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May 30, 2006
3 Questions...
The past few days I've been doing a lot of feeling sorry for myself and attempting to respond to life out of my own flesh and my own designs on what it will take to make me happy. Sometime Sunday I started to break and realized how utterly ridiculous I was being. That's when I took to listening to some teachings as opposed to wasting time on the internet or walking to Blockbuster.
I just finished listening to a Mary Knox teaching about life lessons. About halfway through she talks about having spiritual gifts and being who you are, faning to flame the gifts God has given you, etc. She then brought up Elderidge's "Waking the Dead," talking about how to ask yourself the heart questions.... and the go something like this:
Who am I?
What is my name?
What do I love?
It's so crazy for me sometimes... I just forget. I forget who I am and get lost in other people, and in other people's expectations of me. It makes living a life of the heart an amazingly difficult thing for me. But, there is shear joy in my heart when I am reminded of these questions...
I am a daughter of the King, yet I am His bride, His love. All the simplicity of being a child, dearly loved and protected; while at the same time a friend and a love, ready to co-labor
with Christ in this eternal battle. It's amazing....
Posted by Angelina at 11:06 PM | Comments (2)
May 20, 2006
Yeah!
We got some things done yesterday for SALT... Yeah! And today we are starting to move the guys downtown into Seminary Avenue Comm. Church, where they will be living until June 1, and we'll be having all of our SALT meetings.
It seems that God is teaching me to be content these days, whether it's about my purse, or commuting, or not being able to unpack, whatever it is. Paul writes, "...godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that." I Tim. 6:6-8
I know that he is desiring me to understand more what it means to understand that I will always be lacking for what I really desire on the earth... but I must be content to wait until the time is come for me to be with Him and desire no more than what I truly need to get by until the time comes.
Posted by Angelina at 08:41 AM | Comments (1)
May 10, 2006
A first.
Today I saw my first ugly kid. Now, in my day I've seen kids who were just sorta normal looking, but today I was awed by this child. Unfortunately, he inherited a strange mixture of his parents' features and they didn't match one another quite right.
I've been dying to share this today.... since the girl I was working with ooohed and aaahed over the kid and told me how cute he was. Oh my.
Posted by Angelina at 05:10 PM | Comments (2)
May 09, 2006
My purse
So, I thought it'd be time to write a bit about an interesting leasson that God has been teaching me lately....
A week and a half ago Mike & Jackie got married.... and admist the fun of the weekend, my purse turned up missing during the rehearsal dinner. It was just what it toke to steal my joy, though for the rest of the weekend. It sucked. I would start to be distracted and then think again of what all I'd 'misplaced.'
Some of the big things were mostly the qualities of the stuff, not the actually stuff itself....and what I mean by that is it was this cute little purse that I happened to love and there were a ton of pictures I'd taken on my camera that I hadn't gotten a chance to upload yet. Blah.
I remember looking down at my journal at some point on Sunday during church and reading what was on my journal.... Lord, grant me ther serenity to accept the things I cannot change.... And realized son that there wa nothing more that I could do about findk=ing my purse, I just had to accept it in my heart and allow god to use it.
That afternoon I prayed, and was crying out to God.... and I found that I was begging for His foregiveness because I was so careless and unfaithful with this thing. I begged and I pledded, and I remember God being very clear that despite what was to happen with my purse, He would remain faithful. It made me think of that verse in 2 Timothy 2 where it says: if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.
And isn't that the truth, that God will reamin faithful to me. I guess it's not to be that my purse will get returned, and I will again live without the luxury of a camera. It still makes me sad to think about it, to be honest, but I am so glad that God is good to me and He remains faithful to me.
Posted by Angelina at 05:37 PM | Comments (2)
May 08, 2006
First day at work....
Since I know all to most of you have been eagerly awaiting some sort of news about my first day at work.... here goes.
This morning came in a bit of a rush as I managed to oversleep my alarm and wake up to Bob knocking on my door. Whew, thanks to Bob I didn't miss the train and be destined to walk into downtown. Well, that's maybe a bit dramatic, but there's really no other drama than contrived drama right now in my life.
So, on the commute in I have a quiet time, arriving downtown encouraged. Then, I proceed to get off fo the train platform and instead of walking all the way down and out the front of the building which followed the directions Tom gave me, I chose to go right down and walk out a block and a half farther west than I knew how to accommodate for without looking like an idiot. And when I say idiot... I mean it. I walked to the end of one block, saw it wasn't the right street, then walked all the way to other end of it and saw that it still wasn't the right street. I then proceed to take out a map.... drop it, and then fumble around trying to get my bearings straight.
Finally figured out what I had done wrong and headed off to catch my bus. The bus thing went well, and managed to get off right in front of the Lincoln Park Zoo with more than a half an hour to spare. So, I grabbed a park bench under some crab apple trees and began to journal a bit.
Then, I go into work, and spend like an hour signing my name and the date on things. After that, I get informed that i am going to be driving the train today. YES!!! What better place to start?? So, I meet my co-worker: Princess. (yes, this is her given name) and we head off to the little train ride, me driving the engine alongside her walking. We get all set up and going and I quickly learn that my job is to be smiley, happy and drine 3-12 year olds around in the same circle, three times in a row and let them out when I'm done.
It was a blast!!!! I spent the whole day ringing a bell, calling little kids Kings and Queens of the train (can you tell I've been engrossed in Narnia lately?) The highlight were two five year old girls who sat in the car behind me and giggled of sheer delight the whole ride.
About halfway through the day I realized two things: 1. My shoes have become approximately on half size too small for my feet. and B. I am the biggest klutz known to man as I managed to rip my new pants on a seemingly smooth bolt.
But, the day ended as all do, and I had an excuse to go out of my way to Unique (unique=sweet thrift store) to take advantage of half price Mondays.... and get some new pants.
I'm safely home now, day one under my belt and am eager to sleep in tomorrow since I don't have to be back to work until Wednesday.
Posted by Angelina at 07:48 PM | Comments (1)
May 06, 2006
It's the beginning of summer...
It's the official beginning of summer for me.... I finally made it out to Chicago, well the suburbs anyway. I start my job Monday morning at the Lincoln Park Zoo. I'm excited for the faith adventure that this summer promises to be. I am more confident than ever that God has lead me here, but ask myself often what will come of this time.
Posted by Angelina at 07:33 PM | Comments (2)