cgromis

[cgromis]

Everyone is an “Expert” In the wake of tragedy

The Divisive Nature of People

One of the worst national disasters struck the US on Aug. 25th. Harvey came at Texas with a furry that left so many lives either in shambles, in sickness, in complete ruin, or even death. The rain came and did not stop, it did not stop until it broke the continental US’ all time record of almost 52” inches of rain. Through this many people are looking for someone to blame, someone to be mad at, and even someone to attack. I feel this is the case many times, we can’t be mad at the storm, or even blame the storm, because well, the storm does not have feelings. It does not have a sense of purpose. It does what storms do; it gets bigger and goes where the world allows it to go. So who are we to go blame for the destruction that is left in the wake of the storm? Many will go after people that did not do all they could, or perhaps did not handle things as well as they could have.  Others will go after people who could have given more empathy to the victims that this awful storm hit. It is easy to sit back on our dry, comfortable couches and throw blame at who we think is not living up to the standards that we have set. But really, what do we know? We do not have all the facts. Think about this for a second: the storm hit land and there was a story then, but now the storm has dissipated and the story as passed, so now the news outlets and internet bloggers need to keep this story alive, so they go after the people that they hate. Trump is the favorite punching bag for many on the left, and do not get me wrong, I really do not like the guy, but so many people that do not know what is really going on have passed judgement on him. They say that he did not meet with the right people who were effected by the hurricane, or that someone else gave more then he did to the victims, or that Trump did not hug people or kiss their cheeks, and so on. Joel Osteen has been criticized, by both the left and the right, and I want to make this clear, I am not defending him, but Osteen has faced criticism about if the Church that he pastors was opened or not, or when did he start taking in people that were displaced by the storm. I do not know the whole story about what happened and maybe the whole truth will come out in the future.  What I do know is that he has opened the Church during times of needs in the past and that there are so many conflicting stories about this that it is nothing but gossip to continue to spread what happened without really knowing the truth. There are many more people that are taking heat, including the Mayor of Houston, and the way that he handled the crisis, but do they really deserve it? Some of them may, but even so, is this the time to go after them? Not at all.  There will be plenty of time to see and judge the worst in humanity during this crisis, We should not be judging and attacking people.  Especially when most of the people that are going after these people are sitting in their comfortable homes reading and watching the news that comes from the outlets that cater to their political opinions. Let me be blunt for a moment, we cannot yell from the roof tops that these people are so wrong, and did not do enough while we sit here and do nothing. I see things a bit differently, I see this as an opportunity to sing the praises of the heroes who are making a change for the better during this time; people who did not have to do anything, but stepped up and heeded the call that they felt deep inside of them. These men and women are the ones who deserve the lime light. These are the ones who grabbed canoes and paddled through their neighborhood looking for people to save. Men and women who came from other states with their boats on the backs of their trucks to help rescue people that could not escape the waters. They are furniture store owners who didn’t care about their overhead and opened their stores for those that needed a place to stay. Some of my favorite stories are the ones in which men and women took it upon themselves to go to places in their community and ask for donations of food, water and clothing, then loading up their trucks with boats on their hitches, and then driving throughout the night to lend whatever hand they could give. You see, the thing that upsets me the most during times like this is when people are so bent on their political agenda that they themselves become a source of division. In a time like this, our country, and especially Texas, needs to show unity. So people, what ever side you fall on in the political realm, just wait just a little bit before we start to go after people. I know that there will be a lot to learn from tragedy, and I know that many people dropped the ball when people needed them the most, but for now let’s cheer on the heroes that have stepped up and stepped out to make a difference in our world.

[cgromis]

Throughout my fitness journey, I have come to see what life changes have taken place

[cgromis]

Through the most difficult time in my life, God showed me how blessed I truly am

[cgromis]

In Remembrance of my Dad

So I have been putting this off for a couple of reasons, 1, I don’t want to face the fact that my dad is not coming back, 2. I don’t know how I can my Dad’s life into a couple of minutes of talking. James Gromis has lead a life that is an example to what God can do when you give your life over to Christ.

           James Adam Gromis was born on April 4th, 1940, he really thought he had the coolest birthday, he said 4-4-40 when ever people would ask him and then just smile when he got the same response ever single time, “Well that’s easy to remember.” James died on March 3rd, 2017, I guess he wanted to keep things simple and go with 3/3. After he died and I had to start going through some of his stuff, I came to his Bible and opened it up and found another date, perhaps the most important date in his life and that was the day he accepted Jesus into his heart and that date was August 9th, 1970. It is because of this day we know where he is today, he is up with Jesus and enjoying something that we still have not a clue to how amazing it will truly be.

My first memory of my dad is him holding my hand as we walked down the driveway to get the mail, I must have been 2 or 3, but I can remember that so well. Another memory that really stands out as I am writing this is when my dad was working nights I didn’t get to see him to very much, but he made it a point as he was getting ready to go to sleep to have me lay down next to him so that he could read a Bible passage to me out of the Adventure Bible. In fact, the day he passed I searched for that Bible so that I could pass on that tradition to my kids.

I can’t go into too much of his life before I came into the picture, well because, I wasn’t there, but what I can say is that he loved his family very much. My dad did not know his father who died in 1945, only a couple of month from the end of World War too, he died trying to escape a Nazi prison camp. So my grandma did the best she could raising a kid without a father. She worked and worked to provide for my dad, he also saw my uncle work and work, so that is what he did. He sacrificed his time with the family so that he could provide, this is how he showed his love to his family, this was the only way that he knew at the time how to show love. but he missed so much and I know that it took a toll on him.

My dad never was really taught on how to deal with children and he was a very tuff man for my early years of life. I knew a very different man then I knew later on. I don’t want to go deep into how he was because that is not who he was. In 2002 he suffered a heart attack and almost died, he should have died, buy God had a different plan for him, he changed so much since that day that you would not even know who the old person was, God got through to him. He stopped working for man, and starting working for God. He was forced to retire. Him and my mom moved to AZ. Where they always wanted to and they found a church to serve in, and it taught him so much. Many times a week they would drive 45 minutes one way just to clean a toilet, of give someone in the Church a ride, the tough old person was so far removed that he showed love by being there. I saw this man that changed before my eyes and saw the fact that God was working in his life so much, and I saw my dad’s willingness to accept the will of God, it really changed him to the core. I am really proud of my dad, I am proud that he was my dad and I know on March 3rd God told him “well done, good and faithful servant.

God gave my dad a second chance to be there for some of his grand kids, in 2012 he was told he had stage 4 cancer, and they would not be able to cure him. Prior to him finding out that he had cancer, he had been trying to talk my mom into moving closer to family, God answered that prayer and he and my mom moved back to California and moved into our house. My wife and I where just starting our family and had 2 little girls at the time and then a boy not to long later. I didn’t know it at the time but this was my dad’s second chance to be around his family while they were going up since he missed it with the rest of his kids. He proudly changed the stinkiest dipers, and would sneak the kids treats late at night. He always wanted to be around them and play with them. My dads new favorite shows were Bubble Guppies, Peppa Pig, Teen Titans, and many other shows that no grown person would ever watch, but he did so joyfully, so much that I would catch him watching the shows when the kids weren’t even around. In fact he always wanted to be around, in Oct. when he fell and was in the hospital for 2 weeks all he wanted was to go home, so he could be with his family, and in his final hours he did not want to go to the hospital because he wanted to be at home with his family. The week before he died, I think he was the happiest I have seen him, 5 of his 6 kids where here and he got to see them and be around them one last time. He knew that my other sister was to sick to come and knew that she wanted to be there. He got to have a big family dinner and be happy, he truly missed them all of them and this was the best present he could have gotten. I truly believe that this was the moment he knew he could let go, that and when I told him that I wouldn’t dump my mom into a nursing home I saw on 60 minutes.

I wanted to share a moment that my dad and I had back in December, he just found out that they were most likely going to discontinue the chemo treatments, and he knew that it met about 3 to 6 months of life when that happened, he got bitter for a short time, I mean really who wouldn’t. But it did not last long, he told me one day that he had enough of the bitterness and he wanted to spend his last days on this earth serving God, and he did, God changed him again for the better and his bitterness went away. I look at the 2 big life changing moments in his life as not only God preparing for the life he is now enjoying but to give us an example that God is never through working on making you more like Jesus.

Many people prayed that God would spare him suffering and God did, He died with a peace look on his face like he was going home to see his heavenly father, the God he love so very much. All because of the choice he made in 1970 to give his life to God, we know have the knowledge that we will see him again, not because he is there but because he passed down the ledge of God sending his son to die for us on the cross, he lead his family to Christ, and now we have hope in Him. I miss my dad so much and I am so thankful that I got to spend the last 5 years with him. I thankful that my kids got to know my dad, and I know that he is going to be truly missed.

[cgromis]

UTVs and God

Today, a good friend of mine decided that I needed to be introduced to the exciting world of UTVs. For you who do not know what this is, it stands for Utility Terrain Vehicle (I had to Google it). It is like a quad where the riders sit side by side, but this UTV is so fast it is scary (at least for this wuss). I must say that it was so much fun riding it and after the first couple of minutes of terrifying drifting next to cliffs, I had an awesome time. This brings out some thoughts that have been swirling around in my head about our Christian walk. When we becomes Christians, it is new and exciting, it’s even a bit scary for some, but after a while it becomes normal and it no longer has that excitement. For a lot of Christians, it starts to take a back seat to “everyday life”. This might be known, but I can say it is not followed very often, our Christian walk does not have to take a back seat, in fact the feeling that was felt when we became Christians, or that feeling that we have after a missions trip, conference, summer camp, and so on, can be kept and we can keep that relationship with Christ fresh and healthy. The choice is ours: do we let our relationship with Christ fade away? Or do we make it the focus of our lives and be devoted to Him with everything that we have.

So with all that being said, I wanted to give a bit of clarity to what I am saying. In Philippians 3:7-8 Paul writes, “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.” If “everything” is a loss next to knowing Christ, why is it that so many things in our lives are put above Him? This answer is “Everyday Life”. I feel today as Christians, we too often count everything else in our lives that we see of value to us as the “Gain.” Netflix, Facebook, Instagram, politics, cars, and the list goes on and on. I know that this list is not the same for everyone, but the fact is that all of this stuff most days takes the place of Christ. Lets think about it for a second, how often do Christians say, “I need to Pray more?” or “I need to study the Bible more?” We all do, but how many times do people put down the remote and stop watching Netflix (or insert whatever else here)? We don’t, and it’s sad because the creator of everything wants you to have a better relationship with Him. Maybe the first step in regaining this freshness of our relationship with Christ.

In this post, I would like to share one more verse, and an idea on how to build our relationship with Christ, so that we can have the kind of relationship that is exciting, and a relationship that will continually grow everyday if we follow what Matthew says, in Matthew 16:24, “Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” I’m not putting this verse in here saying that you have to go through your life, and take out every single thing that can be a distraction, lets face it, we would all then be living in a dark box, and our minds will still find a way to distract us. The thing is, to serve Christ there will be things that we must sacrifice, like time. I think this is one of the hardest areas for people to sacrifice, especially in the culture that we live in. Everything is rushed, even in our relaxing times many people feel rushed, and the free time we do get, we don’t want to do anything. But, what if we found places to cut out some time to spend with God, or perhaps we should look at it a different way, what if we plan our day around the time we spend with God. Sacrificing maybe an episode out of the full season that we binge watch of Netflix, but better yet what if we binge watch after that time with God, or not at all. The point is that our relationship with God is the most important thing in our lives, and we treat it many times as more of an obligation than we do as that best gift we will ever receive. To have a relationship with Christ as the forefront of our lives, we will never be board in what Christ has for us, and our relationship with Christ will be an exciting one.

My Friend that took me out in his UTV, I think he got joy in finding new ways to scare me, and make this trip exciting. Every time I started to feel more comfortable with what he was doing, he would slam the brakes on and turn down more and more terrifying trails and it was awesome. It’s time for our relationships with Christ to be the same. Let’s everyday find new ways to renew and refresh our relationships with Christ. Let’s treat the Gift that God has given us with more and more fondness, and treat it like the cherished gift that it is, instead of something that seems more like a chore.

[cgromis]

Timeless Lessons

The lessons we learn in everyday life are so very valuable. There is a lot to learn and many times we do not even realize that we are learning a lesson at all. When I was younger I used to go out into the river with a good friend of mine in Indiana. We would have fun paddling up and down the river and making forts on the little river island, and yes we even did stupid things, like shooting out a dock light at one of his neighbor’s houses (Andy, if your parents read this, sorry). In this time in my life I learned a lot and did not even know the things that I would learn would stick with me for the rest of my life. Things like do not drink river water, do not go near dangerous snakes, if you shoot out a dock light, make sure you do it from cover, and that there is nothing you can’t do when you use your imagination. We were able to build forts, with docks, and walls, even made up a grappling system to be able to pull the canoe out of the water so we would not have to get wet, we could almost do anything. We spent these days with devotion to our activities and poured all our time into it.

Thinking back to that time, and remembering it we such fondness, I cannot help but think that if we were able to do all of that at fourteen and fifteen, and put that much devotion into a project, why is it so hard to give the same devotion to God when it comes to things we feel led to do now. Let me articulate the gravity to what I am talking about: the time that we send on this planet is nothing in comparison to the time that we will be spending off this planet. I have been subtly learning over the course of a couple of years that the only thing worth anything in this existence is to serve the God of heaven, the one that sent His son to die for us, so that we can have a relationship with Him for all of eternity. I have wasted too much time and I have done very stupid things at times. This is the only time in our existence as eternal souls that time is going to matter, so we should make the best of the time we have. In Matthew 13:44 it says, “44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” The man that Jesus is talking about here gets it, he knows that time is meaningless and that the things he has here are meaningless because of the very nature of our souls and the fact that past this lifetime there is no longer a need for the things that he has but there is a need for things that are eternal. He sells all that he has because the fact is that things of this life have no value, but things in the next have more value then anything we can imagine. To simplify it, the man sold what people believe to have value, but is in fact garbage compared to what is to come.

So what I am trying to say about things that I have subtly learned that have finally come to a dramatic realization is that the only things that we should be concerned about is whether or not I am devoted to the God of the universe, and whether the things that I am spending my money and time on are going to further His will or mine. My will sucks in comparison to the God of the universe, and He has promised to take care of me. In Matthew 6:26 it says, “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” The thing that we have to remember is that God’s idea of taking care of us might not be our idea of how God should be taking care of us. This goes back to the idea that this time is meaningless in comparison to the time that is to come. My hope is that we all can see this, I am needing this too, and see that we need to spend this time serving a God that wants to spend all of eternity with us, so that others can know the Love that God has.