Category Archives: Personal Growth

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How To Determine God’s Will For My Life

One question I hear frequently is “How do I know what God’s will is for my life?”

This is a pretty complex question. And the answer isn’t always a simple one. There are many things that factor into understanding what God wants you to do with your life, or even in any given situation.

Question Mark Cloud

But at the core of this answer lie two foundational elements: Prayer and the Word.

I know. It sounds trite and overly simplistic. But it’s true. These two elements are necessary to understanding what God want’s for your life.

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One Word 2012

Last year, I adopted a single word that would be my theme word for the year.

One word…

…to live by.
…to think by.
…to underscore everything I did.

One Word 365

That word was Passion.

I factored that word into everything I did. At least I tried to do that.

I think I did pretty good most of the year. There were times I forgot the word, times I neglected to have passion. And I don’t have a good excuse for it. I was just lazy.

Having passion takes work. And sometimes I didn’t feel like working.

Reflecting on the past year and my attempts to accomplish so much led me to see what this year’s word needs to be.

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The Challenge Of Writing

According to a recent survey, 81 percent of Americans believe that they have a book in them somewhere. Only a few of them ever write it.

Right now, I fall into both of those categories.

Typewriter

I believe that I have a book or two within me. But I have yet to write it.

In fact, this is part of my reasoning for this blog. I have a desire to write, but I don’t have the clarity or the focus. I started writing articles and posting them here to develop my skills as a writer. I feel that I’ve made some progress, although I have a long way yet to go.

Until recently, writing blog posts has been enough. Not too long ago, a friend of mine told me that he wanted to write a book, and that he thought he could do it in 30 days.

I scoffed.

Until I learned that November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). And it comes with a challenge: Write 50,000 words in the month of November.

50,000 words. That’s a pretty lofty goal. That’s a lot of writing. It works out to 1666 words a day. On average, I write 750-800 words in each article that I post here on JeffRandleman.com. One post takes me around 45-60 minutes to write, edit, and prepare for posting.

But 50,000 words…

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11 Things You Can Do With Your Kids On A Long Trip

We’ve had a crazy summer! I might have mentioned it before.

I’ve had my normal summer schedule of camps and mission trips. But added to that mix have been three family funerals: my dad and my step-dad, and right now we are in Minnesota for the funeral of my wife’s mother.

Like I said, it’s been a crazy summer.

Open Highway

From our home to my wife’s grandmother’s house, near the Twin Cities, it takes eleven hours. According to Rand-McNally. That’s normal driving, with normal stopping. They don’t have an option to figure out how long it will take when you add five kids into the mix.

Needless to say, it took us a little longer…. Like three more hours. And that doesn’t even take into account the time spent at a tire shop on the way.

In a trip of that length, you need to have things for kids to do. A lot of things for kids to do. And since our kids are different ages, we had to find different things to them to do.

Here are some we came up with:

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16 Things You Can Do To Beat The Blahs

I have had one of the craziest summers of my life!

Man Hanging His Head In Despair

I’ve been busy with summer church camps. I served at three different weeks at our camp, and was on the schedule for a fourth but couldn’t make it.

I traveled to west Texas and back for a friends wedding… in 48 hours.

I experienced the deaths of both my father and step-father… on the same day. And, of course, both funerals took precedence over my final week of church camp.

I led 24 teens and adults on a mission trip to the White Mountain Apache Nation, near Show Low, AZ.

It’s been a busy, crazy summer.

Outside of the deaths in the family, this summer schedule is pretty normal for me. As a youth minister, I find summer to be the busiest part of the year.

As a result, when August rolls around, I’m ready for a break. I’m worn out. I’m overwhelmed. I’m exhausted.

And I just feel…. blah.

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9 Things You Can Do To Eliminate Stress

I’ve had one of the busiest summers I’ve ever had.

I’ve been to three weeks of summer church camp, traveled to west Texas for a wedding, experienced the deaths and funerals of both my father and my step-father, and still have a mission trip to Arizona next week.

To put it bluntly, my summer has been pretty stressful.

Frayed Rope

As a result, I’m exhausted, irritable, and overwhelmed. I’ve started clenching my mouth and jaw when I sleep and have developed several stress-related canker sores. Not to mention headaches.

I’m ready for a break.

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Two Funerals And A Wedding

It has been a crazy summer so far.

Summer is necessarily a busy time for me because of my profession.  Youth ministry summers are full of camps, VBS’s, and mission trips.  That’s normal.

But this summer has been different.

It started on June 16.

My dad was diagnosed with melanoma that had metastasized into his brain and several other organs 18 months ago.  The past year and a half have been very turbulent, with numerous trips to the hospital, assisted nursing facilities and Dad’s home.

Don Randleman

On June 16, my step-mom called.  She was taking Dad into the emergency room.  He was weakening again.  After regaining significant strength and making progress with his therapy, he was weakening again.

I left the camp I was at and headed to Springfield, where I hung out in the ER with Dad and Karen for the evening.  He seemed to be rallying, so the next morning, I headed to Monahans, Texas with a good friend for the wedding of another good friend.