INDIA.ARIE "Strength, Courage & Wisdom"

Inside my head there lives a dream that I want to see in the sun

Behind my eyes there lives a me that I've been hiding for much too long

'Cause I've been, too afraid to let it show

'Cause I'm scared of the judgment that may follow

Always putting off my living for tomorrow

It's time to step out on faith,

I've gotta show my faith

It's been illusive for so long,

but freedom is mine today

I've gotta step out on faith,

It's time to show my faith

Procrastination had me down but look what I have found, I found

Strength, courage, and wisdom

And it's been inside of me all along,

Strength, courage, and wisdom

Inside of me

Behind my pride there lives a me, that knows humility

Inside my voice there is a soul, and in my soul there is a voice

But I've been, too afraid to make a choice

'Cause I'm scared of the things that I might be missing

Running too fast to stop and listen

It's time to step out on faith,

I've gotta show my faith

It's been illusive for so long but freedom is mine today

I've gotta step out on faith it's time to show my faith

Procrastination had me down but look what I have found, I found

Strength, courage, and wisdom

And it's been inside of me all along,

Strength, courage, and wisdom

Inside of me

I close my eyes and I think of all the things that I want to see

'Cause I know, now that I've opened up my heart I know that

Anything I want can be, so let it be, so let it be:.

Strength, courage, and wisdom

It's been inside of me all along,

Strength, courage, wisdom

It's been inside of me all along, everyday I'm praying for:

Strength, courage, and wisdom

To find me, yeah,

Strength, courage, and wisdom

Inside of me

I found it in me, I

found it finally

I'm sure to keep it' cause I like it, I say thank you

Nancy Drew's Guide to Life says...

"It's a bit gratuitous to quote passages from Shakespeare on a daily basis."
--The Clue of the Dancing Puppet

We just can't stay away!

Tink and Ariel were at it again - here are some pics to prove it!




Us in our "plush" versions

In one of the courtyards of the Grand Californian

She is soooo cute! Love her!


We got back Tuesday late night from our local Disneyland vacation. We, as always, had a great time and there was no fighting in the car!
Both of us needed to be together - we hadn't seen each other in friendship capacity for over 10 weeks - just goes to show you - QUALITY TIME IS IMPORTANT!!!!!!!

Helpless Romantic

I have recently discovered that I am a completely helpless romantic. I especially mean the HELPLESS part of that. The heart is a funny thing - we just can't control it. So, since I can't beat my heart, I have joined it!
The good thing is that I have finally come to terms with the fact that I love ROMANCE. Jenn helped me realize this when she and I were talking about "this guy" and she said - "You're not letting yourself enjoy this thing."
She was right - I was scared of happiness because it meant that I might be hurt.
This is hilarious because I think being afraid of pain is the stupidist thing ever in the world. It ties your soul up in knots and stops you from feeling anything except pain anyway! Now, I do realize that sometimes fear and caution are a VERY healthy thing - they can keep you away from things that God just doesn't need you to be all mixed up with. Fear can be a great motivator for wisdom - but I think in the overall scheme of things being "too cautious" steals away life in the sneakiest way.

So, whether you need to hear it or not, I leave with these cheese-ball words (hey - I just told you I was a helpless romantic!!):

Sing like no one is listening,
Dance like no one is watching,
Love like you have never been hurt
Live like it's heaven on earth.

There is a God...

I am done!

Almost done...

ok so I pretty much bombed my final.
i have 6-7 pages left to write on my last paper.
and my feelings got hurt today.

weeping may endure for a night an joy comes in the morning.

pbbbbp!

Tertullian

For all of Tertullians faults, I came across a quote today that makes me want to listen to him - at least about some things.
It answers the question, "Can anything good come out of Tertullian?"

"I think I may say without fear of contradiction that by the will of God the Scriptures themselves were so arranged as to furnish matter for the heretics. For without Scripture there can be no heresy."

Well ain't that the truth?

SCENE: INT. DAY

Last day of New Testament Gospels Class, class is anxious. Hurried and listening to death and resurrection speech. Staci and Michelle one row behind/one seat to the right of Kyliah. Staci and Michelle whisper during lecture. Kyliah listening. Enter Dr. Thompson.

Dr. Thompson (lecturing): So, what is the one thing not written about in relation to Jesus and his salvific work for God the Father in the Gospels?

(Several uninformed, if not bad, answers from several class members. Michelle and Staci whisper equally bad answers to each other. Beat.)

Pregnant Kyliah: (excitedly) God's wrath!

Dr. Thompson: (equally excited: pleased someone learned something) YES! The wrath!

Michelle: (whispering to Staci) Gosh, she is sooo smart!

Staci: (whispering back) She has two brains right now!

Michelle: (very out loud) HA HA HA HA HA HA H AH AH AH AHA AH HA A!

(Dr. Thompson shoots a look over her glasses. No smile - she has not heard the comment)

END SCENE

As promised

More beverage containers: this one with Thais' hand.
I TOLD you I would remember!



This is the new sign for our church, conveniently located at the pub where we had Community Group last night :)



And here is one more pic I found in my phone from the Sundance Film Festival. This is looking up Main St. On an extremely dreary day. It was really, really cold. And wet. And snowy.



Did I mention cold?

Sunday, I did not believe in God

Last Sunday, I forgot how to believe in God. I had a wrestling match with God, or doubt, or an angel or whatever, and felt alone and ouch and crippled and blecchkkk.
This verse attacked me yesterday while working on a paper about the problem of evil.


"Though the fig tree does not blossom,
and no fruit is on the vines;
though the produce of the olive fails
and the fields yield no food;
though the flock is cut off from the fold
and there is no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD
i will exult in the God of my salvation.
GOD, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of the deer,
and makes me tread upon the heights"

Habakkuk 3.17-19

Michelle + Motivation = 0

Yeah - so I have none.
This weekend has been annoyingly difficult to concentrate on all the stuff I have to get done. I am hopelessly distracted.
I think I am having one of those mental reactions to the fact that I am graduating in June. I am not sure what I will be doing, except I know that it will be "real life" stuff and to be honest, I like my "fake life" as a student. I enjoy being lazy when I want to be, taking a day off of classes whenever, procrastinating on papers and studying and hanging out with great people freaking ALL DAY LONG!!!!
I love the atmosphere where everybody feels the same stresses (to some extent) and kinda is cocooned up in this attitude of "not yet". It is very comfortable to put off actually fulfilling the career path we are called to.
If you are reading this - PLEASE pray for me that I get my papers done like now (pray now if you like, but I mean that more like I get my papers done now - Ah - English - a barrel of grammatical fun!)

So, off I am to continue work - and these papers:

Women, Bible and the Church = Egalitarian position paper
NT Gospels = What is the Kingdom of God?
Systematics = Is the Bible to be trusted?
Systematics = What about theodicy?

AND

a Final Exam in NT Gospels

pray friends, pray.

BABY ALERT!

Sara and Uriah are having a...a....a....







GIRL!!!!!





YESSSSS!

if you haven't yet

see Hotel Rwanda.

Altruistic Vengeance

So my sis Michelle and I are in the midst of this party thing that the School of Psych is throwing for the School of Theology. We like to laugh at things like this.
Here's the dialogue:
M1: So, what is this thing?
M2: Um, a party SOP is throwing for SOT.
M1: Weird. That's a nice step toward integration.
M2: Yeah, well, SOT threw a party for SOP last quarter. I think they are trying to get back at us.
M1: Alturuistic Vengeance!
M1 & M2: HA HA HA HA HAH
M2: I gotta blog that.
M1: Cool. Do I get royalties?

DUE DATES

OK, so SARA is due on the 3rd
and
KYLIAH is due on the 12th.

of August.

I am writing it here now so that when I forget again I know I will have a place to look it up.
Thank God for blogs!

Random thoughts for the morning

It was 85 degrees last Friday when K-dog and I studied and ate fruit together. K is on the prego track, with lil' Villa due August 12 or 3rd. The reason I can't remember which is b/c BF Sara is also due in August - on the 12 or 3rd. So I can't remember which is which.
Anyway, K did this cool thing with her orange before she ate it:

She split up all the sections before she put any of them in her mouth. When I asked her why she told me of how when she was little, her mom would put the oranges in the fridge and they would be too cold and she hated it - so she would split up the oranges to make them warm up.
I love you, K, and I love what makes you tick - I am so blessed!

OK NEXT RANDOM THING:

I thought this beer looked neon. Kinda Wierd - but even weirder is how the bubble pattern looks like Jack from Nightmare Before Christmas. Also check out the reflection of the beer in the water.
See - I told you beverages are cool to photograph!

Another blessing:

This is how my church does business.
We just call each other church and leave post-its in simple form to get the message across.
I love my church - it is so cool because when I say that I mean that I love the people that make up my community. It has been a while since I was able to say that - I am so thankful.
I love my church.
I love my church.
I love my church?

Wow. Rad.

Ambiguous

Blind date = great
We were = Kinda flirty; kinda friendly.
Intrigued = definitely would go out again.
Let's see if he e-mails...

(but why didn't he ask for my number? hmmmm...)


OK - I am editing this post on March 6th - since the blind date we have chatted and ummmm...no dice for me. Great guy, but "it" is not so much there for me (or him!?) Hope to be friends - looks like that is a better option for us - just in case ya'll cared to know (Rachel - I know YOU care!!)

Weird

I have a blind date tonight. Rad.

LOOK!

Yeah - this was in a vending machine at Disneyland/California Adventure!
SOOO Funny!
Can you guess where that vending machine was?


These guys are great - they make me smile and laugh and we make a great D-land team. Who else can you stand in line AND talk spiritual warfare with at the same time? Ah- I am so blessed! :)

Starting a church is good for the soul

So my friends Maria (how DO you solve a problem like Maria?) and Mickey (he's so fine he blows my mind!) started a church because we wanted to actually BE a church in real life!!!
Soon came along Andrea and Kyle and Jamie and Katrina and Mark and Thies. Wow - this this is growing pretty quick like. I guess I just wanted to let you all know that for the first time in 4 years I looked forward to going to church. Kinda sad considering I worked for churches all in the past four years.
I realize that I am on the recovery from major burn out. You would think that it wouldn't take too long to recover, but apparently it has taken me quite a while.
The great news is that I was beginning to wonder if I would ever be able to go to church again without being nauseus for 3 days after - good news- no sickness in a month and a half. God is using this community to heal my heart - FINALLY!!!!!!
I actually sang worship music today with a full heart- i have been waiting for that to stir up again for a while too.

I love God so much. God knows me so well and touches my leperous heart anyway. God strokes my hair and reads me love poems and whispers sweet nothings into my ears and loves loves loves me - what an honor to have the creator of the universe hold your hand and kiss the nape of your neck.
I am honored to be the bride.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing to you, my God - my Rock - my Redeemer.