tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14894758386928693532024-03-12T16:50:15.194-07:00Skylark on Cherry StreetMyrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05836512913841576260noreply@blogger.comBlogger49125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489475838692869353.post-85220070226427629992014-11-10T17:00:00.000-08:002014-11-10T17:11:46.169-08:00[He is hope] #onthemove<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">"I was
given a gift on this tour. The tour itself is a gift wrapped in
strange packaging. Tied up in merch bins and cash boxes, gas stations
and confused looks, literal bumps in the road and tents with old water
that splashes out on your head when you set up the day after a rain
storm. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Tour took me to states I had been to before, and states I
never thought I would be in, and states I have wanted to return to
with an aching in my heart for months. And within those states,
wrapped up in that giant red bus, hidden behind signs for social
media and payment options, we visited campus after campus."</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-xdRzaaD98zyz8G0vmDWvfdLqywdfIVn_I8bXA1OF-wgTvPBJ1-Nysp-rFTR2yEAOLPbYcktGK4F6_zwSEoceoL4GR0HgrbXDD7YYM8OUkLWvAPaz7R-X76AMlXXTYZUau9joxu9tYwH6/s1600/DSC_0054.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-xdRzaaD98zyz8G0vmDWvfdLqywdfIVn_I8bXA1OF-wgTvPBJ1-Nysp-rFTR2yEAOLPbYcktGK4F6_zwSEoceoL4GR0HgrbXDD7YYM8OUkLWvAPaz7R-X76AMlXXTYZUau9joxu9tYwH6/s1600/DSC_0054.JPG" height="320" width="212" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> There
is something about being on the road for a month which feels as if
you've been tossed head-first into a washing machine and spun through
permanent press. A month later the door opens and you fall on your
font porch wrung-out and washed clean. The air is cold, the leaves
are turning, your host family's dog is your new best friend and you
lie on the floor while he licks your face, four weeks down.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b> No
weeks to go.</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> It
was the quick cycle, and it ended with a beep. No fanfare, no
parades, which is not what we hoped for or wanted at all. Our work
may be loud, gaudy and obnoxious – the rumble of a double-decker
bus sitting in a quad, the chattering of voices for hours a day, the
hauling of boxes and clicking of tent legs. Our work is rich and
long, working on too many cups of caffeine, eating in restaurants we
have never heard of, sitting in the quiet light of laundromats and
sorting through Red Bus tee shirt after Red Bus tee shirt.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-size: large;"> But
our work, most of all, is hopeful.</span> </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">And our work is not about us. It's
about them...<b>ALL OF THEM</b>. <i>Any of them. Anyone in need of hope</i>. For
four weeks rolling down highways and hitting branches with the top of
the bus, we were able to meet souls who did not know orphans existed,
who did not know how to speak out. <span style="color: red;">But we serve a God of hope.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> He
gave hope to a chief cup-bearer, sharing a prison with a man named
Joseph. He gave this man a friend with a God. A man who worshiped and
served the God of hope.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i> “When
Joseph came to them in the morning and observed them, behold, they
were dejected...'why are your faces so sad today?' They said to him,
'we have had a dream and there is no one to interpret it.' Then
Joseph said to them 'Do not interpretations belong to God? Please
tell me.'” Genesis 40:7-8</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b> Joseph
knew his Father could interpret what he could not.</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> He
gave hope to a woman who had waited for years upon years to be
healed, who knew within her heart that God could save her.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i> “For
she thought, 'if only I just touch his garments I will get well.'”
Mark 5:27</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b> The
woman knew her Father could heal what she could not.</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> He
gave hope to a boat rocking with shaking men, terrified of death, of
the waves of the storm. Men who knew and loved their Lord, men who
had seen miracles and listened to the words of Christ and yet - <u>still</u> - needed hope.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i> “They
came and woke Him saying, 'save us Lord! We are perishing!'...then He
got up and rebuked the wind and the sea, and it became perfectly
calm.” Matthew 8:25-26</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b> The
disciples knew their Father could calm what they could not.</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>God does what we cannot.</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> God
gives hope to the hopeless. This is our name, this is our mission. He
gives people what they don't have, and it can be small and beautiful,
like hot hotel cookies and a gas station on an otherwise empty road.
His provisions come in little packages and big packages. He gives
people big and beautiful: the blessing of being able to go to college, the
joys of a circle of faithful friends, a giant Red Bus from England. A
front porch to fall onto once the cycle spins down.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> And
he gives giant things, things we only dream about. Things we fight
for and proclaim – things he taught me it's </span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">NOT</b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> too big to
dream about and it's </span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">NOT</b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> too big to speak up about. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<u><b><span style="color: red; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;">He
gives families</span></b></u><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">. He opens hearts.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i> He
puts the lonely in families. </i>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i> </i>And
it wasn't until a four week tour, talking to thousands of college
students, gas station workers, hotel receptionists, cleaning ladies,
faculty, children, Show Hope adoption aid grant recipients...it
wasn't until I saw the sea of hope that God can create that I
understood the God of hope I serve.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> I
don't know if I will ever fully understand the depth and richness of
hope God can provide. But for the hopeless, He fights.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> And
so I will fight, too. Even if sometimes it feels like spinning in
circles, being wet and cold and smiling with the strength of a God
who never fails. Because tour will do that to a person.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i><b> It
will give them a reason to show hope.</b></i></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVgv7wP_Vsnq8LgsdUCGnQh227T7SWYqLrYqtPeZOcIcFDzNg6RZP5NddlZCQv5iXZvzKVMLSQUbRTAk282owDRYqom1YG7fvAZN1e9Ljc6aq7r09QhzQE80-lRSDJuPut4ARtll9l1YSo/s1600/DSC_0226.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVgv7wP_Vsnq8LgsdUCGnQh227T7SWYqLrYqtPeZOcIcFDzNg6RZP5NddlZCQv5iXZvzKVMLSQUbRTAk282owDRYqom1YG7fvAZN1e9Ljc6aq7r09QhzQE80-lRSDJuPut4ARtll9l1YSo/s1600/DSC_0226.JPG" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: medium;"><b>Red Bus Project</b></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 18px; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: red; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: medium;"><b>#onthemoveforphans</b></span></div>
Myrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05836512913841576260noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489475838692869353.post-78880877211100707262014-09-14T15:27:00.001-07:002014-09-14T15:28:58.664-07:00[every 18 seconds] #onthemove<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There's
this statistic we use with the Red Bus Project. It doesn't really
change your life.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At
least, it didn't change mine. <span style="color: red;">At first.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIDyvicZqoVn8rfLKrwQAfglOmWxH86grNnPYWWYsPwJSIwqhi4c3thdO53kWQffaPYPcpIRiswbUhaAWNCHyZortUKgJvjJ4RaBpcDcCJuOxeKjWF8ZzUXSh4urIT91pKhVRN2VH0DXek/s1600/IMG_2258.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIDyvicZqoVn8rfLKrwQAfglOmWxH86grNnPYWWYsPwJSIwqhi4c3thdO53kWQffaPYPcpIRiswbUhaAWNCHyZortUKgJvjJ4RaBpcDcCJuOxeKjWF8ZzUXSh4urIT91pKhVRN2VH0DXek/s1600/IMG_2258.PNG" height="280" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">@redbusproject</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That
was before our director poured out an entire gallon of milk in front
of a highschool classroom. I was standing against the back wall,
figuring I knew the discussion he was about to give to these
youngsters. <i>Oh, silly youngster myself</i>. It took him 18 seconds to
empty that gallon. 16 cups of smooth, skim milk from a plastic
container flowing into a bucket. The silence sank around us as candy
wrappers, backpacks and the number of pens sitting by the white board
which I had been assessing almost became obsolete.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: right;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Every
18 seconds, somewhere in the world, a child becomes an orphan without
a mother or a father. </b></span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">About
as long as it took me to write that last sentence.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It's
a statistic in a line of statistics that can be pulled from all
corners and public squares of knowledge. But there's something in the
physical representation of passing time which causes you to stop
chewing at your gum for a moment and watch what's unfolding in the
rest of civilization. That's what it did to me. We take common
groceries and attach to them the weight of over 140 million
abandoned children, and oddly, it makes sense. Taking something we know well and using it to communicate things we know little about. People don't associate
with statistics because they don't mean much, usually. Statistics are
as common as refreshing our newsfeeds and they're usually being
replaced by bigger and worse statistics, and eventually, we lose
interest or become too jaded to notice.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>18
seconds. </b>No one pays attention to the passing of 18 seconds and so
its worth is lost. We watch 6-second vines and 2-minute microwave
popcorn and tutorials on how to create a smokey eye in 15-minutes or
less. But within all those, the mundane 18 seconds is lost.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We're not in the business of shock value. But it shocked me, and I've been the one folding tee-shirts in the merch
closet with that very phrase printed across the front. I helped place
the order for more. I've been staring at #every18seconds on Instagram
and listening to strategies of gaining leverage on a college campus
with that phrase as our backbone. I suppose you could say that every
18 seconds is our motto, and yet I hadn't stopped to contemplate why.
It existed, I existed. All the things existed and that was that. All
the existences.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Dear
world, if your name was a verb, what would the action be?</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They
asked me that. We play this game called Hot Seat in the office to
keep our minds moving and learning through the simplest, stupidest of
means. It takes 1 minute of our lives.<i> </i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>“To Myra,”</i> they said, <i>“is
to over-analyze and think deeply.”</i> But it seems there
are times that I don't think enough, or perhaps I'm just thinking too
much of the wrong things. Or perhaps our human minds can't bear the
extremes. There are those ends of the spectrums we don't deal in
every day, which is why they taught us to use scientific notation in
math class so the impossibles made sense. 18 seconds aren't dealt with and neither are over
140 million. One's the footprint of an ant, the other are elephants
measuring from your house to heaven. Too large. Too small. <span style="color: red;">Too
inconvenient.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Convenience
sends one into some interesting situations. I've had oatmeal for
dinner for a very long time, now, even though I have chicken in the
freezer waiting to be cooked. Pretty sure I wore black on brown last
week to avoid doing an extra load of laundry. My suitcase doesn't
know what it means to be organized, and I'm afraid to show it or
it'll start expecting that from me on a regular basis. And sometimes
caring is inconvenient and <i><u>I stop caring</u>. </i>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><i>We
all stop caring.</i></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;">Because
when did 18 seconds become something to care about?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That
one time a gallon of milk was poured out. </span><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then.</span></b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> That day, I started
realizing how much more caring we could all be doing. How much more
caring</span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> I</b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> needed to be doing because I have a lot of space in
my heart, going up for sale and sitting inexcusably empty, in
desperate need of souls while there are souls in the world in
desperate need of hearts. </span>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In
18 seconds I will be drinking the end of my Arnold Palmer and hitting
save on this word document. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Go sell your heart, and <b>sell it for
free</b>, and let's make our hearts homes to things that matter.<span style="color: red;"> </span></span><span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Let's
make the houses of our hearts the homes for a world who needs to
delve into extremes all over again.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: right;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC1h3hOSwnqp_lynuDPcxw6e__7Pr2DEty4kr-ZwGQvL-gXqvH0yPiZ2yBOE6TN24hM7EfJf09O0E511rckqqVgaEAVR1aV_t2iPadzcP-vk6uVH4JNOy4NpAmh9aRkMSeyC2vjLb9pJCP/s1600/Image090620141102401.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC1h3hOSwnqp_lynuDPcxw6e__7Pr2DEty4kr-ZwGQvL-gXqvH0yPiZ2yBOE6TN24hM7EfJf09O0E511rckqqVgaEAVR1aV_t2iPadzcP-vk6uVH4JNOy4NpAmh9aRkMSeyC2vjLb9pJCP/s1600/Image090620141102401.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Notice the blue tee shirt? The first run of the bus this season. Redbusproject.org</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Red Bus Project</b></span></div>
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</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"><b>#onthemoveforphans </b></span></div>
<br />Myrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05836512913841576260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489475838692869353.post-76688692663910548432014-08-30T14:12:00.000-07:002014-08-30T14:21:12.939-07:00[grace?] #onthemove<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">this is about grace. i think.</span></b></div>
<div style="border: none; line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 0in; padding: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is about the realization
that I am not who I thought I was, and yet everything I could ever
imagine. Plagued by the flesh but alive with a savior.</span></div>
<div style="border: none; line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 0in; padding: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="border: none; line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 0in; padding: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">this is about the fact that I'm not really living according to what I just said above on an internet blog page.</span></div>
<div style="border: none; line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 0in; padding: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="border: none; line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 0in; padding: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Boxed up. Boxed in.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihecBE3FFmbSlyRlDJUfnCTHUZB_06fjPKqqhyphenhyphenz5jOSeZnHvTYHQ68nae4Efey916yXMjJeXzclfttmgOUIog0ZPAHZCDbrC4G-hn4ERSumdhZrV-WZPUKm2LCciC40IarywHghVTrAQ-7/s1600/IMG_2159.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihecBE3FFmbSlyRlDJUfnCTHUZB_06fjPKqqhyphenhyphenz5jOSeZnHvTYHQ68nae4Efey916yXMjJeXzclfttmgOUIog0ZPAHZCDbrC4G-hn4ERSumdhZrV-WZPUKm2LCciC40IarywHghVTrAQ-7/s1600/IMG_2159.JPG" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We
are a culture of sub-cultures. Born and suited towards tastes
and differences and personality traits which automatically separate
us from the group which wears dark-rimmed glasses and enjoys the
higher fineries of life disguised as simplicities, or attaches us to
them. I think this sub-culture is known as Hipsters. (I'm still
trying to figure out exactly what a Hipster is.) And they can be cut
further down the middle based on religion. Environmental pro-choice
hipsters and 21<sup>st</sup>
century evangelical hipsters are instantly divided. Those quarters
can further be cut into eighths based on tattoo convictions, the
number of piercings considered healthy or sinful, and whether or not
they will formula-feed their infants.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I've
been called a lot of things, and I call myself a lot of things. I
have been called a hipster, when I'm caught messing around with my
nerd glasses or wallpapering my back bedroom wall with hundreds of
oxygen-stained book pages. And I have called other people hipsters
based on their Instagram pictures or the amount of coffee they
consume in a day, as if he consumption of caffeine instantly pegs
them into one subculture box or another.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i> (Caffeine
has become a dear friend to me of late. Starbucks and office kitchen
Keurig, let me hug you.)</i></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="border: none; line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 0in; padding: 0in;">
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> We
like boxes. Boxes are dark and warm. Boxes can only fit a few people
and those few people don't come in unless invited – which must mean
that we want them in there with us. Boxes are handy for hiding in
because cardboard has the unmistakable ability to conceal the true
colors, shapes and forms of what has been packed within. Boxes are
nice. <b>They make moving easy; they make it acceptable to carry
awkward, harmful or shameful contents without the fear of discovery
or rebuke.</b></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="border: none; line-height: 120%; margin-bottom: 0in; padding: 0in;">
<span style="color: #ff420e; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"> And
boxes are safe.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> I
found a box this week. I found it and I jumped right in and closed
the lid, and I think I taped it shut with duck tape and shrapnel. The
box was called “Golden Retriever/Beaver.” Also known as the
Animal personality test results, taken in the intern office at work.
As soon as I discovered I was a Golden Beaver I glared around at the
Lion/Otters and Beaver/Otters and Golden/Lions in the room with me
and slapped a badge on my chest written in blood and bought with my
first-born son.
</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>I AM a Golden Retriever/Beaver: "look on my works ye mighty and despair." Change me not, change me never! </b></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">(I've
been known to have this sort of response to personality tests before.)</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> And
day marched into day of me taking test after test, writing up page
upon pages of documents entitled “<u>Myra</u>,” filled with all the
results and definitions of how my personality should act.
</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"> Me</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">.
I was defining myself based on some fill-in-the-blank-boxes on the
internet, because, obviously, the internet is infallible and
omniscient. <i>Obviously.</i> And everyone else taking the tests with me
were becoming their name on a document heading as well. They were
becoming test-results as I labeled the heck out of my co-workers, my
family and my best friends.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> I
told you this was about grace.
</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Grace.
It is this thing, according to all my personality results, I'm not
very good at. Result after result listed my “weaknesses” in
similar terms of critical (Beaver,) judgmental (Golden Retriever,)
stubborn (Melancholy,) and struggles with close-mindedness (INFJ.) These are the awkward and shameful contents I put into my boxes and hide and carry around in my wounded heart. I'm all about being honest with ourselves and others, I'm all about
justice, I'm all about standards.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i> But
what about grace? </i><br /><br />
</span></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><b> <span style="color: black;">I
ask you: "How many times will you pick me up,<br />When I keep on
letting you down?<br />And each time I will fall short of Your
glory,<br />How far will forgiveness abound?"<br />And You answer:
"My child, I love you.<br />And as long as you're seeking My
face,<br />You'll walk in the power of My daily sufficient grace."</span></b></span></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">-Laura
Story “Grace”</span></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> This
is about the fact that I'm not left to my boxes because I've been
redeemed by a God who takes those boxes and burns them in the fire of
his perfect love. He takes my stained, cardboard, lock-down and gives
His free and unmerited favor.
</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Let's redefine us. What's our true identity?<b> <i>Christian. Child of God. Loved. Redeemed. Chosen. Paid for.</i></b></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Let's write those in blood, sweat and tears on the doorposts of our hearts and <b>then</b> let's sub-categorize ourselves and be the redeemed hipsters, beavers, INFJs, homeschoolers, mothers, bosses and interns of the world. (Or let's try.)</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I'm going to jump from box to box, alternately fighting labels and loving them, <i>because that's life.</i> I'm going to tape things up and hide and I'm also going to embrace the person I was created to be and I'm going to do it all imperfectly. I'm going to believe God knows what he's doing with all the boxes I change like clothes which are stacked by my bed every morning I wake up and role-play.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>When God called Jonah, Jonah ran away. Lazarus was dead. The Disciples fell asleep. Zacchaeus was greedy. Paul was ingrained in another religion. Jeremiah was depressed.</b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We are in good company.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Our boxes can't stop God.</b></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBmMU_uq_TvsDy3_REelqPS8dkD9XzWuYo90MU5NPSYPGNGpT6i7PgYKC4ti7DxCwLuj0Itj4pzfgHNzIAAeFYcjaifVzkVYtffTaplRCrm1dA-s4UQ5Dl39801OSkABxyGg6enEE-5cRK/s1600/IMG_2158.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBmMU_uq_TvsDy3_REelqPS8dkD9XzWuYo90MU5NPSYPGNGpT6i7PgYKC4ti7DxCwLuj0Itj4pzfgHNzIAAeFYcjaifVzkVYtffTaplRCrm1dA-s4UQ5Dl39801OSkABxyGg6enEE-5cRK/s1600/IMG_2158.PNG" height="320" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The interns getting their job titles, not their identities (as I have to remind myself.)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Red Bus Project</b></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"><b>#onthemovefororphans</b></span></div>
Myrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05836512913841576260noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489475838692869353.post-43244196015415679412014-08-22T20:07:00.001-07:002014-08-22T21:48:15.119-07:00[just a step] #onthemove<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 0.21in;"><span style="color: #666666;">this is the story of how God brought me to The Red Bus Project. </span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 0.21in;"><span style="color: #666666;">one step on a life-journey of millions.</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 0.21in;"><span style="color: #666666;"><br /></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKkmzeUoPts11Gzf5W9eOZ6rIEKlw3hFwsdbMQ3kx26b6o9cCguuRYx3Yzn7zgZ0SLFnOSLlPizLicshnGxz9O22nJhY3LfpXvJwtxoDUfxP4lY9LVFvU4OdxKtQIlRfVeXSENgcd4tI6l/s1600/IMG_0816.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKkmzeUoPts11Gzf5W9eOZ6rIEKlw3hFwsdbMQ3kx26b6o9cCguuRYx3Yzn7zgZ0SLFnOSLlPizLicshnGxz9O22nJhY3LfpXvJwtxoDUfxP4lY9LVFvU4OdxKtQIlRfVeXSENgcd4tI6l/s1600/IMG_0816.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The Red Bus the first day I saw it this spring.</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN5sXe2CVxjjd5PmF5jtzXzGFE2Yf6orr6rlwml6qmk9aU5O-URYYi1MAszWLiNEwyVku4p8hyphenhyphen0j5uBnmziBONznzuzdxu0I64PDW_XeUKPXY1T-syaNK0P6tPlehzYV8JCBeySxVmDjCl/s1600/IMG_0812.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN5sXe2CVxjjd5PmF5jtzXzGFE2Yf6orr6rlwml6qmk9aU5O-URYYi1MAszWLiNEwyVku4p8hyphenhyphen0j5uBnmziBONznzuzdxu0I64PDW_XeUKPXY1T-syaNK0P6tPlehzYV8JCBeySxVmDjCl/s1600/IMG_0812.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxGBZEdFaTQ5XR8x4fo6ShYOiPfpqcFF73jsLQmiNwb9iKtZyZaeQpQIl8GYw20RYIxAmlBA3rtC4s8tTWD43u6FawltZlv-0PmKa-HBITmeC9I6VQq2N7WGDYFAMJJseTGB4rBJsypYEH/s1600/IMG_0814.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxGBZEdFaTQ5XR8x4fo6ShYOiPfpqcFF73jsLQmiNwb9iKtZyZaeQpQIl8GYw20RYIxAmlBA3rtC4s8tTWD43u6FawltZlv-0PmKa-HBITmeC9I6VQq2N7WGDYFAMJJseTGB4rBJsypYEH/s1600/IMG_0814.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 0.21in;"><span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="line-height: 0.21in;"><span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was asked for my heart.</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="line-height: 0.21in;"><span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Not parts of it, not
corners I could live without. But my <b>whole heart,</b> with every
faithless thought thriving. Imperfect, dank and doubting, it was
requested. It was overcome. <i>Stand up and walk: your faith has made
you whole.
</i></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> But on that March day as I
walked blindly around the brick buildings which held so many
well-adjusted, comfortable students, my discomfort pulsed. I felt
corned as I stood between the iron mascot and the road, looking onto
the quad of a campus I was loathe to step back onto.
</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Fear pulsed through my
blood-stream like life. I was a Red Bus <i>nobody</i>; another girl working
another nanny job in a sea of young women all saying they loved
children. Fear had taken my car from one end of the campus straight
to the other as I kept driving minutes before I found myself on the
sidewalk. I had reasoned that I did not need to visit this cause –
my life was comfortable. A thousand causes would arise in a thousand
more comfortable ways than this one, and </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"><b>there was no need for my
drop to fall into the bucket of Caring.</b></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> And I had kept driving.
The fear of having to drop something in the bucket kept me going
while fear of missing the chance made me call my mom and proclaim, as
I validated my actions to myself, that there was no need to visit the
Red Bus Project. But mothers are wise. They are the wisdom in our
stubbornness because they know something sweeter waits for us on the
other side. They give us what is best instead of what is easy.
</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> “Go back.”</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> “Mom, there's no point.
I'm coming home. You know, they'll come here again, I'm just not
ready to go up there. I can't walk out there alone. I can't go to a
campus I don't attend and barge my way into what's probably a sea of
people. I hate crowds. I hate meeting new people. I'm coming home.”</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> “Go back.”</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> “No, Mom. No. I'm
already on the main road.”</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> She broke my stubbornness
the only way she knew how, her second daughter once again putting up
a fight just so she could get out of something. The way she got out
of everything uncomfortable growing up from dentist appointments to
Sunday School. Her second daughter was bucking against God. And so
with a voice I wouldn't have responded to at any other moment, my
mother pushed me. She commanded me.<span style="color: red;"> She spoke life with fervor.
</span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: red;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> “If you don't go back,
you're not welcome home for dinner. I love you, but you have to go
back. You will regret it for the rest of your life and I won't let
you do that.
</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b> Go. Back. Now.”</b></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> I went back. And there I
stood, between the iron mascot and the road. A sea of details from
the Red Bus Project website flooding through my mind, the fingers of
my brain thumbing through the files of evenings spent pouring over a
cause that loved children as much I did. I stood and breathed in the
afternoon air, my coat in the car, my backpack hanging off my
shoulders so I could disguise the fact that I didn't attend this
school. All I wanted to be was a girl in the sea of a thousand girls,
a nanny of many, just another voice saying once again that children
were worth sacrificing our lives for. That we were the next
generation of parents and that if we pushed away the children now, we
were destroying a lifetime of tomorrows.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i> “Let the little Children
come.”</i> Christ said.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> I didn't want to come.
Tiny and afraid. The parts of me that wanted to join in and speak
louder than the silence were being silenced by fear. Fear that I
actually <u><b>would</b></u> stand out. Fear that I would have to talk with
strangers. Fear that I'd be called upon to do something about the
fierce love I harbored for children.
</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i> Fear that I would be
arrested for not being a student at this campus. </i></span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>(A valid fear.)
</i></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"><b> I was afraid of being
different. Yet I was too afraid to stay the same.
</b></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> So I decided to take a
step, knowing I couldn't go home proudly or face myself that night.
If I didn't go, I would - once again - be giving up a dream. Knowing
for another time in my life I would be backing out of ballet class
the first day because my leotard didn't match the other girls'.
Staying on the edge of the wedding dance floor, wishing I didn't care
if I knew the YMCA or not. Watching the volleyball game, too
intimidated to learn to serve. Closing the RBP intern application
late at night, again, convinced I would never find my own housing in
a city foreign to me.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Prayers flowed through my
nauseous mind. They flowed through phone messages I hurriedly left
for my best friend informing her I was about to walk across a quad.
One, single, quiet, college quad. And for some reason it felt like a
mountain of thorns and not a bed of soft grass.
</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: red;"> Christ took the hand I
jerked away all those times growing up</span>, and he led me onto the
blustery campus. He led me to the smiling face of an unknown worker,
who I immediately confessed to – as if I were carrying a million
dollars in my boots – that I didn't attend this school, I had come
from somewhere else, and I needed to know it was alright. I needed to
know I was allowed, accepted, admitted, alive.
</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> He assured me it was
alright.
</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b> Fear</b> binds where Christ
sets<span style="color: red;"> free</span>. <b>Fear</b> takes captive where Christ <span style="color: red;">breaks shackles</span>. <b>Fear</b>
stings. <span style="color: red;">Faith </span>hugs. Faith hugs unknown strangers. I was taken into
the literal arms of a family of interns, directors, coordinators and
volunteers. Orphan care was already in my bloodstream, and so
entering where the Red Bus was set up was not walking into a group of
strangers but into a circle of family. They did not present to me
orphan care as a task to be completed this afternoon if I only wore a
bracelet or band. If I only liked a Facebook page. Because it's a
larger crisis, it's a longer crisis. It is more than dollars and
cents.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> It is hearts and hands and
cries and laughs. It is smiles and giggles and sacrifice and labor.
</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> It is a way of life, a way
of Christ. It's relationships, and relationships are hard and they
require decisions I had almost been too weak to make that afternoon.
It's borne of a relational God who seeks our own hearts. For show me
your faith without works, and I will show you my faith <b>by</b> my works.
Show me your heart flowing out.</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"><b> Show hope.
</b></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was shown their faith by their works. I was shown and not only
told. The Red Bus showed with their actions and words, with their hearts and
their hands. They showed the sea of a million children. The sea of a
million people in need of a Father. They left me with a heart
bursting, each intern encouraging me to not let my fears destroy my
faith. The housing would come. The daunting application could be
filled out. The money would come. The fears would fade. <i>I could be
an intern.</i> It was alright.
</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i> Be free, my soul. Be
free from fear. </i>
</span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b> I could walk across a
quad.</b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b> I could move to Tennessee. </b></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxZPsXzaz2KGu6fo_zNTQO9j-zBR9UkXU7_VaOYFTkfGX5z-79PL37LJRrDQBpSIWvLZAIvQUmWVaGDMI0seqeYOVs3SVwj7V0t7zIpEoXRjIR8CBlIoUtC0014cXGSbTzQ5QEkgPoLbBe/s1600/IMG_2102.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxZPsXzaz2KGu6fo_zNTQO9j-zBR9UkXU7_VaOYFTkfGX5z-79PL37LJRrDQBpSIWvLZAIvQUmWVaGDMI0seqeYOVs3SVwj7V0t7zIpEoXRjIR8CBlIoUtC0014cXGSbTzQ5QEkgPoLbBe/s1600/IMG_2102.JPG" height="320" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>the fall interns ON the bus</b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b></b></span>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR9XoP-O3_CF7bCyuWBL3jLBZ7WDWg5atiik0wBWXnUvTLlIrShI37BqZpipUh9uklLnY7E-kJkBa0xS-bY72Pg5mCkpci8Uk7TcWvPAwTJs_raH1T8Amtv13c1mNY6KXzWQ7xZsZ5uAW7/s1600/downsized_Image082220142113141.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR9XoP-O3_CF7bCyuWBL3jLBZ7WDWg5atiik0wBWXnUvTLlIrShI37BqZpipUh9uklLnY7E-kJkBa0xS-bY72Pg5mCkpci8Uk7TcWvPAwTJs_raH1T8Amtv13c1mNY6KXzWQ7xZsZ5uAW7/s1600/downsized_Image082220142113141.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The Fall interns today, in front of the Red Bus with the amazing owner of Hemphill Brothers Coach Company who takes care of our bus off-tour.<br />Each girl took a step outside of her comfort zone and trusted God. Just a step.</b><br />
<b><br /></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"><b>#redbusproject</b></span></div>
<div align="LEFT" style="line-height: 0.21in;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"><b>On the move for orphans</b></span></div>
Myrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05836512913841576260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489475838692869353.post-40589206769464833872014-08-16T16:44:00.001-07:002014-08-20T21:01:10.786-07:00[sometimes] #onthemove<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0rlacUhBDUPFmAXfCWwVmbx30yJ5jk45cgLy4rNz4hWWH7SBrmeSCKedoxwK1BTu8bWHTOGPmvgY7pLHH48xGmi2MBr-kO4hgwR4cGm5Dhd8htbz2cYxQTp4oGTVJ7eQJB5F1x6S_W8G-/s1600/IMG_2047.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0rlacUhBDUPFmAXfCWwVmbx30yJ5jk45cgLy4rNz4hWWH7SBrmeSCKedoxwK1BTu8bWHTOGPmvgY7pLHH48xGmi2MBr-kO4hgwR4cGm5Dhd8htbz2cYxQTp4oGTVJ7eQJB5F1x6S_W8G-/s1600/IMG_2047.PNG" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;"> </span>Sometimes
you want to dance waltzes. Waltzes that encircle all
the gas stations you stopped at, all the new people you smiled at awkwardly as you ordered the pork chops with a local sauce you
hoped wouldn't taste like smoke. You want to surround all the highway
lanes which skimmed past, the white dotted lane boundaries folding
together like the pages of a flip book, becoming one line. All the
state signs, state boundaries. States - including Illinois.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: right;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">(Dear People Who Live in Illinois,</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: right;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> I don't know how you do it. It is very
flat. It is very, very flat. And the clouds made faces at me and
pretended they were whales smoking. It made the road trip more interesting. But it was very flat.)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And you get the end of the road, and
snuggle down in someone else's house on white feather-beds resting
beneath zebra pillows. The brick neighborhood sits quietly manicured
on the doorstep of the place you now call home for 14 weeks.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">You want to sing “is this home, am I
here for a day or forever?” but then you realize that song was
sobbed out between chattering teeth of a prisoner named Belle. You
are no prisoner! Not spiritually, not physically. You're here to fight for those imprisoned by injustice. And so, even though the first line seems to fit
(because this <u>is</u> home – but home with smiles, not with
tears,) you more have to belt out old Godspell standards and dance through
the streets with the neighborhood dogs following your
new boxer named Rocky, making friends with the trees and the polished
street signs and the natives who wear a southern flair like jewelry
as they wish you good mornings between sips of coffee.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">This is Tennessee.</span> </b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is where the
adventure starts. Here in a city not so unlike my own, eating food
exactly like the food I ate yesterday when I sat at my own wooden
kitchen table. Except I do not know the wooden tables here. I haven't
memorized the bubbles underneath the polyurethane or walked the
cobblestones to and from work yet. I haven't met but one soul by name
– but I will. I will meet a thousand souls in a thousand different
places in life. Because they say life is what happens when you're not
looking, and yet I desperately want to start looking.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: red;">We're here for the the voiceless,</span> working
above guitar shops in office suites so that orphans can be brought
home.<i><b> Running thrift stores as we run our mouths, being talkers because the talkers aren't heard.</b></i> We're
obnoxiously vocal and wordy sometimes because anyone who ever had
something to say and couldn't say it needs to be heard through us.
Interns for orphans, but going through life fighting the battles
worth fighting for anyone in need of advocacy even as we struggle with the pointless battles in our
own lives. Humans loving humans because we serve a relational God. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hello, my name is 2014 Fall Intern,
and I like words. I recently used a lot of them and cried because I have never been an
intern before, and sometimes when we go outside of our comfort zone
so someone </span><b><span style="color: red; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;">can</span></b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> have a comfort zone, it makes our words muddled. I also am not that upset about having to drive
through Illinois for 5 hours, because it was actually very beautiful. And sometimes I make friends with Red Buses and Boxers and fellow interns
I've never met. On Monday I may even hug them just because I finally get to meet them. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">These are the thoughts of an amateur intern, sitting on leather couches and in hipster-insipred coffee shops pretending that she frequently smells musty books and often wears gray Keds because gray is her favorite color. <u>Gray is her favorite color.</u> </span><br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"><b>But red makes a statement.</b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>These are the first words of many
words.</b></span><br />
<ul>
</ul>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"><b>#redbusproject </b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">On the Move for Orphans</span> </b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: red;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
Myrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05836512913841576260noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489475838692869353.post-11764845190570822932013-08-17T08:33:00.003-07:002013-08-17T08:33:41.389-07:00Quoted: Little Pirate Man <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju71BWxJ28bZxhSB8YsYcjwemwJnWxPfCxf6_V_OUDmPb0CJXkuMLHsWhK_zmyCQ5g54lKpeh3bgWPylA9Rfrr3hnKhlX11Lz6dpJ8E7xkoF3NL6821Q0k0PVoid7N-e-nkY-ZLv6Al6lG/s1600/infj+problems2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju71BWxJ28bZxhSB8YsYcjwemwJnWxPfCxf6_V_OUDmPb0CJXkuMLHsWhK_zmyCQ5g54lKpeh3bgWPylA9Rfrr3hnKhlX11Lz6dpJ8E7xkoF3NL6821Q0k0PVoid7N-e-nkY-ZLv6Al6lG/s400/infj+problems2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Myrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05836512913841576260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489475838692869353.post-76261677232365050092013-06-23T15:48:00.002-07:002013-06-23T15:51:16.773-07:00Broken <div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #e06666;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="arial14">Before God could bring me to this place </span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #e06666;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="arial14">He has broken me a thousand times.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #e06666;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #e06666;">- Smith Wigglesworth </span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfsTVu7mH7L9jilhfKUTAXKJ9wQ1o3keqX4YeCF3ph2PccgAvXaIw9ZU7H4Wuhhjg4vYpLoI3z7-NuWgUxCAdFQvXBZKmB-vkG_KUyx_p8nGo6e5ZE764wfW_IxLw4ATTdwGKSMipXLb9Y/s1600/BeFunky_tumblr_lk819ay7BY1qj2tceo1_500.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfsTVu7mH7L9jilhfKUTAXKJ9wQ1o3keqX4YeCF3ph2PccgAvXaIw9ZU7H4Wuhhjg4vYpLoI3z7-NuWgUxCAdFQvXBZKmB-vkG_KUyx_p8nGo6e5ZE764wfW_IxLw4ATTdwGKSMipXLb9Y/s400/BeFunky_tumblr_lk819ay7BY1qj2tceo1_500.jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #0b5394;">We
want to avoid suffering, death, sin, ashes. But we live in a world
crushed and broken and torn, a world God Himself visited to redeem. We
receive his poured-out life, and being allowed the high privilege of
suffering with Him, may then pour ourselves out for others.</span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">Elisabeth Elliot</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white;">
<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When
you sit quietly and listen to the world, you hear the grief of breaking hearts being
borne in utter silence as a fake façade puts up a front and says,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“No, I’m
okay.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
They
lie. But they are so longing to be vulnerable, and so longing to know truth. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And yet
they do not speak……until they want to. And when they speak, it rains. And when
it rains, it pours. But sometimes rain is good because it causes me to stop
cold in my own self-serving path and listen to a person tell me how painful was
their break.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Breaks
are never clean. The heart is like a window-pane that shatters in a thousand
tiny spider-webs when life hits it with a force.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I <i>think </i>I have it hard sometimes with my own
heart, you know. I sob a lot over Poor Old Me who thinks she’s just stepped
across the line to the point of no return.<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> <span style="color: #e06666; font-size: small;">And "poor old me" commiserates with "poor old me" a lot, not remembering that "poor old me" was purchased on the cross.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m hit
with utter mourning, realizing just how blind I often am. How blind and deaf do
I have to be – how blind and deaf have I been – to fail to see or hear the corpse-like,
crying, living dead the world around me is?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
They’re
looking for an answer. They’re begging me to hear.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
And where am I? Am I involved? In tune?
Alert? Or am I with my own agendas, selfish purposes, and fears that keep me far
away from hearing all the breaking hearts around me that are longing <i>to finally </i>speak. <i>Finally</i> cry. <span style="color: #0b5394;"><i>Finall</i>y bare
their broken soul to someone – anyone – who is willing just to nod and hug and
shout in quiet urgency: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #0b5394;"> “There
is hope, God <u>is</u> alive, and healing happens <b>even here</b>!” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I
sit quietly and listen, I hear my own heart beating, and I so long to hear the hearts of every person I hold arms-length, far, or dear, beating through
the healing grace Christ has showered down on me. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #e06666;"> So many
want to talk.</span> Want to know. What to hear what is the answer for all the hope and
all the seeds we try to sow. How much then do I hate them to know the answer
and to hide?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Hide
away where I am safe, where I am happy, where the troubles of this world don’t
touch or pull upon my heart. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #0b5394;">For how
much, how utterly much, do we have to hate the world to know there is eternal
life and not to tell the wandering soul? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There
is a way to heal all the spider-veiny breaks.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So don’t
lost heart, and don’t resign to the hiding of your faith. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #e06666;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #e06666;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">“Always be prepared to
give an answer</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> to everyone who asks you to give the reason for
the hope</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> that you have.</span>” 1 Peter 3:15</span></span></div>
Myrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05836512913841576260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489475838692869353.post-73683447490126930142013-04-18T12:26:00.000-07:002013-04-18T16:39:46.550-07:00You Can Find it Anywhere<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRUp2yDtYwadLCr6RfhX0DSCPED8L_3YR_be6PX4doGY4wZla-sP7fKNGHlfWhyphenhyphen02rbL_xS-n68mrCWfrKDE4KZ6rJDbnhfC13mHmGRhC8AEKzZzZhOiELdG9ixAQQniD_8fz2r0849cHc/s1600/BeFunky_VinasdftageColors_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRUp2yDtYwadLCr6RfhX0DSCPED8L_3YR_be6PX4doGY4wZla-sP7fKNGHlfWhyphenhyphen02rbL_xS-n68mrCWfrKDE4KZ6rJDbnhfC13mHmGRhC8AEKzZzZhOiELdG9ixAQQniD_8fz2r0849cHc/s400/BeFunky_VinasdftageColors_1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: small;">The world
is up in arms. Facebook has become the ultimate hub for prophetic quotes and
end-of-the-world status updates and second amendment war cries. Facebook, go
home. You talk too much and solve too little.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span>This week
we were<span style="font-size: small;"> </span>shocked with the bombings in <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/15/us/boston-marathon-explosions/index.html" target="_blank">Boston</a> and the explosion in <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-fertilizer-plant-explosion-kills-15-people-sends/story?id=18984131#.UXBGPcrDkv8" target="_blank">Texas</a>,
making social media and world news spring to action. We mourn the deaths of
free, innocent Americans.<b> </b><i>I mourn. </i>My heart goes out to the parents and the
brothers and the aunts and the coworkers and friends who lost, perhaps, the
most influential person in their lives, or are now watching by their
hospital bed.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> The events
were, and are, very horrific. Do not suppose that I make light of these tragedies.
<i>They took human lives, and these lives were dearly valuable. </i></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> But I found this last week interesting. <b><span style="color: #444444;">Does it really take two bombs and an explosion
to see the brokenness of the world? </span></b></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> The woman
announcing on the radio today sent her heartfelt sympathies to Texas<span style="font-size: small;">, which was <span style="font-size: small;">comfor<span style="font-size: small;">ting to hear. </span></span> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span>But when was
the last time the radio sent their heartfelt sympathies to the girls sitting
outside planned parenthood? <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/17/wace-plant-explosion/2092223/" target="_blank">15 people</a> were killed yesterday and it made
national news,<i> as it should have</i>. But <a href="http://bound4life.com/statistics/" target="_blank">4,400 </a>babies were aborted yesterday, and
no one said anything. And Facebook didn't erupt. And the Mayor didn't come out
to calm his worried townsmen. </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> Thousands
of people in our nation volunteered their help, time, and money to the victims in Boston.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> But when
was the last time a child died and a twitter page was immediately set up to
alert the public of the <a href="http://www.bread.org/hunger/global/" target="_blank">16,000</a> other children who would die of <b>hunger</b>
before midnight? Or we rushed to the grocery store and cleared the shelves and
set up food lines until <i>all who needed to be fed were filled</i>? The help flooding
towards Boston and Texas will not cease until it's deemed that all who need
help have been helped.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> Right now
the news is saying that 75 houses were leveled in Texas, therefore leaving 75
families homeless.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> They will
join the <a href="http://www.endhomelessness.org/library/entry/the-state-of-homelessness-in-america-2012" target="_blank">635,000</a> other Americans who are homeless. Those invisible people aren't a daily blip on our middle-class radar. We don't wake up and hope that
the people who slept under bridges last night are okay. We don't interview them
or post pictures of them on CNN. Or what about the </span></span><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.orphancoalition.org/new/foster-care.php" target="_blank">123,000</a> <span style="font-size: small;">orphans in Ameri<span style="font-size: small;">ca? </span></span></span><b>When you're surrounded by affluence,
you tend to only see affluence</b> - unless something like a bomb forces you out. </span></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHmc5j2YySlTF2tYYZ2a7eyIHsnUztyDMbST0jcSzkbJ4VP2DsW27TY9_SM-rynjexYBIGLfHmv-mI4c_8mLXS2_amAV4VHxn3hhGZkSpDrNpnJJLIuy4EFaRIH3NGi3aljolrPwRE59TK/s1600/BeFunky_VintageColoers_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHmc5j2YySlTF2tYYZ2a7eyIHsnUztyDMbST0jcSzkbJ4VP2DsW27TY9_SM-rynjexYBIGLfHmv-mI4c_8mLXS2_amAV4VHxn3hhGZkSpDrNpnJJLIuy4EFaRIH3NGi3aljolrPwRE59TK/s400/BeFunky_VintageColoers_1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.showhope.org/home.aspx">http://www.showhope.org/home.aspx</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> The
president issued a public address following Boston, promising that he would
find the perpetrator and <a href="http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/2013/04/18/people-line-for-ten-blocks-around-cathedral-the-holy-cross-attend-interfaith-service/65uhwU9x6ZMvSTjsYOHQ0M/story.html" target="_blank">bring him to justice.</a> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> What about those who are trafficking the <a href="http://www.humantrafficking.org/countries/united_states_of_america" target="_blank">14,500 – 17,500</a> people into the United States every year? <span style="font-size: small;">Are they bei<span style="font-size: small;">ng brought to ju<span style="font-size: small;">stice?</span></span></span> There
were a lot of TV shows on last night, but I don't seem to
remember a surging amount o<span style="font-size: small;">f </span>popular media bent on ending sex trafficking. Most people would agree that this is an injustice.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> But what's
anyone doing about it? Why isn't social
media erupting <b>every single second</b>? According to statistics, around <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_the_United_States" target="_blank">7<span style="font-size: small;">5</span>%</a> of Americans
identify themselves as Christians. That's about <i>235 million people.<span style="font-size: small;"> </span></i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"> </span>235
million people who say they believe the words in James 2:16-17:</i><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: #cccccc;"><span style="background-color: white;"> </span>"And one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,”
without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead." </span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i> Or
Matthew 25:35-40<span style="background-color: white;"> </span></i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="background-color: white;"> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span> </span><span style="background-color: #cccccc;">“Inasmuch
as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it
unto me.”</span></i></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> I have come
to the conclusion that we are apathetic. We don't like doing <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+6&version=NIV" target="_blank">in secret</a>. We
don't like getting our hands dirty if no one is going to see all the dirt.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> These
tragedies are captivating. They captivate our emotions and our energies - not
joyously - but as if we cannot pull our eyes away, no matter how horrific the
scene. The world likes to be shocked, but <i>there's nothing shocking <b>about a s<span style="font-size: small;">tatistic. We forget that those statistics represent very real people. </span></b></i><b><span style="color: #741b47;"></span></b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="color: #741b47;"> And we
should be shocked.</span></b> We should be shocked by babies being ripped from their
mother's wombs. We should be shocked by malnourished children dieing in
gutters. We should be shocked by the depravity of humans and the injustices
forced upon trafficked victims. We <span style="font-size: small;">should be <span style="font-size: small;">shocked</span> with the amount of orphan<span style="font-size: small;">s who are never adopted.</span></span> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> Don't let
Boston and Texas raise up your emotions for a few weeks, and then in a month of
two, let it slip from your mind. May this brokenness stay before us and awaken
us to the hurt that was happening before this week, and will continue on even
after Boston is swept up and Texas is put back together<span style="font-size: small;"><b>.</b></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b> </b></span><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Let these
tragedies actually change who you are and what you are doing with your life. <i>Let them change me.</i> Because we can't just wait for a bomb to go off to spring to action. We have to
be working anyway.</b></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span style="color: black;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> <span style="font-size: large;"> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #741b47;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="color: #741b47;"><span style="color: #741b47;">If
you have not gold or silver ever ready to command,</span> </span></span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #741b47;"> If
you cannot toward the needy reach an ever open hand,</span></span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #741b47;"> You
can visit the afflicted, O'er the erring you can weep;</span></span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #741b47;"> You
can be a true disciple, sitting at the Savior's feet.</span></span></i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #741b47;"> </span></span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #741b47;">
</span></span></i></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #741b47;"> <span style="font-size: small;"></span>Do
not then stand idly waiting for some greater work to do;</span></span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #741b47;"> Fortune
is a lazy goddess, she will never come to you.</span></span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #741b47;"> Go
and toil in any vineyard, do not fear to do or dare;</span></span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #741b47;"> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span>if
you want a field of labor,<b> <span style="font-size: large;">you can find
it anywhere<span style="font-size: small;">.</span></span></b></span></span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #741b47;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></b><span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">-
</span>Ellen M. H. Gates</span></span></i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;">
</span><span style="color: #741b47;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;"><span style="color: #741b47;"><i> <span style="background-color: #cccccc;"> </span></i><span style="background-color: #cccccc;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">You
are forever my judge, and I'm forever your witness,</span></span></span></span><span style="background-color: #cccccc;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #cccccc;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: white;"> </span>And
I pray that I'm always found on a mission about my Father's business.</span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;"></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;"><span style="font-size: small;"> <span style="background-color: #cccccc;"> - </span></span><span style="background-color: #cccccc;"><span style="-moz-font-feature-settings: normal; -moz-font-language-override: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"><span style="color: black;"></span></span></span><span style="background-color: #cccccc;"><span style="color: black;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igCj3jsbcqs" target="_blank">Janette Ikz</a></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;"></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b><span style="color: #741b47;">
</span></b></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b><span style="color: #741b47;"> <span style="background-color: #f4cccc;"><span style="color: black;"><i>Therefore
to him that knows to do good and does it not, to him it is sin<span style="background-color: #f4cccc;"><span style="font-size: small;">.</span></span></i></span></span></span></b></span></span><span style="background-color: #ea9999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b><span style="background-color: #f4cccc;"> James 4:17</span></b></span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(I am deeply affected over the events of this week, and I do
not discount their magnitude or importance. If you know, or were
close to, anyone who was injured or affected by these tragedies, my sympathies
are wholeheartedly sent to you. I am praying for all of you.</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">I do not mean to make light or offend. I mean to beg myself - and all who need an excuse to begin serving - to find that excuse<b> <u>right now</u>.</b> It's right in front of our eyes.<span style="font-size: xx-small;">)</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Myrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05836512913841576260noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489475838692869353.post-30670065640259602352013-03-05T19:06:00.000-08:002013-03-05T19:06:02.263-08:00Pretty sure none of that's real. <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There
will never be any angels. God has not promised angels. No verse states:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span> <i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></i></span><i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">“And
your calling shalt be made known unto you, upon completing 12<sup>th</sup>
grade, by a heavenly host singing: ‘Myra, Myra, Myra, harken unto our plan.’ </span></i></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</span></i></span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span> </span>And you
shall walk diligently in the words these angels tell you, and thou shalt never
be confused, neither shall your steps wander, neither shall you ever question
the future. The angels shall deliver one purpose, and that sole purpose shall
drive you from youth to adulthood peacefully, just as the angel’s words drove
your fellow brethren to be physicians and missionaries and psychologists." </span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Uh,
pretty sure none of that’s real. Actually, I am quite sure that I just made all
that up. I am promised no cloud of heavenly hosts shining with light, singing
my purpose out over my head on graduation day. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And I
know why, I just don’t like owning up to it. But I should. Because knowing the
answer means I can stop this frantic searching.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>You
see, my mind has been stuck in a rut. A rut of thinking that I have one
occupation waiting for me, and all other occupations are wrong. When I put it
that way, it sounds reasonable and follow your-inner-star-ish. But when I say
occupation, I actually mean, “I<b> must</b> know I’m supposed to be a school teacher
until I die.” Or a nurse. Or a chef. Or a clown. Or a garbage man. I’m
searching for that “degree-able” thing. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That <u>thing.</u><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I’ve
missed the point. I’m so caught up in searching for the point that I have
actually missed it. I have been too close to the mirror.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Because,
well, I was born with a purpose. Before the foundations of the world, God knew
I was his Child, and God has given promises to His children. Our purpose has
been determined, set, and planned for eternity. And it’s not something “degree-able,”
or “certifiable.” But it is a result of salvation.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And it
is this:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> <span style="background-color: #cccccc;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: #cccccc;">“Seek justice,
love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="background-color: #cccccc;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: #cccccc;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"><span style="background-color: white;"> </span> </span>“Let
your Light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify
your father which is in heaven.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Matthew
5:16</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="background-color: #cccccc;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: #cccccc;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span>“…<span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto auto; color: black;">visit<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">orphans and widows
in their affliction, and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">to keep oneself<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">unstained from the world.</span>” James 1:27</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="background-color: #cccccc;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: #cccccc;"><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto auto; color: black;">“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your
soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’</span>;<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"> </span>and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.”</span>
Luke 10:27</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: black;">And that’s just four verses.<br />
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It <u>doesn’t matter</u>
if I am a cook or the president. It doesn’t matter if I end up teaching or
writing or playing a kazoo. God has given me gifts and talents, and I need not fear
following the “wrong” road, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I
cannot thwart God’s plan! If my heart is set securely on honoring God,
everywhere I walk or lean or grow, I will seek Him, and He will lead me. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: black;">If I am walking humbly, and loving the Lord my God, and
letting my light shine, I can literally be anything. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="background: white; color: black;">Anything. </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: black;">I don’t need to wait for angels,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: black;">Or rainbows,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: black;">Or eyelashes,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: black;">Or dandelions,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: black;">Or shooting stars,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: black;">Or birthday candles to do their job. The job’s been done. No
more wishing! God set my purpose, and how I live it our need not give me angst.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: black;">For if, at 100, I can say “life was good,” maybe it’s not because
of how many jobs or degrees I have or had. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: black;">No, it’s because God was good. And the end of highschool isn’t
the end of the world.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background: white; color: black;">For every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s
end<i>. </i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
Myrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05836512913841576260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489475838692869353.post-79817149262059232822013-01-04T11:08:00.000-08:002013-01-04T11:09:15.178-08:00Unchangeable<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOOyIGSSK9IX_ZKcEiB7XAduSnQ9YXeJxrkx7-Z1SGDYBUM7g1ahY4Zj7_8IFMa4VWK7Q1PXk2AZ7ILNe5fg8bTTLiMIIfstziC2IAhY4UAero4F2YrLJRXPzr3cM79mTS0lmi91t-ki2k/s1600/What+have+you+done%252C+Freddie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOOyIGSSK9IX_ZKcEiB7XAduSnQ9YXeJxrkx7-Z1SGDYBUM7g1ahY4Zj7_8IFMa4VWK7Q1PXk2AZ7ILNe5fg8bTTLiMIIfstziC2IAhY4UAero4F2YrLJRXPzr3cM79mTS0lmi91t-ki2k/s320/What+have+you+done%252C+Freddie.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Change.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
don't like it. I rebel against it. I exert myself in trying to hinder the
ultimate inevitable of life. There is nothing I can do, though, to stand against the oncoming rage that this river holds.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And
it's a river called change. And change makes me weep.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That
sounds dramatic, even for me. It sounds desperate. But it is, because I often
am desperate. Because I lose sight of what change truly is. Of what change
truly means. And all I can see is how change is affecting my plans and how
those plans are going to come crashing around my head like an erupting Mt. St.
Helen. But I so often fail to see change for what it truly is.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>They
tell me change is normal. The media. The scientists. The brains of society.
They say that my body is in a constant state of change. (I wonder, then, why I
am not in a constant state of weep?) In order for our physical bodies to remain
healthy and functioning, they must constantly be turning themselves over and
creating newness.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Donald
Miller discusses this concept in his book <u>A Million Miles in a Thousand
Years</u>, as he quotes a friend:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“People
get stuck, thinking they are one kind of person, but they aren't. The human body
essentially recreated itself every six months. Nearly every cell of hair and
skin and bone dies and another is directed to its former place. You are not who
you were in February.” </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My
body is adept at change, and yet still my mind doesn't like it. Or perhaps that
isn't even possible, because my mind is just as adept. Every word I say, every
person I meet, every book I read, changes my mind. I am as a machine that only
gets smarter if you show me something new. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span style="font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We
all are.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And
yet, even as my mind grows as I write this, I still claim to hate change. And I
am tempted to say that hate comes from my heart. But how can my heart hate that
which it knows strongest through Christ: change?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
was changed by a God who I could not resist. I could not stand against His
change in my life. Then why do I buck so fiercely against all <b>other </b>changes?
What is within me that hates it, that despises it, that accepts it reluctantly
if I come to accept it at all?</span><span style="color: red; font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Something
was very strongly impressed upon me this summer that I had thought little about
before I mean, I'd thought about it some, but not much. Not really. And that altering
truth was this:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><i>God</i>
is unchangeable. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And
not just that He doesn't want to. It's not just that people haven't tried.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>God
<u>cannot</u> change. It is not in His nature. It is utterly impossible for God
to change in any way whatsoever.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
watch a movie. I see a new actor I had previously not seen. I change because
something new has entered my mind that had not entered it before. I listen to a
new song. I meet a new person. <i>I breath a new breath.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span style="font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And yet
God knows all. There is nothing new under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1:9)<span style="color: red;">
</span><span style="color: black;">He is the same yesterday, today and forever. (Hebrews 13:8) </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I am the same NEVER. Nothing about me is ever the same as it was
before. And yet I serve a God who knows no change. A God who is unchangeable. And that bring immeasurable hope, because my hope is
founded in One who cannot possible change the reason that I hope in Him.
Heartbreak, rejection, betrayal, fear, divorce, murder, dishonesty, sin. They
are all a result of change.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Of people changing. Of decisions changing. Of plans changing. Of
hearts changing. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But God exists outside of change. Change is not a part of Him.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The author Sheldon Vanauken says this in his book, <u>A Severe
Mercy,</u> in regards to another aspect of the earthly condition:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><i>C.S. Lewis, in his second letter to me at Oxford, asked how
it was that I, as a product of a materialistic universe, was not at home there.
'Do fish complain of the sea for being wet? Or if they did, would that fact
itself not strongly suggest that they had not always been, or would not always
be, purely aquatic creatures?' Then, if we complain of time and take such joy
in the seemingly timeless moment, what does that suggest?</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It suggests that we have not always been or will not always be
purely temporal creatures. It suggests that we were created for eternity. Not
only are we harried by time, we seem unable, despite a thousand generations,
even to get used to it. We are always amazed at it – how fast it goes, how
slowly it goes, how much of it is gone. Where, we cry, has the time gone? We aren't
adapted to it, not at home in it. If that is so, it may appear as proof, or at
least a powerful suggestion, that eternity exists and is our home.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He is questioning why he
hates<b> time</b>. Why he does not feel at home in it. Why it bothers him so.<b>
And he realizes it is because He serves and strives to be like a God who is
outside of time. </b>He realizes he was created for a timeless place to be a
timeless person. And so he longs to be outside of time like his Father. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> He
longs to be timeless as God is timeless.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And Vanauken's claims made me wonder if that is the very same
reason I cannot grow accustomed to <i>change</i>. The same reason I hate it. Because I
long to be like and be with an unchangeable God. Christ has changed me, yet
still my heart long to be where I will never have to change again. Where it
will not creep up on me like a foreboding shadow. Where what I love won't have
to be traded away for something else.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Where I will be perfect.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> In an eternity that <i>does</i> exist,
and is most definitely our home. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Kartika","serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
Myrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05836512913841576260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489475838692869353.post-79243492635110572432012-12-12T06:41:00.000-08:002012-12-12T06:41:29.523-08:00Nerd Girl<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
I never thought I was a nerd. It never crossed my mind that I could possibly be a nerd. And I'm not about to go labeling myself and saying I <b>am</b> a nerd, because I don't like labels, not on me or anyone else.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
So, we'll put it this way: I have <i>some</i> characteristics of a nerd. I'm sure you have the characteristics of some type of person you didn't even think you remotely resembled. It's amazing how much you can discover about yourself.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZpfIMDwQvNWRpGMfiAIydhloXuwCfjBaZFTb4XfXin0lTZTg8xDJS-Y3murWvOGRg6RuXrB3w6BWUa_ZVbOXxS57BZeIFUN0KboBHhicVMoNQ6BJNxuHV-8fIVTVRe0z-GwHGfT8nzN39/s1600/253679391481042718_zBPgsym4_c.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZpfIMDwQvNWRpGMfiAIydhloXuwCfjBaZFTb4XfXin0lTZTg8xDJS-Y3murWvOGRg6RuXrB3w6BWUa_ZVbOXxS57BZeIFUN0KboBHhicVMoNQ6BJNxuHV-8fIVTVRe0z-GwHGfT8nzN39/s400/253679391481042718_zBPgsym4_c.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I don't have children yet, but I've already named them. Oh dear. Nicholas from Nicholas Nickleby has always held a spot in the options for boy's names.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhm2sqTWS3Z8EtwK32Kua65Cd8fH9FES3BdmQBhRtfpK19CdeRtN3C157FKJdvUoAhK4KXsFSjpppGPkQo67xIStsoTMg2_PWeBSiH88axN_aHmM__I4HlF2f7eQkerTWAfPFgZ7zgvtVs/s1600/274508539757395380_aZGGYhkU_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhm2sqTWS3Z8EtwK32Kua65Cd8fH9FES3BdmQBhRtfpK19CdeRtN3C157FKJdvUoAhK4KXsFSjpppGPkQo67xIStsoTMg2_PWeBSiH88axN_aHmM__I4HlF2f7eQkerTWAfPFgZ7zgvtVs/s400/274508539757395380_aZGGYhkU_c.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I am a great admirer of the Sherlock Holmes books and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's work, having poured for hours over the short stories, mysteries, adventures and novels that Dr. Watson chronicled.<br />
So my advice to you: don't watch the new movies. I refuse to watch them and so should you. If only the American public would just read the books.<br />
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnZ1ocwRGVD-2BxlZQ6FRQrwOt7Sn2Ghw3f1Wi_mpc9lmt_7UN8xiptdt330hJYZNj5WHJ1fZzH7yGV1zBHR9kID6mf6p1hTY3HsdA7WBv-30ZjXN9nz4Olx4p4xMJKzJJ8ycpstXdeRm5/s1600/282530576593680054_5xndk7sw_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnZ1ocwRGVD-2BxlZQ6FRQrwOt7Sn2Ghw3f1Wi_mpc9lmt_7UN8xiptdt330hJYZNj5WHJ1fZzH7yGV1zBHR9kID6mf6p1hTY3HsdA7WBv-30ZjXN9nz4Olx4p4xMJKzJJ8ycpstXdeRm5/s400/282530576593680054_5xndk7sw_c.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I admit I have done this. I spent an entire school day reading "Great Expectations" while I should've been doing math or Literature or some other subject I am graded on. But if there was any author this is worth falling behind on school work for, then it is Charles Dickens.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlVin-EHmrwiu2I4dSDJNw5cGC-FweLeCBnPcDUeUpgrMqXm1q2TEm2G14aiBI5RrlEPh0ScUD9SK_wy0W_OgDo-Qzz2KkjTU0pqSAeczEl7HnHfQYVLQfFw1yi8HlUpTM_AOKPQOPwJzA/s1600/Nerd+Girl+problems+%285%29.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlVin-EHmrwiu2I4dSDJNw5cGC-FweLeCBnPcDUeUpgrMqXm1q2TEm2G14aiBI5RrlEPh0ScUD9SK_wy0W_OgDo-Qzz2KkjTU0pqSAeczEl7HnHfQYVLQfFw1yi8HlUpTM_AOKPQOPwJzA/s400/Nerd+Girl+problems+%285%29.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
This happens to me <u>all the time</u>. Most recently, a friend's mother gave the whole "Dark Knight" plot and ending before I had time to run away or plug my ears. I have no hard feelings, but now the movie won't be as exciting. I hope this never happens to you, and I hope I never do this to anyone, though I'm sure I have.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4LBmkMh6qJSai5PP1HyxxTMxHnsDh9jOGYiIklsKPoar4xwK6GuDASi4bpHxSpyXGHQ4IcnwiNMAYQPW0GAFK2ZzO7ioqL0zESP88tHcXjiagVI3OS7M0s7vpt3MJFhc-2U-FSaj73pkh/s1600/Nerd+Girl+problems+%286%29.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4LBmkMh6qJSai5PP1HyxxTMxHnsDh9jOGYiIklsKPoar4xwK6GuDASi4bpHxSpyXGHQ4IcnwiNMAYQPW0GAFK2ZzO7ioqL0zESP88tHcXjiagVI3OS7M0s7vpt3MJFhc-2U-FSaj73pkh/s400/Nerd+Girl+problems+%286%29.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
And no one ever does! For example, what happened today? Frank Sinatra was born in 1915. When the feeling strikes me, I will decorate for random historical events - like the shooting of Jesse James or the sinking of the Titanic - and the family is served a themed dinner. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I am not ashamed of celebrating the mundane or the unknown.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
It makes life more interesting.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4gBjrG6QIwVmGTigPIpkXbSbz7YllXarvMBmT_iuUoA4mg0C4f5j7j5YSszHYFNdwOruqOZEiuACObzj19tZZxPRE1HqtCbjBGJ3p_IKaknjA8YrFWNEc6I81VUCX-5uOD7FD22FiRjlv/s1600/nerd+girl+problems.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4gBjrG6QIwVmGTigPIpkXbSbz7YllXarvMBmT_iuUoA4mg0C4f5j7j5YSszHYFNdwOruqOZEiuACObzj19tZZxPRE1HqtCbjBGJ3p_IKaknjA8YrFWNEc6I81VUCX-5uOD7FD22FiRjlv/s400/nerd+girl+problems.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Someone asked me what my favorite book was. I told them "Tarzan of the Apes."</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Then they asked me why.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I didn't have the time to do the subject justice and the conversation was cut short, but this not the first time someone has asked me to explain a subject I love and I cannot condense my answer without horribly mutating the original subject.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
This is when I invite you out for afternoon coffee so I can properly educate you on the subjects I love.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
So I guess it is true.<br />
I guess, maybe, I am a nerd.</div>
Myrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05836512913841576260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489475838692869353.post-9334875838161437782012-10-12T10:20:00.000-07:002012-10-12T10:20:01.091-07:00To live will be an awfully big adventure.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHOkXf3vttxEs0dfZt223PUUVkcMiXcr8Xuc0oIFWqCvfovLbIT2aFponndKfcA9QF3AiQK80DAoVXlWQoW1MvK5lVY1a6ysusBqHxi29EuUYZ91Rjo7ndsTnjFEp63A8Hh6AjjrTPzIJ0/s1600/14566398765268103_TcK2qeDF_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHOkXf3vttxEs0dfZt223PUUVkcMiXcr8Xuc0oIFWqCvfovLbIT2aFponndKfcA9QF3AiQK80DAoVXlWQoW1MvK5lVY1a6ysusBqHxi29EuUYZ91Rjo7ndsTnjFEp63A8Hh6AjjrTPzIJ0/s640/14566398765268103_TcK2qeDF_c.jpg" width="424" /></a></div>
<br />Myrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05836512913841576260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489475838692869353.post-74699330808362951102012-10-01T17:34:00.000-07:002012-10-01T17:34:00.206-07:00Talk<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuy8d5QH-qQuHt8n192uAScgP5uesrD6jTj_io01bpyogtUsep-IKsapfxrkF0aFgbl9XhKu7I6evY1_fXJ8uWUmSZ2S9O7i7Mvd5BvjgPU1BswYY8yM9thHth1MorseoeKv7fnuVtcgE5/s1600/247486941992344938_4fg8TJyy_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuy8d5QH-qQuHt8n192uAScgP5uesrD6jTj_io01bpyogtUsep-IKsapfxrkF0aFgbl9XhKu7I6evY1_fXJ8uWUmSZ2S9O7i7Mvd5BvjgPU1BswYY8yM9thHth1MorseoeKv7fnuVtcgE5/s400/247486941992344938_4fg8TJyy_c.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I am guilty.<br />
Guilty of talking too much when I should be still.<br />
Guilty of worrying and discussing and gossiping.<br />
When there's a problem in my life – be it large or not – I talk through it. On and on and on through it until I've talked myself in circles and still don't know my mind. And I am not the only one.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>My type likes to talk things through. There is a type of people, so I hear, who can somehow exist while not sharing their hearts hourly with those close to them. They just think through their problems. Just think!<i> I couldn't do it</i>. I have to talk. It's my reliever, my relaxer, my way of getting through the day.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>There comes a time, though, when my words start spinning on themselves and I'm sick of talking. At the end of the day when I know I've said too much. At the end of the night when I realized I was <b>too</b> tired to be sharing my heart because my heart started bleeding out on the ground and <i><b>no one in the room really wanted to see it.</b></i><br />
<br />
<i></i>At the end of the day, really, when I was too focused on me,<br />
when I was too engulfed in talking through my life,<br />
and I forgot to stop and listen to someone else's.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But more than that, I didn't do anything with all the words I threw out there in the atmosphere. They came up somewhere in my heart, and ran a little race to my brain, and came out, sometimes neatly and sometimes not so neatly, from my mouth: and then there they were. Out in the air, falling on someone's ears who can't do a thing to change my problems, or the problems of the person I'm talking about, or the problems of the world in general, and I'm guilty.<br />
<br />
<b>Guilty of talking too much</b>.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I always liked the old words in the hymn. You know, Joseph M. Scriven was a very wise fellow when he said, “Take it to the Lord in prayer.” He didn't just mean those heart-stopping incidents when you fall on your knees in desperation and beg for someone's life. He didn't just mean the one night out of the school year when you're so overwhelmed that being in a coma sounds very relaxing. He meant all the time.<br />
<i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Any time.</i><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And so did God.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Philippians 4:6-7</span><span style="background-color: white; font-weight: bold;"> D</span><em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">o not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus</em><span style="background-color: white;">.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I can talk until I'm blue in the face and nothing will change in my life or in anyone else's. I can talk to God until I'm blue in the face, though, and<b> He can move mountains</b>. My words aren't falling on deaf ears then. He wants to see me daily take my heart out and let it bleed out on Him.</span><br />
<i><br /></i>
I spend a lot of time talking. A lot of time trying to figure out verbally what is going on. And there is nothing wrong with talking; all things in moderation. God gives every one a unique way to travel through life, and some of us just have to be<i> really </i>verbal about the whole thing. There is a beauty and freedom in being who we were created to be! Just imagine if the whole world was a bunch of non-talkative introverts.<br />
Life would be <i>boring.</i><br />
<span style="white-space: pre;">But I was reminded of something this summer,</span> after a friend and I had talked and talked and<i> talked</i> through a situation with no results. She reminded me that talking won't solve anything. It can clear our heads a bit and organize our thoughts into a concise order, <u>but it won't change anything.</u><br />
<u><br /></u>
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>So we took it to the Lord in the prayer. And it relaxed our worries and released us from thinking that we had to figure it all out on our own.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And maybe, when you know you've spilled out as much as can be physically spilled, and you still can't make head or tail of your life, maybe take comfort in the fact that <i>you won't figure it out all the way</i> and you won't solve it all. And that talking might be your way of coping, but it's all about who you're talking to.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I'm all for talking, don't misunderstand me. Ask my sister and she will tell you of the many nights I've kept her awake. But, sometimes, I just know that it's not going to get me anywhere,<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
and I've just talked too much.<br />
<br />
. ...<span style="color: #444444;">For your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.</span> <i>(Matthew 6:8)</i>Myrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05836512913841576260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489475838692869353.post-37459910093552347992012-09-08T14:33:00.000-07:002012-09-08T14:33:43.884-07:00The Blood of Sinners<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="text-align: left;"> We are saved from the propensity. The propensity to do what </span><i style="text-align: left;">they</i><span style="text-align: left;"> did. We were not only saved from the sins that were committed in our past and the sins to be committed in our future.</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span style="text-align: left;">We are saved from becoming what we could become if our sin carried itself to the conclusion.</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #666666; text-align: left;">We are saved from being who we would be if we were left to ourselves.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #666666; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div>
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A friend asked me this summer if I had ever thought of who I would be if I hadn't ever been saved. I had never thought about that before, and so, knowing my tendencies and my temptations and my disposition, I mentally carried my sins to their ultimate end. And the image of who I would be without God's grace was horrifying.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It reminded me that I am no better than the serial-killer or drunkard around the corner. Because I could have been like them but for the mercy of Jesus Christ on the cross. And yet before the world was created, God looked down on my sinful nature and chose me as His. “You are mine. And I will save you not only from what you will do, but I will save you from what you <b>could </b>do.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="color: #999999;">You are my Child, and on the cross a perfect sacrifice will be killed so that the sins which <u>would</u> kill you need not take hold of your life.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #999999;"><br /></span></div>
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>From the beginning of time, God was carefully orchestrating who would be blood relatives with His son so that that we could be relatives through that blood. He saw a man named Abraham whose wife, and mother of Issac, disbelieved His promises.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Then Rachab, the outcast of society. The harlot. He chose a downright prostitute to carry on the human vein of blood that would mix with the blood of the only perfect man. And David was in that line. David, the murderer and adulterer and coward who took Uriah's life and then dispatched Uriah himself. Judah's in there, too. And Solomon. All in the line to Christ.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>God chose the ones who lived out their sin to its conclusion and saw the devastation and endured God's punishment but then were renewed through his mercy. David lost his child, but David was forgiven his sin by the creator of the universe. Rahab was redeemed. Abraham was allowed to prove his trust as he offered his son on an altar.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>These broken, erring people weren't perfect. They weren't amazing beings who loved God at every single moment or followed his words every day of their lives. They were sinners. They knew sin as you and I know sin. And yet out of everyone on the earth, God knew these people would fail, and God allowed them to carry on the line to his perfect Son<i> anyway.</i><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I stand in awe of that fact. The people God used to work up to the greatest moment in history were the same as you and me. They had the same propensities. They had the exact same sin nature. They failed. And yet God forgave them.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The humans sharing blood and genes and physical traits with Jesus Christ were just that. Humans.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="color: #999999;">How humbling. That God would allow us to be so close to the one who would save us.</span> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Jesus shed human, tangible blood as he poured out himself on the cross for our every sin. Mary, a sinner, carried him in her womb, sharing her body with the body of the son of God. Jesus had everything to do with sinners.</div>
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>His life was created in the body of a sinner by the breath of an infinite God.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And as he died, and the veil was torn, and his spirit left him, we became co-heirs with him through that redeeming blood. We joined together with Abraham and Rahab and David as children of the promise. We became one. And in that moment, we were saved from everything we <b>would</b> ever do and everything we <b>could</b> ever do.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We were saved from ourselves as we became nothing and He became the only breath bringing us to life.<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>O, grave, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">(1 Corinthians 15:55) </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="color: #999999;">Who I could be is not who I am, and I have no other boast but knowing that the one who made this possible is the one who gave his life for me. The only one who could give his life for me. The only one who would never sin,</span><span style="color: #999999; font-size: large;"> </span>and yet who chose to share his blood with sinners.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #999999;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
And Hallelujah. All I have is Christ. </div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #40464b; font-family: Georgia, 'Trebuchet MS', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">But as I ran my hell-bound race</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #40464b; font-family: Georgia, 'Trebuchet MS', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
Indifferent to the cost</div>
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #40464b; font-family: Georgia, 'Trebuchet MS', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
You looked upon my helpless state</div>
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #40464b; font-family: Georgia, 'Trebuchet MS', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
And led me to the cross.</div>
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #40464b; font-family: Georgia, 'Trebuchet MS', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
And I beheld God’s love displayed</div>
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #40464b; font-family: Georgia, 'Trebuchet MS', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
You suffered in my place</div>
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #40464b; font-family: Georgia, 'Trebuchet MS', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
You bore the wrath reserved for me</div>
</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #40464b; font-family: Georgia, 'Trebuchet MS', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Now all I know is grace.</b></div>
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Myrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05836512913841576260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489475838692869353.post-22545758208145041452012-07-11T09:03:00.000-07:002012-07-11T09:03:21.555-07:00One Day at a Time<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTgPgxCZ8cXnEzYen81bpGZezn8sumyxT_VQKcFJaeQ2FX-t_A6X_XBe0n9LPSODlsPRkM4Sx56y7vddobnD7_SPQqt1Z3Pr3EFTmVUJXjS6T0asZknQF3FnENWkSLp8LTHbyICpvLuNPG/s1600/44332377551424993_DP872j8y_f.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTgPgxCZ8cXnEzYen81bpGZezn8sumyxT_VQKcFJaeQ2FX-t_A6X_XBe0n9LPSODlsPRkM4Sx56y7vddobnD7_SPQqt1Z3Pr3EFTmVUJXjS6T0asZknQF3FnENWkSLp8LTHbyICpvLuNPG/s400/44332377551424993_DP872j8y_f.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
I am so sorry for the lack of posts on here. I have my list of excuses, but you probably don't want to hear them. I thought I was going to have a quiet, boring summer - but I happen to be blessed with amazing friends who wrecked those plans.<br />
<br />
So much for blowing bubbles on the back deck all afternoon.<br />
<br />
My days have been filled with book reading, (I am currently tackling <u>Erasing Hell</u> by Francis Chan and <u>The Wooden Horse</u> by Eric Williams,) local sightseeing, parties, rehearsals, family dinners, work, trips, watching the new Spider-man, (definitely a highlight,) camp, and visiting with out-of-town friends. One of these days I'll get around to making that new pencil-skirt and writing to the Queen of Denmark. <br />
<br />
What has your summer been like?<br />
<br />
I won't be around until probably August, so go enjoy the humidity, the 104 degrees in the shade, and don't regret the end of the day. Tomorrow is always coming.<br />
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<br />Myrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05836512913841576260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489475838692869353.post-82505205664534894812012-06-20T13:29:00.004-07:002012-06-20T20:00:43.082-07:00Her Majesty the Queen<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It is no surprise to those who know me that I love to write letters. I find it a calming pursuit that is much needed in the present culture where handwriting is quickly going down-hill. There is just a lovelier aspect in seeing something handwritten as opposed to seeing something typed and printed.</div>
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<i>L</i>ast month a friend put the idea in my head of writing to the Queen of England, and the more I thought about it, the more this idea appealed to me. So I pulled out my best paper, carved a seal, (which you can see half of in the above photo,) and started writing. I expressed to the Queen how much I admired her. I congratulated her on her Diamond Jubilee. I told her that it is one of my dreams to visit England. Hours after hard thought and practice letters, and taking great pride in my work, I addressed it.</div>
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<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: large;">H</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">er Majesty The Queen</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: -webkit-auto;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Buckingham Palace</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: -webkit-auto;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">London SW1A 1AA</span></span>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtP08O1pgWUrV3IYjXYjWA3nG3Zix9qdHR4GwHh0m0xNL6JNFbfeKMFFG733AxuKGkPkzVmFu5j0yt-4HlXINY42XEsnkdry5ExdKmwhZ_7N26-L96GTEy4pzuPlJXqKTsG1vfmlOHt8VT/s1600/IMGP9585+-+Copy.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtP08O1pgWUrV3IYjXYjWA3nG3Zix9qdHR4GwHh0m0xNL6JNFbfeKMFFG733AxuKGkPkzVmFu5j0yt-4HlXINY42XEsnkdry5ExdKmwhZ_7N26-L96GTEy4pzuPlJXqKTsG1vfmlOHt8VT/s400/IMGP9585+-+Copy.JPG" width="276" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The day before sending it off. Forgive the dirty mirror.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Last week I
headed off to 5 days at camp, figuring that if I did happen to get a
reply to my letter, I was months away from receiving it. Once again, my
dreams came true. Arriving home tired and sunburned, this is what I
found on my bed stand:</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWgV1Ry8eC5hgOeHnJPTLMV6ZZ76DaIa0bcqVAb_SpWh7XWMZ_EtLlGKEKMrIMwZAndsNTZPxCI_pdWkgC09DeLoHvwd6aEIQX3iw7FnyQiGtGB5xg8aO-2A-q3Ee85YIfpUOXF8uJtPEK/s1600/IMGP0132.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWgV1Ry8eC5hgOeHnJPTLMV6ZZ76DaIa0bcqVAb_SpWh7XWMZ_EtLlGKEKMrIMwZAndsNTZPxCI_pdWkgC09DeLoHvwd6aEIQX3iw7FnyQiGtGB5xg8aO-2A-q3Ee85YIfpUOXF8uJtPEK/s400/IMGP0132.JPG" width="267" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(I edited my address from off the envelope.)</td></tr>
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It is a pamphlet with beautiful pictures of the Queen and a note saying,<i style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> <span style="font-size: large;">"I send you my grateful thanks for the words of support which you have so kindly sent on the occasion of the Sixtieth Anniversary of my Accession to the Throne."</span></i></div>
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Yes, she regarded me as fan mail. (Which I suppose I am.) But the important part is:<b> <i>I got a letter from England!</i></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">So this month, and possibly next month, have turned out alright.</span></div>
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</div>Myrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05836512913841576260noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489475838692869353.post-1889668934364603922012-06-18T08:32:00.002-07:002012-06-18T08:32:17.192-07:00Quoted: Some Days<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg34Sd5yDxj-JvOh2HsbbJ63Ff6KVCOqaV6ZpmjBP12ygN1KpdDN9sGwbC5pq9K2JWRmk5rjlFSHWp3di032V1RvgP9x9we7nZnfKgcLMWeTL-U6Vo2RCa0vHU_O_1WZq65BZf4JQ-xmlHy/s1600/39969515413040481_pNwGAbYm_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg34Sd5yDxj-JvOh2HsbbJ63Ff6KVCOqaV6ZpmjBP12ygN1KpdDN9sGwbC5pq9K2JWRmk5rjlFSHWp3di032V1RvgP9x9we7nZnfKgcLMWeTL-U6Vo2RCa0vHU_O_1WZq65BZf4JQ-xmlHy/s400/39969515413040481_pNwGAbYm_c.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Myrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05836512913841576260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489475838692869353.post-11077309377137722282012-06-03T20:18:00.001-07:002012-06-03T20:20:07.333-07:00No One Told Me<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> <b> </b><b>When you think you've hit the bottom, and the bottom
gives way,</b></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b> And you fall into a darkness no words can explain. </b></span></div>
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</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b> You don't know how you'll make it out alive.</b></span></div>
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</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b> Jesus will meet you there. </b></span></div>
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</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b> When the doctor says I'm sorry, we don't know what
else to do.</b></span></div>
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</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b> And you're looking at your family, wondering how
you'll make it through.</b></span></div>
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</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b> Whatever road this life takes you down,</b></span></div>
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</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b> Jesus will meet you there.</b></span></div>
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</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> - “Jesus Will Meet you There” by Steven Curtis
Chapman</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;"> Chapman penned those words after his youngest child,
a precious girl, died at the age of 5. When grief doesn't creep as a rising
tide but floods as a tidal wave. When every emotion possible rushes through
with no rhyme, no reason, no method. Grief has no order.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;"> <span style="font-size: small;"><b> </b></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b>"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear." said C.S. Lewis. Well, no one ever told me that, either. </b></span><span style="font-size: 10pt;">He is a friend I have not
learned to love and a guest I have not learned to welcome. He is a participant
in my life who was not invited and yet will never leave. Because, honestly, if
we could plan our lives – if we had been allowed in on the decision-making process
of the human race – <span style="font-size: small;"><i>we would have left out the things that hurt us. </i></span>We would
have left out grief. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;"> Saturday afternoon, shortly before 1:00, we were sitting
in our church, listening to the strains of a wedding prelude and rising to see
the angelic bride float down the isle on the arm of her father. We got the call, shortly through the ceremony, that
the 16 month old grandson of some dear
friends was taken away. At a time
like this. Right in the middle of uniting two into a new life, a tiny life was
taken away.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;"> And if we were the ones looking down from heaven and
jotting down life stories, we would have kindly omitted death, allowed the
treatments to work, the heart to keep beating, and the happy family would have
headed home at the end of the day. Deep in the heart of each of us is the voice
that promises that we will do everything in our power to not let grief into our
lives or other's.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"> But we are foolish.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"> We forget that it is not through the good times that
we are refined.<b> Calm water does not refine gold</b>, but fire. And we are golden
beings, on our way to a golden city. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"> If we try to remove grief from the human race then we
are trying to remove the hand of God, just as if we tried to remove joy. But,
heaven forbid. No one would try to remove joy! How ludicrous. But God works
through joy just as much as he words through grief. Can't you see that? <i>They
are both his creations. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;"> God created life. And God created death.<span style="font-size: small;"> He works
through both so that his purposes may be fulfilled.</span> But he doesn't abandon us
there, when we are crying as if we will never cry again. When our hearts feel
like they are being ripped from our chest. He doesn't just deposit us on our
doorstep and say, “Well, buster, I created a life and I decided to take it away
and you're on your own now. Deal with it. I do what I want.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: 10pt;"> No. That is not the Savior we serve. That is not the Lord
who drew us from darkness into marvelous light. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;"> Jesus meets us. In the midst of our grief, he is
there. In the refining flames, he is there. In the moments when we are
sure that we will never live again, that this life is too hard – he is there.
He whispers to us that we still have a purpose. That every life has a
purpose. <b>That every life is precious.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;"> That if he sees every sparrow which falls to the
ground, then he is not remiss in seeing us, the beings created in his own
image, and he hears our cries. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;"> There is a gravity in grief because it teaches us
that life is short. As I wrote in my journal this past week after finding out
that a friend of my brother's has leukemia - <i>“</i></span><i><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;">Why is it that we suddenly realize the mortality of life when
immortality becomes impossible? We always know that we're mortal, - we always do, somewhere deep inside, know
that we're not actors in a movie who can face anything and come out in the end.
It's just when immortality is medically proven impossible in someone's life
that we begin to believe that it really<b> is </b>impossible." </span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"> Be in prayer for this dear family if it comes to your
mind. Grief may be an overwhelming flood, but<b> we are children of the creator of
the waves,</b> and He will not let us drown. There is a purpose in our sorrow, and
someday we will clearly see what it is. </span></div>Myrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05836512913841576260noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489475838692869353.post-11311322904487933932012-05-29T17:28:00.000-07:002012-05-29T17:28:20.033-07:00The Nature in The City<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This is a rare post where I stop talking and let the pictures talk. I stalked four baby birds this evening, two Robins and two Blue Jays, while the parents squawked and put up gallant fight while I sat and focused my camera on their babies. Don't worry. No animals were hurt in the making of this blog post.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Also at the bottom are two other small friends I have found in past
years. The first is a squirrel I named Fennel who was injured, and the
second is a rabbit who I named Foster. I quietly buried them shortly
after finding them, but there is always new life every spring! </div>
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<br />Myrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05836512913841576260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489475838692869353.post-66304605152469736972012-05-26T06:55:00.001-07:002012-05-26T06:57:03.663-07:00When You Need a Friend<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtpPhXqGass6ry4iVnqT-3uJ-zVEGSqL7rx0_ccTPDjGzvfKI8htbYrIN8i1sLuo0cvCYrbNdLeJH7p_hk_HYqkRLjEVzAC8xUkDdckhjZHIsda2D2PusrH-_L73GcD97jrqY9UXk_Cz4i/s1600/132125106_2jwqHk2U_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtpPhXqGass6ry4iVnqT-3uJ-zVEGSqL7rx0_ccTPDjGzvfKI8htbYrIN8i1sLuo0cvCYrbNdLeJH7p_hk_HYqkRLjEVzAC8xUkDdckhjZHIsda2D2PusrH-_L73GcD97jrqY9UXk_Cz4i/s320/132125106_2jwqHk2U_c.jpg" width="231" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
You can count on me like one, two, three, I'll be there,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
And I know when I'm needed,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I can count on you like four, three, two, and you'll be there,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
'Cause that's what friends are supposed to do...</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">- Bruno Mars</span></div>Myrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05836512913841576260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489475838692869353.post-17447066398358121512012-05-20T17:59:00.001-07:002012-05-20T17:59:24.953-07:00All That Glitters<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCNrJMkDV4YQi5FuG7KmGV6nwhpc3NEnplrYCxDnOI6vbP_P7gOgvCHG2IUGQMmcGwfi-FBaw7wVMwAkb65DpCz_NKBxpdBi4cM2xX6NoT91GgSJWYRiXlvt6LSWcZ7-ykJLSKaNMFYPQY/s1600/rose-coloured-dreams-__Now+I+should+like+to+do+my+hair+like+this%E2%80%94so+elegant+and+feminine_%7Bvia%7D_.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCNrJMkDV4YQi5FuG7KmGV6nwhpc3NEnplrYCxDnOI6vbP_P7gOgvCHG2IUGQMmcGwfi-FBaw7wVMwAkb65DpCz_NKBxpdBi4cM2xX6NoT91GgSJWYRiXlvt6LSWcZ7-ykJLSKaNMFYPQY/s400/rose-coloured-dreams-__Now+I+should+like+to+do+my+hair+like+this%E2%80%94so+elegant+and+feminine_%7Bvia%7D_.png" width="285" /></a> </div>
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All that glitters is not gold.<br />
Shakespeare wrote that 400 years ago, but they are words which will never prove untrue. Because we like to think that all that glitters<br />
is gold.<br />
But just because the new, shiny obsession has come into the public eye,<br />
and just because the revolutionary idea seems so wonderful,<br />
and just because an object, or person, or want, seems<i> </i><b>so</b> glorious and <b>so</b> valid, <br />
<i>most all are plastic underneath. </i><br />
And even if, at first, they seem to hold lasting treasure or value, it only takes a matter of time for the top coat to chip off,<br />
<b>and the true colors to show through.</b><br />
<br />
Don't chase after plastic dreams. Search for gold. And set your heart above,<br />
where Christ is.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXp7hG-YbQjndcXFdIRpZKLPeEW67vn46xKyI5M89E4ij9u5P9JeZ6KMpc9LNnIllc730KGs-W2VBtPHcP603jyPcPD1UAIHp2-6AXJfUtyYEXqVCS1gvxyqdwYwd7Yrg8tS171OOsObBh/s1600/tumblr_m45gy3vMYz1qb30dwo1_500.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXp7hG-YbQjndcXFdIRpZKLPeEW67vn46xKyI5M89E4ij9u5P9JeZ6KMpc9LNnIllc730KGs-W2VBtPHcP603jyPcPD1UAIHp2-6AXJfUtyYEXqVCS1gvxyqdwYwd7Yrg8tS171OOsObBh/s400/tumblr_m45gy3vMYz1qb30dwo1_500.jpg" width="276" /></a> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">I'm sorry I am not attributing the pictures; they were in my folder and I do not know where I got them. Someone took them, and I shall do better next time to tell you who.</span></div>
</div>Myrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05836512913841576260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489475838692869353.post-7640949289046900442012-05-12T10:44:00.004-07:002012-05-15T06:55:32.642-07:00Tales of an Oversized Shirt So my Great-grandmother lives down south, (and when I say that I do not mean Florida, I mean two hours away,) and my Mema periodically goes down and visits her, seeing that Great-grandma Maggie is going to be 98 this year.<br />
<br />
And Mema likes to bring us home some of Grandma Maggie's discarded clothes from time to time. They are usually quite old and normally do not fit. I really don't understand how Mema always brings us home clothes which are size 12 or 14, becuase Grandma Maggie is the size of a toothpick and probably wears small of everything. (And we don't wear 12 or 14s. Hmm.) That question aside, she brought us a bag a few weeks ago.<br />
<br />
I picked through it, always on the lookout for good fabric that can be re-cut into something else. My search was rewarded with an over-sized, off-white shirt of some kind that I gladly took home. And last Saturday I decided to be one of those cool people on the internet who takes a potato sack and makes it into a prom dress, and then post a seemingly easy tutorial on how to do it. <br />
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<div style="text-align: left;">
Well, this isn't a potato sack, and I didn't make it into a prom dress. But I did have fun.</div>
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Observe the shirt. Yes. Awkward. So I took out my scissors and promptly cut off the turtle neck aspect. Then I cut off about three full inches on each side and sewed it in. Then I wondered what to do next.<br />
<br />
Ah ha! Ruffles! The answer to every problem. Using the excess fabric from the sides, I cut out four rows of ruffles and sewed them to the front of the shirt. Then I gathered in the neck, because it was huge and I was not going with the cowl-neck look, and stitched it down.<br />
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Happy day in my bedroom. Very, very happy day. And the wonderful part is that I actually like it! Now go take an old tee shirt, some scissors, a bit of thread, and get to work. If you ruin it then you didn't waste any money, and if you love it, then you have one new shirt in your wardrobe that cost you nothing!<br />
<br />
Some good tee-shirt tutorials: (since mine isn't really a tutorial)<br />
<a href="http://www.rufflesandstuff.com/2010/03/ruffly-shirt-refashion.html" target="_blank">Ruffles and Stuff</a><br />
<a href="http://tearosehome.blogspot.com/2010/03/tutorialruffle-shirt-why-not-vertical.html" target="_blank">Vertical Ruffles</a>Myrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05836512913841576260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489475838692869353.post-56967991133525535332012-05-08T07:57:00.000-07:002012-05-08T07:57:44.473-07:00Ice Cream and Resilient Children<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/EOfy5LDpEHo?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
If this does not make you laugh, then there is no hope for you.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
P.S. You may want to view it larger to get the whole effect.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>Myrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05836512913841576260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489475838692869353.post-32618600926351224712012-05-07T06:47:00.001-07:002012-05-07T06:47:21.571-07:00Change Something<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKPCQU9GC1Q35J9EDzzGZiMAm50NRNpbchsq7CC_vVJn0k3MCHQGZ1fVd0hfLoJWVJJxEyOqo4RadsAtTGcX_vZ8YFPUfxcQGLjzqcjwvbHiULER00yx8LaLNucbLD_Sesm-1IrC3ngBCQ/s1600/108264627_SHeVKAFU_c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKPCQU9GC1Q35J9EDzzGZiMAm50NRNpbchsq7CC_vVJn0k3MCHQGZ1fVd0hfLoJWVJJxEyOqo4RadsAtTGcX_vZ8YFPUfxcQGLjzqcjwvbHiULER00yx8LaLNucbLD_Sesm-1IrC3ngBCQ/s400/108264627_SHeVKAFU_c.jpg" width="281" /></a></div>Myrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05836512913841576260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1489475838692869353.post-14666463484277693692012-05-03T16:50:00.003-07:002012-05-03T16:50:48.850-07:00Silence is a Lost Art<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span><span> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span><span> </span></span><span>I'm sitting on the back deck. This is
not an uncommon place to find me; my favorite mug full of ice water, my trusty
laptop Lord Pondicherry, and lazy Mr. Tucket keeping me company with his
contented snoring in the sunshine. My ear buds are in, but abnormally, they are
silent. The birds are chirping in the trees and my brother is raking leaves on
the lower porch, that delicious sound of the prongs hitting the concrete coming
in sporadic rhythm. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span><span> </span>For
a rare half minute, there was no one on the road by our house. You see, we live
next to a fairly busy stretch of a 2-lane road, and a mere common ground away
from the highway. There are always cars going past with a low whoosh, children
coming home from school, couples walking, the same beagle who breaks out semi-monthly, sniffing her way dangerously close to the traffic.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span><span> </span>But
for half a minute, there was no noise but the afternoon sounds of nature. (As
much nature as we get in suburbia.) And it was beautiful. I enjoy drinking in
those few seconds of quiet, wishing they would last forever. Wishing I lived
five miles away from everyone and had ten or so dogs snoring around me as I
write, healthy sweat dripping down my face as I sit in the sunshine, my body
strong from days of outdoor work.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span><span> </span>This
is reality, though. And the cars start racing past again. </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span><span> </span><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;">Silence
is a lost art. </span>We live in a very loud culture. Entertainment is at the tip of
our fingers every single second of the day. We can listen to music, watch
movies, chat, talk on the phone, drive. Communication is noisy. Entertainment
is noisy. Work is noisy. Play is noisy. Life is noisy. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span><span> </span>Just
when I think I have a moment of silence, the phone rings. The dog barks. The
workmen next-door start their everlasting banging. The floors creak when I
walk. The sink drains. The CD skips. The organ in the front room emits its
continual humming. The dishwasher churns.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span><span> </span>The
phone rings. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span><span> </span>The
dog barks.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span><span> </span>I
read somewhere that NASA made a room that was 99% percent sound proof. I say
kudos. The world needs more silence, less distraction. More time to think, less
time to talk. More time to focus, less time to be entertained.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span><span> </span>Apparently,
if you were to stay in this room for any length of time, you would go
crazy.<span> </span>Your mind begins to make up
noises that don't exist. You hear things that aren't there. Our brains and
bodies are tuned to want noise.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span><span> </span>But
I believe they're also tuned to need silence. <u>To be quiet</u>. To cut all this
extra distraction and actually realize how soothing it is to be silent and be
still. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span><span> </span>Silence
in a delicacy these days that a lot of people would give a lot to have. We're
so annoyingly noisy all the time. Everything we do is noisy. And that's okay, to some
extent. Noise is a<span> </span>beautiful part of
life.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span><span> </span>But
there can be too much of a good thing.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span> And amid the noise, regarldess of it
being “good noise,” or “bad noise,” we're losing silence, which is t<i>he
art of not making any noise at all. </i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span><span> </span></span></i><span>Mr.
Tucket woke up and is hanging his head pitifully through the banisters. The
blender's going in the kitchen behind me. Storm clouds are rumbling in the
distance. Life is moving. The world is turning. Progress is being made. And
that's okay.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span> Sometimes
I just wonder if we really have to be so noisy in the process.</span></span></b></div>Myrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05836512913841576260noreply@blogger.com0