09.28.06
What’s up with that?
I’m not sure what is going on but there seems to be a conspiracy to temporarily close and remodel my favorite places. It started with Gap, and GapBody at my local mall. Come on - a girl needs her local Gap and GapBody - they are my favorite places to shop. I’ve been forced to drive 20 min. up the highway to the very ritzy mall just to shop at Gap. They’ve been closed for sometime, and won’t be open until November! This had better be some really great renovation!
The next place, was my local Starbucks! How dare they! I walked in this morning to order my Grande Mocha Frappaccino Light, to be met with signs at the doors saying they’ve made arrangements for us somewhere else because they were going to be closed for remodeling starting Oct. 8. Of course the store they are sending us to, coupon in hand, is in the opposite direction of my drive to work. Stink! They say they’ll only be closed for two weeks, but really, what renovation do you know that actually stuck to a schedule, so we’ll see.
Hopefully this isn’t turning into a trend in my life. FYI, Rubino’s Pizza, the pizza joint that I blogged about in an earlier post, so far has made no changes with the ownership shift. I still see the same employees, and my $2 pizza special still exists. I’ll keep you posted.
09.26.06
Sovereignty
So I have a new and improved, and I believe now accurate definition of sovereignty just yesterday.
I’ve been struggling in my time with God lately, for lots of reasons I’m sure. I want to spend time with Him, and at the same time I’m struggling. I want to have an intimate relationship with Him, but I’m not wanting to do the super christian “daily quiet time”. You know where you read your assigned “read through the bible in a year”, and pray for 20 min. stuff.
So yesterday I just sat down, and told God that, and told Him all kinds of other things that have been on my heart about Him. Just talked to Him about things I don’t get or understand, and this is what He showed me.
My previous thoughts on sovereignty went something like - God orchestrates all of the people/situations in someones life to affect them in a way that causes God’s desired result. I know when I write it out like that, it seems off, but sometimes when you have a concept of something, it’s just there in the background, and you don’t really think about it practically. So anyway, in my mind, that also meant that God orchestrated the “bad” in life as well. After all I understand very well that God uses the bad to grow us, and better us.
So yesterday, I realized the flaws in that - it doesn’t allow for free choice, and that is a key part of who God is. He will never force anyone to love him - and that is an awesome thing! He also won’t force anyone to make a good choice. The reality is that other people’s choices affect people beyond themselves, and sometimes in a negative way. That doesn’t mean that God wanted the bad to happen, in fact, he didn’t want it, but if he forced that on someone, he would be taking away their free choice.
So my epiphany for the day is that the secret of God’s soveriegnty is that he can and does still use the bad choices that we or others around us make, even though it’s not what he wanted. I guess that is a real picture of love, to better us, even when we go against his wishes - pretty cool.
So yesterday was the first time that I really understood that God hurts and grieves with me through the bad because he didn’t want it for me either. And then later in the day I realized, that the time I had spent with God was exactly what He wanted from me, and that it was far more honoring and pleasing to Him than if I had gone through the motions of the typical “daily quiet time”
09.15.06
Fall exists in SoCal
Yes, folks it’s true, fall exists in SoCal, although it is NOTHING like a good midwest fall. But since I really enjoy changing seasons, I enjoy what I can. Like I get really excited when I see snow on the mountains, cause then I know it’s winter. :) So to prove that fall does exist in SoCal, I took some pics. Oh, and one picture, just to show you how big these leaves are! Just had to share. Now to be honest these fall like trees are few and far between out here. If I make it back to the midwest this fall, I’ll take some pictures of fall there, and NOTHING compares!
09.08.06
Connection
Hmmm, been doing some thinking, and just a warning I’m being pretty real here, so if you came to find some cute story, no go for today. I’ve been working on the concept of connection. Building meaningful, safe relationships, where you can be truely real, and truely yourself, good bad and all. I struggle with doing that, and right now the biggest reason that I struggle with it is because I’ve been hurt in the past. I’ve had good relationships with people, that loved me unconditionally, and then for various reasons the relationship changed, and it was totally beyond my control. A few years back in my life, a significant number of my significant relationships left me, not on purpose, and not because anything bad happened, God just honestly moved them all on to other things in their life. Quite honestly, they were great things, God honoring things, that moved them on, and out of my life, or at least not as in my life as they were. But as righteous/positive and God honoring as the changes were in these peoples lives, it was still so incredibly painful to me. And my heart has truley wanted to just shut down, and avoid reaching out for fear of being hurt again, and at the same time cling desperately to what little scrap of relationship I do have in my life, no matter how unhealthy the relationship or required action to hold on to it is.
So that’s some background. Now I’m at a place where I’ve found some good health for myself, and I’m realizing again my need for good, real connections with people, but to be honest, I’m still scared, and I’ve found myself doing a few things in lew of really connecting - so I’m going to call myself on it here:
I read blogs, which - isn’t really connecting, although sometimes you can trick yourself into thinking so if you read the blogs of particularly open people
I spend time with people, but don’t open up and share what I really want to share
I schedule my down time, with a walk, a tv show I want to watch, etc. etc. and thus avoid the feeling of being lonely
I buy something new, or find a project for myself to again avoid the lonely feeling
I’m sure the list could go on, and maybe as God brings more things to mind, I’ll post them as well. But for now, I’ll leave it at that, and I’ll also leave it with a commitment to start by being honest with real people in my life (not just my blog) about this connection struggle that I have, and build from there.
09.07.06
Kids say the darndest things
I have the cutest niece and nephews ever! I just love them to death, and they love me right back, and that is a great thing! I’m going to brag on one today in particular. My nephew, Micah. He’s four, and just comes up with some of the best comments. Here are two great stories.
Just the other day I was talking to him, and the conversation went like this:
Micah: Krissie, you know what?
Me: What?
Micah: We have marshmallows growing in our yard!
Me: Oh really?
Esther: (his older and wiser sister) MUSHROOMS! not marshmallows.
Micah: Oh yeah (laughing) I mean mushrooms. We have mushrooms growing in our yard!
Apparently, Esther is used to correcting him on this one, he has a hard time keeping those words straight. Now this next story got relayed through my brother, Micah’s dad. They were in the car together, and Micah was asking him lots of questions about space, and snakes, and whatnot, you know boy questions, and my brother was giving him answers. And the conversation proceeded like this:
Micah: Dad, you are sooo smart. How did you get to be so smart?
His Dad: Well, I went to school for a long time, like 16-17 years.
Micah: Well, I went to that one school (his preschool) and all we learned about was letters.
Apparently Micah is very disappointed with the education he’s been getting, and who can blame him really, snakes and planets are so much more interesting to a little boy then letters.
I love my nieces and nephews, they are the best!