Ohhh Jonahhhh...

Sorry guys, but I'm going deep on you today...

      In Buddy Time (Bible study) the past two weeks, we have been studying the book of Jonah. My first thought when I heard we were going to be studying this book was that I had already studied it so many times at camp this past summer, what else could I learn? And boy, has God been proving me wrong there. This is so encouraging. It's like, the Word is there, the same words, there forever. And we can read them and read them and think there's nothing else to learn, then God surprises us! I have studied Jonah many times in just the past year, and this time the message has hit me hard, in a different way than it has any time before. The part of the story that gets me now is this:

"I called out to the LORD, out of my distress,
   and he answered me;
 out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
   and you heard my voice.   

³ For you cast me into the deep,
   into the heart of the seas,
   and the flood surrounded me;
 all your waves and your billows
   passed over me.

⁴ Then I said, 'I am driven away
   from your sight;
yet I shall again look
   upon your holy temple.'

⁵ The waters closed in over me to take my life;
   the deep surrounded me;
weeds were wrapped about my head

 ⁶at the roots of the mountains.
I went down to the land
   whose bars closed upon me forever;
yet you brought up my life from the pit,
   O LORD my God.    

⁷When my life was fainting away,
   I remembered the LORD,
 and my prayer came to you,
   into your holy temple.

⁸Those who pay regard to vain idols
   forsake their hope of steadfast love.

⁹ But I with the voice of thanksgiving
   will sacrifice to you;
what I have vowed I will pay.
    Salvation belongs to the LORD!"

I relate this passage to my life- my life from the past. My broken life, where I was in the depths, away from the Lord, where the waters closed over me to take my life and the deep surrounded me. In a place where it was dark, and the Lord was not there. The Lord hit me hard with this passage, for I was once Jonah, my life was literally fainting away. BUT THEN, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer reached Him in His holy temple. He reached with His own hand into the pit where I put myself, and He pulled me out. He loved me so much to save me, because ALL SALVATION BELONGS TO THE LORD. I was reading in a book called Radical by David Platt (most of you have probably heard of it) and he says something that came to mind when I was reading Jonah: "He (God) intentionally puts his people in situations where they come face to face with their need for him. In the process, he powerfully demonstrates his ability to provide everything his people need in ways they could never have mustered up or imagined. And in the end, he makes much of his own name."

          All the glory goes to Him. He doesn't need us, yet He loves us and provides everything for us- so much that he sent His son to die for us, to come down and sit in the punishment chair for us, and through all of this, He demonstrates his love for us.

Never Alone

Such a powerful song about the doubt of humanity and the realization that God is constant and that we are Never Alone.  

I waited for you today

But you didn't show

No no no

I needed You today

So where did You go?

You told me to call

Said You'd be there

And though I haven't seen You

Are You still there?

I cried out with no reply

And I can't feel You by my side

So I'll hold tight to what I know

You're here and I"m never alone

And though I cannot see You

And I can't explain why

Such a deep, deep reassurance

You've placed in my life

We cannot separate

'Cause You're part of me

And though You're invisible

I'll trust the unseen

I cried out with no reply

And I can't feel You by my side

So I'll hold tight to what I know

You're here and I"m never alone

What am I doing?

So, the question of the moment is, what am I doing? I ask myself this because I have been laying in my friend's bed for a few hours, with my lovely computer. I have been thoroughly enjoying myself as I have been stumbling through stumbleupon.com. I was thinking, this is normal. This is typical of a college student. Procrastination.

But, as I sat here, I watched my friend (who's bed I am laying in) go to the gym, without me, and leave me here, still laying in her bed when she got back... How lazy can I be? Then a friend of mine texted me and we started talking about how we haven't worked out in a while. Like, for instance (so you can get a feel for how bad this is), I am fasting, and have somehow managed to gain 5 pounds. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?! It's interesting to say the least, and it's made me think. What am I doing?

Where is my life going? What is in store for me this summer? Next year? The next 4 years? AGH. I think before I tackle these bigger questions, I need to tackle one of the ones at hand- like where am I going to live next year?

I feel like time just passes by so quickly. The sun comes up and then goes down, and we just go through the motions. It makes you think, what are you going to make of your life? What are you going to do to impact others, to love everyone, to make a difference, and to do all these things for our God above?

What could I have accomplished in all the time I just wasted looking at pictures of animals stuck on rooftops and paintings that look so realistic you wouldn't believe- like all of these that I MUST show you:

This may be a lot of pictures, but YES, they are all PAINTINGS.  Hard to believe, right? Well you better believe it! It's insane. I can say I've probably spent most of my time marveling at how real these look. But this one really kills me...

HOW IN THE WORLD DID SHE DO THIS?!

Anyways, now that I have marveled over these paintings, I will move on. To life. My life specifically. At the moment there is so much going on:

            1. writing an English rhetorical analysis on a Got Milk? ad... fun...

            2. wasting time on stumbleupon.com

            3. searching desperately for a place to live next year that isn't two miles from campus.

            4. trying to decide what to do with my life- psychology or studio art? Any ideas- holler at me.

            5. Planning my summer- Uganda here we come!

Well, I guess now that I have it into words, it doesn't look so bad after all.  Decisions, decisions.  At least I can look forward to tomorrow, and the fact that I have tennis class where I will get an ounce of exercise to feel better about myself. I feel like I have to say "woah" every time I look at myself in the mirror and ask myself, "can any human being be for pale?" This is what I need:

The beach. The beach will cure everything. 

So, now that I have covered every random tangent my mind will lead me to tonight, I leave now with the question- what am I doing? 

Daniel 10:2-3

"In those days I, Daniel, was mourning for three weeks. I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, for the full three weeks." 

Some things in life are hard. Everyone knows that. For me, there have been many struggles in the past few months, but right now, one of them is giving me a run for my money- fasting. For Lent, a friend and I decided to fast, and we chose the fast that Daniel did. As you read in the verse above, Daniel ate no delicacies (sweets/desserts), and no meat. [No wine either, but if you know me at all, I really don't have to worry about that one so much. ha]. As christians, we typically give up something that we think will be hard for us to live without for forty days. It brings on a great challenge that we get to fight to overcome, where, if we win the battle, we will feel accomplished and proud of ourselves- like not eating chocolate or using facebook. Seems impossible, right?! Or, we may also try to add something to our day to day life for forty days that will most likely benefit our selfish bodies and better us personally- like exercising every day or starting a diet. Now don't get me wrong, these are all great things, if we somehow tie in the glory of God. 

This has been one of the most challenging parts of my fast so far. How do I tie in God? How do I avoid becoming self righteous and developing pride. I have enough self righteousness and pride I need to break down without adding this to the list. Well, so far this fast has been one of the hardest things I have ever done. You would think it was because of not eating meat, but it's the not eating sweets or drinking sodas that is really killing me! Who knew I would be sitting in my room holding a Reese's in my hand for 10 minutes almost in tears because I wanted to eat it so badly. That's pathetic, I know. But it's the honest truth. Its been hard, really hard. 

Now that I have talked about how hard it has been, let me tell you how unbelievably rewarding it has been. For starters, I never knew I even liked half of the foods I have been forced to eat to replace what I've taken out of my diet. I have found myself just naturally reading my Bible a couple of times a day when ever I have free time. Okay I confess, I didn't read my Bible nearly enough before, but it's an improvement! I find myself praying more often too. It's more like I'm just talking to God actually. And you know, I really didn't know how cool it was. Like what is better than sitting and talking to your Father, the one who has unconditional love for you, the one you can tell anything to and he will never love you any more or any less? I think it's one of the greatest gifts he has given me. I have had lots of time to read. I will admit, I have about 6 books right now where I have read the first 30 pages of each of them. But now I am working on each one, one at a time, and man has the Lord been blessing me with the words of these books! 

I am not by any means saying that this has been easy, that my pride is gone, or that my prayer life and relationship with God are in tip-top shape. But I will say, I can really feel God working. I can hear him and see him all around me. And I long to have him inside of me. My prayer is that he will put a hunger in me that is for him, one that will replace my hunger for the things of this world- including meats and sweets. 

This is my diet...

Peanut Butter and banana sandwich. Greatest thing ever created. 

Oranges- necessity, of course.

Thanks to my old roommate, I have this. Special K. yummm.

Looks gross, but tastes oh so good. 

Couldn't make it without these guys. 

The Beauty of Mountains

So, this will be something new. I honestly don't expect anyone to read what I post on here, but I do like to write, and journal, and take pictures, and what better way to do all of those things in one place than my very own blog? It also took me a very long time to make this, mainly because I couldn't think of a name. I still can't think of one, so temporarily, this will be the name. I am not sure how this is going to go, or how often I will post, or if I will ever even post again, but it is worth going for I guess!

For now, I have two great stories to tell. The first involves being on spring break last week and heading up to Montreat/ Black Mountain, North Carolina, for a couple of days. We headed out on Wednesday and some friends and I enjoyed some great time relaxing and resting in the Lord's presence. There doesn't seem to be a better place that we could have done just that. The mountains surrounded us, and it was evident that God's hand made them beautiful. It snowed on the Thursday night, and it was beautiful too. Who knew I would enjoy snow on my spring break- when every one is on some beach somewhere getting tan, I am pretty sure I was getting more pale...

But anyways, the weekend went on with some quiet time, prayer, worship, great meals, and awesome christian fellowship. And some eno-ing over the creek behind our cabin.

 Then on Saturday, we decided to go on a hike. An EIGHT MILE hike. Yes, I said eight. We left around 1, and hiked up and down and up and down and so on. We reached seven different mountain peaks, and the views well worth it. When we reached the half way point, this is what we saw:

Beautiful, right? And so worth it. The hike down was fun. We ran a lot of the way because it was almost all straight downhill. Needless to say, my joints and muscles were hurting a little bit, and still are right now. Ouch. But the best part is that, after the hike was over, my friend that chose which trails we were going on decided to tell us the difficulty levels: one was strenuous, two very very strenuous, and the other one was for experience hikers only. I could have punched him! WHAT! In a way though, I felt very accomplished, and I was proud of myself and the other two girls on the hike. We did it! So we took a victory photo:

victory! 

It was so amazing to see such beauty all around us, God's creation is so beautiful! Ah. I just can't get over it! He loves us so much that he gives us the most amazing things! How lucky are we?!

The second story took place a couple of minutes ago, you may not think it is very funny, but me and my buddy Clair Miller sure did. We were sitting at Marion Square eating our chips and wueso (also known as queso) on a blanket, and we saw a number of funny things. The first was a group of about 20 police officers practicing riding their bikes, helmets and all, up and down the stairs. Then they proceeded to practice jumping off of the bikes, ripping their helmets off, and chasing after "the bad guy". Just picture it. Then, after that, we saw two Arabian/ Middle Eastern men walking, and then they stopped, to take pictures of squirrels? I mean, last time I checked, I was trying to run over a squirrel intentionally with my car (its a fun game, you should try it- they are so fast I haven't hit one yet!). Anyways, these men were fascinated, and giggling to themselves too. Oh what a sight. The last was kind of interesting...? There was an older man, maybe 70, he was very tall and lanky, and his shorts were entirely too short, I could see his boxers if that tells you anything. He was walking very very very slowly down the side walk... BACKWARDS! Who does that? Well, he sure does. Then, a couple of feet behind him, a pole approached, that he didn't see of course, because unlike my mother, he doesn't have eyes in the back of his head. Clair and I waited in suspense as he nailed the pole with his back... poor guy! Sure gave us a good laugh though. 

So, that is the end of my long, first post of my wonderful new blog. I didn't read through to edit this, so I hope you enjoyed laughing at all my spelling errors and grammatical mistakes!