June 28, 2004
home sweet home
so the other night at "church" (i'm not sure how to describe our bible study/grill out/frisbee time at Doug's but we will just roll with it) we were discussing 1 Timothy 5. i ended up in a group with my roommates which as it turns out was highly appropriate. we discussed the chapter, answered the questions Chad asked us and then just started talking about the verses that stuck out to us. this brought us to a very interesting conversation about 1 Timothy 5:4
slightly out of the context of widows, we began talking about the charge that the verse makes. it says that our first responsibility is to show godliness in the home. in the NIV translation it says they must put their religion into practice by caring for their own family. hmm... interesting something we all know deep down but don’t (at least i don’t) spend a lot of time thinking about. we got off on this long conversation about what that looks like, what it means to us and what hinders Christians today from that attitude. i have been thinking a lot lately about how much we want to display Christ to others and to the people around us, but this verse reminded us how impossible that is to do without being able to display Christ to each other. this verse seems to imply that godliness needs to begin in your own home, behind closed doors. the people we take most for granted are the people we need to start with and pay the most attention to. begin at home and it will “leak” out. kind of ironic because i think the truth is if we were honest with ourselves we would admit this isn't our normal attitude. somewhere deep down, we know our roommate or spouse will forgive our crankiness, but we sure don’t want to be rude to our coworker. i mean "how would that reflect Christ?" :-) kind of a fun topic to dive into. we brought it around to apply to our little home on hunt street and talk about what ability we have to exercise godliness and in turn display Christ in our relationships.
well we also began talking about the family and how it is the building block of our society. seems obvious this is why it would be key that godliness begin there. we talked about the job that parents have to raise children to fear God, specifically the role of moms (surprise surprise). no, but i can honestly say that i thought about this topic in a new light. i think i gained a clearer picture of the responsibility of being a mom for what a true honor it is. cool stuff
Posted by Emily at 11:20 PM | Comments (2)
June 25, 2004
Chi-Town Girls' Adventure
We are loading up the van in less than an hour and heading out for good ol' home. Illinois here we come! Turkey and mashed potatoes will be waiting for us. Home-cooked food and pool-side lounging is our motto for the weekend! I get to see my nieces and nephew and Brad Paisley! Not to mention Sarah and Michelle who I miss like crazy! GOOD TIMES, GOOD TIMES!
Posted by Emily at 11:23 AM | Comments (3)
June 22, 2004
murder at Hunt Street
Here at Hunt Street, we owe Squishy an apology and so in order to clear his name, we will print the whole Piranha City Murder Mystery.
The Scene: Piranha City is a nice 10 gallon-sized rural setting, home to 5 fish and several gorgeous plants. It consists of a lovely bubble wall, city sign, big rock and several seashells.
The Characters:
Squishy: Sarah Coe's HUGE goldfish, whom is the object of many's dislike, but has been known to be utterly harmless and less than brilliant to this point
Tag (aka Barracuda): Jules’s adorable black medium sized Molly who was more than pleasantly plump, but sweet as a fish can be
Midnight: Amber's medium sized tri-color fish who stays out of most everything. Mostly a loner, the Hunt street girls fondly call her the "pig fish"
Fez: Joel's fancy angel fish. Highly arrogant and supposedly aggressive, Fez was harmless due to his small mouth, but we all knew he was smart
The Sucker Fish: Holly's most hated resident. The sucker tends to just be gross, he eats all the crap and minds own business, though he does suck at the other fish sometimes. Holly refused to name this fish claiming it was unworthy
The Mystery: Although Piranha City has unfortunately known quite a bit of death in its past, the last month or two have been calm with everyone living in happy harmony. The odd occurrences began about two and half weeks ago, late one night when Case had decided the fish would go blind if the light was always on, so we turned it off for the night. The next morning, Tag was gone! Note: I didn’t say dead, I said gone. She had just plain disappeared. After much searching and deliberation with fish experts, we pronounced her officially dead. She was not in the tank, not out of the tank, not in the filter and no one had seen her. After some severe interrogation of the fish by Detective Gribble, the only logical conclusion was that she had been eaten! And due to size, the only likely suspect was Squishy! We closed the case.
It is only fair at this time, however, to mention that Holly did hold out on placing all blame on Squishy. Her gut instinct told her the Sucker had to have something to due with it.
After a time of grieving, things returned to normal in Piranha City, or so we thought. Then last night, Fez disappeared! We again sent out the search units, this time we did discover the body. We could see part of it sticking out of the sea shell, which is home to the Sucker! Upon Detective Gribble's arrival, we netted the shell out of the aquarium and proceeded to smash it open on the front step with a huge rock. There before our very eyes was poor Fez and the very disgusting remains of Tag!
She had not been consumed whole by innocent Squishy, but instead dragged inside the shell and nibbled away at by the Sucker (the only one small enough to fit into it)!
For now, Piranha City is calm, saddened by the loss of another great citizen, while Sucker awaits sentence. The jury is still out on what to do with him, though most house-mates are voting for the flush right now!
Posted by Emily at 03:36 PM | Comments (10)
June 20, 2004
Back Where I Come From...
this weekend i went home, well not quite home, but cliff and i did make a big long road trip to the middle of nowhere Illinois, that found us hanging with some of the old gang.
it has begun! this weekend marked the beginning of a new era in HHS class of 2000 lives, the first of our crew got hitched and boy was it an odd feeling. i had a million mixed emotions about attending the event, and wasn't all that convinced about going, but i'm really happy i did.
getting to the church was fun, lots of faces you were happy to see and eager to catch up with. but, as Mark (our friend the groom) walked to the front of the church, it all seemed so surreal. i thought to myself how funny it was that he was standing there like he was waiting for a bride to actually get married, and sure enough he was! i think that somewhere along the line i had frozen high school friends in my mind and just wasn’t aware that we are in fact old enough to do such things as graduate from college and get married! ahhh scary! well, all went well and they said their "i do's” we all laughed really hard, took a bunch of pictures and just relaxed and enjoyed each other.
after all the chatting, excitement and long drive, i have decided that old friends are great. no matter what, you can always find some stupid memory to laugh about and there is plenty to fill them in on. i personally had been dreading all the "what are you doing now?" questions, since i haven't a clue how to answer that at this point in life, but i was just honest and the fact is, they don’t care. it doesn't matter to them that i don't know what exactly i’m doing. i guess i love old friends best, because the truth is if they didn't truly love you, they would have left ya a long time ago. the loyalty runs deep and there is so much understanding and comfort in the presence of people who have seen you through the last 8 or 9 years, no matter how much time has passed since the last visit. and even though everyone's lives have changed a ton and we've all certainly headed opposite directions, at the core, we still know each other. i thought about that as my friend Ryan felt quite at ease to make fun of me walking through Wal-Mart and knew just what buttons to push to get me wound up! some things never change i guess
on the spiritual side of things, cliff and i both were really encouraged to see how our friends included God in their wedding since neither of us thought they were believers. it was interesting; we are still not sure where they stand, but encouraging none the less. many of our high school friends are not following God and are not saved. oh how your heart aches for people you love so much. every part of me just hurts sometimes. i want nothing but the very best for them and we continue pray they will open their eyes and find Him.
when all is said and done, home is home and that’s a good thing, even if we are all "growing up"
Posted by Emily at 07:32 PM | Comments (3)
June 18, 2004
the good stuff
Dan Lennander is good at asking me the sometimes tough question "what are you thankful for right now?"
...and i was reminded of this by Heather's blog today
so in honor of them both, i felt that I too would make a list of the good stuff this week (not in any particular order):
1. Taraccino Theology with Lorry and Todd (yea for opening Tuesday mornings!)
2. Herschel Martindale (agreed heather... Wow)
3. Sense and Sensibility, cookie dough and root beer floats with the Tammy and Holly
4. Getting Maddie during worship at the Leaders Mtg
5. 4 miles with Jules
6. Annette Barrett ... get out a pen when she is talking
7. Tiffany Peterson for a million reasons (1 she loves me, 2 dinner at her house with the crew, 3 new skirts, 4 sense of adventure that cannot be tamed)
8. Joan letting us take her van for our girls' adventure to Chicago (oh such a random conversation that could have been no one else but God)
9. already discussed... thunderstorms
Posted by Emily at 03:57 PM | Comments (3)
Casting Crowns
Oh what I would do to have
The kind of faith it takes
To climb out of this boat I'm in
Onto the crashing waves
To step out of my comfort zone
Into the realm of the unknown where Jesus is
And He's holding out His hand
But the waves are calling out my name
And they laugh at me
Reminding me of all the times
I've tried before and failed
The waves they keep on telling me
Time and time again. "Boy, you'll never win!"
"You'll never win!"
But the voice of truth tells me a different story
The voice of truth says, "Do not be afraid!"
The voice of truth says, "This is for My glory"
Out of all the voices calling out to me
I will choose to listen and believe the voice of truth
Oh what I would do to have
The kind of strength it takes to stand before a giant
With just a sling and a stone
Surrounded by the sound of a thousand warriors
Shaking in their armor
Wishing they'd have had the strength to stand
But the giant's calling out my name
And he laughs at me
Reminding me of all the times
I've tried before and failed
The giant keeps on telling me
Time and time again. "Boy you'll never win!"
"You'll never win!"
But the voice of truth tells me a different story
The voice of truth says, "Do not be afraid!"
The voice of truth says, "This is for My glory"
Out of all the voices calling out to me
I will choose to listen and believe the voice of truth
But the stone was just the right size
To put the giant on the ground
And the waves they don't seem so high
From on top of them lookin' down
I will soar with the wings of eagles
When I stop and listen to the sound of Jesus
Singing over me
I will choose to listen and believe the voice of truth
Posted by Emily at 12:04 AM | Comments (6)
June 16, 2004
laziness and laundry
so i was reminded today of how God is present in every little thing
i have two baskets, which i keep stacked inside each other, that serve as my dirty laundry hamper in my closet. yesterday i took my laundry down to the basement to wash. i just grabbed the "hamper" out of my room and headed for the stairs. for whatever reason, i took down both baskets as one unit. i proceeded to throw a load in the washer and then go away and forget about it, typical of me. so last night i remembered my poor neglected clothing, tossed it in the dryer and went to bed. to my misfortune this afternoon as i went back to my laundry task, i found that becky had also begun this endeavor. this meant: i had clean clothes in the dryer and dirty ones still in the hamper that couldn’t go in the wash. i thought to myself, "oh piss, now what?" i was about to dump the dirty ones right in the middle of the room on the floor and use the basket to take up the clean ones (which is a highly disgusting option mind you, even for dirty clothes) when i suddenly remembered "WAIT! i have two baskets!" hurray! i took them apart, used one for dirty, one for clean. end of story
funny how God knew what i would need and when. before i even had a clue, He provided. just one of those seemingly meaningless tasks in life that if we look, we will find God in. He is there, even in laundry
option B is that my laziness from the start by not separating the baskets upstairs was my "provision," but i prefer the other version of the story
Posted by Emily at 07:43 PM | Comments (2)
June 15, 2004
all you need is love...
so i have been thinking a lot about love lately, just trying to really grasp what it is, what it looks like and how off our society has gotten. attempting to take a bunch of pieces and fit it all together in my little mind
true love expresses itself in obedience to God and service to others. in fact love is for the good of others and to bring God glory
interesting stuff i tell you, days of pondering
anywho... one main thought that stands out is the coincidence (which i don’t think is so coincidence) that God says love is patient first in the famous "love chapter." it is first word He uses to describe love. funny, it isn't "kind" or "giving" or any other thing you would immediately think of when considering love, but patient. how ironic this all is in our intense world of instant gratification, so contradictory to our lifestyles
another thought i found rather interesting to wrestle with came up at work this morning in a conversation about love and so on with Lorry and Todd. the argument was brought up that, the relief of pain is more pleasurable than the absence of pain ever existing hmm... interesting how we need them to reference each other. we need one in order to know the existence of the opposite
just a snap shot to my thinkings today
Posted by Emily at 12:27 PM | Comments (7)
June 14, 2004
maybe it will storm tonight...
so lately there have been dang amazing storms here and i just feel the need to share with you all how much i absolutely love them! words cannot even express it. now, i know not all agree with my perspective. dan you hate to get wet and well poor elizabeth, i am so sorry, but for the rest of us it is just plain delightful. i guess my obsession stems from what a mystery storms are to me, it makes them magical and well let’s face it, romantic.
the other night the lightening was non-stop, flickering constantly like a laser show or something. we girls were driving back from a visit to elizabeth and DQ just soaking it up. the thunder was so loud our windows were shaking. oh how it makes me so excited, like a little kid! the sky was honestly breathtaking. we were going to all go out in becky's truck, case informed us "step #1: put on your swimsuits," but we all got distracted and so goes the story.
but big props to my girl tammy 'cause she and i did run up and down the street barefoot in the rain trying to get the best view, might be one of my favorite things. yup just might be
Posted by Emily at 05:46 PM | Comments (11)
June 13, 2004
low pressure
well well, here we all are in the stress-free coral zone (it is as close to pink as matt could get while making fun of me for not being quiet or gentle)
so lets be honest, i am so crazy excited about this new blog thing that i cant sit still but also so nervous i'm nauseated, which brings us to the key to my blogging sanity... low pressure. there are no promises here and certainly no guarantees, just random thoughts and ramblings, which is what i do best
Heather Hanson told me she was putting a box of kleenex next to her computer when she heard i was getting a blog because i make her laugh so hard she cries, but don't you see, that my friends is the kind of pressure i'm talking about, pressure i cannot handle!
chances are i don’t have what it takes to be a great blogger (in fact micah has already informed me i will suck) but maybe it will be like eating and case will declare me officially "good" which will be more than enough for little ole' me. with all that said and despite my skill level, i'm going to do this. why? because it makes me happy, in fact it delights my soul...
Posted by Emily at 11:54 PM | Comments (8)