Sterling Griggs

This morning I woke before dawn like I usually do to let my dog out to do his business. As I stepped onto my front porch and casually glanced across my driveway, I noticed something was missing. Something very large. My truck was gone. My 2012 Ford F150 that I love so dearly was absent from its normal spot, and it took me a few double takes before I could process what I was (or rather was not) seeing. Maybe one of my kids took it in the middle of the night and wasn't back with it yet? I know, crazy that one of them would do that, but I had to know. When I checked their locations on my phone, they were all where they were supposed to be, so they didn't borrow my truck. Plus, my keys were still in the house and I always try to remember to lock it at night. Confused, I next pulled up the footage from my Ring doorbell camera. Surely that would reveal what happened to my truck in the middle of the night. Strangely, there was no footage at all during the night that showed any kind of...

Have you ever felt like the plans in your life were cruising in the right direction only to have things stall out? When you begin to feel stuck, the best remedy is to continue moving forward, even it's just small steps at a time. This is called resiliency.  No one wants to lose momentum, and this is where resiliency comes into play. You can maintain a forward trajectory by not giving up, not giving in, and by continuing to push forward with ideas, plans, dreams, goals, and vision that will keep you on track to where you want to be even if the progress you are making seems minimal.  Also, ask the right questions before settling for answers that may not relate to where you want to go in your life. Settling for less is a choice. Resiliency is the better option.

Don't miss out on all that today has to offer. Not everyday is going to bring opportunities, but when they do come your way take advantage of them and make the most of them. Don't live with the regret of missing what was right in front of you. And if you fail, at least you moved toward a goal you believed was worth pursuing.  What you failed to achieve in your past is not what defines you today. Rather, what you are seeking to accomplish today and moving forward can be your legacy. Embrace what is right in front of you, even if it feels small and insignificant. The value of what you have accomplished is not measured in numbers, but rather in impact.  

I was hesitant at first to write this blog post. A big reason for that is because so many people have experienced a lot of life-altering events and I don't want to appear as if I am trying to play the comparison game with mine. But, at the same time, when life throws you a series of curve balls, it is often therapeutic to chronicle the twists and the turns that it brings. This is my attempt to do just that. In January of this year I finally got around to making an appointment with my cardiologist over some concerns I was having about my heart health. I say "finally" because I had been experiencing some less than normal cardiac symptoms for almost a year, primarily a sensation that made it feel as if my heart was going to burst out of my chest with every heartbeat. Something inside of me told me that this wasn't normal, but since I had experienced a major open heart surgery in January of 2020, I wrongly assumed that what I was experiencing could be my new normal. A vis...

Free time. Anybody know what that is anymore? I know I am not alone in wishing I had more time each day to “get things done” and enjoy more down time for myself. Remember when you were a kid and complained to your folks about being bored all the time? Don’t you crave a little more boredom in your life right now? Someone once said that you don’t make time to do the things you want to do, rather you gotta make the best use of the time that you’ve been given. Good advice, if you have the time to take it. But all of us at some point will find ourselves with extra time on our hands that we have the privilege to fill with, well, whatever we want. It might be while you are on vacation or the kids are away at camp or you are recovering from a medical procedure at home. Whatever the circumstance, this gift of extra free time comes with challenges of its own, namely, “What in the world are you gonna do with yourself?” The challenge the I have with this kind of time is that I want it to be meanin...

To the lady in the black Mazda SUV with the NC State sticker on the back window, thank you. Most mornings, no matter what time I leave my house, I find myself directly behind you on the way to work. You drive slower than I would prefer and you take that last turn so painfully deliberate that I am afraid you may ultimately stop in the middle of the intersection. But thank you nonetheless for giving me much needed perspective.  You may not know this, Mazda driver, but every time I see you pull out of that side street up ahead in the distance, I groan behind the wheel of my truck. And it's not because I am in some sort of a hurry – I always leave with plenty of time to spare and am never late for work. Rather, it's more because of the fact that I KNOW you are going to pull out in front of me and drive the way that you do. I don't honk or tailgate you, because I know that solves nothing. Instead, I seethe a little on the inside. Please know, there is really nothing wrong with y...

Do you remember what it was like? You know, when you were just a kid and Christmas seemed liked the most magical time of the year? I know, I know, Christmas is truly about Jesus and that is why we celebrate. Yet as a kid, you couldn't help but go beyond the manger scenes and Christmas Eve services to a world filled with toys and happiness that still sticks with you to this day. As I ponder what this year has been like for most of us, I realize that holiday gatherings are probably not going to look like they have in the past. Some of the Christmas traditions that have been sacred for your family for generations might be on pause this year, but that doesn't mean that this time for gathering and worshiping the birth of our Savior can't still be memorable. We all just have to flow a little bit differently right now, you know?  In honor of this most wonderful time of the year when gathering with friends and family has never seemed more precious, I thought it would be cool for so...

This morning as I was enjoying coffee on the screened in porch with my wife – which is what we do every morning (coffee, that is, and on the porch if the weather is nice) – I was scrolling through the YouVersion Bible app when I came across a devotional by Francis Chan. I will be the first to admit that I find many devotional plans that are posted online to be a little anemic if not cheesy, but Chan is my spirit animal so I clicked on the plan to see what it was all about. To my delight, I found that he was inviting me on a 12-day journey through the book of James and he had included video clips for each entry of him explaining the text. Right then and there I began the devotional, with day one being composed of James 1:1-12. " Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds ." Yep, this is pretty relevant. I'm not sure when Francis Chan wrote and recorded this devotional (which is actually more like a mini-sermon series), but I think it was bef...

I teach high school students for a living at a private, Christian school. You may have just read that and thought to yourself, "Oh, that's nice. Sterling teaches in a sanitized environment to a bunch of semi-rich kids who can afford tuition. That's not real life, but kudos to you." While it may be true that I am not employed in the arena of North Carolina public schools, what I have come to learn over my years of working with middle school and high school students is that while socioeconomic backgrounds and ethnic backgrounds may differ, not one teenager is immune to the struggles that are paramount to this current generation. Known as Gen Z or whatever it is that they are called, this current generation of middle school, high school, and college students have no idea what it's like to be raised in an environment free from the trappings of technology. They never had to endure the torture of walking across the room to manually turn the TV channel, dial-up modems...

I have a confession to make: I am terrible at waiting. If patience is a virtue, then well, I ain't got much virtue. Truth be told, this is nothing new. Patience and waiting on events and schedules to happen has always been a sore spot for me. Almost every Christmas Eve growing up, I was the kid perched at the top of the stairs starting at 3:00 a.m. anxiously counting the minutes until the sun would begin to poke its head on the horizon so that I could finally get a glimpse of the glorious presents that awaited me. I eat the cookie dough before it goes on the baking sheet. I'm sure you do too, but I eat A LOT of it before it can be baked. I was the senior in high school that got on the phone with Wake Forest University to find out if I had been accepted because I simply couldn't wait for that letter any longer. Thankfully, they said yes. So as I recover from my heart surgery at home, you can imagine this is not the easiest of scenarios for someone like me to play out. M...

Using social media to post every facet of your life is not always the wisest of choices, but sometimes it is the best way to disseminate important information. Since I have neglected my blog for way too long, I have decided to use this as the medium to give everyone a life update. I hope all of my 13 followers get this information. Right before Christmas of this past year, my family doctor advised that I get the pneumonia vaccine since I have a heart history. Back in 1996 I had double valve replacement surgery and have been kind of on cruise control over since, but there is nothing like being a little extra careful. About a day after receiving the shot I was blessed enough to be one of the 1 in 1 bajillion to have a reaction to it, which was akin to being thrown in a freezer and then in an oven over a period of several days. I did survive it, but I was one sick dude and decided that I would pass the next time it was offered to me. A few days after Christmas, I found that I was sho...

Here in the south, mosquitoes are a part of every day life, especially in the warmer months, which last about 11 1/2 months out of the year. Google tells me that there are more than 3,500 species of mosquitoes, with about 175 of them found in the United States. That means that the southern states have approximately 183 species of mosquitoes because I am convinced that we have them all plus a few that have yet to be discovered. I live on the coast, which is a nice way of saying semi-swamp, and mosquitoes flock to this part of the state because, word is, that they can live a long and content life here. Fat and sassy, my grandmother would say. I can't prove this scientifically, but I've heard that 5 million mosquitoes can grow in a teaspoon-sized puddle of water. When the humidity is high like it is, I'm pretty sure we are cranking those suckers out by the truck load. When I was young, I can remember the mosquito truck that used to barrel through my neighborhood releasing...

Costco Wholesale Warehouse is an absolute gold mine around lunch time. Vendors set up  tables all over the mammoth store, hawking all sorts of samples ranging from vitamin juice  shots to mini crab cakes. I used to make sure that I would go there with the kids so that we  would have at least one day when we didn’t have to meal plan.      I don’t shop there all the time because we simply can’t afford to. Not that the prices are bad,  it’s just that I don’t know when to stop. Instead, I will go every month or so to stock up on bulk  supplies of juice boxes, salsa, pizza rolls, peanut butter, and whatever items I am convinced  that my family cannot live without.        Perhaps the biggest, if only, drawback to Costco is that it is always crowded. Every aisle is  clogged with shoppers pushing oversized carts full of their choice of essential goods and,  while no one is necessarily rude about...

Today is the first day of August, which means that there are still a few weeks before school begins and the real monotony of the schedule takes over. Summer is still in full swing and there are plenty more days at the beach and the pool to be had. It is still hot, so steamy hot that eyeglasses fog over once you leave the house and you begin to sweat just thinking about how hot it's going to be once you open the front door. Your legs instantly stick to the car seats and the grass in your yard gave up its fight for growth a long time ago. The humidity gauge reads 70%, but I think that's a lie. It probably succumbed to the heat, too. There are no school buses to dodge in the afternoons, no homework assignments to complete, and no lunches to pack in the wee hours of the morning. There is still plenty of time to binge watch Netflix shows for the third time and to sleep in after staying up late just because you can. Walmart has aisles of school supplies for sale at rock bottom pri...

They didn’t catch a thing. In fact, I’m not even so sure they got so much as a nibble on those hooks baited with artificial top water frogs, probably not the best choice for luring bass in this pond. Although there are plenty of manmade retention ponds all around, natural freshwater spots aren’t all that common this close to the coast. Yet these less than ideal circumstances did not - could not - deter my son and his friend, along with my tag along daughter, from attempting to catch “the big one.” Before we moved to the coast, we had unlimited access to a pond on the edge of our property that was swarming with fish, which included a giant elusive bass that we named Maximus. My brother, visiting from New York, purchased cheap rod and reel combos, effectively introducing fishing to my kids. The typical haul was a glob of algae covered grass or a tree limb on a wayward cast, yet every once in a blue moon one of them would hook a small brim or bass. Maximus, however, would remain ...

A couple of weeks ago my wife and I reached a milestone in our lives as parents. Our youngest child "graduated" from elementary school, placing us in an elite category of parenthood that we have waited over a decade to achieve – no more "little kids" in the house. For 13 years we have had a child walk (and at times terrorize) the halls of an elementary school somewhere in North Carolina – East Bend, Winston-Salem, Southport, and Wilmington. From Fall Creek to Bradley Creek, the Griggs' kids have maintained a steady presence in these sacred halls of public education. The recent graduation of my oldest daughter from high school was a moving experience, one that put us in a whole other stratosphere of higher education and the costs associated with it. Yet even that momentous occasion is in a different category than that of whisking your last child from the insular halls of elementary education. I know that my kids learned loads of bad habits and not a few unsa...

My son recently decided that he wants to be a fisherman. Living at the coast, this should not be a problem - it seems as if everyone fishes down here. But in reality, the fact that everyone fishes here IS a problem. Most of his friends who fish have fathers and uncles and brothers who have fished their entire lives. These kids have multiple fishing rods, tackle boxes filled with hooks and lures, and access to different boats that can take them in the marsh or forty miles offshore. For a thirteen year old who has just discovered the joy of fishing, this can create quite a conundrum. In short, my son wants it all and he wants it now! I am grateful for the friends we have that have taken him out fishing in their boats. You have probably gathered by now that I am not much of an angler. My family vacationed every summer at Long Beach, NC (now known as Oak Island) and my dad did teach my brothers and I how to surf fish. I can remember summers when the pompano were running and we couldn’...

Our family just returned from a quick weekend road trip to Williamsburg, VA., the primary purpose of our little jaunt was to spend a day at Busch Gardens on Saturday. However, we also threw in a ghost tour of historic Williamsburg on Friday night, which allowed us to take in some of the history even though we did not have enough time to spend a whole day there. Up and back in 48 hours does not necessarily allow one to take in all there is to see or do, but that does not mean that a lot can’t be seen. Believe me, whenever you find yourself surrounded by hordes of people, there are A LOT of things that you see and some things that wish you could un-see. So, if you will indulge me a few minutes of your time, I would like to replay the top ten high – and low – lights of our little family getaway. 1) Intestate 95 is not a fun highway on which to drive. Lots of tractor trailers, phantom traffic slowdowns, and ridiculously crowded gas stations at almost every exit. But, we did find a pretty s...

Steve reached into the kitchen cabinet for a real plate, not one of the cheap paper ones that his family normally used. With a large family, paper plates were the typical go-to for any occasion, but sometimes you need the real thing to get the job done, such as heating up leftovers in the microwave. As he eyed the stack of mid-sized plates, he paused, not reaching for the one on top. Instead, reaching down to the fourth plate, he lifted it and gently slid the fifth one in line out of its position, careful to not let the stack slam back down when he was done. With his conquest in hand he could now commence with satisfying his hunger with leftover meatloaf from last night’s dinner. Why grab a plate from the middle of the stack and not the one on top, you may ask? The answer lies in the story of the underdog. Steve considers himself to be a champion of the underdog, that one guy who will cast his bet on the horse with the longest odds or the team that Vegas won’t touch. Okay, so why ...