Bowling, Broomball, and Bruises

I learned several lessons between the hours of 6:00pm on Friday (yesterday) and 2:00am on Saturday (today).

1. Naturally uncoordinated people are unequipped to be professional bowlers. One must be light on one's feet, muscular in the arms, and swift with the ball in order to knock over more than one pin... I, unfortunately, am not one of those coordinated people. I guess I'll just leave that to my should-have-been-a-ballet-dancer boyfriend.
2. Payton Hillis (or however you spell that poor man's name), is to be pitied for his role in life as a "famous" person. Needless to say, though he kindly humored all of the camera flashes and squeals from swooning young ladies, he looked overly tired and irritated while honoring me with his autograph. Poor man! He cannot even go on a date with his girlfriend to the bowling alley without being treated like a rare Smithsonian specimen on display for the first time. However, on the upside, my father was overjoyed when presented with a slab of flat tree that had "Payton Hillis" scribbled on it with ink.
3. My right ankle can be easily mistaken to be a broom-hockey ball. Next time I think I just might wrap myself in caution tape before taking on the world ...or the BCLR youth group.

Besides these lessons, I did get to spend time with many wonderful brothers and sisters in Christ. I rode to and from everywhere with a dear friend, bowled with some amazing young ladies, made one strike, then ate pizza with an old friend and a new one, met 3 new friends at the ice skatium, played 4 great games of broom-hockey, and made one goal!
God continuously blesses me in so many ways and I am so grateful and privileged to be able to be a part of the youth staff. I can hardly wait to see what God has in store for me in the future!

For now, I'm pretty sure that my pillow and down comforter are summoning me and I'd rather not disappoint them. ;)

"Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing" (I Thessalonians 5:11, ESV).

"I do the very thing I hate."

Have you ever just felt bitter towards someone who has cut you deeply? There is someone in my life that I love very much, but who has hurt me time and time again over a moderately long period of time. It's a struggle not to be bitter towards this person, even though I know that I should hold no hard feelings towards them. The Apostle Paul describes my dilemma (as well as his and every other human being's) well in Romans 7 when he writes, "For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate" (Romans 7:15, ESV). I don't want to be bitter, especially not towards someone who I love and admire so much, but I continue to think mean words and thoughts in my heart towards this person. My pride gets in the way and instead of having compassion towards others, I desire to lash out towards them at least in my heart if not out loud. The battle against mind and flesh is constant!

Dear Father, please forgive my sinful heart and help me to have a heart of love and forgiveness. Thank you that you have abolished the law of sin and that you gave me an undeserved gift of mercy and eternal life with You. Demolish every one of my sinful thoughts and deeds. Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me. Destroy my sin and sanctify my spirit. Thank you for your steadfast love and forgiveness towards me. Amen.

"So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin" (Romans 7:21-25, ESV).

January jumblings

It's amazing that God uses so many different people and ways to convict me.
Last night I was listening to my 10 year old sister pray. She diligently went through a mental prayer list of all of the prayer requests she had recently heard about. Naming them one by one and in detail, she prayed for each individual request, whether it be something about someones kitchen being fixed or someones sick grandmother. Then she thanked God for the different blessings she had received throughout her day and repented for individual sins she had committed. The best part being that it was obvious she was sincere about everything she said and that her faith is deep and genuine.
How I pray that the Lord will teach me to have the faith of a child and to pray like that!

School, school, school!

Well, right now I am studying for the 2 tests I have tomorrow. Complaining about tests is not an option when so many people don't even have the opportunity to go to school and learn. Though it can be hard at times, I have to remember to thank God for blessings like the opportunity to get an education.

Creativity of Children

The way that God made the minds of children work is fascinating and beautiful to me. There is so much imagination and innocence in the mind of a child.

Just the other day I was babysitting my two favorite little boys to babysit (the oldest is 6 now and I've been their main babysitter since he was less than a year old) and I gave the youngest (age 3) a banana because he was hungry. We had previously been playing trains with their rather large "Thomas the Tank Engine" train playset. Well, I went to check on something in the kitchen and when I got back to their room and the 3-year-old said "Oh, no! James is stuck in mud! Oh, no!" I looked, and low and behold, there in the middle of the train track was James the engine stuck in the "mud" (aka a banana)!

Now, most people probably would have thought this was a bad thing, but I thought that it was a fairly clever idea to use a mushy, sticky banana as mud. There are a lot of worse things he could have used.

Point being: God created us to use our minds and imaginations and think outside the box. Too often I think we get "stuck in the mud" of life and don't take the time to see what is really going on around us. We take what God has given us for granted and we use our minds, but we don't challenge them to be creative and imaginative.

So, don't be a stick in the mud (or a tank engine). Enjoy the imagination God has given you!

One of "those" days...

Wow, it's been quite a while since I posted on this blog. I guess I just haven't made the time to sit down and type out life on the Internet. There's always that odd feelings lingering over me when I type posts for a blog because it's like the world has access to my personal thoughts. Well, I think I will try to start posting a little more regularly and I will try to forget how public these posts really are. God has been teaching me so many things over the past months and I regret not typing those things out so that I could look back and reflect on them. So, here you are. My second attempt at keeping a regular blog journal...

Persecution produces promise!

A week away from Internet entertainment actually wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be. I stayed so busy that I guess it really just didn't hit me like I thought it would, but I did realize that I got much more accomplished since I wasn't playing around on the computer.

It was a tough week. Just one of those where I wondered if I am doing what God wants me to do. Persecution hit hard this week and it was a challenge, but then I remembered that persecution is what has been promised to true believers and that made me rejoice! Funny enough, PQ talked about persecution on Sunday.
One thing I have thought about is that persecution and perversion are not the same thing. Persecution is when you are being attacked for your faith, but being bombarded by the perversion all around you is an entirely different thing. School and work this past week was especially bad. Satan was attacking because I was focusing on spending more time with God.

My prayer for this week is kindness. Kindness towards everyone I come in contact with, and not just outward kindness. I need the kindness exhibited by Jesus.