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I forgot a lot >_< but it was fun to try!

Thanks, lyricalisse!

And this one was amusing:
41% Geek

Check out this neat online game that 13redrose sent me:
Free Rice

I can't remember the last time I posted here. I've been so busy lately...

- Work is very demanding and stressful right now. I had to work last Saturday (3/3) and I may have to work a crazy schedule during the eight days following 3/16.
+/- My group at work is moving buildings. This doesn't make sense, because our lab will still be in the same building, and it will require a lot of going back and forth for us. Right now, however, I'm so anxious for CHANGE, that I'm just hoping the new atmosphere will be better, even if more inconvenient. One good thing is that I'll no longer be responsible for facilitating a Bible study on Fridays at lunch. It was always a source of stress for me to have that responsibility, and felt so ritualistic. The fact that besides me were only guys was another stress factor. There were great times of being uplifted as well, but it's really kinda hard for me to share with a group of older men.
+++ Going off the Pill and switching to Fertility Awareness Method. I've been taking the Pill for seven years, and for the last several months, I've really been resenting what they've done to my body. I'm so thankful that Erik is supportive of this change. I want to feel like *me* again and just be natural--the way God made me. This is really exciting for me.
+ I've been attending Alpha on Sunday nights at my church. This is my first session doing it, and I'm at a table with a couple of my girlfriends, who are my age. It's a lot more comfortable than when Erik and I tried going to one night a year ago, and ended up sitting with older men. It's great food, and I love Nicky Gumbel's videos. He's a great speaker, and he uses great illustrations. He always brings up things I didn't quite grasp before. The only downside is that it's a Sunday night thing, and my Sundays are already pretty busy since I go to church and lunch with my dad in the mornings. I don't get to see Erik a lot on Sundays.
+ Cats! I finally got to head over to Erik's family's place yesterday for dinner. I got to pet kitties. I wish we could have cats...I'd love to have one just curl up on my lap whenever I'm home. Erik wants a kitten, though, and with both of us working so much, no one would be here to supervise it.
- Loneliness. Some days, I really feel my lack of close, intimate friendships. I love my husband so much, but we don't share my faith. With home and work responsibilities, although I make it to church events and see my girlfriends, I have a hard time ever calling them or going out for coffee. I don't do much email or chatting anymore, so I generally feel disconnected. (lyricalisse and boonychica, I miss you guys!)
+ Books! I love books. I've read so many great ones lately. My introverted self finds a lot of comfort in books, but I wonder if I'm allowing them to take the place of real relationships? Lately I've been reading Corrie ten Boom, Philip Yancey, Joel C. Rosenberg, Francine Rivers, and L. A. Kelly.
- I miss having a library at church and helping out there. My favorite service in the church was shelving books, checking them in and out, at the little library we had. My church is doing some building now, so the library is closed. When the construction is all done, I hear the library will be different, but maybe there will still be an opportunity for me to help out there.
+ Discovery channel. Erik and I like to watch Mythbusters on Wednesday nights. Fun, crazy stuff.
+ 2 Corinthians 5:17
+ Hymn: Till the Storm Passes By
+ Cinnamon rolls. Yum!
- Lack of long-torso shirts. I need to find some time to go shopping.
+ www.stuffonmycat.com
- Taxes. :p

I suppose that's all for now. Might go curl up with a book for awhile... :)

I just heard from International Justice Mission, that there's a new movie coming out, Amazing Grace, that tells the story of William Wilberforce, who led the abolitionist movement in the UK (200 years ago) to abolish slavery.

Slavery is not something I think much about these days, but it does indeed happen, in very real ways and to very real people, ranging from bonded slave labor to forced prostitution and children abducted to fight in wars (read stories of freed slaves here).

When I first read about this last night, I came away with a movie I'd like to see when it comes out at the end of February. I didn't think much more about it. Then I had a dream about a little 10-year-old boy named Braden, who had been kidnapped. I tried to rescue him, but I couldn't trust any authorities. I got him out of the place, only to have him return later because of Stockholm syndrome. I work up remembering what I'd read in IJM's book Terrify No More about the importance of aftercare facilities for girls rescued from forced prostitution.

Because this doesn't happen near us, it's easy to pretend it doesn't happen. But everyone out there enslaved deserves to be free, like we are. The Amazing Change has a petition they're circulating to "call upon global leaders to commit themselves to abolition." Please take a moment to go have a look here.

Also, for anyone who attends church, there is an Amazing Grace Sunday planned on Feb. 18, to sing Amazing Grace and pray for the end of slavery.

Even as a Christian, I find it hard to believe that a real place such as hell exists, and that there isn't any way of being saved from it once you're there.

At a prayer meeting, I heard about this book--about this guy who was taken to hell for 23 minutes and then brought back by the Lord. The following link contains a shortened testimony, in either text or audio. It's very worth checking out, if you're even the least bit curious.

23 minutes in hell

This was fun, but I was disturbed by how many of my interests came up with porn. o_0

( My Interests Collage! )

But really, I need sleep anyways. :D It's enough--indeed, more than enough!--that I am forgiven and loved by God. He is incredible. Everyone should get to know Him. :D

Maybe I'll have time later to update on teh life...maybe not. But I'm in good hands.

And Tahn by L. A. Kelly is a beautiful, uplifting work of fiction. I can't wait to read the sequel.

<3

I wish I were as articulate as lyricalisse in describing my thoughts. But if it's not fiction, I tend to be very sloppy and impatient. Maybe too hard on myself. I don't know.

Hard things have been coming up lately. I had difficultly sleeping last night, thinking about choices I had made in the past. Painful to think about...wondering how, if I ever had a daughter, I would possibly explain these things to her in the hope that she wouldn't follow my example but choose a better path. That God would enable her to choose that and stand firm.

This morning I got ready for church feeling guilty because I didn't want to go. I had no problem with going, but I felt guilty for my lack of reverence, thinking and feeling like the message would be of little relevance to my life. I tried to confess that, and pray that the pastors would speak what God wanted them to, and that I would be humble to listen out of respect for their position and the difficult jobs they have.

I went, and it was a good thing I took my handkerchief with me. Today's message was about starting over--incredibly apt considering my anguish last night. Pastor Ward talked from Ezra 3, when the Israelites--newly returned from 70 years of captivity in Babylon--began to build an altar to the Lord on the ashes of the previous temple. On the ashes of the past. Pastor Ward likes to talk about two kinds of people: those who have been broken, and those who are broken still. I definitely fall into the latter category. He emphasized the need for Jesus, and the need for help.

That is where I get stuck (convicted). I've got Jesus, and I know He could heal me in an instant of all my problems if He wanted to...but He hasn't in everything, and I think part of that is because He wants to bring me into closer relationship with believers. I have been blessed to have many Christian friends and mentors, but there isn't one that I feel I could really open up to. No one I'd feel comfortable sharing with about those shameful things I wish I could just forget ever happened.

There is my mom, and she'd understand...but who wants to talk to her mother about these kinds of things? But actually, I think it's less that and more knowing that she would love me and care for me and pray for me that breaks me inside. I realize that that doesn't necessarily make sense, but if you've ever heard of a book called Hiding from Love, it would make some sense. I don't like being vulnerable. I don't like weeping in front of someone (I can somewhat handle it in front of my husband, but I can't necessarily talk to him about these things).

But I know I need healing, and it's a surgical metaphor that comes to mind. If the Doctor has told me the treatment, what do I do? Choose the scalpel? Or let the sickness continue to devour me, ignoring it until it becomes worse than before?

But I do take comfort in knowing that all I have to do is say "yes," and the Doctor will properly prepare me for the procedure. He won't abandon me or leave in my hands to handle what He knows I can't handle.

Knowing You
Words and Music by Graham Kendrick

All I once held dear, built my life upon
All this world reveres, and wars to own
All I once thought gain, I have counted loss
Spent and worthless now, compared to this

Knowing you, Jesus, knowing you
There is no greater thing
You're my all, you're the best
You're my joy, my righteousness
And I love you Lord

Now my heart's desire, is to know you more
To be found in you, and known as yours
To possess by faith, what I could not earn
All surpassing gift, of righteousness

Knowing you, Jesus, knowing you
There is no greater thing
You're my all, you're the best
You're my joy, my righteousness
And I love you Lord

Oh to know the power of your risen life
And to know you in your sufferings
To become like you in your death my Lord
So with you to live and never die

Knowing you, Jesus, knowing you
There is no greater thing
You're my all, you're the best
You're my joy, my righteousness
And I love you Lord

(emphasis mine)

I poured out my heart to God on the bus ride home today, over Psalm 139. I've been feeling so stressed out over my inadequacies, my failures, my lack of performance. I'm reading a difficult book right now called, The Fear of the Lord by John Bevere. It's a good book, but difficult to take in. And it doesn't help that I've been praying for refiner's fire lately. But I've really been convicted in reading of how commonplace I've treated the glory of the Lord, His mercy, His grace, and His awesome power. And especially, His holiness.

But God is more than capable of changing and restoring me. Of growing in me a healthy fear of Him, in addition to security in His love. Bringing me to the place where I can "work out my salvation with fear and trembling, for it is the Lord that works in me" (Phil 2:12-13).

The book has also given me just a taste of God's immense and unfathomable glory. He shines brighter than the sun (Acts 26:13), which bathes our planet in light and is still 96 million miles away! When God makes His home on earth, no wonder we won't need a sun or moon to give us light!

But there's also the fact that the closer we get to the light, the more our own flaws and stains are exposed. However, I'd rather be painfully near God than comfortably far away from Him, ignorant of the judgment I was heaping upon myself.

What other way is there? When He has the way to eternal life? When He loves me so much that His thoughts towards me are more numerous than there are grains of sand? When He knew before I was born all the days of my life that would be...and still He chose that I would live and come to Him. How could He lose me along the way, weak and distracted as I am? He precedes and follows me, and knows my anxious heart. And still loves me. How can it be?