The Women in My Life

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A couple weeks ago, we had a ladies banquet at church to honor the women in our lives. Our pastor, Joel, asked us, as the men of the church, to say something about the woman in our lives. Since I don’t have “that special lady” as of yet, I chose to talk about some other special women in my life…my mom, my sister, and my grandma.

I had in my head that afternoon leading up the event that it would be easy for me to speak at length about what these women mean to me. There’s a couple of problems with that line of thinking. First, if I don’t have something prepared, I panic in front of crowds. I cannot just speak off the top of my head. Just ask the girls that were in Impact Worship Center’s youth group a couple years ago when i was asked to speak. I nearly knocked the stool over that I was to sit on just trying to form words. Second, I get emotional. That is definitely something I got from my dad. It doesn’t take much for me to form tears. Just ask anyone who’s heard me talk at length about my nieces and nephews or my soccer girls.

When it was my turn in front of everybody, I choked out about 3 sentences…hardly the justice and appreciation they deserve.

Mom and I playing Rock Band

Mom and I playing Rock Band

So, without further ado… Continue reading →

Jason and Heidi

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A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to spend some time with some dear friends and celebrate their wedding day with them. I shot the wedding for them semi-professionally I guess you could say. 🙂 I got to work a little and play a little. It was a wonderful day with beautiful weather for the cookout afterwards. Here are some of my favorite shots from the day:

Alena being sillyGetting ready Continue reading →

86,400

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Friday was the first official day that coaches could hold practices with the girls. I was looking forward to it, so I worked out my schedule so I could be there, too. It was fun, throughout the day, to see the girls posting via Facebook and Twitter how excited they were to get back to the game they love.

During water breaks, the coaches would talk to the girls about what is expected and mindsets they should have going into this season. Coach Laux came forward with a sheet of paper that had “86,400” on it. He asked the girls what they thought it meant. One of the freshman almost immediately called out the answer.

86,400 is the number of seconds in one day. Coach wanted to be sure that the girls realized that every second is a chance to do something…a chance to work toward a goal. He reminded the girls that you can’t save those seconds. Once they are gone, they are gone.

I thought about all this while he was relating his life experience to the girls in order to encourage them to keep moving forward. Yes, he was encouraging them to work hard in soccer and do their best. But he was also, without going into a lot of detail, was encouraging them in their lives. There are people all around us…friends, family, classmates, co-workers, etc…that are impacted by  what we do. We don’t know how many sets of 86,400 we will get.

Case in point: one of my best friends had updated his Facebook tonight with something that told me he had something on his mind. I got on the phone with him to find out that while he was driving home from a day trip he took, he witnessed a horrendous accident. The thing is: he had just changed lanes on the highway when another vehicle slammed into the vehicle that took the spot he had just left. Had he stayed there, he could have been on the receiving end of that accident.

Each day we are given is a gift. We need to make a positive impact. We need to love.

And if you are member of the Lady Colts soccer team, we need to leave it all out on the field. No limits. 🙂

Thanks for reading,
Jon Cole

30

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If you’re on my Facebook, you’re probably aware I had a birthday today. I don’t have my birthday publicly displayed, so I thought I could fly under the radar.

It didn’t take long for people to break the silence.

Today definitely didn’t go as I expected it to. But, that’s a good thing. I’ve reached an age milestone in reaching 30, and I thought I would have this thought in my head that told me, “meh, look where you are now: 30, single, and sleep deprived.” But, apparently, God had something different planned for me.

Something that I’ve always known became very clear to me today: I am here for a reason. Age is just a number. I’m single because the time isn’t right for me not to be. I’m sleep deprived because I try to squeeze everything I can out of my every waking minute. Being single has allowed me to do things with those waking minutes I might not be able to do otherwise. I get to spend a free evening playing guitar with a student I’ve known since he was little. I get to, on a whim, head across town to my sister’s house to play hide and seek with her kids. I get to volunteer to coach an indoor soccer team. I get to follow around that same soccer team in the fall in their outdoor season giving high fives, baking cookies, and jumping and cheering like a fool in the good times and bad. I get to spend time with my youth group kids in Wooster. I get to make silly videos to promote the youth events. And there are many more things I get to do.

I’m not going to lie and say there haven’t been times where I wondered what the point is of me doing the things I do. When I get to those points, God ends up doing something to show me that there is a reason for it all. And today, I guess He decided he was going to pour on all kinds of love.

This is me trying to publicly thank everyone who showed their appreciation for me today. My co-workers who put together a cake and ice cream gathering without my knowledge, one of my best friends putting my face on a picture of a silly bobblehead for the frosting of said cake, my family for always being there to love and support me, my friends I’ve had for years who always remember me, my church family who loves and supports me as well, my soccer sisters who seem to know when I need a kind word to give me confidence to keep moving whether it be photography or coaching, and the rest of my new friends and family through the soccer program at Clear Fork…

…thank you all. I am the man I am today because of the collaborative effort of you all standing beside me and behind me with your love and support.

Thanks for reading,
Jon Cole

Season’s End

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Sometimes I wonder if I could ever be a father because of how emotional I get. I watch my nieces and nephews and think about their young lives, and I wonder if I can handle it. I get really attached to people really easily. This is especially true of the local high school soccer team I’ve been a part of.

For those who don’t know, at the end of the 2009 season, I was given the opportunity to put my photography skills to work to see if I could raise some money for a mission trip. I attended the 5 tournament games they played that season and took photos at their games. Over that summer, I keep thinking about that experience. I like to take good photos, I like to give high fives, and I like to bake cookies (which is something else I started doing for the team in the meantime). Is it possible they’d let me come back?

Yep.

The girls got knocked out of the tournament playing in the regional final today, which I believe is the third time in school history they have made it that far. They played their hearts out and gave everything they had. I’m so proud of them! This marks the end of my second full season with the team, so I’ve gotten to know a lot of the girls really well. Soccer allows me to adopt 40+ little sisters each season, and I love it! It was so hard to watch them get beat because of how hard they have worked to get this far. The team they played was really good, so they have nothing to be ashamed of.

I’ve taken several thousand shots, and I have many more to post to the main web site. Check them out at http://joncolephoto.com/cfgirls2011/. Most images are available for purchase as well (shameless self-plug). Here are some shots I’ve taken over the course of the season:

As you can see, I kinda like these girls. 😛 They’ve become a huge part of my life. It tough to see the season end. Real tough, actually.

It’s kinda funny how you think you have your life figured out…at least what direction you want to go once you finish high school or college, and then you get to that point and realize that life can be nothing like you imagine it. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing at all. The other night, after the girls rallied from behind to win the regional semi-final, I sat on the edge of my bed thinking about my life. If anyone would have told me as I left high school that I would be painting my hair green while hauling a camera around and jumping and cheering for a high school soccer team because I would be passionate about being a positive influence on a younger generation and would love them pieces like they were a part of my own family, I would have told them they were crazy. Yet, here I am…and I can’t imagine being anywhere else. I firmly believe God has me right where He wants me right now, and my heart is overcome.

Being emotional isn’t a bad thing. You get to experience life…raw and full.

Thanks for reading,
Jon Cole

Rock and Roll!

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In the Key of GSeveral weeks ago, my friend Mike asked me if our band wanted to play for his CD release show. So last Saturday, we played a rock show in Mansfield. It was probably the best show we’ve ever played. We even had people from Painesville come down to hear us! We must mean something if people would drive 1 hour and 45 minutes one way to listen to a 30 minute set.

Anyway, we played Here I Am, Much to Consider, Alone with Jesus,Take It or Leave It and Collision Course. But that’s not all! We ended our set with a tribute to the ‘90s. We played a medley of Big Mountain’s version of Baby I Love Your Way, Hanson’s Mmbop, Spin Doctors’ Two Princes, Eagle Eye Cherry’s Save Tonight, and ending on Deep Blue Something’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s. It was fun to watch people remember those old favorites and dance around and sing. We had a good crowd. If you weren’t there, you missed a good show. I’m going to try to get some of the video up on our mySpace at some point. Stay tuned.

Prayer requests: Mike moved to California (he texted and said he made it safely), Jevan’s cousin lost her husband, Jevan’s getting his butt kicked in school academically, and I’ve got a lot on my mind otherwise. If you have any requests you’d like me to pray for, shoot me an email.

In the Key of G

Man, I have a lot of photos to go through.

Thanks for reading,
Jon Cole

*Photos on this page by Greg Cole. Thanks Dad!

Communication

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How easily a message gets lost.

By not speaking, many times a message is conveyed completely incorrectly. Dad and I went to lunch today, and we talked about things that are happening in life. The most interesting part is things were assumed on both ends because words were not exchanged to begin with.

I’m frustrated. What is it about small churches that keeps them small? Are they afraid to let others come into their little group? Or is it scary to do what Jesus asked us to do, which is to go intoall the world? I see too many churches who say they want to make an impact, but don’t do anything to show it. At the senior high retreat, the message I kept writing down during the sermons was “we need action”. The things I’ve been learning over the last several weeks is that words mean very little when you don’t back them up with action. That’s why so many unbelieving people call Christians hypocrites. As lame as some of you may think the intro to D.C. Talk’s What If I Stumble is, it’s so true.

The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door and don’t honor Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.

I can tell people all day long that I’m going to get the pictures I took for them processed and sent to them all day long. But if I don’t do it, what good is that (James 2:16)?

Thanks for reading,
Jon Cole

Relationships

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Tonight I had the opportunity to spend time with some friends at their young adult family dinner. As I looked around the room at the many people I didn’t know, I started thinking about how I’ve viewed relationships over the years.

This dinner was held at the church building (when the family dinners started, it was held at one of the church member’s houses, but the group has grown significantly). As I approached the building, there were three guys outside smoking. After I got inside, I heard a guy introducing a pregnant girl to someone he knows saying, “This is my girlfriend.” I saw people of all shapes, sizes and styles.

I couldn’t help but think about how earlier in my life, I would have thought, “Man…how screwed up are some of these people.” But you see, that’s the attitude that gets Christians their “judgmental and unforgiving” label. There is no way I can make Christ relevant to a person if I am going to let a person’s imperfect stand in the forefront. Heaven knows I have imperfections. And I’m sure people could point them out and condemn me as well.

Read Mark 2:15-17. It’s pretty wild when you think about it.

Thanks for reading,
Jon Cole