Reminder to self:

It is not about me, I am just a pawn.

Ephesians 6:12.

"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."

When people do things that I make way more personal than they were even intended .. they were typically acting in their own hurts and hang-ups, not personally against me. Satan just wants to use me as a pawn in those times to take me out of being a vessel for God to being a defender of my own flesh. And even if it was intentional, it's still a greater spiritual battle.

Spring time!

It is ALMOST spring time!  By the calendar it is technically here, but the weather just has not quite caught up. The weather is at that awkward point where it is "warm" but cold all in the same day. Not quite warm enough for short sleeves, but a little too warm for long-sleeves. Plus Easter is coming, the smell of flowers is starting to fill the air, the cool weather crop seeds are planted.

I love seeing the bulbs in bloom! The snow drops have bloomed, the crocuses (which I miss because the rabbits eat mine) have blossomed, the hyacinth and daffodils are in full color! The tulips are starting to come up and the peonies (not bulbs but smell so pretty) are just surfacing. I love it!  The colors, the smells, the animals, and the resolved mystery of seeing where all the new bulbs I blindly planted in the fall are appearing in relation to the ones that have been there but I have not seen since last spring. I love adding new bulbs every year thinking how exciting it will be to see them the next spring. 

Today I was so awestruck with God's wisdom and plan in the seasons and the plants. How it is a beautiful picture of our lives; the garden through the seasons is just like our life through the years. There are certain plants that come back in the same spot in the same season every year. Perennials.  The way we we have certain values and virtues that are in us all the time. They are just part of who we are whether we trained them to be there or not. They keep coming back. They may need to be replanted at some point but they usually come back every year.

There are others that need to be replanted if we want to see any fruit each year. Annuals. That happens for some pretty flowers and in the vegetable garden. There is a chance they could have seeded themselves last year, but if I want to make sure I have those things, I need to be proactively planting them each year. Whether I save seeds from last year, get some from a neighbor, or buy them new doesn't matter. If I want that fruit this year, I need to make it happen. It is like we do to get the 'character seeds' planted in our lives; maybe it is how we have done it before, maybe it is with the help of a brother or sister, or maybe it is starting fresh.

It is so cool to see how the garden changes year after year, with the perennials that are always there and the annuals and vegetables that change year after year. Like our lives, the garden shows how our underlying character and relationship with God meets with the different things we need in each season. For a relationship, or a difficult time at work, etc.

I love how he teaches us about how to live, we just need to look around! Thanks Spring!

"The limit doesn't exist!"

Wow, I have been out of the blog game for awhile!!!  The thoughts have still been coming, I have just done a poor job sitting down and typing them out to share with you all.  It is a good thing though- last year was a year of "uprooting" and clearing out things in my life to make room for ways I think God wants to grow me. Planting some seeds, getting involved in some new groups, seeing some new community growing. It was hard but exciting- I am a future-oriented person, so it is exciting to have things to be excited about.  But here we go...


So I am a little bit of a math nerd- engineer by trade but I love my math. There is a chance a some of you never learned about integrals and derivatives, sums and all that fun Calculus stuff, but you may better relate to Mean Girls. When Cadie, the main character, is punished and has to join the "Mathletes" and the answer is something about how the limit does not exist because it approaches infinity. That is kind of what we are going with here.

The thought is based on how "man is made in God's image". I think we can keep that very closely focussed on how the literal human being is made, male and female, to reflect God's characteristics.  I believe this is true and beautiful. This should not be overlooked- he is not defined by a gender or role as we perceive it, yet males and females do reflect characteristics of who He is.

What I was thinking about was the vastness of this truth. That man is made in God's image, but it is so much larger than that. Not just humanity in general, but each and every individual who has ever and will ever exist. That they are all made in God's image. We are all similar in a lot of ways, but also uniquely different in so many- our combination of passions, thoughts, personality, character traits, etc. My thought is that God is more than just the general, He is also the sum of all those unique individual things.

So here comes the math...as the people who exist go from one to approaching infinity, I think the sum of all those people 's unique traits combined approach the wholeness of who God is.  Yet God is God, so we never can really reach him, just get close. The limit does not exist! It takes all the billions of humans to ever exist to approach the fullness of God. And to me, that is a really cool thought. It is not just the general things of humanity, but also all the unique characteristics of each individual through all of time as we know it who reflect God. That is why it is so important that we love our brothers and sisters because they each reflect a part of who God is to the world that is unique to literally just them. It is beautiful!

Maundy Thursday

Amazing morning doing some Maundy Thursday stations at church. One was about the veil... Realizing how unaware of my own shortcomings and unholiness it is to become and that I have become.

They could only approach God behind the veil in the Holy of Holies once a year, with one chosen priest, with sacrifice and much cleansing, in special clothing, etc. And even then they could die at facing God. With all the sacrifices they had to do I feel like they had a better reality of their sin in some ways than I do on modern times. Atleast a better understanding of the cost...

Praying Lord, that I wouldn't become numb and blind to the gravity of the sin and shortcomings in my life just because they seem less noticable than what goes on around me. Praying I would care more about a clean heart than a clean image... And that I wouldn't settle for "...by comparison to these other people..." But that I would be aware that even my best falls far short of your holiness and nothing I do can change that outside of Easter and Christ tearing that veil for me so I can be close to you when I never could have otherwise.

What If...

 This thought just popped into my head today so I am still fleshing it out, but I wanted to put some words and structure to my thoughts atleast for me. 

You know how it says essentially God's wisdom subverts the intelligence and wisdom of those who think they are intelligent and wise... 

"For it is written:

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;

                 the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”
x

-1 Corinthians 1:19 (quoting Isaiah 29:14) 

It seems like a lot of people credit the scientific studies area as one of the most intelligent- and deservingly so in many arenas, there have been so many amazing medical discoveries, math, space, transportation, etc.  One of the bigger topics in the last couple hundred years is the “survival of the fittest” evolutionary viewpoint. The animals and humans still around are therefore considered the “best” and the “most well-adapted” and therefore, good.  But what if it is opposite, because the further we move from initial creation, the more and more the earth is moving away from God’s design.  The impact of humans through pollution and things that we considered good but are killing off tons of creatures that just weren’t adept enough to overcome habitat decimation… our wastefulness… spread of disease, etc. What if the creatures, plants, and humans that are surviving are not in fact the best ones created, but the best ones to deal with the growing chasm and distance between original design and intended design.  They can just handle and live closer to death better than the others. 

We have lost so much beautiful diversity in the thousands of years of human “advancement”, both in animals and plants, and so much more I am sure.  What if what we say is intelligent and wise as the creatures and things that survive, is actually upside down? As the beautiful diversity that is killed off and cannot survive our destruction, what if that was the best?

I don’t even know if that makes sense since I don’t have any conclusions yet, but between hearing of all the trees that have been eliminated and we will never see… the animals and the songs of birds we will never hear… reading about the original way the Chesapeake Bay was found and the amazing eco-diversity that was there now… seeing all these invasive non-native plants taking over… it just seem like we are moving further and further away from good and the things falling off are the ones that can’t survive this brokenness are the things closest to “good”.

It is December!

I love December! Kind of sad November is over challenge wise, because the media was kind of nice and I was getting used to it. Today I listened to the radio going to work, a pastor I like to listen to in the morning. It took me awhile to remember some of my passwords... And then it just seemed like too much to try and keep up with.

People coming from all directions. And then I was thinking, what if I just do it again?  More media pausing. I really wanted my Spotify Christmas playlist though... And now I can finally see how Sherlock ends. And get some Psych DVDs from the library...

December is possessions month. That means I am going to get 7 things away, every day! I realize the hard part of this is actually doing it. I'm really excited about the actual giving things away part because I have far too much stuff. Some people call me a borderline hoarder... But I just have a creative mind and see lots of uses for things that other people don't and then find it hard to get rid of!

The exciting part about this is that it is the month of Christmas, so picking good things to give away will be cool. Ideally, it will also keep me from wanting to buy lots of stuff for myself as I realize how much I already have and the capacity I have to bless people I have already accumulated.   I've been trying to find a good organization to give things to that will help people the most.

Happy Thanksgiving!

To be honest, I have not been feeling it this year... The no media thing is going well for the most part with the ones that I've given up. I apologized to my Words With Friends friends about the lack of games. It's pretty nice to not have to worry about posting my life on Snapchat and Instagram, although sometimes I miss sharing the fun / beautiful / delicious things that I'm doing, making or eating but that's okay, the world doesn't need to know.  (something I would have  shared though is this public service announcement- rutabagas need to be peeled before you eat them!) Although I do miss the approval I get sometimes from Instagram world... I've gotten so much of my house and yard under control and moving in the direction I want them to be headed.

One fun thing that happened as a result is my discovery of this podcast by Annie F. Downs (http://www.anniefdowns.com/category/that-sounds-fun-podcast/). I love it! It makes it hard because I want to follow all the people she interviews on Instagram but I'm not on Instagram currently. We are both very similar in personality and I love listening to it because I feel like it's a conversation that I would want to have with all of these fun people that she knows and I wish I knew! It's like she's living my dream life... But she has helped get me super pumped for my upcoming Nashville trip next month!

Despite my cranky attitude about Thanksgiving, I did take the morning to reflect sometimes the things I have to be thankful for so that's been a good thing. I'm excited for what this next year holds! And I've also decided that I'm going to start celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving as my own little tradition, it's in early October! How perfect is that... Then I don't need to feel guilty about putting my Christmas decorations up!

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!