Advent: Week One

As I mentioned about an hour ago,

Actually, first, let's just sit and think for a minute about the fact that I just blogged an hour ago and I am now blogging again.  When was the last time I even posted two days in a row?
*Checks archives*
July.  July was the last time I posted twice in a row. That's four months ago. I need to be more consistent.


I am finally beginning the Advent Bloggin Bible Study!
Week One's reading was Genesis 3:8-19 & 22:15-18

The first thing I noticed about this reading was, well, the first verse - "And they heard the sound of the LORD GOD walking in the garden in the cool of the day,"

Let's pause and soak in the fact that these humans heard the sound of God walking in the garden.  That's amazing!  And, not only that, they recognized it as the sound of God walking in the garden.  That means this sound/event is a regular occurrence in their lives.

They've been walking with God in the garden for some time now.

"and [after hearing the sound] the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD GOD among the trees of the garden."

Okay, so these people hear the sound of God, and they recognize it as the sound of God, and they hide.  What makes you hide from something that has been in your life since day one?  I honestly have no idea, but don't we do exactly that all the time?

Yes. Yes is the correct answer.  God has been pursuing us and pursuing us ever since our first cry, but we run and run and hide and hide.

And when the Lord finds us, we're ashamed of ourselves so we make excuses and we blame other people, just like Adam and Eve. And we wear our dead, fading fig leaves, thinking we've done something good.

And He disciplines us, just like any good father would, but He also understands us.  He sympathizes with our every weakness (Heb. 4:15) and knows we need love.  So he makes us garments of soft warm animal skin.
*forgive me for reading ahead; I couldn't help myself*

We whitewash the outside of the cup, while the inside gets blacker and blacker.
He loves the inside, despite the blackness, so He sends His son, his only son to die for us.


But it doesn't end there!

The context of our second reading is one of my favorites now.  It hasn't been my favorite always.  When I was tiny, I would beg Dad to skip over it when we came to this point in the Bible Storybook.

It's a horrifying story
if you don't keep the ending in mind.

Let's look at the ending - not only does God "restore" Abraham's son to him, God promises him more descendants, as numerous as the stars of the heavens and the sand of the seashore.
Right here, at the beginning of the scriptures, God gives a glorious picture of the redeeming, restoring work of Christ.
Beautiful.

Lately, outside of this study and in these passages, I've been learning to let go of all my feeble efforts to please God with my flesh and to focus instead on His incredible efforts on my behalf - how, no matter how many times I throw away His warm garment and don fig leaves instead, He continually refreshes and restores. He truly deserves all glory and honor and power.

Featured Friend: Abigail

In my last post, I mentioned that I am thankful for friends who daily show me new and wonderful ways to love God and people.  One of those friends is Abigail. Her birthday was a little while ago, and she mentioned something on her blog about having done this thing in the past where, in the days leading up to her birthday, she talked about people who had been a good influence on her life.  I'm going to do almost exactly that, spotlighting some friends I have learned the important lessons of How-to-Love-People and How-to-Love-God from in the past year.


Mind you, I only have a few days until my birthday, so there won't be too many people on here and I've learned so much from so many different people!
Maybe I'll just have to continue this series after my birthday . . .


Anyone want to hazard a guess as to who my first fine "Featured Friend" (Too much alliteration?) will be?


Now how did you know that?


I've known Abigail for as long as I can remember. 
She actually started out as my babysitter.  (I love to say that to people when they ask how we met.)
About the time the gap in our ages began to close, she went to college in New Zealand (I know.  I was jealous too.) But immediately after she came back from NZ, she set up a Bible Study for some of the younger, just-starting-college girls in our church.  That Bible Study was a great growing experience for me and I'd say it's when Abigail's and my friendship really blossomed into what it is today.


Unfortunately . . . just kidding, Abigail . . . Eventually the inevitable happened and Abigail got married.  She's moved all over the country, but we've managed to stay in touch quite well and she has continued to encourage me in my walk with the Lord and be a fantastic example to me of how to love.


Last summer, Christa and I took a lovely journey to visit Abigail in Georgia.  After we were greeted by a cook-out, a sunset, and some fireworks, we came to Abigail's house and what did we find?




Ever since the days of our original Bible Study, Abigail has been a superb hostess.  She has welcomed us into her home (wherever it may be) and filled it with activities, movies, music, food, and whatever else a heart could desire. Things may not always turn out just the way she intends for them to (we certainly didn't get to all the "Possible Week Activities"), but, even if things don't go according to plan, she's happy as long as her guests are happy.  I'm pretty sure that's one of the most important lessons an aspiring hostess can learn.


Recently, Abigail came up with the idea of having a "Bloggin' Bible Study."
I watched through the first study, read other people's contributions, and thought Man, I wish I had that kind of time.  Then I realized I do have that kind of time. I'm just using it for other, less productive things.  So, when Abigail decided to do a second Bible Study, I got excited and decided to join in . . . obviously a little late.  But, better late than never, right? (Actual Bible Study coming very soon.)


I've learned, by watching her example, that sometimes the best way to love God is just to dive right in and love Him.  Simple as that.  He doesn't require a great fanfare or a set aside time or a particular mindset.  He just requires our time and our love. Those aren't so hard to give, whether you're an army-wife-mom-of-a-one-year-old or a working-girl-writer-on-the-brink-of-college-graduation or anything else on the spectrum.


Thanks Abigail, for loving me and for loving God out in the open and above all else.

Regarding the Laundry Hamper

Sister1 explains to Sister2 the allocations for a new 3-compartment laundry hamper.

Sister1:  The middle is delicates.  The right side is lights, which shouldn't be hard to remember since light rhymes with right.  The left side is darks.  You can think of it this way - left is the opposite of right.  Wrong is also the opposite of right.  Wrong can be referred to as the dark side, so you should be able to remember that fairly easily.

Sister2:  Thanks, Barney Fife.

I truly pity you if you cannot understand what is so outrageously funny about this.

Thanksgiving

I've been rather absent lately.  My apologies.
I haven't pulled my camera out lately either.  I've been too busy with things like this:



Buying my cap and gown!  I'm actually graduating!
I have absolutely no explanation for the face in that picture.
Oh, and also finishing a 50-something page thesis. (Still not finished, but let's not talk about it right now.)

Hahaha.  I'm punny.  The name of my thesis (Are you ready for this?) is Let's Not Talk About It. And, I solemnly promise, putting that in my parenthesis was totally unintentional.  Can you tell what's foremost on my mind right now?

But, on to the point of this post.
Thanksgiving/this entire month has not been easy for my family this year and that is all I will say about that.
However, to remind myself, and you, that there is beauty in difficult circumstances, I present you with a good ol' Favorite Day list of things I am thankful for today:

Friends who love me and daily show me new and wonderful ways to love God and people
The drive to do quiet times.  I haven't had it in a while, but it's coming back.  Praise the Lord!
A job I will absolutely love already waiting for me as soon as I graduate.  If working in Career Services has
     taught me one thing, it's that getting a job as soon as you graduate is a rare treasure indeed.  Glory to God!
Calling this place home



I've never really gotten into the whole let's-be-super-thankful-on-Thanksgiving-Day thing.  I just really feel like it's important to be thankful every day. Although I never really say it, I hope that's what this blog expresses more than anything - that there are things every day, no matter what else is going on - to be thankful for.

Last Weekend's Letter was "P"

Yes, everyone Please Politely ignore the fact that I'm starting out this weekend with a Post about last weekend.

Last weekend started out with Pasta and my beautiful bestie Kae (two of my favorites).

Then, after that, we went shopping at Maurice's. Well, really I only went in to Pay a bill, but once you go into a store, you can't leave without a little browsing. (Or is that just me?)  Whilst browsing, we discovered one of Kae's latest obsessions: Puffy things!  We found all sorts of Poufy tulle and lace bows, but my eventual Purchase (You didn't think I could actually get out of there without buying anything, did you?) was a filigree barrette, so lovely and delicate I couldn't resist, in the shape of one of my latest obsessions: Peacocks (actually, Peacocks may or may not be a very old and continuous obsession). Oh, right. I also bought some Pink bangles.



Kae had come into town to take my Senior Pictures, so Saturday was full of Picture-taking.
Our Poses were somewhat influenced, Perhaps, by Kae's love for Puffy things:



But I'd say we did a Pretty good job of varying things.





At one Point, we went into Starbucks on campus to take some Pictures in my favorite Purple velour chair.  They had been open earlier in the day since it was Homecoming and they had just closed up their registers, but they still had a full vat of coffee, so they hollered at us, "Anybody want a free cup of coffee?"
Of course Kae and I (both avid coffee-drinkers) jumped on that offer, so we both got a venti (I think it was a venti) cup of something delicious for free.  I wish I'd thought to ask what it was because I usually don't like Plain Starbucks coffe, but that one was scrumptious.  And?  The lady wrote "Have a good day" on our little holder things:



Which, by the way, was Perfect, because Starbucks is where I come every day to take a break from work where I always say "Have a good day" to People as they leave.  (You should never start a sentence with "Which" by the way.)  Also?  In this Picture I'm looking at the building where I work and if I am, in reality, on a break from work, this is exactly where you'll find me.

Sisters came along and took Pictures of Kae taking Pictures of me:



No, we don't hate each other, though it looks like it in these Pictures.
This is how we normally are:



Promise



Some funny faces happened



And some serious faces happened too.  That last face was a bad time.  For about two minutes I had no clue where my ring was.  That was a scary time because we had been SO many Places and nobody was quite sure when they had seen it last.  But don't worry.  We found it in Kae's car where I had Purposefully taken it off earlier.

Of course after a full day of work, all the Photographer and the model both wanted to do was relax, so the evening (for Kae and I) was a wonderful composite of Pajamas, Photoshop, and a very comfy queen size mattress.  This was when I noticed what a Plethora of things we were experiencing that began with a P.

And on Monday?  It continued!  I got to work and had to Pull up the yellow brick road . . . Pause.  Maybe I'd better explain this.  It was Homecoming (and Halloween and the weekend Kae and I decided to take the Pictures - great timing on my Part, I know) and the theme was "There's No Place like Home."
The campus had an office decorating competition, and, in our office, we laid down a yellow brick road made of - you guessed it - Packing Tape and Poster-board.

So, the big P's.  Too distracting? or were they entertaining?

Yes. A lot of that-just-happeneds just happened.

Today I

left some very important documents at home, specifically two nine-page essays.  I discovered I'd left them at 11:15 and they needed to be completely critiqued by 2:00.  They were not critiqued at all.  I live a good thirty minutes from the school.  I also had no idea where my car was parked because my sister had parked it this morning.

wandered all around the parking garage looking for said car, but apparently I looked like I knew where I was going because one person rolled down his window as I walked past and asked very politely if he could steal my parking space.  I said "Well, I can't even find my car, so . . ." He looked at me like I was slightly insane and drove away, so I'd say that went well.

discovered that I had, in fact, left even my car keys at home, so I couldn't drive home.  Fortunately my Dad was in town and drove me home.  I got the essays critiqued in time, but completely forgot my car keys for the second time when he brought me back into town.

decided to actually get down to business when my laptop began flashing a red light and warning me of it's impending demise, only to discover that I had left my charger at home.  Yes, for anyone counting, that's three things I left at home in one day.  Pretty bad, even for continually-forgetful me.

went to the library computer lab to waste time waiting for my sister to join me and decided to blog since I didn't have any of the files I needed to work on.  Logged into my blog to start writing this post, only to discover that I had actually logged into another blog which is actually a friend's class project and definitely did not need to have this post on it.

So, yeah.  I'd say it's been one of those days.  And now I am just taking a break from anything that could be considered productivity.  This end-of-the-college-career/trying-to-graduate business is difficult.
Thank goodness Kae is coming to visit this weekend and give me another excuse to avoid productivity!

Equinox

Equinox.  It's just a beautiful word, isn't it?
Just the sound of it evokes ideas of harmony and peace. (Okay.  I realize that sounds really hippie-ish, but hey.  It's true.)

I love Autumn!
I may or may not be one of those people who say "I love [insert whatever season it is at the moment]!" all the time, but it's true.  I love all of the seasons and whichever one it is at the moment is the one that I love the most.
There is beauty to be found in every season and in every changing-of-season, so, without further ado, some Equinox beauty for you:

1.  Fantastic moon!  (This is actually the moon I mentioned a while back, and while I'm not sure I'm satisfied with it, I just had to post a picture.




Now that was glorious in person.


2.  Red Barns in (somewhat) Green Landscapes



You can tell they're just waiting on yellow leaves to complete the pciture.

3.  Stormy Skies.  When you live in Texas right now, they're doubly beautiful.







I was getting sprinkled on before I even made it back to the house and even though this particular one didn't deliver as much as we'd hoped, somehow even just the anticipation and the little reward were enough to carry me through for a few days.

4.  Leaves and Little Tikes (or Little John Deeres in this case)



5.  Sleepy-time cats who will let you do anything with them







I love the look on Sister-Friend's face in that last one.  We love him.  Can you tell?
And no, he's not angry there.  I don't know why it looks like he is.  Cameras do weird things sometimes.  Two seconds later, he was purring in her arms.

6.  Eggs balanced on counter-tops





If you didn't know about this last one, I feel very sorry for you.  Yes.  At both Equinoxes (Equini?) you can balance an egg on the wider end.  Something to do with the gravitational pull of the moon being perfectly . . . aligned . . . with . . . something. (I missed that part of the science lesson.)

Around our house, we have mastered the art of egg-balancing.  As in, even I can do it.



I balanced this one!  So proud!

But we've noticed that the eggs will stay balanced even after the equinox is over.  So we're beginning to suspect that we should try to balance them at other times of the year to see if we've been deceived all along.
Either way, we love doing it and, since we have our own chickens (and frequently a surplus of eggs), will have any number of eggs on our counter come Equinox time.

Of course with all the seasons there are also unpleasant things.  In the fall, for me, it's pumpkin flavoring.
Eeeeeewww!
I can hardly handle it.  I love looking at pumpkins, and carving them, and eating the seeds even.  Yum!
But pumpkin bread and pumpkin pie?  Never.
Give me banana bread or zucchini bread and sweet potato pie any day of the week, but pumpkin I will never touch.
And heaven forbid I walk into Starbucks right after they've made a Pumpkin Spice Latte.  Instant headache.  I'm not even kidding.

But still, I love Fall!