lonely

I'm having one of those days. A few of them actually. One of those days where it doesn't really matter what you're doing or where you are you just feel lonely. I don't like being in this kind of mood. Yuck. Maybe because I'm working full-time. Probably because Marie's in China. She's having fun there, I'm glad she's there, but I miss her a lot. She comes back tomorrow though and I'm going to clean her room for her. I think she's already on her way so hopefully she won't get a chance to read this and she'll be surprised.

computer ate my post

Well, as my little sister Jacque was so faithful to post, we spent the weekend at our grandparents' house in Nebraska. I tried to post earlier. I wrote this long, rambling post about Christmas. However while I was attempting to run spell check the computer dumped my post. As it was long and the hour was late I did not want to take the time to rewrite it. Now after a couple day's thought I've decided not to post such a rambling thing anyway.

We had car trouble on the way to my grandparents' house so my parents and I had to drive back two days early to pick up another transmission and take it back to our poor stranded suburban so my dad can fix it. They dropped me off at my house in Summit on the way because I have to work Wednesday. My dad was pretty sure he would not have the transmissions switched by then, so here I am. It was nice being with everyone, even if it was shorter than I planned.

holiday rush

Last Saturday (I know, I'm posting late) the housechurch had a Christmas dinner. Beforehand, Isaac, Tyller and I were talking about questions we could ask people while we ate. One that Isaac came up with was this: how do the holidays effect your walk with God? Does it take you closer to Him or does the busyness of the holidays distract you? Though we ran out of time and thus never got to that question, it made me evaluate myself. I have been distracted this month. Especially since school ended and I've been working full time.

Not that I haven't been growing or learning over the last month. It's been hard, possibly the hardest this year. Seems like I've been learning some of the basics over again. Funny how we never grow out of those. Basic trust that God will work things out with my job, that He will provide for me, that He will give me wisdom for decisions about my future, that He has the power to change my heart, and that He will never stop loving me. The power that saved me, that placed me in God's strong hands is the same power that keeps me from falling out of those strong hands.

happy birthday to me

Today is my 21st birthday! I'm very excited for no good reason that I can think of. I haven't done anything that only those real adults over 21 can do. I did get tricked by a bottle of cream soda disguised as beer that my little sister Joanie gave me. (Yes, I'm gullible sometimes.) I was also sang to by all the housechurch leaders today. Very nice.

inseparable

Check out Acts 9:1-5

I was reading Acts again recently and I noticed something in this passage. So Saul's persecuting the church and Jesus appears to him and asks, "Saul, why are you persecuting Me?" I was thinking about that. Saul wasn't persecuting Jesus, He was persecuting the church, right? Wait, if the body of Christ is the church, then to persecute the church is to persecute Jesus. It would be ridiculous to beat someone up, leave their head untouched and say that you didn't beat them you beat their body. I used to be like that. I separated in my mind Jesus from His body the church. I used to be hurt and bitter towards the church. Recently God showed me that I had to let go of the last scraps of bitterness I held onto against segments of the church. He showed me that I was hurting Jesus with my attitudes towards His beloved bride the church. Jesus keep teaching me to love Your bride like You do and see her with Your eyes.

days and nights

"Then God said, "let there be light"; and there was light. God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day." ~ Genesis 1:3-5

I didn't have the greatest day yesterday. Nothing really happened, I just had this bad attitude I couldn't seem to shake. Yea, maybe something is kinda bothering me, but it's not the type of thing that should be a whole day-ruiner. I think my own attitude and inability to make it go away bothered me the most. I went to sleep in a bad mood. This morning, however, I woke up in a great mood and I had a nice dream last night about hanging out with some of my friends.

(Thanks guys we had a nice time. ;)

Anyway I was thinking, God was very wise when He separated days from nights. Think about it, what would life be like if we couldn't go to sleep at the end of a bad day. Bad days would just go on and on and on and on......

God knew how weak we would be sometimes. He gave us days so that we could start over in the morning. I think that's possibly my favorite part of how God designed the world. Colors were also a very good idea, so was snow, and the ability to see in 3-D......

"The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness." ~ Lamentations 3:22,23

i survived

Ok, so after two almost-all-nighters in a row I got two presentations, two papers, and a test done. I must say that energy drinks, especially Red Bull, deserve some of the credit. I couldn't have stayed up so many hours with a functioning brain without them. Also Ben's mom Tammy helped me on a statistics project for like seven hours. She is a superhero. Well I need to go sleep my brain's not working too well anymore....

has panic set in yet?....yes.

It's that time of year, end of semester finals! Rather than having finals, I have big projects in two of my classes this semester. I've been working on them thinking, like all sensible end-of-semester projects that they would be due on the last day or something logical like that. No, no. Today I happened to take a closer look at both my syllabus' and realized that no, they're both due this week, not next week. One tomorrow (or I guess later today) and one the day after that. I am not going to get much sleep these next two days. :(