A letter to the devil...

Dear Satan,
Lately you have invaded my relationships, polluted my honest film work, and turned the hearts of good men against me. You manipulated my surroundings to put me into a place of negativity and insecurity and told me to give up and be bitter. You have taken everything solid in my life and caused me to question the stability of my walk and my confidence in what I do. And for that.... I thank you.

Because what you have done is shown me that no matter what you throw at me, I can overcome as a child of God. I will not be insecure, I will not be bitter, and I do not have to stand in negativity and become one of the things I despise most in the world, a thing that you are made of. 

So I am challenging you to give me something bigger and harder to handle and stand against. I am telling you throw something at me that you have never tried to before.... and to throw something at me to shake my faith. 

Because when you do, I will standup against you. I will look you straight in the face and smirk. Because you cannot and will not win against me... you know this, and so do I. Thousands of people see my life and what I do.... So just make sure that when you do come after me, when you go up against one of the most Godly men you know of.... you better be ready.... because through my stand people see God... You cannot shake me... I dare you to try...

Sincerely,
Brian McCluskey

Might be jumping the gun on this one....

Went to taco bell today. $4.67 for number 9 with no tomato or sour cream. Oh yes, I go there often obviously. It's not really for the food or how incredibly cheap the contents are... It's really just a place to go to get out from behind this stupid computer and where nobody will find me. (some days that is what you need, ya know?)

I sat on one end of their big long line of overly tall tables and overly tall stools. I was at one end with my script on a clipboard and was just kinda doing my own thing. At the other end sat a grandpa and his grandson. They were going on about something or another and having themselves a good ol' time eating their volcano tacos and laughing about how red their faces were getting. 

Tell ya what... I'd be willing to skip a successful career and the possibility of fancy cars and a sweet house.... anything but my future wife (when she is happy)..... I would skip it all to have a moment like that. 

A moment to share a great time with my grandson and to just laugh innocently. To not have to worry about if this chick is digging me or perhaps if that joke crossed the line... not worrying whether my clothes are attractive or if this shirt makes me look fat.... not thinking about what people think of me or if God liked/approved what I did last night....

To drop every worry and pressure you can think of... and just be innocent.... 
Could you do that?
Can you do that?

you are loved,
Brian McCluskey

New Ways of Seeing Life

I have been on a cycling frenzy lately. You know.... cycling... the whole Lance Armstrong/stretchy pants/get run over by a car type of bike riding.  

I have kept a constant riding schedule of anywhere from 2-4 hours of riding a day. Now you ask.... Brian, don't you have homework you should be doing during that time? Answer being... of course I do... I always have work I need to be doing, but I choose to set aside this time each day to get out and see the neighborhoods and streets around me. I separate this time of my day from the rest of my work, and I devote this time to relieving stress and enjoying the beautiful Virginia Beach weather.  

During my ride I can't worry about the massive amounts of reading and editing I need to be doing. I can't worry about girl troubles or the fact I don't have the adequate groceries for any resemblance of a dinner that night. I have to concentrate on completing my ride. I have to concentrate on adjusting gears and maintaining speeds. I have to concentrate on switching lanes on a busy 6 lane highway without becoming a pancake by those over-sized SUV's. 

My world and my work do not interfere with my bike riding. My difficulty of my bike riding helps me see that my work back at school isn't so bad after all.  

We are strengthened by the difficulties we go through. The hardships and challenges we go through or place ourselves in only allows us to come out stronger if we have the heart to persevere. 

Find time to escape this world and concentrate on a different struggle. Build yourself elsewhere besides schoolwork and life. Get out and see a side of the world in which you don't have to face the obstacles you normally see.  

Keep this in mind..... In every road I ride on there are two ways to travel. The path is geographically the same, but the difficulty and terrain are completely different depending if I ride the route 'forwards' or 'backwards.' Try riding life backwards for a change. Challenge yourself and see the peace God will bless you with and the strength you will walk away with at the end. You are loved, Brian McCluskey

God likes to play mean jokes on me....

So, I get back to Virginia today and prepare for 15 credit hours that are going to kick my butt for the next 5 months. Today instead of unpacking all my clothes and rearranging my room like I need to do, I went for a biking/running extravaganza. 

Riding down Indian River is one of the dumbest and yet most fun things you could ever do. People don't understand that it does take a lot of effort and skill to ride down a busy street on a tire an inch wide, while people talking on cell phones dodge you the second before they hit you, road construction has stripped the first layer or asphalt off and the bumpiness of the ride is shaking your liver loose.

I have found that God has always taken pleasure in my bike rides. No matter where I am at, no matter what direction I am riding, or matter which pair of stretchy pants I wear that day.... the wind is forever blowing against me. No matter where I set out from, the wind is forever blowing straight against me, making the ride difficult to say the least. 

It never seems to fail every time I ride out of my little apartment complex. BUT.... though the wind is forever blowing against me..... though my legs begin tiring out way sooner then they should be..... The ride is still enjoyable when the pavement finally becomes smooth.... and the cars stop zooming within a few inches of the handlebars.... BUT THE WIND..... NEVER STOPS!!!!

Sometimes I peddle along and say. "You have got to be joking, God!" No matter where my plan takes me in life.... it seems I hit opposition every way I turn. There is never a break.... there is never any down time.... It seems the Almighty Weatherman Himself has got it out for me. 

That said.... remember... growth does not come without its price. Life is difficult, but it is for a good reason. At the end of the ride I get to look up into the sky and say, "HA! I'll be back tomorrow."

Get up. The wind blows hard enough to encourage growth, not to stop you in your tracks.

You are loved,
brian mccluskey

Thunderstorms are beautiful. The lightning and thunder are nothing short of a visual sight of God's idea for excitement, beauty, and necessity all bundled into one puffy cloud.

Did you know lightning hits from the ground up? At least that's what my 7th or 8th grade science teacher told me. It doesn't make sense to me why it would work like that. I will probably never know or care to know, but when lightning strikes I don't care about where it came from. It is there, it came to me and I find myself surrounded by a storm. Why do I find that beautiful?

Inside of that chaos, inside of the darkness I find peace. When the rain trickles off the gutters, the sky is lit by broken strands of light, when loud thunder becomes silence again and again.... that is when the beauty comes.

Because there is one thing that I have always found true after a thunderstorm. After the rain passes.... the lightning ends... and the thunder stops.... the sky appears again... it always does. There is nothing more beautiful then the sky after you have driven or stood in the storm.

I have seen my fair share of storms. They usually find me when I am driving home or back to college. I never hesitate to stop and look at the sky. I have pulled off in many random locations on interstates to just stop and look at the sky. They continue to get more and more beautiful after every storm I go through. Remember that the storms will come..... and sometimes you will find them.... but there is always a sky more beautiful then you can hope for on the other side of the chaos and darkness. Stand strong... enjoy your storms... because your roots and foundation can't grow without being tested and pushed.

you are loved,
--brian mccluskey