Su-wipe!

I had to go shopping for a few items for my upcoming missions trip including grammar charts from Spark Notes and a book of quizzes!

The most enjoyable thing is running into random people around town all the time! I saw my high school softball coach, some CBC friends, some Vacation Bible School friends, customers from Blockbuster who I had a weird "i-think-i-know-you-but-I'm-not-sure" stare-down with...and the occasional high school acquaintance thrown in here and there. It's hard to think the team leaves in under two weeks to head across the world! I had so many more books I wanted to read by this time! Off to bed for another day! Who will I run into?!? The mystery awaits!

Nostalsia

There is something special about concerts. Last year at this time, I had the privilege to volunteer at a concert series in SoCal called Spirit West Coast. While I couldn't work it this year, there is one image I wanted to share as it moves me to tears thinking back to it!

T-bone, a Christian rapper, was one of the headliners for the day's event. It was about dinner time so you could still see the sunlight behind the stage lights. He bagan to share his testimony, and the testimony of each of his band members. It was the bass player's story that touched my heart. He told of how he was ready to kill himself at noon, and at 11:59 his phone wouldn't stop ringing, so he answered it and heard T-bone on the phone saying he needed a bass player and felt that the bass player could really use a friend so he picked up the phone. That was a few years prior to the young man shedding tears hearing how God had saved his life.

So T-bone asked everyone packed in crushing the stage to move back 10 feet. Everyone slowly stepped back leaving a space between the audience and the 20 or so of us on the ministry team. He asked those who wanted to accept Christ or recommit their lives to make a bold statement. When he counted to 3, he wanted them to run, sprint and RUN down to the stage and profess to God they believed in Him. One...Two...THREE!

Teenagers RAN to us. There were two girls who were already in the front who ran straight to me and knocked me off balance as they fell into my arms. They were crying and sorry for the lives they were living, but wanted to accept Christ into their hearts and live for Jesus alone.

What a sight to see people RUN for Jesus. To see a great need in their hearts and not just kick the dirt wishing for a way out, but seeing the solution and swallowing their pride to make Christ first! Do you run when you know you need Him? Do I? Why not start now? Don't bother doing anything else first, get to the source "...those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings of eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint (Is. 40:31)."

Stop This Train

There are so many thoughts zipping around in my head and I can't sort through them in a well-enough fashion to write something even my messed up head can comprehend. But listening to John Mayer's lyics, I couldn't resist putting one of those blog posts up. These are the lyrics to Stop This Train. When I think of this song, I imagine someone ridding the teacups at Disneyland and spinning the wheel so it goes as fast as possible.

It's fun at first. Exhilarating.

But then the point comes where spinning on the teacups isn't fun anymore. And though there is no one to blame but yourself, you want someone to come in and swoop you up and get you off the ride. But the train can't stop right away. Other people are on the ride. But you don't want to think about them, you just want off and back home in whatever meaning that has to you.

Stop This Train- John Mayer

No I'm not color blind
I know the world is black and white
Try to keep an open mind but...
I just can't sleep on this tonight
Stop this train I want to get off and go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't
But honestly won't someone stop this train

Don't know how else to say it, don't want to see my parents go
One generation's length away
From fighting life out on my own

Stop this train
I want to get off and go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't but honestly won't someone stop this train

So scared of getting older
I'm only good at being young
So I play the numbers game to find away to say that life has just begun
Had a talk with my old man
Said help me understand
He said turn 68, you'll renegotiate
Don't stop this train
Don't for a minute change the place you're in
Don't think I couldn't ever understand
I tried my hand
John, honestly we'll never stop this train

See once in a while when it's good
It'll feel like it should
And they're all still around
And you're still safe and sound
And you don't miss a thing
'til you cry when you're driving away in the dark.

Singing stop this train I want to get off and go home again
I can't take this speed it's moving in
I know I can't
Cause now I see I'll never stop this train

Vie

Vie used to be one of my favorite words. Which I find heavily ironic! To vie means to strive in competition or rivalry with another. I used to use it in all my poems and writings in Ms. Escalante's class.

My fictional characters would always go against some nemesis of sorts be it self or enemy and in a tight battle come on top victorious! I was always attracted to those types of books and movies as well. The unknown hero who comes out with the shot to win the game at the buzzer or the underprivileged man who beats all odds and influences others for good. Don't we like the hero stories? Someone defying the impossible, but not just for the story's sake, but to pretend we could one day do that if only given the chance.

In Acts 20:24, it is Paul's confession of "if only" that has always grasped my attention. I remember one of my softball coaches grabbing the uniform from my shoulder to look me square in the eyes to be sure I was heeding the advice he gave. That's how I feel about the if only. Pauls says, "However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me- the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace."

The thing about hero movies defying all odds, is we typically forget all the other stuff the character went through to be in the place they are in before vying for victory. When you practice, you get better at whatever you are practicing. When you practice spiritual disciplines and culminating your relationship with Christ, it becomes easier. When you practice sin, it becomes easier. When you practice being a person of noble character, it becomes easier. I love the story of Nelson Mandela because coming into power as South Africa's president, he was in a position to pay back all the things done to him. But he chose grace. Not as a whim, but because he devoted his life to finishing the race he started. He turned the other check and chose to walk away from rivalry in an effort to bond a nation together.

Wow, I wish I could do that more. Walk away from rivalry and see the kingdom of God displayed on Earth...if only we could learn to walk away from our sinful nature and turn towards God's face more and more; being transformed from one degree of glory to another.

Visionary

Sometimes I can get myself in trouble thinking way too much about the future instead of being able to focus on the task at hand. I can dream and think of numerous possibilities in which God may be leading in both my life and others. I've heard 2 talks in the past 2 days that mentioned the word "dreams." In light of this, it is hard sometimes for me to see how God will move into completion of the dreams I have. I've been thinking a lot the past few weeks about this verse in Acts and the implications it has.

Acts 5:38-39 says, "...Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God."

So when I am dreaming, I must remember to keep dream and ask God to take away the dreams that are not His desire for my life. I have dreams, I have things I would LOVE to see happen in my life, and yet I hold them with an open hand before my God and King anxiously awaiting to see what He will do with the little I can provide. I'm peeking out the door looking to see what He is going to do in the world!

The Stevely Head!

After seven hours of tough competition, Long Beach State brought home the Stevely Head and won NavOlympics with pride over Universities from all over Southern California! They took the men's basketball prize and ultimate frisbee spot, but in a tie against the University of California - Irvine, a victorious shoe kick by Sarah, Dan, and Steven brought the Stevely Head back to whence it came! As emotional as the Summer Olympics returning to Greece, for another year, all seems to be right in the world!

Socrates and Me

One of my best friends gave me a Socrates statue before because she said it reminded her of me. In her opinion, I think too much.

While that may be true, we are all made to be unique and different and there are some people I just can't figure out, so I'm left pondering. As soon as I think I have my finger on it, the target shifts and I'm left aiming in the wilderness. In the meantime, I'll just keep thinking some more and trying to figure it all out! How can I be a better friend? How can I best reflect Christ's image while keeping my needs and feelings sorted out and entrusted with others who I don't always feel love from in return?

I guess that's where the God sandwich comes into play as my friend Emily once put it. "We can always trust God, and then we can trust others...but even when they fail us, we can still trust God." I've tasted what trusting others is like and I desire that again, to feel safe, loved, and accepted fully for who I am. Oh to not worry and be caught up in trivial thoughts!