Cody Trail

Jesus Follower. Husband. Dad. Pastor. Personal Trainer. BA Political Science @UofOklahoma. MDiv @LibertyU. 4x CG Games Finalist. Retired Frat Star.

[Cody Trail @TheCodyTrail]

@davidpollack47 @GotBoz44 Meanest LB on the field, but nicest guy in real life. And made a mean grilled cheese sandwich, as I recall.

[Cody Trail @TheCodyTrail]

@davidpollack47 I met @GotBoz44 my sophomore year at OU. Though "met" massively undersells it. My friend took me over to her uncle's house, telling me her uncle's friend "Brian" was there. I walked in and realized "Brian" was Boz, and he was making grilled cheese sandwiches for everyone.

[Cody Trail @TheCodyTrail]

@CollegeFBonX That was during my senior year at OU, and I was proudly there that day. It was 36 degrees and rained the entire game. After celebrating @samajp32's performance, I went back to my apartment and sat in the bathtub for a full hour to try to regain feeling in my frozen limbs. Lol

[Cody Trail @TheCodyTrail]

Well nothing to see here, so I guess we can get on to more important matters at hand. Like ensuring gas reaches $5.00 a gallon.

[Aaron Rupar @atrupar]

Q: Did you post that picture of yourself depicted as Jesus Christ?

TRUMP: I did post it and I thought it was me as a doctor and had to do Red Cross. Only the fake news could come up with that one.

[Cody Trail @TheCodyTrail]

Surprisingly rapid development from this storm that fired over Irving. Will be interesting to see what it does as it moves into more favorable conditions to our north.
#dfwwx #txwx #okwx

[Cody Trail @TheCodyTrail]

@JimNagy_Sooners @OU_Football @NCAA

[Cody Trail @TheCodyTrail]

"A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but also by the men it honors."
-John F. Kennedy

[Saint Javelin @saintjavelin]

Trump hung a joint photo with Putin on the wall inside the White House.

[Cody Trail @TheCodyTrail]

@MikeCosper I'm not really into the whole "Spirit Animal" thing.

But this Tweet is my Spirit Animal.

[Ben Sasse @BenSasse]

Friends-

This is a tough note to write, but since a bunch of you have started to suspect something, I’ll cut to the chase: Last week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die.

Advanced pancreatic is nasty stuff; it’s a death sentence. But I already had a death sentence before last week too — we all do.

I’m blessed with amazing siblings and half-a-dozen buddies that are genuinely brothers. As one of them put it, “Sure, you’re on the clock, but we’re all on the clock.” Death is a wicked thief, and the bastard pursues us all.

Still, I’ve got less time than I’d prefer. This is hard for someone wired to work and build, but harder still as a husband and a dad. I can’t begin to describe how great my people are. During the past year, as we’d temporarily stepped back from public life and built new family rhythms, Melissa and I have grown even closer — and that on top of three decades of the best friend a man could ever have. Seven months ago, Corrie was commissioned into the Air Force and she’s off at instrument and multi-engine rounds of flight school. Last week, Alex kicked butt graduating from college a semester early even while teaching gen chem, organic, and physics (she’s a freak). This summer, 14-year-old Breck started learning to drive. (Okay, we’ve been driving off-book for six years — but now we’ve got paper to make it street-legal.) I couldn’t be more grateful to constantly get to bear-hug this motley crew of sinners and saints.

There’s not a good time to tell your peeps you’re now marching to the beat of a faster drummer — but the season of advent isn’t the worst. As a Christian, the weeks running up to Christmas are a time to orient our hearts toward the hope of what’s to come.

Not an abstract hope in fanciful human goodness; not hope in vague hallmark-sappy spirituality; not a bootstrapped hope in our own strength (what foolishness is the evaporating-muscle I once prided myself in). Nope — often we lazily say “hope” when what we mean is “optimism.” To be clear, optimism is great, and it’s absolutely necessary, but it’s insufficient. It’s not the kinda thing that holds up when you tell your daughters you’re not going to walk them down the aisle. Nor telling your mom and pops they’re gonna bury their son.

A well-lived life demands more reality — stiffer stuff. That’s why, during advent, even while still walking in darkness, we shout our hope — often properly with a gravelly voice soldiering through tears.

Such is the calling of the pilgrim. Those who know ourselves to need a Physician should dang well look forward to enduring beauty and eventual fulfillment. That is, we hope in a real Deliverer — a rescuing God, born at a real time, in a real place. But the eternal city — with foundations and without cancer — is not yet.

Remembering Isaiah’s prophecies of what’s to come doesn’t dull the pain of current sufferings. But it does put it in eternity’s perspective:
“When we've been there 10,000 years…We've no less days to sing God's praise.”

I’ll have more to say. I’m not going down without a fight. One sub-part of God’s grace is found in the jawdropping advances science has made the past few years in immunotherapy and more. Death and dying aren’t the same — the process of dying is still something to be lived. We’re zealously embracing a lot of gallows humor in our house, and I’ve pledged to do my part to run through the irreverent tape.

But for now, as our family faces the reality of treatments, but more importantly as we celebrate Christmas, we wish you peace: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned….For to us a son is given” (Isaiah 9).

With great gratitude, and with gravelly-but-hopeful voices,
Ben — and the Sasses

[Cody Trail @TheCodyTrail]

@RedDirtSport No one challenges Oklahoma like Oklahoma challenges Oklahoma.

[Cody Trail @TheCodyTrail]

@KREFsports No one challenges Oklahoma like Oklahoma challenges Oklahoma.

[Cody Trail @TheCodyTrail]

@OK_Breakdown My #1 takeaway is that I don't know what to takeaway. Did we just come up short against one of the best teams in the conference, or is this another chapter in a five year long saga of being "close", but unable to piece it together? The next four games will answer that question.

[Cody Trail @TheCodyTrail]

@FrancisDearnley @KHARPProject U:TL is one of the most remarkably complete podcasts I've ever come across, but yesterday's episode revealed what's been missing: interviews conducted while running. This opens the door for new possibilities. What if we interviewed @DomNicholls in the middle of a CrossFit event?

[Cody Trail @TheCodyTrail]

@OK_Breakdown If we assess that the Defense grades out as an A+, the Offense as a B, and the Special Teams as a D, we played a B- football game. Yet, we still controlled the entire game against a really good team. Gotta believe this team has a very high ceiling.

[Cody Trail @TheCodyTrail]

@ForecasterEnten @FrancisDearnley @DomNicholls who knows how today may shift these numbers yet again, but I found this poll especially fascinating. I genuinely believe this sentiment is accurate. The problem, however, is that Ukraine remains regrettably low on most Americans' list of priorities.

[Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 @IAPonomarenko]

One day, our children will become journalists and historians, I hope, and they will look back on our era from the distance of time—and they will be shocked at how exceptionally weak, pitiful, and incompetent the leaders of what was still called the free world were in the face of an utterly brazen and unpunished evil that, night after night, was openly bombing Kyiv and killing people on a massive scale.

[Bill Kristol @BillKristol]

The current leader who best epitomizes the spirit of the Declaration of Independence is Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

[Rep. Don Bacon 🇺🇸✈️🏍️⭐️🎖️ @RepDonBacon]

Mr President, your policy towards Russia is not working. While we negotiate, Putin bombs Ukrainian cities. Here is Kyiv today. It is time to change strategy. We and our allies must arm Ukraine to the teeth & we need the toughest sanctions. Putin is mocking you and America.

[Cody Trail @TheCodyTrail]

@DeanTTraining Chat GPT assessed that 2-3 is reasonable, though if strict form is the standard, it's likely as low as 1😬

[Simon Ostrovsky @SimonOstrovsky]

Tens of thousands of Ukrainian Evangelicals are facing unimaginable horrors. We're on the ground, seeking truth and justice for those affected. Please consider donating or sharing to help us expose these war crimes. https://t.co/qpjSd0oqrr