hey, folks. i have no idea if anybody still checks this, but if you do.... i've started blogging regularly for the Houston Chronicle's religion site, HoustonBelief. come visit.
11:49 AM
Your ability to really love your enemies, to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect, and to do generous good even to the ungrateful and wicked required that Christ learn obedience through what He suffered. It required Christ to die because of your natural enmity to God. It requires the Holy Spirit's power to give you a wholly new life. It requires the Father's patient hand to prune and grow you in a way of life that is otherwise impossible - even inconceivable. It requires nothing less than radical repentance, living faith, and renewal of your whole heart that you might learn how to really love. - David Powlison
1:57 PM
i know i haven't been around much lately. things have been crazy, what with the new job and moving 4 times in 6 months and making friends and establishing connections in a new city. and the truth is, i found someone else.
now it's not that you aren't special and awesome and everything, but twitter is just so much easier! i only have to come up with something 140 characters long to say, and it can totally be a line from a song. the level of creativity and thought required by you is just not required by twitter.
so, really, it's not you, it's me. but let's stay friends. every once in a while we can catch up. but at the moment, twitter is just meeting my felt needs more fully. you are kinda freaking me out with the intensity of your demands.
we'll always have paris,
lauren
6:04 PM
"with a little bit of luck" profundity:
"they're always throwing goodness at you,
but with a little bit of luck
a man can duck"
interesting to think about in terms of common grace...
1:14 AM
Nemesis, p. 158
speaker: archdeacon brabazon, a minor character
"I know when a couple are really in love with each other. And by that I do not just mean sexually attracted. There is too much talk about sex, too much attention is paid to it. I do not mean that anything about sex is wrong. That is nonsense. But sex cannot take the place of love, it goes with love, but it cannot succeed by itself. To love means the words of the marriage service. For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. That is what you take on if you love and wish to marry. Those two loved each other. To love and to cherish till death do us part."
10:47 AM
it's been AGES since i last posted!
well, let's see, what have you missed?
i have read a lot of books.
i have hung out with a lot of students.
i have made serious progress on my Pauline epistles class
i have attended a derek webb tweet-up - with about 250 other twitter fans.
i have gotten sick. and gotten better. several times. (they say your immune system gets stronger after a while. i'm hoping it's been a while.)
(it was never swine flu.)
i have to a taylor swift concert with my brother and his friend ryan in dallas.
i have been rained on a lot.
good stuff, right?
11:47 PM
freaking awesome. dad and i saw the most glorious rainbows - two of them - on our drive from atlanta to charlotte (post-RUF training, pre-move-stuff-to-dallas). i have never seen such vibrant rainbows, or such complete ones. you could see almost the entire arc!
dad took a lot of pictures (since i was driving), but i like this one the best, even though the apparent sky-color-change is actually due to the tinting on my windshield. ;)
rainbows are such great reminders that God keeps His promises, and that He has decided to take the blow for us, His people. after all, who do you think that arrow is aimed at, given the direction the bow is pointing?
1:42 AM
...i believe He is the Christ
Son of the living God
all i know is that i was blind and now i see
that though i kick and scream, love is leading me
and every step of the way His grace is making me,
every breath i breathe, He is saving me...
resurrection letters, volume II is a brilliant piece of work - the songs are good (some of them are better than good), but together the album is stunning. lyrical and musical motifs are woven throughout (as andy p is wont to weave). right now, this portion of "I Believe (The Good Confession)" is what is stuck in my head, especially the line "every breath i breathe, He is saving me." knowing andy p's body of work like i do, i think what he is getting at here is not that Jesus needs to keep saving me all the time, but that my need for Him and His grace is ongoing. i need Him now as much as i did at 5 years old when i "prayed the prayer," but i also HAVE Him now as much as i ever have or will.
we never stop needing Jesus. we never outgrow the Gospel.
[also, i just bought north! or be eaten today and started it. looks to be even better than it's predecessor.]
7:50 PM
so a few days ago my poor car nearly missed being taken out by a toyota. so did the house. thank you, random rock in the yard.
not so lucky: a tree.
some poor girl who a) is new to the country, b) is living away from her family, c) had just recently lost her brother, and d) had only gotten her license to drive a week ago wound up getting herself into quite a crash in the yard of the house i am staying at.
i feel dreadful for the poor girl, but am very grateful that shelly is still in one piece.
8:20 PM
so the summer has been positively loco, but not in a bad way. just in a crazy way. i am kinda ready for it to be over, and to be in one city for more than a month!
RUF staff training was last week, and it was most excellent. i really enjoyed getting to catch up with the other folks in my intern class and learned some extremely helpful things in the sessions. i also got to meet a bunch of other interns and campus ministers and got to spend some great time with billy and ashley, my new campus minister and his wife. they are pretty much fantastic.
next week (on the 12th, to be precise) i will be moving to houston!!!!!! freshmen show up on the 16th. here we go - i can hardly wait! i even got a necklace with an owl on it to get into "rice mode."
i am so excited to be moving to a ginormous city with fantastic food and old trees and an awesome home church that is so close to home. i know, i know - 4 hours isn't exactly around the corner, but it beats 17 any day!
we had this crazy adventure when we moved my stuff out of charlotte and to dallas that i will have to tell you about later. suffice it to say, none of the four of us (mom, dad, me, and kj) got a complete REM cycle in that night.
in other news, i seem to have entered a new life stage. a few years ago, it seemed like my facebook newsfeed was full of weddings. now it's full of babies.
sorry it's been so long! now that my life will be normalizing some, i expect i will be posting much more regularly.
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