Metal Health Day

When you can no longer spell mental... you know you need one

I have had a great day. Infinitely better than ones in this week's recent history. I didn't get much sleep last night, but I did well enough on the accounting test today to be proud of the results considering the state of my emotions going into it. I started crying in the class before. I have not cried in class since finding out I had flunked not just 2 but 3 tests last week of class first semester freshman year. But, I took the test today and remembered more than I forgot.


Then my 'metal health day' began. I am enjoying myself immensely. Doing what I want to do, for how long I want to do it, when I want to. I should start living like this again. And I am going to.

- I went to see my UHC professor (UHC was the honors intro to university life class) and had a good conversation with him for about half an hour about life and plans and his kids. Then there was a guy outside of Strong preaching like they like to do, and I had some God-appointments with people there.

I have revised my opinions of those people a bit. Let me explain. I have almost a respect for them. They are there, allowing themselves to be ridiculed for the sake of what they genuinely believe is the gospel. He had a great command of the scriptures. What he was missing was love. However, he gave me an opportunity to have conversations that I would not have had today otherwise. He causes people to talk and start thinking. To defend what you believe and why you believe it. He challenges both the believer and the non believer. Not that I agree with his message.

I have always held to the catchy phrase belong, believe, behave. If you are still a sinner, that is what you do. You sin. I said this to one of the guys I talked to today, that even in death, no matter what people choose, we glorify God. Whether he enacts his perfect wrath or forgives us and gives us glorious life with Him, He is glorified. He is perfectly just and perfectly gracious. As a sinner people cannot behave believe belong. It simply doesnt work that way. Now, not that we should dilute the message and be 'seeker friendly', but that we should love the sinner and hate the sin. A very hard concept to live out. Live your life in such a way that people wonder what you have that they dont. Make them want it and come seek it out. We have living water, life everlasting and abundant! Be available for conversations and open to questions that challenge you. Trust God that He will direct you to the Scripture you need to answer the question or put people in your life that you can take the tough questions to. That's what the church is for, to enhance your relationship through the strength of the community. I hate the word religion. Yes, I guess I am 'religious', but my religion is guided by a relationship, not by a codified rule system. I am on this adventure called life just like everyone else, I just have someone to go to at all times, someone who will always be there. Call me crazy :)

Then I had some dinner with good friends, and took a nice nap. My mommy called me right after I woke up and we talked some and I got to talk to my daddy too :) Played a game of tetris online.


Then movie time! Had to clean my room because we actually had the movie night in my room! We normally dont because I dont have a TV, but we just used my computer and it was ok. It's nice to have a clean room, and tomorrow real life is back. I'm starting to study for my finals and such... craziness!!!






I leave you with this.
Take a day. It's definately worth it.

And if the cookie crumbles, you must eat it

RIP Daisy 1994-2008



I never thought the death of a dog would affect me. Here I sit, listless and crying. My accounting book full of words in front of me.
The process of accounting for amortizing intangibles just doesnt seem all that important. ya... i actually know how to do that, sort of.

I leave you with this.
Cherish Life

China FA09

I'm actually going! Yep, I have a ticket! :)

Check out this website and blog if you wanna keep up with my travels while I am there. This is my personal, for real blog, but that one should be good too, just for a different, more public set of people. Lots of pictures are promised!

This past week and a half has been rough, but still lots of excellent things have happened! God never ceases to amaze me. He teaches me through both the good things I experience and those things which are not considered so great. I wonder at how faithful He is even in the times when I am being rebellious and unfaithful.

I love my girlfriends. I never could have ever even begun to imagine how blessed I would be while here at MSU. We have a group of friends that is practically unheard of how much we love one another and put each other in front of ourselves. My friends never cease to amaze and bless me.

I leave you with this:
Your life is colorless and incomplete without a personal relationship with Jesus. He makes life worth the living. The canvas of life is so beautiful if you have the help of the master painter. The One who gave us color in the first place :)

An old friend

It was a beautiful day


Gorgeous, and sunny. SPRING FEVER, that's what they call it. It ran rampant through campus today, is running. I love that its warm enough to sleep with my window flung wide open.

I faced this rock today, that I am forced to face every so often; we are going to explore it tonight, and then we will be [hopefully] done. There is still yet one more letter to write after this, however.

How is it, after one lie, I can walk by you as if you were a stranger, or someone I had met in a dream? My brain told my heart that it should want to leap, but it didn't. I think that is what most bothered me. Eight years, plus, I gave you. And yet one little lie can erase that. Upon further reflection, it wasn't one lie. It was a time chock full of them. How can I believe anything you told me, we shared, if that lie was so glib, so nonchalant? What was truth, what wasn't? I was real, I was me. What else could I have wanted from you? Certainly not what it seems you thought. I love you, loved you, love you still. Because of who you were, what you were, and not just because of, but in spite of.

I will not play the fool. Will not be your fool. And you know what causes the biggest ache in my heart? If you couldn't be you with me, who are you you with? My heart aches because your fullness of life must be so shriveled and shrunk. Unsure of which truth to tell what people. Believing untruths because they have become truths.

And you know what causes my heart to cry out unbelievingly to my mind? My life is better without you in it, truly. I am a better woman because you are not there.

A best friend, the best of friends. And here we are, passing like ships in the night. I, a complete stranger, walk by. And the only blip of emotions within me comes because there were no emotions. That lie, what a silly little thing it was too, caused there to at least seem to be more. For how could I trust you? And those lies, be they real or no, now constitute what we had, and makes the you of today a stranger, someone I met in a dream.

I love you still. This love, the love for my best friend, will always endure. If I am there to pick you up, you will never reach that place where there is nothing else, save the One who is Always faithful. I loved you enough to let you go. And I respected myself enough to follow through.

I leave you with this:
Love will always endure.*



*Especially verse 7

Language

Oh how I love it!

The sentence: "No hay nada"

[Literal] Translation: There is nothing.
[English]: hay = I
[Chinese]: hay = ai = love



I leave you with this:
God is Love

On the brink

Here I stand, on the edge, looking over.

I am a sophomore, junior by credit hours. I have at least the next year of my life practically set in stone as to where I'll be and what I'm doing (at least big picture)

I filed my degree program earlier this week for a BS in Accounting. I have to take 9 hours this summer. I am going to apply to MBS to work as a bi-lingual receptionist over the summer. I am very excited about working for the company, the pay, and the job description. September 1 I will begin my next big journey abroad (although there is family vacation between now and then). I fly to Beijing, China. What a life!

I am looking forward to loosing myself into the language and enduring culture. I am excited for the challenges I will face, the sites I will see, and the things I will learn about myself.

As of right now, I will graduate 'on-time' from MSU in spring of 2011. After graduation I would like to work as an accountant while I put myself through grad school, most likely for my MBA. This would be (as of what I am thinking right now) either in St Louis while attending WashU or back to good ol' CoMO to attend MU.


What about my life right now, you ask. It has been awhile, after all.

Life is good, God is good. I cut out all of the confusing guys from my life that did not deserve my time about 5 months ago, and started following the things God had set before me. He is so good. I screw up, but we walk together, and He is a bigger part of my everyday living than ever before. I love my friends, and what I am doing. I have become so comfortable where I am. I am excited for China, in the fact that I want to be there. But, I don't want to leave. I have learned, in theory, how to say no. I do a lot more often than I used to, but most likely not as often as I should.


Most recent life-rocks

• Papau fell about 3 weeks ago and shattered his hip. He had emergency hip replacement and is in temporary assisted living. I am so thankful that I live in town. I go to see him about once a week for a few hours. It amazing what God does for me every time I go. Old people are pretty cool, and God moves when you speak with them. I am making lots of friends.

• Tristan turns 7 today!

• Matthew turns 10 on the 28th of this month!

• Hannah, Jade, Kimberly, Justin, Jim and I are headed to Panama City Beach for Spring Break '09. I am really excited!! We got a townhouse that sleeps 6, with our own hot tub and grill, and it's going to be a freaking awesome week. I love the beach.

I leave you with this:

"In other words, we are literally made of star dust!"*





*Comins, Neil F., and William J. Kaufmann III. Discovering the Universe. 8th ed. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company, 2008.

Untitled

I feel very melodromatic blogging. It's 130 in the morning, and my soul is full. I serve a great God. A magnanomous God. A faithful, wonderful, huge, creative Lord.

It snowed yesterday. It was fitting. The day after Thanksgiving, we went to get our Christmas tree. It is family tradition to drive way out in the country, making my mother and myself sick on the curvy roads to find a tree farm, in search of the perfect Christmas tree.
We did not attain perfection this year. Our normal tree farm is leaving the business, and I think there were a total of 10 trees that had not been cut down on their huge property. It made for an easy decision. We chose the first of two trees we looked at. I'm pretty sure it's a family record for the fastest time from leaving the house to returning. Also! It was the first year I have cut down the tree ALL BY MYSELF! : )
It was raining on our way home, so we elected to not put electric fire-causing lights on a soaked tree, and decided to wait until the next evening. My mother and I strung the lights and hung ornaments while my grandmother sat on the couch in front of our [gas] fireplace and knitted. It began to snow as we were putting the finishing touches.
Perfection is not needed in a tree once it is robed in all its splendor.
I attempted to take a picture, to preserve this idyllic memory, but alas, these things are never photographable.

Imagine, if you will, soft instrumentals in the backgroud. A horn wails tremulously, entering lonesomely before he is joined by a chorus of flutes and saxes. The snapping of metal expanding as flames lick, red-orange, red-orange at their dinner of wood. Pine wafts on the warm air. Cold toes on a slick wooden floor. The overhead lights flick off, a plush leather couch envelopes. The snow falls through a picture-glass door, highlighted by a single bulb outside, naked trees reach. A pine, robed in all its glory, twinkling, twinkling... red, green, soft pink, golden-yellow, winking, winking. A tabby - grayish whitish blackish. Kneading claws, pushing pulling, pushing pulling. Purrrr.