Something God has been telling me lately...

"He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."

Micah 6:8

I would rather be doing this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Je5shcp0R0

1. Watching Gilmore Girls
2. Cleaning and Organizing

The end.

20 more days...

until HOME :)

Looking forward to:

seeing my family

spending time with my favorite little boys [and going swimming]

 hanging out with my best friends and going to the BEACH

seeing the sun every day and being warm, even if warm means 100 degrees

reading the huge pile of books I have accumulated but haven't had time for

helping out at church and serving at VBS

Baking and Cooking

Sleeping in, having my own room/bathroom/big bed, being able to do laundry at any time, having a car to go places, spending days with nothing to do, wearing shorts and tank tops every day, eating summer food and spending time outside, 4th of July and watching fireworks, wearing flip flops [being barefoot]...okay, so the list goes on and on. Basically I'm very excited to be going home for the summer :) although I am going to miss Seattle a lot- especially my roomies, friends, and church family, it is time for summer. I just have to get through the next three weeks of projects, papers, and finals. I can do it.

Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth. Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Psalm 100:1-3

Where does the time go?

I cannot believe it's already half-way through May. It seems like just yesterday it was January and I was thinking the sun was never going to shine ever again. [just kidding! although it feels that way when you have to be up for class an hour and a half before there's even a glimpse of light outside!] I also can't believe I'm almost done with my junior year of college. Only one more to go. Then what? :/ It seems to me that the more you enjoy something the quicker it passes by. Funny how that works isn't it? A fun day with a friend flies by, but a dreadful class drags on and on and on.

I have been thinking a lot recently about how blessed I am by my little Seattle world. I have been thinking about what it would have been like had I stayed at home to go to school, or even if I had gone somewhere else. How many people I would have missed out on meeting and serving. I wouldn't have met any of my wonderful roomies or friends at SPU, I would have never met my church family at FFMC, I would have never worked at the day care...the list goes on.

I have been teaching the Wednesday night preschool class at my church all year and it's mostly been babysitting 2-4 kids, but the past few weeks we've had up to 17 preschoolers! soooo that means I've been making lessons- story, crafts, games, etc. Last week we were talking about how sometimes we need to say sorry to other people and get our hearts in the right place. The craft to go along with this lesson was a treasure map where the kids got 4 steps to glue on their paper about how to make things better again. Things like "What did I do?" "How do I need to change?" "How can I do it differently next time?" "I'm going to try again!" Now I figured they would have fun coloring and gluing all by themselves and it would be something that got sent home in the mess of other church papers, but apparently I was wrong. My pastor saw one of the moms who has two preschool aged boys and she said that they love it! They have these crafts hanging up at home and when they've had problems where someone needs to say sorry to someone else they go back to the treasure map and go through each step. When she told me this it touched my heart so much! To know that they're actually understanding what I am trying to teach, even among the chaos of so many kids, they are still learning something. Stories like this and other times when I get to interact with all my church kiddos really is what its all about for me. Wednesday nights, Sunday mornings, nursery, Sunday school, babysitting, etc. All of these things are letting me know that I am in the right place; right where God wants me. Sure, it's not always easy, but the light at the end of the tunnel is that I get to share the love of Jesus two or more times a week with these children and leave a lasting impression in their hearts and minds. I am genuinely going to miss this part of my life while I am home for the summer, and can't wait to be back in the swing of things this fall!

This was at the Easter EGGstravaganza- helping the girls make tissue paper stained glass windows of course :)

And speaking of being home for the summer, only 23 more days left! For me, that means only 9 more days of classes, including a project, book report, paper, one final, along with regular homework and quizzes for the next three weeks. I am so thankful for the sunshine that has been popping out lately and that it is supposed to remain sunny for the rest of the week, but it really does not help with motivation to do any sort of school work. I keep telling myself that I just have to push through and then I will be able to spend the next 4 months relaxing :)

I want this.

Anyone left out there not engaged or married?

Is it just me or does it seem like everyone in the world is getting engaged or married?....okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I know more than a dozen people who have recently gotten engaged and another handful that have gotten married. It's funny to think of this huge life change happening to so many people I know, when I am thinking I am nowhere near ready for this step!

Since marriage has been on my mind I decided to write one of my mid-term papers about what Paul has to say about marriage in the New Testament. I put it off as long as possible, as per usual, and once I started writing I actually learned a lot more than I was expecting. One of the things that really stood out in this paper was found in Ephesians 5:21-33

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

I chose this passage as one to focus on because I know it is often used in a negative way for women. Men will use it against their wife telling them they have to submit because it is Biblical.....Well, let's look at this for just a moment. The word that Paul uses in the original Greek for submit is hupotassomai which means something more like "give allegiance to," "tend to the needs of," "be supportive of," or "be responsive to." Not exactly the way we think of submit is it? I would venture as far to say that the word submit in our society could be tied to something you would command of a slave. NOT what God wants wives to be. Wives are not slaves to their husbands. [I'm really not a feminist, I promise]

Now that we have that part down, we can look at what the role is for a man. Paul gives more direction to the husband than the wife, as we can see with the length of the second part of the passage. We may think that the man gets a very different command (love), but actually it is very similar. The Greek word Paul uses for love is agapao, which is a self-sacrificing love not based on emotion. However, I think we can all see how this can get confusing in English because we only have one word for love and we use it to mean a myriad of different things.

"Agapao is almost identical with hupotassomai. Both involve giving up one's self-interest to serve and care for another's. Both mean being responsive to the needs of the other. And both are commended to all Christians, as well as to husbands and wives."

John Bristow What Paul Really Said About Women

The first sentence of this passage is telling us to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ, with no specifications for men or women, married or unmarried. (Many translations even separate this sentence from the discourse on husbands and wives). BUT before we can even take on this role of husband or wife we must be willing to submit to (give allegiance to, respect, tend to the needs of, support) one another. We all have a role to play and no one role is better than another. It breaks my heart to see or hear of women being taken advantage of in any way by their husband, but to use scripture against them? really? I feel like every couple entering marriage should seriously look at what their roles are and what it means to hupotassomai and agapao one another. To me, knowing these things reinforces the fact that marriage is not just something you do because everyone else is doing it, or because you have nothing else to do and figure why not?...it is a COMMITMENT!