I finally got my new camera in the mail! Here are just a few shots, I’m still getting used to it, trying different settings. These are unedited, not bad, good camera.
Category: Life
Fix You
Easily one of the best bands in the world, and one of my favorite songs!
Indecisive, cautious, or adventurous?
Okay. Input time friends.
My flight leaves in 13 days.
peering into the past, from the future.
I chuckle, but also I was stunned as I ran across this tonight. This was a blog I had written in an old notebook, to be posted I guess later that day. It was written in fall 2005, my Junior year of college, 20 years old, and actually reminds me more of what my realities were then, helps me understand where I used to stand on some things.
When you read, you’ll see why, it’s funny, but totally crazy too. Comments to come later.
November 13, 2005 11:22 a.m.
Currently, as I’m composing this blog, I’m sitting at Lisa Popeill’s “Workshop for Singing Non-Classical Styles” or something like that). Al I can say is I’M BORED! If I could, I would start walking back to Redding right now.
It’s all interesting, I completely agree. BUT I just don’t want to be here.
So, my mind is wandering, we’ll see what I feel like writing about. I wish I had a computer in front of me, instead of all these notes.
Anyway, I have been thinking quite a bit about many subjects. I’m thankful that God reveals things to us in his time. For quite a while, I always felt that I wouldn’t get married until I was much older, like 25 or 26 (even though it’s not THAT old). Anyway, but as of late, over this past summer, and this semester, I’ve begun to really pray for the Lord’s will on this subject.
(fast forward some boring things)
One of the reasons I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit has to do with what’s going to happen in my life after I graduate. For a while, I thought about graduate school, and it’s still in the back of my mind. but I really believe God is calling me to be a full-time Worship Pastor.
As a woman, I would be very fearful to enter into the ministry and be single. I mean, yes, I know I COULD do it, but without that support? I know if I had great friends around me, living with me, that would be AMAZING, but the truth is I don’t know where I’ll be going.
I know I could follow someone whether it’s a significant other or closer friend. Churches are everywhere, and always could have needs for Worship Pastors.
All I know is what God is calling me to… and I don’t really know what that’s going to look like. I’m just walking down a road, a path. I don’t know where I’m heading, but I know I’m following CHRIST with all that’s in me.
His goodness. HOPE.
Came upon this song just today. It came at a timely moment for myself, listen to the words. From Psalm 27.
The Lord is my light and salvation whom shall I fear
whom shall I be afraid
The Lord is my light and salvation whom shall I fear
whom shall I be afraid
I will wait for you
I will wait for you
I will remain confident in this
I will see the goodness of the Lord
I will remain confident in this
I will see the goodness of the Lord …
We set our hope on you
We set our hope on your love
We set our hope on the one
Who is the everlasting G o d ….
the paradox
One of the greatest mysteries
is the revealed
and the concealed, in life.
We serve a God of mystery and concealment,
but also a God of revelation,
who longs to reveal himself
to us.
But life continues to be filled with the juxtaposition of paradox.
We live in the mystery.
We live in the concealed.
The veil. We live behind the veil.
Life is simple. We can choose to live in faith, or we can choose to live in fear.
One of the great paradoxes.
Because if we do not actively choose faith
by default,
we have already chosen fear.
Our world wants to live in fear. In the “what ifs?” and the “maybes”.
In the “30% chance this” or “1 in every 8 people that”
But the truth is we are all dying. One way or the other.
Every breath is a second chance.
I’m beginning to see life differently.
It wasn’t that I chose fear in other times,
but there have certainly been many times that I did not choose what I should have:
Faith.
So, I choose to believe.
No matter what the outcome
no matter what the percentage
no matter what the cost.
I’m choosing faith.
Faith that HE is bigger than my humanity
Faith that mountains can be moved
Faith that HE is right beside me
Faith to believe HE has me exactly where I’m supposed to be
We walk by faith, not by sight.
the hardest part
This week, and the following two weeks are the most difficult parts of my marathon training, physically and mentally. I can’t explain it, and if you’ve run or trained for a marathon, you know. Physically I’m strong, actually I’m probably in much better shape than last year’s race, and faster, but basically I’m constantly eating, or trying to. Hasn’t been working out too well for me lately. Food has been making me sick lately. Mentally, that is where the real work and challenge begins to happen.
Last Saturday, I went out to run 16 miles, and I literally, out loud was like, “Why am I doing this??”. There is nothing sane about it. Let me be the first to tell you.
Next Saturday will be my longest run, and the both physically and mentally extremely challenging. Twenty miles. I’m trying to convince a few friends to meet me and ride bikes with me at least part of the way! (Please guys, seriously think about it! Emily’s response, always: “I don’t even like driving that far!”). It’s demanding, and I always want to give up, but yet, after finishing, it is one of the best feelings I’ve ever known.
I know I’m in for a real interesting time, thinking about the actual race. My training barely reflects what the actual marathon will be like. Not only is it international, but I will be battling jet lag, culture shock, not to mention the race begins at 3 a.m. (forget my “dress rehearsal” of doing everything exactly like the race- YEAH RIGHT!), and the conditions of the race will be extremely humid, and the air will be thick with pollution. Sorry, but there’s not really anyway I can really simulate that, nor would I want to even try.
Anyway, I’m not writing a blog to complain, though I could, but rather outlining the challenges, and knowing that as life too, you can prepare all you want, but until you are handed the cards, there’s no knowing what will happen.
Alright readers, happy trails to you. Let me know if anyone wants to run/bike with me Saturday!
..making it count..(life)..
“The American dream isn’t really a dream at all”. -L. Cassel.
After at 5+ hour drive to San Fransisco this week, plus a 5+ hour drive back the next day, a friend and I got into some interesting discussions on life, dreams, hopes, and the future. I think both of us got out of the car in the end with more determination to change the world and make a difference than we actually probably wanted, but you know, dreams and hopes are a good, good thing.
I believe, more and more, that the American dream is becoming such a ridiculous idea, even more so for our generation. The upcoming child-bearing generation. Or I guess I should say current. What am I talking about, I’m behind the wagon on that one, but I definitely don’t mind.
I feel such an urgency to do something. This life was meant to be lived, and we have been given such an opportunity to do something, and not sit back. Maybe it was the concert, I don’t know, but I was so inspired (once again) by Switchfoot, and their lyrics.
“And I wonder why would I wait till I die to come alive?
I’m ready now, I’m not waiting for the afterlife”
“We were meant to live for so much more…”
“Every breath is a second chance”
Sure, my life isn’t what I thought it would be, but why would I want to trade it in for another? Another song that’s really got me thinking is their title track of the new album “Vice Verses”, Jon says (I feel like I can call him just “Jon” since we met and all… :))
Wonder what it means to live forever?
Wonder what it means to die?
I know that there’s a meaning to it all
A little resurrection every time I fall
You got your babies, I got my hearses
Every blessing comes with a set of curses
I got my vices, I got my vice verses
I got my vice verses
Every blessing comes with a set of curses.
Profound.
I’m not sure where I’m going with all this, but life is sacred. We have a chance every breath we take to change and do something, to not just sit back and survive. Another line from “Thrive” is simple, “I wanna thrive, not just survive”. Yes. That’s what I want. Not a white picket fence with the word “safety” written all over it, that creates a false sense of safety since it’s usually accompanied with thousands of dollars of debt, I want reality. (I’m NOT saying that buying a home is a bad thing!!) I want Christ. I want to take the blessings I have and run with them, not worry about what the world deems as a curse.
A little resurrection every time I fall.
Life. We all have a different role and task, what is yours?
death
With the past week as America and the world mourned the death of Steve Jobs, it seems death is on everyone’s minds these days, including my own. Ironically, as I had attended chapel this week at Cascade, the speaker spoke about death also, not even in connection with Steve Jobs at all.
Yet, when I would hear people talking about Jobs, I couldn’t help but feel some kind of, nagging on my heart. Yes, Jobs was a brilliant man, no one would deny that, and yes, he seems like he was a good man too, but, that’s just it. He was just a man. He did change the world, technology-wise, but remember, all this technology will burn one day. This stuff is just that, stuff. And in the end does it matter that I do in fact have a Mac Book Pro, or iphone, or ipod or iwhatever…. no. It doesn’t matter. Yes, technology makes our lives so much easier, and so much different compared the past, even just 5 years ago, but if I spend all my time engrossed in the technology that I forget to have a conversation (God forbid!) with an actual real person, what does it matter?
If you have some time, I found a great article that really brought to light some of that nagging feeling I couldn’t shake earlier this week, read it here.
Death, for those of us who are believers in God, through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, we have hope. We know where we are headed, so it kind of makes everything else secondary, when you really think about it. I’ve spent some good time thinking about that lately. How am I spending my money? How am I spending my time? How selfish am I being with these things that are “mine”?
It’s all sobering, if we really take the time to think about it. We could change the world with an ingenious idea, but if we never change a single heart, what does that matter?
What lies ahead
As the dance between summer and fall becomes slower, summer gives way to fall, and a million memories rush. Memories of what seems like a past life. Football, high school, happy times, sad times, thankfulness, and everything else I love and hate at the same time. The rain is a familiar friend, but not always a welcomed friend here in Oregon, but, right now it doesn’t matter much. It’s just nice to see a little change in the weather for now.
This fall will be different. I struggle to find the words to say sometimes, but on November 15 I will leave to enter into what often feels like dream land for me, Thailand. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to remember, oh yeah, that was real, I used to live in Thailand! I will be grateful to give up a little fall, to return back to summer, and to a time that feels so long ago, yet at the same time seems like just yesterday. The sights, smells, feeling, I can close my eyes and see it all now.
It is a bittersweet time too. Remembering what was, not only Thailand, but other memories. This is a new chapter, so part of this trip will be addressing and understanding that I may not be called back to SE Asia at all, or not anytime soon, or sooner than I expect. I don’t worry about this, I know what will be, will be.
Either way, it will be an amazing time.
But for now, I will enjoy the cool, crisp mornings, and be super thankful for non-polluted air, and beautiful falls in Oregon.
somehow beautiful 