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we interrupt my feeble attempts at making you laugh with a few thoughts on faith, life, and self-awareness I’ve been thinking through lately. Hope you don’t mind…

About a year ago I scheduled myself for an eye exam for the first time in 10 years. I knew my vision was still great since the last time I had my eyes checked when I had better than 20/20 vision, but Erica needed an appointment so I figured I’d go too.

I sat in the exam chair and answered all of her questions, anxious to get to the actual examination where she tested my vision. I couldn’t wait to wow her with my 20/15 ninja-like eyesight.

She went through about 10 minutes of that whole, “which looks clearer A or B?” routine and I was zooming along. We got to the end and she said, “Bryan, in all my years of optometry I’ve never seen a 32-year old with better eyesight. If you don’t mind, I’m going to call a few of my optometrists friends so they can come down and take a look at this. Your vision is breathtaking.”

Okay, so that’s not what happened.

She took away all the lenses and had me focus on some writing on the wall, about 10 feet away. “Can you read the 5th line?”, she asked.

“O K H D N R C S” I said confidently.

“What about the next line?”

“Um…not really. V A D H…I don’t know.”

“What about now?” she asked as she dropped down a lens in front of my eyes…

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In case you missed it, that $30,000 my friend Jon Acuff (the Stuff Christians Like dude) was trying to raise through his readers? Well, he raised it. ALREADY. IN 18 HOURS!

Pretty amazing, if you think about it. A funny dude who blogs on the side of his regular 9 to 5 has such a committed bunch of readers, that they partnered with him and donated $30K in less than a day.

I think it’s remarkable, and so did the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which ran a story about Jon and his readers on Wednesday.

So many people missed the first window of giving, that Jon has decided to raise another $30,000 for a second school in Vietnam. And as of this morning he had already raised one third of it.

If this is the first you’ve heard of this, you can read Jon’s post about it here. Or you can go here to see how much has been given and donate yourself.

Thanks again for considering

pps…May or may not be a top secret project in the works that involves Jon, yours truly, and some other studs. More info on that as early as next week.

My friend Jon Acuff (the Stuff Christians Like dude) has asked his amazing community of readers to join him in building a Kindergarten in Vietnam by the end of the year.

The building, which is going to be built through the Samaritan’s Purse organization, is going to cost $30,000 to build. That’s a lot of money, in case you weren’t sure.

To read more about why Jon is doing this (including the comment from his 6-year old daughter that inspired the project) and to donate to the cause, check out his post on SCL today.

Thanks for considering

ps…if you’re too lazy to click over to Jon’s site but you want to give anyway, here’s the link.

pps…new Humor Survey coming tomorrow!

we interrupt my feeble attempts at making you laugh with a few thoughts on faith, life, and community I’ve been thinking through lately. Hope you don’t mind…

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I’m training for a half-marathon in November, and so far I’m still alive and not addicted to Advil, so yeah, it’s going well. The cold, dark mornings of October have made running on my lunch break a surprisingly enticing option, so for the past 2 weeks I’ve taken to the 1-mile loop my workplace is located on to log my miles.

Last Wednesday my speed work regimen consisted of a 5 mile run where I ran miles 1, 3, and 5 at a relatively slow pace and miles 2 and 4 about as fast as I could. By the time I got to mile 5 I was exhausted. Even though that last mile was a very slow jog, I was dying.

About halfway through that last mile I suddenly became aware of what I looked like. I was jogging very slowly, but I was winded, dripping sweat, and looking like I was ready to keel over. What if somebody I know drives past me right now? They’re going to think I’m terribly out of shape if a leisurely jog has me breathing this heavy.

I decided I’d make a note of anyone I knew who saw me, and then later in the day I’d casually drop by and let them know that I had run 5 miles over lunch. Hey, we can’t have them thinking I’m out of shape, can we?

As I was thinking through all this another thought came to me. What I was afraid of was someone taking a quick mental snapshot of me and judging me based on what they saw.

Running slowly, yet about to die? He must be out of shape!

But the thing is, how often do I do the very same thing with the people I interact with?

Someone doesn’t give me the attitude I was hoping for? What a miserable prick.

A friend doesn’t seem interested in my exciting news? He can be such a selfish jerk.

The thing is, in almost every case you and I have NO IDEA what the people in our lives are going through behind the scenes. Your coworker that gave you attitude this morning? She might be a jerk…or maybe she’s going through the toughest week of her life at home. Your buddy who didn’t seem interested in what you had to say last night? He might be all about himself…or maybe he’s struggling with things you never imagined.

It’s by no means a profound thought, just something to consider the next time you take a quick look at a person or a situation and you want to cast judgment. Remember, you might be catching them on mile 5 (or mile 50) of a week where they’ve been running nonstop.

In fact, a little extra grace from you may be EXACTLY what they need.

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…we now return you to your regularly scheduled feeble attempts at humor.

And if you’re looking for a speaker for your church, youth group, young adult group, or men’s group, Bryan might be your guy. Click the green mic in the upper right for more info.