Peppermint Latte with an Extra Shot of God

I once heard someone say that God is in everything that makes you happy.

It makes sense that we should find our Creator in all that bring us joy. The Bible says that there is "strength and joy in His dwelling place" (a). So the rush of joy we get from playing with puppies or riding a roller coaster is just a small taste of being in God's presence.

I also like what Nehemiah said to the masses: "Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength." (b) Isn't that great? The people are told to go have a big party with delicious food and special drinks--and THAT is called the joy of the Lord!

It's easy to forget that our Creator is in ALL our joys; not just the ones that happen in church. For me these joys include (but are not limited to):

Sitting on our patio in perfect weather.
Long walks with Bryan. (or anything else with Bryan!)
Doodling pretty little flourishes.
Coffee.
Shopping. (Yes, God is in shopping! Maybe that will be my next blog.)
Making people laugh. (It's not my forte, so I love it when it happens!)
Pastries.
Family get-togethers.

God is in all these things! I wish non-believers could understand this concept of God being the Creator and Inhabitant of joys. It hurts to hear them talk about heaven and hell based on the centuries-old stereotypes. Many non-believers think the Christian heaven is just an eternal, boring church service and that the Christian hell has all the debauchery and edginess they know and love on earth. I pray that they will realize the truth beyond those lies. Our Creator and his dwelling place are the ultimate good time: complete ecstatic joy!

(a) 1 Chron 16:27
(b) Nehemiah 8:10

Sleeting Outside and in My Head

I am resigned to the fact that I will have five girls. Mostly because I want the experience of raising both a son AND a daughter, and I doubt I'll be that lucky. Although I'm pessimistic about my chances to score both female and male offspring, I do think it's really cool in this age of knowledge, technology, and custom-anything that we still cannot choose the gender of our children. You get what the Lord gives you!

Bryan doesn't understand watching the same girly movies again and again. Sometimes I wish my college roommates still lived with me so we could giggle over the Mormon Pride & Prejudice late at night. At least my future five daughters will watch chick flicks with me.

I like that Gwyneth Paltrow has a long neck and makes it look good. I have a long neck too, but I blame mine on the neck-brace I had to wear after being in a car wreck in 6th grade. I'm pretty sure it stretched it out.

I am so glad I went to public schools instead of a private or home school. I'm convinced I'd be completely dysfunctional outside my church and home were it not for the secular exposure provided by public schools. For this reason I kinda feel sorry for home school kids. Then I remember the crazy scholarships they get for being so smart and my pity is gone. Why is dysfunctional spelled with a y? I suppose its spelling should be a little off.

I'm watching the old Emma now (which explains some previous statements). "I love John! ... I hate John!" The last bit of this movie absolutely transfixes me. "Marry me, my wonderful, darling friend!" Excuse me while I go give Bryan a kiss...

I assume nobody really cares to read this blog post. I figure you must be very bored to have read this far, and you must be glad for the reminder of why you don't share your own pointless thoughts with others. But I like writing. Not that I'm very good at prose, but I really can't stay away from it for too long. One of my favorite things at work is to compose emails.

I've been thinking about pulling out my old journals and blogging the quotes of my fourteen-year-old self. I'm convinced they would be very entertaining and almost equally embarrassing. But perhaps the distance of 12 years is enough to make me laugh instead of cringe. We'll see.

Surely I'm not the only one who thinks it's weird when couples say they're "trying to get pregnant". That phrase makes me uncomfortable. As it should.

And this is one reason (among others) why I have a strict personal policy against facebook friending people I work with. My blog posts link to my facebook Notes. This nonsense is not the kind of thing you want your coworkers reading. Hopefully none of them Googled me and found my blogspot and are reading this right now. If so... grrr. Not cool.

To Choose a Church

How do you choose a church? I've faced this question a couple times in my life when moving to a new city, but I'm still not sure how to answer it.

When you know nothing about the town and know nobody in it, your initial church visits are based solely on the exterior of the building and what little information you can find online. So you end up spending weeks of Sundays feeling uncomfortable in churches whose outside marquees completely misrepresented them.

When you do already know people in your new town, you will inevitably commit to the church of your favorite friend, and live with the nagging feeling in the back of your mind that there could still be a better church out there that you never got the chance to visit.

The idea of a "better church" brings up another question: if you're a Bible-believing Christian, shouldn't you be happy in any Bible-believing church? Some would say yes, I would say no. Choosing a church is a rare opportunity to choose your extended family, and there are so many more factors to consider beyond the obviously important factor of faith.

I'm excited about starting a new long-term relationship with a church in the area, but I'm dreading all the blind dates it will take to get there. If you have any advice and/or recommendations I'd love to hear them!

Thoughts on Romans 14

"Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him."

I like this scripture. I understand that it is referring to God's New Testament blessing of eating animals that were once thought unclean, but I think the lesson from these verses has a broader range of application. It makes me think of people who identify themselves as Christians yet also smoke, cuss, drink, etc. In my opinion, those are also "disputable matters" that should not be judged. And on the flip side, those whose faith allows them to do such things should not "look down on" those with weaker (more traditional?) faith who might be wrongly judgmental about the issues. Christians need to understand that there are varying degrees of faith, but they are ALL faith. Let's not get trapped into thinking that the church has to agree on all disputable matters. Your opinion and/or participation in these matters should be based solely on your own measure of faith:

"But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin."

Petition to Establish a Baby-Name Approval Committee

I just discovered an old church bulletin folded up in my desk drawer. These usually find their way to trash, but this one was worth keeping because of the notes I wrote on the back of it. Although I've been known to jot down key sermon phrases and insights of my own, this particular Sunday I was completely distracted by all the crazy names I found in the hymnal. (I know, slap my hand for not paying attention. It happens.) There were some real gems in there, and I spent nearly the whole service writing them down so I could share them with others. Here are just a few of the first names of people who contributed to the hymns in that book: Ethelbert, Horatius, Adoniram, Baynard, Judson, Elvina, Almeda, Folliott, Rigdon, and Sylvanus.

Recently my sister showed me a page from the newspaper with the names of all the babies born in the local hospital in 2007. It seems that unusual names are not just a thing of the past, but they're here to stay. Some of my favorites from the 2007 baby names were: Paradise, Dreamy, Fabiola, Fabian, Seraphina, Jericho, Tennessee, Gozlyn, and Heydy.

If any of these names belong to you or a relative, please do not take offense. Parents have the privilege of choosing any name for their baby, and I have some respect for people who stick to a name they like even after negative feedback from family and friends. Anyways, I named my pets oddly (Suki and Avee) so I might be the one someday who wants to name a child Ethelbert. But if that happens, please ambush me with an intervention for the sake of the child.

And I really hope that this "Dreamy" kid is a girl.

Eight Months in Iraq=Eight Months in KC

Kansas City. It's frigid. Avee and I do not like the cold. But I really enjoy living with my sister. I'd like it even better if Bryan were living here with me. Then it'd be like that cheesy spin-off of the Brady Bunch when Marcia and Jan lived in a house together with their husbands. But a sit-com life would be much better than a war-movie/Odyssey life. The role of Penelope is way overrated. More than anything though I'm really enjoying being just five minutes away from a Quick Trip. I get coffee there a few times a week. In the evenings we all watch American Idol or the latest season on dvd that my sister brought from the library (right now we have McGyver, Saved by the Bell, and Home Improvement). And on very special nights we all play Scrabble and drink Hard Mike's. Well, it really doesn't take a very special night to break out the Hard Mikes. I haven't done much shopping. Hopefully Stef and I will go to the plaza this weekend. I've been to their church twice, and I know I should be totally immersed in a ministry by now, but I'm not. I have no good excuse for that. I'm quite the sourpuss at church b/c it makes me miss Bryan a lot more. Maybe I'll volunteer for the nursery sometime. Kids are a lot easier to befriend than grown-ups.

Xanga: May 9, 2006: Post-JBU Goals

No more JBU. Here are my new goals to keep myself from becoming brain-dead after college:

• Become an Adobe Certified Expert. The tests for this are really hard, but I'm up for the challenge just to have that title. I think I'll start with the InDesign test.

• Read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Since the dustcover is in my portfolio I should have some thoughtful thing to say about it when I show it to potential employers.

• Cook dinner twice a week. I think it's best to approach this cooking thing slowly.

• Join a Bible study or home cell group with somebody I don't like. It will force me to find some good in them and maybe even help me grow spiritually.

• Read a book about Okinawa/Japan. Ideally this would be done at Barnes & Noble over a cup of Marbled Mocha Macchiato *before* I move there. (Move to Japan, not B & N)

• Train for a 5k. It's been way too long since I've done one of those. Right now I can only run a single puny mile. Anyone want to do this one with me?

• Keep in touch with friends. It's sad, but this has been really hard for me in the past. Kinda like Xanga, I pretend we're still involved, but the reality is I haven't updated since I can't remember when.

• Be on a reality tv show. I don't think this will better me in any way, but it would be nice to have a room redecorated or my ride pimped. American Idol also could be fun. Maybe they'd like me if I did all my performances rolling around on the floor.

• Write a book. This book will either be about graphic design, long-distance relationships, or how stupid, unfair, ridiculous, perverted, and dominating a certain branch of the military is. Right now I'm leaning toward graphic design.

• Sell photos on iStock.com. Freakin' harder than it sounds.

• Convince a lady at work that I'm better than her at everything and I know infinitely more than she does. That would be nice. Maybe then I'd get some r-e-s-p-e-c-t.

• Become ambidextrous, really. I've been working on this one for about a year and a half now. I'm convinced it can be a learned trait.

• Work somewhere other than DS. It's just like Siloam. A great and wonderful place to be, but it sucks you in and eventually you have the urge to get as far away from it as you can.
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