I am not much of a sleeper. Most nights I spend sitting on the couch reading a book or on the internet until 1 or 2, or even later, because frankly I just can’t sleep. Now it’s not that I don’t want to sleep, but for some reason I do not seem to possess the ability to turn off my mind long enough to fall asleep. If I go to bed, I will just lie there kicking and rolling unable to fall asleep which usually leads to my wife not being very happy since I am keeping her up, or getting bored so I get up anyways… which is why now I just stay up until I am tired. I usually run this way for a good five or six days, and then I totally crash – starting the cycle all over again. One positive side effect of being up late is that I find I write my best sermons around midnight… I don’t know why, it just seems to work out that way.
Anyways, sitting here thinking to myself that I need to go to bed since I have to be up in six hours, I decided to “Google” myself to see what came up. There was the typical Reslife and Access info, but I learned that apparently I make pottery on the side and in 1986 I taught a drawing class dealing with “Romantic Card Company Artists”. Wow! I must be pretty good since I was only 7 in 1986… It’s kind of weird to think that there is “another” Brent Matzen out there. I wonder what he’s like? Which of course got me thinking about how different I am today then the “Brent” I was years ago before I knew the LORD – a completely different person… He thought that way, I think this way. He valued that, I value this. He lived one way, I live another.

It’s amazing how God can take something that is so messed up and totally change it. Looking back at the years past, the person I once was seems as much of a stranger as the guy who taught pottery or romantic card drawing classes with the same name. A whole other life; truly a different person.

How amazing God’s grace truly is.

Shalom!

Brent