Sorry about all of these posts today...

But this just makes me so happy!

Less Than Three

less than three










Haha, see what I did there. True story, I didn't plan to pick that song to share, and had already planned on what the hyperlink was going to be. Also, I would actually make the symbol, but this blog doesn't like things that it thinks are actually programming.

On how amazing God is, and how good his plans are

Basically, God is freaking amazing! So I was at a retreat on Friday and Saturday, at Camp FaHoLa, with New Life (and 8 other schools/churches), and God pretty much flipped my world upside down. I'll try to explain a few of the ways in which he did this.

First of all, and the biggest one, was that God showed me how most of my dreams for the future are based on fear. I am an introverted person, and was pretty shy as a child. And as I'm here at college, and starting to think about what I'm going to do next, it's kind of scary. The world sometimes seems like a scary, unfriendly, unfeeling place. I'm going to have to get a job, and support myself, and deal with paying bills, etc, etc, etc. Which just seems kind of scary. And so my dreams for the future are based on those things. I want to be a teacher, because (while I also enjoy explaining things), I will be dealing with not that many adults, and people who are younger than me don't really inspire my introvertedness quite so much. I want to get married and have kids not just because I really want to be married and have kids, but also because maybe my husband will deal with stuff for me. I'm sure that there are other dreams that are based on fear, but I can't really think about them right now.

So I basically gave my dreams and future to God. Which is pretty scary, but he knows what's best for me, and I've got to trust in him. And his view for my future is pretty amazing. I think he might be calling me into ministry. Which, quite frankly, is not anything I've ever thought of doing. Because I'm introverted, and don't particularly enjoy leading or talking to large groups of people. I can do it, but it's not something that I would pick as a career path. But God does this amazing thing where he plays off of our weaknesses, instead of our strengths. Because where we are weak, he is strong, and when we are weak, that gives him an opportunity to show his power through us.

He said some pretty amazing things when I was talking to him about this, one of them was about my gifts. So basically he was like "You've just been accepting my gifts without wondering why I gave them to you." Which kind of blew me away. Because it's completely true. I've never wondered why God gave me one gift instead of another. And thinking about it, some of my gifts would work really well in a leadership position. God's been planning this for a while. Just the gift of grace that has characterized my life. The environment I grew up in, with my parents and my church, the knowledge of Him that I've been receiving since I can remember. The ability to explain things, which was one of the reasons I would have been a good teacher, is also the mark of a good leader.

So God's calling me to do some hard stuff, stuff I'm not comfortable doing. I'm going to have to rely on Him. He wants me to be bold, which is not something I'm comfortable doing. But I trust in Him. And He told me this amazing thing. He said "You will stand, frail and seemingly alone, and you will vanquish the world." Which is pretty freaking amazing!

So that's that. And this next part is kind of the bad news, for you guys at least. I think God wants me to do this summer leadership training that New Life offers. It's two months in the summer where you basically have intensive teaching and prayer, etc. So if this plays out, I'll only be in Kalamazoo for May, half of June, and three-quarters of August.

Music etc.

I can't stop listening to this!!!!

The fact that it's an album of lullabies for a specific nerdfighting child makes it kind of funny... the lullaby part, not the nerdfighting child part.

Also, do you enjoy the many short blog posts I've been posting? Do you like me posting songs I'm addicted to, or poems I find and love, or other random stuff? I would appreciate some feedback, because if I'm annoying people, or if you guys just aren't reading this (though if you aren't reading this, then you won't see this question, and thus won't comment or whatever...), then I would like to know. KTHXBYE!

My current way of filling up the various increments of time between classes.

I've transcribed like three or four now... It's fun!

On a related note, I'm now all the way to October of 2008 in watching old Vlogbrothers videos, starting from now, and moving backward.

I miss summer. My song of the summer, Such Great Heights, came on in my itunes shuffle, and it made me think of all those times this past summer I listened to it, and all those times I sang it. Riding my bike in the hot, hot, heat, in the morning, afternoon, and evening. Swinging on the swingset located four blocks from my house with my made-of-awesome friends. Standing alongside/in Lake Michigan with those same made-of-awesome friends. And of course all of the times I blasted it in my room and sang along, without a care in the world. The times I sang it, wishing I was singing it to someone, and the times I sang it just for the pleasure of singing. The times I sang it when I was happy, and the times when I was sad.

All in the summertime. And right now, on this frigid (actually not quite frigid...) January night, I'm missing the summertime, and my bicycle, and my friends, and the heat, and the fun times when I didn't have a care in the world (not true. I was freaking out about college. But nostalgia never remembers that). I miss you, summer.

Also, replace Rochester with Ann Arbor, or Kalamazoo, and this Sestina is very apt for right now.

Sestina d'Inverno by Anthony Hecht:

Here in this bleak city of Rochester,
Where there are twenty-seven words for "snow,"
Not all of them polite, the wayward mind
Basks in some Yucatan of its own making,
Some coppery, sleek lagoon, or cinnamon island
Alive with lemon tints and burnished natives,

And O that we were there. But here the natives
Of this grey, sunless city of Rochester
Have sown whole mines of salt about their land
(Bare ruined Carthage that it is) while snow
Comes down as if The Flood were in the making.
Yet on that ocean Marvell called the mind

An ark sets forth which is itself the mind,
Bound for some pungent green, some shore whose natives
Blend coriander, cayenne, mint in making
Roasts that would gladden the Earl of Rochester
With sinfulness, and melt a polar snow.
It might be well to remember that an island

Was blessed heaven once, more than an island,
The grand, utopian dream of a noble mind.
In that kind climate the mere thought of snow
Was but a wedding cake; the youthful natives,
Unable to conceive of Rochester,
Made love, and were acrobatic in the making.

Dream as we may, there is far more to making
Do than some wistful reverie of an island,
Especially now when hope lies with the Rochester
Gas and Electric Co., which doesn't mind
Such profitable weather, while the natives
Sink, like Pompeians, under a world of snow.

The one thing indisputable here is snow,
The single verity of heaven's making,
Deeply indifferent to the dreams of the natives,
And the torn hoarding-posters of some island.
Under our igloo skies the frozen mind
Holds to one truth: it is grey, and called Rochester.

No island fantasy survives Rochester,
Where to the natives destiny is snow
That is neither to our mind nor of our making

Woah!

²⁰ “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, ²¹ that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²² I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— ²³ I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

~John 17:20-23

Good stuff. In the sermon preached at New Life this morning, the pastor dwelt on this passage. And then just now, I was listening to New Day's sermon from two weeks ago, and Pastor Cameron started talking about it as well. And all I can say is woah!