Blogging More

I set really strange goals for myself
For example, this year I said I wanted to wear high heels and lipstick once a week this year. And it has been so fun to do that.
I also said, I want to run a sprint triathlon and guess what, I did it!
So I'm what some would call tenacious. I've decided that I want to set that tenacity to a new goal:
To blog more.
I don't know who reads this, if anyone. And even if people used to read it, I've been slacking for 6 months, so you might not still be reading it :)
But I don't think readership is the point of blogging.
My journal is filled with emotion and depth of this particular time in my life, but the silliness and random things are not quite captured and definitely not shared, so while I have tended to write deepish stuff, now I'm just going to put whatever up here.
The new rule is that there are no rules. So maybe there will be pictures of adventures and stories of funny airport interactions. Maybe there will be stuff I'm learning through books and articles. Maybe there will be culinary adventures or even pictures I've taken. Some art might show up. And there just might be some depth too.
I was told that setting goals have to be quantifiable in order to find success, so my goal is to write a new post once a week. Beginning the week of June 5, because I'm about to board a plane to a place where I won't have Internet for two weeks.

So no blog the next two weeks, but also no high heels and lipstick :)

check out these blogs :)

I’m posting this to enter a contest offered by MeridaHome at Design For Mankind! I want to win the iPad 2! (and I love Erin’s shoes!)

erin's blog is amazing, if you love any kind of design, you'll love it!
i always feel inspired after checking out the beauty on her site :)
and erin is fantastic, just as a person.

anticipation

Isn't it interesting, sometimes the anticipation of a great event can be more important than the event itself. Even that this event itself can feel somewhat of a let down. Is that why the ideas of eternity are so elusive? Is that why the idea of the intangible becoming tangible is exhilarating and at the same time terrifying?

I have read and know in the bottom of my being that eternity will be overwhelmingly wonderful, but there is, of course, fear. What if it is not as lovely as one hopes? I do believe and hope in the Hebrews 11 sense, that it will be as CS Lewis writes in "The Great Divorce" not less real than this world, but somehow more real. The word picture that stands out most, is the idea that the very grass is so real that it will cut your feet. I often think of eternity as a ghostly place, ethereal and weird, but somehow wonderful. But I love the idea that CS Lewis perpetrates that this life is in fact less real than the realness of true life experienced in eternity, where there is no hindrance between the true, unfettered glory of God and me. It seems that it must be this way, because there will no longer be me and my sin to get in the way, but the whole ness of life, how it was meant to be, forever, into eternity.

Thinking about eternity in these terms makes me long for it, but somehow I still do fear that I will be let down, but surely it cannot be because my shallow finite mind can only think of so much greatness and eternity will be filled with the unfathomable greatness of the Glory of God Himself.

have we been inoculated with the Gospel?

We have just enough exposure of the Christian narrative that the truth of Christ just doesn't change our lives. It doesn't seem radical, because we have "heard" it so many times, but are we really listening? We cannot see the radical nature of life change, because we have been so lightly exposed to the water down "moralistic" ideology of the Christian nation ethic. But merely setting up a society that acknowledges some idea of a monotheistic deity does not make a Christian nation, it cannot bring the reality of who Jesus is. It cannot radically change everything. Legislating morality will only continue to confuse the issue. We keep telling the lie that you can create some good enough version of heaven on earth. Many people have a really hard time answering the question,"if you could go to heaven without Jesus being there, would you be happy to be there?" There is no heaven apart from Christ. Jesus says "and this is eternal life, that you may know God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent." we mustn't cling to a good life, an easy life, a moral life, but a radical life. A life that calls us to die for the sake of our enemies and to lay everything down so that we might walk closely with Jesus. That our lives would overflow the full scale onset of the Gospel. That you couldn't interact with the Gospel with out it killing you, your flesh, and making you TRULY alive in the only way we can be truly aIive, in Him, in Jesus.

real life is only found in one place. as counter intuitive as it may seem, that place is in death. in the death of Jesus and even more in the resurrection. but it has to change you...not because we have to change to get "in" with God, but because once we are "in" with God, by His great mercy, change happens. "it is for freedom that Christ has set you free"

Are Christians really jerks?

Christians are called to be the best kinds of humans; we are supposed to be humble and loving. Our lives are to be marked by Love.

Like the true, true kind of love.

It breaks my heart that people associate Christians with jerks. But I don't know that "people" across the board do. Yes, we all know there are some who poorly misrepresent Jesus and the Way. But I came to know the Lord because of Christians' kindness and their care for me.

Instead of defending or criticizing the outliers who make Christians look like idiots, we should be active in our communities to love people, to be the best kind of neighbors. We should lay down our lives. If all of us who are tired of being misrepresented by holier than though angry types we could use our energy to be Jesus kind of people.

People talk a lot about Christians being hypocrites, but the beauty of Christianity is that there should be no hypocrisy because by following Jesus, we are already saying I am terrible, I am a sinner, I deserve death---BUT Jesus did this amazing thing! Let me tell you what Jesus did and even more; let me tell you what Jesus is doing. He is making a broken thing (me) new. I wonder if I sought unity instead of division and feared God more than man, would we make a difference.

Sometimes it feels like people are waiting for “some leader” to do something, but there are a lot of faithful people making a difference. What if instead of looking for someone to make “those who misrepresent you” behave differently, you just were faithful. What if I was just faithful and humble and honest? Would the world notice? Could we really change the world?

I think we could.

count the cost.

i'm flying over the rocky mountains right now. headed home.
i am excited to get home. excited to spend time with friends. get work done. live my regular life.
as i sit in this chair, i can't help but think everything is going to be different. i can feel the winds of change shifting in my own heart. i am compelled to begin the hard work, i am convinced it is time to leave adolescence and become an adult. i am ready to stop drinking milk and start eating the solid food of the Gospel.
this week i got to hang out with my two year old nephew (who by the way is adorable and awesome) and the thing that i noticed is that while he can and does eat real people food, he still wants to drink a bottle. it's not the milk, but the bottle. and i can't help but think that i am so much like my sweet little nephew.
i think i am afraid to leave what i know, afraid to be responsible, afraid to be an adult.
now for you that know me, you are probably shocked at that little statement. i am generally responsible. but that is in my actions, in my physical life, in the life i can control.
but where it is difficult is in my spiritual life. i fear going past the safety of childhood, because i know what is out there is 100% out of my control and i know it is a difficult journey. i prefer to stay here where i can seem good, than go out there where i can fail. where God can take my life and do all sorts of crazy things and i could end up in a situation i can't control. i could lose everything. but first i have to know what i have. first i have to have something that could be lost.
paul writes, " i count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. for his sake i have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that i may gain Christ." paul knew what he was talking about. but he had to venture into adulthood in order to lose everything to gain the One thing, JESUS.
i want that. i believe that is absolutely true. i believe that Jesus is everything. i believe He is the only place you can find life. i stake my life on that. now i need to live it. fully. completely. sacrificing everything.

thanksgiving.

i made my first ever turkey on tuesday, it was delicious. i'm going to have to start making "traditional" meals more often. there seems to be a reason why they are traditions :)

hope you have a happy thanksgiving.

i'll be spending mine where i grew up in southern california.