Just a few thoughts July 29, 2008

Just some random things that are on my mind…First, a very sad thing. Our friend Devin’s younger brother was killed in a car accident on the weekend. Uuuugh…my thoughts turn towards Devin and his family frequently. Can’t imagine. For me – not that I can REALLY say what would be most horrific and I believe an early death of anyone would be absolutely terrible – but I think that losing a sibling would be harder for me than losing a parent. I expect my parents to die before me and am “prepared” for that to happen (not that I could ever be prepared but you know what I mean). I am not “prepared” for my little brother to die. For Devin, not only does he have to go through this himself but he also has to watch his parents have a very difficult time with it (obviously). And the circumstances of the death are not pleasant and involve family junk. Ugh ugh ugh.

Second, on a happier note, another friend of ours left for Ethiopia 4 days ago to pick up twin girls that they are adopting! The girls are about 3 years old, maybe older…they don’t really know. Anyway, they have most likely met the girls by now!! One minor (hopefully) hiccup could be that one of the girls is pretty scared of white people, for whatever reason. I hope she gets over her fear quickly. Can’t wait to meet these 2 little people when they get back!

And third, the happiest note for me right now, I’m goin’ to Kelowna tomorrow for almost a week to hang out with Jacqui. The boys are going hiking, and we’re going to try to do as little as possible. Sounds like a plan to me right now! Anyway, those are just a few things that my brain has been focused on these last few days.  If you think of Devin and his family please pray for them.

The Shack July 24, 2008

I generally stay far, far away from Christian fiction just because it can tend to be a bit, well, lame.  I picked this book up because Darren recommended it, and I trust his taste.  At first I found the book kind of uninteresting, not very well written, but I kept going and was pleasantly surprised.  The writing never really turned out to be that great, but there was some theological ideas in there that still have me thinking…  Like what if God would actually present himself/herself as a black woman, even though God is beyond gender and humanity…That has been an interesting change of thinking for me, because God as an old man seems to be really ingrained into thinking even though I have put a lot of thought into the fact that that’s not really true.  Another thing I really hadn’t considered before is that God was probably right beside Jesus as Jesus died on the cross…I think I have generally thought that God was absent, and I’m not sure why I thought that.  There was a little bit in the book about prayer, and the idea that maybe God limits himself/herself/themselves(?) in some way so that it is essential that we talk to them and tell them what is going on in our lives.  I struggle a lot with prayer a lot of the time…why tell that to God when he already knows everything?  So that has been an interesting idea to me.  The author also got my attention with the way he wrote about the community amongst the members of the Trinity and how they relate to each other.  Just some things I hadn’t really thought about, I suppose.  There were quite a few little tidbits like that in the book, and I really should have wrote them all down to think about some more.  Maybe I’ll have to read the book again or something.  I’d recommend it, but not because of the fiction writing part; more because of the theological ideas that are there.

Just a heads-up July 21, 2008

In case you have never thought of this, I figured I should warn you.  If possible, do not ever run on a treadmill when there is a good chance of power outage!  I happened to be a victim of this occurrence last week on Thursday, when the power kept going out for a few seconds.  Now, the first time this happened I nearly broke a leg as the treadmill came to a dead stop.  By the 6th time the power went out, I had a total system down and it was no big deal.  So why did I risk it and keep going when I could have easily knocked myself out?  Well, there’s always the chance that “that was probably the last time” the power would go out.  There is also the obvious fact that if I were to get off the treadmill part way through a run, there would be NO going back.  There is also the sick and wrong thought that goes something like “hey, if I get injured I don’t have to run again for a long time!”  I know I know, “don’t say those things.”  “Be thankful you CAN run.”  I AM thankful, but that doesn’t mean the sick and wrong thoughts don’t cross my sick and wrong little mind from time to time…

Short of words July 7, 2008

I’m sitting here looking at 2 E-tickets. One with my name on it. One with Greg’s name on it. Both of them say that the traveller is going to Kenya in September. I’m also looking at what the flights cost to purchase, none of which was paid by us, but rather, a complete and total stranger. People, we’re going to Kenya!!! It’s the weirdest, coolest, most amazing thing and I still just don’t have the words to describe what a blessing this is. We’re going for about 2 weeks (total travel time) to volunteer at an orphanage. And to sweeten the blessing, we’re going with some friends of ours…won’t tell you who because if they know you they’ll want to tell you themselves. These friends are also the ones who got us in on this trip. It’s a weird story…maybe one day I’ll get the time to try to explain it to you. Anyhoo, there will be 7 of us going to Kenya Sept 13-26. There are no words to describe all of the feelings I have about this right now. We found out Wednesday (I think) and most of the time since then my brain has been going a million miles per hour….Trust me, you’ll be reading much much more about this in the near future!