anti-zeal

today's weird. I didn't get a lot of sleep last night, it's dark and rainy, oh and cold. I don't know, it just seemed gloomier than usual.


so I went to bed, ate and slept. couldn't help myself, I've just been really tired the past days. I really wanted to talk to Nichole today too because she had an in-car and I wanted to know how it went. that was a definite mistake. I feel bad about it. I'll make it up to her, somehow.



wow. today was a boring day.



still, God's amazing. He kept me strong through temptation today. which was pretty sweet.
I didn't have the best day, my head hurt all day, I was tired and nothing particularly good happened to me today. seriously, I could be like "my life sucks right now" and wallow in a hole of self pity and complaint.

I tell you what, my God is too awesome for that!
lets praise Him through everything. even when we walk through days without zeal and motivation, praise him. thats what we were created to do. worship.





"Lord, it seems sometimes that I go through my days ignoring your work and I replace it with my own. It piles on top of me and I can't get out from under it. I live my life the way you want me to but deep in my soul, I know it's not enough. It has made me lazy and unmotivated.

Lord, I need rest, but I need your will more. so for this, I pray, give me rest through your will.

Amen."

I gotta stop taking these long breaks

sorry again folks, I keep on either forgetting or getting too busy. two weeks ago was spring break and last week I was preparing for prom (neither which is an excuse)



ok so this past weekend may very well been the best weekend of my life. which is a huge understatement.


friday night
hung out with Josh Jamison, deep conversation about music, theology, philosophy and life in general. He's so awesome. love him. he stays over that night and we party like animals.

way to kick off the weekend, right?
it gets better

saturday morning,
me and mom wake up way early to drive to Akron to do what? pick up the most amazing girl in the whole wide world to go back to Columbus and join me in a magical prom night.
and what a magical night it was.

well it first started with the pictures. my date looked so beautiful, we matched with this chartreuse-green color. Jason said my tie was really cool, it was a really shiny and green tie. it definitely stood out.

one of the best moments of the night was when I put her corsage on her and she pinned my boutonniere on to my tux. it was pretty sweet.

we are then went on to prom.
at prom we danced our nerdy hearts out. we both swear we were only ones not bumping or grinding on the dance floor (which basically sums up my school for you.) I promised her beforehand that we would be the nerdiest kids out on the dance floor, and I was right. we didn't care though, we danced the night away. I taught her how to skank, which made me very proud of her haha.

after prom was awesome, we all were tired so we just sat around our family room and watched some movies. it was quite peaceful, i just held her in my arms and relaxed.

had to take her home after that and I was a little saddened the night had to be over.


sunday morning,
she went to church with my family! this is what made me happy. what a better place to be with your spiritual partner and relationship partner than the house of God?!

she got to meet my church family and worshiped with me. couldn't ask for more.

after lunch we drove her back to Akron and returned her to her family. it all went by so wonderfully fast.

it's almost like torture because I miss her more than I ever have now.







...Nichole if you're reading this I just want to tell you, you literally are a blessing. you're one of the best things to happen to me and I'm so thankful God has brought you into my life thus far. I've gotten so much strength from just thinking about you and I will continue to think about you constantly and pray God takes us places and shows us wonders we both have never seen before.

<3

back in action!

well first and foremost I want to apologize to those of you who reads this, in February I was casted in a musical at my high school. Guys and Dolls. We were rehearsing every day so I was exhaustively busy with that and because of that I had to take a break from a few things like practicing with my band, excessive myspacing and facebooking and blogging.


sorry <3




let me catch you up on a few things

Guys and Dolls,

this was one of the greatest experiences of my life thus far. I've never been in a musical before. it was so fun! I was casted as a drunk (of all things) and getting to ACT drunk every day was pretty fun actually. I also played a crap-shooting gangster. I also got to dance in a few numbers and sing, too. Doing this I found so many abilities that I never knew I ever had! like singing and dancing!

preparing for it was A LOT of hard work, especially the dancing numbers. We literally put our blood sweat and tears into some of the dances and in the end, it totally payed off.


this weekend was the performance and we knocked it out of the park all four nights we put it on. I'm so proud of everyone and I wish you could of bee nthere to see it.




my youth group,

so my youth group has been going through a really rough time as of late. our youth leader, Terri, was dismissed last month for certain reasons I won't go into detail about. the kids in my youth group have mixed feelings about it as do I. we got a new leader and a few other adults to help out, and so far its pretty good but we're still in trouble. We haven't really grown since our last actual youth pastor left and we keep on getting smaller and smaller. Ireally think we're in trouble.

it's like I want to be a leader but I don't think I could be what they need me to be.




I'll end this on a really really good note,


well today I got my acceptance letter from Ohio Christian University
PRAISE GOD!

man it felt so good, I'm going to college!
really though, I'm not the best student and I haven't gotten the best grades in high school and for the past few years I have been really really scared that I might not get accepted into a school.

but this guy's OCU-bound XD






God has a funny but really awesome way of putting these things into our lives right when we need them, I'm tellin ya, that musical drained everything out of me and when I got that letter it was like God changed my batteries. hahahaha


I hope everyting is well with you.



I love you
but God loves you way more



-Chic

big news!!!

so I'm in this band called Burning Down the Fire Escape, we're really unknown and we haven't been together very long but it's cool. We all love God with everything we have and we seek to serve him and that's all we could do.


anyways the news is we're playing our first show of all time this friday!!!! I'm so excited.



my bandmates are so amazing. God has blessed me with the coolest group of doods to ever be in a band with. they all love God so much and we all want to follow Him to the ends of the earth. they're such loving people to. we always have fun at practice and we're just generally get along really well. the chemistry we have is unbelievable. when we write music, it just clicks.


our bassist/synth Mike is a realy humble guy. whenever he talks about his ideas he always says, what do I know, I'm just a bassist. then me and John always yell at him and say "you're not just a bassist!"

we have fun together. we joke around together. we talk about our problems together. we help each other. we life each other up. we pray together. we love each other.



let me tell you about these guys


there's

me, Chic. I play drums and I do screaming vocals and some singing.

then

Mike, bass, programing and secondary synth/keys
this guy is so talented, he's such a good song writer and musician. he plays his 5 string bass like a guitar. we have a few songs where he's sweet bass solos that sound like guitar solos. he's pretty handy with a synthesizer too! those aren't even the best things about him. He's got such a heart to serve God. he's got the right mentality. I remember one day shortly after we had our huge break up with some of our old members, we were writing new music and we were discussing where we'd find another guitarist and he said, "all I want to do is play in a band for Jesus". He's so awesome and humble, I love him.


lastly


Jawn (John), synth/keys, secondary bass, screaming vocals and singing vocals
I've known this kid for a while, he's one of the coolest, most exuberant, funniest doods I know. And he's got such a heart for God. He's not the best musician but he's got so much passion and He wants to spread the love of Christ as much as anyone I know. He helps me with writing lyrics. He's so creative.




unfortunately we are guitaristless right now but! we're praying and putting our faith in God that He will briing us one in His perfect timing.


hey I have an idea! you should go listen to us on myspace!



man, I love my band so much. you don't even understand!

hahaha
God blessyou guys


-Chic <3

the man, the legend

ok lets make this quick, I have had the most stressful two days of all time and all I want to do now is crash.
so, if I'm not writing to the fullest of my capacity, my bad.


so in CP we started a new section of our project. it's called personal hero profile, what we're supposed to do is obviously make a profile of our personal hero.

so what I'm gonna do is tell you about my hero.


my hero, mentor and spiritual leader is the one and only, legendary Don Myers.


the past three years at Camp Marengo, Don Myers has counseled the same three guys. Ben, my brother and I. As us three go to camp this summer He'll haved been our counselor from our freshman year to graduation.

That man is the most amazing man on earth. He is my second father, I've learned so much about being a Christ-follower from him.


here's the best part.
at camp, Don is literally a living legend. He is known as the greatest man on the face of the earth. Don Myers > everyone else
he always wears these rediciulously short shorts that no man would be caught dead in, but the thing is no one can make fun of him because he was a wrestling star when he was younger so he's really strong. actually for his age, he's one of the most physically fit guys you'd know.

He deals out these things called boom-slaps as punishment. no one knows what it is but everyone knows its not good. so you better wish you don't get boom slapped.


hahaha man, I love him so much. He's helped me through a lot of the stuff I've been through and I cannot say enough about him.

its goona suck after I graduate and he can't counsel me at camp anymore.


Don Myers is my hero.




have a good day
God bless you guys

-Chic <3

I hear the rolling thunder

I love when Ohio gets tropical-like weather in the middle of February. seriously, this just proves the scientific phenomena that is Ohio weather. its one of the reasons why I love this state so much.


today was seriously one of the most busiest days I have had in a while.

school 7:20am
CP 12:50
Orchestra Dress rehearsal 3:15
Guys and Dolls rehearsal 5:00
quick 15 minutes at home to scarf down some dinner
Youth Group 7:00
Worship practice 8:30
9:30 home.

ughhhhhh
not a even second to relax in that 14 hour time period.


so for Guys and Dolls all the guys had to go learn the crapshooter's dance, well at least start learning. this was a very very interesting experience for me. why? I have never attempted to seriously dance for anything in my entire life. so learning all the moves for Guys and Dolls, so far, has been really awkward for me. I was moving like an uncoordinated drunk gorilla out there.
hahaha it was quite fun though, everyone told me I was doing a good job so that made me happy.


during the dance there's this part in the dance where we go off and fight someone else and we got to come up with our own choreography for it and it was really fun. my friend Mitchell, who's like the only black guy in our Performing Arts program (no lie) and also scored the lead in the musical, and I fight in that part. So what we came up with was he'd pull me towards him and then just drill me with a clothesline. it was so fun!



it's a little early for this but I'm really excited for spring and summer.
the rain and the warm weather always brings a feeling of nostalgia and happiness.

just the smell of the intoxicating aroma after an Ohio rain just takes me to an amazing place, where I revel in the memories of my past and wonder at the thought of the one's who bring me joy (aka Nichole Marino. see! I can put you in a blog entry too!).

I love it!
hahaha





well, that was my day. exciting stuff, right?
hahhhh



so the storm all of Ohio just endured totally reminded me of a poem I wrote not too long ago.

here's a part of it
"I wanted to be ready for so long
To whether a storm worth talking about
I wanted respect that I never deserved
I was longing for a persona that I could never fulfill
The fibers of my soul could never handle what you'll prepare for me"


what the poem is about is how I've always struggled with my faith yet, I've been so ready to let God work through me I'd do or think really stupid things to claim that He has worked though me.

this poem was inspired by when Peter walked out on the water to get to Jesus and what I'd be feeling if I had put myself in that situation. like Paul, I wanted to do great things for Jesus Christ so bad, but I was not yet ready. Sometimes it takes a storm to help us see that. I remember before I went through what I did in 10th grade I was definitely very outspoken about my faith in God, but then a whole mess of things hit me at once and I fell under the pressure of it. God took me out of it and through that whole experience He showed me what kind of man He wanted to shape me into.

I wanted to endure a storm that I was completely unprepared to endure, but I tried anyways and I failed. ultimately, God's unending knowledge came out victorious and His greater plan was revealed. He saved me just like He saved Peter from being engulfed by the storm when he tried to walk through it to get to his Lord.

God bless you guys

-Chic <3>

shorts! in the middle of Febuary?! how absurd!

today was awesome for one reason and one reason alone. that reason was that it was warm enough outside for me to where shorts! whenever I get an opportunity to where shorts and a t-shirt I will pounce on it like a wild cat in the plains of Africa. no lie. hahaha


Tuesdays always rock because every Tuesday night there're two new Scrubs episodes. never ever underestimate how much joy Scrubs gives an Estose brother. never. other than Scrubs I had a really boring day, nothing happened. I slept after I got home from Guys and Dolls rehearsal. today wasn't much of a day for me I guess.


I just got off the phone with Wil Begley about half an hour ago, we had a phone date tonight just like every Tuesday. I love that guy, I don't get to talk to him very much because He's in college now which is why we talk on the phone every Tuesday now. I guess it was the non-Scrubs highlight of my day heh



today was soooo boring, if you're reading this I apologize if you fell asleep.



days like these remind me of how easy it is to lose focus . Days like today are boring and weary, and like all things, relationships get boring and weary as well. This goes for our relationship with Jesus Christ as well.

for those who's relationships are brand new, the "new relationship" phase can come and go really quickly and the next thing you know you fall back into sin and you fall away from your relationship.

with those who've been walking with God for a long time, sometimes things get boring and we have hard times finding ways to spice up our spiritual lives and this is equally as dangerous.


"Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil."
Ephesians 5:15-16



As Christians, I think we need to be really, really cautious of the condition our mind is in. Because if our thoughts are not where they need to be we can potentially destroy the work God can do through us for that time. This is what I think Paul means by "the days are evil". The type of days we have and if they're good or bad acan have such an effect on how we act towards others and how obedient we are to God's will. The second we lose sight of what is really important and start focusing on worldly things, God can't work through us.


This is why I think it's dire that we have strong, supportive christian friends, and that we Bible studies and devotionals that force us to get involved. These things help us stay focused and fill us with motivation to keep on working to become people God can mold servants into.


this is my message today, when you find an opportunity, take it and run with it, just like me with getting to where shorts. You never know where your heart will be when the next one comes along.


God bless you guys

-Chic <3