Let's Make a Weekend of It

This weekend I went to Kutztown to visit some friends. It involved piercings, spending time with my man, new & old friends, "lunch meat casserole", Man on Fire, a Matt Reffie original sermon, and sushi. Getting away from the midstate for a few days was hugely rejuvenating. My life has been lacking challenges as of late, and it was a breath of fresh air to get away from home.

On Sunday morning Reffie preached on engagement - in particular, Jesus' parable on "the kingdom of heaven is like a bunch of bridesmaids waiting for their friend's groom to show up." Half of them didn't have enough fuel for their torches, so they went to the store to get some and ended up missing the party. Engagement isn't about waiting around for your wedding day, it's about preparing: calling the caterer, making hair appointments, getting facials, working out to look good in your gown [and out of it, afterward]; renting a tux, working hard, saving money, preparing a home for your bride. Jesus told His disciples that He was going to His Father's house to prepare a room for us. He's getting ready for us, His bride. Are we getting ready for Him?

That sermon was refreshingly challenging & convicting. Thanks, Cornerstone.

I spent today resting after a crazy weekend, and in studying the Word, especially in preparation for girls' small group on Wednesday. Our discussion topic is prayer. What would be your input about it?

For your listening pleasure, a beautiful snippet of a John Piper talk:

That was good.

So, as it turns out, celebrating an anniversary can be pretty incredible. Greg and I had ours on Friday, and he came for the weekend to lavish his affection on me. I had work until 6 on Friday; I'd told him to meet me at home after that, but he decided to show up and surprise me anyway, after giving my sister a ride to work so I could switch the car over to her and he could take me home. A single red rose was on my seat in his car when I got in. When we got home, he snuck inside before me, and let me in to more roses and lit candles on the dinner table, which he set with an amazing meal of salmon, squash, rice, hummus, and olives [all my favorites!] After that, he pulled out a set of 6 straws of different colors, and I got to pick a color, which matched with the following activity for the weekend. First, he gave me some gifts - a book about relationship/communication stuff called His Needs, Her Needs, a bracelet, and a new Bible: exactly the same as my old one, but with a quality leather cover [this means I don't need to re-memorize where to find verses on pages, visually]. Best ever!! Then I got my chance to give him presents, which were a whole buncha photos from our Maine vacation that I had printed and framed, as well as a book and a worship CD. After that, we baked brownies together, and ate ice cream while watching The Never Ending Story. :-D

On Saturday I went to work while Greg drove around looking for photo opportunities. However, there were a lot of people working, so I didn't get to do anything and it was boring. Greg showed up early to pick me up and was sneaking around smelling things and making me nervous 'cause I was talking to customers. Then he took me to get sushi for dinner, we picked up Dan who'd returned from Iowa, and the rest of the evening we cleaned up our mess from Friday night and read together.

The next day, we went to be, um, teacher helpers? for the high school Sunday school class, and then went to church and after that was the first young adult group hangout time - a lunch, outside; it was fun. Helicopters can be distracting while you're eating on the deck, though. That afternoon, I napped while Greg watched a movie, and then after Nan made us dinner we went to see Fireproof, which was amazing and rather better than I'd expected. If you see it, stay for the credits; they're quite amusing.

Well, he left yesterday after taking me to work in the afternoon. Sooo, that was my fantastic weekend. Hoping to go to Kutztown next weekend, to get out of the house and see some school-type friends.

Work was actually really good today, because I had a lot to keep me busy. I'm so task-oriented!! I got to re-label lots of things, do a bunch of returns and some furniture purchases; one lady had Jesse and I taking different paintings and holding them over different tables, so she could figure out what she wanted. She was very kind about it, and we had quite an adventure going up and down ladders and trying to re-hang the canvasses. I do miss working at the Maps Department, though!!

What's going on?

Things becoming more constant:

• earning some money
• hanging out with youth group kids
• singing
• drinking tea [thank you, autumn]
• obsessively reading SCL
• wondering why the temptation to regret decisions and re-face them again is trying to squeeze into my line of vision
• wakening to some strange dreams. hm.
  

It's time to get excited about sweaters and deliciously comfortable socks. Cool, but not yet slushy cold - fall in PA is a good time.

Working in retail is actually pretty good. When your store is filled with luxury items and your shoppers are pleasant, upper-middle class ladies, people are happy customers. Pier 1 may be the opposite of the DMV. It smells great and makes me want to have a place of my own so I can collect glassware and decorate with incense burners and candlescapes.

Anyways, my rebellious self is grumbling and clunking like the old furnace in the basement of my heart. I should be so content, so joyful, so ecstatic with what God has given me, and yet when I see opportunities to even take a peek at other stuff, it's like I'm camping out in the parking lot at the paper mill, whose odor should make me puke. God's stuff is so much better than any of the crap I'm sniffing.

So He's called me to lead this small group for the girls in my church's youth group. I'm completely inadequate, unprepared, and unqualified to lead them in applicable Bible discussions. Let's see what He does with this...

I want this one

As a person entering the workforce, one of my first goals is to earn enough money to buy some sort of transportation. I'd been thinking about a Subaru, but now I'm sure.

lately

So here's what I've been up to:

• balanced working and school and got a 4.0 my last semester
• graduated from Kutztown University with my BFA
• wrote these things on my resume
  
• had a long summer at Krislund [still fighting bitterness about that]
• went to Maine with my man and had an incredibly relaxing/fun/wonderful vacation that made up for the hardships of the summer
• now living at home, searching for a job so i can be a real person
• looking forward to being the maid of honor at [one of] my best friend's wedding in 9 days
  

At least now I have plenty of time to read. I haven't had that since high school. And I'm trying to be patient about the next 2 years of my life.

it's 2008!

Hah, this is my college graduation year. Is it a bad thing that I find people asking me, "What's next after college?" to be a mean thing to say?

It's clear that God's given me a heart for kids, but I'm in a season of figuring out what He wants me to do with that.

I think I'll spend this year cultivating a greater passion for Him and greater compassion for His people. I know I was lacking that in '07.

Yet if you devote your heart to Him
and stretch out your hands to Him,
if you put away the sin that is in your hand
and allow no evil to dwell in your tent,
then you will lift up your face without shame;
you will stand firm and without fear.
You will surely forget your trouble,
recalling it only as waters gone by.
Life will be brighter than noonday,
and darkness will become like morning.
You will be secure, because there is hope;
you will look about you and take your rest in safety.
[Job 11:13-18]

Why did everyone get engaged/married in 2007? Does anyone else find the overabundance of weddings [planned or taken place] a little strange?

This semester I'm looking forward to taking only one 'real' class, to having time to spend building relationships with newer friends, to working in the maps department of the library, to expanding my culinary expertise, and to getting the crap out of Kutztown University.

Oh, and LOST comes back on once more... just to torture me...

"Kiss the crap outta that girl, Ted!!"

oh my gosh.

My dear friend Liz has made an incredible point. We idolize television, movies, entertainment because it enables us to passively waste our time and to not put our hearts out there and love people. Liz told me that she sees television taking away our ability to love, and if we're making it our idol, then that is true.

I know it's true in my own life, because I feel so much more free, more alive in the summers when I'm working at camp, in the woods, no electronic nonsense to interfere with my friendships [which develop so much more deeply and quickly there than anywhere else] or my spiritual growth. Then, I come back to Kutztown and am satisfied [well, not really, just too passive to argue] with spending "quality time" with friends in renting movies and laying around. It's much more difficult in winter, I suppose, when calling up folks for a game of Ultimate Frisbee is less probable due to the weather, but when I think back to how many times this semester I gathered with friends for, say, a board game [2 - RISK at P. Nate's house and Apples to Apples at the Cliffs of Insanity], and then I think of the untold instances of settling for passive, unsociable movie-watching [watching football games on television together can still be a social event] - it just breaks my heart that I myself am not loving these people, not putting myself in situations where I'll actually talk to them and get to know them.

Maybe we just live in a society filled with hardened hearts who have no desire to open up to others and to create real friendships.

I guess what I'm saying is that I wanna turn off the idiot box.