2005

You know you're living in 2005 when.. ... ...... ............

1) you accidentally enter your password on a microwave




2) you haven't played solitaire with real cards in years





3) thE reaL reason for not staying in touch with friends is that they don't have a screen name





4) you'd rather look all over the house for the remote instead of just pushing to button on the tv.




6) your boss doesn't even have the ability to do your job.







7) you read this list, & keep nodding and smiling















8) as you read this list, you think about sending it to all your friends













9) and.. you were to busy to notice number 5.









10) you actually scrolled back up to check that there was no 5











11) & now you're laughing at your stupidity

one of those days

Today was one of those days...

I realized I am poor...

I realized I am going to be poor for a long time...

I realized that I can contain a lot of information(thank you intro to bible test)...

I realized that trust comes through hard times...

I realized that you should do your work becuase there will usually be a suprise at the end of your day...

Today was one of those days that you want to crawl into the fetal postion, turn the lights off, and cry yourself to sleep...

To forget everything that surrounds you...all your work...all your relationships...all the good things...all the bad... and sleep the night away so the next day you can have a clear head about the decisions you need to make. You can be wise in situations and not impulsivley rush.

Today was one of those days...

Eating my words

Isn't a mess when you declare somthing and God declates something else.

Like say you won't ever work some where and God sends you there.

Or you won't date and you date(just an example).

Or you won't do the major that God just is calling you to do.

I have learned that I'm very bold when it comes to declaring things and a lot of the times I have to eat my words take my foot out of my mouth and do what God tells me.

Im just thankful that I do it a lot so that I can get over my shame quickley.

Past Pains

So I have discovered pain never really goes away.
I knew that before but today has pushed that fact again.

The death of loves, the relational strains, the unknowable answers of "what could of happened", the uncomforties of tragedy, the many consequences of bad decisions made in rushed moments, the understanding that past pain will lessen day by day but will always be there.

Greif is to big to diminish and sorrow is to great to overcome in a mortal and finite body.

What to do with these pains when they scab over and then are ripped open again?

Weep for the moment and then get up and start all over again.

That is how you understand and deal with the past.

Then approach everyone else in love so the past will never have to repeat itself in the same context.

Finished

So I finished my book. It was good and only took me two days.
All in all it's been a good week. Im totally Acing my principles of bible study. Pretty exciting.
I love you all
thats all I have to say.

New Book

So I went home this last weekend for my best friend's wedding which was Awesome. I was her maid of honor and it was just really cool.
But Sunday I hung out with Nick and Lisa and they took me out to lunch becuase they are Awesome and then we went to the Sam's Club of Christian book stores, Berean.
Nick bought me the newest hippest book on the market.
Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis. If you have not heard it your out of the system becuase apparantly its really big.

And some of you may be shocked to read that I am already in the middle of the second chapter. I love it.

So Rob Bell states in his first chapter that the springs in a trampoline are like our christian doctrines. Their not the main point but they help get us in the air. Very simple but very in depth.

Let's face it... only Rob Bell can use a trampoline to compare to the Christian faith.

Anyways Thanks.

Death Stands above me

Death stands above me, whispering low
I know not what into my ear:
Of this strange language all I know
Is, there is not a word of fear.

Walter Savage Landar
(1775-1864)

Roman baths

Yesterday I learned something about Roman baths.
The way they cleaned themselves was they pust oil on along blade and they had someone scrape it across their back. Not only did the dirt come off but also parts of the skin. Fun huh? The reason for this is becuase soap wasn't invented until centuries later.

I probabley wouln't ever be clean.

would you?

A Day in Lincoln

So today was very exciting!
In Lincoln there was a art fair, a whine expedition and a flea market. Two of those three are things that I love to do.

It actually all started out with my next door neighbor, wanting to go to a forest perserve. She researched where the park was located and we were going to start off on our adventure into the world of Lincoln. So we all piled into our friend's van and started off to the park. We made a quick detour to the train station and then ended up at the art fair instead. I bought a swiss army knife(for camping purposes) and then we went to the McDonalds in town to get some ice cream.

All in all it was a very eveantful day for us because we rarely ever get off campus. Tomorrow I'm trying out a new church. I'm very excited!!!!!

That's all to say here. Good by and good luck. Did you do anything eveantful today?

Bible college

Things Iv'e learned from Bible college:
1.) Expect everyone to be a christian the first week.
2.)Every girl is either in these three catagories, dating, engaged, or desperatley wanting to date(except for a chosen few, including myself, who would not care if we dated or not).
3.)No one thinks for themselves, this is a very important lesson to learn.
4.)Don't off-handedley suggest that you arn't sure what the heaven and hell themes are.
5.)THere is nothing to do in Lincoln.

I have a hard time hearing God in this place. Everything is soooo.... Christian. The talk, the music, the reading. Everything but the life right now. I would like to see this place full of humanity isteand of just full of divinity. It's much easier to talk about God rather than to know his presence and walk with him on a daily basis. It's much eaiser to see him in a place of stagnant growth than it is to see him in a place that is supposed to be known for abundantly growing.

Have you ever wondered why girls are so fascinated with getting hitched. Come to a bible college and you will find the answers. But that is for another blogging date.

1.)Tuition: 10,000 dollars
2.)gas money: 50 dollars
3.) laundery: 1.75$
The chance to see the Christian world at it's best: Priceless

False words

Iv'e developed a new pet peeve.

When someone either precieves what I'm saying or just makes a whole conversation up in their head and have decided to tag my name onto the whole situation. I just found out that I had a conversation that I never had and I said something detremential to someone that I never said. Instead of this person coming to me and fixing the situation this person is going around and telling different people about these things that I didn't say and things that I didn't do.

It's so frustrating to here someone using my words, or lack of to say things that are not right and are not truth.

I guesse that will happen occasionally in a community of sin. A power struggle, unfortunetley.

Like Sheep

Iv'e discovered that there are certain people that will be followers and leaders. It sounds simple and already discovered but, I have a problem, I have a prideful demeniar that makes me sound like I know what I'm talking about. It also may aquire that we were just talking about Sheperding in small group and a lot of people are like sheep.

It really has everything to do with the fact that I'm opininated. It gets me in trouble sometimes though. But really why do people listen to me. I clearly have no idea what I'm talking about. I'm declaring that I really don't know anything yet people come back for advice.
For example Iv'e been serving in my recent student ministry for the past couple of years and people think that I know much more about ministry than I do.
It astounds me the conversations I have with people who don't realize I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm all opinion.
I think it also has something to do with my confidence level. I'm out spoken about things even though in my mind I really am saying "STOP Talking!" I seem to be knowledgable about things and sound smart becuase I have a semi-decent vocabulary that people just nod their heads and agree like I have some sort of right to say what I say.

Poposterous. Sometimes I just want to say something completley out of character so maybe someone will get the clue that I know just as much as anybody else.

Conflict

It's amazing what conflict does to a period of time and a relationship. It astouds me the emotional and physical torments and unsolved conflict can have on a person. It amazes me becuase junior high students are surrounded/surrounds themselves with conflict.
It's almost like they are attracted to conflict and as a leader its tiring. It's so tiring to deal with dramatic things that you know as a leader arn't that big of a deal but to my junior high grils it's the end of the World. Not the end of thier world the end of THE world.
But that's also what makes them fun and unique becuase after all the conflict they become who they are. They know a little bit about there world and about others worlds. They develop a skin, maybe a thick one, maybe too thick. They see the world either in a naive way of thinking or in a fighting mentality.

Junior High camp has been interesting this year and full of emotion.

Acquainted with the Night

I have been one acquainted with the Night
I have walked out in rain- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
and droped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
when far away an interrupted cry
came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
and further still at an unearthly height,

One luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.

I have been one acquainted with the Night.

--Robert Frost(1874-1963)

I found an uneasy rythem to this poem when I read it. I'm not much of a poem reader but this caught my eye. I soothed my soul and sent a rush up my spine. To be one acquainted with the night is to be one acquainted with the morning as well. I pray for the dawn.

The Problem of Pain

So I recently discovered that I don't read alot of what I own. Which is a very sad thing. Since I own some pretty good books. I go to my book shelf every time I need something to read and always find something new. I realize that my hoarding of books and my incentous need to read go hand and hand to my bookcase of wonder.

I picked up a book by Clive Staples Lewis.
The Problem of Pain-
"The creatures cause pain by being born, and live inflicting pain, and in pain they mostly die. In the most complex of all the creatures, Man, yet another quality appears, which we call reason, whereby he is enabled to forsee his own pain which henceforth is preceded with acute mental suffereing, and to foresee his own death while keenly desiring permanence."

It's Gone

I havn't been able to write anything down in Two weeks.
It's Gone.

Suprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis

"Joy is distinct not only from pleasure in general but even from aesthetic pleasure. It must have a stab, the pang, the inconsolable longing." pg.72

"Twilight of the Gods and the distance of my own past Joy, both unattainable, flowed together into a single, undendurable sense of desire and loss, which suddenley became one with the loss of the whole experience, which, as I now stared round the dusty schoolroom like a man recovering from unconsciousness, had already vanished, had eluded me at the very moment when I could first say It is. And at once I knew(with fatal knowledge) that to "have it again" was the supreme and only important object of desire." pg.73

the dream

I have dreams evey night and most of them are normal if you know what I mean, but last night's dream was absolutley weird.

I dreampt that I was driving to Lincoln to register for classes in my Buik LaSabre(yes my car was in my dream) and I was trying to remember if I had forgotten anything. I had my bookshelves and two suit cases of clothes. THen I remembered right as a pulled up to the school I had forgotten sheets, and my comforter.

I got out of the car to this so called "Lincoln" and I headed towards the main building to register. While walking there a unknown person from my past was preaching to all the freshmen and saw me. He called my an American beuty.(I don't know what that means but I was feeling like I was being referred to a horse at the time.)
Then I entered the main building with my two suitcases and I saw a guy from my high school there. Which wouldn't be such a big deal if this certain individual wasn't such not a christian himself. Then there was Terry Mulder just starring in wonder at him like she was my inner self starring in amazment at the fact that he was here.

I got all my information and I headed outside and it suddenley looked more like the real Lincoln. I saw Bre in Greg Mercer'c little orange car driving in the parking lot. She was slowly driving away from the school.

Then Hulk Hogan and his wife picked me up to take me to my room and I had a whole conversation with them both about there daughter(who apparantly was my roommate.) and then all there other children.

But as we driving towards the dorm rooms I realized that I had left my smaller suitcase outside and figured that if would turn up some day as we drove past it.

So if I go to Lincoln and Hulk Hogan's daughter is my roommate I'm going to self claim to have the gift of prophesy.

Any weird dreams?

The broken Window

So I have encountered a very large inconvenience in my life.

It's called my broken window. I drive a Buik La Sabre and the left front window won't roll up or down. Now you would think as a driver it wouldn't be a big deal but it actually stresses me out. See when I'm driving I would perfer to have all the windows down in the car so there is a certain amount of circulation while driving.

However with this broken window this system of circulation fails. So when I'm stopped at a stop sign or light the breeze from the left side of the world can no longer come into my car and brush across my face. So the broken window that blocks the breeze now leaves me hot.

Which is another problem which I must face. Because when I'm hot I sweat. Yes.. that's right.. I'm a sweater. So now I'm not only dealing with the problem of the broken window as an inconveniece I'm also dealing with it as a personel health issue. So now I have to find a strong enough deoderient to handle my profuse sweating.

Another problem is, when I don't get the right amount of circulation I seem to roll up the windows and turn the air on. Which if you very cheap people don't know causes more gas to burn. Which means that I'm buying more gas which means I need to work more hours, which causes me less sleep, which leaves me down right grumpy.

So, as in the end of this pointless, and meaniless conversation with myself my broken window is not just an inconvenience to me but is a health hazard and a gas guzzling problem.

Have you had any undermining car problems that are annoying yet you are just to darn cheap to fix?
-

A great Injustice

I just finished reading an pretty incredible book by the name of In the Presence of My Enemies. It is written by a women name Gracia who was abducted with her husband, Martin, by a group of terrorists in 2000. They remained in the custody of this group for one year and two days.
There are very few books that really move me and this is definetley one of them. I can only recall two others. The Bible, and a book by Brennan Manning, called The Signiture of Jesus.
I highly recommend this book to everyone, Christian or not, it is an incredible book.
The reason that I liked this book so much is becuase it's definitley not run of the mill. It's about two Christian missionaries who have to live their lives everyday for Christ in a place of persecution and fear. In the end Martin gets shot and killed and Gracia gets rescued by the Phillipeans' military.
This book gets me into an emotional rollercoaster becuase I'm wanting to fight the injustices of these two Christians. What's odd about their journey is that they served Christ together for fifteen years prior and I as I read through their journey I wondered why would God put his faithful servants through such a hard time. It astounded my when Gracia's husband dies and she just puts her faith in Christ once again. She goes back and celebrates his life with their family and friends. Personally I would not know what to do with myself if my husband got shot.
I'm also not at that life stage or that faith.
I just thouroughly enjoyed this book. It questioned my faith and why I do what I do. It made me question God's mysterious plan.