"Ah ha!" with Jesus moment

As I just posted, I got to hang out in the prayer room when I was up in K.C. For awhile now, as I wrote about in previous posts, I've had a hard time being in this season of 'blah' where I want to hang out with Jesus/read the Bible/pray but I can't (and won't) force myself to. As I sat in the prayer room throughout the day God was working in my heart.

First, I was in the intercession set. I listened to, and joined in, people's prayers for the upcoming One Thing Conference, for Kansas City, and for countires. As I prayed I realized how much I love to be in this place of intercession. I love to be inquiring to God about what is on His heart, what He wants to do, what His desires are, and then partnering with Him in the place of prayer. Again, and not for the last time, God opened my eyes not only to how important prayer is, but how important it is to me and to Him.

Later on Thursday, I was sitting in on the Misty Edwards 'Prophetic Worship' set and again God opened up my heart to Him. Since I've been in this 'blah' season I've had a hard time just being here. I want to move onto the greater adventures of knowing and loving Him. Although I didn't want to admit it, not only did this 'blah-ness' drive me nuts, but it made me feel as if I were somehow failing at this whole 'God thing'. Misty and her team sang about the heart-ache and the longing we feel for God, singing and speaking lines like "This ache is love. It doesn't lead to love, it is love." One of her team members started speaking about how God longs for us, how He wants us to be with Him, and how He's been waiting for us ever since we were a thought in His mind. And this realization came to me:

"Why is it that when God waits, longs, and wants more it's love, but when I wait, long, and want more I call it 'failure', I call it 'Try Harder'."

This one thing that God revealed to me has changed (and is changing) how I feel about 'blah' seasons. I'm not as frustrated now that I realize that with the ache and longing in my heart I am becoming more like the One who first felt the ache and the longing for me.

Yay for Jesus!

I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,

and in his word I put my hope.
My soul waits for the Lord

more than watchmen wait for the morning,

more than watchmen wait for the morning.

Psalm 130:5-6

(NIV)

What I've been up to

I know, I know. It has been awhile since I've posted anything. So here is what I've been up to:

1.) Babysitting my nephew!
I drove up to Kansas City Sunday and stayed until friday. My sister, Ang, was having her finals week so I went up there to take care of Baby Jackson. Not a lot of sleep was had, but a lot of fun was! Jackson and I bonded. He knows who his 'cool aunt' is for sure! I also got to hang out with Ang and Travis, which I don't get to do much, so I enjoyed that. As my 'thank you' for babysitting they let me go to the IHOP (International House of Prayer) Wednesday night and all day Thursday. I was also able to visit the Curts family at that time (The father was the pastor of my church and I dated Ethan, the son, for 2.5 yrs = We are all close friends). It was great!

Hanging out in the prayer room was great. I also picked up the new Misty Edwards and Team Cd. It is AMAZING! All the songs were recorded live in the prayer room and a very powerful.

2.) Resting
Since I babysat I haven't gotten much sleep (not to mention that I went straight from my finals week to babysitting) so I've been resting up, seeing some of my friends, hanging out with familiy, and spending time with Jesus.

So that's what I've been up to.

Happy Birthday-ness

Saturday was my birthday! Sweet 19. I got home friday from school and then my mom took me out shopping. My parents decided that since I'm careful with money that they would take me on a shopping spree. I ended up getting some clothes, a new Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (Hellcats is the title), a new journal, and the new John Mayer Cd. I really didn't want much, which made the 'spree' part a bit of an overstatement.

The highlight of friday night was our dinner at On the Border. Our waiter was such a funny guy. My mom, as always, wanted to embaress me with getting the staff to sing to me. While she was over talking to some people she knew the waiter sat down across from me and said "Listen. We can sing you the birthday song, but it's really lame and really embaressing...but...you get soppapias (sp? No idea). But I can get you the dessert with out the singing." I thought about and said, "Well...you could dance." He looked stunned, then, as if he was accepting a challenge, said, "Ok." Then he walked away. When he came back with the dessert he did a cha-cha step.

It's my birthday. I'll make the waiter dance if I want to.

My mom also made a delicious dinner for me on saturday. My sister and her fiance' got me a Barnes and Noble gift card and some really cool random stuff. Example: Pixie sticks. Justice League velvet color-it-thing. Fun!

This birthday gets 4 stars!

I Heart Graphing Calculators

If you read my profile then you saw my self-inflicted title of "nerd". "How could that be?", you might ask. Here's the proof: I not only own, but I am attached to, my TI-83 Plus Calculator. I was first introduced to my calculator my freshman year. I must admit, at first I was turned off by all the buttons and complex programs, but now I deeply appreciate the help it provided. This calculator helped me get through all my high school and college math classes, and you can draw fun designs by graphing lines, circles, and parabolas! Amazing! Sadly, now that I don't have to take any more math classes (haha!), I only see my friend TI-83 plus when I balance my checkbook or figure my grades.

Sam and TI-83 Plus= BFF!

An Afternoon in the Library

Today I had my first real final. Sort of, it was intro to computers. The final had 25 questions (That's Crazy!!!) and only took me 20 minutes. After I finished I looked over at the guy next to me and we both gave eachother this "That was it?!" kind of look. I am glad I studied though. My final grade in that class is an 98 or 99%. I don't really know since my spiffy TI-83 Plus averaged it ou to be .989. Either way I am pretty pleased.
After that I pretty much had the whole afternoon free. My hardest test, Themes in Biblical History, is tomorrow 8-10am. I don't think it will be too bad. We do have to prepare for the Essay beforehand. I went to the library to search for sources on my topics. For the essay we must choose 3 aspects of Jesus' charecter to write about. I chose 1.) His righteous anger 2.) Compassion 3.) Desire to have his people with him. I had very specific scripture refrences in mind for each and knew finding books that backed me up might be tricky. Optimistic still I headed out in the 8 degree weather to Mabee Library. I finally found the "Jesus" section and started looking.
I wasn't expecting to find a book with exactly what I wanted but wasn't expecting the uphill battle that my time in the Library turned out to be. Listen, we're a Christian school, I think we deserve more books about Jesus that weren't published before 1892! It's bad when your libraries average title for books about Jesus are something like "Jesus and what He thinks about new technologies like electricity". I did find some sources that might work and will probably continue searching later in the evening when I've regained some strength and sanity.

Cayla Friedli is Amazing!!!

One of my fellow freshman and lover's of all thing random (Goulet!) is awarded the "Amazing moment" of the week award" two times over! Cayla is definately one of my favorite people over here at Sterling College. She's smart, funny, and good looking (she's also a spaz from time to time). Anyway, I guess you might like to know what she did that thrilled me so.

1.) In the cafeteria last night one of our friends, known for her consistency of crazy, was being her normal self. As Cayla went to get more refreshments our friend put a piece of ice on Cayla's chair. When Cayla sat down the ice melted on her butt. Oh, kids can be so cruel. Anyway, Cayla got upand just sort of stood there for awhile trying to decide how she felt, angry or like laughing. She took her cup of water (which was mostly ice), drank the remaining liquid, paused for another second, and then hurled the ice all over our friend. Classic. What a wonderful dinner! It pretty much made my night.

2.) Later that evening in Miss Cayla's room a few girls and I were hanging out talking about this and that (meaning guys on campus and the like). Cayla, being her usual amazing self, busts out this quote:

"Oh, cause Cayla is so academic all she ever thinks about is studying. Study, study, study,study. And Jesus. Jesus is the only man in her life. I'm sorry but I need an actual physical male!"

Thank you, CaylaFriedli, for making yesterday laugh-a-riffic!
For those who don't really think it's funny...

I guess you had to be there.

Update on finals weirdness

Remember that story about the squirrels? Well, something strange, and just as disgusting, happened last night/early this morning on campus.
Some pranksters stole several hundred letter heads and envelopes from the college and then typed up a letter encouraging pre-marital sex around campus, saying it was endorsed by the R.A.'s. Not only that, but they changed our verse of the year to something pornographic and put condoms in with the letters.
The R.D.'s and R.A.'s went around and had to collect all the letters at four in the morning. It's really pretty sad.

That's plenty of final's weirdness for me.

Dad's surgery

So here's the update on my Daddy-o. He went through surgery just fine. There weren't any complications or anything. Thanks for your prayers! I talked to him last night. He was clearly still a bit loopy, but I could understand what he was saying most of the time. He said that he woke up in the recovery rooom, saw all his anesthesia machines, and told all the nurses, "It's ok, you can go on your break now, I'll take it from here" thinking he was at work. Crazy. Its funny and scary to see Dad like that. Funny because, well, obvious reasons and scary because Dad is always supposed to be the one who takes care of us and I've never seen him like that. What an experience. Glad it's almost over.

And on that note finals week begins...

Killer Squirrels! No, Seriously!

This is one of the weirdest stories ever. No kidding. I'm not sure if I should laugh or be afraid for my life. Either way, I thought it was a good story to kick of our first official day of finals. Not that I am comparing students and teachers to the dog or the squirrels, just that I thought it was interesting, kind of like how intereseting things seem to happen on finals week since everyone goes crazy. Nevermind...I don't know where I'm going with this.

If I was going to compare anyone to any animal I'd probably go with the students being the squirrels, in that our lack of sleep is similar to the squirrels lack of nuts. The lack of sleep thus encourages abnormal behavior. It's just a theory. I'll update if anything weird really happens on campus.

Ha! It's Monday and I have no classes.

I laugh but this is finals week and today we have no class so that we study. I don't think I'll study too much. I only have two finals that I really need to study for. The other 2 finals I have are just art finals so I just have to bring in the stuff I've done this semester. Not too bad. My plan for the day is organizing my stuff so I will be able to study eaiser. I might throw in some cleaning so I can pack up easier. Today isn't so much studying as it is preparing for the rest of the week.

My Dad is also in surgery right now to remove on cyst on his adrenal gland. It's not a huge surgery, he'll only be in the hospital overnight, but it is 4 hours long. My parents had to be on the road at 3:30 this morning so they could be there in time for his prep before surgery. his surgery should be done by 11 or 11:30. By the way, for those who don't know, my dad is an anesthitest. He knows all his doctors and the person doing his anesthesia is one of his former students, facts that put his mind at ease. Even though it's a simple surgery it's still scary. I think my sister and I have it the easiest. Since we are both far from home it makes things like this seem surreal. We aren't there so we don't know the half of what is really going on. I'll get a phone call at some point today to see how he came through. I think today will mostly be filled with me praying.

" O LORD my God, I called to you for help and you healed me." Psalm 30:2

If you read this, please pray for my Dad- for a quick recovery and God's healing. Thanks!

My Parents

Sunday Morining Musings

Happy Sunday everyone!
My roomate just got back from church at the First United Methodist. It was a good service, very christmas-y. My favorite part of church is the college sunday school class. I've only been there twice, but the woman who teaches it is wonderful. The first sunday I was there she did the sermon and it was amazing. I appreciate her honesty and vulnerability. It's about 45mins. until the caf starts serving lunch. Not enough time to do anything I need to (like laundry) but enough to blog a bit.

Last night I went to a swing dance on campus. It was pretty fun. There aren't alot of guys that swing dance which is surprising on several levels. First, Sterling used to be BIG on swing dancing. Dances were a regular occurance and people would get really into it. Second, this is a liberal arts college! If guys aren't into dancing here where would they be? It was great though. The hardest part is finding a guy that knows the steps that can also do lifts and throws. Most of the time you can find on or the other. One of my friends (a football guy who can actually dance) was the closest example to the perfect blend I've found for awhile. We did all sorts of crazy lifts but also some good ole' allow-gravity-to-have-it's-way foot work.

After that I watched Saturday Night Live with some friends. Dane Cook, one of my favorite stand-ups, was hosting. It was decent except for his incredibly raunchy monolougue, one of the worst I've seen (though it did have some highlights). To read the transcript of last nights, and many other, SNL's go to this website .

Late in the evening I read a bit from Dana Candler's book Deep unto Deep. I've kind of been in a, I guess, uncomfortable place spiritually. It's just kind of a funky place. It's like this constant argument in my head that goes something like this:

Hmmm... I think I'll go hang out with Jesus. I haven't done that a lot lately and I miss it.

But I could take a nap. Naps are good.

But I love Jesus. Jesus, I really do want to hang out with you.
Jesus, I want to love you more. Though my spirit is willing my flesh is weak.

It's like I can't feel you, but I know you're there.

ARRRG!


Reading that book helps me put things into perspective. Here are some passages I found very helpful. This is from the chapter "Seasons of Relevance".

"But what of the seasons that are not necessarily winter, they are neither spring nor summer nor fall?...

It is the "in between" periods that leave us most disillusioned.

There relevance is not guarunteed to reveal itself in this life. We may never understand the gold of these days until the age to come when the Lord pulls bakc the veil and unlocks their divine job descriptions and prupose. Yet we can rest in their importance simply by the truth that He placed them unavoidably in our path and, therefore, has hidden worth withing their chambers. They are menial and mundane to our understandings and we only wish that we could be rid of them a get onto the real dramas of knowing and loving Him. Yet something about our God loves these blah passages and finds great purpose in their contribution.
The most important thing for us to know and believe is that the Holy Spirit is leading us continualy and strategically forwanrd in our love and knowledge of God."

That's some good stuff.

Napolean 2: The Re-enactment

Napoleon Strikes Again!

Found this story on Yahoo! I think histrory re-enactors have to be some of the most interesting people ever. I mean think about. Who else wants to dress up in period military garb and then re-enact historic battles. Well, I guess it's not too odd. Except for the people who want to fight on the side they know is going to lose, I wonder what they're like. Do they have self-esteem issues? Do they like to fight for the proverbial 'underdog'? Are they delusional, hoping that they can change the outcome of the battle? And what about the guy that acts as Napoleon? These are the words of the guys himself,

""For me, this is a great honor to be here ... to portray a great man who I admire very much, here on the actual battlefield for this anniversary. It's one of the greatest experiences of my life," he told The Associated Press hours before the re-enactment."

I'm not sure about historic battle re-enactors. But I do know that the only reason you would see me there is if I was wondering around the battlefield in a "Where's Waldo" costume.

Friday night festivities

Last night my college had a Christmas Banquet and dance sponsored by the junior class. I went with my buddy Mark, but we were really part of a big group of our friends. I had no idea what this whole banquet was about, being a freshman and all. We arrived in the west part of the cafeteria and were greeted with a decked out dining hall. It was pretty snazzy. It was a pretty formal affair, complete with a piantist (one of our music profs), subdued lighting, and yes, even multiple forks. Being the crazy (some may say immature) freshman that we are, we toned down the formalities by throwing bread and putting spoons on our noses. I myself was only invovled in the bread throwing. Don't worry, it was only across our table.

After the banquet we mosied over to Cooper Hall, the recently renovated, regal building on campus, where the dance was located. They prepared us for the boogying that was soon to happen by letting us make and stuff ourselves with christmans themed sugar cookies. I made a snowflake cookie (later dubbed the 'Hurricane Katrina' cookie after I swirled the blue frosting) and a forest cookie. It may be because I am an art major that no one understood the depth of the forest cookie (sarcasm*). It was really an impressionistic style cookie rather than realism.The dance was pretty fun though. It is hard to find people who are good swing dancers
:(. I love to swing dance. Good times.

*I wrote in sarcasm since you probably don't know me and when I am or am not sarcastic.

My first post

So...This is my blog. Welcome. I've never had a blog before. There has been an ongoing debate in my head for awhile now, trying to decide if a blog would suck away all of my free time or actually be worth while. I finally decided that while it will probably suck away my time that it might be worth while. I guess it is just an experiment for now. I hypothesize that it will go well and I, if not anyone else, will be highly entertained by it.

So what will I post? I'm thinking that my blog will include the following:
Random thoughts of mine
News stories I think are interesting.
Pictures of my artwork, friends, family, and the like.
Things I've realized by reading the Bible or things God has put on my heart.
Links to cool, yet-to-be-determined things.

Wish me luck as I dive into the world of blogging! Hope you (whoever you may be) enjoy.