my valentine is the best and theology class is awesome (well... kinda)

theology class is fun only because of nicole! during this picture, i believe we were listening to a discussion on the virgin birth.

my valentine, AMF, is a beautiful person. YAY candy jewelery!

AND, I am going with these two ladies to see twilight again. for the third time! man, i love that movie.

Now I will get back to reading for my first exegetical paper, on Psalms 1-2. Scary day!

life outside of school

i would like to see what it is like. it is not that school is too hard or too time consuming for me (i usually work about 15 hours a week), i just don't want to do it anymore... i have no motivation. i am trying to be diligent and honoring to God by being a good student, but... like Christina said to me, God took a break too! a lot of people here are encouraging me to stay in school, to keep trying, and say other encouraging things to me, but i haven't met one person that hasn't had a summer break since 8th grade (which i haven't because i did correspondence courses and then summer classes). not saying that i am more important or better or cooler than anybody else, but it's just rough. i think i would do better in school and would do a better job glorifying God as a student in maybe a year. or maybe a few years. but at this moment i am at peace with leaving school to find work.

although i have essentially no career ambitions, i would like to do something that involves making or fixing things, or something with my hands, something that is interactive... i would love to find a position in a church, but that probably won't go over too well since i have no experience... besides that i would like to work for a nonprofit group or as a nanny or something. i applied for one nanny position that i found on craigslist, but it was a bit of an old ad, and i haven't gotten a response, so i bet they already found someone.

i can't decide if i really want to go to the family force 5 concert or not. i was watching some of their live videos on youtube and it seems like they have fangirls... and that is scary. i would probably try to hide in a corner...

i finished reading velvet elvis. it is not worth reading.

i am going to see the dead sea scrolls tomorrow with someone from my small group and maybe one of their friends! they are at a natural history musuem here. apparently the only dinosaur with a fossilized heart is there so it should be interesting. i am really excited about this because i think it will be fascinating to see the scrolls and also i think it will be a great opportunity to make better friends with this person from my small group. i'm really excited about living life together and how involved i already am with the people in my group.

i might have a surprise.

integrity and purity

Yesterday's chapel message was by Dr. Akin and was on Psalm 101 - "Indicators of Integrity". The link has the manuscript, audio file, and his outline of points, which I will reproduce here:

The man of integrity:

1. Will honor the Lord. (v. 1)
2. Will live wisely. (v. 2)
3. Will care for his home. (v. 2)
4. Will monitor his eyes. (v. 3)
5. Will hate what is false. (v. 3)
6. Will attend to his heart. (v. 4)
7. Will guard his soul. (v. 5)
8. Will seek out the faithful. (v. 6)
9. Will deal with the deceitful. (v. 7)
10. Will understand the Lord's standards. (v. 8)

Psalm 101
A Vow of Integrity
A Davidic psalm.

1 I will sing of faithful love and justice;
I will sing praise to You, LORD.

2 I will pay attention to the way of integrity.
When will You come to me?
I will live with integrity of heart in my house.

3 I will not set anything godless before my eyes.
I hate the doing of transgression;
it will not cling to me.

4 A devious heart will be far from me;
I will not be involved with [a] evil.

5 I will destroy anyone
who secretly slanders his neighbor;
I cannot tolerate anyone
with haughty eyes or an arrogant heart.

6 My eyes [favor] the faithful of the land
so that they may sit down with me.
The one who follows the way of integrity
may serve me.

7 No one who acts deceitfully
will live in my palace;
no one who tells lies
will remain in my presence.

8 Every morning I will destroy
all the wicked of the land,
eliminating all evildoers from the LORD's city.

For a while I was confused because Dr. Akin was saying that we should only be around those who are blameless and have a servant's heart... well, I'm not blameless and sometimes I don't a servant's heart, and many people I know have issues. Which I was taking to mean that we shouldn't be around any other kind of people. Which would make discipleship and evangelism and having friends very hard. But I think he was talking about people on leadership teams. They are always addressing the men only, forgetting about the women... oh well.

Something that isn't as expounded in the manuscript is Dr. Akin's thoughts on purity. He challenged us all to commit to never being alone with someone of the opposite sex beside our wife/husband. I've heard talk about this before in Joshua Harris' books, and talking about it with other students. And then today, a classmate/neighbor that came over and had a brownie at my house apologized to me for us being alone, for the sake of our future spouses and ministries.

I really didn't know how to respond... I think I should apologize to him for making him uncomfortable - I don't think anyone should do anything that is against their conscience. But, I just do not feel convicted that being alone with a boy/guy/man is somehow impure or even a "hint of" impurity. I wouldn't be comfortable being alone with a married guy out of respect for him and his wife, and maybe that should carry over for me to all other guys, too. I pray that if that is what the Lord wills that the Holy Spirit would convict me of it... otherwise I think that I would just be falling further into legalism and church culture as opposed to truly seeking after God.

How/what do you feel/think about this?

dusty blinds.

My blinds are dusty. But that is for another day.

I am intensely excited about the rest of my church history classes (second half of church history, baptist history, and perhaps more). I am fascinated with denominations and how they came about, how they work, what they mean for the church, all sorts of things. I'm not sure how deep into that stuff they get into in a church history class; maybe it is in some other classes or I will have to read some books. Baptist history will be really interesting because so many people here and some other people that I know specifically identify as Southern Baptists. I do not. to some of them perhaps I appear a heathen with my dancing, tattoo-ing, card playing ways, and candle burning (I got asked if I was into seance the other day)...

I am also interested in the theology and evolution and everything else of worship.

-please pray for one of my professor's wives (am I wording that wrong? all of my professors only have one wife...) who is having surgery tomorrow

-please pray for the hearts of my boss and someone I met at a movie theater and that they would surrender their lives to the Lord

Have any of you read any books by Rob Bell? Every orthodox Christian that I know says he is a heretic. So... naturally, I want to read his books!

I am going to try to make sevichy fish... has anyone attempted this? I am scared :'(

I'm visiting a small group tomorrow! I haven't been to a small group here in WF yet, so I'm pumped. Also I am getting a loveseat tomorrow. Lord willing. So far he hasn't. And then Thursday I'm going to meet some awesome people for coffee..!! Meaning I will get hot chocolate or something, haha.

i wonder if this is true

I was talking to my friend the other day. He knows someone that was interviewing with the IMB to be a missionary. When pressed, the man admitted to having a sip of champagne a few years before at his sister's wedding. They told him this disqualified him for service with the IMB. When the man questioned that, and said "Jesus' turned water into wine," and even drank wine, the interviewer apparently replied "Jesus was not a Southern Baptist".

I hope this isn't true, for many reasons... mostly because

1) that seems to say to me that Southern Baptists are apparently more important than God and
2) I have had alcohol, including since I became a Christian (but not since I have come to seminary... I signed the covenant that says I won't and I will honor that). (I wonder if it was just that he had alcohol at all, or if he was a deacon or an elder at the time, or what. Because that could change things).

You can read Dr. Akin's (president of sebts) thoughts on alcohol here. I am one of those that "don't agree". He recently sent this out to us in a slightly different form. It kind of made me want to hit my head against the wall, but I understand where he is coming from. I wouldn't drink either if my future husband had that kind of experience.

God is so good

He really is, and I am amazed every single day of the ways that He works.

Just a quick post, because I have a lot of reading to do:

Tonight I went to the International Justice Mission (IJM) meeting. I've been planning on going but then was about not to because of the forementioned homework, but I felt led by the Holy Spirit to go so I went and wow. It was a beautiful thing to see people be so honest and heartfelt and full of love for so many people that just are not being loved. Honestly I thought that the people there were going to be making idols of their causes, but first and foremost they exist as a organization to glorify the Lord. I think I nearly broke down in tears about five times, and was convicted of a great need and urgency, for my complete obedience and total surrender, and so many other things... it is really hard to process and I need to go do reading and then pray and pray and pray and probably cry.

Yeah. Hope all you people have had a good day and are rejoicing in the Lord.

gah

The school is a parking-nazi. There are two problems with this:

1) There is not nearly enough parking.
2) "Proper" parking spots are not clearly defined.

I also feel there should be a grace rule for first time mess-ups.

also they reminded me of this (that i am going to hell for parking wrong):

The authories [sic] that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. Romans 12:1b-2

first day as a seminary student!

1) My evangelism prof seems fantastic... today he shared with us how he got to where he is now, as a professor at Southeastern. His story was a beautiful story of redemption and the love of Jesus Christ, his heart for the lost, and his love for his wife. It was really amazing; seriously, I teared up in class.

2) My OT prof was wearing slacks, a nice shirt and tie, and Crocs. It made me smile. We started class with a hymn that nobody knew.

*One time I wore Crocs. They were so amazingly comfortable! I don't know why everyone thinks they are so ugly. If I see some on sale somewhere I will probably buy them. :P

3) Christina (part of the worship team at newLife-osu) was right. There are people at seminary that are there to get ahead, that are nasty/mean/unloving, self-centered, etc. It makes me sad.

*Not that I am not a terrible person, undeserving of everything, saved only by the radical grace of Jesus Christ.

I ordered some furniture for my bedroom from Ikea today. I am viewing it as an investment - hopefully I will get many good years of use from it. This weekend I'm hitting up some garage sales to get things like silverware, dishes, a dining room table and chairs, and maybe a sofa. I'll have to find someone with a truck and convince them to go with me...

Another thought: mayonnaise tastes weird. Before when I made chickpea salad (tastes like egg salad), I used Miracle Whip. I didn't realize that it made it slightly sweet. At least, I think that's what it was. In any case, I added some powdered sugar to the chickpea salad to make it less salty/biting (I can't find the words to describe the taste).

Now I'm going to read more of Blue Like Jazz; I'm loving it so far. Next is "Questioning Evangelism" by Randy Newman. I've wanted to read this book for a while, but now I get to read it for my evangelism class! Sometimes I just don't know how to talk to people about Jesus and I think that reading about it will really help me.

it's real now!

My eye hurts... I scheduled for classes (nature and practice of evangelism, church history I, old testament I) and bought my books ($60 for 4 books! sweet... and I wanted to read half of the books I bought in any case!). I also bought the Shack... I understand that it is heretical but apparently it's a great read! :D

Work tonight... not really looking forward to it. I'd rather squish around on my air mattress; I love it.

music: "all my love" - charlie hall. love this song...

(edit: oh well, i had to buy some more books and the total for my three classes was about $100)

the russian alphabet is sooo confusing

I can read about 1,500 kanji. But this Russian alphabet, I'll tell you, is funky. I mean... the letter that looks like P is the r sound, B is the v sound, and H is the n sound.

This is going to be bad. :(

another one for class

It was like a forced, sadistic, weeklong hide-and-seek game. My luck would come and go. Occasionally my older brother or dad found one before me. Some days none were found, but those days were like foggy days, when you can’t really see far, the air is sticky, and gets trapped in your throat, and you just wonder, when will this fog lift?

My three siblings (older brother, younger brother, younger sister), my dad and I got in my mom’s purple Chrysler minivan to take it down the street, to the auto shop. It needed an oil change. I was looking for a forbidden piece of gum. My mom usually had some, but my dad said gum made people disgusting, more like cows chewing their cud, rather than like people. I never was allowed to sit in the front passenger seat (I was nearly 7!), but I reached across my brother (and got hit) to get in the glove box.

“Come on! Get off me,” my brother Kevin yelled. We didn’t get along very well as kids. He turned his head toward the window, furrowing his brow.

“I just want gum; move”. I still am easily pleased and amused.

Instead of gum I found the object of our lose-lose hide-and-seek game.

It was about the length of my hand. It was clear and had numbers and little dash marks going up the side. There was a part to press in, and a rounded chamber in the middle, and then the needle. At least there was a lid on it. My dad tried to tell me that this needle wasn’t a good thing.

My dad’s face looked as if he had aged ten years in the last ten days. But in those new lines and around the newly sunken eyes, there was no emotion, no expression. Instead there was just a dead wonder: how could someone overdose while in rehab? Why did my wife leave needles hidden in her car, in the couch under cushions, in the kitchen?

All I thought about was the doctor’s office. Back then, I liked getting shots – the nurses would always give me a piece of grape Bubble Yum. I never made bubbles, though. I don’t know what happened to the needles I found, because I don’t think that we had one of those red boxes with the yellow sticker on it, like at the doctor’s office.

Whenever somebody found one of those hidden needles, it wasn’t quite as foggy. We didn’t have to sit around watching TV, or trying to find gum, wondering if we would find a needle somewhere. Those days were more like tumultuous lightning storms with possibly, some funnel clouds. We didn’t wonder, it just happened, it was there and now and immediate.

***********

this is for class

Three Objects

一

I have a blue mini-umbrella. Thankfully, considering it's been raining on and off all morning. I've had it since 2004 or 2005, or maybe 2003. That's a long time ago, for me at least. In 2003 I was a high school freshman living in Japan. That's a long way off from being a college senior leaving for grad school in thirty days.

For a while it was sitting the coat closet in my family's house entryway. It's not a small closet behind a door, but a nice big closet with two, maybe 4 feet long each, wooden sliding doors. There are all sorts of things in there, like Titleist Pro VI golf balls with my name on them in blue in. Dozens of them. There's the vacuum cleaner and it's hose, that connects to some central vacuum bag, I guess. There are also beach towels and beach bags.

Then there are tens of mini-umbrellas. My four siblings and step-mother, whom I call my mother, are irresponsible, always losing them. My dad, whom is actually my dad, buys them in bulk when they are on sale. There are a few coats.

二

I have an empty water bottle. It had Nestle PureLife water in it last night, when I got it from church. I wonder what the ad people at Nestle mean by PureLife. I wonder if the people at church get this water to help us lead pure lives (subliminally...?). This bottle isn't even mine, though. My friend took mine and dumped the water out and crushed it. She did that because I kept acting as a human fountain, beautifully arcing water onto her. She didn't find it as beautiful as I did.

I did tell her that she had to give me her bottle. I use one bottle all week and just refill it. By the end of the week I've usually ripped the English/Spanish bilingual label off. Also by the end of the week, I will throw it away. I figure mold or nasty germs will grow in there. I see them, all different pinks and greens and blues, flourishing on the inside of the bottle, creeping toward the top, into the lid, or congregating in the pools of water that I didn't drink up.

三

I have a HuanHuan key chain. HuanHuan is one of the five Beijing Olympic mascots, and he represents fire, ball sports, and the Olympic flame. HuanHuan is apparently an enthusiastic extrovert, quite unlike me in that “extrovert” aspect. His represented ideal is “passion”. I can do passion; I like to think of my self as a passionate person full of passion.

I'm not sure that I showed much compassion when I got HuanHuan and all his key chain mascot friends. I was vacationing in Beijing, and purchased them all in a fairly nice box for 20 RMB, which is a bit less than 3 USD. The seller's initial price was about 100 RMB ($14.6), but I bargained down. But the people in China are very poor. I wonder if that seller got much business, and I wonder if their family had enough to eat. Of course, they were in a nice part of Beijing where tourists come. I saw non-Chinese-speaking tourists drop $50 on something they could have gotten for $5, or less. Perhaps the vendor is driving BMW and sitting on 15 apartments (their investments), waiting to sell them.

*

(in this section i have to connect the above three objects)

************

What do you think? Does this come off as sarcastic or bitter at all, or what tone do you read in it? DO you see any connections between the three objects?

interesting teachers...

I am taking a class about censorship in theater. Today we were talking about the origins and history of censorship of theater (Plato's "The Republic"). Many times theater was censored because of moral objections to it, many times from Christians. My teacher was making some statements like "sex is bad," "well esau 'acted' when he tricked his father, so why is theater bad?" etc. Although some of the logic used by critics of theater was severely flawed (one guy whose name I cannot spell said: "well theater isn't in the Bible so obviously it is evil" [paraphrased]), some of the objections were pretty reasonable, like the church leaders not liking the bawdiness in the plays about Noah's ark and other Biblical stories.

In all, by the end of the class I felt attacked because it seemed like my teacher hated Christians and Christianity and Jesus. So I was sad.

After class I went and asked him if he hated Christianity or religion.

"No, no, I am a Christian and I love Jesus!"

Praise God!

He feels the same way I do; he is sad that some people pervert Christianity into things it is not. I was going to apologize on behalf of Christians that don't act like Christians and share the Gospel with him, but yeah.

It's nice to know that my teacher doesn't hate Christians!