some might call this a biography

i love this house, i really really love this house.  this is the house i grew up in, the house i came home to every night throughout high school, the house i experienced incredible joy, some pain, and a lot of good times in. im sitting in my old room here in the great marietta, ga.  4048 river ridge chase to be exact.  i’ve been in marietta since i was born and it’s weird; i still love it. i hear so many people talk about how they never wanna go back to the place where they grew up but for me it’s hard to leave a place that holds so many of my memories.  so many good conversations, so many works bombs (if you don’t know, ill explain later), so many guy nights, so many holidays, football games, so many late night waffle house runs!!  if you can’t tell i really enjoyed growing up here.  it’s not just because of the great memories i had growing up that made life so fun, i owe a lot of it to my amazing family.  gosh life would be so dull and i don’t know who i would be if it weren’t for the love of my family.  i grew up in a family of 6 with only 1 bathroom to share between 4 kids, it was great.  starting with oldest there’s krisitian (brother married to kerri), taylor (brother married to sally), tindell (sister), and then me; the baby.  i don’t know how it is for most people but i loved being the baby! Why? because i learned from all of my sibling’s mistakes, it was great! i pretty much had a manuel for life that could either have been titled, “what not to do” or “how to get spanked.” i watched my brothers and sister disobey and get punished over and over again and each time i would make a mental note, “ok remember, do not cover the cat in peanut butter.” (true story compliments of Tindell)  everyone in my family is really close and i love that, as i grew up i learned how to love people not only by my parents teaching me but by seeing how they loved me and my siblings and how my brothers and sisters  treated me. some people say they grew up in a “christian” home, i like to say that i grew up in a home full of love. anyway, i played soccer and a couple other sports up until 7th grade when i picked up a guitar and that’s when everything else in my life came to a screeching halt. i immediately started taking lessons with a couple of my friends and it was all downhill from there.  everything from sports to skateboarding just became irrelevant, music took over my life and i let it in with open arms.  i kept learning and growing with my friends and the top 3 things in my life quickly became God, music, and friends/family. that’s when i started to come alive.  

           it wasn’t until my freshman year that my friends and i played music in front of people for the first time and i have 2 words for you… train-wreck.  ill never forget how nervous i was standing on the stage in front of my youth group on “amateur night” singing, “i don’t wanna be” by gavin degraw.  looking back at it makes me laugh but that night confirmed so many things, the main thing being; i was made to play music.  but it wasn’t long until i knew i wasn’t just called to play music, i was made to lead others in worship.  starting our junior year of high school my buddies and i were leading every wednesday night for that same youth group at johnson ferry baptist church and we did that until the end of high school. i am so grateful for all those wednesday nights because it was there that i learned a lot of what it means to do what i do.  it was an environment that allowed us to try new things, watch some fail, and see some of it work.  i just grew a lot in leading over those 3 years.  

            now when i say us, i mean the guys that i do life with for the most part.  these guys are my best friends, my brothers, and we’re not just a band.  we’re a group of guys that love each other and really love God and we love playing music and worshiping together.  it started with anders (drums), van (electric guitar), allen (bass), and me on wednesday nights but by the end of our senior year allen realized that he didn’t really want to pursue music so a big teddy bear of a fellow came into our life’s named michael or more lovingly known as bassist and soon after him God put bobby (electric guitar) in our lives, he was such an answer to prayer!! so now this “band” is made up of: anders, van, bassist, bobby, and me.  we travel a bit, worship, play music, and laugh a lot and we are loving life.  God has been so gracious and given us some really cool opportunities that we felt very unworthy to have been a part of.  we know that God has put us all together for a purpose and right now we’re pursuing Him with all we got and we know that wherever that takes us, it’s gonna be awesome.  

          other things about me… i am currently living in snellville, ga and i’m a part of aaron keyes “worship school” aka: i’m living in aaron keyes’ basement with 3 other guys and we’re being discipled  by him.  i’ve been there for 5 months and i have one more left and i can’t believe it’s gone by so fast.  it’s been an incredible experience and i’ve learned so so much from him and God and just everyone we’ve gotten to be around through this whole thing.  um… i’m in love with the most amazing girl in the world, heather ford.  you may be wondering, “how does he know she is the most amazing girl in the world? i mean there are a lot of girls on this earth.” well she actually won a contest called “most amazing girl in the world.”  it’s a small competition held in south korea every 7 years and she won last year. so there. 

       so… that’s about all i got. that’s me for now.  each new day i am being taught something new, humbled, filled with joy, and stripped of my self righteousness all at the same time and i’m really experiencing what “his mercy’s are new every morning” means.  each day is a new day, a new sunrise, a clean canvas waiting to be filled with color and i’m just learning how to paint. (whoa check out that artsy metaphor outro, ha. i’m not as cool as i think i am) blessings…

-b