June

It is hard to believe this year is already in its sixth month.  This year has included so much travel and obligations on the weekends that I hardly feel I've had a weekend.  Once, sometime around February or late March, I thought things would return to normal around May; now I predict November...or 2009?  There are many exciting things going on in the lives of my closest friends (Babies-ones born and one 12 weeks in the womb today!-purchasing of houses and weddings).  I feel spread thin by wanting to be everywhere at once.  The week is one continuous countdown to the weekend making each week seem like two.  

This year has only reinforced that what is most important to me is the relationships developed in life.  When life becomes difficult it is these relationships that remain and build us back up.  They are my treasure.  Today Karen, as she often does, reminded me of something I had completely forgotten I said several years ago.  At once, though, I was reminded of something we shared together.  It is this deep connection between us that makes me so grateful for the true friends I have.  They hold pieces of me and my existence in their minds and heart that even I have forgotten.  

Great is the Lord who lavishly pours out His love to us so that we may be bound together by it and through it to Him who saved us.

Friday at Home?

For the past 4 Thursdays, I have been packing to leave the state or to travel to one of the other largest cities in Texas.  It's Friday night (technically Saturday morning--I napped too long after work) and I don't know what to do with myself.  I finally downloaded a wedding I photographed-but didn't have to edit-, only have 4 large loads of laundry left (which means 8 in my mini-sized "free with rent" washer/dryer), and watched the shows I missed last night on-line, because, in north Tejas, we can't have a storm without all three of the major networks covering it for four hours (it actually was really bad but luckily the storm was losing steam by the time it got here).  

One of the things I did with myself tonight was to get on facebook.  One of the advertisements on the left was for a website where you pay money, "Only five dollars a month!" to see who has been looking for you.  

This begs the question are we as a society so narcissistic that we will pay $60/year to see who might be searching for us (or someone with our exact same name), or are we that desperate to be found by anyone; to be wanted by someone.  

God knows and wants us, but he doesn't have to cyberstalk us to find us.  Will the world really ever get that?   

 

God is...

Love, but not the lame, distorted sense of love the world has created.  His very essence is that of something we can only think to call love.  It is something that we only, in brief periods of time, can experience just a taste of what it must be like to be the Creator of all things.

My oldest, best friend (we've known each other since we were eight and liked each other since we were 12 :)  is at this very moment in labor.  This is the first time someone I've grown up with and count as family is giving birth.  I've been ecstatic for 9 months from shopping for him, to working on a special photography project for him, and feeling him move around.  When I first found out about Eli it was as if someone told me "you're pregnant."  That's how hard it was to wrap my mind around the idea of him, but he is real and will be in this world soon.  

It is my privilege to be in his life and over the coming years I will have the opportunity to help mold him into the person God has meant for him to be since the beginning of time.  This is my glimpse of God's heart and how cool it must be to know what God knows.  To know someone from before their beginning and to watch them grow and learn, stumble and move forward.   

Sometimes this being an adult thing is kind of cool.

Toilet Paper

Growing up is a lot like choosing a toilet paper.  For a long time I just bought Charmin Ultra without giving it much thought because that's what I have always used and that's what I know I like.  It's the family toilet paper, if you will.  Recently, I've bought Cottenelle Aloe twice and decided I really like it.  It's just as soft, just as....well, I'll skip that...plus it has a subtle pinstripe which I really like for aesthetic reasons (just like my couch, actually).  For that latter reason, I've decided "it's me."  

The point:  what in our lives do we take for truths or certainties then really asking the question, is it truth?  Is it certain?  By what standards do we hold ourselves accountable for determining those answers?

My small group has started Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard.  One of the topics in the intro and first half of the first chapter is this:

"We lead them [non-Christians] to profess allegiance to him [Christ], or we expect them to, and leave them there, devoting our remaining efforts to 'attracting' them to this or that."

It really troubles me when Christ is presented by the church as what I like to catergorize as "puppy dogs and cotton candy;" the, "here's Jesus, isn't he neat? Be a Christian!" conversion. By not equipping new comers to the faith, as well as our own fellow members in congregations, of what it means to live for Christ (abandoning ourselves and risking social faux pas as "the harlot" does in Luke 7) that results in a second point:

"presumed familiarity [with Jesus] has led to unfamiliarity, unfamiliarity has led to contempt, and contempt has led to profound ignorance."

The people of the early church impacted by the message of Christ and redemption through him,

"concluded that they would be fools to disregard it.  That was the basis of their conversion."

I don't think I've ever thought, "I'd be a fool to not believe in Christ."  Those words, word for word, but I do know that its true.  That is my truth.  That is my certainty.

As I find my way along in this world which is so consumed with the "me" disease, it's hard to cling to that truth.  It's easy to slip.  It's easy to be pulled down. It's easy to hide from the world that my faith is not something I do; it is the thing that defines who I am.  It's me.

You Shall Not Murder

Luke 10:25-27

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

"What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?"

He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

The entry in Portals of Prayer (Produced by Concordia Publishing House) for January 7 stopped me in my reading tracks:

"Jesus' story of the Good Samaritan proves us guilty of breaking even the Fifth Commandment, whether we physically kill someone or not. God expects us to help and nurture, not to merely to live and let live. He expects us to love, not merely to avoid hate. Moreover, He expects us to do all this for our enemies, not merely for our friends."

Guilty. Guilty of tolerating, of avoiding hate and either refusing to love or putting up a wall of indifference. It's not enough to "agree to disagree" and move on. If Christ had done that, we wouldn't have been saved. He did not choose hate or indifference but love. A love that took Him to the cross.

2007 in Review

Biggest changes:
Living the farthest north I ever have/living by myself and a new career.

Biggest disappointments:
Still not knowing what I want to be when I grow up; having my ten year plan thrown completely out the window.

Favorite place visited:
The Acropolis in Athens

Least favorite place visited:
Some public toilet room I've blocked out of my memory, I'm sure.

Favorite memory:
It's a toss up between Allison telling me she was pregnant and being squished in an European elevator half the size of my closet with the Dellaughters an Italian bell hop and all our luggage.

Least favorite memory:
Having a piercing inner ear pain that radiated to the back of my head that hurt so bad I started crying without realizing it.

What I'm not looking forward to the least in 2008:
Renewing my lease and seeing how much my rent goes up/possibly moving.

What I am looking forward to the most in 2008:
The births of Storie (sp?) Alder and Eli Alford!! The 4th in D.C. and birthday trip to Quebec with the parents (possibly).

What I am most grateful for:
Renewed and strengthened friendships, my family and being God's child.

Favorite Book:
Passion and Purity by Elizabeth Elliot (new favorite author)

Verses that sum up the year:

Isaiah 60:22b & 2 Corinthians 2:6
"I am the Lord; in its time I will hasten it."

"For he says, 'In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you; behold, now is the time of salvation."

Goals for 2008:
Join a yoga class to keep my back healthy.
Get back on track with my personal devotion time.
Contact at least one of the photographers I blog stalk and tell them they're awesome.

Confessions of an Addict

It's been nine months and five days since I last left the country;
2 months and 21 days since I went somewhere on a plane just for fun
and the walls are closing in.