Last night, I sat down, intending to read a chapter or two of the Bible, but it didn't happen. For some reason, a verse kept running through my head, so I finally said, "Alright, God. I'll look it up and think about it, okay?"
The verse turned out to be 1 John 4:18, which says, "There is no fear in love. Perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love." That verse brought me a lot of emotions. First, it was intense relief, the kind that brings about tears. For much of my life, I have lived in fear of many things. But this verse assures me that perfect love, the love from God, drives out these fears. I don't need to fear all the things I have in the past, because of Christ's love that wraps me up and protects me. The things I fear may still show up in my life, but because Christ is in control of how my life works out, I don't need to worry about how these things might affect me.
Second, I felt a longing. I want to know that perfect love. I am a Christian, but sometimes I just don't feel that perfect love. I had a deep longing to be wrapped and covered by God's love. At this point I suddenly stopped. "Wait a minute," I thought. "I've been a Christian for four years and I still don't fully know God's love? God's love is the foundation of Christianity. If I feel as if I have a rudementary experience of the most basic gift from God, then how much else is out there that I don't understand?" I was struck with how little I actually know about God. He is so much more powerful than I can even imagine if His love and drive out all of my many fears.
As I'm considering how complex the Lord I serve truly is, I am reminded that He is simple enough to make it into the hearts of children. At Vacation Bible School I watch kids learn about Him and learn to love Him. The God I contemplate is the same God that numerous people write about on a daily basis (and still don't even come close to explaining how deep this God is), and is also the same God that little children can understand with a simple "Jesus love me, this I know." That's what I call perfect love.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
I Am Very Tempted
Right now, I am quite tempted to set my Facebook status as a pro-life and/or pro-traditional-family rant, just to see how angry some of my Facebook friends who are on the opposite side of those stants would get. I am particularly interested in how a lesbian friend of mine would react.
Then I remember one of my favorite movies, Come What May, and how the female main character acted when proposed with a situation like that. She stood up for what she believed in, but didn't do it just to anger people, but if she knew it would have a purpose.
But I'm not a fictional debater-heroine. I am a Christian kid who gets sick and tired of how people tell me to be "tolerant" but aren't tolerant of my intolerance of mistreatment of humans. So I may do it anyway. And I think I have a really good one in mind...
Then I remember one of my favorite movies, Come What May, and how the female main character acted when proposed with a situation like that. She stood up for what she believed in, but didn't do it just to anger people, but if she knew it would have a purpose.
But I'm not a fictional debater-heroine. I am a Christian kid who gets sick and tired of how people tell me to be "tolerant" but aren't tolerant of my intolerance of mistreatment of humans. So I may do it anyway. And I think I have a really good one in mind...
Monday, July 26, 2010
Highlights of My Three-ish Day Vacation
-Harvey's maiden voyage to Northern California!
-I learned how to drive on the two lane I-5. Learning how to pass trucks at 80 miles and hour with getting run over by someone else is a lost art.
-As I drove through the Bay area I saw a sign that said: Oakland...23. It all makes sense now. On a similar note, I made it all the way through Oakland with seeing a single Raiders-anything. I wasn't so lucky on the way back.
-Drove through Berkeley. Good-bye, Berkeley!
-Arrived at approximately 2 am in Fortuna, Ca, and promptly crashed.
-I went to breakfast in the hotel lobby and got juice in a cup that said it made from corn and 100% compostable. Hello, liberal-land.
-Drove through Rio Dell, where my great-grandfather lived. Everything is just like it was eight years ago.
-Drove through Scotia, where my great-grandfather worked on the PALCO Mill. The mill is now shut down. Such a sad sight.
-Saw license plates from the following states: Alabama, Arizona, California (duh), Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennesse, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming. All in three and a half days. (It's a family hobby. we look for license plates from other states...yes, we're weird.)
-I walked into the Loleta Cheese Factory wearing my Biola sweatshirt, and the girl behind the counter asked if I went to Biola. Turns out, she is from Ridgecrest (only a couple hours from where I live) and she goes to Point Loma.
-Drove over a 99 year old bridge that was the only bridge to survive the flood of 1964.
-Drove to Ferndale! We saw the Church of the Assumption, where my great-grandfather was baptized about 110 years ago. Then we realized that I left the card thingie for my new camera at home. Eight hours away. Go figure. So we walked down to the drug store (the oldest continually open drugstore in California). Then I toured Ferndale (population 1430) and took pictures and looked in the shops.
-Drove to Honeydew. This town consists of a store, a post office, and half a dozen marijuana users. Lovely.
-Drove to Briceland which was made up of a dozen run-down shacks and (as our local friend informed us), the "growers" of the aforementioned product.
-Drove through the Avenue of the Giants where I got to see all of the huge Redwoods. We stopped at what is called the Four Fireplaces, a monument designed by Julia Morgan. It was my great-grandmother's favorite picnic spot.
-Saw the Immortal Tree that has survived forest fires, being struck by lightning, the axes of loggers, and the flood of 1964. Intense.
-Samoa Cookhouse...Twice.
-The beach! And agate hunting!
-Kayaking in Big Lagoon.
-I got to hear people refer to my great-grandfather by his nickname, "Irish."
-My great-grandfather's gravestone: Alva Edward O'Rourke. Born: March 13, 1899. Died: March 3, 2000. Ten days short of living to be 101.
-Saw a gravestone that read "Mary O'Rourke: native of Canada. Died Nov. 16 1908, age 83." She was the daughter or daughter-in-law of Patrick O'Rourke who immigrated from Ireland to Canada. Wow.
-I learned how to drive on the two lane I-5. Learning how to pass trucks at 80 miles and hour with getting run over by someone else is a lost art.
-As I drove through the Bay area I saw a sign that said: Oakland...23. It all makes sense now. On a similar note, I made it all the way through Oakland with seeing a single Raiders-anything. I wasn't so lucky on the way back.
-Drove through Berkeley. Good-bye, Berkeley!
-Arrived at approximately 2 am in Fortuna, Ca, and promptly crashed.
-I went to breakfast in the hotel lobby and got juice in a cup that said it made from corn and 100% compostable. Hello, liberal-land.
-Drove through Rio Dell, where my great-grandfather lived. Everything is just like it was eight years ago.
-Drove through Scotia, where my great-grandfather worked on the PALCO Mill. The mill is now shut down. Such a sad sight.
-Saw license plates from the following states: Alabama, Arizona, California (duh), Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennesse, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming. All in three and a half days. (It's a family hobby. we look for license plates from other states...yes, we're weird.)
-I walked into the Loleta Cheese Factory wearing my Biola sweatshirt, and the girl behind the counter asked if I went to Biola. Turns out, she is from Ridgecrest (only a couple hours from where I live) and she goes to Point Loma.
-Drove over a 99 year old bridge that was the only bridge to survive the flood of 1964.
-Drove to Ferndale! We saw the Church of the Assumption, where my great-grandfather was baptized about 110 years ago. Then we realized that I left the card thingie for my new camera at home. Eight hours away. Go figure. So we walked down to the drug store (the oldest continually open drugstore in California). Then I toured Ferndale (population 1430) and took pictures and looked in the shops.
-Drove to Honeydew. This town consists of a store, a post office, and half a dozen marijuana users. Lovely.
-Drove to Briceland which was made up of a dozen run-down shacks and (as our local friend informed us), the "growers" of the aforementioned product.
-Drove through the Avenue of the Giants where I got to see all of the huge Redwoods. We stopped at what is called the Four Fireplaces, a monument designed by Julia Morgan. It was my great-grandmother's favorite picnic spot.
-Saw the Immortal Tree that has survived forest fires, being struck by lightning, the axes of loggers, and the flood of 1964. Intense.
-Samoa Cookhouse...Twice.
-The beach! And agate hunting!
-Kayaking in Big Lagoon.
-I got to hear people refer to my great-grandfather by his nickname, "Irish."
-My great-grandfather's gravestone: Alva Edward O'Rourke. Born: March 13, 1899. Died: March 3, 2000. Ten days short of living to be 101.
-Saw a gravestone that read "Mary O'Rourke: native of Canada. Died Nov. 16 1908, age 83." She was the daughter or daughter-in-law of Patrick O'Rourke who immigrated from Ireland to Canada. Wow.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Precious Memories
As I prepare to leave for college, I am learning more and more acutely the importance of memories. Yesterday was the day I finally sat down to clean out my desk in which I found so many things to jog old memories. You see, when I find something that I want to keep but I don't want to see on a daily basis, I stick it in my desk. I found my first pair of glasses that I haven't worn since I was 12, all kinds of crafty materials, pictures that were taken 17 years ago, stickers from my "pioneer girl" phase when I was ten...Let's just say that I don't clean out my desk often.
But among all of these useless odds and ends, I found a stack of photos that I view as the "diamond in the rough." These photographs were mostly taken by my mother, which makes them valuable, because my mother is now unable to take pictures easily due to her MS. Then I looked at the content. One picture was of five first-grade students during a class party. I was one of those students. Two of remaining students graduated from high school with me. All I could say was, "Wow." We had all grown up together, learned from each other, experienced each other's happy and sad moments. The memories are indeed precious, as the old hymn says.
I found another picture of me and my brother sitting in a pile of leaves outside of my great-grandfather's house in Northern California. I appeared to be about four, which would have made my brother two. This photo was significant because I haven't been to that area in about ten years, but I am planning to leave tomorrow to return to that very area, where I spent so much time when I was young.
The last photo I found nearly stopped my heart. It was taken during a Christmas party when I was in third grade. I was decked out in a lovely purple cast from when I had broken my arm two months before. In the center of the picture was my third grade teacher, Mrs. Mitchell, and all of my class sat surrounding her. Mrs. Mitchell recently passed away after a long battle with cancer. We would never be together again until heaven, but this photo made me look forward to heaven more than ever, though I sorely missed the times past.
Some tell me I'm nostalgic and old-fashioned, and that is probably true. But there is something about memories that are so precious. Sometimes I will sit and replay old memories in my head. I am so grateful that God gave us the capacity to have memories. To remember the people He put in our lives. To remember the joys and even the sorrows. To remember the dramatic "firsts" and epic "lasts." Lord, thank You for memories.
But among all of these useless odds and ends, I found a stack of photos that I view as the "diamond in the rough." These photographs were mostly taken by my mother, which makes them valuable, because my mother is now unable to take pictures easily due to her MS. Then I looked at the content. One picture was of five first-grade students during a class party. I was one of those students. Two of remaining students graduated from high school with me. All I could say was, "Wow." We had all grown up together, learned from each other, experienced each other's happy and sad moments. The memories are indeed precious, as the old hymn says.
I found another picture of me and my brother sitting in a pile of leaves outside of my great-grandfather's house in Northern California. I appeared to be about four, which would have made my brother two. This photo was significant because I haven't been to that area in about ten years, but I am planning to leave tomorrow to return to that very area, where I spent so much time when I was young.
The last photo I found nearly stopped my heart. It was taken during a Christmas party when I was in third grade. I was decked out in a lovely purple cast from when I had broken my arm two months before. In the center of the picture was my third grade teacher, Mrs. Mitchell, and all of my class sat surrounding her. Mrs. Mitchell recently passed away after a long battle with cancer. We would never be together again until heaven, but this photo made me look forward to heaven more than ever, though I sorely missed the times past.
Some tell me I'm nostalgic and old-fashioned, and that is probably true. But there is something about memories that are so precious. Sometimes I will sit and replay old memories in my head. I am so grateful that God gave us the capacity to have memories. To remember the people He put in our lives. To remember the joys and even the sorrows. To remember the dramatic "firsts" and epic "lasts." Lord, thank You for memories.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
MS
If I could stomach it, I would be a nursing major. Really. But I get nauseous just walking into a hospital, and my heart rate goes up at least ten beats per minute when I walk into a doctor's office. But if I was made for dissecting body parts and seeing blood and all that jazz I really would be a nurse. Because I hate, loathe, and despise MS with a burning and firey passion equal to only the devil himself, and I want to help anyone who has to deal with this.
MS, or Multiple Sclerosis is a disease that attacks a person's and nervous system (if I remember 9th grade biology correctly) and impairs a person from moving. My mother was diagnosed with MS about eight years ago. She has lost much of her ability to move freely and is in much pain a lot of the time. She can now only walk ten feet at a time and sometimes even that far is too far for her. And she keeps getting worse.
MS is a huge part of my life. It has brought many tears, fights, hurt, sadness, grief, and hatred. I almost lost my faith in God because of MS. The worst pain I have ever experienced is watching others treat my mother hurtfully because she has trouble moving. That pain and those memories will never leave.
Some people wonder why I'm going away to college when my mother is in such a bad condition. It's because God told me to. And because she wants me to. She wants me to have a full life with a strong education. So I will.
MS, or Multiple Sclerosis is a disease that attacks a person's and nervous system (if I remember 9th grade biology correctly) and impairs a person from moving. My mother was diagnosed with MS about eight years ago. She has lost much of her ability to move freely and is in much pain a lot of the time. She can now only walk ten feet at a time and sometimes even that far is too far for her. And she keeps getting worse.
MS is a huge part of my life. It has brought many tears, fights, hurt, sadness, grief, and hatred. I almost lost my faith in God because of MS. The worst pain I have ever experienced is watching others treat my mother hurtfully because she has trouble moving. That pain and those memories will never leave.
Some people wonder why I'm going away to college when my mother is in such a bad condition. It's because God told me to. And because she wants me to. She wants me to have a full life with a strong education. So I will.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Ambitions, Goals, and Dreams...aka a Bucket List
Here's what I would love to do at some point in my life, Lord willing. These are in no particular order, with the exception of getting married part coming before the having kids part.
-Travel
-Travel to Ireland
-Travel to Israel
-Graduate college
-Preferably with a Torrey completion certificate or whatever it is that they give you, and with my sanity in check. Not quite sure if that's possible, but that's where the "dream" part comes in.
-Teach high school English
-Visit Euna in Korea
-Be poor at some point (yes, I actually desire to be poor. I would rather be poor than rich)
-Be a missionary in some form
-Get married
-Have kids
-Give my son the middle name "Quadratus"
-Adopt a child
-Take in foster kids (All this is after the "be poor at some point" phase!)
-Homeschool my kids
-Write something that gets published, preferably if it involves me getting paid
-Visit a third-world country
-Quote C.S. Lewis to someone I meet in the grocery store line
-Live on my family's ranch, in the barn my dad built and set it up as a home for my family and a bunch of troubled foster kids. Then teach the all kids the power of hard word, lots of love, and lots of good food.
-Travel
-Travel to Ireland
-Travel to Israel
-Graduate college
-Preferably with a Torrey completion certificate or whatever it is that they give you, and with my sanity in check. Not quite sure if that's possible, but that's where the "dream" part comes in.
-Teach high school English
-Visit Euna in Korea
-Be poor at some point (yes, I actually desire to be poor. I would rather be poor than rich)
-Be a missionary in some form
-Get married
-Have kids
-Give my son the middle name "Quadratus"
-Adopt a child
-Take in foster kids (All this is after the "be poor at some point" phase!)
-Homeschool my kids
-Write something that gets published, preferably if it involves me getting paid
-Visit a third-world country
-Quote C.S. Lewis to someone I meet in the grocery store line
-Live on my family's ranch, in the barn my dad built and set it up as a home for my family and a bunch of troubled foster kids. Then teach the all kids the power of hard word, lots of love, and lots of good food.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
What I've Learned Recently
-Dachshunds do not understand the concept of a sleeping human.
-Luke 23:17 is not in some Bibles.
-The word paradise comes from the Greek word paradisio meaning "park." Hm.
-Some Christian groups believe that in heaven everyone will appear 33 years old.
-Pricking one's finger on a cactus is not fun.
-Neither is living in a strage house at night. Especially when you're a girl. And, yes, I know that probably sounds sexist, but I don't care.
-Whenever I set my alarm for a certain time, I wake up before the alarm. Nifty. But not.
-Switching from waking up at 8 am to waking up at 5:30 am is not as easy as I anticipated.
-The Greek letter "iota" is pronounced "yota" which kinda sounds like "Yoda." Greek I am learning.
-Luke 23:17 is not in some Bibles.
-The word paradise comes from the Greek word paradisio meaning "park." Hm.
-Some Christian groups believe that in heaven everyone will appear 33 years old.
-Pricking one's finger on a cactus is not fun.
-Neither is living in a strage house at night. Especially when you're a girl. And, yes, I know that probably sounds sexist, but I don't care.
-Whenever I set my alarm for a certain time, I wake up before the alarm. Nifty. But not.
-Switching from waking up at 8 am to waking up at 5:30 am is not as easy as I anticipated.
-The Greek letter "iota" is pronounced "yota" which kinda sounds like "Yoda." Greek I am learning.
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