Back to Work

Well, Spring Break is over and it is back to the busy schedule that is my life. Don't get me wrong, I love to be busy and have a routine and know what I am doing every day (and week), but it is always nice to have a break with no schedule or anything that HAS to get done. I spent the past week and a half at home and really enjoyed every moment (even though it never warmed up like I wanted it to ha).

I have already finished up my classes for the day and I will say that I love being done by 12:30. Yes, I have to get up early, but if that's my biggest complaint for the day then I think I'm doing alright. Of course, I already have homework that needs to get started, work just called and asked if I could stay late, and then I have church tonight. You could say that Wednesdays are my busy days. :) But I'm thankful for all of it: the ability to attend classes, the chance to learn something new, an opportunity to use my new computer (!!), legs to walk on to get myself to class, a nice coat to keep me dry and warm in the rain, a job that pays me to do something I love, a chance to help out with the children at my church, and eventually a warm shower and bed to come home to at the end of it all. Since I have been reading One Thousand Gifts I have really thought more and more about the chances I have to be thankful, and I'm thinking of starting my own list of things that I can be thankful for.

Today I am thankful for life- new, old, and eternal.

"Let everything that has breath praise the LORD." Psalm 150:6

Blessings

I am blessed. When I look around and see all that God has provided for me I can't be anything but blessed. I know that, as humans, we can always find things to complain about, but it takes so much more energy. I first started thinking about my blessings last week during finals. I was leaving my psychology final and could hear little screams from across the street. Of course I recognized those screams of excitement and went over to the playground asking, "Who's making all this noise?!" I was rushed by thirteen excited 2 & 1/2 and 3 year olds screaming "EMILYYYYY!!!! Come play with us!!!!" I told them I would be back after naptime and they all went back to playing, but let me tell you, it brightened my day so much. I really love those kids, even the ones that sometimes drive ya nuts. They are a blessing in my life.

There are so many other blessings I have been counting (in no particular order of course)- my school, my roommates, my friends, my family, my boyfriend, a roof over my head, healthy food to eat, clean water to drink, a warm shower at night, a comfy bed to sleep in, a loving church to worship in, an advisor who welcomes her students into her home, a job that pays me to do something I love, a successful quarter of classes complete, a break from school, rain on dry ground, sunshine to warm my skin...

Saturday morning I started reading a book called One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp, and I have fallen in love with the outlook on life that the she presents. It is about finding the simple things in life and getting through situations by praising God and being thankful for the blessings He has provided. Even through loss and heartache, God's grace overflows continually in our lives. Sometimes we just need to open our eyes to find it.

"I know there is poor and hideous suffering, and I've seen the hungry and the guns that go to war. I have lived pain, and my life can tell: I only deepen the wound of the world when I neglect to give thanks for early light that dappled through leaves and the heavy perfume of wild roses in early July and the song of crickets on humid nights and the rivers that run and the stars that rise and the rain that falls and all the good things that a good God gives. Why would the world need more anger, more outrage? How does it save the world to reject unabashed joy when it s joy that saves us? Rejecting joy to stand in solidarity with the suffering doesn't rescue the suffering. The converse does.

The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the change agents who bring fullest Light to all the world.

When we lay the soil of our hard lives open to the rain of grace and let joy penetrate our cracked and dry places, let joy soak into our broken skin and deep crevices, life grows. How can this not be the best thing for the world? For us? The clouds open when we mouth thanks."

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

It is no surprise to anyone who knows me that I love holidays. Whether there is a deeper significance to the holiday (like Easter or Christmas) or if it is just a silly day to dress up and be festive, I love them all! My roommate always accuses me of being festive (she says it like its a bad thing?!) I just call her the Grinch :)
St. Patrick's Day is such a fun holiday for no other reason than getting to wear green and eating green food and sending people cards and wearing socks with shamrocks on them. I know right know that I am going to be one of those mom's who makes special shaped/colored food for her kids on each holiday, and I can't wait :)
 

Naturally green food, like kiwis...



apples and pears...



and, my personal favorite, green beans :)

Or artificially green food, like chips & cheese,

Green cupcakes,

and shamrock cookies 

 

and Green Mac & Cheese? I don't know about this one...

I hope everyone is able to enjoy something green today in celebration of St. Patrick's Day!

Hope

Miracles in Japan: Four-Month Old Baby, 70-Year Old Woman Found Alive

By William Lee Adams

Amid the silent corpses a baby cried out - and Japan met its tiniest miracle.

On March 14 soldiers from the Japanese Defense Force were going door-to-door, pulling bodies from homes flattened by the earthquake and tsunami in Ishinomaki City, a coastal town northeast of Senda. More accustomed to the crunching of rubble and the sloshing of mud than to the sound of life, they dismissed the baby's cry as a mistake. Until they heard it again.

They made their way to the pile of debris, and carefully removed fragments of wood and slate, shattered glass and rock. And then they saw her: a four-month old baby girl in a pink woolen bear suit.

The tidal wave literally swept the unnamed girl away from her parents' arms when it hit their home on March 11. Since then her parents - both of whom survived the disaster - have taken refuge in their wrecked house, and worried that their little girl was dead. Soldiers managed to reunite the baby with her overjoyed father shortly after the rescue.

"Her discovery has put a new energy into the search," a civil defense official told a local news crew. "We will listen, look and dig with even more diligence after this." Ahead of the baby's rescue, officials reported finding at least 2,000 bodies washed up on the shoreline of Miyagi prefecture. How the child survived drowning - or being crushed by fallen trees and houses - remains a mystery.

In a nation short on good news, other rescues have buoyed morale, too. In Iwate prefecture, northeastern Japan, the devastating tidal wave swept away an elderly woman along with her entire house - but it couldn't extinguish her will to live.

Rescuers found the 70-year-old alive inside her home on March 15, four days after the black tidal wave wiped out much of the region. Osaka fire department spokesman Yuko Kotani told the Associated Press the woman is now receiving treatment in a local hospital. She is conscious but suffering from hypothermia.

Elsewhere, 60-year old Hiromitsu Shinkawa survived two days at sea by clinging on to his floating rooftop. He was discovered 10 miles off the Japanese coastline. "Several helicopters and ships passed but none of them noticed me," he said after his March 13 rescue. "I thought that was going to be the last day of my life."


Even in the midst of all this tragedy, there is hope for rescue to take place. God was protecting this baby for a reason, and I believe there are many more waiting to be rescued out there as well.

"Therefore let all the faithful pray to you while you may be found; surely the rising of the mighty waters will not reach them. You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance." Psalm 32:6-7

Praying for Japan

My heart goes out to everyone affected by the earthquake and tsunami. My prayer is for these people and the country as a whole, that life would be restored once again. It really puts things into perspective, looking through pictures and watching videos of what happened. It makes me so thankful for the "basics" that we often take for granted. Lord, take care of your people.

Rain Rain Rain

It's POURING rain today- not normal Seattle rain, but crazy rain. I am currently sitting at Urban Bakery attempting to write a psychology paper and get lots of homework done before finals. Days like this make me feel like a real college student. Finding a little place to hang out for a few hours, drinking something warm (today it was cider instead of coffee), writing papers, chatting with a friend, and watching the rain fall outside. I like this life, but I am ready for a break from school work and rain. One week from today I will be home. I can't wait.

Home Sweet Home :)

Power of Metaphor

In my Human Development and Christian Faith class we have been reading excerpts from a book by Donald Miller called Blue Like Jazz. The assignment for today was on the chapters regarding love and friendship and there has been one part stuck in my head all day. I know it's a little long, but it's worth reading.

          "It is always the simple things that change our lives. And these things never happen when you are looking for them to happen. Life will reveal answers at the pace life wishes to do so. You feel like running, but life is on a stroll. This is how God does things.
          My realization came while attending an alumni social for Westmont College. I had never attended Westmont, but my friend Michelle did, and she invited me. Greg Spencer, a communications professor, was to speak, and Michelle thought I might enjoy the lecture. I did. More than I can say. The lecture was about the power of metaphor. Spencer opened by asking us what metaphors we think of when we consider the topic of cancer. We gave him our answers, all pretty much the same, we battle cancer, we fight cancer, we are rebuilding our white blood cells, things like that. Spencer pointed out that the overwhelming majority of metaphors we listed were war metaphors. They dealt with battle. He then proceeded to talk about cancer patients and how, because of war metaphor, many people who suffer with cancer feel more burdened than, in fact, they should. Most of them are frightened beyond their need to be frightened, and this affects their health. Some, feeling that they have been thrust into a deadly war, simply give up. If there were another metaphor, a metaphor more accurate, perhaps cancer would not prove so deadly.
          Science has shown that the way people think about cancer affects their ability to deal with the disease, thus affecting their overall health. Professor Spencer said that if he were to sit down with his family and tell them he had cancer they would be shocked, concerned, perhaps even in tears, and yet cancer is nothing near the most deadly of diseases. Because of war metaphor, the professor said, we are more likely to fear cancer when, actually, most people survive the disease. [side note: I'm not so sure where he got his data on this one, but that's beside the point]
          Mr. Spencer then asked us about another area in which he felt metaphors cause trouble. He asked us to consider relationships. What metaphors do we use when we think of relationships? We value people, I shouted out. Yes, he said, and wrote it on his little white board. We invest in people, another person added. And soon enough we had listed an entire white board of economic metaphor. Relationships could be bankrupt, we said. People are priceless, we said. All economic metaphor. I was taken aback.
          And that's when it hit me like so much epiphany getting dislodged from my arteries. The problem with Christian culture is we think of love as a commodity. We use it like money. Professor Spencer was right, and not only was he right, I felt as though he had cured me, as though he had let me out of my cage. I could see it very clearly. If somebody is doing something for us, offering us something, be it gifts, time, popularity, or what have you, we feel they have value, we feel they are worth something to us, and perhaps, we feel they are priceless. I could see it so clearly, and I could feel it in the pages of my life. This was the thing that had smelled so rotten all these years. I used love like money. The church used love like money. With love, we withheld affirmation from the people who did not agree with us, but we lavishly financed the ones who did."

I have never thought about love in this way, but we use money terms all the time! We spend time with people. Friendships are priceless. We value time with people. We are using terms of commodity to explain something that can't be measured. I know I am supposed to love unconditionally, but how many people out there bug or irritate me? Do I love them even when it is difficult to like them? We cannot love someone unless we first like them. The whole, "I love you, but I don't have to like you" thing doesn't really work for me. How do you love someone the way God wants you to love them without liking them too? I may be wrong in this thinking, but I feel that it's important to at least consider what these terms look like. What does love look like? What does God say about love?

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

1 John 4:7-11

Almost There

It's done!! I finally finished and turned in my curriculum project! It feels so good to have this 60 page project completed. One less class to worry about over the next week. I still have two papers, a presentation, two finals, and some little homework assignments to finish up, but then I will be DONE! This quarter has worked me hard, but it is the same thing every time: look at everything I have to do, have a minor freak out that it won't get done, take a deep breath, do one thing at a time, and somehow I get to the end. God is so good to help me get to that point every quarter. Spring break is so close; I'm almost there.

"Learning to Praise God Everyday"

Today is Ash Wednesday and it's a very rainy day, rather appropriate I think. My mom sent me a book called 24 Hours That Changed the World that my pastor at home is using for a study during this season of Lent.

 

"Adam Hamilton offers 40 days of reflection and meditation enabling us to pause, dig deeper, and emerge changed forever." I am really excited to get into this book because I think that Lent is a time that many Christians don't think about. I know a lot of people think it is a Catholic thing (which is strange to me, where did they get that?). Lent is just as much a part of the Christian church year as is Easter, Advent, or Christmas, but that's another discussion for another day. Today's reading was on Luke 22:7-13:

Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, "Go and prepare the Passover meal for us that we may eat it." They asked him, "Where do you want us to make preparations for it?" "Listen," he said to them, "when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him into the house he enters and say to the owner of the house, 'The teacher asks you, "Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?"' He will show you a large room upstairs, already furnished. Make preparations for us there." So they went and found everything as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover meal.

In those days these preparations would have been done by the women. Why did Jesus ask Peter and John and not Mary and Martha? Did they not complain or grumble at all about being asked to do a task that was "below" them? Part of being a servant is doing what God asks of you, no matter what that means. (Almost especially if it means you won't get any earthly attention or credit for it.) At the time they probably did not realize the importance of what they were doing, but Peter and John prepared one of the most important meals Jesus took part of.

Only God knows the plans for the rest of my life; I can try to plan on my own, but God has total control over what happens. How willing am I to listen to the things he tells me to do? Do I submit myself to HIS will so that HE may be most glorified? Peter and John clearly got some recognition (in the least that they were named) for this event and they both played an important role in the early church, but what about the man whose house it was? It surely caused some sacrifice on his part to allow this group of people to use his upstairs room for a big meal such as Passover. He is not even named in the scripture. How many of us would be willing to give up our house for a group of people we may not even know to come have a celebration? Just let them use our things and stay as long as they desire. I know it would not be my first idea.

The season of Lent has just begun, but the journey to the cross is here. The next few months is all about Jesus on his way to do what he came for. He knows what is ahead and how it will all end. He is almost there.

Lord, I offer myself to you. Use me to do whatever is needed, no matter how small. Like the unnamed disciple in the story, help me to serve without recognition. Amen.

Known

Last night I went on a music shopping spree on Amazon. Once my brother informed me you could buy music from Amazon and it would load directly into iTunes AND it was cheaper, well, let's just say I probably spent more than I should have on new music! One of my new favorites is Audrey Assad's album "The House You're Building." She has a beautiful voice and sings such peaceful Christian music, I don't know how anyone wouldn't like her. I recommend her to anyone who likes Brooke Fraser, Kari Jobe, Tenth Avenue North, Francesca Battistelli, Leeland, or just wants some good music to listen to! Can I say it again? She is BEAUTIFUL! So far, one of my favorite songs she sings is called "Known."

I have been listening to this song for the past few hours, thinking about how God KNOWS me. No matter what I do, he knows my past, my present, my future. He knows what I am worried about, what my dreams are, and who I want to become. No one else can even come close to knowing me the way that God does. This relationship needs to be above all others, because no one can know me in the same way. My prayer is that I may grow and know God in the same way that he knows me.

"Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts." Psalm 139:23

Saturday Morning Thoughts

I love to bake and cook, but don't find myself doing very much of it at school. "There's not enough time" "I'll have to buy the ingredients" "What do I do with the leftovers?" Clearly, coming up with excuses is pretty easy. However, I have decided to be more purposeful with my cooking and not always take the easy way out. Mac & Cheese anyone? :)

Last night I had a friend over for dinner and made chicken pot pie (I called my mom to get her yummy recipe) and mashed potatoes. Yes, it took a little bit of time. Yes, I had to buy all the ingredients. Yes, I have leftovers. BUT it was so good! And so fun to make and share a meal with a good friend. Since I also bought some french bread for dinner, I decided that this morning I would make French Toast. What a lovely way to start off a Saturday morning. French Toast with peanut butter, honey, and bananas :) (and a just little cup of coffee, because those of you who know me know that if I drink more than 1/2 cup of caffeinated coffee I will be bouncing off the walls!)

Today's verse of the day comes from Matthew 5:14-16

"You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven."

How do I let my light shine before others? What things can I do today (and everyday) that give light to the world around me? How can I use this opportunity to be a blessing to the people I come into contact with every day? Only when I allow God to use me as HIS light will I be able to accomplish anything worthwhile. It is my prayer to be a person who lets my light shine before others, glorifying God in all that I do.

Happy Saturday! :)

Things I miss...

Watching Gilmore Girls and quoting every word along with it. I don't think I will ever have another favorite show :)

Summer days at the beach, laying out and getting burnt (let's be real, I'd love to say that I tan, but I really just burn..)

Disneyland! Who doesn't miss Disneyland?

Reading wonderful books for fun and not having to write a paper or take a test about them. I keep collecting books to read when I have time. Hopefully that day comes soon.

Wearing flip flops every day, whether it's July or December.

My sweet grandparents.

"And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.'" Revelation 21:3-4

Happy March!

It's a rainy first day of March as I sit in my warm apartment thinking how much I enjoy Tuesdays. I only have one class, get to go to chapel, get to work (today even got a few extra hours), and spend the rest of the time relaxing and working on homework. I really love my job. There are few people that get to say that day in and day out. There are always things that aren't my favorite (wiping poopy bums for example, but who actually likes that?) I love being able to enter the world of a 3 year old and remember that it's exciting to play with toys or paint or use glitter or even go on a walk. Teaching them knew words or ideas and sharing new experiences with them are things that I truly enjoy. I am not afraid to say that I am blessed by my job and I love it!
I also love chapel on Tuesdays. I am trying to make it a habit to attend every week because it is always so refreshing. Today's message was on Matthew 24-25 and entitled "The Beginning of the End." There are many people who spend so much time studying how the "end" will come and when Jesus will return that they forget to live in the present moment. We learn about the future Kingdom so that we may live with that hope today. Instead of asking "What would Jesus do?" we should say "What did Jesus do? How did Jesus live as an example to us?" We can be aware of the end times, but it shouldn't be our focus. How can I live a life that shows those around me what it means to love Jesus? How can I share that love with them? Does this mean a simple smile or prayer? Or maybe it means I give them my food or clothing. Living each day remembering the example Jesus gave me reminds me that there are more important issues going on in the world that I need to concern myself with. Every single person is loved by God, and God calls me to love them to.

Heal my heart and make it clean

Open up my eyes to the things unseen

Show me how to love like you have loved me

Break my heart for what breaks Yours

Everything I am for Your kingdom's cause

As I walk from earth into eternity.