Amy's Oasis

I am done.  I am done.  I am done school. So hard to believe!

Why is it that I feel more incompetent then when I started and so much more aware that there is nothing that I can do to benefit the human race or the God who created and sustains me?  Hmm . . . methinks that is just where said God wants me. :)

So, you can officially come to me with your problems now. ;P I don't feel like I can help you, but I know God can!   

In the course of the next couple days, I will be packing all my earthly goods, saying goodbye to my friends, and saying hello to boyfriend, family, and Prince Edward Island!!!!!!!  So incredibly excited.  Why is it that God gives us this much joy while still on this earth?

Steve is visiting me this weekend. At least I think he is. I saw him last night, but . . .

Here's the hard truth, guys: it is officially 11:11 and he is not up yet. At least I don't think so. Like I said, I haven't seen him yet this morning. Don't get me wrong, I would LOVE it if he slept in as late as he needs to, especially because the poor guy had a hard day yesterday and went to bed very late. My problem is, I don't know if he's dead or alive.

So the inner battle begins:

Should I open the door and stick my head in to listen if he is breathing or not?

Clay is still in his pajamas and needs some clothes sooner or later. Should I go in there and get some and on the way make sure that Steve's okay?

*(It is now 11:15)*

Should I leave Steve alone, and just trust that he's fine?

How did he not wake up through all the noise of the kids and the machines working outside and the dog barking, and Susan and I talking loudly in the very next room . . .??

Which would he value more: privacy or being rescued?

Well, if he's not up by 11:40, I'm going to make sure he's alive. Wait, that's what I said for 11:00.

Um . . . that's 40 minutes! What if he just hasn't been breathing for hours! The longer I wait . . .

Ahh - my imagination is just scary sometimes . . . Advice anyone?

It is now 11:28. Maybe I should just see if the door will open quietly. Okay, here goes . . .

Wait, Susan just came upstairs . . . getting clothes for Clay . . . he's alive!! Wahoo! Let's all clap and cheer for Steve, the very tired, but alive man!!

(I love you, Steve.)

Aww, he just came out, looking very sleepy and cute. Obviously he needed the rest badly. (He needs to deal with me, after all.)

I feel like wearing a sign that says:

"Beware! I have a problem with left and right! Give me at least a 6 foot radius of space when passing."

I cannot count the number of times I have done the awkward dance with people - you know, the one where you go one way just as the other person moves the same way, and then you take a step to the other side just as the person takes the same move, and all this you try to do without actually touching or bumping into the other person. *sigh . . . sometimes I wish that I lived up to my name of "Miss Bird".

Although . . . the left and right problem doesn't go away in air traffic, does it . . .?

Maybe a siren? A loudspeaker? Bungee jumping?

"I, even I, am He who comforts you.

Who are you that you should be afraid

Of a man who will die,

And of the son of a man who will be made like grass?

And you forget the LORD your Maker,

Who stretched out the heavens

And laid the foundations of the earth . . .

But I am the LORD your God,

Who divided the sea whose waves roared -

The LORD of hosts is His name.

And I have put my words in your mouth;

I have covered you with the shadow of my hand,

That I may plant the heavens,

Lay the foundations of the earth, 

And say to Zion,

'You are my people.'"

Is. 51:12-13a; 16 

There is something about being on a plane . . . as the aircraft lifts off the ground and the landscape falls away beneath you, you cannot help but realize just how small we are.  I remember feeling that I could just reach down my hand and crunch the buildings and trees with one press against the rounded earth.  I had to strain my eyes to see the tiny man jogging around the track.  Soon he dissapeared completely as we gained altitude.  Houses and roads laid out perfectly beneath me.  No dirt.  No rust.  No brokenness.  No destruction. 

At the dawn of time, God was.  He was the one who existed complete in Himself, and yet he chose to create a universe. A galaxy.  Some planets within the galaxy.  Earth among the planets.  Continents on the earth.  A country on one of those continents.  A garden within that country.  Particles of dirt in that garden.  A man, made of the dirt.  On that man, the tiny man, the man barely seen from an ascending aircraft, the man made of dirt, God chose to set His love, to bear His Image! More than that, dispite sin and even through sin, God has put His words in our mouth and covered us with His hand of blessing and love!  What?!

 Do we believe in God? More than that do we believe in GOD-prime - GOD-to-the-infinity?  If we did, fear would be gone.  Fear of other people, of what they will think of us, of what they could do to us, of what they have done to us, of how they are responding to us, and all the other multiple ways in which we make others bigger than ourselves and bigger than God.  Fear of ourselves, of how much we sin, of what we will do, of what we will not do, of how weak we are, of how strong we are, and all the other multiple ways we make ourselves bigger than other people and bigger than God.  Not only would fear be gone, but so would guilt, so would pride, so, I suppose, would sin.  Do we believe in GOD?

Of ourselves . . . No.  But no matter whether we believe in Him in the totallity of His essence and in the totallity of our hearts and actions, GOD STILL IS.  The faithful though we are faithless. The strong though we are weak.  The big though we are small.  He IS, even though we do not believe in Him.  And because He is, we can begin to catch glimpses of Him, to take small steps, to gain a small taste of what it is to believe in and fully trust our truly great and awesome God.  It is not about our believing - it is about Him BEING.

Stand in awe.  Worship. Wonder.  And . . . do not fear.  Our God IS. 

I thought this was interesting . . .

Compare these two quotes:

1. 

"My Declaration of Self-esteem

I AM ME

In all the world there is no one else exactly like me

Everything that comes out of me is authentically mine

because I alone choose it -- everything about me

my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions,

whether they be to others or to myself -- I am my fantasies,

my dreams, my hopes, my fears -- I own all my triumphs and

successes, all my failures and mistakes -- because I own all of 

me, I can become intimately acquainted with me -- By so doing

I can love me and be friendly with me in all my parts -- I know

there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other

aspects that I do not know -- But as long as I am

friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously

and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles

and for ways to find out more about me -- However I

look and sound whatever I say and do, and whatever

I think and feel at a given time is authentically

me -- If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought

and felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is

unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that

which I discarded -- I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do

I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive,

and to make sense and order out of the world of

people and things outside of me -- I own me, and therefore

I can engineer me -- I am me and

I AM OKAY"

-- Virginia Satir 

 2.

"Q. What is your only comfort in life and in death?

A. That I am not my own, but belong --

body and soul,

in life and in death --

to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.

He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood,

and set me free from the tyranny of the devil.

He also watches over me in such a way 

that not a hair can fall from my head

without the will of my Father in heaven;

in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.

Because I belong to him,

Christ, by his Holy Spirit,

assures me of eternal life

and makes me whole-heartedly willing and ready

from now on to live for him.

Q. What must you know to live and die in the joy of this comfort?

A. Three things:

First, how great my sin and misery are;

Second, how I am set free from all my sins and misery;

Third, how I am to thank God for such deliverance."

-- Heildelburg Catechism 

 

In which identity would you rather live?

Honestly?

Which one will you live out of? 

I am about 3/4 of the way done my school year.  Two more months to go.  I can't decide whether that's happy or sad.

Does life always produce these kinds of mixed emotions? 

I think so.  It's the already-not-yet, right?  This place is not our home, and yet God has given it to us to dwell here for a season.  As Christians, don't you think we should always be living between contentment and longing?

So, apparently I don't know how to link things in my post, so you can head down to my sidebar where Steve's name is and post your birthday greeting there.

Also, a sister in Christ has some concerns about protecting Marriage at her school which she wrote about two posts down.  If you have any Bible texts or references to help her out with presenting God's view in a secular environment, please post and pray as she presents next friday. 

Ralph is his name. He is a mouse, a very small mouse to have such large ears. And a very smart one to escape Geoff's wrath. Geoff and the mouse are at war. Actually, let me rephrase that: Geoff is at war against a mouse.

Susan and I suggest that Geoff make friends with the mouse. We reminisce over Beatrix Potter and the Mouse on the Motorcycle and talk about cozy mouse homes in the wall. We try to persuade Geoff that by making your greatest enemy your friend, you will at least have won the battle for your sanity. Unfortunately, the male species speaks a different language.

At around 8:00 every night, the mouse makes his appearance. The first nibble, the first skittering noise across the kitchen floor and Geoff is zoned in, every muscle tensed, eyes intensely focused on the spot of the activity. Shoe in hand, he peeks into the kitchen and stands there, waiting. Then - the shoe goes flying across the room. The mouse stands up, looks Goeff in the eye, and meanders off under the stove. The words, "Hey man, nice try, but ya gotta work on that aim!" could not be louder if he spoke. Geoff sighs, puts a few more sticky pads in suspicious areas, resets a few traps, and goes back to the living room. Only to have the entire thing repeated in a few different ways over the evening. And to eyewitness the mouse calmly running over the pads and eating right beside the trap.

Unfortunately for the mouse, everyone loves Geoff more than Ralph. His pain often becomes our pain, and when Susan wakes up in the morning to find she has shared her loaves of bread with a dirty, germy little rodent, her pain also becomes his. So . . . often we get dragged into this battle as well. Ask me for the story of how I almost outsmarted the mouse another time. Yes . . . almost. If Geoff hadn't come home at the time he did, that mouse would have been a prisoner under a paint tray. As I said, a story for another day.

So, let me ask you: how do you catch a mouse who thinks sticky pads are dance floors and traps are jokes of the past?

Do you believe a woman going up to the front to read scripture during a worship service is wrong? She is not exegeting the text or doing a performance -- she is simply reading the scripture passage. What do you guys think?

I would love to get a good discussion going & just get your thoughts and scripture passages that come to mind. (Mom & Dad -- I would appreciate any wisdom from your lips as well!)

Does anyone know if I can request that certain advertisments not be put up on my blog? I guess that they put up the adverisments that best seem to go with the themes in your blog, so at first I only had "Jesus Camp" and "Christian ringtones" and things up . . . but now that blog "Best of Both Worlds" is backfiring on me- and I don't know how to fix it. Anyone know?