[aledclar-personal]

My Friends

I have wanted to write this post for the longest time but I never got around to it. This post is pretty much me bragging about how all amazing all the people in my life are. Whether they realize it or not a majority of people in my life rub off on me in ways that will leave a mark on me forever. 

I'm going to start by talking about the amazing group of guys at the BCM. I remember when I first started coming around the BCM even before I became a follower of Christ I felt so welcomed and so loved by people at the BCM. In particular a guy named Ben made a huge impact on me. I was so confused oh why Ben was so excited to see me and how he was so excited to meet me. One of the most amazing things about Ben as well as so many others at the BCM is that they invest in each others lives. I cannot tell you how much it means to me that I know I have Ben or Peyton or Lucas or Forrest or Nic or Adam or Robert or Cody or so many other guys that I know I can be truthfully open and honest with and they will never judge me for it. I have known Ben for almost two years now and every month that goes by I see him growing more and more into the Christian that I hope I can someday be. It amazes me that throughout all of his success on the golf course he still manages to glorify God through it all and he realizes that it is God working through him and that nothing he does is on his own.  

There are so many amazing people at the BCM and I wish I could express how much I love and appreciate every single one of you. It saddens me so much knowing I will be graduating next Fall but I know that all of us will still be the greatest of friends and I know all of you will continue to inspire me even when I'm hundreds of miles away in Florida. 

I often make the huge mistake of trusting others with my feelings and emotions so easily. I often beat myself up over this because I know it isn't the normal thing for a college guy to be doing. But throughout all my prayer requests and whining and questioning of things in my life my friends never leave my side. I'm so thankful and so blessed by such an amazing group of people in my life that I love oh so much. I thank all of you for putting up with me wanting to talk about things with you instead of doing the normal thing and bringing them all to God. I promise you guys I'm getting better.

Being around the BCM and the people involved the past few years has changed my life in so many amazing ways. Two years ago I was thankful to meet someone that loved me enough to talk to me about God and take me to Church and be open to answering my questions about religion. I never thought that meeting someone would change my life forever but that is exactly what happen. 

I know I go through phases in my life where I become selfish and self centered and I start to assume that I'm not loved by others because I'm different or I'm not friends with a girl because she never talks to me about anything. I realize now that this is all a complete lie and Satan has been fighting me for months about this. To all my friends that I've bothered and opened up too about my friendships I apologize. I know that I'm loved by so many people on this earth but I'm also loved by the greatest person of all Jesus Christ. 

Something I've realized the past few weeks is that I'm not appreciating my friendships nearly as much as I should be. I'm going to try my best this Fall to be more genuine in my friendships and instead of relying on communication through technology instead asking if I could meet you somewhere and talk to you face to face about this. The friendships that I have where I have face to face interactions are easily the most amazing friendships I've had. I appreciate my friends so much more when I actually sit down and we talk about our lives and things going on in them. Krysten is such an amazing example of a friend like this. I've known Krysten for a little less than two years and sure we are friends but I don't know her nearly as well as I do other girls at the BCM. The fact that I don't know her that well only makes talking to her so much more great. Krysten is such a down to earth human being and I see it in the way she interacts with others and in the conversations we've had. Not many people at the BCM will see me in the kitchen washing dishes and be able to tell that I'm not having a great day and come talk to me and ask how I'm doing. This simple thing that seems so small means the absolute world to me. Because it shows that she cares. 

I've been so ungrateful and unthankful for all the amazing people in my life and that is going to change soon. 

I love you all so much

-Alex

[aledclar-personal]

This is probably going to be a long one.

Hey everyone I know its been a while since I last posted about things going on in my life. I just lost track of time and one week turned magically into a few months. A lot has happened the past few months I've grown a lot as a person and as a Christian. I survived all of my classes this past semester even Calculus!

Every week that has gone by after Beach Reach only makes more excited for an opportunity to go again next year with such an amazing group. I don't think the people that were on my team with me really realized how amazing this was for me and how much of a learning experience it was for me. After leaving Beach Reach I felt more confident talking to others and more importantly more confident in sharing the gospel.

A few weeks after Beach Reach the opportunity came up that allowed me to share my testimony in front of a what ended up being a small group of friends that came to support and hear my story. I finished off this past semester by applying to serve on the Fellowship committee next fall for the BCM on campus. I have an amazing group of people that I know I'm going to love working with this upcoming year. 

This summer I'm taking a few classes on campus. I'm taking Geology 110 this June and Geology 120 and Spanish in July. It is hard for me to imagine that after next Fall I will only have 18 hours left until I'm walking across the stage with my degree. I recently had the talk with my Dad about what I what I wanted to do after I graduated. I have decided that I wanted move to Florida after I graduate and be closer with my family and hopefully start a new chapter of my life there! I've made so many amazing friends the past few months and I have never been more thankful for the amazing people that God has placed in my life. They have taught so much the past few months and I'm so thankful for these amazing people. 

One of the biggest lessons I've learned the past few months is that I'm making a huge mistake in trying to find a girlfriend in college and that I shouldn't be trying to forcing relationships but instead just waiting for God to place someone in my path that happens to be walking right beside me in my walk with God instead of in front of or behind me. I've realized that I only have a few semesters left at one of my favorite places on Earth and I'm hoping I can make the most of it. 

One of my new favorite things that I absolutely love doing that I have started doing again the past few weeks is writing in my prayer journal. There is nothing better for me than spending time in the word or spending time with God and nothing makes me happier than putting a star next to something on my prayer list to show that God is working in their lives and things are getting better for them. 

The past few weeks before the Summer semesters began I spent some time at home. Going home is always difficult for me because I tend to drift away from God because I'm not surrounded by the amazing Christians that I am blessed to be around at Martin. I try my best to stay in the word and to pray to God and write in my journal every night but I often slack because I have nothing or no one to keep me accountable. My last week being home my Dad found my prayer journal and voiced how disappointed he was in me. My parents are fine with my faith but they don't want me to go too far that I loose my focus on important things. My Dad hates that I go to a Baptist church because he doesn't consider me a hard right type of guy. He wants me to consider going to a Catholic church and talking to a priest. In all honesty one of the big reasons I go to First Baptist is because that is where I feel comfortable and I feel like I have a sense I belong there. The entire University Department there is just like a big family to me I love them all so much. I never would expected the little things in a church to have such an impact on me. Singing the songs in college choir and then leaving the stage only to have the main pastor tell the whole crowd my amazing my story is and how he sees God working through me really says a lot to me about why I love it so much. 

The past few months a lot of my friends have been getting engaged and I'm so happy for all of them regardless of whether I know them that well or not! I'm praying for all of you guys and all of you guys getting engaged just makes me even more excited for me to find my wife and someday get engaged. Today my good friend Eric and Kelsi got engaged adding to the list of now six couples that I'm praying for over the next few months. 

I love all of you guys so much and I'm so thankful to have amazing people like you in my life.

-Alex

Shoutout to the greatest group of friends I could ever ask for. 

[myheartyourhome]

SAVIOR, HE CAN MOVE THE MOUNTAINS! OUR GOD IS MIGHTY TO SAVE; HE IS MIGHT TO SAVE! FOREVER, AUTHOR OF SALVATION; HE ROSE AND CONQUERED THE GRAVE, JESUS, CONQUERED THE GRAVE!

[aledclar-personal]

I heard this song at Beach Reach and fell in love with it. After looking for hours I finally found it.

The Rock Won't Move

[aledclar-personal]

Nothing Can Even Come Close

This past week has changed me so much for the better. I built on so many of my friendships that had already begun growing before Beach Reach and I planted the seeds in many new friendships. I got to know everyone on my team and I love each one of them so much. I could not have asked for a more supportive group of people to serve God with this past week. My faith in God grew so much this week and I am going to try my best to let my Faith in him fail just because I'm not surrounded by amazing examples of him working in our lives.

I got to share a condo with a few of my friends and a few guys I didn't know too well. By the end of the trip though I would have trusted all of them with my life. I seriously loved all the guys that I lived with the past week. Never once would I even thought that I was missing such an amazing friend in a guy that I just needed to get to know.

I have matured so much spiritually in the past week. I went into Beach Reach really curious about how in the world God was going to use me. I always thought that I wouldn't have been able to make an impact in hardly anyone because I wasn't good enough. I know after this week that God has a plan for us all even if it isn't clear from the start. I worked on both Street and Van and Pancake Breakfast ministries but I felt liked God called me to be best in Van ministries. I worked on vans twice this week and both nights were amazing. Both nights I had Justin as my driver and Sarah as my navigator. I could not have asked for a better pair of people to be on Vans with. You guys are seriously a huge encouragement to me and your encouragement throughout the week meant the world to me. I made so many memories with everyone during the night that I will never forget. Throughout the week I felt discouraged sometimes that the conversations I had with people weren't leading to any noticeable differences in them. I realized by my second night on vans though that regardless whether I see it or not I could be very well be planting a seed for someone to come later and lead that person to their salvation. 

This week really gave me a lot of bonding time with people from the BCM I'm involved with. I never would have guessed that a new girl from Dyersburg would end up being one of my favorite new friends this semester. This trip really made me realize what characteristics I want to have my wife to have when I get married. So many of my friendships that were already great are even better than they were before. 

God used me as a conversationalist to talk to others at Pancake Breakfasts and to serve on the drink stand my second day of Pancake Breakfast (Being on Noonday every Thursday helped a ton here :) ) I was so nervous starting pancake breakfast the first day when I realized that I would be one of the people walking around talking to complete strangers and getting to love on them and get to know them. I know I may not have led anyone to their salvation but I know my love for them impacted them in a way that I may not even know yet. 

God finally showed me what I could be good at and showed me that every story of anyones salvation is beautiful even mine. I refuse to use the excuse that I'm not good enough for things anymore. I know God can accomplish anything through me. 

I am so beyond blessed to have had the opportunity to serve God over my Spring Break and get to share the love of God to people in Panama City. I loved everyone I met this week so much. 

-Alex 

PS: Thanks to Justin I am now crazy obsessed with Phil Wickham

[aledclar-personal]

Beach Reach 2014

The past few weeks have been a roller coaster of life for me. Everything has been settling down the past few days. A few weeks ago a girl that I went to high school with was murdered by her fiancé. I didn't know her that well but when things like this happen they really make me wonder about whether I would be happy with dying today if my life were to end today. A week after she died one of the girls that lives in the apartment next to me died in a car wreck. I took this death harder because it wasn't clear after her death whether she was a Christian or not. The girl I went to high school with was an amazing strong Christian and looking on back to knowing her in high school I realize now how amazing she was. I went home to last weekend to spend some time with my family and get some luggage for Beach Reach. I spent most of the weekend playing cards with my Mom and talking to my parents. It wasn't until the past few days where I realized how blessed I really am. This past Sunday I started a prayer journal. So far this is going amazing and I love writing in it and spending time with God every day. Tonight was the 7:14 Prayer Night that we have before we send everyone off on missions. I realized tonight how supportive friends I have. Tori came up to me and gave me a card that I didn't read until I got back to my room but her words of encouragement that she wrote meant so much to me. All of my friends have been so supportive of me going on Beach Reach and it means the absolute world to me that I have been blessed with a family that loves me here. The past few weeks I have been getting to know John from my life group. He graduates this semester which sucks but its been amazing getting to know him so far. 

Please be praying for me as I depart for Beach Reach this Friday! 

PS: I have the best Beach Reach condo ever.... Me Studard John Gill, Justin Owens, and Michael Kelly. This week is going to change me so much and I'm so beyond ready for God to rock my world. 

For live updates every night as we hit the streets check out 

http://www.beachreachlivepcb.com 

Starting March 2

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[randytemple-deactivated20180205]

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[aledclar-personal]

My life the past few days.

So I'm writing this as my Valentines Day is ending. I had a pretty decent Valentines Day this year but I still can't help but get mad at myself for being single another year. I know everything will happen in Gods time but I'm still learning that I need to be patient with God and let him work on his time and not mine. This simple thing applies to all of my problems in my life. Whether it be after over a year of being a Christian I have literally made zero impact on my family and I know that if I died today odds are I would never see them again because they would all be in Hell. 

I love God so much but time after time I always have difficulties building my faith in him as well as my trust. I see and read about how people view God as their best friend and they stay in constant communication with him throughout the day and I start to wonder how in the world people do it. I honestly wish I knew a trick or something to help take my focus off everything on my life and to focus on God for more than just a few times a day. 

When I take time out of my day to pray at the beginning and the end of every day I try my best to approach God as my best friend but so often I end up just feeling like I'm following a script and I get so sidetracked during prayer and my mind wanders. I know all of this is happening because of spiritual battles but its battles that I feel like Satan is winning. 

Every morning I try my best to read from my bible plan but so often I read things and it goes in one ear and out the other. I do a terrible job memorizing what I read about whether it be what I read in the bible or what I read out of one of my books I'm reading. I hate having to answer the question what I read about today. Because honestly by the end of the day I have literally no clue what I have read about. I try to live my life to be the greatest Christian I can be but looking at all of these things I can only feel like a disappointment sometimes. I know God never sees me as one but I sometimes view myself as one. I have times where I can be a complete jerk to all of my friends and really hurt peoples feelings and then I can have my moments where I try to be the most caring person I can be. 

I leave for my Mission Trip in two weeks and I am in no way prepared for the way God is going to rock my world when I get down to PCB. I'm so extremely nervous and curious about how in the world God is going to use a terrible person like me to reach others.

I have people tell me every few weeks how amazing they find it that I serve so much through the BCM. I have a lot of people tell me that I have a servants heart. Whether it be setting up and cleaning for noonday or something else that needs to be done I try my best to help when I can. More than anything this is because I grew up knowing that little minor things can end up having the biggest impact on someone. I know while serving through the BCM I am also in some small way serving God but I never want to admit it. Serving through the BCM is something I absolutely love doing and I absolutely making a difference in people lives. I had someone tell me today how amazing it was that I have a servants heart and how they felt like if I wasn't around there would be so much more work to do. I do what I do because it brings absolute joy to me serving others and God. Blowing up 20000 water balloons this past August wasn't the easiest thing to do by far but I absolutely loved every second of it. I try my best to realize that whenever I do serve its all for the glory of God. 

I love all of you guys and please please be praying for me the next few weeks. I need it now more than I ever have before. 

-Alex

[forgiven-redeemed]

Just a small message everyone needs to know. 

[aledclar-personal]

My Heart is Ready for Change

  I never would have guessed that the simple story of Jonah and the whale would speak to me on so many levels. The past two weeks at college fellowship the pastor of my church has been talking about the book of Jonah. The study of this book could not have come at such a better time in my life. Over the past few weeks I have been struggling with so much and my relationship with God has been affected. Hearing the story of Gods forgiveness for Jonah after he ran from Gods will is an inspiring story. 

Over the past few weeks I have been running from God. At the same time I could feel God trying his hardest to bring me closer to him. One of the biggest things we talked about tonight that stuck with me is that God will only chase people whom he loves. No matter what I am going through or how far I have gotten away from Gods will for me he will always be welcoming be back with the biggest open arms imaginable. 

The biggest thing that has been bothering me the past few weeks is that no matter what I do nothing seems to have an influence on my families salvation. I am so hard on myself and blame me not having an affect on them on me not being godly enough of a person. I have been impatient with God and whether it is in his will for my family to be saved. I know now that nothing I can do will speed the process up at all. All I can do is be praying for my family that God would work in their lives. God will work in his own time if it is in his will for my family to be saved. I struggle a lot with realizing that if my family would to die today I would never see them again and they would all spend eternity burning in Hell.

I know I brag about how amazing all my friends are a lot but honestly I wouldn’t where I am without them. I have the most amazing friends in the world and they are all huge influences on me whether they realize it or not. I have so many in this world that care about me and I can’t believe that I even considered self harm in my first few years of college. God has worked a miracle in my life and I change more as a person every day. My first ever mission trip is quickly approaching and I’m still nervous about it but I’m also so excited to see how God is going to use me at Beach Reach. Every person going on Beach Reach had to get at least seven people to commit to be their prayer partner while they served over spring break. I decided I would try to get as many as I could before the deadline tonight and I ended up getting seven within about a day. I ended up with around 17 people committing to pray for me over my mission trip. I had a few friends decide to tell me that I just wanted to show everyone how many friends I had. I admit sure I may have bragged about it some and I’m sorry for hurting anyones feelings in the process. It is just things like this that truly remind me of how blessed and how supportive my family is here in Martin. 

Every day that goes by I get more and more excited for Beach Reach. We have such an amazing group of people going on this mission trip and it will be an amazing time. Over the past few weeks we have had a few more people sign up to go with us. One of them was Courtney. I feel like I hardly know Courtney but almost instantly he first thing I notice is that she has one of the most amazing personalities and always seems to be so excited about every day. I have honestly never seen Courtney not look happy. I wish I had the same enthusiasm that Courtney has for every day. There are so many other people going on Beach Reach with me and I could write so much about every one of them and I probably will before I leave for the trip.

So far this semester I have been trying my best to make my friendships that I have with others even better than before. One of the biggest things that has really stuck out to me this semester is how caring of a person you really are. I know this isn’t a huge deal but talking to you while on Winter Retreat was one of my favorite moments of this semester so far. I know we are friends and all and friends are there for each other but I honestly never expected you to quit a crazy game of spoons because you noticed I wasn’t talking much and could tell something was bothering me. You give some of the best advice and you are such an amazing person. I am so beyond thrilled that we are going on Beach Reach together and I know we both are going to grow a lot throughout it. Thanks so much for everything you have done in my life Sarah. I know I can always come to you when I need prayer or need to talk to someone.

I am so blessed to have the amazing Christians in my life that I do. 

I love all of you guys so much!

-Alex

[aledclar-personal]

The past few days

Hey Everyone! I hope you have had an amazing past few days. My days have been up and down. I didn't do that great on my Calculus test this week and a ton of drama revolving around me and a few of a my friends started coming up and I feel like an absolute jerk for allowing it to happen. 

I have missed so many days of my bible plan and my faith has been failing the past few weeks. I have been falling out of the word and its showing in the way my life is going. 

I know I can't fight through this life alone but I haven't been the best the past few weeks and I am starting to ask myself about whether I really deserve all the love I get and more importantly whether I deserve to be loved God because I honestly sometimes don't think I do. 

I'm such a terrible person a majority of the time but not ever ends up seeing it. I'm sorry to everyone in this world that I have hurt throughout the years and I'm sorry for letting you down.

Please be praying for me as I prepare for beach reach. I need the prayer now more than ever. 

-Alex

[aledclar-personal]

This is probably my new favorite worship song... It kills me that it isn't on iTunes yet. I love this so much. 

UPDATE: This song gets released February 4th. AKA Now the best day of next week. KLOVE must have gotten a studio copy early. 

[aledclar]

This is my favorite picture from this weekend! But it has a filter on it. Winter Retreat with the BCM was awesome!

[aledclar-personal]

This weekend is one of the greatest weekends I have had in my college career. I realize every BCM trip I go on how so extremely blessed I am to have an amazon family here in Martin. This weekend was amazing and so many great conversations happened. This weekend was unforgettable. Never before have I left a place feeling so much stronger in my faith. I got to officially meet my Beach Reach teach as we went through training and after seeing everyone serving with me in a few weeks in PCB I already know that my experience in PCB will be an amazing life changing experience and I am ready for it to get here. 

We learned about each of the Beach Reach ministries and different jobs we will be asked to do throughout all of them. I'm not exactly sure what ministry will best serve me but I know that I will find out pretty quickly once I get to PCB. 

After many attempts the Beach Reach team came up with names for our four vans we will be using for the Van Ministry. The names we came up with and voted on were Vandango, V for Vandetta, Viva la Vanda, and Anchor Van.

I am so thrilled to see how God plans to use me in PCB and to see how affective I will as Gods tool for adding people to his kingdom. 

I went into this weekend hoping I would find some time to study for calculus exam on Wednesday but I ended up spending most if not all of my free time either walking to the lake or reading a book. The book I'm reading now is called Kisses from Katie. I know your first impression is that this sounds like a really girly book and we should mess with Alex about it. (The Youth Minister that was speaking this weekend said the same thing.) The book is about a missionary from Brentwood TN named Katie Davis. Katie left everything in Brentwood including a full ride to whichever college she wished to go too to a loving family and so much more. Katie traveled to Uganda over the Christmas Break of her senior year and fell in love with it. She went against what her parents initially wanted and wanted to serve in Uganda being a Kindergarden teacher. I'm a little under halfway done with the book ,and so far the book has been amazing and I haven't been able to put it down. 

I am so blessed by the amazing people that I have met through the BCM. All of you whether you realize it or not are amazing and have in some way inspired me and had an impact on my life. I love all you guys and I'm excited to continue making memories. 

Please be praying for me throughout this week! 

-Alex

[spiritualinspiration2]

[aledclar-personal]

There is so much power in this video. 

God is great!