knit a little, talk a little...

So, I know I never post on here. And I know that's semi-pathetic. Today, I decided to sport my "Rosie the Riveter" shirt (Seriously. It was a gift from my sister, Grace, and I'm wearing it right now.) and get to business regarding a lot of things, including (but not limited to) this blog.

And what to blog about? Well, I thought, there's always knitting. So knitting it is!

My grandma taught me how when I was 10 or 11, and I relearned and honed some skill as a freshman in college. Eight years later, I think I have some marginal expertise in mitten-making, and can do a little of this and that if I'm not making something hugely difficult (I don't challenge myself, but I typically like it that way).

Right now, I probably have about ten projects going on, but I tend to be a seasonal knitter, and winter is my season of choice.

Even so, I embarked on a hat project for my newest little friend, Nora, and so I am knitting once again. In the process, I ran across a group of ladies who knit at a local bookstore each week, and have joined in on their fun, despite the fact that any of them could be my mother (I am certainly an outlier in any sort of chart depicting our demographics...). ;)

Nora's hat is coming along nicely, with no *knitting* problems (a slight yarn crisis was had and then resolved), and it's knitting up very quickly. It's a remake of a '40s classic--the Stella Pixie Hat. I love the peak already, and can't wait for Nora to wear it!

Steven Smith (the bear) is not a baby, but he's the closest thing I've got to use as a model. More pics whenever an actual baby has the hat on. ;)

to be like Caleb...

Numbers 14:24 But my servant Caleb—this is a different story. He has a different spirit; he follows me passionately. I'll bring him into the land that he scouted and his children will inherit it.

Whoa! This passage just hit me square in the face. What an impressive way for Caleb to be remembered--a man who wholly followed the Lord God of Israel. This is in the Bible; therefore, it's God's opinion of Caleb.

Obedience to the Lord characterized his life. We see him standing up for truth despite fear when sent as a spy to check out Canaan, even when 10/11 of the rest caved into their unbelief. We see him following God for forty years in the wilderness waiting for God's timing for Israel to finally enter the land. We see him faithfully following the Lord under Joshua's leadership, fighting to take the land of promise as a possession. We see him (at 85 years old!) fighting to claim his given inheritance from the giants who lived there.

This man was not passive; he was not content to just meander through life like a wayward stream. Caleb knew God, and sought to live a life of faith practiced through obedience to the Lord. He wholly followed God, and God blessed his obedience.

Lately, I've been yearning for this kind of intense passion and obedience to be true in my own life.... I'm longing to burn out instead of rust out, to take radical steps of faith to follow the Lord instead of living in a cozy bubble of comfort.

God's call certainly is a radical one: to follow Him above all else, to live in full submission to Christ and His will. I want that to characterize my life, don't you? I want to know with certainty, like Caleb did, that I have "followed the Lord fully" and that I've left it all on the field. I want to live a life of passion and action rather than reservation.

Let's follow the Lord fully together. Anyone with me?

"Resolved : that all men should live for the glory of God.
Resolved second : that whether others do or not, I will."
::: Jonathan Edwards

as henry says...

I recently finished reading Henry Blackaby's book on Holiness, and found it to be very thought-provoking and truthful. His discussion centers around (duh!) holiness, but the meat of the work is that we do not live fully holy lives because we do not really know God and what He's all about... particularly in the dept. of sin.

Henry proposes that if we knew God and His attitude regarding sin, that we wouldn't be content sloppily stumbling through life the way we currently do. We'd be fixated on living as God desires; we'd have a burning desire to leave behind our sin and be holy. As a result, says H, we would be used by God in more substantial ways to relay His holiness to the world.

For a long time, I've been hashing out in my mind what a correct view of the sin-forgiveness cycle should be in a believer's life (particularly, mine). I always come down to the fact that we don't really care about sin, but rather just focus on forgiveness. What I mean is that I don't grieve about my sin; I am not overcome by remorse for sin just because it is sin. I have yet to shave my head and wear sackcloth in response to sin in my life. Of course, those are not the only ways to see sin as what it truly is, but a sigh and a "try better next time" are not produced by a heart which abhors sin as God does. (And certainly, a "well, it's not that bad..." attitude is at war with a biblical perspective of sin.)

Sin is utterly putrid to God, and therefore, it should be to me. I want to be set apart as holy... and I want the church to want that, too!

MY religion ain't a religion

Last night I began reading a book by Helen Keller that I must've bought at a library book sale for a quarter... it's a pretty mangled copy. Anyhow, I'm only a little ways in, but am already pretty confused at Keller's "religion," which she seems to purport as Christianity. I will keep an open mind as I continue through the entire book, but so far what I've observed is not really that faith in the slightest.

Helen Keller has long been one of my most admired historical figures, but I have to say that at first exposure to her own story of faith, I'm more than a little dismayed and saddened. Of course, even if her understanding of spiritual things was entirely incorrect (as many historical figures' have been), her contributions to society are still tremendous. Even so, however, I personally find that no number of impressive acts or heralded influences can parallel a personal relationship with the living God.

I've heard many times that the Christian faith is not a religion, but rather, a relationship. Religion is about man's acts and attempts to connect with a god. Christianity, in contrast, is the story and understanding of God's pursuit of humanity.

When all other faiths require action on the part of man, Jesus pursued humanity, and made a way for each person to know Him in spite of failings, and without a single deserved effort on his or her behalf, save the crucifixion of Christ Himself.

2008 Mega Book-reading Extravaganza!!!

I am not typically a resolution-maker, but I think that this year I think a commitment to self-development is appropriate and necessary. Therefore, I've decided to commit to catching up on the reading of many a book I've acquired only to let them collect dust in my room.

To hold myself accountable in that department, I'm going to post about them on here: please feel free to shoot some recommendations/thoughts/critiques/etc my way. I'd also definitely appreciate some of your personal insights on any book that I finish--I thrive on discussion!

To get the ball rolling, I read my first Sherlock Holmes detective story, A Study in Scarlet, over the past two days. All I can say, is that I was definitely mystified by his intellect and reason (as I certainly should've been), and that it made me chuckle more than a little at the very complex story behind the crimes committed (and, of course, it is only fitting that the secret societies and cults in the United States receive some attention...). Has anyone also read it? I'd enjoy hearing your thoughts.

it's spreading like a fever

Well, I'm back home from Christmas Conference, and a good time was had by all. :) It was really great to meet some of the students from UT, and I had oodles of fun getting to know the staff there.

Afterwards, my ex-roommate, Mindy, came down for a day to hang out in the city. That==SO GREAT! We had a blast.

Once I got home, though, the swamp monster attacked. What I mean is, I got sick. I doubt it's some awful deadly virus, but I do feel uncomfortable and such. Thankfully, I can stay inside most of the time and rest, but I'm doing the "Home Alone" thing, and have to maintain my parents' fortress until they return. That basically means taking care of animals 9 out of 10 times.

I don't know if I've ever posted my own pic on here, but this is the photo booth view of the tragic disease infesting me.

another kind of soap box

As you probably know, I have some opinions about certain things, and am typically not afraid to share my convictions with others. Of course, that is very evident by how I spend my prime working hours while on campus (and even now while I'm building my team of ministry partners), but while I love to talk about God and His work, I have another similarly-related soapbox to stand on after some training I received this week.

In addition to the ministries of evangelism and social charity is another one upon God's heart--faithful stewardship. Jesus Himself spoke and taught on money more than any other topic; He knew the importance of clearly laying out examples of godly finances for us!

This week at my Campus Crusade MPD training conference, we focused much of our time on recognizing our role in relation to what God has entrusted us (after all, He made everything, and therefore, it's ALL His anyway...), and how to faithfully steward these resources. I have to say that I was simply PSYCHED to learn more about this critical area of high importance, and that the concepts we were discussing are neither difficult nor confusing. In fact, I have a great conviction now that faithful stewardship of God's resources (especially money) is the key to living a life of freedom as God intended!

Since this is a topic I could rave about for pages and pages, I'll try to keep my notes to a short post for now, but the basics are as follows:

1. God owns everything, we are entrusted some of His possessions to steward (which means to care for as God would desire!).
2. He longs for us to be DILIGENT EARNERS.
3. His first priority for our stewardship is that we would be GENEROUS GIVERS.
4. Next, He calls us to be WISE SAVERS, making effective decisions to invest for the future, while not hoarding more than we need.
   
5. We should honor God by being CAUTIOUS DEBTORS (contrary to public opinion, debt is NOT unavoidable or expected. We CAN live debt-free!).
6. We also should be PRUDENT SPENDERS. This means we live a "spartan" lifestyle, not indulging in lavish living, but making modest and moderate choices for our consumption.

I was very encouraged by these concepts, and will probably post some specifics about each at a later time, but wanted to share how exciting faithful stewardship is!

Just think: God has entrusted you with some of His bounty, and He is allowing you to allocate and care for His investments as He would desire. What a great opportunity we have been given by God!

the good old days?

I've heard stories about the old days from my Grandpa for the last 25 years (yes, even before I was born, he was telling stories...), and got to be part of the restoration of those old days this week. You see, Grandpa found an old photo from summer 1937, the summer he started dating my Grandma.

The photo was in pretty bad shape... there was a terrific tear down the middle (right through Grandpa's head), and about as many wrinkles and creases as Grandpa has now (at 89 years old...). As you can see, the photo is of my grandparents and two other friends, Katie McNeil and Danny Beaudrie (the couple on the left, my grandparents are on the right), down at Lake Erie enjoying a beautiful summer day.

My job? Fix that sucker up and get some copies printed so Gramps could give one to Katie (whose last name now is not McNeil...), and have enough to enjoy them properly himself. ;) Not really that easy of a task, but with a little computer magic, Voila! You see what we've got now. :)

This was more than a fun project, but it was definitely a pleasant one to work on. Actually, it was so fun, that I was thinking about how I could (possibly) make this kind of job into an actual job while I'm raising my support. I definitely could do a much cheaper job for people than other places, and I'd give them files so they can reproduce as many copies as they want with full legal ability to do so.... I guess we'll see.

Oh, Grandpa told me yesterday that they threw my poor Grandma into the lake that day... I'm hoping it was a lot cleaner 70 years ago than it is now!

cafe creme, bitte

I miss Germany. Lately I've been thinking a lot about Freiburg (it's pretty easy for me to do since I'm sharing with my ministry partners about the last year, which includes the fun of being over there), and I just miss the Germanness of it all. People are so different there, they interact in such a distinctly different way... it's just a refreshing difference in comparison with American culture after having experienced the not-so-fun aspects of campus life in the states.

Don't get me wrong, I do love Americans and our culture, but spending the summer in Germany provided a great change of pace that I will always cherish and long for again. Students' upfront attitudes and openness in discussing sensitive issues was such a great treat for me, and Germans just don't value most of the fake-courtesies of Americans. Of course, that takes a little getting used to... it can be a lot more comfortable at first to be rejected by someone with a fake smile than by someone who really hates what you have to say (and is very blunt about that). Still, I think that in time, I learned to really value that genuine honesty, despite the apparent harshness (and that--however unfair--often is what Germans are remembered for, it seems).

One thing about Germany that I miss most is the simplicity of life, going to a cafe somewhere to spend time with the Lord and people-watch. You order, sit down somewhere, and no one interrupts you, not even at closing time. They know you are able to tell time... and you leave when you're good-and-ready. (Of course, for me, this really never happened since I needed to be back before dark AND had to catch the early streetcar home to make it in time....)

Ah, Deutschland!

hooray for the underdog!

Saturday I went to the U of M football opener with Greg, and we saw a historicially significant trouncing. There was nothing that could be done, one team just completely out-played the other. The wolverines were sent home defeated.

And the new victors? The rag-tag bunch of hillbillies at a speck of a school in North Carolina--Appalachian State. Their school boasts only 1,600 students (about the size of the U of M football team if you're counting red-shirts), and they're definitely not division one....

When I got home from the outing, I was met at the door by my Spartan father, excited as anything that his rivals had been defeated so embarrassingly, and shocked that I had been witness to something so spectacular--the biggest first-game overturn in history, the tragic take-down of a Big Ten giant.