Retrospective

Broken Music, originally uploaded by shaycam.

As you may have already noticed, I changed shaycam’s look a little bit. I felt that I really wanted it to be a little more “reader friendly” and as well have a little more space to showcase some of my photography. I guess you could say I’m trying to keep the “cam” in Shaycam. In doing so, I have learned a few things. Let’s consider this retrospective. If you scroll down the page a bit you will see a menu on the right that says “Archives.” If you click on that you will notice that this blog goes back all the way too 2001. The truth is, the blog actually went back farther than that, but I have since lost some of my original postings. Unfortunately, blogs weren’t blogs until later and the course of time has allowed me to lose some of my original work as a junior higher. Needless to say, it’s all here now. That’s where I started thinking…

As I was reading back through some of my thoughts as a high schooler, I realized how immature I was. I guess that’s part of being a young man, but it’s hard for me to see that in myself. As you grow older you can do two things: 1. Hide your immaturity a little better and 2. get more mature. Hopefully I am doing the latter. Yet it has been interesting for me to journey back into memories and thoughts I had as a young person. It has sort of consumed my mind this past weekend. I have a semi regular update on my life for the past 6 years and what do I do with that? I ask myself one major question: How have I grown?

The truth is. I’ve grown a ton. I was able to experience college and all the memories, friendships, and new learning that comes with that. Four years of intense training and work to hopefully be not only a smarter and better citizen, but a more more mature and knowledgeable person. I have seen growth in my relationships, in my learning, and in my Christian walk. And now I have been able to experience the joys of marriage. To know what it means to have “my other half.” There is a sense of completeness now that never was. Someone else I have to take care of, in the same way I have to take care of myself. This is not something I have finished learning, but continually learn more about every day. And on and on it goes… Needless to say it has been a joy for me to look back and a joy for me to see where the Lord has brought me in the past 6 years.

Finally, I want to end by sharing something with you that I wrote to myself just a year ago. On March 17th, 2006 I went to a website called “FutureMe.org” and told it to send me an email to myself a year from that date. So last week I received this email from myself:

Dear FutureMe,

You’re writing this to yourself because you don’t have anything else to do today. Did you start a company?, or what did you do? Do you have any plans for kids? Are you going into ministry?

Do you love God more today than you did last year?

Let me know,
Shay

The key is the last question: Do you love God more today than you did last year? If I can answer that question with a yes, then I know I’m on the right track. So here’s to a look back and many memories as I look to the future.