I never thought I was so dependent on my phone till this happened…

The best way I can share this story is by simply giving you the play-by-play in short segments, sometimes not even full sentences. My life was a 12-hour stretch where a “choose your own adventure” book married a roller coaster. So buckle up, here we go…

Thurs night phone dies. Never recovers. Charge it, nothing. Let battery run out to reset it, nothing. Not a big deal except I need phone for navigation AND need hotspot for work-related work Friday morning. Supposed to have hotspot on by 10am. Fri morning, phone still dead. All options: buy new phone, borrow phone, activate old phone, buy hotspot device, cancel meeting. Buy new phone is best, Verizon doesn’t open till 10am, when meeting starts. Crap. 10am meeting moves to 11am. Get to Verizon at 930am. Wait. At least I’m first in line. Doors open. Updated options: activate old phone, buy new phone, buy hotspot. I want Motorola. I get LG. Directions send me to farm with 1 mile long gravel driveway. Tennessee gravel = I need a Jeep. Arrive at 1110am. Wrong address. Retrace path back down 1 mile long “gravel” driveway. Crap. Arrive at correct location 1130am. New phone IS working and provides Hotspot as required. Me = relieved and yet, still annoyed at predicament causing all the problems.

Work completed. New phone was clutch. Old phone is devil.

Need nap.

-Out of the Wilderness

Marrying the wrong person is a nightmare

I was standing in the foyer of the church with the rest of the wedding party, including the woman I was about to marry. The guests had all been seated. Our wedding was about to start. We were moments away from the bride walking down the aisle. I guess this wedding was untraditional for 2 reasons: 

  1. I was with the bride before the ceremony even started (tradition is for the groom to not see the bride on the wedding day until she’s walking down the aisle)
  2. She was first to take her place on the stage in front of the church, then I was to walk over from a side aisle to join her and the rest of the wedding party on stage

But tradition aside, I can still vividly remember the dire panic I felt in the pit of my very soul as I was about to marry the wrong woman. I didn’t love her. I didn’t even think she was cute! But I guess I just went along with the relationship as it progressed into something serious, through engagement, wedding plans, and now the wedding day. 

Thoughts were running through my head about how I could get out of it. Run. Just run away. But then her dad would hunt me down and do bad things to me. I could stop the ceremony and announce to everyone that I can’t do it. Maybe pull the bride aside and tell her it’s off? That would be terrible timing seeing as how we’re literally at the wedding ceremony. OUR wedding ceremony. I could wait a few days or weeks then have it annulled. This was rising up in my mind as the best option. Just get through the ceremony, make pleasantries, have the first dance, all while knowing that it’s for nothing. These special moments mean nothing and will hurt her to no end when I admit to her it was all a mistake. 

The terrible feeling, that pit in my stomach that reached deep into my soul, it was just as real as anything I’ve ever felt in my entire life. Then I woke up. Yes, this was all just a dream and I’ve never been more thankful to wake up than this particular morning. I can’t even explain with the right words how real this dream was. I even remember in the dream thinking that this is real, this isn’t a dream. Wow. 

I may not ever know exactly the meaning of this dream so from what I can take from it at this point is that I never ever, ever, ever, ever want to feel the way I felt standing in the front of this church with a terrible feeling of marrying someone I don’t want to marry… and it being too late to do anything about it.  

It was the most disheartening, worrisome, fear I’ve ever felt in real life or in dreams. 

-Out of the Wilderness

Rim of the World – Netflix (no spoilers!)

I recently watched Rim of the World (Rotten Tomatoes, 48% audience score) because I’m always months and months behind everyone else. Yes, that means next year I’ll watch “Tiger King.” Just get over the fact that this little blog post is going up a year after the movie debuted on Netflix and let’s move right along 🙂

PS. In my defense, I haven’t had Netflix for about a year. I’ve been a Hulu subscriber and watching wholesome stuff like this.

Here’s the trailer, if you haven’t seen it before:

My summary of this film in one word: “ewwww,” pretty much solely based on the overuse of inappropriate language like cursing and sex jokes. It’s as if the script was written by an adult and hey, it was! Zack Stentz swings and misses with this one, sorry “bro.” For reference to what I mean about the language, I always go back to Michelle on Full House. No real kid talks like she did on that show. She was clearly performing lines written by adults. 

The idea for the story was interesting enough. Hey, I love a good adventure film! To it’s credit, there were a few funny lines and moments, too, especially throwing out a bottle of aged wine because it’s not new enough. That was very much what a kid would say and do. But it was simply too much of the sex jokes, and other behavior associated more with how adults behave rather than kids. Although there IS such a thing as TikTok… so maybe kids know a whole lot more than when I was a tiny teen??

Going back to the first 15 or 20 minutes of the film, kids show up at a summer camp and that’s all well and good, but no parent would let their kid stay at a camp where the counselors are cursing, making out, or just plain creepy… and that was just during the “parent drop-off” on day 1 of camp! To say this particular part of the movie is not at all believable needs to be taken with a grain of salt because it’s a movie, I get it, but they should’ve have made the camp more realistic to set up how “out of this world” the rest of the story was.

Basically, it lost me at “hello.”

If you have a free night and need a movie that won’t feel like a waste of time… this movie is NOT for you. I don’t recommend it, especially for kids. Just watch a few inappropriate TikTok videos and you get the gist of this movie. You’d be way more satisfied watching Feel the Beat, which is also on Netflix and will have you laughing, cheering… without all the adult language and themes.

Thanks for stopping by!

-Out of the Wilderness

Hebrews book review by William Barclay will make you a better Christian

I randomly came across a book at Thriftsmart a few months back and it might go down as the best few dollars I’ve ever spent! The book is called “the LETTER to the Hebrews” by William Barclay. Click that link to find it on Amazon and I’ll tell you right now, 100%, you won’t regret it. I’m not a Bible scholar, in fact I don’t even like to read much although I go through phases where I enjoy reading. So if you’re anything like me, you’ll still enjoy reading it even if you don’t like reading that much. Side note: thanks for reading my blog today, I know it’s probably too long. 🙂

51YZhSQhAjL._SX330_BO1,204,203,200_This little book has such amazing insight into why the writer says the things he (or she) says, why certain words are significant, and has shown me a depth in the Scripture I haven’t known before. And all of this is just for the book of Hebrews! Mr. Barclay’s explanations are so meaty I can only read a few pages at a time, and sometimes need breaks for a day or two just to process. After reading, and again this is just for Hebrews, I feel encouraged, astounded, amazed, and in awe of the details of God’s story, my story, Jesus’ story, and our story as humankind.

I don’t often write to you and tell you to go out and buy something, but this is one you should go buy. Or if you’re in the Nashville area, I’ll pass along my copy to you as soon as I’m done. Well, since we’re talking about buying stuff now, also get one of these. You won’t be sorry. 😉

-Out of the Wilderness

40 days and 40 nights…

Since a few months ago when a tree landed on my roof, I’ve had the pleasure of a few guests barely not overstaying their welcome. Although they’ve come close a few times to me yelling, “Get the chirp outta here!” 

fireplace_chimney_parts_diagram

Well, the short story is that this tree knocked off the chimney cap, which I didn’t think was a big deal. That is, until one night I heard ruffling and chirping coming from where? Surely not where I think it is… Yep, the fireplace! So from inside the house I opened up the fireplace and… nothing. This is where it gets a bit more complicated: the fireplace damper had been closed so the bird evidently made a nest above it. Now if I open the damper, everything comes tumbling down, thereby ruining the nest that might already have eggs in it. Or if I put the chimney cap back on when I know the bird is out and about, I may trap the babies without their mama. OK, I did say this was the short story so to sum up… for the past couple of months (or maybe it’s been a week? It’s hard to tell) I’ve heard the chirping of birds at all hours of the day. Part of me is like, “awwwwww how cute.” The other part of me is like, “@#&$*#@% birds!” 

-Out of the Wilderness