Simmer Down.

I have been having all of the emotions.

This week I have been sad. (No need to get into all the gory details.) (Not that gory.)
I have been antsy. (On account of I like plans, and sometimes I don't know what God is planning.)
I have been peaceful. (Like a river, like the rain.)
I have been scared. (Again, with the plans.)
I have been at rest. (In the Lord's sovereignty.)
I have been silly. (Sort of my schtick.)
I have been pensive. (Not usually my schtick.)
I have been excited. (To find out what the Lord is brewing, for my heart and for my hands and for His glory.)

But right now takes the cake. Right now I am overjoyed. One of my very best friends, Haley LeighAnn Richter, just got the approval for Zimbabwe, meaning that she is finally, finally, in the Lord's sovereign timing, going to be an official missionary in Africa. Haley is a missions lady, and she belongs to the Lord, and she takes beautiful, breathtaking pictures, and most of all she has a heart that can fit almost anything inside of it. She loves with reckless abandon, which I envy. And the Lord is about to use all of these gifts and talents He has given her and all of her weaknesses in the way that she has anticipated since she was born into His family.
My cup is overflowing. I am overwhelmed in the glory of the Lord's favor. I am so happy to see this go down.
Anyway, pray for Haley. She's moving to Zimbabwe in August, and the Lord is brewing, brewing, brewing a mighty storm of His goodness.

Praise Him!

And this song is all I'm thinking: Love Him in the noontime.

Some Thursday Words.

I am not one to often just throw up quotes from people, or maybe I am, but Hemingway is quickly becoming my best friend, and competition is, perhaps maybe you could say, a vice of mine.

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. 

~Ernest Hemingway 

Opples & Banonos.

Things I am excited about:

1. The Maple Girls Bible Study beginning Thursday night. I am so excited about the girls who are coming and what we are doing. Praise Jesus for answering prayers.

2. I went to my first Mass with my friend Bea tonight. It was really cool. I can't believe I've gone almost twenty years without ever doing Mass. It was so cool to be a part.

3. I'm going to the Dominican Republic in March with my brother Logan. We are going to see the Littles, who are an amazing family pursuing the Lord and serving him in the DR. We would love it if you would pray for us. You don't know how much we would appreciate it. We even have a list if you need guidance in your prayers. Here she blows:

• The Little family as they continue to adjust to life in the Dominican and as they continue to develop relationships with the children they are teaching.
• Our ability to be an effective help and encouragement to the Littles in our time there.
• That we would walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which we are called, both leading up to this trip, on this trip, and in our lives in general.
• That we would have the humility to love in deed and love in truth.
• That this trip will be all and only about God’s glory.

4. Secret Church. Duh.

5. The fact that now, in my Greek class, my teacher has started just assigning Bible verses to translate for homework. It's so cool.

6. Apples. I am eating them like it's my job. They are just so delightful. What a glorious crunch!

7. Lastly I am excited about prayer. God answers it. Which just blows my mind. Prayer is such a beautiful privilege. It is such a delight. And something that I regularly realize anew is that I don't pray like I believe in the power of prayer, or even in the power of the Lord. But then I'll realize that however hopeless a case may seem, God is powerful enough to shift it entirely. Often I find myself in the face of an unsurmountable issue, for example abortion, and I feel so useless because I can't think of a thing to do to stop it. And then I realize that prayer is perhaps the most powerful thing I can do. So I am committing to spending more time in prayer, particularly for global and national issues. Boom.

Thanks. 

Nertz Is A Verb.

Today I was riding my scooter to work the desk at Maple, and my glasses kept fogging up because of the speed + the cold. Pretty dangerous. Also, we played Sardines last night for my beautiful friend Anneke's birthday. It was so intense and fun and then my friends and I played Nertz (or maybe Nerts) til all hours.

Morphed & Mindy.

Lately, I have been doing a really bad thing.

It is the thing of equating my future spouse with Jesus.

Note: I know that it is not guaranteed that I will have a spouse. I’m okay with that. I have, though, been feeling more and more called to marriage lately. Not like I need to get hitched tomorrow, but like God is preparing me to grow with and submit to the man of His choosing, and like I could use a strong spiritual leader in this life-o-mine. All that to say that for the sake of this blog post I am going to speak as though there is an actual husband in my future.

ANYWAY, this man that I will marry, well, he won’t be Jesus. It’s one of those things about humanity. He’s not going to be that.

And that is where my issue is.

My thinking has become so morphed, and just blatantly wrong. I’ve begun to think of him as Jesus.

I expect him to forgive me,

I expect him to accept me,

I expect him to make me feel valued,

I expect him to redeem me,

To lead me,

To make me grow,

To teach me,

To rebuke me,

To change me,

To fix me.

And while, yes, I want my future husband to forgive me, accept me, rebuke me, etc, I cannot expect that I will one day get married and suddenly all of these needs will be provided for.

I cannot expect another human being, no matter how much he may love me, to fix all of the issues that come together to be me.

I think I expect him to be some sort of priest. Like, when I’m married, I’ll be able to confess all my sins I’ve ever done to him and then I will be free from guilt, but the truth is that I am already free from guilt. The Lord has taken all my sin, and though I am an awful, awful person, he has forgiven me, and I no longer have to feel the weight of my guilt. I don’t know why I let myself forget that.

I know this must sound ridiculous, because explicitly stated, it just sounds dumb, but my hope for a partner has somehow gotten so deeply embedded in my psyche that this good gift has been perverted into a ridiculous expectation.

Here’s the truth:

A husband cannot forgive me,

A husband cannot accept me,

A husband cannot make me feel valued,

A husband cannot redeem me,

He can’t lead me,

He can’t make me grow,

He can’t teach me,

He can’t rebuke me,

He can’t change me,

He can’t fix me.

Not without Christ.

And that’s probably not a startling new insight, but I just needed to say it, I just needed to say it out loud (or rather, type it on my computer) that my thinking is broken. And it’s taking over.

This makes me think of a story my pastor told once.

One day his wife sat up in bed and just said, “Dave, you’re not Jesus.”

And it was a turning point in their marriage. She realized that she couldn’t expect him to save her, that he couldn’t be the greatest thing she lived for. He realized the same.

And I think about that all the time.

And this Advent, I don’t want to be focused on waiting for a human husband to fix me, but on waiting on the return of a divine Savior who has already fixed me, and at the same time is in the process of doing so, who knew my flaws and chose me anyway, who has forgiven me, accepted me, valued me, redeemed me, led me, grown me, taught me, rebuked me, changed me, fixed me.

I want to wait on that Guy.

Cheers.

Also, on an unrelated note, I made a Freaky Friday Soundtrack YouTube playlist tonight. Keepin it classy, keepin it real. Link to the Magic.

Ephemeral.

I got a lot of things on my brain.
Just none that want to be blogged.
Sorry I got all dicey on ya.
Apparently "archipelago" is pronounced ark-ih-pehl-ih-go. Talk about a paradigm shift.

College.

How To Fix Your Restaurant Guacamole.

Yesterday, my roommate and I went to a Mexican restaurant and ordered queso and guacamole. We had built the event up quite a bit in our minds and were looking forward to a delicious meal.
Bad news. The guac sucked.
It was creamy and fresh, but it savored strongly of onion powder, and lots of it. It had the most bitter taste. And aftertaste.
Just awful.
But this blog is not about the despair of the moment, but of the remedy!
After a few miserable bites, I grabbed the pepper, then the salt. A touch of pepper and a good deal of salt took care of all but the aftertaste. We mixed it around and it healed the poor pitiable dip a good deal.
But the aftertaste still screamed onion powder.
Then, after a moment of gathering our courage, we asked the waitress for some limes. This is where the true operation occurred. I squeezed both limes into the concoction, and soon the guacamole was as delightful as would it have been had I made it myself.
Dee-lightful.