it's Christmas break 2011. i'm sitting at the kitchen table while my two sisters and my best friend play a game of three-person cribbage because i have never learned how to play that game and feel like i would most likely be horrible at it. i supposed i could "branch out" and try it sometime... but i think it would end like sudoku and other games that numbers are far too prevalent in.
it's only tuesday of break, and i have almost three weeks of uninterrupted downtime ahead of me. yes, i agreed to work some hours at the daycare i always work a few hours for, and i will probably also work a few hours for another company i am employed at right now. i have "all quiet on the western front" and "the heart is a lonely hunter" stacked next to my bed so i can make a dent in my list of 100 classic novels to read before i die... and yet i know that there is great potential for this break to be entirely unproductive.
what would i like my break to look like from the other side? full of quality time with my family, friends, and God. i would like to see that i had meaningful conversations with the people i love, that i was a blessing to those around me, and that i did not waste my break. i want to look back and see ways that God grew me over these three weeks. areas of my life that i was convicted to change. things that i surrendered to Him.
on a more shallow level, i also want to look back on this break and see that actually worked out occasionally. one of the worst things about breaks for me is my complete lack of motivation to exercise. some people say hey take a break... but i took a break for the first 19 years of my life, so now is not the time ;)
i want to have finished a few books, grown closer to God, and done something worthwhile over break.
in a nutshell, i want to have been intentional.
what does it mean to be intentional? i guess that i would say instead of letting break blow past and having break happen to me, i want to happen to break. i want to do things.
i just started reading "blue like jazz", which i am really enjoying. i am reading through romans, which is a great book to read and is always convicting. i've had some great conversations with my parents. but i need to continue to make this break worthwhile. i am not entirely sure how to do this. i think one of the main things is to depend on God for this break. to know that He will make things happen, He will use me as He wants. maybe that is simply to do the dishes for my mom and help my dad clean out the basement. maybe it's to have long conversations with people who need to talk. maybe it's spending extended time in prayer. i have no idea. but i am going to surrender what i want to do in this break to God.
Col 3:23: Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
The Unlived Life
One of my favorite movies in Jr. High was Tuck Everlasting. It had everything I could ask for: romance, adventure, and a message about the transience of life.
Okay, okay. To be fair, not many junior highers are actually interested in thinking about how quickly life passes. Or about death. But this movie presented the idea of life and death in a palatable way.
Based on the novel by Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting follows the lives of the Tuck family. They stumble upon what is basically the fountain of youth in a forest, unknowingly drink from it, and realize too late that they are all going to live forever. What at first seems like a blessing quickly reveals itself as a curse, for one son's wife and children didn't drink from the spring, and the wife goes crazy, taking the children away from the forever-young husband. The Tucks see their friends and family all die away, but they remain as they were when they drank from the spring. This is all the background to the main story, which is about Winnie, a girl who discovers the family and their secret. The most poignant part, the part that made my idealistic junior high eyes brim with awestruck tears, was when the father of the family is telling Winnie why she should not drink from the spring. He tells her that death is a part of life, and that she shouldn't be afraid of it. He says, "Don't be afraid of death. Be afraid of the unlived life."
Though this book has no religious implications, I think it is extremely applicable, especially to so many people my age... young college students, trying to figure out what they want from life, and whether or not what is expected of them or the American Dream fits into it.
As a Christian, I think it's especially true. I don't need to be afraid of death. I know what will happen to me when I die. What I need to be afraid of is not living my life with a purpose while on earth. And honestly, what I want to do with my life should not matter. It's all about what God has planned for my life. And the thought of getting to the end of this short life on earth and realizing it was mostly unlived... mostly lived for temporary, worldy things, is far more frightening than dying.
So yes, Tuck Everlasting is mostly a cheesy, romantic, tear-jerker with trendy teen actors and fun costumes. But it also has a good message about how quickly life passes, and how important it is to make sure you are living yours.
Tuck goes on to say that what his family is doing can't really be considered living, because they just are. He says they're like rocks stuck on the side of a river that flows past them.
And because in reality there is no fountain of youth, and we all will die, the implications of our small life will echo into eternity, and we are living. It's just up to us to make sure that what we do is worthwhile.
Okay, okay. To be fair, not many junior highers are actually interested in thinking about how quickly life passes. Or about death. But this movie presented the idea of life and death in a palatable way.
Based on the novel by Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting follows the lives of the Tuck family. They stumble upon what is basically the fountain of youth in a forest, unknowingly drink from it, and realize too late that they are all going to live forever. What at first seems like a blessing quickly reveals itself as a curse, for one son's wife and children didn't drink from the spring, and the wife goes crazy, taking the children away from the forever-young husband. The Tucks see their friends and family all die away, but they remain as they were when they drank from the spring. This is all the background to the main story, which is about Winnie, a girl who discovers the family and their secret. The most poignant part, the part that made my idealistic junior high eyes brim with awestruck tears, was when the father of the family is telling Winnie why she should not drink from the spring. He tells her that death is a part of life, and that she shouldn't be afraid of it. He says, "Don't be afraid of death. Be afraid of the unlived life."
Though this book has no religious implications, I think it is extremely applicable, especially to so many people my age... young college students, trying to figure out what they want from life, and whether or not what is expected of them or the American Dream fits into it.
As a Christian, I think it's especially true. I don't need to be afraid of death. I know what will happen to me when I die. What I need to be afraid of is not living my life with a purpose while on earth. And honestly, what I want to do with my life should not matter. It's all about what God has planned for my life. And the thought of getting to the end of this short life on earth and realizing it was mostly unlived... mostly lived for temporary, worldy things, is far more frightening than dying.
So yes, Tuck Everlasting is mostly a cheesy, romantic, tear-jerker with trendy teen actors and fun costumes. But it also has a good message about how quickly life passes, and how important it is to make sure you are living yours.
Tuck goes on to say that what his family is doing can't really be considered living, because they just are. He says they're like rocks stuck on the side of a river that flows past them.
And because in reality there is no fountain of youth, and we all will die, the implications of our small life will echo into eternity, and we are living. It's just up to us to make sure that what we do is worthwhile.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Boys speak in rhythm, and girls in code...
"Tell me how you feel, come out of the dark/ Then we can head back home and I'll know where to start"
These are some of the lyrics to "Foreign Language" by Anberlin, a song that pops into my head almost any time I am discussing the differences between girls and guys with people... it seems so very true every time I think about it.
For instance, my coworkers and I were discussing how girls have double meanings and hidden layers to almost everything they say, whereas guys basically just say what they mean. This is also the premise of the movie He's Just Not That Into You. We were talking about the differences in communication between guys and girls.
Girls will read into every minute detail of every tiny thing that a guy does. "His eyes lingered on me a split second longer than they lingered on her." or "He texted me thanks with a smiley. He didn't have to put a smiley... but he did. That's a good sign!" or "He didn't text me back, but it's probably only because he's saving an orphan from a burning building or stuck under something heavy and really really wants to text me back." One word. Delusional. And never underestimate the power of girls in groups... they are incredible at encouraging this type of thinking... If you are worried because the boy of your dreams didn't text you back, all your friends will think of any and every perfectly good (albeit extremely unlikely) reason why he didn't. If you are wondering why he seemed so interested in some other girl, your friends will go on and on about how he was just talking to her, he didn't look very interested, and if he'd go for that type of girl over you, he's not worth it anyway.
Can we get a reality check please?
One thing I really appreciate about guys is the fact that He's Just Not That Into You kept pestering the irritated female audience with... it's very simple: If a guy likes you, he will ask you out. If he doesn't, he's just not that into you. It hurts, yes. It's not a fun thing to admit to yourself, and with female friends surrounding you, it's almost impossible to actually admit it without them protesting and thinking of so many reasons why that's just not true. But in reality, it probably is.
So, while girls drop hints that no guy could ever decipher, guys come right out and say it. And this is almost always an advantage. I have to constantly remind myself that guys don't speak in code like girls do. Guys don't do the I-won't-call-her-until-she-calls-me thing that girls do to their boyfriends all the time... guys don't embed secret birthday wishes in conversation, and they definitely don't get horribly offended when girls say something that seems extremely innocent unless taken to the worst possible extreme.
So in this sense at least, I feel for guys.
(But that doesn't excuse 90% of guys from needing to man up and treat girls the right way. Ahh but that is for another day)
Thursday, June 9, 2011
If I Were the Tattooing Type...
Tattoos are one of those things that can either look pretty cool or pretty horrible. Sadly, it seems like the majority of people fall on the pretty horrible side of tattoos. And what I don't understand is the nonchalance people approach them with. This is something that will be on your body FOREVER... did you really want to get a cliche phrase in Sanskrit tattooed on your lower back? Just wondering.
However, there is also a certain appeal to them... though not enough for me to ever get one, I don't think. I just don't know if there is anything in my life that I would be sure to still feel super passionate about in 30 years, except my relationship with Christ, which is one of the few things I've ever considered getting a tattoo about.
BUT if I were to get a tattoo, I have a few things I'd like to pick from.
First of all, location is key. (In real estate AND tattoos).
No back of neck, behind the ear, inner arm, and DEFINITELY no calf tattoos. It should be somewhere pretty easy to hide, in my opinion, so that if you want to be classy and dressed up, it's not a big deal to hide the tat. So I'd say I really like the idea of the arch of my foot. That's pretty hidden. Easy to hide, but also not too hard to show, depending on the shoes.
So that's probably where I'd get a tattoo. Either there or like my lower hip because I really shouldn't be wearing an outfit showing off my lower hip when I'm trying to be classy/work appropriate anyway. (But that begs the question, "what's the point of a tattoo that you never show?" Good question, I'm not sure)
Anyway, I have it narrowed down to a few choices.
1. Timshel. As evidenced by my blog name, I love this word. It means "thou mayest", and in East of Eden by John Steinbeck, a character talks about this in relation to the Cain and Able story. Basically, God tells Cain that he may go and do what's right. Which means he has a choice. Which means we can't blame our past for our choices. We need to take responsibility and choose to do the right thing. I love that. Plus, timshel is a Hebrew word, so I would get it in Hebrew and it would be very small and nice. This is probably the one I'm most interested in getting (and by most interested I mean I would still probably never get it.)
2. Esse quam videri. This is Latin for "to be rather than to appear"... a friend of mine told me about this phrase a few months ago, and then my pastor preached about it a few weeks ago, and I just kept thinking of it. Basically, I love the idea of being the person I want to be rather than just appearing to be that person... as this applies to my faith... not just looking like a "good Christian", but truly following Christ with my whole life. However, it seems almost like an oxymoron to get this tattooed on myself. I haven't decided yet.
3. Also, this might just fall under the cliche category again, but I do love 1 Corinthians 13... especially verse 8, "love never fails".... or maybe another verse, like Isaiah 40:31... "But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will walk and not grow weary, they will run and not be faint.".... but I just don't know if I need that tattooed on my body. I like those verses though.
This is why I would never get a tattoo. I'm far to wishy-washy about stuff. Not about Christ's love. I know that is a 100% true fact of my life, but I just don't know if I really need to get something about it tattooed on myself.
However, there is also a certain appeal to them... though not enough for me to ever get one, I don't think. I just don't know if there is anything in my life that I would be sure to still feel super passionate about in 30 years, except my relationship with Christ, which is one of the few things I've ever considered getting a tattoo about.
BUT if I were to get a tattoo, I have a few things I'd like to pick from.
First of all, location is key. (In real estate AND tattoos).
No back of neck, behind the ear, inner arm, and DEFINITELY no calf tattoos. It should be somewhere pretty easy to hide, in my opinion, so that if you want to be classy and dressed up, it's not a big deal to hide the tat. So I'd say I really like the idea of the arch of my foot. That's pretty hidden. Easy to hide, but also not too hard to show, depending on the shoes.
So that's probably where I'd get a tattoo. Either there or like my lower hip because I really shouldn't be wearing an outfit showing off my lower hip when I'm trying to be classy/work appropriate anyway. (But that begs the question, "what's the point of a tattoo that you never show?" Good question, I'm not sure)
Anyway, I have it narrowed down to a few choices.
1. Timshel. As evidenced by my blog name, I love this word. It means "thou mayest", and in East of Eden by John Steinbeck, a character talks about this in relation to the Cain and Able story. Basically, God tells Cain that he may go and do what's right. Which means he has a choice. Which means we can't blame our past for our choices. We need to take responsibility and choose to do the right thing. I love that. Plus, timshel is a Hebrew word, so I would get it in Hebrew and it would be very small and nice. This is probably the one I'm most interested in getting (and by most interested I mean I would still probably never get it.)
2. Esse quam videri. This is Latin for "to be rather than to appear"... a friend of mine told me about this phrase a few months ago, and then my pastor preached about it a few weeks ago, and I just kept thinking of it. Basically, I love the idea of being the person I want to be rather than just appearing to be that person... as this applies to my faith... not just looking like a "good Christian", but truly following Christ with my whole life. However, it seems almost like an oxymoron to get this tattooed on myself. I haven't decided yet.
3. Also, this might just fall under the cliche category again, but I do love 1 Corinthians 13... especially verse 8, "love never fails".... or maybe another verse, like Isaiah 40:31... "But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will walk and not grow weary, they will run and not be faint.".... but I just don't know if I need that tattooed on my body. I like those verses though.
This is why I would never get a tattoo. I'm far to wishy-washy about stuff. Not about Christ's love. I know that is a 100% true fact of my life, but I just don't know if I really need to get something about it tattooed on myself.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Insanity
Well, I'm guessing the next 60 days will be filled with quite a few complaints about my newest fitness project, Insanity. After a year of working out/losing weight, I wanted one last hurrah to the joy (sarcasm) that is losing weight/dieting. I thought about P90X, but saw an infomercial for Insanity and thought, hey, why not go all out? Plus it's the perfect length... fills the whole summer, and will be over the week before I go back to school. (Yes, the remainder of my summer will be filled with "the hardest workout system ever put on DVD...")
So I ordered Insanity, and it arrived yesterday. I was eager to get started, as I know I'll be eager to get to the end and see the results! I had to get my mom to take all my measurements and the painful before pictures... and I did the Fit Test. It was rough! My dad was like, "Well at least you only have the fitness test to do today, and not the hard workouts."... um, it was HARD! Basically, there are different moves and you're given a minute to see how many you can do.... oh man, I was sweating SO much by the end, it was out of control. So much for an easy day haha. And today will begin the regular workouts... I went on a few message boards and read what people had to say about their first days... I'm pretty scared! But also excited. No one who had been sticking with it was anything but ecstatic about it. Everyone is always so excited about how great they're feeling and the results they're seeing.
So now it's up to me, sticking to my Insane workouts. I sincerely hope they work! (I think that all that stands in the way of them working is me!)... The biggest worry I have is the eating 5 small meals a day recommendation they have. This is to keep refueling you and getting your metabolism to keep going, and that's apparently essential for this to get maximum results! So... I'm going to have to pack 3 little meals in my lunchbox for work every day, which seems like a pain. But since the rest of working out/dieting is a pain, it's not that bad.
ANYWAY, I hope to earn this shirt by the end of the summer! I'll keep updating on this, I'm sure, since I imagine it's going to be ROUGH. But I'm excited!
So I ordered Insanity, and it arrived yesterday. I was eager to get started, as I know I'll be eager to get to the end and see the results! I had to get my mom to take all my measurements and the painful before pictures... and I did the Fit Test. It was rough! My dad was like, "Well at least you only have the fitness test to do today, and not the hard workouts."... um, it was HARD! Basically, there are different moves and you're given a minute to see how many you can do.... oh man, I was sweating SO much by the end, it was out of control. So much for an easy day haha. And today will begin the regular workouts... I went on a few message boards and read what people had to say about their first days... I'm pretty scared! But also excited. No one who had been sticking with it was anything but ecstatic about it. Everyone is always so excited about how great they're feeling and the results they're seeing.
So now it's up to me, sticking to my Insane workouts. I sincerely hope they work! (I think that all that stands in the way of them working is me!)... The biggest worry I have is the eating 5 small meals a day recommendation they have. This is to keep refueling you and getting your metabolism to keep going, and that's apparently essential for this to get maximum results! So... I'm going to have to pack 3 little meals in my lunchbox for work every day, which seems like a pain. But since the rest of working out/dieting is a pain, it's not that bad.
ANYWAY, I hope to earn this shirt by the end of the summer! I'll keep updating on this, I'm sure, since I imagine it's going to be ROUGH. But I'm excited!
Monday, June 6, 2011
a case of the mondays...
ahhh work. it's monday morning. i stayed up late last night. got about 4.5 hours of sleep, which for some people is normal, but not for this kid. i usually go to bed at like 10:30 and wake up at 6:00... and last night i went to bed at like 2:15 and woke up at about 6:45 this morning. ooooh well. what can you do? life goes on.
i just got some coffee and told myself i'd have a lot to do today at work. and i have been pretty productive, actually. i just felt my eyes slowly sliding shut so i decided to take a blog break. i am not surprised that my blog is getting much more posts than usual now that i have a job where i sit inside, in a cube, without a window all day. i like to feel connected to the outside world, even in the small and somewhat narcissistic way of blogging about myself. whatever, i'm pretty sure no one reads this... so it's just like a little release of boredom/thoughts and then back to the grind.
i don't have much to blog about today, though, so maybe i just should have refrained... but i'm not going to. i guess i've been reading wondering a little about the emergent church... and i haven't done much research at all, actually, 'cause i got kind of hung up on researching calvinism... but i was looking on amazon at the book of common prayer, because i think it's a really cool idea, and i came across a shane claiborne version of the book of common prayer. he's a character. at first, i thought i really liked/agreed with what he's like, but it scares me that rob bell is a huge fan of him, and he's clearly defined as being part of the emergent church... his "new monasticism" seems to be quite radical. and i am not against radical, but i am against radical movements that disregard the bible. i guess i don't know enough about new monasticism for sure, but i know that shane claiborne is a huge fan of mother teresa and her beliefs, and mother teresa is quoted as saying that it's no one's job to judge people's beliefs, and that many different religions lead to God and heaven... which is pretty contradictory to the bible. so i don't know much about shane claiborne/new monasticism/the emergent church, but i'm feeling wary.
something to research this summer for sure! rob bell is also on the list, although i heard it's super hard to find a copy of "love wins"... plus i really wouldn't want to buy it because i'm sort of horrified by what the premise of the book is about. so we'll see how that goes.
other than that, i've got a pretty exciting day ahead of me... which includes going for a jog and reading some "crazy love" by francis chan, then probably practicing my guitar, reading some of the book my mom lent me "the lake of dead languages", and then most likely retiring quite early to make up for my SUPER late night last night.
wow i kind of hope no one reads my blog because they probably want to take back the three minutes of their life i just wasted haha.
OH i will say that i watched this documentary called "the bridge"about the golden gate bridge... it's the single site that the most suicides have occurred anywhere in the world. and in 2004, someone trained cameras on it all year and caught many of the suicides on tape, and then interviewed family/friends/witnesses.... it was really sad, but really interesting. that's all i've got.
ok. i'm sure i'll update again soon, since i often get antsy at work.
i'll leave with this youtube video that is aaaaawesome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3d_fqDcN1s
i just got some coffee and told myself i'd have a lot to do today at work. and i have been pretty productive, actually. i just felt my eyes slowly sliding shut so i decided to take a blog break. i am not surprised that my blog is getting much more posts than usual now that i have a job where i sit inside, in a cube, without a window all day. i like to feel connected to the outside world, even in the small and somewhat narcissistic way of blogging about myself. whatever, i'm pretty sure no one reads this... so it's just like a little release of boredom/thoughts and then back to the grind.
i don't have much to blog about today, though, so maybe i just should have refrained... but i'm not going to. i guess i've been reading wondering a little about the emergent church... and i haven't done much research at all, actually, 'cause i got kind of hung up on researching calvinism... but i was looking on amazon at the book of common prayer, because i think it's a really cool idea, and i came across a shane claiborne version of the book of common prayer. he's a character. at first, i thought i really liked/agreed with what he's like, but it scares me that rob bell is a huge fan of him, and he's clearly defined as being part of the emergent church... his "new monasticism" seems to be quite radical. and i am not against radical, but i am against radical movements that disregard the bible. i guess i don't know enough about new monasticism for sure, but i know that shane claiborne is a huge fan of mother teresa and her beliefs, and mother teresa is quoted as saying that it's no one's job to judge people's beliefs, and that many different religions lead to God and heaven... which is pretty contradictory to the bible. so i don't know much about shane claiborne/new monasticism/the emergent church, but i'm feeling wary.
something to research this summer for sure! rob bell is also on the list, although i heard it's super hard to find a copy of "love wins"... plus i really wouldn't want to buy it because i'm sort of horrified by what the premise of the book is about. so we'll see how that goes.
other than that, i've got a pretty exciting day ahead of me... which includes going for a jog and reading some "crazy love" by francis chan, then probably practicing my guitar, reading some of the book my mom lent me "the lake of dead languages", and then most likely retiring quite early to make up for my SUPER late night last night.
wow i kind of hope no one reads my blog because they probably want to take back the three minutes of their life i just wasted haha.
OH i will say that i watched this documentary called "the bridge"about the golden gate bridge... it's the single site that the most suicides have occurred anywhere in the world. and in 2004, someone trained cameras on it all year and caught many of the suicides on tape, and then interviewed family/friends/witnesses.... it was really sad, but really interesting. that's all i've got.
ok. i'm sure i'll update again soon, since i often get antsy at work.
i'll leave with this youtube video that is aaaaawesome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3d_fqDcN1s
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
It's been way too long...
Oops, I never update this! I just reread a few of my more recent blogs, and I am using the word recent very loosely. I just don't think I'm cut out to be a blogger... but my sister and I said we'd have blogs, so I thought it would be easier just to keep going with this one, even though it's since like junior year of high school (and has about 6 posts)...
Not much has been happening in my life. It is the summer after my sophomore year of high school. I am 19 years old. I have big plans to do not much this summer... working at an internship at an engineering company in my town despite my major being English Education, doing the Insanity 60-day challenge, and reading. A lot. Those are my big summer plans.
Insanity is apparently the hardest workout system ever put on DVDs. So I've got that to look forward to... It's arriving sometime soon. This weekend, perhaps. In which case, the level of dread I will attach to each morning will increase exponentially. I think it gets worse every day... and I will be trying to do it in the morning before work. EW. But actually, I'm excited. I think that it will be a challenge (understatement) and I will end up a stronger (literally and figuratively) person for it. It will be tough, but I'm up for it.
Other than that, my plans are to read a lot of books. I have a project (and a blog about it!) to read 100 classic novels... and so I'm going to try to knock a few of those off the list. And then I also have a bunch of Christian books I want to read. "Crazy Love"by Francis Chan is the first one, and I think it will be arriving in the mail today (along with "Radical" by David Platt).
Speaking of godly things, I think it's interesting that sometime last year, I wrote about wanting to be closer to God, but not being sure how. Well... things worked out better than I could have imagined. Basically, I kept on with my spiritual "drought" until right before Christmas break... December 2010. I don't know what it was, but it all sort of snowballed into me sitting on my bed one night, and I remember just being hit with this question: Who are you living your life for? And I had to choose, then, if it was for God or for me. And I decided to make it about God.
And it's been awesome. No, my life hasn't fallen perfectly into place. In fact, a lot of it is exactly the same. But what matters is what is different. I found so much peace once I started to daily surrender my life to God. And this is something I am still working on, and still trying to perfect (which isn't my job, but I always try to make it my job)... but I am so thankful for the grace God showed me. He opened my eyes to the joy that is found when living life not for myself, but for Him. It's not been an easy or perfect road... I've had to keep reminding myself that my life is not my own, but He's always there with open arms to show me how much better His plan is than mine.
God has been so good this year, and I am so excited to continue living my life for Him, and not for myself. I'm a work in progress, and will be until the day Christ returns, but I'm a work in progress in the right direction, and God has blessed me so much. It's amazing that I was so lost just a few months ago, and I have so much direction and purpose in my life now. That doesn't mean I know what I'm doing with my life. It just means I know that God's doing something with my life, and I'm at peace with that... or at least, I'm letting Him help me to be at peace with that.
Other than my spritual drought ending in God's grace like rain (thank you, Todd Agnew), I also began to get my life in order in other ways. They all basically fell under the umbrella of realizing that I needed to stop living for myself. I began to study not because I wanted to do well in school to be a good student, but because I realized that I needed to work hard at everything in my life for God's glory. And I began to work out and eat right not to lose weight to be beautiful to the world, but to honor the body God gave me, and make it His temple. That's not to say I never eat candy or shirk homework anymore, it's just to say that when you give God your whole life, He changes your whole life. Nothing in my life isn't God's... this has been a great lesson to learn.
So I've lost some weight, gained some knowledge, and been growing closer to the Savior of my soul. Safe to say it's been a good few months.
Not much has been happening in my life. It is the summer after my sophomore year of high school. I am 19 years old. I have big plans to do not much this summer... working at an internship at an engineering company in my town despite my major being English Education, doing the Insanity 60-day challenge, and reading. A lot. Those are my big summer plans.
Insanity is apparently the hardest workout system ever put on DVDs. So I've got that to look forward to... It's arriving sometime soon. This weekend, perhaps. In which case, the level of dread I will attach to each morning will increase exponentially. I think it gets worse every day... and I will be trying to do it in the morning before work. EW. But actually, I'm excited. I think that it will be a challenge (understatement) and I will end up a stronger (literally and figuratively) person for it. It will be tough, but I'm up for it.
Other than that, my plans are to read a lot of books. I have a project (and a blog about it!) to read 100 classic novels... and so I'm going to try to knock a few of those off the list. And then I also have a bunch of Christian books I want to read. "Crazy Love"by Francis Chan is the first one, and I think it will be arriving in the mail today (along with "Radical" by David Platt).
Speaking of godly things, I think it's interesting that sometime last year, I wrote about wanting to be closer to God, but not being sure how. Well... things worked out better than I could have imagined. Basically, I kept on with my spiritual "drought" until right before Christmas break... December 2010. I don't know what it was, but it all sort of snowballed into me sitting on my bed one night, and I remember just being hit with this question: Who are you living your life for? And I had to choose, then, if it was for God or for me. And I decided to make it about God.
And it's been awesome. No, my life hasn't fallen perfectly into place. In fact, a lot of it is exactly the same. But what matters is what is different. I found so much peace once I started to daily surrender my life to God. And this is something I am still working on, and still trying to perfect (which isn't my job, but I always try to make it my job)... but I am so thankful for the grace God showed me. He opened my eyes to the joy that is found when living life not for myself, but for Him. It's not been an easy or perfect road... I've had to keep reminding myself that my life is not my own, but He's always there with open arms to show me how much better His plan is than mine.
God has been so good this year, and I am so excited to continue living my life for Him, and not for myself. I'm a work in progress, and will be until the day Christ returns, but I'm a work in progress in the right direction, and God has blessed me so much. It's amazing that I was so lost just a few months ago, and I have so much direction and purpose in my life now. That doesn't mean I know what I'm doing with my life. It just means I know that God's doing something with my life, and I'm at peace with that... or at least, I'm letting Him help me to be at peace with that.
Other than my spritual drought ending in God's grace like rain (thank you, Todd Agnew), I also began to get my life in order in other ways. They all basically fell under the umbrella of realizing that I needed to stop living for myself. I began to study not because I wanted to do well in school to be a good student, but because I realized that I needed to work hard at everything in my life for God's glory. And I began to work out and eat right not to lose weight to be beautiful to the world, but to honor the body God gave me, and make it His temple. That's not to say I never eat candy or shirk homework anymore, it's just to say that when you give God your whole life, He changes your whole life. Nothing in my life isn't God's... this has been a great lesson to learn.
So I've lost some weight, gained some knowledge, and been growing closer to the Savior of my soul. Safe to say it's been a good few months.
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