Seminary Student - Faith at Work

Through one of the numerous blogs I track on  google reader I picked up on a pretty amazing post by Timmy Brister about sharing his story on the graveyard shift.  It is pretty amazing.  I’ve worked in a warehouse before and I could see and hear everything he described.  Timmy is a student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, a husband, a father, and works 3rd shift for UPS.  Now, go check out the story.

The Art of Distraction

I am the KING of being distracted. However, I tend to be distracted by things that are actually important. The bad thing about that is I feel justified and guilty at the same time.

I find myself having a plan for the day and easily diverting from that plan in order to accomplish something that, yes needs to be done, but yet isn’t on the plan. For example, I’m a web developer. To pay the bills I make websites. In order to maintain a balanced life I schedule out my week to a fairly precise timing. There is a time for work, a time for study, a time for class, and a time for family. Now, if I would stick to the schedule I actually think I’d get a WHOLE lot more done. However, while studying I check email… checking email leads to check a blog leads to editing a blog leads to answering a clients question leads to fixing a glitch on their site leads to…. spending my entire study time working.

I don’t have any answers here… so this post is basically pointless… except for the fact that it is distracting me from (let me look at the schedule)… yup, reading.

Do I need to post? Yes. Was I supposed to post 5 hours ago so I could be reading now? (sigh) Yes.

Anyone have any tips on keeping to your schedule… I’m a pro at making them… it is keeping them that I find difficult. Help?

Life is hectic

My apologies for being absent the past few days. As any seminarian will tell you, life is hectic.

In preparation for our departure for seminary in January, I’ve been working full time at a start-up company in my town helping them with system/process management and optimization; preparing the company for, what I think is, its soon approaching tipping point. While it is a great job and lots of fun, it has been a lot of work. On top of that I’ve been trying to increase my client base for my web development company, as this will be the main bread winner while we are at seminary (at least according to my spreadsheet).

So, every day I get home from work and then… well, go to work. Which I guess is good preparation for seminary. There is no doubt that there will be a lot of work… I guess the upside is that there are no cubes involved. For those of you who’ve ever been trapped in a cube, may I recommend a cubicle freakout (I pretty much sing this theme song every day).

On top of all the work, there is of course the kids and wife. I think a big danger we all face is neglecting our family for the things we think can’t wait… and, lets me honest, there are those of us who hide from our families in our work and school. There are certainly days where it is just easier for me to say I need to get to work (which is true) but in reality I just can’t handle the kids, the mess, and the stress. Now, I’m sure that is just me… good ole sinful me… but anyone feel me on that one?

Well, enough rambling here. Just needed to let you know I’m alive and well. In fact, I’m celebrating my 7th wedding anniversary this weekend and I have a bit of a surprise up my sleeve for my gal (little man and sweetpea are being shipped off and we’re shipping out). So, I’ll be off the next two days, but I hope to post some good stuff on Saturday. Just writing this post has given me some great ideas. I think I’m going to write about some preparatory steps to take when deciding to go to seminary… like figuring out if you can afford it (hint… you probably can’t).

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