Forgotten

I got busy...and forgot how much I love to blog! So I am determined as I go into this next month and beyond to post more. They may not be long posts like my sagas of the past but I like being able to  look back and track where I was at and where I am now. Even if it is only in a few sentences.

PS: I joined Instagram. This is monumental for me because I have resisted for months. That's me for you: a resister. I don't know if it's the rebel in me or the lazy, but I am always lagging behind the bandwagon. I read Twilight months after it came out. I didn't read Harry Potter until this past summer...years after it came out. I didn't start using Snapchat until long after all of my friends had joined up. The list continues. On the one hand, I like that about myself. I think it goes to show that I don't have to be on every bandwagon in order to have fun or be myself. It allows me to contemplate my relationship with technology (yes, this is something that I contemplate and am often concerned over). I also think that it helps me to strengthen myself against peer pressure. Although they are little things, they help build me up so I'm strong when it comes to big things. Like exercising.

Or maybe I'm reading too much into it all! Maybe I am just late to join the party and could have been appreciating Harry Potter and Instragram for years and instead just sat back and watched the world enjoy them without me. Who knows (: Either way, I'm not upset about it.

Romans 12:12

I get a daily verse automatically sent to my inbox every morning from Bible Gateway. I find that the risk with having a verse in my inbox every morning is that the reading become rote and doesn't really infiltrate or affect my day. But some days, like today, the verses catch my attention and get me thinking.

It seems so simple. "Be joyful in hope." Surprisingly, of the three, this is probably what I struggle with most. I label myself as a realistic individual. I like to think of all of the potential outcomes and prepare myself for each. When something good happens, I immediately think about what will happen next or, even worse, what bad things happened along the way. Hope should be easy but, really, it can be a trap for my sinful mind. I can't tell you how many times something beautiful and amazing and hopeful has happened...and then I immediately desire more, more, more. One thing is rarely good enough.

I think that this commandment has another meaning too: don't lose faith. Even in situations where it seems there's no positive outcome, keep hoping. Trust in the Lord to make good out of every situation. And be joyful while you wait and hope to see how the Lord can use the big and the small to glorify Him. Rarely am I joyful in my hope in this way. I am typically impatient and ungrateful and selfish. I want the Lord to use all of the situations to benefit me. To glorify me. It's even harder to swallow the fact that many situations will not work out to make my life better or make me happy in some way, but for the good of someone near me. Or for the good of a perfect stranger. Or, if it is all about me, He uses situations to grow me. And growing pains are just that...painful. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that hope in and of itself can be difficult and being joyful throughout all of that hoping can be downright miserable. In comparison, the other two seem like a walk in the park on a sunny day. Funny, that, because those two sound deceptively simple as well.

Single & Christian? Play Solitaire.

I play a lot of solitaire. It's a bad habit. Have you ever noticed that you can't play just one game of solitaire? It's like trying to eat only one pistachio. Nevah gonna happen.

Anyways, as I'm playing solitaire, minding my own business, my phone requires me to see an ad prior to every game. Considering that I play approximately thirty-two hundred games each day, I see a lot of ads. What is interesting to me is that the ads are almost always for Christian dating sites.

Don't get me wrong: I don't have anything against dating sites. I also don't have anything against Christians dating. I'm an advocate. What I don't understand is why solitaire seems to be the place to flood these advertisements? Is there something about solitaire that says single? Okay...I concede. There may be something about card game apps that is synonymous with single and possibly desperate. Fair enough. But what, I wonder, does solitaire imply about my religion? Is spider solitaire dedicated to Catholicism? Sudoku more for  Judaism?  (Is there a Jewish dating website?)

It's very curious to me. I'd love to see their marketing plan. Although who knows? Maybe it's God trying to help me out!

Edit: After reading this, I acknowledge that there may be a connection between my solitaire addiction and my single status.

  

Books and Books and Books

I find that I have a difficult time posting a lot of the things that I write for this blog. They're either too personal, too silly sounding, or too half finished. What I never stop doing, though, is reading. This summer I have decided to do a book series with myself and I am going to post my thoughts and ramblings about said books on this blog. I figure I can do that because 1) it's my blog and 2) I think that it will give me a bridge to jump off of for other topics and give me things to write about. Anyways, that's what I'll be posting about over the next few months if the plan stays on track.

Who knows though. I've been talking to The People In Charge of my Life and it looks like I'll be working mornings at my internship (20 hours per work) and afternoons/evenings/weekends at the pool (40 hours per week). So I may only have spare time to sleep.

Faith

Today I was sitting eating lunch and the people at the table next to be were talking about their faith and it was so heartening to hear students speaking openly about God. Sometimes I feel so stinking alone up here, especially lately, when I have had zero success finding a church. But times like this I remember that Believers are surrounding me, whether I know it or not. Livin' love.

Just what I love to hear...

...from my professor on the first day of class:

1) I listed your textbook under the wrong section of this class online (so no one knew that we needed a textbook)

2) The textbook is only available at the NAU bookstore...and it's going to cost $120.

3) Don't worry about writing in the book or tearing out pages. I'm only teaching this class this semester so there's no way that you'll be able to resell it. It's going to be virtually worthless 15 weeks from now.

Yeah. Thanks for that. Oh college, how you try my patience!


On a higher note, I was walking back from class one day and overheard this conversation:

Mom (carrying little boy about five or so): You're clinging to me like a koala bear!

Little boy, laughing: Color bear!

Take my word for it, it was cute. Made my day.

It's a Girl Thing

Over the past month, I have had the opportunity to talk "body issues" with nearly all of my friends and it has really made me think...do I have them, and are they important? In my not-so-expert-opinion, every person, male or female, has body issues. It's unavoidable to some degree, particularly in our society, which is so consumed with images of perfection. Particularly as females, we are inundated with "should bes." A woman should be skinny. A woman should have large breasts-but not so large that they draw too much attention to herself. A woman should wear makeup. A woman should be fit, but not too fit. As a Christian woman, these "should bes" only increase-instead of decrease. A woman should not be obsessed with the way she looks BUT, at the same time, should be constantly wary of how she looks. A Christian woman should be modest. She should be demure. She should be, should be, should be! There are so many things that I should be that I often can't see what I am.

Thanks to genetics and a healthy amount of exercise, I am skinny. And yet, when I look in the mirror, I see flaws. I see chubby thighs and a pudgy stomach. I see arms that are too muscular. Also thanks to genetics and a doctor's prescription, I have clear skin. And yet, I see old acne scars that makeup doesn't quite cover up. I see the fact that I don't know how to put on makeup, thanks to a tomboyish adolescence. And yet, I think that I have a healthy body image...most of the time. And other times, like today, I realize that my body image isn't just unhealthy, it's deplorable. And that's not because I think that I'm chubby or skinny or anything else. It's because I forget that my body is not mine. My job is to use everything at my disposal to glorify my God. And being consumed with the way that my body looks is certainly not glorifying, it's prideful. When I worry about my body, it's because I am pursuing the approval of man and not the glory of God. It's all about a change of perspective. Right now, mine is skewed...but I'm working on it. 

Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious.  -1 Peter 3:3-4

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. -1 Cor. 6:19-20




Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. -Proverbs 31:30