resolutions

It's only... February 4th... I can still talk about resolutions right? :)

I wasn't really hardcore on setting resolutions this year. But more like... nice goals to have this year. I've already broken a few but it's about having the end goal in mind, right? :]

So here they are:

- having more meatless meals

- more social/fellowship gatherings

- no paper cups - bring reusable cup!

- no sugar in coffee

Meatless meals

- I don't know about you but sometimes it feels like for a meal there's gotta be the starch, the meat, and the veggies. Last year, though not always intentionally, we tried to have 2-3 meatless meals during the week. Sometimes it was because we didn't have time to defrost after coming home from work, and sometimes it was more intentional in not needing meat in our meals.  And in general, we definitely need more green things in our meals.  :]

Social/fellowship gatherings

- To hang out with people more! Being married provides you with constant and instant companionship! And I think it (including dating) makes people lazy to actually go hang out with other people. It's easy to go see a movie just the two of you, but in our community group (aka Bible study), there are single people and I want to make sure there are lots of group activities that everyone can participate in.

No paper cups

- I love my Starbucks but I don't love waste! This is less so jumping on the green, don't waste bandwagon than me actually, finally realizing how much unnecessary waste I help generate! So my goal this year is to either bring my own coffee mug or if I know I'll be staying in the coffee shop, to get it "for here."  I've already broken this rule twice... but I still have 11 more months to make it right! Bringing my own coffee mug doesn't seem like a hard task but I don't like lugging it around when my bag is heavy enough or I don't like toting around a dirty cup, so I will need to put in extra effort for this.  I encourage you if you're going to be sitting in the coffee cup to get your drink of choice in real cup.  :)  You don't even have to do the dishes!

Starbucks with my honey!

No sugar in coffee

- This has been going fantastic. :) I still put cream in, I'm not that hardcore yet. But I feel like it's a small goal accomplished every morning that's a good thing for me. I haven't cut out all sugar but now there's that extra cushion space. :oP

My sugar of choice.  Say no!  (Source)

And of course, a daily, yearly, lifelong resolution... is this:

No, our job as Christians is simply this, I think: to keep company with Jesus. In prayer. In God’s life-giving words. With other Christians. Our assessment of how we’re doing — or not doing — is less important than simply being with Him and letting Him lift the unhealthy yokes we hoist onto our own shoulders.

Where intentionality does come into play, of course, is making space in my life to appropriate that truth. It doesn’t happen magically or automatically. I still have to choose to be with Jesus. Frankly, I struggle with doing that consistently, too. Despite those failures, though, Jesus keeps whispering, “Come. Be with Me. Lay down your burdens. Walk with Me."

Adam R. Holz, "The Unforced Rhythms of Grace"

                         

SCC concert!

If you know me at all... or at least if you've known me long enough, you know that my favoritest artist is Steven Curtis Chapman.  I know.  He's an old fogey.  :oP  But he does have great, new material!  (He also just became a grandpa!)

I believe this is my... 6th.. ish SCC concert?  :]  I've lost track.  haha.  I had to look at his discography to count the CDs that had tours that I went to.  :oP  There was one concert I have no recollection of but I had bought a very expensive t-shirt... so I must've went right?

This, I believe, was also my anniversary present.  :oP

Anyway... my husband is now my mandatory willing concert mate, and my old pal (from 6th grade, holla!) Courtney visited that weekend, so she went to the concert with us too!  It was in a random town an hour southwest in Shrewsbury, MA.

We got there kinda late so we got stuck behind this giant black screen by the sound booth.  BOO.

SCC opened.  OPENED with his openers and basically played alongside the whole concert.  LOVE that format.  It was really casual and fun and great.  :D

Andrew Peterson --- sings high.  Very high.

Josh Wilson --- pretty snazzy on that git-tar

It was a great time.  :D  However, he mostly just played... through the years... which is mostly fun I think if you've been along for the ride through the years.  I enjoyed it but it also "sounded" like the past few concerts of his I've been to.  A little more so this time since his latest CD is most remixes of his older tunes  plus like 3 new songs (which he did 2 of at this concert).  (See the uuuuugly black screen that was in our way??  We couldn't see when we sat.)

We went to Costco the next day. :D

All in all, it was a fun time and I will probably go to more concerts out of love and loyalty.  :oP  But I may require some more new material next time, SCC!  ;]

                                      

worthy of the calling

[Warning: Actually thoughtful post.  No pictures.  Just words.  May be too serious for some.  You have been warned.]


This is by no means my first blog.  That was a fun place over at LiveJournal, where to this day, the interface is how I set it to be.  (You can learn from that, Facebook!  Changing things every few months.  It's annoying.  Don't fix what ain't broke.)

Anyway, when Google started taking over the world, I started a blog on Blogger named after a song by Bebo Norman.  I didn't blog too much since those were the awesomely wonder years of college where I was having too much fun in real life to blog.  (Not that I'm not having fun in real life now.  It's different!)  :]  Since all the blogs you own or are a part of show up in your Blogger dashboard, I saw that old blog and browsed through it.  Nothing terribly interesting until I came upon a post I posted on January 3, 2007.  I had just attended Urbana '06, a giant Christian conference aimed at college students that only occurred every three years.

This was the post:

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Many went to Urbana expecting to be told by God what they are to do with their lives.

I received my calling at Urbana '06.

I did not expect thunder and lightning to reveal a moment of revelation.

He did not give it to me.

I had no expectations for Urbana '06.

Yet God exceeded them.

He answered unprayed prayers.

He spoke to me.

He did not tell me what to go to grad school for.

He did not tell me what my career, if I have one, will be like.

He did not tell me who I am going to marry.

He did not tell me whether I will get into grad school.

He did not tell me whether I will get a job.

But He did tell me what my calling is in life, which is to live for Him.

Anything else is really secondary.

"Live a life worthy of the calling." ~ Ephesians 4:1

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As I read that today, I kinda blinked and then smiled cause... WOW.  I went to grad school, I got married, and I have a job.  Hindsight is always, of course, more interesting, and to stand on "the other side" looking back on what I didn't know... all sort of coming to pass since then.  But the greatest reminder which I often forget... is that back then... I "figured out" what my calling is in life -- to live a life worthy of the calling.  Something solid in the fluidity of the unknown.  Is it better to know that and not all the stuff I know now?  Probably.  But I should make something of that --- to know all those uncertainties back then... and to live a life worthy of the calling.  Of course there will be all sorts of other things I don't know now that will make sense later.  :]

Blogs are kind of fun to look back on and go "what was I thinking?!" but also to see how far and how much we've grown.  The things we've learned.  Our experiences.  Those raw in-the-moment emotions we went through.  In a 3 page blog post.  (Oh I know you have those!  :oP)

I'm gonna go think some more about this while I cook dinner.  Maybe.

Do you ever go back on old blog posts?  Or {gasp} those things called journals with the paper where used a pen...?

                           

love mercy part 2

  A few weeks ago, I wrote about  "Love Mercy: A Mother and Daughter's Journey from the American Dream to the Kingdom of God."  I finally finished it last week and here are two more quotes I liked and found thought provoking that I want to share, both from Lisa Samson (the mom):

How much different would my life be if I ran my actions through fewer filters?  Can you imagine Jesus being asked to heal and responding," Oh I was on my way to the synagogue.  I'll catch you when I'm finished, and we'll take care of that disease then."  What would it look like if I lived in imitation of the Father, who owns the cattle on a thousand hills and says his mercies are from everlasting to everlasting?

 -------------------------

God's great love for me means I can't misrepresent that love to anyone else.  His great love is the model for how to run our charities and churches.  Above all, his love shows us how to love each other.

Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.  ~  John 13:34-35
                                        

love mercy

Before we left for Christmas, I randomly scoured the shelves at our library and picked up two small paperback books, since our copy of The Path of Daggers (WoT book 8) is like... the size of a hardback encyclopedia (too heavy for the airplane!) 

I picked up "Crossing Washington Square" by Joanne Rendell (oh my, it's only $2.26 on Amazon)

and "Love Mercy: A Mother and Daughter's Journey from the American Dream to the Kingdom of God" by Lisa Samson and Ty Samson


I finished "Crossing Washington Square" on our flight to Oregon and it was okay.  Girlie fiction?  haha.  But I only started "Love Mercy" after we got back, since I thought I should read it before I returned it.  I'm slowly moving through it, but in short it's about a mom (Lisa) and Ty (her daughter) whose comfortable lives get shaken by God and they are challenged to do more for His Kingdom, starting with an experience and journey to Africa, in particular Swaziland, which has the highest AIDS rate in the world.  This section, by Lisa (page 35-26), resonated with me:

"Jesus couldn't really be followed, could he?  I was supposed to believe in him, sure, but follow?  Nobody really expected any of us to do that, did they?

In the name of grace (a wonderful thing to be sure), I'd watered down faith to mere intellectual assent.  I didn't have to follow Jesus, really -- I had only to believed he was the Son of God and go on my merry way.  Believing correctly was one more thing to check off my to-do list.  But Jesus didn't talk like that.  Not even close.  Nor did James, who wrote, Even the demons believe... and shudder" (James 2:19).

Was God really calling me to be conformed to the image of his Son?  Wasn't it more like a suggestion?  What if I just wanted to make sure I went to heaven and not hell?  What if I simply valued church for the fellowship, the children's programs, and the potlucks? 

What God talking about actually changing my life?  Really?

No wonder the Pharisees hated Jesus.  No wonder the rich man went away sad."

Too often, we are armed with our Sunday school answers and we may have a thorough knowledge of the Bible or be good people but the actual life changing stuff?  That's scary.  I chuckled at the line, "Wasn't it more like a suggestion?" to follow Jesus, but at the same time, it's true.  It's easy for me to "believe" and do church things and be good and serve others.  But to give up my comforts and to truly love others and to allow God to change my life?  It's a lot easier to go on my merry way and think this is how God wants me to live.  Which could be.  But I think deep down inside, I know my laziness and selfishness gets in the way* of all God wants to do, all. the. time.



*Though not in the sense that my laziness and selfishness are obstacles to God because... He can do anything He wants.
             

beautiful people

A month or two ago, I was browsing through Francis Chan's (well-known pastor from SoCal) website and blog and came upon this post under his Updates.  It made an impression on me.

 

For context, Lisa is Francis' wife and Emily Chapman is Steven Curtis Chapman's daughter!

 

-------------------------------------------

September 2010

BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE

 

Last week, I met some of the most beautiful people…  Lisa and I flew to Nashville to film a television show that raised awareness for the 140 million orphans in the world (www.cryoftheorphan.org).  There we met couples that had adopted several kids out of difficult situations.  Some of the children had special needs, and some had medical issues that meant they probably did not have long to live.  Their desire was to show these children as much love as possible during their time on earth.  It was an amazing picture of the love of Christ.  We were inspired.

During dinner, we were speaking to Emily Chapman.  She was telling us about their orphanage in China.  Lisa and I told her that we were going to be in China soon and would love to visit.  We also expressed our desire to adopt any child that was in need.  She proceeded to tell us about a beautiful little boy that she thought would fit perfectly into our family.  We got pretty excited.  Then she explained that the boy had a spinal injury, so his legs did not work… 

After dinner, I asked Lisa, “Did you feel what I felt?  Were you excited until she mentioned that he couldn’t walk?”  We had a long talk that night, examining our lives.  We saw that God was revealing to us our self-centeredness. God did not adopt us because we were perfect.  He loved us because He is love.  He rescued us because He saw our need.  Having His Son die was not the convenient thing to do.  It was painful, sacrificial, and an amazing display of love. 

So we are starting the process of adoption.  We don’t know how long it will take or everything it involves.  If the Lord wills, it will work out for us to take in this little boy.  We know it will mean a huge adjustment to our lifestyle, but we also believe that he will be a major blessing in our lives.  While there is so much unknown, we are at peace.

"Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world."    James 1:27
-------------------------------------------

I could totally hear his voice and the way he would've said, "Did you feel what I felt?  Were you excited until she mentioned that he couldn’t walk?”  That part, that whole paragraph resonated with me because I know I'm lazy, I know I'm self-centered, and too often I don't do thing because they are not convenient.  But to be reminded of Jesus' great love for us, even though I'm lazy and selfish, is a bucket of ice water.  Modern conveniences make life... more convenient.  But loving and serving others, whether that is your brother or sister at church, or the homeless man on the street, takes effort and is frankly, often inconvenient.  But God's love for us surpasses that, so our love for others should as well.

Christmas is a grand time.  Though often clouded by pretty light displays and presents.  But it was only the beginning.  The start of the mission Jesus was rocketed to earth for.  Fueled by love.