Leaders change everything

Today in class the name of the chapter was "Leaders change everything." We talked about the effect that leaders throughout history have had on the rest of the course of history like what would the world be like if John Adams hadn't envisioned a new country and led the break away from Britain. Or what would have happened if Winston Churchill hadn't rallied Britain in WWII and the Germans had taken over the island. And now our blog assignment is to tell about three examples from our lives of leaders who changed everything.

Well I suppose that since I can't think of anybody else at the moment I'm gonna have to go with God and Jesus for me first one. Jesus, because He died for my sins and gave me His righteousness so that I don't have to suffer for eternity in hell. God, because at this moment in my life He is turning everything upside down. I'm discovering things about myself that I never suspected, I'm trying to decide on a college, but He keeps throwing my decisions around like a football in the hands of Aaron Rodgers. This is actually good for me though because it's forcing me to trust God and making me work on not worrying so much but really letting God take care of everything.

I believe that my little sister Tori has also changed everything about my life. Tori was born on June 21, 1997 in Xiamen, China. A few days after she was born, she was abandoned by her parents and taken to an orphanage where she lived for the first ten months of her life. Then on the wonderful day May 4 1998, my mother walked into that orphanage, picked her up, cried her eyes out (sorry mom, had to put that in there) and took Tori home with her to the rest of us waiting in little Clear Lake, Iowa. Tori has changed my life in so many ways, and probably even more that I'm not aware of. If we had not decided to adopt Tori I would be the youngest person in my family. I would not have had the opportunity to be a big brother and learn how to handle living with a little sister. Granted, it took me about twelve years to start being a good big brother, but I was still a big brother. Tori challenged me growing up. Since she was abandoned and missed out on TONS and I mean literally tons of bonding and development that little children need she had issues trusting us. It had been ingrained into her head that in order to survive she had to watch out for herself and fend for herself because no one else was going to. She didn't like listening to me which was frustrating for myself because in my mind the big brother has the authority to tell his little sister what to do, and she would not listen to me for anything. But growing up with her and dealing with all those challenges has blossomed into a desire to adopt children of my own and make the same difference in other children's lives. I understand now that God was not only shaping me as a person when He put Tori in my family, but He was placing the groundwork for my life and my dreams. And for that I will always be thankful that Victoria Jun Fyfe is my little sister!

The third person I will say that has changed my life is actually three people, but they all helped to write a book that is doing God's work in me right now. Bill Thrall, Bruce McNicol, and John Lynch all co-authored the book Truefaced. During LAUNCH we went through Truefaced doing a chapter every week and talking about it. The book is about being who we really are and taking off all the masks that we wear to try and convince people that we don't have problems. The entire theology behind the book is not quite radically different than what I grew up with, but I'm realizing that I either misunderstood everything I read in the Bible and heard from the pulpit or I don't know what happened. But for my entire life I've been focused on works and trying to live without sin, even though I've proven many times that it's impossible. Now I'm learning that since I have been saved from my sin God already sees me as righteous; He sees me as Christ. Everything that I'm learning from this book is life changing, and it makes me wonder how I lived without this theology before, and how many people are living their entire lives without it. It makes me want to bring it to other people.