Tag Archives: Life

So Much More

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If you turn the radio to a Top 40 station (or more likely turn on Pandora), it won’t take you too long before you hear a pretty messed up view of this world. From Ke$ha’s partying-is-life to any of a number of songs extolling the self-gratifying nature of “love,” wrong thinking is all over the airwaves.

But it was when I heard Bruno Mars’s “Locked Out of Heaven” that I was the most saddened.

In case you haven’t heard it, the chorus is as follows:

“Cause your sex takes me to paradise
Yeah your sex takes me to paradise
And it shows, yeah, yeah, yeah
Cause you make feel like, I’ve been locked out of heaven
For too long, for too long
Yeah you make feel like, I’ve been locked out of heaven
For too long, for too long”

The lyrics equate sex to heaven, and I’m pretty sure that’s not meant to be a metaphor. What I find so incredibly sad about this is that there are so many in my generation who think just that: sex is the highest of all goods and the end of life.

Sex is good, but it really is just an earthly pleasure. God has given us so much more already and has promised even greater joy in the next life. Why should we settle for such a small pleasure as sex?

I grieve for so many who think that the pursuit of pleasure is what life is all about.

5 Things That Have Stayed the Same

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Following up yesterday’s 5 Things That Have Changed since I started blogging 5 years ago, is the 5 things that have stayed the same. For the most part, these are things that I thought would have changed in 5 years’ time.

1. I’m still single. This was not something I expected. I always assume I’ll meet and be pursued by my future husband some time in the next year, but it still hasn’t happened. The good thing, though, is that I’ve gained more joy in my singleness and am less likely to see it as a burden.

2. I still work at the same place. This also was unexpected. After all, I started working at the small non-profit as a part-time secretary while I was in school. Over the years, I have gained more and more responsibilities, morphing my position into what it is now (which is a little bit of everything we do).

3. I’m still a big-time reader. Actually, forgetting the last month, I’m a bigger reader now than I was 5 years ago. For the record, I’ve read 432 books since I started blogging.

4. I still love my church. When I joined in the fall of 2005, I loved it. Of course, I know more of its flaws now than I did then (and I’m one of them!), but I love it even more than I did then.

5. I still live in North Carolina. Of course, this is obvious considering numbers 2 and 4. I have moved 4 times in the past 5 years (it sounds crazier than it was), but every one of those moves have been locally. When I moved to North Carolina I thought I’d be here for school, then move out west. I definitely shouldn’t have moved east if I wanted to move west…

Change Wanted

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I’m not happy with my life.

I don’t mean to say that I want to change my circumstances. I mean to say I don’t like how I’m living my life. I feel like I’m spending each day waiting for it to be over, and each week waiting for it to be over. Instead of actively deciding how I want to spend my life, I feel like I’m passively letting it happen to me.

Getting over pneumonia was hard…much harder for me than actually having pneumonia. I may have wanted nothing more than to stop coughing at the time, but when I started feeling better, it was the exhaustion, mental and physical, that was hard. For two weeks afterwards I didn’t have the energy to do anything. Lots of TV watching and staring off into space, that’s about it.

Then a week or so ago, I started regaining my normal energy, praise God. But having done nothing for two weeks, it was hard to get going. It’s still hard to get going…I want to continue to relax and be self-indulgent.

I started writing this post over the weekend, and I’m happy to say that things are looking up. I’ve decided to start focusing on building/eliminating one thing a week. This week I’ve decided to add in exercise. So far so good. Trading 20-30 minutes of walking around the block for TV watching is definitely worth it. I’ve started reading again (it’s been a while since I could pick up a book and actually understand what I was reading!) which is refreshing.

Photo by Alfonso Siloniz

A Normal Sunday Afternoon

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Their dog decided to "help" by offering me a ball to throw.

Yesterday was one of my favorite days in recent memory.

There was nothing particularly special about the day, nothing that someone else would look at and say, “Wow, she has a blessed life.”

But I absolutely do.

The best part of the day was the afternoon. I was invited over to a friend’s house for lunch with her family. We had lunch, sure, but it was much more. It was simply being together, living their typical Sunday afternoon. It was everything that I miss being single.

I’m convinced that that’s how we’re created to live. It’s only in our individualistic modern times where most people live alone or in small family units.

Sans dog...a success!

I don’t like it. As an introvert, I enjoy my alone time, sure. But as a person designed to live in community, I hate coming home to an empty house day after day.

It’s such a blessing to get to be a part of someone else’s family life.

I know I’ve said it before, but if you have a family, reach out to someone single and invite them into your life. Perfect hospitality not necessary, or really desired. It’s good to see family life more like it really is, not the façade we like to put up for “company.” While it’s nice to be treated like a guest sometimes, more often I prefer just to be one of the family.

I hope you had a good weekend as well!

I’m Just an Impenetrable Fortress of Unknowability

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“I’ve received many emails from opinionated folks saying, ‘I have extensively researched this issue,’ by which they mean, ‘I’ve read a lot of blogs.’ Let’s be clear: neither frequent viewership of Fox News nor owning a copy of An Inconvenient Truth makes one ‘an expert.’ ” – Green Like God by Jonathan Merritt, p. 166

“A human being is like a novel: until the last page you don’t know how it will end. Or it wouldn’t be worth reading…” – We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, p. 162

“We realize that we are saved not just to be forgiven of our sins or to be assured of our eternity in heaven, but we are saved to know God.” – Radical by David Platt, p. 39

[girls are] “an impenetrable fortress of unknowability, really.” – An Abundance of Katherines by John Green, p. 76

“Of all the great world religions, Christianity should value the body most. After all, it taught that God had in some sense taken a human body and used it to redeem the world; everything about the physical should have been sacred and sacramental.” – The Spiral Staircase by Karen Armstrong, p. 219

“I’m at a point now where if preachers can’t come up with something other than inspirational speeches, then maybe they should just read from the word for their sermon.” – a college student quoted in Radical by David Platt, p. 40

“Americans are a charitable people, but what we give away is not quite as astounding when seen in proportion to what we keep.” – Green Like God by Jonathan Merritt, p. 130-131

“Poems are short because nobody can keep up that level of stupidness for more than one page.” – Prom by Laurie Halse Anderson

“As for the future, the only way that the world can say no to genocide is to make sure the people of Darfur are returned to their homes and given protection. If the world allows the people of Darfur to be removed forever from their land and their way of life, then genocide will happen elsewhere because it will be seen as something that works.” – The Translator by Daoud Hari, p. X

“For example, you’re probably not expecting me to ask you out for dinner tonight.” – Taub
(immediately)”No thanks.” – House
“You won’t even consider it?”
“I did, just very quickly.” – House episode “The Choice”

“Do you ever wonder whether people would like you more or less if they could see inside you?” – An Abundance of Katherines by John Green, p. 149

FQF: Childish Addictions

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1.  Are there any animals you refuse to touch?

I’ll touch anything, assuming a trainer is holding it, blah, blah, blah.  But will I hold any animals? Not really (the occasional small dog or cat, sure).

2.  Would you like to know the precise date of your future death?

Yes, I would.  But as soon as you told me, I wouldn’t.  The building anticipation in the years, months, and weeks before that date would be awful.

3.  What is made for kids but you love it anyway?

Lip Smacker lip gloss.  Hopelessly addicted to them.  Go through a “party pack” every couple of months.

4.  Ever been addicted to a video/computer game? Which one(s)?

Only once.  Sims 2, senior year of college.  After playing it more and more over a couple of months at the end of my first semester, I realized I had to give it up.  Thankfully, it was a friend’s game on her computer, so I didn’t have easy access to it.  I think I really liked it because I got to control a world.  It was basically the techie version of what I did as a child: make up names, ages, traits, etc of my many imaginary children.

5.  __ is life. The rest is just details. Fill in the blank.

Jesus.

Summer To-Do and a Million Dollar Question

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1. What’s on your “to do” list this summer?

Moving, for one thing (and the accompanying ”getting settled”).  I don’t really have “summer” plans other than that, since I don’t segment my life so much like this anymore.  I’d like to get back in to regular exercise and eating at home, but I’m already starting to work on that.

2.  Do you enjoy sleeping late?

Most definitely.  Though “late” has changed from what it was when I was a teenager or a college student.  9 AM is the latest I ever want to sleep in

3. Fill in the blank: Life is __________.

A beautiful, wonderful, sometimes painful gift.

4. What is in your refrigerator right now?

As of writing this (April 23rd), a few condiments (mainly salad dressings), milk, eggs, onion, tortillas, lots of cheese (don’t ever want to run out), and some leftovers (taco soup and breakfast casserole).  I think that’s all that’s mine.  Haven’t done my weekly shopping yet to get fruits and veggies.

5. If you received $1 million (after taxes), what would you do with the money?

Pay off my student loan, buy a medium-sized house and furnish it modestly, and give some to friends.  Give at least 200K of it to my church, and then invest the rest.

The End of an Era

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midnightWhile I was listening to the radio the other day it hit me.  Someone was talking and they said, “Blah blah blah in ’10…”

What?  Next year’s 2010?  Well, I guess that make since numerically.  But that means that it’s the start of a new decade.  A new decade is just over 4 months away!

I suppose it shouldn’t be a big deal.  Time passes.  Our calendar system is arbitrary anyway, there’s nothing special about January 1, 2010 (and yet, that number is hard to type!).

But for me, it’s something more.  It’ll be the end of the decade that, more than any other, defined me. I turned 18 in 2000, graduated from high school and went off to college in 2001, graduated from college and moved cross country in 2005, graduated from grad school in 2008, and now in 2009 I became salaried and will start paying off my student debt before the end of the year.

But when January 1, 2010 hits, all that will be a part of a past decade.  I guess this must have been what my parents felt when the 80s ended (maybe? but they had 2 not-so-little youngins by then, so they were already more “grown up”).  I suppose we all have to go through the getting-older thing, since the alternative is death.

But really, my generation was cheated.  Our decade doesn’t even have a name!

Photo by orcmid

Is Death Untimely?

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GravestoneDid you know that I upon occassion listen to classical music?  Primarily when I’m trying to write my novel.  Maybe I think that listening to creative, well-written music will help me write a creative, well-written book.  It’s couldn’t hurt, right?

Back when I played the clarinet, I’d also occassionally play classical music.  The clarinet is fairly young as instruments go, but there was one classical composer that was fond of the instrument: Mozart.  One of my favorite pieces to play was written by him.  The fact that he was a genius and seemed to write effortless has always enthralled me.

So, when I saw an article on Mozart’s death, I had to read it.  It’s not believed that his death at the age of 35 might have been from complications from strep throat.  This then led me to contemplate…can one’s death be untimely?

Yes and no.

Yes, because I believe that all our deaths are untimely in the sense that we didn’t have to die.  Without sin, we wouldn’t have died.  Yet our choices have led to death, something that we’ve come to expect to happen later in life.

No, because I believe that we don’t deserve the moments we are living now.  That’s not to say that I wish everyone dead, but to say that every moment God sustains our life is a gift.  When that gift is up, it’s not “untimely” because it should have been up days, weeks, or years prior.  Yet God graciously lets us live on.

And I thank God that He has allowed me to live another day.

Photo by hoyasmeg

A Look through My Eyes

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From time to time I’ve heard the sentiment, usually from those of a pro-choice persuasion, “Why is abortion such a big deal?”  Obviously, this issue has me and several others all in a tizzy, but for what purpose?  There are many issues that I feel strongly about, so why is abortion often front and center?

In order to realize why I think of it as a big deal, I’ll try to help you see it through my eyes.  It’s really an issue of worldview: because of the way I see the world, I can’t help but make a big deal out of abortion.

I believe that life begins at conception.  That’s when the man and the woman’s DNA are combined in such a way to create new DNA.  The embryo–even when he’s just one cell–does not have the same genetic material as his mother, so he can’t just be an extension of her.  Because that baby–no matter how small–is his own person, taking any actions to deliberately kill that person is MURDER, just like it would be murder to kill any other innocent human being.

If you found out that the government was allowing (and in some cases funding) people and organizations to murder innocent people, wouldn’t you be upset?  Wouldn’t you do all that is in your power to speak out for those individuals and help them?

That’s why abortion is such a big deal to me.  While I know many of my readers won’t agree with the foundational premise of my pro-life position, I hope you recognize the logic of my conclusion based on that premise.