Supafly.com

I watched the first teaser show for the RW/RR Challenge last night. I had just found out my friend committed suicide yesterday afternoon, so the show didn’t seem that important.

They had to pack 28 people into 22 minutes, so each cast member only got 20 seconds of introduction. The editors have a month of footage to chose from to slice that 20 seconds together. Having lost my friend yesterday, I was thankful that they had shown me as someone of substance.

A lot of people will watch this show, a lot of people won’t. I know in a year, television will have buried the show with thousands of hours of more nonsense. There will be another Challenge and another Real World. But still, there is a chance to somehow effect millions of lives through those few weeks we filmed in Colorado.

I feel like hell.

My friend Brad committed suicide today. I am hurting so much.

I found out as I was driving to the Life Teen conference this afternoon. I hung up the phone and started crying. I pulled my rosary out of my pocket and prayed for Brad’s soul.

Brad has been through hell on earth. As I prayed, I thought about all the thing he’s had to deal with that others have not. I kept praying.

At the end of one prayer in the rosary, the Hail Mary, I asked Mary to, “…pray for us now, and at the hour of our death.” This prayer became real. Another prayer took on a whole new meaning for me: “…lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of Your mercy.”

I’m praying for you Brad.

I’ve;traveled across the country and back in less than;36 hours. I am in my house now on a Sunday afternoon, in a bit of a daze about how much has happened in those 36 hours.

After sleeping for most of the flight, my hosts drove me from Fort Meyers to Port Charlotte. There were thunderstorms brewing all around us in the 45-minute drive. They were apologizing for the rain and I was loving it. I live in the desert. This is cool. They’d gone to the new Life Teen camp in northeast Georgia this summer. They couldn’t stop talking about Matt Maher playing music, and what a difference it made in the lives of their teens.

The people in Port Charlotte were so lovable. Just before Mass several of us came together and prayed. I just wanted to hug them all and thank them. People came from five or six churches for the evening. During Mass, I enjoyed watching the clouds through the windows and the palm trees flutter in the wind.

Before my talk, the band played music for a half an hour. One of the members introduced a song that was written by Matt Maher. She asked all the people there to pray for Matt’s health, that he’d overcome his Hepatitis C.

Wow. I hung out with Matt Maher last night, and now I am on the other side of the Gulf of Mexico, and there are hundreds of people praying for him. They meant it…they really love him. I was in awe.

My talk went well. I just made it up as I went along. God does his thing.

My cousin Merrill drove down for the evening, and she and I had dinner afterwards. She and I are a year apart. That was always weird when we were young and they drive up to the mountains to visit us. Now we are growing up and it’s really cool. We laughed and talked for two hours.

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Now I am at home. I went to Home Depot and bought some lighting to brighten up the front of my house. I think I’ll put this afternoon. It’s not even 1 PM and I feel like I fit a whole week into a day and a half.

I went to a David Crowder Band concert with Matt Maher and Dustin last night. I left the concert and it was dark out. I went to bed, got up again and drove here to the airport. Now I am sitting at this gate ready to fly to Port Charlotte, Florida.

I still have the songs ringing in me head. I’d never seen the David Crowder Band in concert, so I didn’t know what to expect. David is funny and authentic and you get to know him within the first few minutes. After a few songs, everyone in the place was into it. There were perfect moments when those five five guys made perfect music. You just wanted it to be so loud so it’d drown out the rest of the noise of the world.

I can’t wait to get on this plane and fall asleep. Alright…they are boarding. It’s pretty cool because I stayed out and up late last night. I slept for a few hours, and now I’ll sleep the rest of my night while a plane takes me away.

Tonight at XLT, Tom Booth talked about an experience he had with his friend Rich Mullins.; Tom Booth is one of the most loving, solid guys I know. He is such an authentic Christian. I’d take a bullet for Tom.

Rich is known around the world as a singer, songwriter, and Christian. He wrote songs that will be sung forever:; Awesome God, Sometimes By Step, The Love of God…

In 1997, Rich was killed when he Jeep flipped. That night, Tom was doing a concert hundreds of miles away. He couldn’t sleep because he was so sad, so he just sat in the darkness of his hotel room. He heard a sound, opened his eyes, and saw Rich standing with two angels and each side of him.

Tom couldn’t believe it was happening, but he knew it was real. Rich told Tom: “Pray.” The hotel room went dark again.

Tom explained to all the people there at XLT what Rich meant. “Having seen what I see now, please pray.”

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On the drive to meet Candyce, all I thought about was what Tom explained to us. When we die, and we can see heaven and earth, we’ll wish we would’ve prayed more, connected more with God, being closer to Him…

I was supposed to meet Candyce tonight by a coffee shop on the lake. She’s leaving tomorrow evening to see her family in San Diego, and I couldn’t wait to see her. Fifteen minutes went by. I kept praying.

Her headlights swung into the parking lot and we walked down to the lakeside. It was dark and cozy, and the lake twinkled. She looked so cute with a baseball cap and her little glasses. We talked about nothing and everything. I savored the moment.

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Now I am back here at the house. I am trying to take the advice of someone who’s seen more than I have. I’m going to finish here, and pray myself to sleep.;