what would your’s say?

tonight we watched “the bucket list.” so.good. totally cried, lets not lie, but so good nevertheless.

it makes me wonder what would be on my bucket list…so just as a beginning, lets try it.

• Go to Africa on a missions trip
• Perform on Broadway
• See a landmark in all 50 states
• Drink a beer in Germany
• See a performance in the Sydney Opera House
• Get married and have a family
• Get my doctorate
• Own a brand new car
• Own a grand piano
• Play on a game show
• Be at the top of a mountain (I don’t really want to climb it, I just want to be there….)
• Drive a motorcycle
• Go to Ireland and England, London and France, Greece and Egypt.

I don’t know. This is clearly just a start of all the things I want to do when I grow up … but wouldn’t it be cool to just go and do whatever it is that your heart desires? I can’t wait to see what my future holds!!

 

“Say what you need to say…”

gonna walk all over God’s heaven

so.

i was a weird little kid. (still weird, and a little childish….but i digress…)

rather than having bad dreams about fires or murders or other terrible catastrophes, I would lay in my little bed and think about eternity. let me tell you. eternity is no small thing for me to think about right now, and sometimes I still get that panicky feeling i did when i was little. I mean, I would lie there and think about how I didn’t want to die because I didn’t know what heaven was like and I liked being alive. but even if i was resigned to the fact that I was most certainly going to die, and most probably going to heaven, I couldn’t comprehend the idea of “eternity.” The prospect of being around forever seemed boring, but the idea of ceasing to exist at all was completely terrifying.

and now? 20 years later? yep. I feel panicky right now. and scared. and unsure. and a little bit like i can’t breathe. but the message at church today really made me feel so much better in certain ways- like about God created us to be human, he didn’t create us to be disembodied spirits floating around playing harps and chillin’ on the clouds. he created us with love and passion and enjoyment and hobbies and interests. and if heaven doesn’t include things like karaoke or greasy pizza or fast cars, like music or cooking or swimming or sunshine, like fresh fruit or trees, like tractors or animals or comfortable couches, like boats and warm showers and pretty candles, all the things that we as humans enjoy- why would we want to go there? Now, these things are certainly of the flesh, but God has given us these things because He is God. He wants us to be happy, comfortable, safe. He wants us to have pleasure and excitement, contentment and compassion. I find it hard to believe that God would take all of that from us in our heavenly home.

I think tonight I may just rest easy and leave the eternity planning to God…He’s probably better at it than I would be anyway…

“you lift us up on wings like eagles”

i am a friend of God

isn’t that just cool to say? I am a friend of God…

namedropping gets on my nerves– i don’t really care if you know a famous person, or if you’ve met a prominent person in your respective field. chances are next time they’re not going to remember you anyway, and chance are just as good that your knowing their name isn’t really going to help me or even affect me. ever.

but. what is the difference between namedropping a famous person and namedropping God? I feel like I namedrop God all the time- like when i was younger and my sister would do something bad, i’d be like “oh yeah? well you’re going to hell because God says so!” What?!

or what about saying “God will provide” or “God has a better plan for you.” I may pray to and praise the Lord, but I don’t know that He will provide something good, or that His plan is better- how can I make promises by proxy of God?

If I am truly a friend of God, what does that look like? I think about my other friendships and compare- it would mean love, trust, communication, care, and laughter. Hanging out, fun times, telling stories, talking about our respective days, just sitting and being quiet together, eating together, telling other friends about my friends, working out together, listening to music, playing games, going shopping….

living life together.

So how can God and I live our lives together? Its a little harder for God to tell me what he did today: “well first these people turned their lives to me, and then a few other people used their free will to murder, but we got that situation mostly cleaned up….” Sounds crazy, right?

I’m reading this book “The Jesus I Never Knew.” Steve recommended it to me, and so far I haven’t been disappointed. Its a little mind-blowing to be honest. I think my favorite part is when Yancey is talking about how God has the power to change everything, get rid of dictators and stop Holocausts, etc. but He chooses not to. And people ask why bad things like that happen- but the fact of the matter is that if God were to have altered those events, it would be him demanding our love and respect rather than commanding it- it would be ruling by instilling the fear of repercussion and condemnation, rather than ruling by earning our faith, love and trust through the promise of His faithfulness.

That God- He’s a smart one!

Another interesting part is how Jesus actually would have looked- but I’ll save that for you in case you decide to read it! (It’s good!)

 

“Lead us further on in our pursuit of knowing You”

big wheels keep on turnin’

Know what I don’t understand? When I look @ Facebook and I look at pictures on peoples’ page- they all still hang out with the exact same people they hung out with in high school. why?!?!  I just don’t get it! I mean, in addition to the fact that they all still hang out, they’ve even started hanging out with people they hated in high school! I can’t imagine still living in Ohio (sorry, Ohioans!) but to still live with or near my parents, throw parties that only include people i went to high school with, have no new friends, no new opinions, no new experiences….wow.

i guess there is something to be said for living near your family. I don’t really have a beef with that, especially if you’re in school, etc. Clearly for undergrad I stayed super close to home. However. If you go to school, especially if you commute, you don’t make an effort to meet new people and make new friends, you have nothing to show for college except an extension of high school- I feel bad for you!! That’s really unfortunate!

Not only that, but if you stay with the same people and the same places and the same ideas your whole life, you’re most likely perpetuating the attitudes and behaviors of the place you’ve lived your whole life. Now, i don’t know about you, but I think there are some attitudes that are better off not passed down to the next generation…so. It then stops becoming an issue of your social retardedness and more of an issue of spreading things like racism, sexism, and other sorts of discrimination. Perfect, right?

I’m always amazed at how people can stay in one place. I mean, i’m sorry but I was the girl who made fun of the people who graduated from college but stayed in Tiffin. Move.on.with.your.life.

A piece of advice- there IS life outside of Tiffin. Outside of Risingsun. Outside of Bettsville. And its pretty sweet, if you ask me!!

livin’ on a prayer…

i watched this video that Andrea has on her blog about cardboard testimonies. Cried like a baby through the whole entire thing (YouTube it if you haven’t seen it- it is AMAZING) my cardboard testimony would be:

Then: Weak in my Faith

Now: Strong in the Lord

I feel like it would be so easy to wallow in the regrets of time lost with God. It would be easy to get down on myself, to think about how i could have had a relationship with God if I would have let myself, but instead I just kept him at an intellectual distance- in that “box” so that I could put a tag or a title on it.

I can’t contain God in my little box anymore. I’m not going to put Him on the little shelf in the corner of my closet and only pull him out in arguments I know i can win. He is it- this is it. Let the battle begin!

“more than just a beautiful mess”

time to find my way to where i belong

lately, i’ve been so frustrated with everything. my job, school, my friends, family, my life. I don’t know what the deal is, its just become easier to be apathetic to everything and everyone that to even give a shit.

burnout, anyone?

second year of grad school (at least in my program) is THE WORST, in terms of busy-ness. i’m waaay overloaded, and the thing is i know it before it even starts. i’ve been told. 2nd year is apparently “slogging through the mud” year. joy of joys.

i’m annoyed with people in general. i’m tired of immaturity, i’m tired of selfishness, i’m tired of childish-osity, i’m tired of feeling like the one person who has feelings.

i need to just have a vacation that isn’t going home or that isn’t like 1 day. i need a good 3 days to just sit around by myself and not have to worry about any sort of work, consulting project, meeting, errand. BAGHHHH!!!

in other news, i’m getting baptized (again.) I was baptized catholic when i was a baby, but i’m going to get baptized again to symbolize my newly found relationship with the Lord. I’ll let you know when that’s happening!

Just pray for my sanity these days. i’d appreciate it…

time for a milestone, time to begin again, re-evaluate who i really am

am i doing everything to follow Your will or just climbing aimlessly over these hills?

you’re always 17…

in your hometown…

isn’t it funny all of the places that we give the name “home” to?

• the place you were born
• the place you were raised
• the place you currently live
• your opening page on your Internet browser
• any sort of place where you feel most comfortable or that you have some stake in the ownership of (i.e. the “home team advantage”)
• our heavenly home

I’m staying “@ home” this week…meaning in my parents house where i was raised. I went to the eye doctor yesterday and one of the women working and I were talking about how no matter where you go, home is always where your parents are. even though when I’m here i refer to NC as “home,” any other time “home” means Ohio. she was saying that she lives 10 mins from the eye doctors and yet whenever she is returning to where her parents live, she refers to it as home regardless of where she has lived for the last 25 years.

there’s something about “going home.” its like home is even better when you’re a visitor. people will do things for you they would never have done when you actually lived there- things like cook your favorite foods, take a day off work to spend time with you, buy you gifts, etc. pretty sweet.

but what about the deeper reference to our home being in heaven with God? Heaven is something that our mind cannot even fathom in terms of its splendor and greatness- so can you imagine how going home feels now, and then multiply it by 2,039,814,570 and heaven is still greater than that?

mind blowing.

“eye has not seen, ear has not heard what God has ready for those who love Him”