To Pierce or Not to Pierce? Biblical View

Wow! The feedback on To Pierce or Not to Pierce was great! Y'all are so awesome :) Thanks for giving me your opinions. It's helping me make my decision.

There was one particular comment I want to address specifically. One person wisely suggested that I turn to Bible for the answer (always the best place to start). A few verses this person suggested:

Leviticus 19:28
"Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD."

Deuteronomy 14:1
"You are the children of the LORD your God. Do not cut yourselves or shave the front of your heads for the dead."

Genesis 35
"And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and all their earrings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem."

1 Corinthians 6:19-20
"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body."

Lots of information there! I have trouble knowing where to start XD

First, I'd like to point out a pattern in the verses (well, one of them): They come primarily from the Old Testament. Why is that? Well, it's because back then, there were TONS of rules to follow to make Christians "clean". It's unbelievable! If you read those early books of the Bible, it's staggering to see the lists of rules the Israelites were expected to follow. You might even say it was impossible. Why would God give people so many rules that were so difficult to follow?

I think one of the biggest reasons is simply because it's impossible. God wanted the Israelites to realize how impossible it was to be perfect, how much they needed God and his forgiveness.

For years and years and YEARS it went on like that. People tried to follow all the rules (even the ones about clipping your beard, braiding your hair, and piercing your ears) all the time. Then something cool happened:

Jesus came.

Jesus wiped away all the rules but two:

Love God.
Love your neighbors.

(If you follow those two commandments, the other Ten Commandments kind of naturally follow anyway.)

This is one reason why Jesus made people so angry.

WHAT??? This trouble-maker says we don't have to wash our hands before every meal. HOW DARE HE?

Etc.

See, when Jesus came, HE was the perfect sacrifice! By dying for our sins, he took away the burden of trying to be perfect. We don't have to follow all the Old Testament rules to be good Christians. Jesus took care of that burden for us :) It's all good.

There is one verse from the New Testament:

1 Corinthians 6:19-20
"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body."

I really like this verse. But I don't think it means that piercing your ears is wrong. Piercing ears does not dishonor God. It's simple a fun way to show your personality. To show who you are, how God made you, a way to express yourself! We should always honor God with our bodies, but I see that as more what you physically do. Honor God by opening the door for people. Honor God by not reacting in sudden violence. Honor God by using your hands for His glory. Things like that :)

The Bible is the best place to look for answers. It's our instruction manual, our map for life, God speaking to us! But it's also really important to make sure you understand all the details behind the text.

~Kendra

Pool Faith

Hey! Well, so far, there are some AWESOME family stories!!! Y'all, this is EXACTLY what I had in mind! You guys are freaking amazing! :D I laughed out loud. Your families are pretty awesome XD

For any sad souls who don't know what I'm talking about, I'm having a crazy family stories contest. Read this post for details!

Today the sermon was cool. Our pastor compared the different styles of faith, to the way we play in the pool!

Are you the kind of person who jumps right in?
Or are you one of those people who steps in one step at a time?
Or maybe you're someone who just sits on the edge and dangles their feet in the water?

That's how it is with faith and God. Some people just want to dive right in! They want all of God, more of God, they're so excited!

Some people are more slow-moving. They don't take things all at once, they like to ease in and explore God little by little. They're more cautious.

Then there are some people who only want a very little bit of God. Just enough to keep them headed to Heaven and away from Hell. They don't necessarily want God all up in their business, but he's a good hobby. They just want to feel the cool pool water, but not much else.

The first and second styles are just different, I think, but there's something to watch out for in the third. We don't want to be those people who want "just enough" of God. We should want to dive in, or at least eventually be surrounded by God's power!

After all, when you look around the pool, who's having the most fun? The jumper-inners, or the foot-danglers? XD

~Kendra

Take Heart!

"In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." ~ John 16:33

There's almost something mystical about that verse, isn't there? Maybe it's just me. But doesn't it sound like something a fantasy hero or God out of a book would say? Something fantastic and eye-opening and magical. Something important the hero's mentor tells him, or something the heroine finds written on an ancient stone. Just goes to show you, God is so much cooler than our coolest creations.

I just sit here and read that verse over and over. It's so powerful. Think of all your troubles. All the little ones, all the big ones, all the secret ones, all the public ones. Can you beat them? Maybe not. Can you fix them? Maybe not. Maybe you can't overcome them, maybe they're overcoming you. But guess what?

TAKE HEART! Jesus has overcome the world!

That doesn't mean you'll never have trouble. It means that you can be sure that whatever your trouble is, Jesus is bigger.

Anything that bothers you here and now is okay. They might be real troubles, things that are worth being troubled over. But Jesus has already defeated them. He's Jesus. He's GOD. He's got your back--before you even need it.

So next time you're stressing, next time you just know there's nothing to be done, think about this.

TAKE HEART! Jesus has overcome the WORLD!

~Kendra

God Day

1 Corinthians 10:13

"No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it."

The God of Loser, Failure and Jerk

There was a guest pastor at my church today, and he was interesting. It was extremely difficult to follow his line of thought, and he went off on so many bunny trails, but I got a few random good things from his sermon. My favorite was this:

In the Bible, God is often referred to as "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob". If you think about those three people, Abraham left a lot of things unfinished, or didn't finish them right. You could kind of see him as...well...a little bit of a loser.

But Isaac came behind him and picked up where he left off. God has placed Isaacs in our life to help us out. Of course, Isaac was kind of a wussy who didn't really fix things a whole lot either...He couldn't even finish was was already started a lot of times! What a failure!

Then you have Jacob, who was the go-get-'em type. He liked to seize the moment, which was sometimes great, but sometimes ended badly. God has placed some Jacobs in our lives to help us live in the moment, too. Then again, Jacob's rash attitude earned the reputation for being a tiny bit of a jerk...

So, basically, all three of these guys kind of failed. Abraham never finished anything, Isaac never finished anything right, and Jacob was just too out-there sometimes.

And that's when Joseph comes in. Joseph did EVERYTHING right! He stayed close to God, he was brave, he was strong, he became second-in-command of Egypt, he saved his entire nation! Joseph picked up with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had stopped and he tied everything together. Joseph was awesome!

So...wait.

Why doesn't the Bible say "the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph"?

Our God is the God of the underdogs :) God is on the "losers" side. Thank goodness! We're all "losers" from time to time! Our God isn't just the God of the rich, famous and successful. God is a personal God who's rooting for all the "jerks", "losers", and "failures" right along with the "winners"!

Now, of course, all those titles are in quotation marks, because are any of us really "losers", etc.? No. We might act like jerks or losers sometimes, but, guess what?

God doesn't make losers!

We're all winners in the long run, but just to show us that he's on our side even when we look bad, God calls him self "the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob".

I thought that was kind of interesting. What did you think?

Just really quick, I want to share a link to a cool song that Kyle showed me. He finds cool music like this and sends it to me. I usually (actually always) love it.

This song is called Preliator, and the words are in LATIN!! How cool is that? If you could understand them, it'd be even better...lols XD I found the lyrics, though, so if anyone besides me feels like translating, here they are:

Hosana Meus
Fortuna deus
Aeterna Teus
Mystre, Morte, Sancte Pior

Fortuna hosana deus
Legionus ab comae
Fortune fortuna equis
Ad pugnatoris in veritae
Hossana meus
Fortuna dues
Protego causa
In sanctus

Aeternus praetor
Firmitas semper
Coryphaeus
Rex Regis universe
(Prosay solis hosanna
Protego sanctus causa
Padre illuminata
Gloria in resurrectem
Gloria in unum diem)

Terra tenebrae
Telluris malus
Quisere pere curiatus
Genitor edo
In ex domino
Patris illuminata
Rex Regis universe

(Prosay solis hosanna
Protego sanctus causa
Padre illuminata
Gloria in resurrectem
Padre alluminata
Gloria in unum diem)

Lacrimosa, lacrimosa
In ex dominum

Actually, I feel an award coming on...See if you can translate any one section of this. You can use Google if you want to, but try it without first. If you're even moderately successful, let me know in a comment! Hail all the fellow language geeks! :)

Mary and Martha: God's Custom-Made Love

So, today was definitely a cool day.

1. Cavender came to my church.
2. The sermon really spoke to me.
3. I had the first play practice.

I'll talk about the second cool thing last; it'll be my thing for God Day.

So, Cavender came to my church today! That was cool. He said he really liked the music, which is my favorite, too. I think our church really does have awesome music, and the band members are all really into.

Play practice went well, I think. We just did a read-through of the script and listened to the songs on a CD. Mushu (the little dragon) is played by a girl who definitely does it justice. The girl who plays Mulan is awesome. The guy who plays Captain Shang (Shang + Mulan = falling in love, duh ;D) is pretty good. He can sing pretty well. If he can just hide that southern drawl a little...Lol! No, really, he did fine. Mulan's father is...not good, and neither is the Emperor. I think the guys were just nervous, though. And it was the very first read through.

I'm, just in case you didn't know this, doing the voice for a big Hun puppet -.- Lols, I'm okay with it now, though. I'm also in the Ensamble (yay for singing and dancing with everyone else), and a hairdresser. I forgot to mention that last night. The hairdresser is going to be my favorite, probably. It's a tiny part with no real lines, but in a song, a have a quick singing-line all my myself, and then some with the other hairdressers and stuff. I picked out a couple of harmony parts, so I'm looking forward to being able to do them. I really hope I get a harmony part and not just the melody...
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God Day!

So, the sermon today was about Lazarus. Let me just do a quick run-through of this story. It helps me to do that. So, Jesus and his diciples are just kind of hanging around, and a messenger comes and says to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick."

The messenger is talking about Lazarus. Lazarus and his sisters Martha and Mary are good friends of Jesus', so they figured Jesus would want to know that Lazarus was sick. Really sick. Like, about-to-die sick.

Instead of going right to Lazarus' house, Jesus is just kind of like, "Oh, yeah, okay" and he hangs out in the little town where he is for a few more days.

Finally, he says to his diciples, "Okay, let's go see Lazarus. He's fallen asleep, and we'll just go wake him up."

The diciples are like, "Uh, but isn't sleep probably the best thing for him?"

Jesus: "I mean he's dead."

They go to see Lazarus, and when they're close to his house, Lazarus' sister Martha comes out and says to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died. But I know that even now, God will give you whatever you want."

She's pretty much saying, "I know you're the Messiah, so why didn't you DO SOMETHING?"

She's kind of mad. She's like, if you're so amazing and powerful, why didn't you stop this from happening? Why didn't you FIX IT?

*cough* That might sound just a little familiar...maybe...

May 24th: "Then four years later, God takes him away. Uh, ouch. Thanks a lot, God."

July 17th: "WHY COULDN'T I HAVE HAD BROTHERS? IS ONE BROTHER TOO MUCH TO ASK? ONE? ONE??"

August 2nd: "Why had God taken Him away from me? Why on Earth would a good God do that? It's like someone punching you in the face."

March 23rd: "God created the Heavens and the Earth, surely he could give me my older brother!!"

...

Hmm.

A little later, the other sister, Mary falls at the feet of Jesus and says, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died."

The way she says it is more like, "How could you be so unkind to your friends?"

Don't you love me, God? Why would you let this happen? Don't you care?

Of course, Jesus ends up raising Lazarus from the dead, but only after he meets both sisters where they are. With Martha, he takes the logical route.

Martha's argument is a simple Modus Ponens:

If you are the Messiah, then you could have saved my brother.
You are the Messiah.
Therefore, you could have saved my brother. (And yet you didn't.)

Jesus talks to Martha about how her brother will rise again. Martha is kind of like, "Yeah, thanks, I know he'll rise again at the ressurection and all."

Jesus says, "I am the ressurection!"

He's like, Martha, listen to me! I AM the ressurection! It's me, it's here! Your brother will rise again.

Mary comes to Jesus not from the logical and theological angle, but from the emotional, friend-to-friend angle. Jesus cries with her. He's really sad! Lazarus was his friend! He's upset. He cries with Mary.

Jesus meets us right where we are. Right where we need to be met. Whether it's logical or emotional, or somewhere in between.

As my pastor said in the sermon this morning (ALL of this is borrowed STRAIGHT from him, by the way), "God's love is not one size fits all, or most. God custom fits his love for us."

That was a great sermon anyway, but add on my whole issue with God not giving me a brother, then giving me one and taking him a way, and the sermon is flat out AMAZING.

It COULD NOT have been more spot on. I come to God from Martha's angle, as demonstrated in my post excerpts. God, you created the Heavens and the Earth. And you didn't give me a brother?? If you're so great, fix this injustice!

I also come to God from Mary's angle a little. God, if you love me, why would you do something so unkind? Why dangle my life's desire in front of my face, and snatch it back? Don't you care for me?

I know this has been a very long post, and sort of jumbled and probably at parts unclear, but I just needed to get in writing how much this morning's sermon hit me. Everything was exactly fit to ME! This story is, literally, ANCIENT, and I've heard it, probably also literally, A HUNDRED TIMES, and it's never been so clear to me.

Every detail fits me. It's even about losing a brother and being mad at God because he could have prevented it and didn't.

It takes my breath away, y'all.

I could elaborate more, but I know you must be tired of the ranting, so I'll stop. I just want you to know that I KNOW that God is watching out for us. He knows what he's doing. And every once in a while, he might throw an tired ol' Bible story at you and revel a whole new meaning.

Thanks, God.

Five Days in One

Sorry. I've been really busy with Bible school and Fourth of July stuff, and frankly, I just didn't feel like posting.

I still have nothing to say. I'm having posting block or something. Well, since I missed Thursday through Sunday, I'll just do those specialty posts:

Thursday, Name Day:

Let's do the most popular names, shall we?

Most Popular Top Ten Girls' Names:
1. Emma (means "universe" or something)
2. Emily (Nothing to say.)
3. Madison (Wisconsin?)
4. Isabelle (Love it.)
5. Abagail (Don't like that name just a whole lot. Reminds me of the 1800's. I like Abby, though.)
6. Olivia (Reminds me of an olive.)
7. Ava (Love this name.)
8. Chloe/Khloe (Kewl.)
9. Sophia (Means "wisdom" or something.)
10. Addison (Pretty much like Madison, only someone drops their "M"s.)

Most Popular Top Ten Boys' Names:
1. Jacob (And Esau ;))
2. Noah (And the ark. Seriously, can't believe this is making a comeback.)
3. Aiden (Means "fire".)
4. Jackson (Yay for surnames as first names!)
5. Jack (And Jill...)
6. Logan (My last name...)
7. Ryan (I like this name. But I think it would be a cute girl's name, too, for some reason.)
8. Matthew (Okay.)
9. Jayden (Hey, I made this up!)
10. Joshua (Generic, but I like it.)

How interesting. Hey, wait a minute! I thought I made up the name Jayden! I thought *I* invented that! -_- Apparently not. Oh well. Just goes to show I make up pretty sweet names, right? Lol ;)

My favorite girls' names out of those would be Isabelle, Ava, Khloe, and Sophia.

My favorite boys' names out of those would be Aiden (it means "fire"), Jackson, Jayden, and Joshua. I like "J" names :D

Okay, Friday, Challenge Day:

Uh. Okay, read a chapter book in a day. Good luck :P

Saturday, Carpe Noctem Day:

You could just go read Carpe Noctem, you know.

Sunday, God Day:

Oh, boy. Well, here's something. I'll tell my favorite Bible point from Bible school this week: God is with us (FEAR NOT!). And he is. All the time, everywhere. How cool is that??

Today, Monday, Word Day:

Ooh, I actually like my word from my Word of the Day calendar! It's "atrabilious", which means given to or marked by melancholy.

Pretty much it means gloomy. Cool word, right?

Well, in the words of Bugs Bunny, that's all for now, folks!

That is One Long Word

Today was Day 1 of VBS (vacation Bible school)! I'm a crew leader this year, which is fun and awesome and a little nerve-wracking (not too bad) at times. I'm kind of a co-crew leader with another girl my age named Stacey. In our crew we have six little boys and then two sixth grade girls. They're a pretty interesting bunch :)

After VBS, which is 9am-noon, we (my family) ate a quick lunch and then went to the old house to clear out some more junk -_- Our realtor came over and gave us some pointers about what to do to make the house more appealing, too. Sounds like we'll be painting and getting new carpet. Luckily, it also sounds like we'll be getting a professional to do it, so we don't have to, lol! I know, that's probably pretty selfish and lazy for me not to want to do that.

Being at the old house was kind of hard for me. I've been missing it A LOT lately, so to go see it and miss it in "person" was difficult. We had the best yard in the whole world, I loved my view (best in the house), I loved the upstairs, etc. I almost cried like three times. Never when anyone was around, though. If my family knew how much I wished we'd never moved, they'd be upset.

Yes, I do actually wish we'd never moved.

*spoiled bratty complaint alert*

I didn't realize it, but I had everything I wanted at the old house. Yes, it was too small to do much, but it had so much character! So much happened in that house. The old house feels like an old friend that I'm deserting, and this new house feels like a stuck-up, colorless place. Our new house has no character. It's brand-new, so nothing has happened to it yet. That might be a neat thing if I were staying longer. It might be fun to watch my house go through all its first adventures, but I'm only gonna be here for three years anyway, and then I'm off to college.

You can't know how awesome my old house was. I can't even explain it. I'm not even gonna try. I can't even fathom why no one will buy it. It's the best lil' house ever. I miss it t :(

We had pizza for dinner, which was pretty good, but now I feel a little unsettled, so we'll see, lols :) Lately I've been worrying about everything all the time. GOSH, I thought I was past all this!! *sigh*

Today is Word Day.

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I guess you expect me to post a word, don't you? Okay :D I'm going to try to pick on that WON'T lead to a Carpe Noctem style rant. Um, what about...

Okay how's this. I'll do two words since I won't go into a rant:

The most commonly used English word: the

The longest English word is 189,819 letters long and it's:





...





Would you believe me if I told you that it was too long for Blogger to post without freezing up? Because it is. It's so long you can't believe it unless you see it, so I'm determined you're going to see it. Let me just post this, and I'll try a seperate post for that word.

Peace out.

P.S. Oh, yeah, and CARPE DIEM!

Driving with God

So far this has been a really strange morning. But good strange. I think.

I woke up a little before eight, which wasn't exactly ideal since I was planning on being out until at least nine and I'd had a bad night's sleep. It was one of those nights when you just keep waking up all tangled in the sheets every hour or so. *moan* But I couldn't get back to sleep, and it was a really beautiful day, so I just opened the blinds and read in the bed for a while. At nine, I went upstairs and said good morning to my mom, came back downstairs and put on some ripped jeans, and went out to weed my little garden. I was in an uncharacteristically good mood.

My garden is doing REALLY well! Nothing is eating the leaves, everything looks very healthy, and they growing like...well, weeds, lol! I'm growing nine tomatoe plants, three red pepper plants, and four squash and zucchini plants.

I got all the little weeds out in like ten minutes and came back inside. I got dressed, made my bed, straightened up my room, and then--you might wanna sit down for this--I did my laundry.

I KNOW! I actually did it without being nagged for days on end!

Then, I ate a bowl of cereal, and came down here and started checking emails and blogs and stuff.

Oh, what a beautiful morning.

Only now I'm all stuffed up and sneezing because my mom made me sweep outside. *shudders* I don't mind sweeping the front walk and porch, but the back patio is really big with tons of beams where spiders string their webs all over. And those giant misquito things are all over. I HATE THOSE THING!! They're actually called the "crane fly", but they look just like enormous misquitos. EEEEEK! If I had to pick one bug to become exstinct, that would be the one I'd pick. Pictures:
1. http://schools-wikipedia.org/2006/images/70/7028.jpg
2. http://extension.missouri.edu/explore/qa/images/cranefly.jpg
3. http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1315/542599649_56bd0af6c6.jpg?v=0

EEEEEEK!! JUST LOOKING AT THEM GIVES ME THE CREEPS!!

Anyway, time for my Bible thing that I missed yesterday:
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Okay, I actually came up with this on my own; I didn't hear it in youth group or anything.

It occured to me during driver's ed driving that driving with the instructor is a little bit like living life with God.

Now, I'm not saying that my instructor was all-powerful or anything, haha. It's just that the situation is kind of familiar.

I mean, we just live our lives, making our own decisions. (I drive around, controlling the turns, and stuff like that.) For the most part, God will leave us alone and let us do our own thing. (The instructor gives guidlines, but he lets me drive and make my own little mistakes.) But, I know that if I get into real trouble, God won't let me down. He's always there with his "emergency break" ready to save the day if things get out of hand.

Practice driving really is a lot like life with God. God tells us what he thinks we should do, the best routes to take, and when to start breaking. Sometimes we listen, but sometimes we think we know better than God. Of course, when we try our own way, and God lets us, it usually doesn't turn out quite like we thought it would, and God ends up gently taking the wheel or applying the break in order to save our butts.

There's also that trust thing going on. At first, I was really nervous about driving, and I always double-checked what the instructor was saying. He would tell me the way was clear, but I would always look anyway just to see for myself. At first, that's how we are with God. We want to trust him and everything, but it's like, "Um, yeah, let me just make sure that fits with MY plan...". By the last day of driving, the instructor could just say, "Move over into the left lane" and I would immediately flick on the turn signal, even if I didn't see the lane change yet.

That's how we should get with God. Just totally trusting him to know what's best for us--because he does! God loves us, and he's always looking out for our best interests. He lets us make our own mistakes, but he'll always be there to help us out when things get crazy.
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On Wednesday, I'll be leaving to go to a practicum. That's this three day workshop kind of thing that's for Classical Conversations, the homeschooling program I do. A bunch of people who do Classical or who want to can come and hear people speak about it. It's really organized and all that stuff. My mom is one of the main speakers (she's awesome ;D), and I'm going to help in the camps.

There are four different camps that the moms (or dads) who are coming to the practicum can leave their kids at. Last year I helped in the 6-8 year olds in ArtGeo camp, which is pretty much what it sounds like: Geography disguised as Art. This year, I'm going to help in the 9-13 year olds camp. Their camp changes every year. Last year it was Trig (trigonometry), so I was like, hahahahaha NO. But this year it's going to a Logic camp, so I was like YESSSSSSS!!! Logic was one of my favorite classes in Challenge B (eighth grade). I love it.

So, anyway, what I was trying to say is this: we're leaving on Wednesday, and the practicum is Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. That pretty much means that I won't be able to post from Thursday until Sunday. :( I'm going to miss Name Day. Darn. But, I just wanted to let y'all know that so when it looks like I've fallen off the face of the Earth, you can know that I haven't; I'm just helping 9-13 year olds with Ps and Qs and hypothetical syllogisms :D

I am a nerd.

And I don't mind :P

Maybe I'll do the Name on Wednesday or something. *shrugs*

Well, I'll be going now! Talk to you later! Carpe diem! Get outside! It's gorgeous! (At least it is here...)

Questioning God (not an original thought, just original wording)

Okay, so, let's say you've gone hiking. You're just walking along sweating and swatting gnats and hoping ticks aren't dropping on you when all the sudden this random guy pops up and invites you to his little cabin over there. Since this is a hypothetical situation, you agree. The guy leads you back to the cabin, and you both sit down on his porch and have a glass of lemonade.

Then he announces that he is Jesus, aka God (derr ;) ).

You can ask him one question. One question. ONE QUESTION.

Now, I know some of you don't believe in God. I know that at least three of you are opposed to the idea of God. Well, just pretend. This is not going to be a conversion thing, it's just an interesting exercise we did in youth group, so you're safe.

Now. What's your one question?

Let's think about it. You're face to face with God, and you can ask him anything you want. It probably won't be "Whose idea was it to make misquitos anyway? It was the Holy Spirit, wasn't it? I knew it. He's so transparent."

*clears throat*

Anyway.

So, think of your question.

Like, now. Stop reading and THINK OF YOUR QUESTION. Make it good. This is your one shot to take advantage of Mr. Omniscient.

Now that you (theoretically) have your question, here comes the interesting part: That's the thing that's holding you back from God.

Even if you're already a Christian, there are little things that make us hesitant to commit ourselves to God. I have about a million little things and maybe you do, too, but the one question you ask will probably show you what your biggest "problem" with God is. Interesting, isn't it?

(Here comes the part where I get personal and start RANTING. I'll understand if you want to stop reading right here.)

I didn't say my question outloud in youth group, because I'm sometimes closed like that. Somehow it's so much easier to write my true feelings than to say them to someone's face. *shrugs*

My question is going to seem silly. It's going to seem stupid, childish, unimportant, and almost petty, but here goes:

So, God; why didn't you give me an older brother?

And that's it. After I had my question in mind, that's when the youth leader was like, "The question you would ask God is what's holding you back. That doubt is the main reason why it's hard to commit yourself to God." (Or, you know, something like that.) And I thought to myself,

Oh.

That's it. That's true.

That really is what's holding me back.

I may have said this before, but bear with me (if you're still with me at all). As long as I can remember, I've wanted an older brother. It's what I pray for every night, what I wish for one every first star, what I read some books for. Almost as soon as I could talk, that's what I asked my parents for. They explained that God hadn't given them a boy first. He had given them ME. And I, at two years old, was like,

SO? ADOPT.

Well, THAT never happened. And ever since, I've been wishing I had an older brother. In some ways, I think all my problems would be solved if I did. Like, I really think that. Everything that bothers me or is hard for me would be solved or at least helped if I had an older brother.

I want an older brother so bad I sometimes get crazy-jealous around people who have older brothers. I tell Maddie all the time how lucky she is to have Ryan, and never to take him for granted. I DREAM about older brothers. I write the dreams down so I can read them later. I read over certain passages of certain books on a regular basis and try to imagine that I'm the girl in the story, the girl with the older brother.

I'm telling you, it's the one thing I would give anything for.

I can't think of ANY GOOD REASONS for God NOT to have given me an older brother. WHY DIDN'T HE? Having an older brother would have solved so many of my life's problems and caused none. How is it possibly better for me to be brotherless? It doesn't make any sense to me. At all.

Joseph had ELEVEN brothers. Ten of them older.

Would it really have made a difference if he had had NINE? God could have given me the extra.

*sigh* I know it has nothing to do with God "running out of" older brothers. He didn't give me one for a reason. I just really wish I knew what it was.

Wanna know the most disgusting thing about this whole thing?

God sorta gave me an older brother.

Yeah. When I was eight. This guy came along who was just like the older brother I'd always wanted. For the first time in my life, I was really happy. Everything was great. I was so happy. I was thrilled. Like never before, my life was complete. Nearly perfect.

Then four years later, God takes him away. His family decides they don't want to come to our church anymore. Like *THAT*, I never see him anymore.

Uh, ouch. Thanks a lot, GOD.

At least that's what it feels like to me.

*groans* Dang it, now I've gone and made it sound like I think God is this big, insensative jerk. I don't really think that. Not really. It's just that...well, I am sort of mad at God for not giving me the ONLY thing I wanted. God created the Heavens and the Earth, surely he could give me my older brother!!

And he could. But he didn't. Which tells me something:

There's a reason for it.

I sure don't know it, and I may never know, but there IS a reason, and it's all for the best. I just need to remember that.

So, what's your one question? What's keeping you from turning to God?

(Sorry about all the ranting. I feel really bad about blurting all that out now. But after taking all the trouble to type it, I think I'll just keep it. *sigh*)

P.S. *GASP* I have another follower! Emma, YOU ROCK!!

Endings

I know some of you like to write, so this might resonate with you :)

You know the feeling where you finally have a ending thought up for your character? You smile and think, "Yes! That's perfect!" and inwardly reassure your character that even though they're about to be eaten by six different mosters and have the love of their life threatened with death, the ending to their story is great.

I love to imagine my characters' endings. I make a lot of bad things happen to them, and it kills me, but I know it comes out just right. I mean, who doesn't love that warm, satisfied feeling when you read the last sentence in a book and just smile; everything happened exactly right. Not what you expected, and tons of terror between beginning and end, but everything turned out right.

Sometimes I feel like apologizing to my characters. I want to tell them to hang in there because I have things all worked out. For the best possible ending ever. And the bad guys totally GET IT in the end.

See, that's kind of how God is with us. He has my story (and yours) all thought out, with the ending just right! Bad things happen, but in the end, everything works out in the way it needs to, and the "bad guys" GET IT! Isn't that cool??

I love to think about it like that. I tend to be a huge worrier, so it's really calming to think that God has it all figured out anyway. My story is written, he's just kind of reading it now. He knows what's coming, and he laughs with me, cries with me, and knows that in the end, he's got the very best ending all picked out for me.

It's almost exciting. I mean, don't you love those books that have your stomach churning with anticipation? The main character is caught in a terrible situation, and you just can't imagine how the writer is going to get him out.

My life is a page-turner, and so is yours. Only God knows whats really goin' on, and he can't wait for us to find out, too! I almost picture a little boy jumping up and down saying, "See?? This is my favorite part!! I told you it turned out okay!" Isn't that cool?

So next time you're having a terrible day, or something really bad happens, just remember, God has your story all written, and it ends just right.

Been There Done That and Allergies

Okay, I'm not really sure where exactly in the Bible this is, but at church today, we sang a song about God being everlasting; how he doesn't grow weary, and how he's completely all-powerful. And so I got to thinking, "Well, isn't that great? He can't know how I feel then, can he? Mr. I-Can-Blow-Up-The-World-With-One-Word can't possibly understand my struggle to grasp physical science!"

And then I had another thought!

THAT'S WHY HE SENT JESUS, BOZO!

See, that's why my God is so cool! He's like three in one! The all-powerful, world-creating God who listens to your every word (only not in a creepy way :D), the Holy Spirit who can help you randomly when you're in a tight spot without you even having to ask, and finally, JESUS, who might be my favorite "piece" of God. He totally gave up paradise to come down to Earth and experience life WITH us! Aside from taking all the penalty for our being sinners obviously, I think one of the most important reasons for Jesus coming to Earth was so that he could tell us that he knows how we feel.

God is cool, but Jesus has BEEN THERE. He's been made fun of, gotten super hungry, had his parents not understand him, been deserted by his closest friends, felt that frustration when you're trying to explain something and people JUST AREN'T GETTIN' IT, and ALL THAT STUFF! Jesus has been through, like, everything!

So, when I pray now, I don't have to be all stuck up thinking that God is so sheltered and he doesn't even know what I'm going through. Now I can just remember that, well, Jesus does. He's a classic case of Been There Done That And Got the Robe.

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Well, it's kinda late, and I'm really tired, so I think I'm just gonna be out! Oh, but last night and this morning, my eye puffed up because of allergies! Yeah, it sucks: I'm allergic to pollen. *sigh* Oh well, must enjoy summer anyway! I went down to the beach again, but I cut my foot going barefoot ALL DAY yesterday, so walking around a ton kinda hurt :( And now I have this creepy rash on my left thigh from who-knows-what, and it's freaking me out! Well, not totally, just a little. Mostly I just don't want it to get worse...so, pray for my allergies, cross your fingers, whatever works for you! ;) Carpe this aestas diem!

Ideas

Wow! Today is absolutely gorgeous! The leaves on the trees are almost "full grown", and the pollen isn't TOO bad. It's also about eighty degrees. Ah, finally. My kind of weather ;) I took my dog and we went for a jog down the trails! She seems about as out of shape as I am ;) I don't know how many miles we went; we just took each trail behind our house twice. It felt great aside from the fact that it was super hot, and it gave me a headache. I dunno why, but exercizing when it's really hot gives me a killer headache. I probably get dehydrated or something.

My grandma came yesterday, and she is staying until Monday. She and my mom and Lizzy (my 12 year old sister) went shopping at around eleven and got back around three. The three of them could shop in every shopping center within reach and not be sick of it. I go in a store, head straight to my department, pick out the first ten things that I like, buy five of them, and GO HOME, lol!

Now that the "burden" of school is gone, I feel two things: really free, and really lazy/bored. I don't know what to do with my time now. *sigh* This happens every summer. I spend most of the summer not doing anything, and then when school comes back, I think "Dangit, I should have enjoyed summer while it lasted." It's another one of those carpe diem things, I guess. The more I blog, the more the title of this blog seems to be perfect.

Lizzy and my dad are going out on our little sailboat now. I don't like sailboats a ton. They're okay, and it can be really nice and peacful sailing, but in general I'm more of a speed boat kind of person. I love going fast! We have some friends who have a great boat, and they used to take us out like all the time during the summer. Then, they sort of stopped and starting going with other people, and last summer, they didn't take us at all :( Hopefully this year will be different.

I want to make this the best summer ever, but I don't really know how. Getting into shape is definitely a good place to start, I think. Eating right, exercizing, blah blah blah, you know. I recently discovered that I actually LIKE salad after all, so that's cool :D Sorry. Not trying to go all healthy on you. Just saying.

I dunno if anyone has noticed, but I didn't post anything on Carpe Noctem last Saturday. I don't know why exactly. I thought about it, but I just...didn't. Not many people read it (which is okay), so if I want to post something that I really want people to read, maybe I should post it here instead. Maybe I'll make Saturdays "Carpe Noctem Day" or something. (Lol, Seize the Night Day!) I have all these ideas for blogs, but I already have two, so I probably shouldn't. Maybe I'll just have different days for stuff. Like, a super short specialty post ever day, then just a regular post. What do you think?

Ideas for Specialty Posts:
1. Quotes
2. Pictures
3. Word of the Day (Week?)
4. Challenge
5. Poem or Short Story (hmm...I dunno. I might switch this for Name of the Week or something)
6. Bible Verse of the Week (I could do this on Sunday)
7. Carpe Noctem

There, something for every day. Do y'all think this is a good idea?