"Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts" - Hebrews 3:7-8
"See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first." - Hebrews 3:12-14
This whole situation is still not getting better. It's affecting my body; I feel a physical weight pushing down on my spine, I feel muscularly weak, and I don't feel like eating at all. And I'm dehydrated.
The weekend, however, was great. Quite a refreshing time to be carefree and adventurous with my dear Wallace. We did a Fountains of UMD tour, trespassed, frolicked [in a special way] through the thunderstorm, and I met some new friends. Saturday was Maryland Day, so campus was v. crowded. We ate Chick fil-A!
That night we slept in cardboard boxes on the Mall by the Washington Monument for Displace Me - a media/awareness event held by Invisible Children [dot com], where they showed us video testimonials of folks in Uganda who are in the displacement camps where the government put them to keep them "safe" from the rebel army. Last year they held a "Global Night Commute" which was basically reenacting what the Ugandan children do every night to avoid being abducted by the rebel army to be made into child soldiers or sex slaves. This year we were made to experience what they deal with in the displacement camps, except we had clean water and no AIDS or malaria. We had a 6-hour fast, and then were only allowed to eat water and saltine crackers. We called people and wrote to congressmen to spread the word in hopes of the U.S. or the U.N. doing something to bring peace to northern Uganda.
The next morning Wallace and I hit up Starbucks before church [how convenient to have one between dorm and campus], which was run by Maryland Christian Fellowship and was cool. We sang a "yee-haw" song.
Directly after lunch we got a call from Horatio, who had come to pick me up. So Wallace and I parted ways again. Hopefully we'll hang out again this summer - when we'll do even more crazy adventure-type things! Whee!!
The drive back with Brandon was good. It didn't even get dark until we got home. We stopped in Philly for supper with Y-von at a place called Brigid's. I got gnocchi in pesto, mm!! It was rather tasty. We also got to see her studio in this church; Ruben Ghenov also works there! How exciting! I hadn't seen Gali since he was a baby; what a cute kid!
I had a somewhat sleepless night, followed by weaving class, geometry quiz, crafts class, geometry class, glazing and then a chat. In some ways, I feel like Paul....
"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.
For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing.
Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord!" [Romans 7:15-25]
Thanks be to God indeed. Jesus will rescue me from this body of death. I want my sinful nature to die. I just hate sin so much I want it to be completely gone from my life; separated as far as the East is from the West. I know that I'm forgiven, I just want to sin no more. I won't be pressured into sinning anymore. It just burns a hole in my gut, like too many of those Warhead candies.
And I'm seeking counsel within friends. Sometimes it's hard for me to ask for help, so if you've got wisdom or advice about certain sorts of things, please just pour it upon me. If I'm not in the weaving studio this week, I'll be at the Chris House [need time in the chapel], or my phone is usually on if I'm not in class.
*le sigh*
And I feel like such a b*t*h for complaining about my stupid life problems when 5 year old kids in Uganda are being abducted from their starving, infected families to be forced to carry a gun that weighs nearly as much as they do. How do you feel about that?
oh, and pardon my french.
