Hope For Every Fallen Man

As you push it up through the soil,
I will shake your filthy hand.
You may be dead to me,
But that don't mean we can't be friends.
Now it's time to get over this,
Long as it's clear you understand,
That I will never trust a single thing you say again.

Because a judge of you is someone I could never be
Is why you should thank the Lord that it is him and it's not me.

Don't give up, it's not the end
There's hope for every fallen man
To pick themselves up when they think they can't
Because with every passing second comes a second chance.

You stole so much from me
And there is nothing left to take
Save a hard learned lesson
On how to not make the same mistake.
And you may be delirious
But that is something that will fade
After you confess that this mess
Is all something that you made.
----

Take a good look at yourself and know
You've got yourself a ways to go
But difficult is not impossible
You can take back all the lost control
Take a good look at yourself and see
That you'll emerge eventually
As long as your heart's not too far gone
From the only Thing that can save you from yourself.

~Lyrics from Relient K's Hope For Every Fallen Man

This song describes some of the feelings I have towards a person who used to be close to me.  My inability to trust that person as well as my hope that they will one day find peace in God in spite of my terrible example of a Christian.  I know that I am not the only Christian this person will encounter so I am hopeful that they will be able to see a better example and reflection.

Bonhoeffer

I have been reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community before I go to sleep each night.  It has been very interesting.  I don't really live with anyone so I can't practice the things that he puts forth with other people, but so far they are all practices that I can do by myself.

When he was talking about prayer in the morning, he said this:
"For Christians the beginning of the day should not be burdened and oppressed with besetting concerns for the day's work.  At the threshold of the new day stands the Lord who made it.  All the darkness and distraction of the dreams of night retreat before the clear light of Jesus Christ and his wakening Word.  All unrest, all impurity, all care and anxiety flee before him.  Therefore, at the beginning of the day let all distraction and empty talk be silenced and let the first thought and the first word belong to him to whom our whole life belongs.  'Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light' (Eph. 5:14)."

It stuck out to me for several reasons.  Partly because I try to devote my mornings to reading Scripture and praying about my day, but also because I have always been scared of darkness and so the imagery of darkness and light caught my attention.  And really, the truth of this paragraph just resonated with my experience.

When I set God before me in the morning, I am more stable, more balanced and much less swayed by the day's events.  I feel more in tune with and more aware of Christ working in my life.  I also feel that I am able to be a better light for Jesus and I am able to let God work through me to affect the other people around me.  And yet, I still have a hard time some days both reading Scripture and talking to God and also with being aware of God and letting him work through me.

I am a very broken and messed up individual and it is only in Christ that I am what God calls me to be.  I have to live in that knowledge and remain humble.

That's my little thought for today.

Lesson Learned Today

Not very profound, but here it is: Ricola wrappers do not stand up to a run through the washer and dryer.  After a week of being sick with very little sleep, that is about as profound as I can be.  And, if you know me, you know that I worked the entire week or as much as possible--I had to take part of Monday off to go see the doctor.  But I think I'm finally on the upswing.

Bugs

There are some bugs that I like and then other bugs that I do not like at all.  However, I do not like any bug that is in my house.  I had to deal with that most of the day today.  Bugs had infested some bird seed that I had in one of my closets.  The results were not pretty.  Ergo, I spent the day differently than I had planned--cleaning and washing and vacuuming (and vacuuming again).

When we find things like that we work frantically to rid ourselves of them.  But shouldn't we be doing that in our spiritual lives as well?  When I see sin, I should work just as frantically to root it out of my life.  I should do everything I can to rid myself of it.  I should also recognize that I cannot get rid of sin in my life by myself. It takes accountability and it takes the blood of Jesus.

There are so many sins that we see in our lives but aren't really convicted by them.  I may see pride in my life, but it's easier to live with it and simply ignore it.  Until it hurts someone or hurts me, it's easier, more convenient, to simply live with it.  I could see the sin in my life, but I wasn't convicted of it until I was robbed of my idol and spiritually hit the bottom.  Then I saw clearly the pride that I formerly had and repented of it.

I hold a different attitude now and am vigilant towards the return of that old pride.  But I need to remember to vigilant in rooting out any sin that I see in my life.  I should not ignore it any more than I could ignore the bugs in my closet after I had seen them.

God uses all ways to speak to us.  Today it was bugs...I wonder what it will be tomorrow.  :-)

New--After 3 years of silence

Today leaving school, I was thinking about how I would enjoy being friends with someone blind or someone deaf. I know that may be offensive to some people because it sounds like I would want to be his/her friend solely based on how they were different from me.

But it is because I am fascinated with learning how other people perceive the world. However, as soon as I realized that is the reason I would want to be friends with them, it dawned on me that EVERYONE sees the world differently. He sees the ocean differently than I do. She tastes something different when she eats that salsa. Every person has a different perspective, with a different background. When I studied abroad and stayed in different countries with my friends who were natives of the culture, I loved it because I got to be immersed in the culture and learn so much about it. I would love to learn how Claude Monet saw the world and how he translated that onto his canvases. But I cannot do that.

Yet I have the amazing opportunity to learn from all the people around me, how they view the world and why they respond the way they do. If I want to understand they people around me and if I want to be able to see the world through their eyes (which would be FASCINATING), then I need to learn to really listen and ask better questions. Firstly, I need to learn to listen better. Over time, I have lost the skill of listening well (if I ever really possessed it).

Any suggestions on how to listen better? (Aside from: Shut up...)

Ribs

Well, I've had broken ribs for about 3 weeks now so you would think they would be getting better, but yesterday my mom had to rush me to an urgent care center. I sneezed and suddenly I could not breathe without terrible pain and the feeling that something--a rib or possibly scar tissue--was moving around that should not be moving.

The doctor had x-rays taken and confirmed that I had broken rib. He prescribed several different pain killers for me. Now, within a couple of days of moving, I am not allowed to lift anything over 10 lbs. (not that I'm going to--even lifting a gallon of milk hurts!).

So now I'm just doing stuff in a daze...the pain killers make me groggy, but hopefully I'll be able to stop taking them soon.

I'm getting a little worried. I am moving into my apartment soon but I still only have one part time job that doesn't even start for another two weeks after I move in. I really do not want to dig into my savings, but I can't live on nothing... The people at my job say they will be able to keep me gainfully employed. It looks like I'll be testing that assertion a lot sooner than I wanted to. But God's the one in charge--I just have to remember that as I start this new phase of my life.

Update

I figured it was time to update anyone who reads this on what's going on in my life. I have now been walking around with broken ribs for over a week and a half now. My ribs were broken after one of my camp directors convinced me to come and work for one week at camp. I was working with the horses and got kicked pretty hard halfway through the week. I'm doing ok as long as I keep taking ibuprofen regularly.

I also have a part time job coming this fall. I'll be working in my camp's afterschool program. The leadership team is also convinced that they can fill up another twenty hours with other stuff around camp. But I am still looking for one or two more part time jobs just to be safe.

On a different note, I hate car-searching so much... It has been ridiculous... I just hope me and my mother are able to find and buy a good car in the next 2 weeks...

It has been fun to be at home with my mom and two of my brothers. I also took an impromptu trip to Washington DC with my sister-in-law because she had to drop off some paper work that had to be there by the next day and the only option that would mail it there on time was going to cost more than the penalty ($400). So she and I got to hang out and got to know each other better. We're both quieter and around four boys, it gets kind of loud so we don't say a lot. But it was a fun trip! :-) I'll be moving into the apartment in a couple days which should be another adventure (hopefully I will have a car by then...). Anyway, that's all for now!