ἀναπνέω

2012-01-18T01:23:00.000-06:00

I am thoroughly frustrated right now.

For a lot of reasons, only one of which I will blog about now.

In case you haven't noticed, this blog has been a little, uh, quiet lately. And by "quiet" I mean I think I only had three posts last year. (My computer crashed and I checked, and it's more like 6, but still. I also had two drafts that started with "I am frustrated." They never got published. We will see about this one.)

I thought by now I would be better. I wrote in my last blog about how much I struggled to go to church and that is still so hard for me. The experience is completely exhausting (even though my church is awesome and I love them.).

But ultimately, I realized that if someone were to ask me what my faith was like right now (and I was being honest), I would have to laugh and go "What faith?" Because that's where I am right now.

It's not that I doubt the existence of God (though I have). It's just that I'm stuck in some sort of theological paradox. And I don't feel like I see (read: perceive through any of my senses) God anywhere.

Trying to pray fills me with an overwhelming amount of guilt that ultimately just makes my throat feel like it's closing up and I can't do it without just breaking down entirely. And not in the good cathartic kind of way. In the "I spend the rest of the day feeling anxious and miserable for a reason that doesn't even make sense." I've never really understood prayer, anyway. It always seemed ridiculous to me. But nothing like THIS ever happened upon trying to pray.

Most of this stuff wouldn't bother me except that it doesn't feel like I'm making any improvement at all. I hope that this state is transitory and that I won't feel like this forever, but I don't know what to do to make it better. And things just don't spontaneously get better on their own, you have to do something.

I just don't know what.

I'm at a loss.

If you have any suggestions, real, concrete suggestions, I am all ears. Because I don't know what to do anymore.

I Lost Jesus Somewhere.

2011-09-14T12:12:00.000-06:00

I am really frustrated at the moment.

Really.

I have been here for a month, and at this point, I cannot fathom the idea of going to one of the local churches and/or campus ministries. I've talked to some of them and they all seem nice, but the idea of going makes my stomach churn and my heart start racing. The last time I went to church, I spent the whole time thinking that I was going to throw up.

It's not that I'm worried about the people liking me or any of that. I just can't handle the idea of spending time in another religious institution.

Right now, my church is online. I read more about God and how He is working in other people's lives and I love that. I love seeing how He shows up to other people. I love reading about other people's struggles. I love seeing their thoughts and their experiences. Sometimes it breaks my heart and sometimes it makes happiness swell from the very depths of my soul, but it always, always, always gives me just a little bit of hope that God hasn't quite given up on me yet. That there is still time and things won't always seem as terrifying as they do now.

To be honest, without people like Jamie the Very Worst Missionary, David Hayward, and Elizabeth Esther, I don't know where this last year would've taken me. Honestly, I think that I would have given up on faith altogether if it weren't for their stories.

Mostly, this is because my faith has more and more seemed to drift from mainstream protestant faith. I find myself seeing more and more Jesus in people who, well, aren't really the people you'd expect to see Jesus in, and less and less Jesus in the people where Jesus is kind of supposed to be. Or where people say He is.

And this scares me.

It completely removes any capacity for neat categories and boxed up people.

It goes against all I've ever heard about those horrible evil non-Christians.

More and more, I find myself seeing the actions of people who are christians, and I find myself screaming, "But THAT'S NOT JESUS!!"

Because it's not. It's not the Jesus I read about.

But then I see Jesus. And He's not where He's supposed to be. I see him standing on a stage in front of me, telling the whole audience, "It doesn't matter what you're going through - violence is not the answer!" except with a bit more profanity than that.

This doesn't fit.

And it's scary.

And if church is going to be a place for me, then it has to be a place where Jesus is seen in all other places.

Unreasonable Positives and My Day of Laments

2011-08-09T20:58:00.000-06:00

The other day I thought my whole world was going to come crashing down around me.

Really.

I thought it was.

For those of you who don't know, I'm leaving for the University of Alabama at Birmingham tomorrow. (Did I really just say tomorrow? I'm leaving tomorrow?!)

I got a message from my mom, and we had known that they had messed up my tuition stuff. But the text from my mom essentially said, "I don't know how we're going to pay for your schooling this year."

Which is well, scary.

So I did the only natural thing to do.

FREAK OUT!

Then I did the next most natural thing. Get on the internet, and freak out to friend.

So while I was freaking out and having horrible visions of having to go to Vol State (the local community college that I loathe with a fiery passion that burns within my being.), Keedy told me this: "This is the one time I will allow you unreasonable positives."

I have this tendency to fantasize, and not in a "Drops of ocean spray rolled down his chiseled chest" kind of way. I just imagine these weird scenarios that would never, ever, ever in a million years happen. Ever. Last night, it involved me getting to meet Terri Irwin and then bathing a tiger. Just to give you an example.

I bring these things up all the time. Keedy will say something to me and then I'll be like "Well maybe...." and then she tells me the exact reason that will never happen. She is a bubble burster and she likes it. I really think she thrives on seeing my disappointment as she explains exactly why we can't go to Holiday World, the zoo, AND the treehouse all in one week.

She is a super realist.

So the one time I was being super pessimist, she told me she wasn't going to shoot down my super-positives.

Which is so totally unfair.

I didn't want to be positive. I wanted to continue lamenting in the misery of my situation. (Also? I can be kind of melodramatic sometimes.) But she was all NO! THAT IS NOT ALLOWED!!

And eventually we ended up arguing about why I couldn't just force myself to fantasize about wonderful things when I just wasn't in the mood. Which effectively distracted me from my laments.

Then she left to go do... idk stuff. And I was left alone to wallow in my miseries.

T'was an exciting day.

By the time she came back the problem had been resolved.

This post really doesn't have much of a point.

Except this: Don't let anyone lull you into believing that the Financial Aid office actually cares about your situation or helping you pay for you education. THEY ARE LIES.

The end.

A short rant on how we're being pimped out for money and hating ourselves for it.

2011-04-16T15:07:00.000-06:00

So, last week I did something I'd never done before. I bought a girl's cut tshirt. Yes, I am a girl, but I've always stuck to guys tshirts. Always. I'd like to say that I bought it in a "PSH YEAH I CAN WHERE WHATEVER i WANT" moment, but really, I just wanted the shirt because I liked what was on the shirt and Hot Topic only sold the girl's cut. And I learned something: It looks awesome on me.

The shirt supports To Write Love on Her Arms, an organization promoting mental health and advocating treatment for self-injury, depression, eating disorders, and suicidal behavior.

After I got this shirt, I went into my closet, and started trying on things that I haven't ever really worn because I was too afraid to wear them. And I learned something else: They look good on me too.

That's not right. I thought, You're not supposed to like the way you look.

I actually felt guilty for enjoying the body that I have.

Anyone else think there is something hideously wrong with that?

But that's what we're taught. I see it all the time. We're told that if we just lose X amount of weight, then we will be happy in life and everything will be rainbows. But once we reach that, we're not happy. We find out we still need to be thinner. And thinner. And thinner. Until what? Until we disappear? Of course, if you just so happen to be one of the people who is naturally the "ideal" thin, you get to listen people constantly telling you to "eat something" and that you're "too skinny." You can't win.

It's no wonder that every 1 in 200 girls in America develop an eating disorder. The mortality rate for eating disorders is 12x higher than the death rate for all causes of death for girls aged 15-24 combined. There are people dying because they hate their bodies. Dying because they have lost the ability to eat from being forever told that food is the enemy and that they're not good enough and that they don't deserve to be happy. There is a 30-40% recovery rate for anorexia and bulimia. The other 60-70% either die from the disease or live the rest of their lives miserable and hating themselves. (Source)

Now, let's take a quick look at the plethora of dieting products that are out there.

Pills! YAY! *sarcasm*

I'm going to save you lots of money and tell you this: They don't work.

They're not supposed to work. Do you know why? Because if they worked, then you wouldn't need the products anymore and they lose their market. In economics, this is known as "planned obsolescence". Basically, they make a product that works up to a point, then stops, so you feel the need to buy it. This is the reason we don't have light bulbs that last 100 years, even though we could easily have achieved such a feat by now. With weight loss products, they help you lose some weight, but do nothing for the long-term, and then, in some freakish turn of marketing genius, you blame yourself for the failure of the product, and buy more.

In short, this is how the system works: We have the fashion/magazine/media industry telling us we need to be a certain size, while the "weight loss" industry sells us pills, books, special foods, and basically everything else you could think of to make us "healthy." Then, when those products fail us, we feel guilt and shame, and possibly eat hoardes of McDonald's french fries or rocky-road ice cream to pacify ourselves, then go buy the gym membership that we will stop using in a month to start another dieting program.

And somebody else is getting rich off this.

Now, this isn't to say that we shouldn't be healthy. Or try to be healthy. Yo-yo dieting isn't healthy. But here's the cool part: They give us this cool little colorful guide thing to tell us what our body needs to be healthy.

Obviously, some people might have special dietary needs and that might change this some for them (if so, your doctor should be the one telling you about it.) But.. this is it. This is the food we should be eating to make us healthy*. There is a nice fancy nutrition website that tells us how much of this we should be eating.

*Healthy does not necessarily equal airbrushed model skinny.

We have forgotten how to enjoy the diversity of our bodies, of the fact that everyone is different and that everyone deserves to be called beautiful because of it.

I'm going to be happy and ignore the everything that says that I shouldn't be happy because I should be happy with who I am and I should enjoy wearing clothes and I don't have to obsess over everything that I wear. I'm also going to enjoy eating, because eating is supposed to be enjoyable and I shouldn't hate everything I put into my mouth for its caloric content.

The God of Parking Spaces and Football Touchdowns.

2011-03-22T00:12:00.000-06:00

Sometimes I have to ask myself, what in the world happened to me?

Because when I look around, I feel like my entire faith in God has been shattered to pieces. I look at my Bible at home and I get a tiny little glimmer of hope that maybe, someday, I'll be able to read it and enjoy it again. I listen to people pray and I hope that I will one day be able to do that genuinely and with eagerness again. I read the blogs of my friends and I celebrate the triumphs in their faiths and I wonder where my own went.

When I look at it, I see that my faith was shattered by reality.

The reality that people starve to death. Every day.

The reality that people die from diseases that should've been prevented. Every day.

The reality that some people never get rescued.

And that makes it hard.

It makes it hard for me to believe in the God that grants parking spaces and cheers on football teams, who is worried about how far we have to walk in the wal-mart parking lot.

In the end, I found that I was left with three options:

God doesn't exist.
God doesn't care.
I (We?) got God all wrong.

I never really doubted that He existed. But for a really long time (even now, I suppose), I questioned whether or not He was good. The questions in my mind were usually phrased like this: If He cares about *this*, why doesn't He care about *that*?

These things came up in conversation with a good friend of mine a few weeks ago, who is wiser than 99% of the people I know. She finally stopped me, and said, "God didn't do any of those things. People did." And she was right. She reminded me that God let us do as we pleased, and that God didn't create the system. He didn't create the system that allows 16,000 children to die every single day because they didn't get enough to eat while 40% of the food eaten in my country is thrown away. That wasn't Him. That was me.

What I've come to realize is this: My faith was shattered. Broken. Beyond repair. But my faith had been in the wrong thing.

My faith had been in the God who is focused on me. Who was waiting to fill my needs and my wants. (Disclaimer: This does not mean we need to neglect our own needs. It means we need to be much, much, MUCH more aware of others.)

In truth, I think we've missed our mission. I now have to believe that God is waiting for me to get off my rear end and do something. I think He's waiting for me (us?) to be Him instead of speak Him. To ~~quit arguing about stupid stuff~~ talking about Jesus and start acting like Him. It's funny. The one parable that Jesus told that has become my favorite is the one about the sheep and the goats. And I've realized that the sheep weren't sheep because they got the most commitment cards signed. The sheep were sheep because they took care of the people's physical needs - hunger, thirst, nakedness, homelessness.

On my first mission trip ever, we went to Mexico, and I can't remember who said it, but someone told me: They will never hear the love of God over the sound of the rumbling stomachs.

Truth be told, I don't like this fact. I don't like the idea that I have some responsibility for all of this. I don't like the fact that I will have to change my habits and my thoughts and my perspectives and, most importantly, my actions in order to be this person that I want to be and serve this God that I'm supposed to serve.

A Priest in the Muck

2011-01-14T23:59:00.000-06:00

I don't know how many of you are avid readers (if you're reading my blog, I'd imagine that this would be many of you), but I am. I read lots and lots of books. The book I'm reading right now has been on my "to-read" list for four or five years now. I read one book by the author, and then decided that anything else of his must be worth reading. That was only one book, I Am The Messenger, and I'd seen it in book stores for years. Every time it was the same thing: "Ooh! I want to read that! Markus Zusak's writing is amazing." But I never did.

Well. I went to the library. And I was searching through books, and I found it. So I thought "Well now I have to get it!" Namely because the book I wanted wasn't there (For those of you who are curious: Fallout, by Ellen Hopkins). Now, I'm not one to ascribe to the "Every little thing that happens to us in life is for a specific reason and purpose. The gum I got stuck on my shoe today was stuck there for a PURPOSE! to better the WORLD!" type thinking (though I will say that God can use anything to speak to us and work through us, even shoe gum), but I think that books and experiences can affect us more profoundly in certain times in our lives.

This is one of those times.

I came across an interesting minor character in my book. His name is Father O'Reilly, but we will just call him the Father.

The Father is an ordained Catholic priest. (As most people with the title "Father" are). To give you an idea of the Father and his lifestyle, let me quote the book:

He's balding, the father, and about forty five. Not quite as tall as his brother, and he has bottle green eyes and fairly big ears. He's wearing a robe and I wonder why he lives here and not at the church. I always thought priests lived at the churches so people could go there if they needed help or advice...[two pages later] His church is the old one at the edge of town and I now realize why he's chosen to live here. The church is too far away for him to really help anyone, so this is the best place for him. It's everywhere, on all sides and angles. This is where the father needs to be. Not in some church, gathering dust...He admits that if his church was any kind of restaurant, it would have closed down years ago.

The book described an incident where the Father did some over-the-fence couples counseling, literally yelling from his kitchen window to his neighbor's, and giving them advice.

His ministry is everywhere.

His ministry is in his backyard, in his front yard, on his street. It's everywhere around him.

The building that he preaches in, however, is nearly empty.

The building is decrepit. Ed asks about the state of the church building, and he says "Don't you have money to fix all this stuff?" The Father replies, "Well, not really, Ed. I've put it all into single teenage mothers' funds, alcoholics, the homeless, addicts.."

At this point, my soul screamed, "YES!!!!"

There was something about this character that just screamed 'Christ' to me. The Father's building may have been decrepit, but he made a world of difference in the lives of those around him. The people who were most affected by his life, his love, weren't the ones who were in his church building. They were the ones next to him.

My life has seemed to beg the question lately, what are our priorities supposed to be? As people? As a family? As a church? As the body of Christ?

What is our time going into?

Where is our money going?

What are we building?

What legacy are we leaving?

What message are we sending?

I want to spend my life serving. I want to invest my money in people. I want to build bridges. I want to leave a legacy of love, and send a message of hope.

The Father was working to leave a legacy in his neighborhood, immediately around him. His love and his care were obvious to anyone who met him. He was one who truly lived for Christ, for the gospel. He lived it in the muck. In the dirt. With all the messed up broken people.

I can only hope I will be so blessed.

Run.

2011-01-07T23:45:00.002-06:00

Do you ever want to run? Just run. Not run to get somewhere. Not run to exercise. But run for the sole reason that you need to hear the sound of not being able to hear anything at all. Run to feel the air flying past your ears. Run to feel it stinging at your eyes.

You want to run but you know running won't get you anywhere. You know that you could run five, ten, fifty, a hundred miles, and eventually, you would have to stop, and turn around and walk back home.

And as you would run those five, ten, fifty, hundred miles, you would feel everything lift from you. You would feel the things you were running from float away. You would know what it was like for nothing to be able to catch you.

You would reach the point where nothing could touch you. Then, you would stop. You would stop and take in the freedom. You would scream and let everything go. You would see the beauty of the horizon. You would feel the blood in your veins course through you. You would feel your heart try to pound itself out of your chest.

Then you would turn around. You would turn around and begin to walk. You would walk for five, ten, fifty, a hundred miles. And as you walked, those things that floated away so quickly would fall right back down. Those things would fall and hit your shoulders. They would take hold of you again. You would feel their weight pressing on you, pushing you back down to Earth, pushing you back towards the place you came from.

You would walk back to the place you ran from. You would reach home, carrying with you the same things you left with. You would feel them chained to you once more.

You would succumb to your own exhaustion. Collapse. Hear yourself breathe. Feel the blood in your veins. No one would know why you run. They would see your exhaustion. They would see nothing change. They would see the same chains as before.

You wouldn't dare tell them why you run. You wouldn't tell them about the moment where you stand and breathe, free and alive.

You would smile, and lace up another pair of running shoes.

A Scroogey Christmas.

2010-12-22T17:39:00.000-06:00

Today is December 22nd, and I've yet to find my Christmas spirit.

It's just not there.

The houses are all decorated. My tree is up. There are presents under it, but my heart just isn't there.

I've bought gifts and I've gotten gifts.

There have been countless sermons about Christ and His coming. But I'm just not there.

I don't know where my Christmas spirit is this year.

But, to be honest, the fact that it's gone doesn't surprise me at all, because when I think about it, the last six months have been some of the hardest to push through in my life.

In these last six months, there have been days where the fact that I got out of bed felt like an accomplishment to be celebrated. Simply being around people was a chore. I've laid in bed for hours on end, not able to sleep, and when I have slept, my dreams have been tainted by nightmares.

There have been more questions than I could ever voice or imagine.

And I've cried. A lot. Sometimes in random places for no apparent reason.

So it makes sense that my Christmas spirit has been eaten up with it.

There are things here, though, that I've been so wonderfully thankful to have with me. Things that I can see that God has provided for me to make sure that I could make it through (even when I didn't know how to get to Him) and these have been the most unconventional instruments of grace.

The first one being a movie. My movie. The new Alice in Wonderland movie. I've watched it over and over and over, and it never fails to capture my soul. The movie centers around Alice learning to be who she is, and not cave to the pressure of others, especially when it comes to the important things. She learns this from the most amazingly mad character, Tarrant Hightopp, more commonly known as the Mad Hatter. The Hatter is, well, mad. But he shows Alice something important. He shows her what it means to be true to herself. He shows her what it means to fight, to chase after a vision, and to even sacrifice herself for a cause. He shows her Alice's own heartstrength. That Hatter teaches Alice who Alice is.

How can you not love that?

The second has just been through a few people who just didn't leave. Two people that I've been totally, completely, terrifyingly honest with, and who have stuck with me anyway. These are the people who've held me when I've cried and have listened to me rant and rave and yell. These are the people who've yelled at me when I've needed it. I don't even know how to thank them. (Yes, Keedy, and yes, Shauna, I mean you. <3) They mean more to me than life itself. Thank you both for holding my hand.

The last? Well. The last have been the moments where God spoke to me. They've been few and far between, but they've pushed me through.

I don't have answers right now. I don't have reasons for feeling the way I do. I don't have anything to show for all my questioning. But.. I'm learning. I'm learning that it's okay to be vulnerable. I'm learning that it's okay for things not to make sense. I'm learning that God is bigger. I'm learning (the hard way) to take things one step at a time, one breath at a time, one moment, minute, hour, day at a time. I'm learning that I can make it through, simply because there's no other option.

<3 Merry Christmas.

This Is Beautiful You

2010-11-14T16:09:00.001-06:00

There are two blog posts that I read every single Sunday, usually before I leave for church (but not today because I woke up late and blahhh) that continually remind me of the beauty of people. The first is This Is Beautiful You on Single Dad Laughing. Dan posts pictures every week of people. Just people. People with their kids or their friends or their nephews and nieces or with strangers just being beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful people. People of all different walks of life. People whose lives are radically, astoundingly different, but we're all united by this crazy thing called humanness.

The second one is PostSecret. Many of you know it, I'm sure, but for those of you who don't, it's a collection of postcards with people's secrets. Their deepest, darkest secrets. Some of them are simple, seemingly meaningless. One this week just said: My left foot is bigger than my right. Some of them are inspiring. There is a distinct "raw" quality to them. A distinct vulnerability about people throwing their secrets out for all the world to see.

Today, though, I didn't read either of them before I left the house. But as we stood during worship, I got my own "This Is Beautiful You" moment. I was looking around the sanctuary, and seeing all the people. Everyone looked different. Some had their arms thrown up in worship. Some just looked bored. Some were just quietly taking everything in.

And as I saw this, I was reminded of a simple truth that gives me the greatest hope for the world: When you take down the walls and really look at it, we're all in the same place. Standing before our Father, trying to make sense of the world we live in and the world we're headed to. Trying to figure out this guy we call "God."

That's where we were today. Standing before our Father, reaching for His love and His embrace. We're all broken, and all beautiful. All creations of someone beyond our comprehension. Created to create. Created to love. Created to discover.

I'm finding the more I fall in love with God's human creation, the easier it is for me to fall in love with their Creator. The more I fall in love with this creation, the more truth I see in Paul's letter to the Galatians:

"So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise."-Galatians 3:26-29

There are no more divisions between us. <3 We all are one in Christ. We are all creations, and all beautiful.

This is beautiful you.

Source

Living with The Virus

2010-11-02T11:13:00.000-06:00

This week I feel like my computer.

My computer has been infected (though I feel like "infected" is too soft of a term for it. Pillaged feels like a much better term) with this hideous virus that keeps me from being able to do much of anything.

The virus managed to masquerade itself looking exactly like my virus program, at first. So when I was half asleep, and what looked like my virus program showed up and said I had a virus and needed to do a scan, I said "okay.." and went with it.

What ensued has been a miserable rollercoaster of not having my computer.

This is what the virus does. The virus makes itself look like its a virus protection program. So when my computer starts up, it tells me it's opening in "Safe Mode" because the virus that it says I have is going to take over the OS (operating system, for those of you who don't know anything about computers..).

Every time I try an open an application, it shuts it down, saying that it's too much of a risk.

So, as I'm sitting in my bed last night, trying to make my poor computer work, when it dawns on me, that this is about how my mind has been working.

I've always said that my mind has "locks" on it. Things that I just can't bring myself to do, for no other reason that someone, somewhere, said that I shouldn't do it. So I don't. There are outfits that I love that I won't wear because someone, somewhere, said I shouldn't. So I don't. They're stuck in my closet because I won't get rid of them, but I won't wear them either. There are songs that I don't sing and movies that I don't watch and places I don't go and people I don't talk to and paths that I don't cross and questions that I don't ask for the exact same reason.

It makes me wonder how long my mind has been infected with this virus. How long have I not done all of these things that I would really love to do, because of this virus.

Part of me doesn't even want to post this blog because something in my head says I shouldn't.

I'm tired of living my life with the virus.

I'm tired of having everything in my head dictated by someone else's voice.

I'm going to listen to the music I want to listen to. Read the books I want to read. Watch the movies I want to see. Say the things I want to say. And live the life I want to live.

Why?

Because this is my life, and I can do whatever I want.

Now.

I'm going to go play pool for a little while, with really loud music playing on the stereo.

Seeing more than a 1" square

2010-09-30T10:16:00.000-06:00

I'm really frustrated right now.

I'm sitting here at a picnic table in the middle of Alabama with a 16 x 20 sheet of paper taped to the table. It's a bit windy, hence the reason it's taped to the table.

I'm working on an art project for school.

In case you weren't aware, I spent 5 weeks in Honduras this summer and fell in love with some kids. So in art class, I've taken a picture of two of those kids, made it bigger, and am now drawing it.

Aren't they cute? Pedro and Angel.

So we made it bigger and put it in black and white. and then we gridded it. We divided the entire thing into 1" squares and now I'm drawing them onto the bigger paper in 2" squares.

When I'm drawing this, I have to cover up everything on the small version except the square I'm working with. This makes it easier to focus on the actual shapes and not what it's "supposed to be."

Here's the problem. The part I'm drawing now is diamond 9, or Angel's right knee and sock.

It doesn't look like it's going to fit.

At all.

Seriously.

It's really messing with my head, because I have to draw it the way it looks anyway, or else it's not going to work.

I have to trust that if I just draw it the way it is, it will work out.

As I'm getting frustrated with it, and trying to resist the urge to just draw it the way it'd look right, that still, small voice that knows all-too-well that I learn best in metaphors, says "I know it doesn't seem like things are going to work out right now, but if you will trust Me, they will. Trust Me, I've got this."

So even though it looks like everything is going way down hill and nothing is going to work out, I have to trust that the God of the Universe has a better angle than the 1" square that I get to see of my life.

You would think this would be easier. And who knew that God would still be using Honduras to teach me lessons. :)

Healing Begins.

2010-09-20T22:05:00.000-06:00

Tonight, I've just been thinking. Thinking about the people in my school. And I realized that if you look just under the surface, under the pretend, high school is one place guaranteed to be filled with broken people.

I know people who cut themselves on a regular basis.

I know people who are haunted by nightmares they can't explain.

I know people who have been abused by the people who were supposed to love them the most.

I know people who have been in therapy for years, and don't feel any happier.

I know people who live with broken families.

I know people who are scared and feel alone.

I know people who are broken.

And sitting here, the way we act seems to defy reason. We all act like everything is fine. We put on this wonderful facade that says "Look at me. Everything is fine here." When everything isn't fine. When we feel like our hearts are about to break. When we can't take it anymore, we sit and pretend to be okay.

For what?

Because we feel obligated to?

It doesn't make sense.

What if we all just decided that enough was enough? What if we decided to stop the back-biting and the fighting? What if we decided to drop our guards? What if, as a group, we decided to end each other's suffering? What if we admitted that, to quote a cheesy song, we are all in this together?

Could healing come from just knowing that we aren't alone? Could lives be changed? Could hearts be mended and spirits lifted?

Why can't we all just admit that we need each other?

Healing begins when we know we're not alone. <3

A New Definition

2010-09-18T22:02:00.000-06:00

Tonight, I dug deep into my podcast library and found one I didn't know I have. Apparently, I subscribed to the RadioLab podcast forever ago and forgot about it. I listened to one they had entitled "Words." Now, in case you can't tell, words have ALWAYS fascinated. The entire idea is fascinating. The way we define things, label them, assign meaning to them, and with those words, we assign values to them. Words contain a mesh of feeling and emotion, coupled with the distinct ability to hand them to another person. The power of language is absolutely phenomenal.

I've been spending a lot of time with Hannah lately, the 2 year old daughter of Lorin and Leslee. She is in that stage of life where she gives everything a name. I was over at their house last night, and she points to herself and says "Princess!" (They were playing dress up.) She went around and showed me "Table" "Chair" "Josiah" "Blanket" "Hair" and probably a lot of other things.

The discovery of language is something that changes us. It changes the way we perceive the world. It gives us the ability to define and analyze everything in our world.

What happens, though, to the things that surpass words?

For a society that is totally dependent on language, how do we process that which doesn't fit language at all?

We worship our God through music, through the study of His word, through prayer, through those repeat-after-me things we used to do in church, and through listening to His people. All of our processing of Him, it seems, comes through words.

He, God, is bigger than words. God defies every definition we could provide for Him. He is more than God, Gut, Dios, Gud, Isten, Bog, and भगवान. He is more than any adverb we could put before that name.

Our language is too feeble to capture God's goodness.

So how do we comprehend that?

How do we worship a God that defies our compulsion to define?

Heading West.

2010-09-12T12:22:00.000-06:00

In Sunday School, we've been talking about the big stories of the Bible. We started with Creation, and I began to notice a phrase that popped up in the first family.

It started with this, Adam and Eve screwed up and did something they weren't supposed to, and God said, "Guys, seriously? I have to kick you out now. Here are some animal skin clothes. They work a WHOLE lot better than the fig leaves you found." [I'm paraphrasing.]God puts them "East of Eden."

So Adam and Eve have a couple of kids, and when the two kids are big and grown up (Have you ever thought about how difficult it must have been to be the FIRST parent ever?), and they get into a fight. Your typical jealousy thing. God is more pleased with Abel's offering than with Cain's, for some unstated reason.

Cain gets angry, and took Abel out into a field, and commits the first crime in all of history. [I would be willing to bet that Adam and Eve had a daughter *since girls were unimportant* who saw the whole thing, went back to Eve, and said "Mooooommmm! Cain just killed Abel!" To which Eve would say, "Huh? Kill? Whaaa?"]

God tells Cain that his brother's blood cries out to Him, which speaks absolute volumes about God's heart, and Cain is banished to go further "East of Eden." Cain is upset, because he's afraid he'll get killed out there, and God, even though Cain screwed up BIG time, protects Cain by "marking" him.

Cain is sent East of Eden.

Further from God's presence.

Further from the love that has sustained him his entire life.

I have been traveling East of Eden. Away from God's presence. Away from the love that once made me burn inside. That made me feel like I could leap out of my skin and fly around the room. That sustained me. That made me believe that it was all going to be okay.

I want to go head West again. I want to be heading back to that presence. To that glory. To everything that once upon a time, made me feel like I was alive.

I'm heading West.

Join me?

Some Days Change Your Life.

2010-09-08T23:00:00.000-06:00

There are moments in your life where you just know that you will never be the same. For better, for worse, the course of your life is forever altered. On June 2nd, 2010, my life changed forever. I walked into Widow's Mite Orphanage for the first time changed my life. I remember walking up the steps and thinking "Wow, this is it." I remember looking at them for the first time and being able to recognize most of them from the pictures. I remember Antonio asking me, "Do you know MY name?" And being thrilled when I did.

Today, though, three of them weigh heavy on my hearts. Gershon, Karen, and Jesus were taken from Bob and Joyce in put in custody of their mother. This is not a good place for them, and I can only hope that they're being taken care of tonight.

That's just his face.

I am thinking of Jesus on the day he was sick, and carrying him on my shoulders. He got ice cream all over my head and all in my hair and on my face. It was everywhere. But he enjoyed it, and that's all that mattered. I'm thinking about all the time we spent fighting, trying to figure out how to learn to read, and how to teach people to read, and how we had just started to get it at the end. Thinking about spiderman addition books and letter practice and getting 6, 7, and 8 mixed up. I'm thinking "six has one circle, 8 has two circles, 7 has no circles!" and "squish the letters together!"

I'm thinking about Gershon, and how he worked so patiently with Pedro while he was with Wilson. Trying over, and over, and over again to catch that little foam ball. I'm thinking about the night Joyce was in the hospital, and how much of a help he was.

I'm thinking about Karen, and how natural of a leader she was. How it seemed like all the time she was trying to get everyone together. How she used to tattle all the time, too. I'm remembering the day she gave me "homework" and said I was writing with the wrong hand. I'm remembering her little smirk. She knew she was a Coder, too.

I hope and pray that they're safe tonight.

Reasons Why Emily Is Bad At Math.

2010-09-06T14:57:00.000-06:00

There are few things that get me more down on myself than math. I, simply, am not good at math. (Or making decisions, Mom is currently looking at me with about 6 different flavors of Kool-Aid to choose from. But that's not the point.)

Math and just have never agreed well with each other. Math, with all of its rules and need for meticulous attention to detail, didn't fly with my erratic, why-should-I-listen-to-you way of thinking.

For example:

Math says: You cannot divide by zero.

Emily says: Why can't I? I want to divide by zero.

Math says: *palmface* YOU JUST CAN'T.

Emily says: You have failed to give me an adequate reason why I can't, so thus, I decree that from this day onward, anything divided by 0 is to equal 11 and 1/4.

Math says: No, it doesn't work like that! You can't just make up your own rules!

Emily says: Why not? You sure did. YOU are the one who told me I can't divide by zero!

Math says: Because you CAN'T divide by zero!

Emily says: Yes I can! The answer is 11 and 1/4. Or, 11.25, if you prefer decimals.

(Side note: I couldn't decide quickly enough and Mom decided for me. I'm now drinking fruit punch kool aid)

Math says: No. You can't do that. NOOOOO!! *sobs hysterically*

Emily says: BUAHAHAHA! I win! *skips around Math, who is lying in the fetal position*

You see why we don't get along?

But it was ok, because eventually, I got to a point where math and I had restricted our relationship to the occasional run-in in the supermarket and at volleyball. I had effectively eliminated math from most of my life. This caused much less stress than the forced visitations we had every weekday for the past ten years or so. Math and I had gone our separate ways, and we were happy. Until Saturday, when I realized that my ACT was a mere week away. Math had been my foe the last time I took the ACT, and was, as predicted, my lowest score, at a 26. This time, though, I need a 30 in math, to get a 31 composite, to get a full-ride to Lee.

Math is, once again, the one thing standing between me and what I want.

Tonight, math and I are going to see a counselor to see if we can patch up some of our differences long enough to make it through Saturday. I'm willing to accept some of his rules, but in time, there shall be war.

New Blog Title... Again.

2010-09-04T19:47:00.000-06:00

So, once again, I have changed the title of my blog. I was at a party with my parents and two other couples from church. We were just talking, and the following conversation ensued between my mom, Kris, and me:

Kris: You know those sunglasses that change to adjust for bright lights and stuff?

Mom: Yeah.

Kris: Why don't they make those for windshields? It'd be a whole lot easier to drive.

Me: Actually...

Kris: *laughing* Oh of course Emily knows!

Mom (to me): Actually is the one phrase that describes your life. Your entire life has been "actually.." and telling us all the things we never needed to know.

Me: THAT IS THE MOST AWESOME BLOG TITLE EVER!!

Thus, the change happened.

I Tried to Be... But I Can't Be.

2010-09-01T22:15:00.000-06:00

I'm wearing this old shirt I have. I got it around the beginning of my freshman year (making it four years old.. *sniff* I'm getting old.), and even though I hardly wear it, I love it.

The front of the shirt says simply, "I tried to be..." then on the back it says this: "stronger, smarter, perfect, everything you ever wanted."

It's from a song by Hawk Nelson called "Everything You Ever Wanted," which is pretty well known among Christian Contemporary music.

As I was putting on my "I Tried To Be" tshirt, I was listening to "I Need You to Love Me" by BarlowGirl, and the words "And I'll stop this pretending that I can deserve what I already have."

I spend a lot of my time trying to be. Trying to be everything that people want me to be. Trying to match people's expectations of me. And I seem to carry that sort of attitude with God, my Abba, as well. It seems like I come to God saying "Please love me today. Look what I did God? I was good. I tried so hard to be good." Always afraid that I'm going to make the wrong move and get eaten from the inside out with worms (see Herod's death in Acts, I think it's chapter 9, but I'm not sure.)

The truth is, I need God to love me. I need my Abba to love me. And I need to understand that my Abba's love for me doesn't depend on how often I screw up (even though that's not an excuse), the same way my mom still loves me even though she had to spend an hour cleaning my room today because I didn't do it and people were coming to see the house. (I love you Mom!)

My mom still loves me.

My Abba still loves me.

And I'm relatively certain that I've posted a blog very, very, very similar to this in the past, but I'm not good at learning lessons, ever, really. (See my mom and the room cleaning thing.)

Now... all of you watch this video of BarlowGirl's "I Need You to Love Me." Now.

Just In Case You Weren't Aware...

2010-08-28T20:47:00.000-06:00

I am 17 years old.

I am not an adult.

I have no idea what I want to do for the next 68 years I'm projected to live.

You have no right to condemn me for that. Chances are, you didn't know either when you were my age.

So the next time you ask me what I'm going to major in, and I tell you that I honestly don't know yet, I would appreciate it if you didn't look at me like I was an unmotivated waste of breath.

I have dreams.

I have goals.

I have vision.

I have passion.

And one day, when I am living a full, wonderful life, you'll see that you had no right to treat me the way you are treating me now.

Just in case you weren't aware, I am more than a major. I have the right to experiment, to look around, to change my major as I transform, and to live my life without your judgment.

Leaving Home - A Fiction Piece.

2010-08-24T21:09:00.001-06:00

Okay, starting to delve back into the world of fiction, and I wrote this for school tonight. It's short, so just tell me what you think of it.

Leaving Home

Lily breathed a sigh of relief and leaned against the cold, metal wall of her corridor. It was safe. Of course, the term safe was relative. “Safe” meant the Gors weren’t breathing down her neck, and she was still alive. Looking around the next corner, she signaled back to home base.

Stepping as lightly as she could, she maneuvered her way into the heart of Gor headquarters. She spotted the GorBoss with some of his closest advisors. He was a mere fifteen feet away and completely unaware of her presence. His teeth were clenched tightly as he knelt over the table with his reading glasses perched on the edge of his nose. Her heart beat faster and each of her steps felt like thunder. When she was close, she took a deep breath, and jumped. GorBoss turned around just in time to see Lily’s attack. Her grabbed her around the waist and slung her down on the table. By this time, the SpecOps had arrived and were busy fighting off the other head Gors. Each of the SpecOps knew to leave the GorBoss alone. He was Lily’s, and Lily’s alone.

The other girls were slowly being overtaken by the Gors. The Gors were all larger and stronger than the girls, but the girls were the best trained Ops Team in the galaxy. Their bodies were fine-tuned to survive the harshest conditions and take down the strongest enemies. This time, however, the Gors had gotten the upper hand. Lily writhed her way out of GorBoss’s grip and hid in the safest spot she could find: directly under him. He reached for her, and Lily almost escaped. He held her by the scruff of the neck and looked her up and down before tossing her over his shoulder.

“Runt.” He muttered.

She squirmed in his arms. He squeezed her, hard, and her struggled to breathe. Finally, he let her go. She glared at him and said, “You wait until next time.”

He laughed. “I’ll beat you then, too, little sister!”

She pretended not to hear him, and ran off to join the rest of her friends, smiling brightly. He turned around, and jumped back when he saw someone in the doorway. His mom was there, shaking her head but smiling nonetheless. She leaned against the doorpost and he rolled his eyes when he saw the look on her face. He went back to reading the papers laid out on his bed.

“You know you’re going to miss her, David.” His mom said. David ignored her, and continued reading. Report Tuesday morning at 0600 hours… “She just loves you so much. You leaving is going to break her heart.” Tears began to tug at David’s eyes. He didn’t look up, just kept reading. Recruits need to bring their Army Handbooks… “David, you don’t have to go. You don’t have to leave us. You can stay.”

He looked up at her, finally, tears stinging the corners of his eyes. “I have to go, Mom. I have to go. I’m not gone forever. I’ll be back eventually. Please don’t make this harder than it has to be. I don’t want to leave her. I hate that. I hate it more than you could know.”

His mom bit her lip, seeing the pain in her son’s eyes. “Thank you for never growing up. Thank you for always playing into her fantasies. Thank you for being the parent I never could be.” David could see the regrets in her eyes, replaying all the times she had pushed Lily away, sipping at that ugly glass of wine.

David said nothing, zipped up his bag, and went to sit in Lily’s room. He sat down at her table and began to sip from a plastic tea cup while Lily cheerfully introduced him to a nicely dressed stuff bear, named Mr. Bearbert, and a doll named Lady Lilly. His mom stood at the door; a single tear slid down her cheek.

....well? what do you think?

A Shift in Instincts

2010-08-16T21:10:00.001-06:00

My old volleyball coach used to point out to us all the time that in order to play volleyball, we had to train ourselves to go against our instincts. (well.. the team did. I'm the manager. I just watched. Not the point.) Natural instincts would tell you that if there is a ball flying towards your face, you need to move out of the way. I was thinking about this today during practice while watching my team do this very interesting thing where the coach hits a ball at them, they pass it, do a funny backflip-roll thing, and then pass a second ball.

It looks about like this:

Just like that, actually.

So we do this drop and roll thing every day at practice. Every single day. The idea is that eventually, the roll will become instinct.

In Sunday School, we were discussing how to be "in the world, but not of the world." Which led us to a discussion of the upside down kingdom, and about how the things we do as Christians go against our instincts. He talked about how we have to train ourselves out of it, like a sport. It may be instinct to react in anger to a hurtful remark, but Christ calls us to turn the other cheek. It may be instinct to want to be served, but Christ called us to serve.It may be instinct to hold a grudge, but Christ calls us to forgive. It may be instinct to worry, but Christ calls us to trust Him.

Ultimately, it is instinct for us to live for ourselves, but Christ calls us to live for him.

These things don't start out as instincts. If they did, we could just say "Okay, from now on I am going to love everybody no matter what", and that would be it. But it's not like that. It's not an instinct. we have to practice stepping in front of the ball before it becomes natural for us to do so. The more natural it becomes, the more instinctual it is, the easier it will be to play the game.

When we learn to play the game well, the whole team benefits.

He Loves Me!

2010-08-04T22:44:00.000-06:00

Today, I learned something amazing.

I don't have to do anything for God to love me.

This is shockingly simple, yet it's the most amazing thing I think a person can realize. I realized it today. He loves me. He loves me even though I fail Him every day. He loves me even though I feel like I don't have a place in this world. He loves me even though some days I just want to yell and scream at Him.

How I ever lived with forgetting that is beyond me.

He just loves me.

He loves me with passion.

And I've been living life out of sorts. I've been living life like I'm supposed to be perfect all the time for him to love me, and that's just not how it is. God expecting me to be perfect is kind of like a father expecting his kindergartner to do Calculus. And guess what! His love is there for me anyway.

I forgot about the time in my life when my faith was as simple as this: God, I'll do my best, but I'm not too good at this, and You'll have to take care of the rest.

And that was all that was necessary.

He loves me! He loves me! HE loves ME!! He loves me!

Source

You Were Meant To Change The World

2010-07-30T22:06:00.000-06:00

"Here's to the crazy ones.
The misfits. The rebels.
The troublemakers. The round
pegs in the square holes - the
ones who see things differently.
They're not fond of rules and
they have no respect for
the status quo. You can praise
them, disagree with them,
quote them, disbelieve them,
glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing that you
can't do is ignore them.
Because they change things.

- Jack Kerouac

May I always, always, always be one of them. May I always be an advocate of radical love. May I always be the one to dream. May I always be the one to change things. May I always be the one to stand up. May I always be the one to step out into the dangerous places. May I always be crazy. May I always have the glorious, beautiful vision of the future. May I always live my life freely. May I always breathe in the scents of the world. May I always savor the tastes of the wind. May I always soak in the beauty. May I always hear the melodies, the symphonies, the rhythms. May I always reach out and touch the horizon. May I always reach out. May I die the day I stop living life.

Hug Me, I Need You.

2010-07-26T21:42:00.001-06:00

So I haven't blogged in a while. This is relative, considering that I have friends (*cough* Emily Lynn and Chelsei Henderson) who forget to write blogs for months at a time. I think I've gone maybe a week and a half. Okay, 8 days. Not even a week and a half. But given my previous trend of writing blogs every other day, 8 days should have been almost 4 entries.

Really, I haven't been blogging because blogging would've meant having to be open and honest with my readers (however few there are), and I don't think I could've done that. I don't think I could've been honest about everything going through my head, and that bothered me enough to not blog.

Anyway. Aside from the massive emotional/spiritual crises I've been having, I've been thinking a lot about love. Everyone's favorite four-letter word. But I think that's a blog post for another day.

I posted shortly after arriving in Honduras about it feeling like home to me. I showed my favorite quote from Jamie The Very Worst Missionary's blog: "Home is where the will of God supersedes my own."

I don't know where home is anymore. I don't feel like I've come home. Home is a lot of places.

Home is my dry erase board. My dry erase board that takes all of my frustrations and all of my curiosities and all of my joys. And it does so without judgment, without retaliation, without anything. Right now, I have three scriptures (1 Peter 1:13, 1 John 4:1, and James 4:7) written up there in different colors, and the word "SURRENDER" in all caps in orange on it. No real reason why, it's just been what's on my mind. I also, in smaller letters, have the word "Home?" written in red, tilting upwards.

Home, for me, is being held. I know that sounds strange. But I'm a touch person, and home is that moment where you no longer have to rely on your own strength, and someone else's presence completely encompasses you. It's the closeness of being able to feel their breath and their heartbeat. It's the tender words in the whispers. It's a lot of things.

Every time I feel that, especially from someone I'm very close to, it's coming home.

Hug me, I need you.

So, if you see me, hug me. It very easily could be the highlight of my day.

Stickmen.

2010-07-18T22:27:00.000-06:00

I have no idea why I did this. I just felt like it was important.

1. Stickman.

2. Stickman with object.

3. Stickman with object and purpose.

4. Stickman with reason to use object to achieve purpose.

5. Stickman using object to protect purpose from danger.

What's your object?

What's your purpose?

Where are you using it?

It's Time to Live.

2010-07-14T22:24:00.001-06:00

I really, really, really like living. And I don't mean that in an existential "living v. existing" kinda way. I mean normal, every day, breathing, heart beating stuff. It just makes me happy. I can't explain why, but every time I get close enough to hear someone's heartbeat (which isn't too often) or when I can watch them breathe, I get butterflies in my stomach and this huge goofy grin on my face.

Maybe I'm just nuts, but something about living just excites me. This love for just living has been producing a passion for living well. A passion for making my life worth something. It just doesn't seem fair to have even one year and to spend it doing things that make you miserable.

So a few days ago, I decided to start really living. To start doing things that allowed me to feel the exhilaration of life. Things that challenged me. Things that pushed me. Things that ultimately would change me. I decided to live in a world where I amn't (long story.. am not.) afraid to love people. A world where love for people changed people. A world where there are no limits to where I can go or what I can do. A world amass in culture and language. A world with millions of experiences. A world with millions of perspectives. A world that can swallow you up. A world with more things to teach me than I could ever know.

I live in that world. On that Earth.

Isn't that just cool?

Isn't it cool that God provided us with all of this to live in and love and just LIVE?

I mean, really, we have volcanoes and oceans and mountains and glaciers and valleys and prairies and rainforests and waterfalls and cliffs and rivers and lakes and deserts and ice and forests and caves and DIRT! All for us. And if we ever get bored with one place, there are millions of other places to go.

And if we ever get tired of looking at those things, we've got millions of animals and fish and birds and bugs to look at too. And if we get tired of that, there are billions of people to meet and billions of stories to learn and 6,500 languages to speak and billions of tiny cultural nuances to master.

Then there's more! Even if we learn every language and see every animal and climb every mountain, there are galaxies upon galaxies of stars and planets and comets and other stuff to explore.

We have one cool God.

Puhlapanzak Waterfalls. Beautiful and amazing. Been there!

Lava falling into the ocean.

Saturn! Very cool.

Lions!

Africans!

You get my point?

It's time to live.

This Day I Choose.

2010-07-12T10:20:00.000-06:00

I've been home now for almost four days. And I really, really, really miss my babies!! I hate that I'm not there with them and taking care of them and helping with homework and play with them.

But sometimes, things have to change. And as soon as one journey ends, a new one is birthed. This journey has ended, but a new one has begun. I don't know what this new adventure entails, all I know is that I want to pursue it with the same passion that I pursued the last one. I know that I have the option to be upset about the end of my last journey, or to throw all that I have into the new one.

Today I choose to throw all I have into the new one.

Today I choose to find adventure, to find beauty, and to find joy in my life.

Today I choose to live for today, refusing to dwell on the past or worry about tomorrow.

Today I choose to love recklessly, wildly, as if no one will hurt me.

Today I choose to be only me, and I choose not to be ashamed of that fact.

Today I choose to live.

"Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." -Mark Twain

I Just Love Nice People.

2010-07-08T07:49:00.000-06:00

I can be a pessimist sometimes. I tend to try and avoid that facet of myself, but every once in a while I find myself drifting into that mindset. Today, however, is not one of those days. It kind of started that way, but in every possible way it was refuted. My day didn't exactly start well. I had to say goodbye to 10 kids that I fell head over heels in love with, and I couldn't tell them when I was coming back. I was hugging Pedro, and he sat up in my arms and said "You no cry?" (read: kw-eye). I shook my head (it was almost a lie. Almost. But I wasn't crying.. yet.) and he said "Why no? I cry." and then lay back down on my shoulder and hugged me a little tighter. Typing that, I am crying. I fell so madly in love with those kids.

So... that highly emotional experience, coupled with an impending new, stressful experience didn't leave me with a very positive outlook on the rest of my day.

Skip to the airport boarding. I was checking my bag in at SAP (San Pedro Sula airport), and I experienced the first of many friendly people who directed my path today. She checked my bag and gave me my tickets and told me exactly where to go and what gate to go to and what I had to do next. Step by step, with a smile on her face. I am kicking myself now for not figuring out her name. I wish I'd paid more attention to all of their names. (side note: speaking of nice people, my flight attendant is really nice. He just gave me a Dr. Pepper and he was just friendly and smiley. I can't see his nametag from here.)

From there, I thanked her, told her to have a nice day, and paid my tax. Then I said goodbye to Bob (who is another one of those nice people! I love him! Great guy!) and he, too, explained exactly what to do at my next connection and stuff. Keep in mind it was my first time flying alone. I boarded my flight, and, a little nervously, waited for my plane buddies (a.k.a., the people with assigned seats next to me.). The people I got ended up being amazing. A sweet little girl named Melony, who was eight, and her mother, Amalia. Amalia, Melony, and I talked for most of the trip about flying and traveling and D.C. (where she's from) and San Pedro Sula (where she lives) and just stuff in general. Oh, and they were Catholic. They did a prayer thing before we took off, it was neat. I found out that she and her entire family (3 kids plus hubby) fly to D.C. at least once a year. Knowing that I, um, had no idea what I was doing, she offered to guide me through the customs/bag pick up stuff. We had to separate at one point, but she pointed me through to where I was supposed to go and said she'd wait for me in baggage claim.

I misplaced myself and ended up in immigration, where another guy noticed me looking confused and asked to see my passport, then he redirected me. I smiled and thanked him, too. Another great person.

I reached baggage claim, and Amalia was there. She introduced me to her husband and her other two children (17 and 15) and she stood and waited for me to get my bag. After that, she walked me over to where I was supposed to go and pointed me in the right direction.

She was an answered prayer. I was so nervous about navigating MIA (Miami Airport), and she helped me through the first part.Which, in my opinion, was the scariest.

I walked through the doors she directed me to and I handed my passport to a nice man who had to check it for.. something. I'm not sure. He asked me how my flight was and if I'd had any problems, and I told him it was my first time flying alone. We had a nice little chat and then he handed me my passport back and told me to have a nice flight. I told him to have a nice day and walked away, practically skipping. Another nice person. I said a little prayer, having recognized another good person God placed on my path, and thanked God for him too.

This is where I ended up having problems. I got through security with no problem. Talked to my family. And somehow ended up at the wrong gate. (In between security and realizing I was at the wrong gate, there was also the nice starbucks guy who was singing and smiling and all happy-like.) See... I ended up at gate 35E. Which had a flight to Nashville scheduled for 9:35 a.m. I didn't notice the a.m. (Tip: Check your flight by flight number AND city. Not appr. time and city.) This was after I had sat there for an hour. Another nice woman heard me go "Uh oh. That can't be good." and came and helped me figure out my flight information and the correct gate. Right before I left, she put her hand on my shoulder and said "Don't fret. You still have an hour and fifteen minutes til your flight leaves. You'll be fine."

So.. I finally found the CORRECT gate. But was still extraordinarily nervous. Eventually I worked up the courage (I'd spent most of the day in the airport and on planes. I was now tired and stressed and really just wanting to be home.. an emotion that still lingers now. Oh, and all I've eaten has been pop tarts and the starbucks) to ask the lady what flight she was on. She told me that her flight was to Norfolk, not Nashville. I briefly explained my... adventure.. and she said "Well we'll just look it up!" smiled, and started checking her computer. She asked me what the airport name was and finally said "Flight 410, depart 9:45, gate D46. You're in the right spot and the plane hasn't even gotten here yet."

I almost cried I was so relieved. So we talked a little bit and I explained the whole "I'm scared out of my pants because it's my first time flying and I have no idea what to do in el aeropuerto ginormico" thing. (ginormico is not a spanish word. I made it up.) She smiled and told me she has flown many times, but she knows how scary it can be. Feeling much better, I settled into my seat and waited on my flight.

Then I boarded, said goodbye to nice lady who helped me feel not so anxious, and almost cried from relief of ALMOST being done with my big kid adventure.

I am SO done with this whole "adult" thing. I don't feel qualified, and I just want to get off this airplane and hug my mommy.

Addendum: More nice people! A group of about ten people from my church came and picked me up from the airport. I felt so very loved! I made it home safe, and have only had a few hours sleep. By the way, I did hug my mommy, and almost cried.

Not the Post I Intended to Write.

2010-07-04T14:45:00.001-06:00

I kind of really don't want to go home. I live in this suspended reality here, kind of. In this suspended reality, there is this far off "Estados Unidos" that people go to and come from that doesn't really affect me. And sometime later I'm supposed to be going there too. In this suspended reality, I'm vaguely aware that my life might be changing and I'm vaguely aware that people that I knew won't be there when I get home and that there will be new people and that my whole life is completely different. But only vaguely. None of it's really real, it's just out there in Estados Unidos.

So I don't want to go home. Because once I get home.. everything is different. Everything. I'm different. The entire course of my life is different. And I'm not totally sure I'm okay with that. I know I don't have a choice in it, so I have to become okay with it. But for right now.. it's a far off distant world. Billy reminded me of that today after church. He told me that I'm going to have to totally rely on Christ during all of this. He told me that things aren't going to feel "okay" for months. He told me not to worry if I feel out of place. He told me that I'm going to feel tons of emotions during this whole thing and that it's okay to feel those.

But most importantly, he told me that I wasn't alone. That he'd been there. That it'd be okay in the end.

Thank you Billy! You and America are awesome! :)

But I still don't want to go home.

Today I got to see four beautiful children confess their faith and get baptized. It was wonderful. Today I was reminded of Christ's sacrifice for me. One of the songs we sang today had the line "The Darling of Heaven, crucified." And I thought about it, and just, wow. The Darling of Heaven. The most beautiful thing that Heaven has to offer... crucified. Shamed. Hurt.

We're not worthy of that. We don't DESERVE that. We don't deserve anything. I don't deserve the ability to breathe each breath I take. We deserve nothing, but He gave us the Darling of Heaven. The most beautiful. The most glorious thing ever. Because He loved us.

Wow.

I have no other words to say. I have no clever metaphors, I tried to come up with SOMETHING to relate that too.. and I just couldn't. There is nothing to compare it too. There's just nothing.

Aldous Huxley and Pikachu

2010-06-29T16:11:00.001-06:00

"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin." - Aldous Huxley

I know, that's not a "normal" christian thing to say. But that quote is how I feel all the time. I find this attitude in people a lot. This kind of push-it-under-the-rug-make-it-all-better attitude. Through this trip, I've seen real pain. I've seen poverty. I've seen disease. And I've noticed that people don't want me to talk about it. People don't want me to tell them that things aren't okay. People don't want to hear about the reality. I understand why, because pain hurts.

I have found such an intense beauty in the pain and poverty and hurting. I see beauty in the tin houses and broken people. Maybe I'm just crazy. Maybe I'm just overly optimistic. Maybe I'm naive, but to me, it seems beautiful. There's something so raw and so real about it. Something beautiful about the fact that it's not hidden under some glossy coating. But maybe I'm just crazy.

Guess what. Pain is inevitable. But we go through EVERYTHING acting like we're all ok and everything is fine and dandy. We act like there is nothing wrong and we don't hurt and we don't sin and we all live perfect little lives.

Then everything falls apart.

And everyone acts like they are SO shocked and talk about how something like that would never happen to them. When secretly, I think everyone breathes a big sigh of relief that they're not alone and that things suck sometimes.

I run into this mode of thinking that seems to say "If I just pretend it's not there, it won't be." So we do. We pretend it's not there and we never get out and conquer it. This thinking is then contagious, and we end up with a church full of people playing this big game and no one getting anywhere because of it.

Somehow.. I think there might be something wrong with this idea.

There's one other sort of "head in the sand" thinking that really gets me. It's this phenomenon where people so surround themselves with "church people", people who have it all together, that they get this idea that there is no sin left in the world. That there aren't lost and dying people out there. Of course, if you were to ask them, "Are there any lost people in the world?", they would obviously say yes. But it's like the responsibility we have to share Christ is somehow lifted when they stop interacting with anyone that isn't a member of a particular church group.

But really, they miss out. They're the ones who lose the huge blessing in just loving people. There are lessons to be learned that you just can't get without being out in the "real world." It reminds me of an episode of PokeMon (which I was a huge fan of!) where Ash (main character) battled Lt. Surge, a gym leader who seemed to be just so much better than him. They both had electric type PokeMon. Ash had a PikaChu, and Lt. Surge had a Raichu. For those of you who don't follow pokemon, Raichu is the evolved form of Pikachu. Raichu is considered to be much, much better than Pikachu.

In the first battle, Pikachu was beaten badly. Very, very badly. Raichu had better electric attacks and was far stronger than pikachu. When Ash was in the hospital with pikachu, he remembered something that Lt. Surge had said. Lt. Surge said that he had evolved his pikachu as soon as he got it, turning it into a raichu. Ash realized that there were some attacks that the pokemon could only learn as a pikachu, attacks that allowed pikachu/raichu to be quick on its feet. Ash went back to Lt. Surge, and was right. Raichu had missed out on learning the speed attacks.

We can't afford to miss out!

I've been both of these people. I try to be neither. I'm not as successful as I'd like to be.

I no longer want comfort. I want real. I want truth. I want honesty. I want freedom. I want grace. I want failure. I want messes. I want dirt. I want acceptance. I want beauty. I want people to be real people again.

To the Family with the Hubcaps on top of the Tin Roof

2010-06-27T21:19:00.002-06:00

To the family inside the house with hubcaps on top of the tin roof:

You don't know me. You've never seen my face. You've never met me. I've never seen you up close, and I can't be certain of who you really are. I will probably never speak to you. I will probably never get within 100 feet of you. But I still pray for you. Every time we drive by the riverbank where I see your house, I think of you, and try to pray. I pray that God gives you enough. I pray that you stay healthy. I pray that someone - anyone - shows you the love of Christ.

I wonder about you, too. Mostly I wonder how you live. I wonder if the river is your only source of water, I figure it is, but I wonder still. I see the electric lines that go over your house and wonder if you have any electricity. I wonder if you have jobs or where you work. I wonder if your children go to school. I wonder if you've ever lost one of your children to all those diseases that they talk about on TV. I see the chickens that wander around your house and wonder if that's your only source of food. I pray that it's not. I see the horse outside your house and I wonder if it is your only transportation. I wonder your house is made of. I wonder if it's bigger on the inside. I wonder if you have a real BED to sleep on. I wonder how many of you live there. I wonder if your family lives nearby. I wonder if your house gets destroyed when it floods. It's so close to the riverbank, it looks like it would. I hope it doesn't. I wonder where you got all the things you made your house with. I wonder how long it took. I see what you do in the river, how you take the garbage bags and clean them. I wonder what you do with them. Is it money for you? What are they for?

But mostly, I just wish I could love you. Truly love you, not love you from a distance, but know you well enough to love you. Love you in a way that separates the differences between us, the differences between poor and rich, the differences between Latino and American, the differences between English and Spanish. I want to love you like that. A love that does nothing but unite.

Sincerely, with the best wishes in mind,
Emily, one of the many people who drive over the bridge where you live.

Pedro: A Lesson in Patience.

2010-06-22T06:37:00.001-06:00

Three nights a week, Pedro has therapy. Pedro either has a mild form of Cerebral Palsy (CP) or he has some brain-muscular disconnect from a beating when he was younger. Either way, the right side of his body doesn't quite work. He speaks in only 2-3 word sentences, and his right arm and leg don't work correctly.

So three nights a week, Wilson, Pedro's speech and physical therapist, works with him to improve his speech and movement. First, he loosens his muscles with a hot water bottle wrapped in a towel. While they're waiting for that, they practice speech with flashcards. He starts with just the verb, making sure he can say that right, and then makes him say a whole sentence with it. Pedro is getting better at this.

After he finishes his speech, which takes an hour or so, Wilson works Pedro's muscles, stretching them and loosening them and stuff. Then Pedro sits in a chair across the room and tries to catch this little plush soccer ball.

I have never seen him catch this ball.

Really. I haven't. I watch him do it almost every time, and I've never seen him catch it. But Wilson keeps throwing, and Pedro keeps trying. Pedro gets frustrated sometimes, but for the most part, he just keeps trying.

I've only been here for 2 1/2 weeks, so I know he will catch it someday. I know that he's made miles of progress since he started working with Wilson (as in, he can run like a mostly normal kid now), but in that moment, when I'm watching it, it almost seems futile. In my head, I know that it's for his benefit, and even if he's not catching it, just trying helps somehow. But in that moment... it doesn't look like he'll ever "get it."

Moving into the metaphor part of the blog now, I wonder how many times I've tried to catch the same ball. There are things it doesn't look like I'll ever get. But I know trying has to help. Even if it doesn't make sense now. I wonder how many times I've grabbed, just to see the ball laying in front of me on the floor.

But I have to keep trying. I have to keep grabbing. I have to keep working with it, or I know I'll never get it. If I never try, I never will. Maybe someday, I'll get that. Because, remember, there's a difference between knowing something and knowing something.

So for now, I'll keep reaching and trying to catch that ball.

"Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God" -Hebrews 12:1-2

And I thought I was supposed to be the teacher.. sigh

2010-06-16T16:53:00.000-06:00

Angel and Jesus are busy doing their homework (which we just had a big fight over. Angel did NOT want to write.) They have 1st grade lined notebooks, the kind with the top and bottom lines, plus the middle dotted line. Anyway, for their "homework", I write down some words and then they have to copy them on the other lines. (there's only 6 lines..) Every time I do this, I have to be extra careful with how I write. I print much, much better than I would if they weren't going to be copying it.

I know that the quality of my work has a direct effect on the quality of theirs. I know that my work is a model for theirs. They're still learning how to write, and so what they learn now will have an effect on how they write for the rest of their lives.

As I was writing out one of their homeworks, and I was meticulously writing out the letters, I was thinking about how I never pay this much attention to my writing any other time.

How many other people am I really modeling for, without even being aware of it?

Mike and I were talking about this, about how people were watching me (all the while he was giving me that "I know something you don't and I'm not going to tell you about it.) and always watching us. To be honest, the idea of someone using ME as their example of how to do ANYTHING scares me. I don't feel qualified to be the "model" for anyone. But we are examples. We are all examples to one another.

Makes me wonder: How much better of a person would I be if really lived like everyone I knew was watching?

There are all of these people that I'm influencing, whether I want to or not, and sometimes, I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing.

The next thing I learned from giving homework: It's not always about the answers. Angel finished his writing assignment, and I asked Angel to read the words to me. He looked at it, and said "Egg!"

Egg was the word printed on the page. But I knew that he didn't know it because he read the word. They have this habit of looking at the first sound and guessing from there, just hoping they'll land on the right answer. I made him sound out the word, and tell me what the letters were.

I realized then that sometimes learning how to figure it out is much more important than the answer itself. It's interesting, I was reading a book by Brian McLaren, A New Kind of Christian, and he said something similar.

The quote said something like this: "What good is a math book if you just look at the answers in the back? You never really learn how to do math. You don't learn from the answers.. you learn from figuring out the problems. Maybe that's the way the Bible is too. Maybe it's not to give you the answers, but to help you figure out the problems."

(Friends of mine who have this book, Greg Crider, John and Nancy Hill, and NJ, feel free to post the exact quote.)

Jesus especially does this. When he doesn't know something, he'll just keep guessing. Saying number after number or letter after letter or word after word hoping that he lands on the right answer, while I'm trying to show him how to get the right answer. He will guess numbers without even looking at the problem. I have to tell him, "Look at the problem, Jesus. Look at it. Now tell me."

I have to stop him and make him look.

I think I've been guilty of just throwing out guesses to God, instead of looking at what He's asking and letting Him show me, I just throw at guesses trying to get the right answer. The guesses get us nowhere.

We're All Just Kind of Winging It.

2010-06-11T14:44:00.000-06:00

.So, in case you aren't aware, um, I've been put in charge of teaching two five year olds. And to be completely honest, most of the time I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. We're learning math and reading. As we've been going about this whole process, we've gotten frustrated with each other. We've had tantrums. We've had sulking. We've had fighting. We've had stalling.

We've also had breakthroughs and cheerios and spiderman workbooks. We've learned how to count and how to add. We've learned how to do fist bumps and how to celebrate a job well done. We've learned that most of the time it's a good idea to take a break and go to the park and climb trees and swing from the football goal and play, except sometimes, when we actually need to finish our work.

And we're all just sort of winging it.

Angel and Jesus don't really have any idea how to learn math, and I don't really have any idea how to teach math. But we're making it. We're figuring things out.

I was going to post a blog earlier about the game Snake. I have it on my phone, and I've been playing it in my spare time. I was going to post about how it feels like life. We start of small and have to avoid the obstacles and not run into ourselves while trying to find little nuggets to help us grow.

And then I had another important realization. We only play once, and we don't get "game over" when we run into a wall or tangle ourselves into a big knot.

Sometimes life and faith are a lot like Snake and teaching two five yr olds. We have no idea what we're doing, just figuring things out as we go along. Luckily, we have people who've already been there to tell us how they made it through and how they once got really long and got really tangled up and how it took forever to get undone or how math is best done with edible rewards.

Sometimes I Draw God Wrong.

2010-06-10T05:44:00.003-06:00

I know I'm not supposed to blog more than once a day... but...

This is my blog, and I will do as I please.

Here's the thing.

I'm wrong a whole stinkin' lot of the time.

I really, really, really don't like being wrong.

I like being right. I like having the correct answers. And sometimes, in the selfish more-present-than-it-should-be part of me, I like being right to make other people wrong.

My fear of being wrong has kept me from blogging lately. And every time I DO blog, I find myself terrified to check for comments, fearing that I was wrong and that someone pointed it out and that I may have (in the not-so-selfish part of my brain) taught something wrong and messed someone else up and deserve a rock tied to my neck so I can be dropped out of a plane over the Gulf of Mexico and then choke on oil there with a pelican.(And that's BIBLICAL. Aside from the oil-in-the-gulf-and-choking-on-next-to-a-pelican thing.)

This is what I was worrying about when I posted the last blog. I was worried that something I said there wasn't "right". And that I would mess someone up (ok, honestly, I was more worried that I'd be wrong and someone would call me on it than I was that it would mess me up.)

It just so happens that I follow Shaun Groves on Twitter. And he tweeted a link to his blog. The title, "God with Brown Shoes" intrigued me and I wanted a wonderful distraction from the chaos that has become today (which you can read about here..).

The blog was about how sometimes Shaun Groves is afraid to write because he'll say something wrong about God. I had to smile, because I'm pretty sure God had just winked at me. He said that he was pondering this thought, about how we are ALL heretics because no words or pictures or music could encompass who God is. As he was thinking about that, he looked and saw a drawing that his daughter had drawn. This is what he wrote about his daughter's drawing: "To an art critic it’s atrocious. As a form of photo ID it’s useless. But to me, her Daddy, the model for this piece, the recipient of this gift, the object of her affection, it’s beautiful."

I almost cried when I read that.

Another of my favorite quotes is: "the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. " (props to Thomas Merton for writing that)

That's all I'm really after. Pleasing my Abba.

I can't promise that I will offer the right view of God. I don't always see Him correctly, but I'm learning how to draw better from the arms of my Papa.

P.S. As I wrote this (I'm using notepad because I don't have internet at this particular moment and my Microsoft Word trial ended and I was too lazy to put the code in), I kept putting in note (Emily, *insert something that can only be done with the interwebz*). Just thought that'd amuse you.

I Need You.

2010-06-09T13:33:00.001-06:00

God, I can't do this alone. I can't do anything but make things worse by myself. Anything good I've ever done has only been through your help. If You are love, then I am hate. It is only with You that I can rid me of myself. I can no longer rely on my own strength to do anything. I need You. I need You more than I need breath. I need You more than I need water. I need You more than I need food. I need You more than I need anything. Without You, I am simply dust.

I've spent too long being myself, and just want to be You now. I just want to be like You. I just want there to be so much of You in me, that there is no longer me, just You. I want there to be so much of You that anything that I touch that is not of You is completely consumed by You. I just want to please You.

I need You. I need You to chastise me. I need You to form me. I need You to make me. I need You to change me. I need Your glory to be what fills my temple. I need You to carry me. I need You to heal me. I need You to light my path. I need You to be the very breath in my lungs and the very beat in my heart. Above all else, I need You to love me.

Hold me now.

I love You.

Chaos and Peace, Intertwined.

2010-06-07T21:33:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, I was watching some discovery channel thing on sharks, and this guy (whom they called SharkMan) talked about how misunderstood the great white shark was. Later, they had the host of the show go in with the shark, without any sort of cage or anything, something sharkman did frequently. After the host got out of the water, he made the comment, "Seeing the shark like that made me understand it in a new way. It brought a new complexity to it that I'd never seen before." (or something.)

It made me think about our bible study this morning. We read Isaiah 45 and it was just this picture of who God is, and it was incredible. It was new, it brought a new complexity to it. Thinking about what the host of the tv show did and that, it made me wonder, "How much easier is it to just write this shark off as a mindless killer, and not pay any attention to any evidence to the contrary?"

How easy is it to write God off as an impersonal dominator of the universe, and not pay any attention to any evidence to the contrary? I want to know God as well as I possibly can. I want to as much about God as my mind can handle.

Okay, next thing.

I've been assigned the task of teaching Jesus and Angel how to read. Eight of the kids are currently in school (Gershon, Fabiola, Mauricio, Rosa, Antonio, Karen, Cesar, and Pedro), because they are on a Honduran schedule (February to November). But Jesus and Angel are on an American schedule (August to May) so they aren't in school right now.

Which means that I'm their teacher right now. It's pretty amazing, I get to watch (I don't feel like I'm really doing anything, but I guess I must be considering how exhausted I am at the end of every day) them discover things and learn things that will actually make a difference (no matter how small) in their lives. Today Jesus was having problems with his 8s and we made a little trick up to help him write them correctly. It's little.. but how often are the little things the ones that matter?

I just love it. God has been so good to me through all of this. He's given me so much more than I could've imagined, and I'm learning what it means for me to lean on Him. I don't know what He's doing anymore, I don't know really how He's changing me, but I'm learning to accept it, knowing that as long as He's doing it, I will be better off. "It feels like there's chaos, but somehow, there's peace."

2010-06-06T13:46:00.000-06:00

A few quick things:

1. Bob and Joyce should give parenting lessons. Seriously. We took all ten of the kids to church and to a restaurant, and their behavior is astonishing. All ten of them sat there quietly (they weren't silent, but they weren't loud by any means) and ate their food without fighting or bickering or anything. Then after they finished, the ran off to the playground. All of them are like that. These kids just listen really well. Mike asked Bob about it, and Bob simply said "I can only attribute it to the Word. These kids are in the Word every day, and that is what makes all the difference."

2. Not being able to speak Spanish might be the death of me. I am prone to have casual conversations with strangers, and not being able to do so really is starting to bother me. I was waiting on Pedro to come out of the bathroom, and one of the ladies (I hate that I didn't get her name) who worked there asked me something. It really bothered me that I didn't know what she said. I think she asked me about Pedro, but I have NO IDEA. I'm getting to the point where I can understand some of what the kids say, but that's it. Anyone else is basically hopeless.

3. Denominations are becoming less and less important to me as time goes on. The church I went to today was just a church for missionaries. Lots of different ones from around San Pedro Sula. It doesn't matter if you consider yourself to be Episcopalian, Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran, Protestant, Catholic, Pentecostal... whatever.. when you are truly coming together to worship God. Worship has nothing to do with us, and everything to do with who created us. So the more fantastic people I meet who ascribe themselves to different denominations, the more I find that God's people are simply God's people.

4. When I get back, I will sleep forever. I am so ridiculously tired.

Again, nothing particularly awe-inspiring, just some thoughts about some girl in some country helping some kids in order to serve one really awesome God.

Pedro had so much fun doing this. He's always intensely focused.

Sometimes You Have to Take the Dinoboar Off Your Back.

2010-06-04T21:28:00.000-06:00

I would really like to post something ridiculously inspiring and profound today. I'd like to wow you all with the things that I've learned here, or some mystery of life that I have figured out.

But... I can't.

As usual, I have more questions than answers. So I'm just going to pray that whatever God wants in this blog will be in this blog. Sound good?

I don't even know where to start.

I went with Bob and Mike to help drill a well today. The entire way up the mountain there was some beautiful scenery. However, the most beautiful piece of scenery I saw, I didn't get a picture of. I'm sorry for that, but to be honest, I don't think I could've moved at that particular moment. We came to a clearing in the trees, and on the side of the mountain were a bunch of tin houses that were pieced together. As soon as I saw that, my thought was "This is home." This is where I am supposed to be. This is home. There's a quote a like from Jamie the Very Worst Missionary's blog (she lives in Costa Rica) that says "Home is where the will of God supercedes my own."

I always loved that, but it takes on a WHOLE new meaning when TN home and what feels like home are two entirely separate things. This feels like home. Here in San Pedro Sula. It might not always be home. But right now. On Day 3. It's home.

As the switchfoot song says, "Created for a place I've never known, this is home. Now I'm finally where I belong."

For now, this is where I belong.

The kids are great. I'm mostly working with two of the youngest, Angel and Jesus. They're out of school right now (They go to an American English school... the others go to Honduran private schools. Different schedules) and I'm working on teaching them better english and numbers and reading and stuff like that. Angel and Jesus are great. Little fireballs. They call me "Em-ee-lee! Em-ee-lee!" They're very inquisitive, asking "why? why?" all the time. ALL. THE. TIME. I am forever answering questions.

Okay, this is where I'm stopping for tonight. I can hardly keep my eyes open anymore. Check out the pictures on the facebook page. If you don't have facebook, well, you're a freak. But here's the public link instead: Honduras!

Good?

Here's one of my favorites, so I'll have a good thumbnail.

That's Karen, Pedro, and Angel.

I Know New Things

2010-06-02T09:41:00.002-06:00

So I'm sitting here in the Miami airport. I've got about an hour and a half until I board my next plane. There is a man with a funny accent talking about plane boarding and stuff. Mike Sawyer is next to me making business calls, if I'm not mistaken he is talking to David Garza, and I'm just chilling in the airport.

I've gotten my first bit of Cuban food, something that resembled a hotpocket, but tasted 10x better. I'm sitting at the D20 gate, and I leave from gate D22.

It's amazing the way experiences can change you. I feel like I've changed so much since I woke up this morning. The airport is a scary place. I checked my own baggage. I found my own gate and checked my own flight. I leave on flight 941, and am supposed to arrive around 1 o'clock today.

I know what can and can't go through security. I know that if you accidentally touch the side of the metal detector it'll beep at you and you have to go back in and out of the thing twice. I know that my laptop has to go through the scanning thing outside of my backpack. I know that mosquitos can transmit HIV/AIDS. I know lots of things that I didn't know this morning.

I know that all of my electronics have to be turned off before the plane starts moving. I know that the "Exit" aisles have the most leg room. I know that flight attendants are really nice people. I know that I can't use my laptop until we're 10,000 feet in the air. I know what 10,000 feet in the air looks like. I know that clouds look a lot more Three Dimensional when you're inside them. I know how different clouds can look! I know what the Everglades look like from the sky.

I know a lot of things I didn't know this morning.

I wonder what I'm going to know when I am going to come back.

p.s. Sorry I don't have some really cool cloud pictures for you. My camera is my cell phone and that's not allowed to be on during the flight. Apparently the temptation is too much of a risk. Hahaha. I might get some on the next flight. Maaaaaaaaaaaaybe. If I steal Mike's camera.

Preparing For Departure!

2010-05-31T13:04:00.000-06:00

There are less than 48 hours until I leave, and I'm in the midst of making last minute preparations.

Which brings us to this:

I've gotten a lot of questions about navigating the comment stuff. People, minus the tech savvy ones, don't really get how to comment on the bloggity. So, assuming this works, you should be able to sign in with your facebook, twitter, or yahoo accounts. Or as a guest. Supposedly.

I'm not entirely sure if it will work.

Comment to help me test it out.

So now other stuff.

I have to finish packing still. I just haven't gotten to finishing it. There are a mere TWO DAYS until I leave. And wow, I'm starting to get nervous. Nervous just about being there so long. Nervous about lots of stuff. Nervous about leaving friends and family. Nervous about changing.

But mostly, I'm worried about my own ability to trust God. Sometimes it seems so easy. He's the God of the whole universe, not trusting Him seems stupid. But other times trusting the God of the universe means going against everything to do something that seems absolutely impossible with what seems like nothing.

Sometimes that's hard.

It's worth it, but it's hard.

This is the part where I'm going to choose to be a lot more honest than I'd really like to be.

Some days, I don't want to live my life in submission to God. Even though I know (remember, the difference between knowing something and knowing something.) that anything He has to offer is better than everything anyone else has to offer, some days I'd rather live doing my own thing.

Some days, He is all that I could possibly want. But.. not every day.

Not every moment of every hour of every day.

That's how it seems like it should be.

Some days I don't even want to work on making it there. Some days I look at where I should be, and I just want to cry because it seems like this far off place, thousands of miles away, that I'll never be able to reach.

Sometimes I look around and see all this potential for everything to be better than it is now. For everything to improve. And I hope and hope that we can reach that. But at the same time, there is that lingering cynicism that says, "We can never get here. How dare you even try to get there? You don't even know HOW!"

How does one overcome that? How do I know that the God that I know can do anything can do anything?

Okay, so now that I've worn my heart on my sleeve, here's a funny picture to distract you from Emily's epic failure.

People Are Quirky Little Things, Aren't They?

2010-05-29T10:00:00.000-06:00

Four days to go, and reality has yet to set in. It probably never will. I probably will be walking the streets of Honduras still thinking I'm back in Bethpage.

I never realized just how much I like it here until now. I was driving home last night, and looking around (mostly imagining it because it was dark), and I just kept thinking to myself, "Man, it sure it pretty here." Then again, there is beauty everywhere. Isn't that a cool testimony to the glory of our God? The desert, the plains, the mountains, the deciduous forests, the sea, the coniferous forests (there's a difference, look it up), the rainforests, the arctic, the moon, the stars, and all those other neat space pictures we get have the ability to take our breath away.

Beautiful, isn't it?

okay.
change of plans.
It's been about 45 minutes since I wrote that particular tidbit of the blog, and now I'm gonna write about something completely different.

This is my blog so I reserve the right to be spastic and change direction at will.

Yesterday, it was brought to my attention that I own a large number of objects that I have deemed "quirky," objects that are functional, but that need a little bit of extra attention to work.

For example:
In Mom's shower, hot is cold and cold is hot. The knob thing is backwards.
My bedroom stereo doesn't always work.. it likes to choose it's own music.

and then there is Aidan the truck. He is in a league of its own as far as quirks go. For example...
1. The gearshift is off a little. All of the gears are actually a little to the right of their matching symbols.
2. The passenger door gets stuck sometimes and is hard to close or open.
3. The cd part of the stereo doesn't work. Except some days.
4. The middle seat is supposed to fold down for cupholders, and it does, provided that you put excessive pressure on the base of the seat.
5. The windshield wipers leave one long line of water right through the middle. (This has nothing to do with the blade, because it has done this with every pair we've had.)
6. There is this screw thing that holds the lock for the triangular window, and it shakes and makes it sound like the door (see #2) is open.
7. The passenger window rolls up slower than the driver window. It's automatic!
8. Sometimes the starter likes to keep the key and I have to turn the truck back on and then off to get it to let go of it.

If you spend any sort of time with me, you'd know just how much I *love* my truck truck. I talk to him and I say goodbye to him when I leave the house, and I sometimes say "Thanks for the ride, Aidan old pal!"

I knew all about my trucks quirks, but I never really paid any attention to them until yesterday when Kelsea was in my truck and she got to experience all of these things for the first time. Some people (not Kelsea.. just people) would want a different car. But I love my truck. I love my truck. I cannot imagine driving (routinely) another car. He is my truck truck. He's only failed me once (his battery died and he had to get a new one!).

People are like my truck a lot of the time.

I think of myself. It's no secret that I am "quirky" too. There are things about me that don't entirely work right.. they work, but just need a little extra attention sometimes. That is the beauty of grace. (Look! Beauty. See? It all comes full circle.) Even though we need a little extra attention sometimes, we're accepted and covered by grace. We don't have to work completely perfectly. My truck isn't perfect, but it gets me where I need to go.

By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. ~Romans 5:2

We are covered by His grace! His grace that accepts our flaws and shortcomings, and still manages to use us for His good!

Of course, I feel like it's important to note that this doesn't mean we can get out of needed maintenance. My truck still needs oil changes and tire rotations and a few months ago they had to replace some important belt in it. God still works on us, fine tuning our engines until we run smoothly.

Beautiful, isn't it?

7 Days or 168 hours or 10,080 minutes or 604,800 seconds.

2010-05-26T11:07:00.000-06:00

This post is mostly because I'm supposed to be doing something else.

Today I was overcome with a strange mix of overwhelming joy and absolute terror.

Joy because so many things seem to be going RIGHT. God seems to be working and moving in so many places and I'm just incredibly lucky to be able to see it all. I can see Him working in the SWORD team, putting the right people in the right places at the right times. Just last week we were talking about how we needed a place to go (the campground is going to be booked all summer with mission work!), and now we have a bus, a church that is open to us at any time, and a coffeehouse that we are always welcome to use for anything. Not to mention the church is allowing us to use their instruments Just in a week, when we were no longer able to use one place, we were provided with a new place.

We were asked to lead worship on Sunday night at the church (Unity Faith Fellowship) and everything just came together. The musicians, the vocals, everything. (I just have to learn to run a sound board!) It's just so cool.

And now I'm leaving.

That part isn't so much fun, because it seems like we're just getting started doing real stuff. And.. now I'm gonna be gone for all of that.

Will it be worth it?

Absolutely.

But right now, it's almost a bummer, because I want to see the team grow. I know I'll still get to hear all about it, but it's not quite the same.

I leave in ONE WEEK!! How crazy is that? I put the check in the mailbox today. I'm supposed to start inventory and figure out what all I'm going to take and what I need to buy and all that. I'm so excited, and still so so nervous. I know that this is where I'm supposed to be but there's so much that I don't know. Little things that you can't really ask, that just have to be tackled once I get there. I'm sure it won't take me long to settle into my niche there. I'm so excited about growing there. I told Amy on Sunday morning on the way to church that I was looking forward to taking all the things that I'd learned in church my whole life and putting them "to the test," so to speak. I'm looking forward to meeting and falling in love with the kids. I'm just looking forward to it.

Still.. one week.. so much to do. It seems like the whole week is packed full of stuff to do. I still have to shop for stuff and pack and clean everything so I don't have to worry about that on the way home. Then there's the fact that my schedule is pretty busy this week anyway. Church tonight. Kelsea is coming over tomorrow. Shopping and hair appointment Friday. SWORD meeting Friday. Babysitting Becca-Boo Saturday night. Church Sunday. Last minute preparations Monday and Tuesday, and then Bible study Tuesday night!!

Then I get to arrive at the airport around 4 in the morning for a plane that leaves at 6:15 Which means I have to leave my house around 3 in the morning. I don't plan on sleeping until I get on the plane.

I'm supposed to arrive at the airport around 1 that afternoon. Then who knows what will happen.

This makes me very glad that I'm officially out of school. I don't have to come back until August. Today was my last day, and it is a wonderfully freeing sentiment. Next year is my last year of high school, then I have to be a big girl.

Speaking of being a big girl, this is what Willum told me yesterday: "I know someday you're going to really grow up and be mature and responsible. To be honest, it makes me very sad. But I know you'll be so happy then. For now, though, I want you to go to Honduras and be with your orphans and just be a kid and love them, ok?"

I think he almost choked up. I'm gonna have to spend some time with him before I leave. I'm so very loved. :)

Sorry there is nothing incredibly profound here. My mind is just bubbling with possibilities.

Sniffin' Jesus.

2010-05-20T19:01:00.002-06:00

I feel like I'm the only one who has ever thought the words, "Man, I just wish I could SMELL him!" Because honestly, that's not something we hear everyday. It's a rather strange statement for one to make.

Today on my way home, I was sleepy, so I had the Willum drive us home. I sat in the middle and used him as a pillow. (He's a sweetie and doesn't mind). When I was laying on him, I could smell him.

Here's the thing about Willum..

He smells AMAZING. Absolutely amazing. All the time.

He's the only guy I know whom I routinely sniff. He just smells so good and wonderful that I can't help it. One morning, he got in my car, and the whole truck was filled with the smell of the Willum instantaneously. It was very possibly one of the best drives to school in my whole life.

Anyhoo, so I was using Willum as a pillow and I sniffed him. He smelled like Willum.. with a little bit of school tainted in it. He laughed at me for sniffing at him. A few seconds later, he caught me staring at him, and just asked, "What are you thinking?"

So I very casually (as if it's a completely normal and sane question..) asked "Will. What do you think God smells like?" He grinned, and said "He smells like the rain.. ya know.. right after it's done and the sun is starting to come out."

The best smelling boy in the whole world. Forreal.

So, I started asking people what they thought God smelled like, and the answers go something like this: incense, rain, lilacs and butterscotch, a meadow the clouds and chocolate milk rolled into one, bacon, peaches, deodorant, creation, outside, and raw carrots mixed with cacti and ammonia.

My parents said "Nothing, He isn't human and therefore doesn't have scent glands" (typical Dad..) and "It varies from person to person."

Now: A short lesson in the science of sniffin' stuff. (Most of which was taken from HERE.)

Okay your smell is what is known as a chemical sense, meaning that it is triggered by chemicals in the air. The scent receptors (known as olfactory bulbs) in your nose go straight to a part of your body known as the limbic system. Your limbic system is what produces the reactions that you can't control. For instance, if you smelled your little brother's fart and you crinkled your nose because it's gross. It also helps control the endocrine system (i.e. making you sweat or releasing adrenaline to make your heart race). It has little to do with conscious thought.

Olfactory bulbs have the ability to trace scents (think bloodhounds), and every person has their own distinct scent.

Your sense of smell is 10,000 times more sensitive than your eyesight. It has strong ties to memory, and it's retention rate after one year is 65%, compared to eyesight, which drops to 50% after 3 months.

After learning all of these little tidbits, I really began to wonder about the scent of God. If you read yesterday's blog post, I quoted Exodus 33:20, which is when God tells Moses that he would DIE if he saw God. Now, if our bodies are 10,000 times more sensitive to odors, just imagine what the pure, concentrated scent of God would be like. (At this point, I think my brain blew out my ears, seriously)

Think back to the limbic system, and how it is outside the control of thought or will. It makes me wonder if (and I'm not saying this is true, just a thought) when we are exposed to the pure scent of God, "every knee will bow and every tongue will confess." If you look at the gospel, when Jesus comes in contact with people who are possessed by demons, you often (not sure if this happens every time.. didn't check) see the demons falling at the feet of Jesus and worshiping. I wonder if that was an automated reaction to being exposed to the scent of God, even when masked by human flesh.

Scent.. as you are already aware.. rubs off on people. You can catch the scent of something and carry it with you. You also probably know that scents can mix. Let's carry this back over to God's scent. What if we, Christians, are supposed to be "carriers" of God's scent.. so that others can trace it back to God? What if we have, either unconsciously or consciously, have mixed God's scent with something that just frankly STINKS? What if the smell of God has been so tainted by us, that when people get that whiff of Him, it brings up feelings of pain and hurt?

So, what do I think God smells like? I think He smells like fresh creation. I think you can smell Him when I crucify my own flesh. I think He smells like trees of kindness and gentleness and joy and self-control (and all those others). I think He smells like a vineyard, ready to be harvested. I think He smells like an upside-down kingdom. I think He smells like soaked fleece on dry ground. I think He smells like a dove's twig, promising life. I think He smells like a ram, saving the life of a child.

Comprehending An Incomprehensible God.

2010-05-19T12:16:00.000-06:00

Last night, Jonathan was talking about how we simply cannot comprehend God. It's simply impossible for us, in our finite bodies, to understand God, the infinite. He was so very, very right.

But it made me wonder.. what do you do with that? Because, at least for me, the knowledge that He is incomprehensible is coupled, intertwined, mingled with the burning desire to understand Him, to know Him, to stand there with Him.

We talked about Exodus 33:20, which says "And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live." (KJV)

We can't even stand to see Him. He's that glorious. That wonderful. That beautiful. That holy. That PERFECT. So perfect, wonderful, beautiful, glorious, holy that if we were to catch even the slightest glimpse of Him, we would DIE.

It would absolutely be worth it. Imagine, your very last sight on Earth is God in His full glory. If you know the story, you know that Moses got to see the backside of God as He passed by. You would also know that Moses was forever changed by that experience. By that moment. The Bible says that His first (and only) reaction was worship. He fell on his face and worshiped God. I think it is one of the most beautiful moments of the Bible. The Bible says that he stayed on that mountain for 40 days, and that when he came down from the mountain, his face was shining, and Moses didn't know about it. The rest of Moses's life, he wore a veil over his face because the people couldn't look at him anymore.

Doesn't that just make you want to KNOW HIM? to know who God is? I don't know about you, but that's what it does to me. It makes me want to run to Him and say to Him "Show me! Oh please, oh please, show me! I want to know too. I want to see!"

As we go to church tonight, I hope and pray that we have a desire to see His glory. I want to see it.

Picking Up An Old Story.

2010-05-17T16:45:00.001-06:00

A few days ago I decided to start picking up an old story that I had started writing almost two years ago. It started as a novel version of the Book of Revelation (with some added fantasy elements). But it kind of escalated into something different and new.

The story followed four main characters:

1. Jason: The original Main Character (MC). A shy, artistic college freshman..

2. Derek: Jason's roommate/best friend from childhood. He's extremely sports oriented and competitive.

3. Susan: Single mother of a six week old son named Sam.

4. Melvin: Extraordinarily intelligent metrosexual astronaut.

Each of the four characters had surprisingly different views on God. They come together after the beginning of the rapture, and the story was set to take them through the entire thing and bring them close and bring them to love each other. Then they go to Heaven and you get to watch them as they see God and meet God and learn more and more about Him. To me, it's beautiful because you get to watch an extraordinarily narrow view of God transform into a view of Him that is broad and all-encompassing. You get to see a 2D or 3D version of the God of the universe turn into a view of the God of the universe as He is! With INFINITE dimensions! With knowledge that surpasses all understanding (like Derek learns!), with control over nature and the ability to step over the line of the natural world (like Melvin learns!), with beautiful healing powers and an extraordinary personal nature (like Susan learns!), and finally, with a safety that surpasses all other things (like Jason learns!).

It's beautiful, because the lives of these four people leaves them with four separate views of God, and God is the one who takes these views and says "Now watch this!" and absolutely astounds them.

I love it, because in writing it, I began to give myself permission to see God in a new light for myself. So now, knowing that I know Him better, I wonder if the story will be exponentially better than it would've been. My hope and prayer for this story is that if I ever finish it, that it could help someone somewhere see God in a new way.

The More You Know, The More You Know You Don't Know... or Something.

2010-05-11T21:25:00.000-06:00

I am currently reading "A New Kind of Christian" by Brian McLaren (thank you John Stephens for recommending the read, and John Hill for providing the book.) I'm still in the beginning, but thus far, the book talks about the transitions between ideas and perceptions of God. It talks about how we are completely conditioned to be "analyzers." We look at everything from a scientific mindset. This is "modernist" thinking. But before modernism, there was Medieval thinking, and before that, there was Ancient thinking.

Both of which are COMPLETELY different from how we look at God.

This fascinates me, because lately, I have had no idea HOW to look at God anymore. I don't know if I'm supposed to look at Him like my friend, someone I can go to with anything and tell all the trivial meaningless points of my day, or to look at Him like my king, to go to under complete reverence, bringing only the things worthy to be spoken to Him. I don't know anymore. I don't know how I should pray or how I should study or how I should introduce people to Him anymore. I don't know if I'm doing anything right. I don't know if I should fall flat on my face, or walk right up to Him. I don't know how to even be with Him anymore. I don't know how to hear from Him. Do I need to sit in silence, trying to calm my ever-chaotic mind long enough to get a whisper of glory? Or do I just need to trust that He will tell me what I need to hear, as long as I'm listening? Is He up there twisting knobs and turning dials to keep everything in a specific order or pattern? Or is He watching patiently for His children to ask for His assistance in lives they're directing? Is "He" even a "He" at all?

I don't know.

I don't know God the way I feel like I should. I don't even know how I should know God.

That leads me to what I want to know. I want to know how all the "greats" looked at Him. I want to know how the people who thought of Him differently than I do looked at Him. I want a fresh perspective. And if fresh really means old, then I want that too. In the basics of this research, I found a gaping hole in what I knew about Christianity. 14 centuries of Christianity that I know NOTHING about.

I know about Paul and Peter and John and Stephen and the "Early Church". I know about the beginnings of the Protestant movement and how Luther revolted against the church. I know about Wesley. I know about Edwards. But... what about the in between? Who came after Paul and before Luther? Who taught the people? Who showed all the grace? Who worked humbly as God's servants?

I don't know.

I'm starting an endeavor. An endeavor to learn about the people who loved God. And hopefully, in the process, learn about the character of God himself (herself?).

14 centuries of history that needs to be uncovered. 14 centuries that couldn't even BEGIN to be delved into as much as I would like. But just a basic knowledge. A basic knowing of how they thought and what they believed and how they changed things.

Wish me luck :)

To Glomp or Not to Glomp?

2010-05-09T11:37:00.000-06:00

glomp: to embrace enthusiastically; to pounce on and hug, often from a running start

This is one of my favorite words, ever. I do this to people all the time. I thought it was made up, but apparently it's Japanese and might be misinterpreted. I don't know. I don't really care. We call this "lingual development." You just wait. It'll make it to Webster. (This is a shout out to all the lovely members of wf.org! I love you guys!)

Anyway, that's not the point of this blog.

I'm a touch person. I love touching and being touching and texture and closeness and warmth. I love getting to church and hugging everyone. I love hugs. If I see someone I haven't seen in a while, I WILL glomp them. End of story. If you know me or spend any amount of time with me, you know that I love this sort of thing. I love laying in people's lap or whatever. Anything to make me feel close to people.

The one thing I forgot to mention in my last post was very possibly the only thing that kept me from having a total meltdown last week. Each morning when I woke up, I felt God's presence there with me. It was obvious to me. *this is the point where Emily sounds insane. But I promise, it's not as weird as it sounds* It felt like God was there with me, stroking my hair and my head was lying in His lap. One morning, I remember waking up, feeling like that, and just saying, probably out loud, "But God, I don't want to get up." And I felt Him urging me to get up and start my day. It was so tender, so close. That feeling, that closeness, that rest faded as my day got busy and time was sapped away from me and I "had" to do stuff all day.

Yesterday, I glomped God. I felt like I'd hardly seen Him all week, and I ran into His arms and I loved it. It was everything I needed for things to be better. It was everything I needed to calm down my brain, to ease the chaos. Being with Him is all I need to be happy.

So this morning, when our pastor prayed that we each get a touch from God, I prayed that we get more than that. A touch is good. It's beautiful. It's changing. It's amazing. But I want more than that. I want to be glomped. I want "to embrace enthusiastically, often with a running start."

That's all I really have to say. :)

Just like that.

Rest? What's that?

2010-05-07T21:37:00.000-06:00

I'm tired. I'm exhausted. My head aches with words and questions and doubts and uncertainty. And I've never wanted to be out of my own brain as much as I do right now.

Part of me (okay, the vast majority), absolutely hates the way I am. The way I think. The way I feel. The way I process things. The way I criticize. Everything.

More often than I would like to admit, I find myself asking God, "Why did you have to make me like this? I don't want to ask these questions. I don't want to think about it. I don't want to reject this, and for ONCE I'd just like to be able to focus on something without having to go through pain and turmoil to keep myself on track for five minutes."

I just want so desperately to be different. To be something that's not who I am. To be someone who doesn't feel like she has to keep her mouth shut all the time. To be someone who doesn't have to "dig deep". To just take things as they are. Appreciate them for the surface.

I don't want to see the parallels anymore. I don't want to look at something and wonder about the symbolism or the history or the culture surrounding whatever I'm researching. I don't want it.

This week has been so long. It feels like so many people have wanted so much from me, and I just want to do things for me for once. I know it's selfish and that I should be more giving but I'm gived out. I'm tired of schoolwork and feeling like I'm letting everybody down. I'm tired of this uncertainty. I feel like someone has pulled the rug out from under me and I'm just waiting to crash. I'm just tired.

This can't be what God meant for us to live. I found a verse this week that said: "This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it."

We're moving too fast. Way too fast.

I'm ready to rest in God. I'm done with this running around and no time thing.

Cheers for a free weekend.

Sorry this hasn't been some spiritual expose or deep analogy/thought thing. I don't have one in me right now. I'll get back to you on that. There's one in me. Maybe on Elijah and Elisha. Maybe.

Hezekiah* 32: The Sin Hierarchy

2010-05-04T07:21:00.000-06:00

"And the Lord said, "Do not fear, Oh Israelites, for some of your sins are worse than others. Henceforth, these sins shall not be a abominable as the rest of them..." Hezekiah* 32:4.

*Hezekiah is not an actual book of the Bible, just what my youth pastor uses for all those things people say are in the bible but aren't really.

No, it's not really in there.

I've noticed that there seems to be an unspoken, but very, very real hierarchy when it comes to sin. My theory is that putting a wall around ourselves "Well, at least I don't commit THAT sin.. I'm not THAT bad.." makes us feel safe, or, dare I say it, holy. We comfort ourselves in the knowledge that we don't need as much grace as that other guy. It is our natural tendency to classify things. So we classify sins. And that classification, give or take a few, looks something like this...

Level 1: Basic Not-Really-Only-Kinda-Sin Sins
These are things we don't really consider to be sins anymore, unless brought up by someone in authority, (such as a pastor) in which case they are sins that only other people commit.
                    Examples: Spreading rumors, jealousy, "little white" lies, horoscopes.

Level 2: Sins-Committed-Only-By-Bad-Christians
These are things that are done relatively commonly, but are only done by sinful, but still accepted, people. These sins are tolerated of anyone except those in religious authority, such as pastors, deacons, sunday school teachers, or anyone else attempting to challenge your personal belief philosophy. In a case where a person in religious authority is accused of one of these sins, any previous merit the person has received is nullified. This is the level at which the admittance of sin stops.

                    Examples: lying, using minor curse words, giving the bird in traffic, light drinking.

Level 3: Not-Really-OK-But-We-Might-Forgive-You-If-You-Gravel Sins
At this point, few Christians will admit to committing these sins, especially if confronted by a pastor or other person in religious authority (see level 2). These sins, however, are okay to mention in testimonies, as long as it is understood that these sins are detestable to anyone else and said testimonier has been sin-free since. A Christian caught doing these sins will be allowed to stay in the church community, but the person will generally be avoided, and parents will teach their children to stay away from these people.

                   Examples: getting a second divorce (the first is generally excusable, this, however, cannot be mentioned in testimony UNLESS testimonier has reconciled with spouse one or two), having a child outside wedlock, starting rumors.

Level 4: Keep-Your-Children-Away-From-Mine Sins
These things are not acceptable to anyone who would like to participate in the Church community.

                   Examples: admitting to problems with pornography, any sort of felony charge, alcoholism.

Level 5: We're-Not-Sure-If-Jesus-Would-Forgive-You Sins
Let me just give you the list. These things are considered absolutely appalling.

                   Examples: Murder, attempted suicide, animal abuse, being a prostitute, having more than one child outside of wedlock.

Am I the only one who thinks that there is something wrong with this system? Maybe. I think it's incredibly dangerous to put levels ---and limits--- on grace.

Prodigal John, as he is known to the twitter world, the author of "Stuff Christians Like" posted this in his blog recently. (Check out his blog at stuffchristianslike.net!):

There was a guy in the Bible who was the worst. He was such a failure. He lied once and got an entire village murdered as a result. A priest and his family were killed because of his lies. He committed adultery. He cheated. He trusted in his own strength instead of the Lord’s. And when he did, when he failed, thousands and thousands of people died as a result. His family suffered from incest and murder and his hands were so covered with wrongfully shed blood that eventually God wouldn’t let him do something really important.
Now imagine if that person was a commenter on Stuff Christians Like. Imagine if they confessed to homicide and adultery and a laundry list of other sins. I mean there have been some crazy comments on this site, but no one has ever said, “I saw this girl online and thought she was really hot, so I slept with her, got her pregnant and then arranged on craigslist for her husband to be killed.” But this guy, the guy in the Bible, he could have left that comment. And if he did, would you or me or the writer of that email instantly think, “He didn’t take grace too far?” No, we’d be horrified. We’d be terrified.
So how is he referred to in the Bible? Here is what God says about him:
“I have found David son of Jesse a man after my own heart,”

This view of grace, to me, is so astounding. And this is the scary Old Testament God saying all these things!! But just imagine if someone like that walked into the door of your church. If you're just casually chatting it up with them, and they told you something like that. Chances are, you (and thousands of other people) would never talk to him again. He'd probably leave after that, and you (and thousands of other people) would tell the story about the crazy ax-murderer you met in church and how you almost died.

Funny thing is... Jesus flocked to those people. Jesus liked them. Better yet, He loved them. He wasn't afraid to talk to the prostitute or the woman who'd had multiple husbands or the tax collectors or the dirty fisherman or anyone else. He wasn't even afraid to talk to the religious nuts who had that self-righteous thing down to a pat. I'm willing to bet that if Jesus were alive today, he'd be talking to the stripper outside the club, the drunken homeless men under the bridge, or the teenage mom with two kids, or the creepy guy who very possibly may have just come down from a 3 day cocaine high.

And to think... we're supposed to be Jesus to everyone else.

Learning to Walk

2010-05-01T12:59:00.001-06:00

I am sitting in a line that seems to stretch for miles. I'm one of few sitting down. Everyone seems so much bigger and stronger and better than I am. I can see the shadow of what I know to be God walking amongst the people and being with them, and I want Him. I want Him to be here with me.

He turns and walks in my direction. His shadow surrounds me on all sides. His hands tenderly reach around me and pick me up. My feet dangle in the air and I kick them, squealing joyfully. He sets me down on my feet, and my hands wrap themselves around His fingers. I wobble, trying hard to keep from falling. My feet aren't stable, but I cautiously try to take a step. I can hear Him encouraging me, but my focus is on taking my next step. I stumble, and start to fall, but before I can hit the ground His hands are back around me and He lifts me up and puts me back on the ground. I take one step, then another, focusing carefully on each step.

Finally, I trip and fall. I land on my hands and knees. I feel defeated for a moment, then I am lifted back into His loving arms. He hugs me, and whispers "Good job, baby girl" into my ear. He sets me on His lap and offers me a drink. His hand is behind me, supporting my back and keeping me from falling backward. He holds the cup up to my mouth and lets me get a drink of the cool water. I put my hands around the cup, wanting more than anything to do what my daddy does. My fingers feel small compared to His big fingers. I let go of the cup and lay back onto His chest. I close my eyes, and I can hear His heartbeat. I drift off into sleep, feeling His warmth and safety surround me.

Picture taken from here.

I had this day-dream type thing during worship at the SWORD meeting last night. I've felt just like that all week. In many ways, I feel like just a baby with God. I feel like I'm just learning how to do all these things, how to spend real time in prayer with God, how to study His word, how to reach out to people, even how to love. It feels new. I feel like I take more falls than I do steps.

But at the same time, I feel safe. I feel loved. I want to learn to walk.

Not sure what else to say, except this:

"When you pass through the waters,
       I will be with you;
       and when you pass through the rivers,
       they will not sweep over you.
       When you walk through the fire,
       you will not be burned;
       the flames will not set you ablaze." -

No More Dirty Water!

2010-04-25T17:32:00.003-06:00

"but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." NIV (Jesus was talking.)

I find this verse absolutely fascinating. This is because the Jews who lived in the Middle East 2,000 years ago understood the necessity of water. They didn't have options like we do. Here and now, if I don't want water I can have kool-aid, coca-cola, dr. pepper, naked juice, a double chocolate chip mocha frappacino, and basically anything else I could ever possibly try to conceive, it's available. If I don't want water, I can go a looooooong time without having it. For example, today I've had: milk, dr. pepper, coca-cola, and Crystal Light ruby red grape fruit juice... aka... not water. The Israelites had fewer options: milk, wine, juice (not sure if they had un-fermented juice..), and water.

....they understood the necessity of water. Us? Not so much.

Disclaimer: I'm not saying anything bad about anyone who prefers (literally) other drinks over water. That's just fine. This all just an abstract analogy.

Water is one of the most beneficial things we have. Our bodies are 75% water. This is common knowledge. Here are some lesser known facts about dehydration.

In 1/3 of Americans, the thirst sensation is so weak that it is often mistaken for hunger. This shocks me, but at the same time, it makes sense. I see people time and time again (particularly in high school) searching and searching for some girlfriend or boyfriend to make them happy, but oftentimes, what I think they really need is the love of a Father. I know that sounds cliched, but I think it's true. I think we look to our friends and family and spouses and children and televisions and facebook pages in search of something that's not really what we need at all.
Research suggests that 8-10 glasses of water a day eases back & joint pain for 80% of sufferers. People hurt. God can heal. Never underestimate the healing power of a God who is almighty.
A 2% drop in body water causes fuzzy memory, trouble with basic math, and problems focusing on a computer screen or printed page. Your brain desperately needs water to function at its best. We desperately need God's love, grace, and overall goodness to function. We need God. We can pretend like we don't, but we do.
Sound dehydration statistics suggest 75% of citizens in developed countries are chronically dehydrated. We are so used to living our lives without God, to getting inadequate nourishment elsewhere, that we're used to being dehydrated.

All of that just seems insane to me. Of course, all of these things about water benefits are only good if the water isn't polluted. I think the water we see is very much polluted. Just to give you an idea of what diseases that live in polluted water, here is a list! Ready, list is here: Amoebiasis, Cryptosporidiosis, Cyclosporiasis, Giardiasis, Microsporidiosis, Schistosomiasis, Dracunculiasis, Taeniasis, Fasciolopsiasis, Hymenolepiasis, Echinococcosis, coenurosis, Ascariasis, Enterobiasis, Botulism, Campylobacteriosis, Cholera, Dysentery, Legionellosis, Typhoid fever, SARS, Hepatitis A, and Polio. That's a LOT.

There are a lot of pollutants that are living in the "living water" the church is trying to give. People aren't stupid. They don't want it.

Why do we expect people to drink water like this?

If Christ is our living water, if Christ is what is pure and good and beneficial, what are we giving them?

What have we been pushing for them to take? Things that cause disease and pain? What have we been adding to the water?

What have we been feeding ourselves?

If we're giving it to others, surely, we're drinking it too, right? What are we doing to ourselves if we are taking this in? How many of us live in constant pain because of the contaminants in our water?

My prayer for all of us, myself included, is that we get back to pure water. I pray that we find what is good and true and beneficial. I pray that we begin to extend pure living water to those around us, that we give good water to those that are thirsty.

"Oh God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is." -Psalm 63:1 (KJV)

What Will I Write On Her Arms, After All?

2010-04-21T22:11:00.000-06:00

It amazes me sometimes to see just how God speaks to me. Today was an awful day for me. Everything felt fuzzy; my brain was FILLED with static. I will dare say that it was the devil trying to keep me from hearing from God. But that's not the point. Today was To Write Love On Her Arms Day. I spent quite a bit of time working on my "Love" on my arms. Thousands of people wrote "love" on their arms today to stand against depression, cutting, and suicide. To promote love and community and togetherness.

Later that day, I'm standing in the bathroom listening to my friends talk. They had all celebrated with me, and as we were in there talking, each of them mentioned where they would cut: wrists, stomach, legs, etc. God began to speak to me then. I looked around and thought "They are really hurting" something inside them HURTS and it just ACHES for something to come and heal them.

God took that thought, and posed a question "What will you write on her arms?"

What if we could see the impact we made on everyone? Written out, plain as day. What if our effects on people showed up as writing on our arms? What would I be writing? Anything at all? Would I be writing pain or confusion? Or would I be writing healing and love?

How would our actions be different if everything we did showed up as writing? If we could see it and everyone would know "That's the impact that Emily made". Would it change our actions? Would we still treat people like we do? Would we still be as passive, and continue leaving the bad words and the hurt on her arms?

Oh Wow. This is random. Pianos, Spring Break, Wasps, and Other Stuff Floating Around My Brain.

2010-04-17T19:02:00.001-06:00

My brain has been going nonstop (more than usual..) lately. There's just been so much to process, so much to go through. So this blog post might be more than a little scattered. I will try to let you follow. Good luck.

First things first. Spring break is not good for my routine. Especially carefully crafted routines that keep me doing what I need to be doing. I'm actually really looking forward to going back to school. My most important routine had been to wake up early in the morning and read my Bible. On a typical morning, my alarm will go off at 5:45 and I will do my best to be out of bed by 5:55. I read my Bible until about 6:30 in the morning, which is when I actually start getting ready. I regret to say it, but this has been one thing that has slipped.

I can really, really tell when it slips. I'm just not the same. I'm more lethargic and cranky and easily stressed and just not as Emily-like. I would open up my Bible and try to do my reading, but ultimately, I'd get distracted and it'd just never get done. I have felt very guilty about it, and intend on doing better (especially once school starts!)

Other stuff:

SWORD meetings!

The SWORD Creative Discipleship Team is a group of young adults who are training to be (and being!) leaders in our own communities and wherever God takes us. We each use our own distinct gifts to add to the team, and I think it's fantastic. We're all from a bunch of different churches, but we love each other. I've spent every Friday night for the last month or so with them, and I just love it. I love having people that I feel comfortable coming to with anything, who are more than willing to point out my mistakes. I love learning from people my own age. And, I think they love me too. We had a lock in last week and we all shared our testimonies and stopped feeling like strangers. Then this week we spontaneously decided to invade Amy's house, and I ended up staying up all night talking to her about everything under the sun. (Seriously... I'm trying to figure out how everything we talked about lasted 8 hours... at the same time, I'm trying to figure out how it didn't last longer than that.) It was great. I finally found someone whose brain works like mine does!!

What else.

Oh.

Yeah.

This.

I hate wasps. I really really do. There aren't many things that I hate, but I truly think that wasps were sent from Satan to torture me. Evil, evil creatures. I've been stung twice over spring break, and I'm terrified of them. This is the interesting thing. I feel safe as long as I'm covered with something. I have this ridiculously thin jacket that I'll put on, and it makes me FEEL safe. I don't get it. Logically, the wasp can still sting me. But. I don't think like that once it's on. Once it's on I'm no longer exposed and my brain says I'm safe. It's quite odd. It makes me wonder how many other facadic (is that even a word? of a facade?) protections I have. How many things make me feel safe, but really offer no protection at all? Interesting. Worth exploring. Remind me to blog on this later.

Other new thing Emily has begun to do:

I'm trying to learn to play piano. I love the way it sounds and the way it feels. I just want to be able to worship God without having to have the right words. Just to say "God, this is for You. I don't know what else to say, so let me play for you." (Little Drummer Boy... haha.) I love it because you don't have to have words to go with it. You can just let go. (For more understand, please see my post about my brain. It's 3 blogs down.) I want to be able to worship like that. And it sounds pretty. Anyway, I've been trying to learn. I've been praying that God would help me and bless my efforts. It hasn't been "easy" by any means, as it's a completely new language, but I find it absolutely fascinating. It enchants me. Maybe one day I'll be able to really play and just enjoy it. But I did get a new piano today, courtesy of Amy and Kelsea! Kelsea got a new one, and let me have the old one. She's pretty. Her name is Clementine.

Okay, now you're probably bored. So I'll shut up now.

I leave for Honduras in 46 days :) WOOT!

Em! :)

Do I Even Deserve This?

2010-04-06T00:28:00.001-06:00

I have a friend.

My friend is beautiful, intelligent, and challenging.

My friend can be difficult to be around.

My friend challenges people's thinking. She wounds my assumptions. She takes my box, smashes it, and says "Look at the world around you."

My friend loves people for who they are. Even if they're gay, black, muslim, atheist, or different.

My friend doesn't understand how people can tell her which people are worth loving.

My friend fights for the rights of unborn babies with a passion that I never seem to see anymore.

My friend takes everything personally.

My friend gets judged pretty harshly sometimes.

My friend isn't a "church person."

My friend tells me when I've been stupid. We have this conversation a lot.

My friend talks faster than any other person I've ever met. Ever.

My friend speaks with confidence and intelligence.

My friend isn't the type to leave people.

My friend's heart breaks for other people, for babies in foreign countries without food, for women in abusive places, for children in broken homes, and for anyone who's known too much pain.

My friend spends time outside, just because seeing the world and fresh air keeps her sane.

My friend isn't really that sane, but it's not really a bad thing.

My friend is driven.

My friend shows me God's love in ways I've never thought about it, and in ways I've never experienced.

Some days, like today, I feel entirely too blessed to have my friend. :) She knows who she is, and I just love her. I am so blessed to know someone like this.

Widow's Mite Orphanage

2010-03-30T18:55:00.001-06:00

This summer, I will be spending 35 days in San Pedro Sula, Honduras helping two missionaries care for 10 children, between the ages of 5 and 16. These kids were rescued from a horribly abusive situation.

These kids.

This whole thing technically began in May(ish). Whenever the church retreat was. The preacher, Rosemary Brown preached a LOT about finding our calling. So I started searching and seeking, and God showed me that my calling was to "help the orphan and the widow in their distress."

Fast forward to about a month or so ago.

I'd been thinking about my summer plans and whatnot, and God kept pushing me to talk to Mike Sawyer about Widow's Mite. I knew that there was an orphanage somewhere that he was sort of kind of somehow involved in through that one thing we did other stuff with and pay for and something. Yeah, it was that thought out. One day after church (I don't think it was by my own free will, but that's how these things go), I went up and talked to him about it. Kind of joking, "Yeah, I'd love to go there for the summer!"

The next thing he said was "Emily, let me make some phone calls. I'll send you an email later in the week."

AND IT CAME.

The email essentially said "Pick the dates and we'll start to work on fund-raising."

It's amazing what happens when you listen to the God of the universe.

Mike put me in contact with Bob Coder, who introduced me to 10 wonderful children:

Jesus, age 5.

Karen, age 9

Cesar, age 7

Fabiola, age 12

(the one in yellow, leading prayer!)

Pedro, age 5

(Pedro has a limited function in his right side, which is from blunt force trauma to his skull that limits his brain's ability to get instructions to that side. The cast helped give him function in that leg that he never had before!)

Angel (age 5)

Gershon, age 16 and Mauricio, age 10

Rosa, age

Antonio (on right!), age 9

For the record, it took me FOREVER to locate all these pictures. Just sayin'. They're all just so great, and I am so blessed and privileged to be able to spend just a month down there with these beautiful children of God.

But here's the thing.

It's not exactly "cheap," especially when, um, all the money has to be paid pre-departure. This is what I'm asking of all of you! I will be gone for 35 days. It costs $32 a day for me to stay there. $10 for food and $22 for lodging (which includes a roof, tv, wireless internet, indoor plumbing AND air conditioning!) I'm asking that people sponsor me one day at a time. I've had 18 days pledged thus far! I have 17 that need to be paid for (and, um, airfare, which isn't cheap either. $567 round trip).

If you would like to support me and my trip to see these MARVELOUS children, you can make a check out to my momma, Stacy Macon, and send it to my house. Email me at e-macon@hotmail.com for the address.

Also, I plan on blogging the whole trip, so you should get a nice account of my trip!

God is great, isn't he?

Okay, now, 17 days my friends! 17 days!!

An Introduction to Emily's Brain.

2010-03-21T16:20:00.002-06:00

So, I haven't been blogging these past couple weeks. For one, life has been insanely busy and I've hardly had time to breathe, let alone think up a blog post (Keedy, I will respond to your email. Keep bugging me.) and two I'm sure any blog post I could've written would've been extremely depressing.

Today though, I'm good.

Today, I am loved.

Over the last two weeks, which have been more than difficult, the thing I've most looked forward to (other than the trip to Birmingham for Granny's funeral.), has been church. I've so looked forward to immersing myself in worship. Worship is one of my very favorite things (when I refer to worship I generally mean worship via music, but there are many many other forms of this. but that's a post for another day.) because it's ~~one of the very few~~ only time that the thought part of my brain shuts down.

First: An Explanation of How Emily's Brain Works.

Something like this picture. That's what the inside of my brain looks like. Now, when any of you catch me staring off into space, just know that it's me trying to weave my way through my thoughts and find a coherent space.

1. My brain has many seemingly unrelated connections.

If you've ever heard me talk, you've probably heard something like this:
"Yeah, and so then... OH!!! DO YOU REMEMBER..." Today, I actually made the jump from bulimia to styrofoam, without missing a beat. This confuses a lot of people, and is exactly why I can't speak (or preach, as Kevin calls it) without writing down what I have to say. No one would be able to follow it.

Of course, if you ask me, I can probably outline for you how I got from one place to the other.

2. My brain is 'layered'.

This just means that I can have many different thoughts going on at once. There's the front of my brain, and then the counter argument right behind it, then the counter-counter argument behind that and it goes on and on deep and forever....

3. My brain has a broken filter.

I have a friend, Jared, who vlogged about how some people are born without "brain to mouth" filters. Well, I wasn't born without one, but mine is broken. By 'broken', I mean my words get stuck. I'll know exactly what I want to say, but the words won't come out and I end up looking like an idiot, until I take a deep breath and press the "override" button on my brain to mouth filter. Then I'm usually able to say what I want to say. This usually only happens when I'm excited.

4. My brain is loud and chaotic.

Some people have made the observation that I don't really have a "whisper" function. Well, now you know, you can blame the inside of my brain. The different 'layers' (see #2) all like to be heard and all at the same time. This makes everything in my brain very very loud. I think I'm trying to talk over myself.

5. My brain works in pictures.

Lots and lots of pictures. Different things have different images associated with it. Directions, for example, work in a series of snapshots with little captions. And until I see where the snapshot is, I feel like I'm doing something wrong. I am ever thankful for google maps picture view thing.

I love worship because I reach a point where it all gets quiet. It takes seemingly forever, but I reach a place where there are no more second guesses, no more screaming, no more thoughts trying to be heard and appreciated, just...something else. I can't really label that 'something else', just that it's quiet. It's calm. It's restful. With everything that has happened, it's been so much worse than usual. So every time I've been getting the chance for everything to be quiet, I've done everything in my power to get to it. Today was a day like that.

(Disclaimer: For those of you who are going to say something like "you can worship outside church!", I know, but it's a lot easier to worship in church. I also get to do such in the vehicle. I love my vehicle. He has to see the doctor tomorrow though. His main belt has cracks in it. And, now that it's warming up, I'm getting my heat fixed!

That's all for now, folks. :)

He Is With Me :)

2010-03-06T14:53:00.001-06:00

These last few days have been fantastic, even though I've been sickly. Wednesday night, Kevin pre-preached (the preaching he does BEFORE the sermon. Ha) about how God is always with us, about how He loves us like a father and He just stays with us and wants to be there when we do things and just hang out. I don't know if anyone else remembers that, but that's exactly what I needed to hear. I spent worship and prayer time just thanking God for being there and just being with Him in worship and in love.

I ended up not going to school the next day (thank God for sickness!!) and was given another opportunity just to recooperate and read my Bible and pray. Each story I read (I'm in Exodus right now!) reminded me how God was with His people when they needed them and through everything they went through. God went with them as a Pillar of Fire as they passed through the Red Sea and as the Egyptians were trying to kill them. He was with them in the desert as they whined and complained because they didn't know where they were going to get food. He fed them every day, without fail. He was there for them. Luckily, He is the God who never changes, and now, every morning, when I wake up, I wake up knowing that I'm not alone. I go my whole day knowing that I am just loved. Loved by the creator of the world, with a love that I have done nothing to deserve, and could never earn.

Everything seems nicer knowing this. I've been smiling a whole lot more. Even though I feel awful right now, I am loved.

Thank God for that. :)

P.S. He loves you too. A whole lot more than you can imagine!! :D I promise.

Side note: I will eventually pick a title and stick with it.

Your Eyes?

2010-02-27T17:01:00.001-06:00

The song "Give Me Your Eyes" has been on my heart for the last couple days. (If you don't know the song, click here to give it a listen.) When I get close to people, I want to understand how they think, how they process things, how they deal with life. As I get closer to God, knowing that He is whom I strive to be like, seeing things the way He does becomes more and more important. So the prayer of my heart has been "Give me Your eyes, let me see things the way You do, let me be more like You." It's how I've been feeling every morning when I wake up, and today, I feel like I saw something through His eyes.

We were on our way home from Hendersonville, and I see this man. He looked to be in his early 40s. He was tall and kind of lanky. He had a ginormous backpack with a sleeping bag hanging out the back. He was carrying two Wal-Mart sacks filled with some groceries. There was a chip bag in the side pocket of his backpack, and his beard was really scruffy and had bits of gray in it. He was walking somewhere and crossing traffic when I was watching him. I don't know where he was going or why he had that backpack, but something deep in my gut said that he was homeless. I felt an intense love and compassion for him, and I didn't even know why. I knew nothing about him, aside from what I could see. I knew that God loved this man a lot and I felt so blessed to spend just one moment seeing things in a new light.

I pray that someday I'll be in a position to do something about things like this. I pray that I'll be able to do more than just pray for a person (even though I will definitely still be praying!!). I pray that God will use me to fill needs.

A Little Bit Farther Now...

2010-02-22T19:29:00.002-06:00

Today, I felt as if I can now call myself a "runner." Yes, I've been running semi-regularly (as in, more than once per week) since December, but I never considered myself a runner. First because I never really "ran." I referred to it as "walking with intermittent sprints" because that's really what it was. I would jog a while, then walk. But I had been improving, slowly, but still improving.

Last week, I made it to 90% on our 2.2 mi track. I was really thrilled with my progress. I was thrilled when I ran a full mile without stopping. But TODAY, I did something really really good! Something I'd never done before. Something really really REALLY good!

Emily does not look like this
Today, I ran 2.8 miles. WITHOUT STOPPING/WALKING.

I've never completely done that. I usually get konked out waaayyyy before then.

Let me take you through my route, shall I?
We start at the middle school, go through Eagle Estates, then to the BP station at the corner of Old 31E and Austin Peay, then we go left and up past the OLD elementary school, down the hill to the strip where Mike's Food Value is, then we follow the road that leads to the High School and complete it at the Middle School.

That is a LOT, my friends. Anyway, I am proud. It's nice to see how far I've come. It's nice to look back to the day I told Cayla "Ya know, I'd like to be able to run 2 miles before March. That'd be good." And think "Wow! I did it!"

I am just happy. :) And sore and exhausted.

The Beginning of Lent, and Some Other Stuff

2010-02-19T20:16:00.001-06:00

This year, I discovered that not everyone celebrates Lent. It was quite a surprise, as I had always assumed everyone did it because my church did it, and I could go to Wal-Mart on Ash Wednesday and there would be a ton of people with crosses of ash on their heads. It made sense to me that everyone did it.

But that's really just a side note. My Lakeside people mocked me for it. But, ah well.

I've always had a problem with Lent. I've never been one who really enjoys Lent. It always just seemed stressful to me. You had to pick something to give up. Something that would really challenge you, but not be entirely impossible, either. Something that would "draw you closer to God." Whatever that meant. This year, though, was different. I felt like I had already done Lent. I felt like I had really succeeded in my Lent-like facebook hiatus. Giving up my facebook page did help bring me closer to God. I picked it up again because I had really broken the cycle, and could control myself. (I find myself getting bored with it now, sad, huh?)

Anyway. So. I felt almost justified. I had "served my time." But I knew this wasn't right, and I knew that one can always get closer to God. (Some of you may remember from my testimony, there is a BIG difference between knowing something, and knowing something.) I knew that, but I didn't know that. I'm still not sure if I know it as well as I should. But I am trying.

Back to the point: (sorry if I lose you guys. I get off track) In my mind, there was nothing for me to give up or take on! Got up almost an hour earlier than I would normally to read my Bible, I have finished reading the entire New Testament in the days without my facebook, and am currently working on the Old Testament. I try to carry around my Bible and a small notebook to write short notes to God. I've been working hard to "be better" for God. I want to please Him. I really do. (That also gets written in my notebook almost daily.) I honestly couldn't think of something to give up to draw myself closer to Him. Some suggested facebook, but I had just done that. I considered music, but I worship in my car a lot of days. My music is encouraging. I wanted to give up school, but that wasn't an option. I didn't know.

It's about an hour before Lent officially started, and I still had no idea what to do for Lent. I was helping Emily Lynn with her message for church. When Bradley Fish Sticks IMs me on facebook, and we ended up talking about Lent and I told him how I didn't know what I should give up and whatnot. And he suggested that I pick up something instead. He suggested that instead of my usual "Ugh, I don't want to go to school today" posts, that I make my facebook posts for the next 40 days about God, and take whatever I find inspirational during the day, and post that.

That will be my Lenten project! It's very exciting. But a lot more challenging than I had anticipated.

In other news, I have begun to LOVE art class. Mostly because I'm obsessive and easily distracted and there is always stuff to do or work on and stuff. I'm working on two projects right now. One is my genetic engineering project, which is where we took a bunch of different animals and put them together.

My animal has the body of a kangaroo:

A tail like a snake:

The wings of a butterfly:

And the horn of a narwhal:

Nice, huh? I love it! I am hoping to get it almost finished this weekend. I have to work on the shading. I also am working a series of paintings and collages. I did one completely by finger painting, and today's was pretty much awesome. We had to start with a gesture sketch, where then take one color, and do different shades of that color to paint each of the little sections. I got messy!

Guess who was happy? Me! :D

Now once I finish these projects, I can start on my NEXT project. My next project is very exciting. I have completed one novel in my lifetime, and one day, while I was bored, I drew out the floor plan. I am going to convert the floor plan into a real model house. To scale and everything! The house will be complete, with furniture and people and everything. Just mini-sized. I've even arranged for carpet and mini hardwood floors. :)

That's all for now, folks!

I wonder...

2010-02-15T15:52:00.001-06:00

Some days, I have to wonder if a few days before Pentecost, the disciples were sitting around on the floor eating bread, and one of them (I imagine Thomas, don't ask me why.) says the Ancient Hebrew equivalent of "Duuuuude. I think something HUGE is gonna go down soon." I wonder if they just knew deep down in their bones that their lives were about to be irrevocably changed. I wonder if the thought made them terribly excited or if it made them sick to their stomachs with fear. I wonder if they tried to go into denial, and pretend like the feeling wasn't there, like they didn't know that they had just spent the last 3 years of their lives walking around with the Creator of the universe in the flesh. I wonder if they pondered what this was going to mean for them and their families and even society. I wonder if they thought they were going to die. I wonder if they questioned their sanity. I wonder if they thought to themselves "how could I have been so stupid, to follow that man?"

I wonder what was going through each of their minds when "they were all with one accord in one place" (Acts 2:1). I wonder what Peter thought when he went to sleep that night. I wonder if he could even sleep that night. I wonder what he thought after they told him 3,000 people had been saved after he preached. I wonder if he was so filled with joy, he could hardly breathe. I wonder if he wondered how everyone had heard it in their language. I wondered if he was there, praying and preaching, when he looks and thinks "That man is Greek...I don't speak Greek, how is this happening?" I wonder what they wondered.

That's all I've really got for now. Just a lot of questions and no answers.

Not Much To Say On Snow Day #2.

2010-02-10T15:22:00.001-06:00

Except this "snow" is getting kinda ridiculous. I'm thrilled to be out of school again, but too many of these and my summer will have to be pushed back. Not cool. Not cool at all.

Which brings me to another point, the school system is ripping us all off on this whole school calender thing. They took out the extra WEEK for spring break, and didn't put it back anywhere that I can find. It's unfair. So, not only do I have to go to school earlier, it ends later, and my breaks are shorter. what's up with that? *sigh* But I digress. Nothing I can do. At least, this is the last they will be able to do that. Why? Because next year is SENIOR YEAR!!! :D Creepy, huh? In a year and a couple months, I'll be graduated from high school. Boy how time flies. Pretty sure both my parents are thrilled. However, they will probably be even MORE thrilled when I choose a college and hopefully line up enough scholarships that they won't have to pay too much.

What else. Let's see. *thinks*. I've been working on a project for a dear friend of mine lately. She's gonna love it. She gets very hung up on knowledge, and with a little prodding around in her brain, I discovered that she didn't really know anything about the history surrounding the Bible. I've taken it upon myself to provide her with an extensive amount of background information, all wonderfully organized and whatnot. The plan is magnificent, the execution, however, is rather tedious. Even if it is very informative and I'm learning a whole lot.

We started a new project in art, and I get to do more FINGER PAINTING. I LOVE to finger paint. I love getting messy and the feeling of the canvas and the gooey paint. I LOVE fingerpainting. I think it is magical. Mrs. Carter thinks I should use a brush, but I am adamant and told her I'd pay for the extra canvas if it turned out horribly and I had to do it over again. She grunted and agreed. :)

That's it for a while. But I'd like to thank everyone who commented/read my last post. :) Especially those of you who disagreed/pointed out the things of which I didn't think. I read and contemplate every comment, and I try to respond.

Well, do you have a solution to go with that nice heap of guilt?

2010-02-06T18:57:00.000-06:00

First and foremost, I do not really care what you believe. You can believe that a unicorn lives in your backyard and steals a sandwich from your frigerator every night, and I will be perfectly willing to sit and listen as you explain why and how you have a unicorn thief. I would even be willing to stay with you and watch for your unicorn thief if it would make you happy. You can believe what you want, and I'll listen to you, and it would be pretty great if you listened to me. Especially as I suggest that maybe the unicorn is your extremely hungry teenage son coming downstairs and eating your sandwich.

But, as you might expect, this blog has very little to do with unicorns or fridge thieves. I went to a church service last night and heard this guy preach. This guy has a reputation for being against things, to name a few: Guitar Hero, Twilight, porn, abortion, homosexuality, R-rated movies, curse words, and other things I can't remember.

Last night, however, the part that stuck with me the most was all the things he said about abortion. Nothing new, I'd heard it all before, babies have fingerprints and heartbeats and 80 million die a year and whatnot. Then he said something like "I wonder how many people in my church have ever protested an abortion clinic."

This upset me. I've seen abortion protests. I've read about how ugly they can get. A very large part of me that thinks that protests do nothing but remind the non-churchgoers how much Christians hate them. We are actually very well known for this. A google search gave me a lovely list of things Christians hate:

cartoons
pop culture
HPV vaccine
gay marriage
hip hop
UFOs
leftist heresy
Obama
Islam
gambling
Lady GaGa
Catholics
Jews
long sermons
African Americans
Being irritated
Jesus

The last one surprised me, I won't lie. The opposite search returned basically nothing except "war" and "why don't christians love people?" This, I felt, was very disappointing. We are known for what we hate, which, I'm pretty sure isn't what Jesus suggested. ;) Not the point of this blog either, really.

After he asked that question, I began to remember all of the "logistics" of raising a child. It costs approximately $7,500 a year (not including the cost of actually being pregnant and giving birth and putting together a nursery) for a $40,000/year household. Assuming this mom is going to have to pay herself for the baby, she must work 20hrs/week at a minimum wage job to support the baby alone. If she's taking college courses, that's an extra 12 hours a week that MUST be spent working on school. Almost a full time job, this doesn't leave much time for raising a kid, does it?

This is my point. If we, as a church, are going to stand up and say "Abortion is WRONG and should be illegal!" The church better be ready to anty up and start helping all these new mommies. The church better be ready to start providing free/cheap day care for moms, so they can work and go to school. The church better be ready to start providing parenting classes to teach moms how to take care of their babies. The church better be ready to give counseling for moms who gave their babies up for adoption. The church better be ready to do this, without condemnation of the mother or the child, but instead with love and forgiveness. Ya know, the kind that Jesus showed.

I wonder if the same people who are protesting those abortions are giving up their afternoons babysitting for a mom while she goes to night school. I wonder if the same people who are protesting these abortions have ever sat in a home for women and children who are homeless, and showed them the love of Christ.

Go ahead and protest abortion. Protest abortion and offer solutions. Offer help. Offer your time. Offer your finances.

Now I'm done ranting. Sorry if I offended you. *shrug*

My Thankfulness Endeavor

2010-02-02T10:39:00.000-06:00

Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done. -1 Chronicles 16:8

I will give thanks to the LORD because of his righteousness and will sing praise to the name of the LORD Most High. -Psalms 7:17

The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song. -Psalms 28:7

Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. -Psalms 95:2

Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men. -Psalms 107:31

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. -Romans 1:21

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. -Philippians 4:6

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. -Colossians 3:17

give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. -1st Thessalonians 5:18

You get the point. It has been on my heart this morning to start giving thanks for things more. I mean, I am SO blessed. I'm part of 5% of the wealthiest in the world (and if you're reading this, you are too.). I have two wonderful, married parents who love me and provide for me. I live in a place where I can believe what I want. Just so blessed.

So starting today, I'm going to try and show more gratitude. To my family, to my friends, but most importantly, to God. Just because He gives me SO much that I don't even recognize. Supposedly, it only takes 21 days to make something a habit, so I'm going to try and make thankfulness a habit. Maybe I'll start including a "Things I'm Thankful For" list on here... maybe.

Anyway, that's all. Now I'm off to B&N with Mr. Will to look at a Bible for Will's girlfriend, Cayla. :)

Love you guys! (I'm thankful for all of you!!)

Em.

Notes From Warmth In Winter 2010: Going The Distance.

2010-01-31T19:38:00.000-06:00

Half of it, at least. In case you couldn't tell from the last post, I thought I had missed it. My church had officially cancelled the trip for our youth, but that clearly wasn't enough to keep me away. My friend Sara had stayed the night with me, and she said that her dad was plenty willing to drive us to murfreesboro for the convention center. This was a very important piece of the puzzle to the "How Can Emily Get to WIW 2010?" puzzle.

After that, it simply became a matter of setting up the right details. This I am no stranger to. Before I could drive, I would have to find my own ways to get into town every Wednesday night after church. On days where I had to stay in town after school, I would develop ridiculously complicated plans on how to get there and who I was going to stay with and whatnot. These plans failed a grand total of twice. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself. This time was different. It was an overnight stay, there are lots of complicated "Safe Sanctuary" rules to follow (presumably so I don't end up sleeping on the street with new hobo druggie friends), and it's an hour and a half away from my house during the Nashville Snowpocalypse. Plus, my cell phone was completely down. It won't charge. It is right now, but that was by random chance and I haven't moved my elbow in....53 minutes now. That meant that I had no phone book in which to get in contact with the people who were AT the event.

In the end, I worked out with Mr. Gavin Richardson, youth pastor of HFUMC, and a friend of mine, found me a hotel room with his group, and I was on my way! Armed with a debit card and my suitcase for half of WIW 2010: Going the Distance!

Life is beautiful.

I arrive at the event after being driven a total of 2 hours (not counting the 10 minute stop to get some poor girl out of the grass.) We had arrived. I was in pure bliss. We got settled into our hotel room (which was, um, AMAZING, thanks Gav!) and went to workshops. The first we chose was "Pray With Africa" which showed a video and reminded me TONS of where I am supposed to be and what I'm trying so hard to work for, something that the public educational system has driven me from. The next was one by Gavin, a very spontaneous workshop (remember? Nashville Snowpocalypse), on how our lives online need to be a reflection of our passions. And something about the printing press and how Gavin chopped his thumb off. It reminded me of exactly why I don't have a facebook anymore (I promise I will someday blog that!! I promisee!!). Facebook took me from my passion and sapped me of time. Not good at all. But, yet, I find it easy to waste time on the internet still. For example, I have officially been sitting here with my elbow on my cell phone cord for an hour....61 minutes now. It's so easy for me to waste my time. Time that could ultimately be used doing more productive things. Like learning. Or serving. Or watching all the episodes of House stored on my DVR (kidding). Or praying. Ya know, stuff that might actually mean something someday.

The next thing was an almost 3 hours of free time. Which was pretty much uneventful. Sorry to say. Met some nice people. Re-met some other nice people. (Including the set of quadruplets whose youth group asked me to pick out which four were the quads, and didn't believe me when I guessed them all right. They remembered me!!) In that free time, I came in contact with the group that came to hear me give my testimony at Mt. Olive UMC a few weeks ago. But other than just meeting people, nothing eventful happened.

Sessions were next. I won't lie, I was ridiculously excited. I was pretty much bouncing up and down. Worship here has always been something that I've loved and cherished. But last year, I was in a horrible "low" of my life, and so many things have happened since then that Warmth In Winter became my "control" group. If I could come here, to this event, and feel something like I didn't last year, then I really had changed!! Then it was really worth all of the mental turmoil I went through. I often describe myself in that period I was going through (all eight months of it) as being dead. sleepwalking. comatose. apathetic. And a number of other words synonymous with the above. It was no coincidence, I don't think, that the first song that P.O.R. played was "Alive".

Loudly, I sing
Loudly, I live
Giving You all I have to give,
Until the world knows the Love that's made me so alive
I'm alive, I'm alive!

That's how I felt. Like I was alive again. B-e-a-utiful. That was all the proof I needed.

(Side Note: 79 minutes of sitting here with my elbow on my phone charger.)

I can't remember much else about the service, except that the preacher, Rev. Doc. Brenda Salter-McNeil, was absolutely AMAZZZZZZZING. I loved her and the way she preaches. Kinda loud and in your face, but not insulting at the same time. Plus she had a cool accent. There was one point where she looks at us and says "Come on, that was the PERFECT spot for an Amen!" Just awesome.

Service ended and Sara and I went to bed and before we knew it, it was time for the closing service. One of the coolest things I've ever experienced HAS to be the entire group saying the Lord's prayer all at once. Just amazing. The whole experience is always amazingly connected. Connected to each other. Connected to God. Connected.

The next song that I heard that really stood out was "At The Cross"

At the cross,

where there's room for me

at the cross

I am finally free.

I can't really explain to you what about that spoke to me. It just did. All in all, a beautiful weekend. :)

84 minutes total. 62 text messages. Lol

I Am Disappoint In You, Nashvile Snowpocalypse

2010-01-30T08:58:00.000-06:00

You are pretty much ridiculous. You have ruined my youth retreat. You have made my driveway ice over. And you didn't even cover all of my grass. The worst part is, you're GONE. I hate you, cold weather. I hate you so much. I hate you because you took away my retreat by scaring all the people.

Wooot!!

2010-01-26T20:05:00.000-06:00

YAY for NOT failing tests!!!

I took 2 ridiculously hard tests last week, and got their scores back today. For my english/lit test, I made a 94, and for my anatomy & physiology teset, I made a 96!!! I know this is basically insignificant, but the rest of my class bombed these tests. Seriously. I felt accomplished. On a side note, my art teacher took my outside drawing and loved it enough to post it to the board.

Just a not so important side note:

2010-01-26T06:53:00.002-06:00

School is going to murder me. I am absolutely sure of it. Ugh.

Testimony

2010-01-24T22:32:00.000-06:00

I am constantly in awe of the things that God has me do in life. It leaves me puzzled, bewildered, and ultimately, ecstatic. It reminds me just why I'm not in control.

As I was working on my testimony, I was convinced that this was just for me, so that I could see what God has done in my life, so I could be grateful to Him. I kept asking Him why I needed to give my testimony to all these people. I did it, but I didn't know why, and to be quite frank, I didn't think that it would affect anyone to whom I was speaking. After all, I'd heard many of the testimonies from the people in my church, and there's were so much better than mine. Still, I wrote it like I was supposed to and prayed that, even though *I* didn't think it was important, God could use it somehow.

He did.

I spent the afternoon getting ready to speak, and picked up my friend Keedy (who is my navigator), then ate at the Mexican restaurant. (My waiter asked me how my A&P test went, which shows just how much time I spend there!!) We left early and arrived at the church about 45 minutes before service was supposed to start. I got "suited up" and had a HUGE case of the butterflies!! I was scaredd!! I listened to the band play and read bits and pieces of the testimony I'd written (11 pages 1.5 spacing, 16 pt font, calibri, 3,000 words). I spent a lot of time outside and chatted with the members there. I made it through worship, which I thoroughly enjoyed!! And finally got up to speak!! This was the moment I'd waited for. I'd started with a joke to make me less nervous and got into it.

About 30 minutes later, I closed with "Because God paid a price for me, and I am His." I received a standing ovation (sp?) and went back to my seat as quickly as I could, by this time, I was thirsty, really really hot, and blushing. I did it. I felt like God's hand had been on me the whole time I was up which made me feel so much better!! When I looked at the audience for the last time, I saw a few people crying. I still favor my left side, though, which I really need to work on. The pastor called an altar call (which I found ironic, because there really wasn't any altar at all) and encouraged people to speak with their pastors or youth pastors if they felt God tugging at their heart. I smiled and thanked God for not letting me do it alone!! It was so much better than I could've expected.

Afterward, the band played some more, and I moved to sit with Nancy. I had three big surprise arrivals!! Nancy, whom I hadn't seen in at least a month, possibly two, Valerie, who I really wanted to come but didn't ask, and her husband Stacy. It made me happy to see these guys, that I love dearly.

I had some other supporters too, like Miss Keedy! and Cayla Baughn, and the Willem, and Kevin Carver, my youth pastor @ Lakeside. It was great to know how much these guys love me!! Oh, and my mom and sister came, but that wasn't really a surprise.

People came up to me and told me how I had touched their lives. People that I've been looking up to my entire life were telling me that. It was crazy.

Anyway, now that I've spent the last 30 minutes procrastinating and not working on all of the things I'm supposed to, I suppose I should go. But I might be a little slack on the blogging scene this week because it's just going to be an incredibly busy week! Preaching Wednesday, then leaving for Warmth In Winter on Friday! I will at least post on how WIW goes this year. Should be very interesting.

I am starting to think nobody reads this. Oh well.

2010-01-21T22:57:00.000-06:00

Today was a good day, aside from a slight lack of sleep. I got to school on time, made a 5 (out of 6. Don't ask) on my persuasive essay (and managed to use four important political speeches and one book!!), finally got my the rope in my drawing for art class right, had time to enjoy my friends, and won a contest! Good day, good day indeed.

Not to mention I've found the BEST soda I've ever had. It looks like this:

Doesn't that just SCREAM awesome? Even better than Jones Soda (which I am quite fond of).

Anyway, that's all with my life. I'll keep you posted.

Just a Thought

2010-01-17T16:56:00.000-06:00

Why do we have a whole holiday for Martin Luther King Jr., leader of the black rights movement, but not one for someone like Susan B Anthony, leader of the women's rights movement? Makes me wonder. Anyway. I have to continue writing my testimony for the 23rd. Which just MIGHT be the busiest day of my whole life. Just sayin'. Oh, and to start writing a talk (or sermon, which nancy says I have to call it) for the wednesday after the 23rd (the 27th) because I'm speaking that day too. Fannnnnnnnnnntastic. Maybe one day I'll get good at this stuff, eh?

Whoda Thunk It?

2010-01-14T17:34:00.002-06:00

Huh. Who knew?
Apparently, doing homework in my truck happens to be extremely relaxing. A nice peaceful break in my hectic week.

Haircuts & More Snow Day!

2010-01-11T10:35:00.003-06:00

I forgot to mention, in my "stuff that's been happening to me lately," that I got a haircut!! :D Some of you are infinitely aware of how big this is. I *never* get haircuts. I hate getting haircuts. I'm indecisive and I very rarely know what to do with my head. I haven't gotten a haircut in about two years. Saturday, I decided to be drastic. So, lo and behold, here is my *new* head. (Never fear, the same genius brain is still in there. Trust me!)

It's about six inches shorter and it's all springy!

Oh, snow day. We got another one! So I'm sitting on my couch watching "Carriers" with my little brother and the Willem, who is also busy texting his girlfriend on my phone.

That's all for now, folks.

So This Day I Promise....

2010-01-09T23:19:00.000-06:00

To try to not be a fail blogger like in the past. This will largely be determined by the number of people that either read/comment on this blog. If you comment, I shall write.

This is mostly for my family and/or friends who were distressed by the fact that I deleted my facebook account, and they are no longer able to stalk me any longer.

Mk. So. Upcoming/Recent events must be started with, I suppose.

Upcoming: (A.K.A. Things to blog about in the future)
Jan. 14: Court. Jury Duty.
Jan. 23rd: Speaking at Mt Olive UMC. (Must figure out where this church is...)
Jan. 29-31: Warmth In Winter!! HECK YES!!!!! Best retreat all year! WOOT!!!

Recent! (Easier to blog about, that's for sure.)
Snow daysss!!!
I LOVE snow days. They are magical surprise breaks from the stressful monotony that is the public edumacation. And we got TWO of them in a row!! How cool is that? Very cool, my friends, very cool. So for my first day, I simply did all of the things that I needed to do to feel adequately prepared for the semester. Boring, but necessary. And by "things" I mostly mean laundry. Lots and lots of laundry...

Day 2, though, was not as boring! I walked to the end of my road (a whole mile. Geesh. It was cold.) and got picked up by the lovely Mrs. Baughn, and had a snow day party! With meh friends, Bryce, Cayla, Spencer, Dylan, Sawyer, Angie, and the Willem.

Here are the pictures:
I don't actually like sledding, so I really just went twice then stayed inside. But does that matter? Nope. Snow days are fantastic. :)

School:
Boring subject, but I suppose it will help the stalkerish among you. (I love you family.)
4 brand spanking new classes!

1st Block: English 11. This class is a bit...demoralizing...to say the least. Um. My teacher likes to tell us that we're dumb. But it's okay, because for a grand majority of the class, she's right. ;) But I like her, she lets me color all over my notes with my crayons!

2nd Block: Advanced Art. Very outside my comfort zone. I'm a writer, not an artist. But my art teacher, Mrs. Carter, is not only sarcastic and easily annoyed, but has some cool ideas of how to turn my stories into art of a different form. Should be interesting.

3rd Block: Health Science. Lots of gross cool stuff! A very interesting supplement to my fourth block, plus I get certified in CPR at the end. Cool.

4th Block: Anatomy & Physiology: Gross gross gross. Don't have a fondness for the teacher (or how she teaches), but the content is interesting and the class will be easy to make an A in.

I think that's it for my life right now! I will be trying to add neat features to my blog soon. Check it out!