Chris Burkmenn's Blog

I often think if I could go back, what would I tell myself. How would I best equip myself with the knowledge and wisdom to gain in my past years. I wanted to write a letter to myself a year ago giving the best advice I could give my 26 year old self. Dear 26, This year will begin for you as a journey through a time that you will never forget. You will achieve things that you had only dreamed of in the past. It will take require a lot of courage from you, and it will not be comfortable. You will need to push past the adversity. Dreams are a funny thing and can be scary, but what in life isn't scary. After this year you will learn that nothing in life is guaranteed, and everything is worked for. Your year will begin with some incredible experiences, starting with an fantastic trip with some of your best friends to Florida. Spending the weekend in Destin just hanging with people that are there for one reason and one reason only, and that is to "Be Still." Learni...

"Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you." Jonah 3:2 The Lord commanded Jonah to go to the great city of Nineveh. In Jonah's time Nineveh was an awful place it was filled with every kind of sin. They would skin people alive in battles and give their carcass to the families. They would rape innocent people just because they could.  Here is a brief description of the awful things done: Woe to the bloody city! It  is  all full of lies  and  robbery.  Its  victim never departs. The noise of a whip and the noise of rattling wheels, of galloping horses, of clattering chariots! Horsemen charge with bright sword and glittering spear.  There is  a multitude of slain, a great number of bodies, countless corpses; they stumble over the corpses; because of the multitude of harlotries of the seductive harlot, the mistress of sorceries, who sells nations through her harlotries, and families through her sorceries. ...

Have you ever heard of the word affirmation? Affirm: 1. State as a fact; assert strongly and publicly. 2. Declare one's support for; uphold or defend.  Some of you may have never known the word or seen the word applied.  Affirmation we often seek from man, needing to be valiadated. Getting out worth from the world. It can be very gratifying to the world and it's ways.  Men and women receive affirmation differently. I am sure through reading this you already have several ways that we differ in this area. As a man we usaually like to affirm descretely as a "Good game," "Nice work." Women can tend to be a little bit more gushy. Which is not a bad thing because we go to each for different things. Men and women balance it out we receieve it from both, but at different times. When we hurt ourselves as a child we usually go to our mother because they understand and they will let us be  as hurt as we want to be. When we just shot a bullseye or scored...

Allan Fonseca an employee in a mall at Clackamas Town Center malll in Oregon saved lives on Decemeber 12, 2012.  Fonseca was familiar with his place of employment and used it for good. After the mall was taken over by a gun man, he was waiting on his mother Jocelyn Lay. Fonseca employed at Lancome in Macy's, hide his mother behind the counter. "We both just looked at each other and knew that this was a serious situation and it was a gunman and we both just dove down below the Lancome counter there for a little protection," Lay told "Good Morning America." "And the gunfire just kept going off." Lay began praying for that the Lord protect her and the others that were in danger in the mall. She gave credit to her son for being an employee and knowing exactly how to navigate the situation. She says he is her hero. "He said that we needed to evacuate, and he took me by the hand and took me down the escalator and out to safety," she said. ...