An Answer to Prayer!!

I posted a blog a while ago about not having many friends and being frustrated with the ones I had. The frustrations with those friends I mentioned are still there, if not completely dissolved right along with the friendships. It was more of a mutual, lack-of-continuing to invest in the friendship kind of thing, so it wasn't too rough. We are still civil to each other and enjoy running into each other at church or even REI (that happened yesterday), but we wont make it a point to call or get together.
Being sad and upset over failed friendships isn't what this post is about. Actually, this post is a post of celebration!
After I wrote that post, we were invited to a young marrieds bbq. What happened that night was nothing short of an answer to prayer. The group of people who attended (there were about 4 or 5 couples) clicked and we enjoyed their company late into the night (1am if I remember correctly). And since then, most of the couples TOOK INITIATIVE and invited people over and our friendship grew. All summer, we have been connecting and growing deeper together. We grew enough that now we are going to be in a Bible study with those couples (I'll write a post about that later to digest my thoughts on it).
We found friends who liked us and we liked them. They told us "we want to get to know you, we like you" and we said it back. We have been aching for friends who we can rely on and know have our backs if we ever need them. We needed friends who will open up and share their true selves and we will do the same. And through these friends, we have found all of these things! We have prayed for good friends and even for some specific things, things that we have found in these friends. I don't expect that we'll be friends forever, but for now, we can be together and experience life with them for now... but who knows, they could be life-long friends! We'll see what God and life have in store for us!
Oh, I also have to mention our friends who we went driving up in the mountains with this weekend. We have barely seen them all summer, but this weekend they loved us more than any of our friends have in a long time! We had the most wonderful day with them and hated that we had to end the day early (Michael had to work his last night at the restaurant). We love our friends so much!
And from those friendships as couples, I've ended up deepening friendships with the women. I have had lunch numerous times with one friend, had dinner with another, and have gone to ice cream twice with yet another. Every time, my heart just bursts! I get so excited about making deep girl-friendships! My heart has longed and ached for that, and I'm finally getting it. And the friendships aren't surface-level either-- we talk about deep issues like marriage, family life growing up (and still dealing with), etc.
And my friend from our Meals that Matter group (it's a quarterly thing at our church to sign up and you have dinner once a week for 6-8 weeks with people who live around you... awesome idea!) who we have a scheduled lunch date every Tuesday! Sometimes, we eat together more than once a week, just because we want to and enjoy each other that much. With the other girls from church, I've had to initially initiate the get-together, but with this friend, we do it equally. I've never been pursued as a friend before-- I've always been the one pursuing. And it feels amazing to be told "I like you! I want to spend time with you!" Again, it makes my heart so happy. I walk back to work refreshed and energized by spending time with her. Michael and I are even house-sitting for her and her husband this week!
I am so excited about the answer to prayer that has happened in my life. I just hope things don't turn sour again and I'm back at square one. But this feels different-- these friends want to be friends and want to take the time to grow and develop our friendship. And if I start becoming the one to always initiate again, I will deal with it or just let the friendship fizzle away to courtesy because the other person obviously isn't interested enough to keep it going.
So, praise Jesus! :-) I have found friends! Friends I can connect with and grow with, be there for and embrace. I am just so excited about where life is headed in regards to friendships... now if only we can make the guys connect more outside of a group setting and Michael can gain some solid friendships as well! That's my next prayer... let's see God work!

Processing the Character of God

I was sitting in church on Sunday and the sermon was about making a New Year's Resolution to focus your resolutions and life on the character of God. It was pretty interesting and it made me think. I was processing about it later, I started thinking about the character of God that is seen in the Old Testament versus the God we see today. God didn't hesitate to bring down fire and brimstone on a community that had lost their focus on God. Why doesn't that happen today? Why don't we seem to see God's wrath in the world today? Is it too easily dismissed as something else, like mother nature, terrorists, etc? Or has God changed the way He reacts and interacts with humans? I know Jesus came down to redeem humanity, so does that mean God's wrath no longer is brought down on earth? And what about miracles? I know they happen now and then, but what happened to people being healed left and right, all in the name of God/Jesus? All these questions make me wonder, I know that God doesn't change, but can/did He change how He interacted and dealt with humanity?
I'm not really looking for an answer, but an opportunity to process the character of God. I hope all of you find God this year and your life and your relationship with God and others is transformed!

Coffee on Fire

Now that I'm finally done with school, the holidays are over, and I have internet in my house, I can finally write about some deeper thoughts. So here we go...
As I had mentioned before in a blog, I had the opportunity to be a barista at a local coffee shop in Fort Collins. It was at a coffee shop owned by a local church to have something to use the space 6 of the 7 days of the week. So, coincidentally, most of the people who go there and work there are Christians. My sister and I worked with a man, who I'll call John, who was a very passionate man. At first, it seemed very awkward when he would randomly ask questions that had to do with the Bible, Jesus, etc.
For example, when the Colorado Rockies were in the playoffs, many of the people in there were online trying to get tickets. John then asked my sister and I, "if Jesus were in here, what would he think?" Honestly, at first I was a bit annoyed-- like Jesus would care if we wanted to buy tickets to go to a baseball game. But the more we worked with him, the more interesting and thought-provoking his questions became (even more importantly, less irritating). They made me think, even days after I worked with him. For example, here's a question he asked: "Was Jesus the only perfect person mentioned in the Bible? If you look at Job 1:8, it says "Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil." Does that mean he was sinless? Was he perfect? Because blameless means perfect." Pretty interesting question, right? Every week, he would ask my sister and I some question and we would discuss it. He was always thinking about and talking about Jesus and God and the Bible. It was so apparent that he was on fire for God. I soon realized that I was no longer irritated with the questions, I no longer thought he was an over-zealous, legalistic Christian trying to condemn everyone with his questions; but now thought of him as his a great seeker and model for how Jesus talked about being consumed with God. By no means am I saying John is perfect, but I am saying that he is living a life that I strive to live. I put my Bible on my bookshelf where it sits for days, even weeks sometimes, putting God at the bottom of my priority list. John's passion for Jesus and making God the focus of his life and conversation is remarkable.
So all of this gets me thinking: am I like this? Do people see Jesus in me? Or am I just another person on the street? Are my thoughts consumed with thoughts of Jesus and His life? Is it even possible, having been a Christian for my whole life, to be as on fire for God as a relatively new Christian? What hinders me from making God my #1 priority? Why doesn't the need for reading my Bible and praying and taking time out of my day to spend it with God overwhelm everything else? More importantly, how can I have the hunger for it without getting legalistic about it? I can tell you that New Year resolutions don't help either! Every January I read my Bible every day... and it only take a few weeks for that to slow down and eventually become what it always is-- once every two weeks, at best.
So here's to a new year and a new chance to start over. I know what kind of life I want to be living, so with the help of God and support of others, I will work my way to living the life I want. That's all I can realistically do.

Love Your "Poor" Neighbor

I was reading Jesus Creed blog the other day and I really liked his quote in his blog post, Nothing Left for the Church to Do. It was about how we reach out to poor people when we live somewhere where there are no poor people. Jesus did not call us to love just the poor, but our neighbors-- we need to reach out and love people just for the sake of loving them. It's a great post, go read it! But enjoy reading my favorite part:

Jesus’ mission was to love God and to love others — and you can express this central motif of Jesus in a variety of ways — and only because Jesus expanded the meaning of “others” do the poor come into the picture. In other words, we love the poor not because they are poor but because we love them as Eikons of God (made in the image of God). We love the poor because they happen to be Eikons who are also our neighbors. We don’t have to make the poor our neighbors in order to love the other.

Because we love others we love the poor; loving the poor is not the only “other” we are called to love. We are called to love all others, including the poor, but not only the poor. Our mission is to love the other, whoever that might be.

Some Things to Appreicate about Jesus (and Me!)

Thanks to Makeesha for tagging me! :-)

5 things I dig about Jesus

1. His absolute understanding and grace for his very imperfect followers

2. That he could talk to so many different people on so many different levels

3. He wasn't stuck in tradition

4. He was a feminist

5. He partied and drank wine

8 things about me

1. I am addicted to watching crime shows-- I'm currently watching "Law and Order:SVU"

2. I love raspberry lemonade in the summer, oh and iced tea

3. I love movies... enough said!

4. I'm always cold--it's 90 degrees outside and I'm freezing! (stupid air conditioning!)

5. I LOVE good food-- I'm considered a "chow-hound"-- especially eating it with good friends and family!

6. I'm very organized and slightly OCD, yet I have a lot of clutter around my room... someone explain that to me

7. I could possibly get a social work job in the UK within the next year or so-- I'm scared sh*tless!

8. I cannot whisper... I start to and then end up talking in a regular voice... and then start laughing (which I do loud!)... and try to whisper again... vicious circle!

More Questions Than Answers

So I have spring break this week (that is one thing I will miss when I'm not in school!) but I have to spend some time of it writing 2 papers... ugh! Well, at least starting them. Anyway, one of them is for my religions class-- which I'm still loving by the way-- and I thought I'd get other people's insight cuz they're not easy questions to answer. We have the option to write about one of 5 questions. Here are the two I am thinking about writing about:

1) Is Christianity a monotheistic religion?
-- This was a very interesting discussion because I have grown up in the church and it was never a question as to whether or not we believed in one God; Jesus and the Holy Spirit are just part of God (use whatever analogy you wish to explain it--the egg one is my favorite). So at first my answer was, "Yes, duh!"However, in this class, we discussed the question of: how it is possible to think of Jesus as fully God as well as fully human? If he's human, he can't be God, but if he's God, he can't be human... well, according to logical thought. And if Jesus was praying to God and was the son of God, that would make him separate, right? Well, I'm not saying I believe that, but it definitely gives you something to think about and gives me a big headache! But it did get me thinking about this issue. How would you discuss that? How can Jesus be God AND human at the same time, all the while being God himself? Any thoughts? I'll definitely be wrestling with this and researching it (I'll have to see what our theology textbook has to say about this... I'll get back to everyone about what I find). But I'd love to hear what everyone else thinks.

2) Can a Christian believe that members of other religions are “saved”?
-- It's kinda funny cuz we got this assignment and I got onto my blog reader thingy and Paul had written a blog about this issue! Crazy! (I'll post a comment about it when I read it, and especially if I write my paper on this!) So I am going to read that (it's really long!) and see what he has to say as well I'd love to hear what everyone else thinks! When we discussed this in class, I was in a group with mostly Christian (well, self-proclaimed) girls and we really struggled with this issue. It would be great if everyone got into heaven. The discussion always came around to "what about the guy in the middle of nowhere? will he go to heaven if he's never heard about God/Jesus?" That question was a little easier to answer or at least give a decent answer for, but what I want to know is what about the people in the Middle East who strongly believe that their religion is the truth? Or even the Muslims, Jews, Mormons, Catholics, etc. in the US? Does it come down to theology? Cuz Muslims believe in Jesus, just that he was a prophet, not the son of God. And Jews believe in God-- and if Jesus is God, would that mean they indirectly believe in Jesus? What about Catholics and Mormons who have very similar beliefs but different values and some VERY different beliefs but the core beliefs are the same? Cuz they all believe in Jesus. Where is the line drawn? Is there any way to know? Isn't it very prideful for Christians to say they have the one and only way to heaven? Let me know what you think!

--Also, any good references would be greatly appreciated for either of these questions-- books, websites, Bible verses, etc! Feel free to comment about only one or both! I'd love to hear what people have to say and think!

Not a Book Review... okay, maybe it kinda-sorta is

I apparently read a lot more than "normal" people do. I never thought it was that much-- just something to help me fall asleep at night and pass the time during down-time in the day. Because I like to read, I tend to read one novel and one theological/religious book (okay, maybe that is a lot). I just finished an amazing book, Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell, which is one of the best books EVER! I then picked up Brennan Manning's book, Ruthless Trust. It's the sequel to another amazing book, Ragamuffin Gospel. I just started it today while I was waiting for my last class (I have 30 minutes between classes...) and I didn't even get through the introduction before I was wanting to yell, "YES!" at the book and what he was saying. What he wrote was exactly what I am going through currently and what my church is currently teaching on. I thought this was amazing and interesting and also another person involved in trying to break the mold and traditions of church. This is a lot of babbling... I'll write it now. Enjoy!

"She knows that Jesus is comfortable with broken people who remembers who to love."

"Alert to the manipulations and machinations of the pharisaical self-righteousness, ragamuffins refuse to surrender control of their lives to rules and regulations. They see that the stale religiosity of legalists, trapped in the fatal narcissism of spiritual perfectionism, obscures the face of the God of Jesus."
-Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust, pg. xiv

What are your thoughts? Agree? Disagree? Further insights?