Live like the pros - Professionals that is!

Right.... so, I'm in Fedex/Kinkos doing this blog thinger and I had to do some other internet stuff downtown. I'm getting ready for job interviews and stuff which required me to buy a snazzy suit - from Ross that is - no department store prices for me!!!! Anyway, hauling around my laptop and being somewhat dressy going downtown and trying out my mom's new camera made me have the Young Working Professional look without the working and professional part (yet - by God's will, I will have a job, and I am trusting God for THAT job - this job that appears to be a perfect fit - we'll see...) Anyway, it makes me think, that these 'new looks' and new gadgets determine the 'new you.' It's like, if I take on that role, will I start to love the look and gadgets or will God still be my first love? Will I continue to trust in Him as my Provider and Lord or will I rely on my own terms?

I pray, God, if You put me into a role - Your will willing, the role of a Professional Research Assistant, that I remember my role You called me to - as Your child and Your servant to further Your kingdom. May I always praise Your name and trust in You in the midst of this transition. You are God. Amen.

Graduation Day!

GUESS WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I GRADUATE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Woo hoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, so anyway, I just got done telling one of my profs good bye. Well, two profs, but one was this one that I outreached to for - uh - a little OVER 1/2 of my college career. Seriously, this professor has been a part of my college life for 4 and 1/2 semesters.... It's like yeah. A whole massive amount of time... So, I said good bye and later I was telling a friend about it and I just almost straight - up started crying because God has done so much through that situation and taught me so much and He has probably impacted this professor's life more than this professor even knows because - yeah, he doesn't even believe that God's there. Anyway, yeah. Probably the 2nd most bitter-sweet moment of this week. The first was after Mom got seriously all my stuff out of my room and drove off and I was headed to the Gifford lab to atrophy - I mean work for 5 hours - and I was thinking, "Oh my gosh, College is really going to be over in about 24 hours." That hit me and I just wanted to cry. Plus, the whole Mom coming up reminded me of having to go back and forth from Denver to Ft. C's when Pa was sick, so yeah. I wanted to cry about that too.

But then last night, Lesley and I went to Coopersmiths, where I drank pink Cream Soda - Coopersmith's Made cream soda. It was gooooooooooooood!!! :) And the Teriaki Burger was goooooooood too! Man, I'm going to have to go for a run on Saturday - at HOME. I'm thinking the park by the Y... Or - well - ok, I'll see. I was going to take the bus to Ft. Logan (I might actually do this) and then drop off some flowers *note to self, get more, or maybe a graduation something at King's) and see Pa (his grave) and tell him I graduated and then I'll attempt to find the bike path and jog around there. Or - well, I'll just have to see. I can't believe I'm going to be HOME tomrrow - like aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Today I came to say good bye,
And as I walked, my heart was light
Free from the chains - entangling sin.
But filled with the Father's love within.

I sat outside, in His creation.
Seeking His heart, and not
My own consolation.
I asked, "Test my heart
O God, and see if there is any
offense Within me."

I said, "I seek You first,
With my desire I come. To say
Goodbye, this time here done.
But rid me of those chains
Of desire impure.
Rid me of the tempation
That always lures."

My God replied, Oh my
God my relief
As I climbed the stairs
The air had ceased

To be filled with the thick
Stench of temtation.
That dragged me into my
thoughts' sin prison.

And I looked at you and
I said goodbye.
and I said thank you
but by and by

I'll have released you to
Our Creator above.
I'll know He has sought you
To reveal to you His love.

Wolves in Nice Cozy Soft Squishy Sheep Clothing

Riight... so, this is the the ranting post. Yay. Though disclaimer goes, I did get sucked into this site of which I will now rant about (yay).

So, anyway, there's this unnamed dating site that claims to be Christian. The Great Comission Association of Churches (GCAC)is against the conventional dating where people date to find the One. GCAC believes that God would lead people into Courtship which is dating --> engagement --> marriage and actually has produced an extremely low divorce rate. Even so, if I didn't follow the principles of GCAC on dating, I would have my doubts about this site that I happened upon and was clicking around out of boredom due to having senioritis.

The Case against this website:

First of all, when it gives the criteria for the matches, it lists tons of religions including atheist and agnositic. It's a Christian website, so why are those options? Don't they know about 1 Corinthians where Paul explicitly tells people not to be yoked to nonbelievers? Then why is that even on there??? Second of all, this survey I took asked about some things that I was like, "Whoa!! I can't believe this option on the survey is an option!" Plus I got an e - mail that had yet other surveys on it that you could take that warned about explicit content on them. That was the last straw, and so I decided to write this blog.

Personal Musings and other stuff

I think once God teaches you a lesson, you want others to not learn it the hard way. This dating site may get people to learn things the hard way - the way God didn't intend for them to learn, but He will allow it so that they might learn that one's life is His, and one should entrust things like dating to Him first (no matter if they are using the GCAC model or not, by the way). This site basically let people take dating into their own hands, and their thoughts and sexuality into their own hands too. Basically, it was 'Christian' but not pleasing to Christ.

How much are we like that? Christian but not pleasing to Christ? Am I every day dying to myself to be more pleasing to Christ and not just Christian by label? I admit that at times I am not pleaing to Christ, but I hope that most of the time I am, but God didn't choose us because we were pleasing to Him. It pleased Him to choose us, to sanctify us so He would be pleased to make us holy for His glorification alone.

In the fold of God in Old Town

So, on Saturday night we had the Invisible Children camp out thing in Old Town where we simulated the commute children in Uganda make from their village to a city to evade captors that would make them soldiers against the govt. in their civil war. Anyway, since it was Saturday the party people of Ft. C's were also out. Crystal and Julie from RSS and Whitney - a new Summitview sis and I were chilling out in our sleeping bags right near Zydeco's. It was maybe not the best move, but time would show that God allowed it for a reason. That reason came around 12:00 when a bunch of guys kept giving us a hard time and flirting with us when we were trying to explain to them the predicament of the children in Uganda. Mike and Brad from RSS came over and were basically our body guards. We were able to sleep while they stayed up and guarded us. Mike had to back into and push out of the way some guys that were harrassing Whitney and Crystal and I.

Earlier that evening, Loren, the Joels and Tim had walked around handing out tracts and sharing. Loren gave us RSS / SVCC sisses tracts to pass out to people. Before Mike and Brad came over, I was laying there holding the tract and praying and trusting God for protection. The line from Come Thou Fount about 'The fold of God' came to my mind. I imagined us sisses (Julie, Crystal and Whitney) all asleep in 'the fold of God' under His protection. I lay in my sleeping bag at timed dozing off, all the time clutching to Loren's tract as a tangible reminder of my salvation - protection and security in Christ.

When the guys came over (otherwise known as our RSS Posse) it was like an answer to my prayer. What's interesting is that the guys were there from God, but it was really God through them that was still protecting us. I think it was so cool how that worked out like that. Julie and I were talking about the guys having a strong protection orientation. She said it was strong because God may have given that to the guys at Creation, but also because we really were One in Christ and a family, the guys protected us like how biologcal family members protect each other. That made sense because we were an eternal family.

I'm listening to the song We are One by Switchfoot as I was thinking about this song when I was writing this blog. As I lay down next to my brothers and sisters (from left --> right if someone were at our feet looking down at us, we went like this: Brian, Mike, me, Crystal, Whitney, and Julie), I realized that I would give almost anything in gratitude to our guys because they were willing to get jeered at, and pushed by drunk guys - basically, they were laying down their own safety so us ladies could curl up at their feet and sleep safely. I realized that this was only a small snap of how us sisters will feel when one day, God reveals to us the man whom He picks to give his life for us - to provide for, protect, encourage, and become one with us. How deep will that love be then. Right there on the ground, with two wiggling sleeping bags next to me, I prayed, "God, if I can trust You for brothers to protect me for one night, how much more should I trust you for someone who will lay down his life for me to mimic what You did on the Cross for all of us."

Us sisters owe the guys some mad amounts of pizza or cake or something.... :)
Praise God!

Quest for Creation

The US is doing badly in science according to an early 2006 Time magazine report. Ask a certain CSU professor, and he apparently launches into a 30 minute tirade about the US educational system. Campus musings aside, today in the New York Times, there was this article that explained the need for the US to get a larger particle accelorator to excel in the world of Physics. We are competing against Europe and Japan, and the delay of installing new particle accelorator would require the US scientists to study in either Europe or Japan to get the most advanced equipment available.

As I read this article, I realized something: We (the scientific community - yes, premeds are included) are on a quest for Creation - for absolute dominance of control of Creation, and the glory of discovering its secrets. The country who produces the next Nobel Laurate or the breakthrough treatment for something is hailed to be the top of the science world. We want to attain our own glory through the manipulation of Creation.

Yet, this will fail. Creation, as it moves toward a state of entropy will not yield the results we want it to. Creation will continue to mutate and decay, requiring more and more complext cures whih we will rush to design. The Creation is groaning, not for man to fix it, but for man to come to the knowledge of his Creator, so He can restore His works - both man, matter, and living things - to the way He designed them.

Dear God, I pray that the scientific community would turn around and see their Creator. That they would be on their knees prasing Him, not standing on the lecturn praising themselves. Yes, God, I pray for them, I plead for them. I plead for You to open their eyes so they can see You, so that one day, they may, with tears streaming down their faces say, "There is no one else who made the heavans and the earth - there is no one like our God." (Jer 10).

Physical and Spiritual Birth

So, today is KT's birthday (woo hoo!) I had an awesome thought from God! It related earthly attachment and the parent - child interactions to spiritual attachment and God - child interactions.

Right.... here goes!

At birth we all have been incubating for 9 months inside the womb being provided with nutrients and other things from the mother's diet. The parent(s) mentally have been gearing up for our births and when we are born, they enter into a relationship with us. We either become securely or insecurely attached - we either feel safe and happy around our parents or we don't. This is influenced by quite a few things some of which are parenting style, circumstances outside of everyone's control, and the quailty of emotional interactions with the parent and child. This sets the stage for our development through the rest of infancy, toddlerhood, and into adulthood.

In a fallen world, so much can go wrong, and the vast amounts of intervention programs and yet - to - be - developed programs show that we have become distanced from each other because of our initial distancing from God.

However, God brought us back. Surprisingly, I think the process of our spiritual rebirth has some strong paralells to our physical birth only better!

Before we were Christian, God was feeding us and nourishing our hearts with curisities about Him, putting people in our lives that would show His presence and maybe give us those few verses from the Bible - thus, our pre - Christian 'milk and nourishment.' He developed our heart - from simple to complex thinking about Him to get it to the point where we could accept Him or not. God chose us before the Creation of the world, so He prepared for us to come into His presence.

Once we are Born Again, God truly does become our Abba (though some of us have to be taught that later), and we really do form an attachment to Him through His spirit and through relating to Him through prayer. I truly believe that though this attachment like so many others can be influenced by our first parental attachments - meaning that if one felt unsafe or unhappy with his or her parents, they may feel unsafe or unhappy with his or her teachers. However, God promises HImself as a solid Rock to attach to and our Anchor for our Souls (Hebrews 12?) Anyway, we have to walk in that faith to trust Him more and more and through this He will truly become our Refuge and Stregnth. This attachment will affect the rest of our walk with God - both here in this life and in the next. This bond is the Attachment that all other earthly attachments are a mere shadow of. This is the Attachment that was first broken, but the one that was redeemed by Jesus Christ.

Trust

1. I had a job interview and won't find out until next week.
2. I haven't had any calls from places in Denver where I applied.
3. If I get the job in Ft. Collins, I need to find a place to live
4. I think my flash drive is in my room with my whole life on it.

What do these four things all have in common? Trust. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding." Proverbs 3:5

Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation" Isiah 12:2

"I will wait for the LORD, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob. I will put my trust in him" Isaiah 8:7

(source: Biblegateway.com)

Aha! I think I will do my quiet time on Trust today since apparently I need it. I think I was planning on doing my quiet time, but I honestly don't know if I had it since I don't remember. So, this will do. The first thing that came to my mind regarding trust was the Isrealites since I was doing a search in the Old Testament. More specifically, I was thinking about the Golden Calf scene. What happened was this: Moses was taking orders from God for 40 days while the Isrealites were on their own. We could say, "How STUPID they were to build a calf when God was around them and behind them in pillars of smoke and fire and parted the red sea and...." But, I can say, "How STUPID am I, who sees God in every aspect of biology and chemistry and organic chemistry and physics, who has God's Spirit and who has access to God's Word to not trust in Him for these things."

Yes, I can say that now because I am now right with God. But when I am away, my flesh takes over. When I am away in my mind from God, I can freak out. Yes, several HDFS models would say that I have more of a cause to be insecure or have a difficult issue with trust because of my past. I will not deny that. But God is bigger than my past. God who has taken away my sin is bigger. My brain most certainly knows this, but when the rest of me - when I panic, do I really remember that? Maybe. Maybe not. It seriously depends. When my hope is in something else besides God - when my hope is in my memory (trying to remember what I did with my flash drive) or in my interviewer (for the job) or for the leasing office (for the place in Ft. C's if I am to live here) or for the Human Resources department in Denver (for the Denver jobs), my hope obviously isn't in God. When it is in both, it ends up stabilizing out with my flesh AND my spirit having more of an equal equalibrium. With each side gaining strength, and with each side fighting to become dominant, my flesh and spirit will struggle. Apart from God.

God, I seriously have no idea what I did with my flash drive, actually, I'm assuming it's in my purse in the dorms, but I'm not sure. Sounds like a trivial request, but could You please protet it with all my ASSIGNMENTS and RESUMES and stuff for the RESEARCH PAPER on it? Just asking You for this makes me trust You more. And, God, I know I felt peace right after the interview. I know I did, and I know I gave it to You in the bus. But, as these things go, I tend to take it back... so I give it to You yet again. If I end up working there - cool. If not, You had a better plan. That's it. The End of Story. Same with the Denver thing. And God, I know You provided the perfect place for me in the Lory Apartments last summer, I pray I see Your hand again at work with my living situation and I can yet praise You and give You Your glory. God, in a way, I'm thankful that I don't have my assignments or the research paper to distract me, so I can come back fully to You - just like You wanted it to be and just like I need it to be so I can come back to that true Rock - true Secure Person, true Anchor, and thus give You glory. God, You really do give me peace, and I praise your for it. Allelua!!!! :)