When Your Hometown Doesn't Feel Like Home Anymore

It's funny how your hometown can cease to feel like your hometown after you've been gone from it for a few years. The question, "Where are you from?" becomes a confusing answer because you may be from such and such town, but that town doesn't feel like where you're from anymore. Your hometown just turns into the town you were born in, the town you were raised in or the town where your parents still live.  

The people have changed and aged, your old friends you grew up with and made memories with have moved away and the restraunts have changed, with your old favorites going out of business and new popular chain restraunts taking their place. The street names can seem to be the only similarity. 

Something funny happens when your hometown doesn't feel like home anymore. It turns from being a town you make memories in into a town that's just full of memories made. Driving down the streets turns into a tour of nostalgia accompanied by a sense of not quite belonging anymore. It's strange. 

Your hometown can become a place of the past and an easy place to look back at where mistakes were made and what could have been done differently; however, when your hometown does become this and becomes a place that doesn't feel like home anymore, it can become a place full of measurement of personal growth. It can become a place of looking at who you once were and who you are now. 

Measuring personal growth is important, as it can reveal both positive and negative changes. Going back to where you were born and raised is a great place to do this because it's a place stacked with who you were. It's a place full of old stomping grounds, and around every corner is a memory and thought of who you used to be and how you used to think. It reveals how you've grown and how you once grew and need to grow again, and there's nothing like a reminder from where you came from. 

Although your hometown may change, so will you. Although your hometown may not feel like home anymore, it always will be, and there's always something to learn from home. When you go home, don't just notice the changes in it, notice the changes in you. 

-Cliff

Cliff's Note: When you go home, don't just notice the changes within it, but notice the changes within you.  

5 Things 12-Year-Old Jesus Taught Us

photo via: lampbiblepictures.com

When I was 12 years old, I was your typical sixth grade boy. I played sports, chatted on MSN Messenger and learned what it mean to flirt with girls for the first time. I asked questions a 12-year-old would ask, I said things a 12-year-old would say and I had the wisdom an average 12-year-old would have. There wasn't anything spectacular or peculiar about me; I just did my own thing, while my biggest worries in life were what time practice was, what day the trash needed to be taken out and how to not let my friends see my parents pick me up from the movies.

Life at 12 was easy, for me, but then, there's Jesus. 

Twelve-year-old Jesus is just as interesting as 30-year-old Jesus, in my book. It's the last time we hear of him for something like 18 years. One minute He's ditched His parents in Jerusalem to stay at the Temple for three days straight, and the next minute He's being baptized by John the Baptist, while the Heavens are opened up, and the Holy Spirit is falling on Him like a dove, while God's own voice booms down from Heaven to bless Him. Pretty crazy transition, huh?

Twelve-year-old Jesus was not 30-year-old, turning water into wine Jesus, but at the same time, He was, and we can still learn so much from even His 12-year-old self. Here are a few things He knew at 12 that I'm still learning at 24: 

1) Hang out with people older than you
After Jesus' parents had been looking for him for more than three days after He ditched them at the Passover Feast, where did they find him? Hanging out with old people (teachers to be specific). Jesus hung out with people older than Him, not just kids His own age. If we only hang out with people our age or younger, how will we ever receive the wisdom that only grey hair can bring? If you hang out with 12-year-olds, you'll be as wise as a 12-year-old; If you hang out with 60-year-olds, you may steal some of that 60-year-old wisdom.

2) Ask good questions
Jesus didn't just hang out with people older than Him; He asked them questions. He picked their brains, and it says, "all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers." He was brilliant, mostly because He was God, but also because He asked them good questions. You never know until you ask.

3) Respect your parents
How hard would it be to respect your parents when you're God? Extremely hard. After all, can you imagine knowing literally everything and still having to submit to your parents, even though you may positively know their wrong? I can't. Jesus did it anyway. When His parents said it was time to come home after a three-day stent in Jerusalem, He came home.

4) Go out on your own
At 12-years-old, Jesus was already traveling the country on His own. He pretty much kicked it back in Jerusalem by Himself, while His parents headed home (little did they know). He didn't even need a babysitter. I don't know about you, but I was still scared to stay home alone for an hour when I was 12, much less stay in a different city by myself where I don't know anyone. I'm not encouraging 12-year-olds to run away from home; I'm just saying that at some point, you need to. It's important to travel on your own, meet new people and trust that God will take care of you, even when your parents aren't there.   

5) Grow in wisdom, stature, and favor with God and man
Jesus, at 12, was already concentrating on things I didn't even know existed at 12 (I'm still not sure what the word 'stature' means). He knew what was most important in life, and He pursued those things from an extremely young age. Jesus knew that growing in wisdom, stature and favor with God and man were essential to becoming a Man of God. 

At 12, I was definitely nothing but a 12-year-old; however now that I'm a reborn 24-year-old, 12 years later, I just hope I can be someone like 12-year-old Jesus was. I hope my life and the lives of those in my generation can hold as big of a transition as Jesus' life did from 12 to 30.

-Cliff

Cliff's Note: Be like (12-year-old) Jesus. 

5 Unexpected Challenges of Adulthood

Entering adulthood has its challenges. It has its obvious ones, like having to pay for everything yourself and having to shave every other day, but it also has some unexpected ones you might not think about until it's too late.  

Here are some of those challenges: 

1) You don't get week(s) of vacation 

Remember when you were a student, and you got two weeks off for Christmas, three months off for summer and a week off for spring break? Well, you can kiss those days goodbye (unless you're a teacher). Adulthood welcomes (maybe) two weeks of paid vacation and a few public holidays a year to match up against those precious days of childhood vacation. 

2) Half of your friends still get week(s) of vacation

It's inevitable; After you graduate college, you'll no doubt have friends who are still in college, or who have become teachers, and guess what? They still get all those wonderful, student holidays. "Oh, you have to go back to work tomorrow? That's stinks. I don't go back until Jan. 2." Get used to that line. It's a back breaker.  

3) Saying 'See ya!' to casual 

Wasn't it nice rolling out of bed in the morning, throwing on a pair of sweat pants and a hoodie and trotting to class just in time for the professor to start the lecture? You could wear whatever you wanted, and it didn't matter to anyone. No rules. No judgement. Sadly, those days eventually disappear. If you're a guy, get ready to say hello to khakis and collars, and if you're a girl, well, I'm not sure what you'll say hi too, but you'll probably say bye to the 'messy bun.'

4) Mom and dad? 

Remember those wonderful people you've lived most of your life with and who you said a tearful goodbye to when they dropped you off for college? You know, your mother and father? Well, it turns out now you're almost on their level, and it's just kind of weird. For the longest time, they've been the "old" adults, and now it's your turn. You're the adult, as well. I still get chills thinking about it... 

5) Cooking your own dinner 

After a long, hard day at the office, what's the best thing to come home to? A nice home-cooked meal. But wait. Who's going to cook it? Oh yeah, you are. No more of mamma having the food on the table when you come home from a long day- it's up to you to find the energy to stay on your feet another few hours to cook, eat and clean up the dishes. THEN you can relax (after you go to the gym, answer emails, etc. etc.). 

The truth is, growing up has its pains. It has its expectations and its surprises, but despite these few, little things, it's pretty nice. The freedom, income and experiences are all worth it, and so is growing into the person God has made you to be. It's just important to remember this, that growing up is more than mortgages; it's memories. 

-Cliff

-Cliff's Note: "There's always life after death, and taxes."