’s will is for me. I read my Bible every day, and I listen to sermons all day every day (this is not an exaggeration), but I still find myself wondering about what God will do with my life. I’ve never really been a risk-taker, so I usually sit around and wait for things to fall in my lap. But after attending the revival at Bedford Acres Christian Church, I have been enlightened as to what I should do to give myself a chance to do what God has in mind for me.

On the second night of the revival, as Jessica and I were going into the church, I told her that I wish God would call me to do a service or work for Him. Jessica encouraged me by saying that I don’t need to wait for some “big moment” to take place in order to realize that God wants me to do something. I thought that was pretty good advice from my lovely wife! Then we went into the service and David Welsh (Pastor at Hill-n-Dale Christian Church in Lexington) preached a sermon that was completely about putting yourself out there so that God has the chance to use you for a Kingdom work.

He went on to say that if this message seems to be singling you out as you listen, it’s because the Holy Spirit is speaking to you. Him saying that was as though he was talking to me personally. There I was wishing I could know what God wants me to do with my life, and now the pastor (whom I had never met) was preaching a message that seemed to be taylor-made for me. This got me thinking…

A couple of weeks after that, I heard a fiery sermon from our Associate Pastor, and my good friend, Dave Casey. Dave preached about getting up every day and thinking to yourself, “Yes, I need to do something today for God”, and “Yes, I need to read my Bible today.” He went on to say that all of us in the church should be out doing something for the Kingdom of God. I was moved by this sermon, and decided that day to not sit around and wait for God to do some miraculous thing to put me where He wants me, but instead I’ll put myself out there at every opportunity to give Him the opportunity to put me to work for Him.

Yesterday I had a conversation with my boss that had me wondering if programming is really the right thing for me to be doing with my life. I was pretty discouraged about it yesterday, and discouragement even carried over into today when I got up and started working. But around 10am I received an email from Dave that ended with “Remember… God’s got big plans for you!!”

I can’t tell you how much that encouraged me. I began to think about how I will soon be participating in the “Serve The City” program that will be happening in October. That excites me.. to the think that I’ll be doing something for others that will please God! That’s what I want more than anything right now, so now that I have the chance to do that, I’m getting encouraged about my day-to-day walk with Jesus. I’m encouraged that I’m getting myself out there for Him. I’m thankful that God has put me with the wonderful people at Bedford Acres, and that I have such great mentors in Dave Casey, and Jim Hutchison.

One last thing is that I watched a movie with Jessica the other night, called “Akeelah and the Bee”. In that movie was an awesome poem that I will post below:

Our Deepest Fear by Marianne Williamson

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate,
our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves,
Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

Actually, who are you NOT to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.

We were born to make manifest
the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we’re liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

I’m kind of ashamed to look at my blog and see that my last post was on Feb. 15, 2006. However, a lot of things have happened since that day in February. My maternal grandmother, and my mother went to be with Jesus. My grandmother died on Feb. 9, 2006, and my mom died on Feb. 19, 2005, only 10 days apart. This has been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to cope with in my life, so far.

My sister and her boyfriend (now husband) got saved in July at the Bible Holiness Church (the church I used to attend). This has been one of the most incredible transformations I’ve ever seen a person go through. The two of them have gone from being consumed with sinful lives, to being people who pray before their meals. While this is definitely a change for the better for both of them, I just hope they both make decisions based on their own convictions rather than what somebody else tells them.

Another good thing that’s happened during the time I’ve been away from this blog is Jessica’s pregnancy. We’ve struggled so long to achieve this, but obviously it wasn’t in God’s plans to let it happen before now. We’re extremely excited, but also nervous. She’s considered high-risk, so we try not to get our hopes up like we’ve done before. The thing I try to keep in mind during the difficult times is the same thing I keep in mind during the good times: God is good, and He’s always in control.

Hopefully I can continue to keep this blog updated, but I won’t promise anything. Besides, I doubt anybody reads this anyway.

I found this on the Internet and thought it made a very valid point (especially after I just debated with a guy in IRC today about God’s existence):

The university professor challenged his students with this question. Did God create everything that exists?
A student bravely replied yes, he did!”
“God created everything?” The professor asked.
“Yes, sir,” the student replied.

The professor answered, “If God created everything, then God created evil since evil exists, and according to the principal that our works define who we are then God is evil.”
The student became quiet before such an answer.

The professor was quite pleased with himself and boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the Christian faith was a myth.

Another student raised his hand and said, “Can I ask you a question professor?” “Of course”, replied the professor. The student stood up and asked, “Professor, does cold exist?”

“What kind of question is this? Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?” The students snickered at the young man’s question.

The young man replied, “In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. Everybody and every object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (- 460 degrees F) is the total absence of heat; all matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have too little heat.

The student continued. “Professor, does darkness exist?”

The professor responded, “Of course it does”.

The student replied, “Once again you are wrong sir, darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact we can use Newton’s prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn’t this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present.”

Finally the young man asked the professor. “Sir, does evil exist?”

Now uncertain, the professor responded, “Of course as I have already said. We see it every day. It is in the daily example of man’s inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. “These manifestations are nothing else but evil.”

To this the student replied, “Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is not like faith, or love, that exist just as does light and heat. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God’s love present in his heart. It’s like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light.”

The professor sat down.

The young mans name — Albert Einstein

If this is real, he has the most awesome Christmas lights I’ve ever seen (well, on video anyway). He actually synched up his lights to the TSO song “Wizards in Winter”. Check out this page and be amazed. The guy even posted instructions on how to do this amazing light show. (However, at $10k, I think I’ll pass).

I just realized that this guy supposedly only lives 110 miles from me, so maybe I’ll take a trip to see if this is actually real. I’ve watched this several times and I’m beginning to believe that it’s a series of still photos put together to make it look like video. The streetlight kinda looks suspect, and the ground seems to jump around a little. Also, the camera is apparently on a tripod, so how did they get such great sound-quality from outside like that?

I’ve been playing guitar for 21 years now, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted to be: a guitar player. I mean, I spent an incredible amount of time learning how to play like Ace Frehley, Joe Satriani, Vinnie Moore, Vai, Petrucci, and others. When I was in high school I used to get up and practice before I went to school in the mornings, and then I’d practice when I got home from work at night. I was obsessed, to say the least. So how did I ever end up playing bass in a standard rock ‘n roll band after all these years of playing metal lead guitar?

It’s simple…I just want to have fun and not stress out about playing a solo note-for-note. That doesn’t mean that I’m a slacker when it comes to playing bass, it just means that I want to play music without being “in the spotlight”. I’m taking this very seriously as far as my playing, but the most important thing to me is having fun. We have a couple of great guitarists, an awesome singer, an extremely talented keyboard/backup singer, and a drummer who blows me away with his talent. I’m having all kinds of fun playing music that I normally would have never played.

As for my bass-playing skills, I refuse to be a bassist that keeps thumping the root note for every chord. That bores me. I listen to every song and try to play the bass line as closely as possible to the original (which usually isn’t very hard with the music we’re playing) and if the song has a boring bass line, I try to come up with something better. I haven’t had any complaints so far. =)

Now the backup singing is pretty interesting. I’ve never been a singer of any kind in any band before, and I’ve always thought it was something I’d never do. However, it’s been fun singing harmony, and I’m glad they talked me into it. Lately I’ve been asked to sing lead on some songs to give the singer a break, and I’m not sure how that’ll go, but we’ll see. I’m not opposed to doing it, it’s just that I don’t consider myself a singer (I’m a guitarist, remember?).

So I must say, it has been very rewarding to play bass for this band. Although it felt strange at first, I’m very comfortable with it now. There are times when we’re finished practicing where I’ve been watching them play guitar the whole time, and I can’t stand it any longer and I end up picking up one of their guitars and start playing. I really enjoy playing bass, it’s fun! But sometimes I miss executing those guitar solo’s.