Truth

I know I need this. Maybe someone else does, too. In no particular order, with no particular theme, other than the theme of encouragement in truth:

1 John 5:11-12 "And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life: he who does not have the Son of God does not have life."

Philippians 4:6-7 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

Jeremiah 29:11 "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'"

Psalm 37:4-6 "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun."

John 8:36 "So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed."

Philippians 4:4 "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!"

Romans 8:1-2 "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death."

2 Corinthians 4:7-10 "But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body."

2 Corinthians 5:17 "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"

Isaiah 49:15-16 "'Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.'"

Philippians 4;8-9 "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me - put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you."

Galatians 5:1 "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery."

1 Corinthians 15:56-58 "The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain."

Romans 8:35-39 "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: 'For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.' No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of Christ which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Finally, my beloved brothers and sisters, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." Romans 15:13

Overeager fingers.

In my approximate twenty-two years of life on this planet, I have come to this conclusion: it is hardly ever advisable to immediately react to something. (I almost said "never" rather than "hardly ever," but I have also come to the conclusion that it is rarely a good idea to speak in absolutes.)

Immediate reactions are often followed by trouble. Since there was no consideration put into the action before it was executed, it is often either the wrong thing to do, or at least not the best thing to do.

I suppress reactions all the time. People probably wouldn't guess that about me, but that just shows how diligently I work to stop them in their tracks. One of the areas of my life in which I have to stop myself from reacting most is blogging/posting on the Internet. It is natural to want to let out strong feelings immediately upon feeling them. Particularly negative ones. Few people want to hold onto negative feelings. Since I spend much of my time communicating on the Internet, and have fostered a habit of blogging the things I am thinking about, my knee-jerk reaction is to start laying everything out on my computer screen.

Not a good idea. It's understandable if someone in your physical presence loses themselves in front of you, but still, being emotional in person is bad enough. It's rather embarrassing to be emotional online. In order for the people reading the emotional comments you make online to be able to read those said comments, you first have to take the time to write them. And then publish them. So it's much more intentional than simply blowing a fuse, or letting slip a few words of complaint in the midst of a situation that is less than ideal.

Think before you speak. Look before you leap. There is experience behind those words. We should all learn from experience.

The Greatest Story Ever Sung: Part Four - Love Being Loved By You

In one of the earliest posts on this blog, I talked about what inspired "ExtravagantlyLoved." In it I mentioned THE album, Rebecca St. James's If I Had One Chance To Tell You Something. If I were to make a list of the most influential albums of my life, that one would be at the top. The song to which I am dedicating this blog is THE song from THE album. It pretty well sums up.....everything.

I claimed this song as my theme song shortly after becoming acquainted with it. It fits me so well, that it seems like I was in mind while it was being written. Or rather the person I would shortly become, because at the time this song was written, it wouldn't have fit me quite so perfectly. I don't know now if I can still claim it as my theme, not because it fits any less, but because I'm not so sure one song can encompass me entirely. But if one were to be able to do that, it would be this one.

Love Being Loved By You
by: Rebecca St. James, Ben Glover, and Jason Ingram

"I've got this story in my heart
And it's become my song
And I can't help but sing
The cynics and the saints
The famous and unnamed
One day will all fall before you
But I'm gonna bow today

Jesus, you are so wonderful
I cannot live without your love
Jesus, you are so glorious
No one can move me like you do
I love being loved by you
I love being loved by you

So take me deeper still
Where your mysteries are revealed
And I see you as you are
Oh, show me how to die
'Til all that's left of me
Is a mirror of everything you are
And I come before you complete

Jesus, you are so wonderful
I cannot live without your love
Jesus, you are so glorious
No one can move me like you do
I love being loved by you

Who am I that you would notice me?
Who am I that you would think of me?
I stand in awe of your amazing love
Who am I that you would rescue me?
Who am I that you would die?

Jesus, you are so wonderful
I cannot live without your love
Jesus, you are so glorious
No one can move me like you do

Jesus, you are so wonderful
I cannot love without your love
Jesus, you are so glorious
No one can move me like you do
I love being loved by
Love being loved by
Love being loved by you

I love being loved by you
Love being loved
I love being loved by you"

This song isn't as lyrically dense as the majority of songs I tend to gravitate toward most. It pretty well speaks for itself. But that's what I appreciate about it: its simplicity. It's nice to hear something straightforward from time to time. And these words are the cry of my heart.

Thank you, Jesus, for your love.

"And here I wander aimlessly...:

I'm not making a value judgment on this at the moment. Good, bad, indifferent, I'm not going to try to determine. I'm just honestly stating a fact.

I feel lost without my computer. It's been over a month now since it broke. You would think I would adjust, that it wouldn't bother me as much after a while. Not so. Not remotely so.

I can't shake the feeling that there's something wrong, there's something missing. I'm having to relearn how to live my life. I had a routine going, and it's been severely disrupted. It can be equated to how I might feel if I had to relocate to our garage for whatever reason. Our garage is not connected to our house. Nor is it insulated or temperature controlled. And it doesn't have a bathroom. If my main living space was out there, the way I live every day would change. I'd have to come into the house to use the bathroom, bathe, cook, see or speak to my family, do laundry; it would be much different from the way I live now. Although not having my computer isn't exactly like living out in the garage, I feel just as much upheaval as a result of its absence.

It's not just about the Internet. Although it is nice to have my own portable device which I can use to jump on the web whenever I please, my computer has always been much more than a link to the Internet. I've had access to the Internet. I even had it at my grandma's for the first time over the holiday break. And I can now Twitter on my phone. So I am not remotely disconnected from the world, which is how I would feel if I was just lacking the Internet. Disconnected, not lost.

My computer is what I use to work, to write. And the semester just started, so the papers are going to be coming soon. It's probably just me, a mental block that has been created, but I think better when I'm using my computer. Every time I'm working on a different machine, my focus seems to fly out the window. I have enough trouble focusing as it is, so I really don't need anything else hampering my concentration.

More than that, though, my computer is my connection to music. To MY music, my 5,000+ song, 15+ day, iTunes library. If I had to use my computer for only one thing, it would become a glorified mp3 player. That's what my first computer, a desktop, was for a long time. We didn't have access to the Internet at the time, and I wasn't doing much word processing, so it was on night and day simply to play my music. And I had terrible speakers at the time, which barely allowed me to hear anything, but despite the low volume, I still had to have the music playing. I just had to stay close and listen intently. Which I did. I stayed in my bedroom all day, virtually chained to my computer just so I could fill up as many moments as I could with music. And anytime I spent a prolonged period in another part of the house, I would find myself wishing that I was back in my bedroom, making my way from the beginning of my large library to the end. Unless, of course, I happened to be able to listen to music in whatever room I was in, which did happen on pretty regular occasions.

Thus, barring the Internet and getting my homework done and the various other things my computer is useful for, that in and of itself, the absence of my music, is enough to make me feel lost. If I can say this at all without sounding like I'm dramatizing the situation, because that's not my intention, I really do start to feel like there's something wrong when I go just a few hours without music. I honestly do start to wander around, trying to figure out what I'm doing. I tend to do that to a degree even with music playing continually, but at least I feel much less aimless when it does happen.

I hope my dear laptop is whole and properly functioning again soon. I miss my life.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

I have come to determine that this is the way life works: you make a mess, and then you clean it up.

Of course, when I say "life," I mean me. I'm sure other people operate this way, maybe even all people do to some extent, but seeing as I'm not everyone, I can't make a blanket statement as such about the various lives of all humans in existence.

But most assuredly, in my case, this is how I roll.

Examples:

- When I make cookies, it is virtually impossible for me to make it through with a clean countertop. There is always flour, sugar, so forth, on the cabinet before I get them all baked. Sometimes I make it through without leaking too much, but more often than not, there's a noticeable layer of white in my workspace. Similar things can be said about anything I do in the area of food preparation.

- The current semester of school just started today, and my room is already in need of some organizational attention. I have clothes in the floor, trash needing to find a place in the trash can, books sprawled wherever I happened to let them land, clothes than need mending covering my desk chair, shoes that need to go in the closet, and a desk that needs to be cleared in order for me to be able to work on it. There's nothing major. A good 20 minutes should have everything spit-spot. But it never ceases to surprise me how quickly I can create disarray.

- Speaking of clothes that need mending, those demonstrate how I can't ever work on anything without spreading my project out as far as I can extend it. I pulled out all of those clothes a couple of days ago to examine each of them and assess what I needed to do and where I needed to start. And I got out the sewing machine, intending to try my hand at fixing the various tears and holes. Before I even threaded a needle, my bed was covered with my clothes, the contents of the sewing machine were spread out on my desk, and there was thread laying strewn around. Then with this grand explosion, all I managed to do was rip a few seams on a skirt. I couldn't quite remember how to thread the machine to be able to go beyond that point.

I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

I have come to accept this. In an earlier part of my life, I was uptight about messes. I neither wanted them nor liked them, and I would disallow myself to do things effectively in favor of staying neat. That is no longer the case. I have taken Mrs. Frizzle's advice, and I do indeed "get messy."

That being said, as much as I accept the "make a mess part" it should be noted that the "clean it up" part is just as important, and I would not accept the former were it not for the latter. If one mess is not cleaned up, it quickly turns into two messes, then a few more, and then a gigantic one that is impossible to work with.

In certain circumstances, I don't always do the "clean it up" part so well. And that is when I come to have a problem with my mess-making tendencies and wish that I could work without creating disorder. A little mess is okay. A big mess....I'm not that accepting yet.

And so this weekend, I must tidy my bedroom. Before it gets as bad as it was when I cleaned it up last week. Since I started college, that is one of the objectives most weekends. It's a never-ending cycle. Make a mess. Clean it up. Make the same mess. Clean it up again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. In every area of my life.

Lord, may I never tire of repetition.

The next four months.

The Spring 2010 semester at MTSU starts on Thursday.

Naturally, I have been giving much time and attention to the approaching day, and what I need to do to be prepared. My brother and I went to the campus bookstore yesterday to see what books we each need for our classes, and the prices they had listed for all of them. I've also spent quite a bit of time online the past couple of days gathering information, and just generally trying to think of any and every thing I need to do before classes start.

Doing this has inspired me to give thought to what each of my classes might be like. Some of them look to be interesting. Like Children's Literature. And Survey of Popular Culture. I'm looking forward to some of the books I'm going to have to read for those classes. Roald Dahl and Barbie, anyone? That initial thought has naturally led to thoughts about the semester in general, and hopes I have for the coming four or so months.

I'd like to think I'll be more on top of my homework. This is my sixth semester, so you would think I'd have learned something to better help me accomplish that by now. I am taking less hours than I have the past two semesters, so that might help. But maybe not. I'm taking 16 hours rather than 17, so that's not much less, and more than that, my schedule is never that straightforward. For the past two semesters, I had 17 credit hours, but I was actually in class 19 hours a week. This semester, my 16 credit hours translate in reality to 18 hours spent in class every week. They say that for every hour you spend in class, you should spend at least two hours outside of class for homework and studying. For argument's sake, let's say I do that. So that's 18 + 36. Add to that extra time that it takes for writing papers (which I do a lot of), and the total comes to.....more than I want to calculate. Hmm...when the numbers are put in front of me like that, it's no wonder that I struggle to have a life when school is in session.

Also, almost all of my classes are upper-division or notoriously difficult this time around. I only have one gen ed class left to take, and I'm not taking it this semester. So I'm not going to have easy classes to fall back on as a break between the more difficult ones. Additionally, three of those upper-division classes are in the English department. Understandable since that's what I'm studying. But I've never had so many at once. What this means is that when I don't have my face stuck in a book, I'm probably going to be writing. That's what English majors do.

Despite all this, I don't plan on my life slowing down otherwise. I'm still as dedicated as ever to going to see downhere and Jason Gray as much as I can. They're both playing within driving distance in the near future, so that's at least two road trips I can plan on. In March, a friend of mine that lives in Wisconsin is coming for a weekend visit. And this month, Chuck and American Idol, the only two shows currently running on TV that I sincerely care about, are returning for this season, enticing me to watch them. And who knows what else I'll end up doing between now and the beginning of May. Not to mention the day in, day out things of life.

And I still haven't figured out how to get enough sleep and fit it in most effectively.

So maybe I won't be on top of my homework any more this semester than in the past.

The challenge has been placed before me. Let's see what I do with it.

One thing I can do is pray. You'd think that'd be the first thing I'd think of, but it's not. I still have a long way to go.

Snow!

My last post was lamenting snow. But I have since made it home, and no longer feel the need to lament. So I will now extol the snow.

It's been snowing intermittently since Thursday! Mostly flurries, but there have been times where it was coming down pretty hard. I love it! It's so pretty. So pretty. When I got up this morning, it was almost blindingly white. I've been terribly happy.

Here's a picture of what it looked like from my room a few hours ago. I hope it makes you smile as much as it makes me smile.

Why did it have to be so pretty?

I have been in Arkansas for 17 days. That's the better part of a month. I think it's time to go home.

The plans were to go home this morning. But the plans were changed. Snow came through, and we are woefully unprepared for snow in the South. The ground was covered and there was a few mentions of possible ice on the roads (...possible ice...not definite ice...) so making the trip was looking a little iffy. On top of that, I'm driving on a bad tire. Two bad tires, really, but one that's worse than the other. Also, my brother hurt his foot yesterday in some mysterious manner, and this morning it was feeling bad enough that he didn't want to be sitting in the car for hours on end. Taking all of those things into consideration along with the fact that there's no immediate rush to get home besides the fact that I just want to get there, and the weather is supposed to be a little better tomorrow, and a little after 9 AM it was decided that we would stay here another day.

I was less than pleased, to be honest. I always like my visits to Grandma's house, and it's been great to see all of the people I've been able to spend time with over the past 17 days, but I like my home. And it's been a while since I've seen my home. So when I looked out the window this morning and saw the white ground and more of this white stuff falling from the sky I said a word that I never say when I see snow: "Crud." This is probably the first time I've ever been disappointed to see snow and below freezing temps. Why did it have to be so pretty? It would have made my disappointment more complete.

It must have been complete enough, though, because as soon as I realized we weren't leaving, I went back to bed. I never do that. I may fall asleep on the couch or something, but it's never that early in the morning, nor is it upon a conscious decision to go to sleep. And I really went back to sleep. It was nearly 2 PM before I got back up. I obviously was not eager to engage in the day.

But I'll get over it. Tomorrow I am going home. The snow has melted. And they say it will get well above freezing. And my brother's foot is feeling better. Unless something else crops up, nothing is in our way. Thank the Lord.

Ten years.

It's 2010.

Does anyone know what happened to the last ten years? Wasn't it just a little while ago that I was a little girl trying to fit in at my middle school? (And I went to an academic magnet school. A school for smart kids. Even with that, I still didn't fit in.)

I don't know why it made me feel the way that it did, but right after midnight, when the year 2010 was officially here, it hit me all of a sudden that I'm going to be twenty-two in approximately three and a half months.

Twenty-two is nothing. I am fully aware of that. But the thing is, I don't feel like I'm nearing twenty-two. I feel much more like I did ten years ago. Like I'm nearing the age of twelve. And that's on a good day. There are many times when I don't even feel that old.

How can I be twenty-one, going on twenty-two? Did I miss the last ten years?

I was hanging out with a cousin last night, and he was the one that brought my age to my mind. It was sometime after 1 AM and he realized that, hey, it was 2010. He then said, "I'll be twenty in two years." Twenty, a milestone that I have already passed. Upon hearing him say that, my upcoming birthday jumped in front of my face and said, "Hey, you're going to be twenty-two this year." Oh really? So soon. I guess that's right. I was born in the 80s after all, and I now know many intelligent young people, fully capable of thinking for themselves, who don't even remember the 90s, let alone the 80s. Oh my. My cousin also said last night that he didn't feel like he was about to be an adult. My answer: "I still don't feel like I'm an adult."

I'm interested to see if I ever do. Or if I will continue to do grown-up things, like buy my own groceries, pay my own bills, drive across the country alone, graduate from college, pay my own rent, get married (!), have kids (!), and feel like I am a completely unqualified child, wondering when someone is going to catch on, ask me what on God's rainbow earth I am doing, and send me to clean my room.

Here's to the next ten years. But right now we'll focus on this one. I'm eager to see what happens in 2010. I feel like something big is going to occur, but that may just be a feeling. However, that feeling has proved to always be true thus far, so there's no evidence that I should doubt it now.