So often we try to borrow trouble from tomorrow.  We tell ourselves not to, and the next thing you know, we're back at it again, trying to analyze today in light of a perceived tomorrow.  It gets us nowhere but conflicted, confused, and worried.

And we remind ourselves of the importance of living for today.

So we do.

And then today is no longer enough.  We yearn for tomorrow, plan for tomorrow, wish today was any other day than today.  In learning to live for today, we found peace.  But that peace is no longer enough.  It's not enough at all, because we have already begun to write today's hope onto tomorrow.  And today becomes a burden as we wait for tomorrow.

And then there are the days when today is not at all enough.  When today is pain and sorrow and longing.  When tomorrow represents our only hope.  We cannot live for today, because today is void, today is pain.  It is in those days when we must live for tomorrow.  

If only we could balance these extremes...the perfect management of time would be heaven indeed.

the good news

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be a Christian in a non-Christian world.

I remember the huge insecurities I used to have in junior high and high school that I wasn't witnessing enough to my friends.  I would pray at night for opportunities to share Christ with my unbelieving friends, and I would beat myself up mercilessly when I failed to witness to them.

I was a summer camp counselor, where evangelism was frightfully straight forward.  We even had "interviews" with our campers the first night of the week where we shared the Gospel with them.

This followed me to college to some extent.  My best friend from high school had fallen away from Christianity, and I remember sending her more than one a little more than angsty email late at night in which I told her I was praying for her and tried to show her the road back to God.  Not too many opportunities for evangelism at college itself presented themselves, though - all my friends were Christians.  Perhaps the closest I came was my state park job, where I worked with a guy I called "Bill the atheist."

But by then I was changing.  I did have a conversation with Bill about faith, one day shortly before we were done working together.  It was a life changing conversation, though, because I realized at that moment what witnessing meant.  This wasn't a give-him-a-tract-and-talk-through-the-four-spiritual-laws type of conversation.  This was just a real conversation about why we each believed what we did.  No coercion, no tracts, no "Romans Road."  But he knew what I believed, and he knew why.  And that was enough for me.

I've had other similar conversations since then.  I have certainly not led anyone to Christianity, as far as I know.  I have shared verses on occasion, but not out of a need that I persuade them that what I believe is the only thing that will save them.  I share with them because we are friends and friends share their lives with one another.

I have recently come across a very interesting theological perspective - that of Christus Victor rather than penal-substitutionary atonement.  Basically what this means is that I am coming to believe that the New Testament and Jesus' death/resurrection are more about conquering the power of death than about Jesus protecting us from God's wrath.  Sin becomes less about breaking a moral code and more about the things people do as a consequence of our mortality.  When Jesus died, he broke the power that death holds over us.

I think this changes my perspective on evangelism, too.  I was brought up learning the importance of letting people know just how sinful they are and just how much of a gap this puts between them and God.  I still believe that.  But for me the emphasis has shifted.  I tend to look at the Gospel in a more positive light now, and evangelism as the incredible opportunity to tell people that because of Jesus death holds no power over us.  Because of Jesus, I have traded mortality in for immortality.  He broke the chains of sin and death.  This is the good news of which I wish to tell the world.

random and inconsequential ponderings on life, love, and the pursuit of happyness

Me getting a job by the end of June will require an act of God.  And for the most part, I'm entirely okay with that, because I trust God to take care of me.  He always has, he always will.  Today's setbacks are tomorrow's opportunities.  It's frustrating sometimes, though.  Frustrating to get rejection after rejection for jobs for which I am almost certain I am fully qualified.  It's frustrating to be a number in a system and to have my response to an automated questionaire decide my fate.  It's frustrating to know I'm competing against everyone and their mom for these jobs.  It's frustrating to feel so helpless.  But that's life.  I know I will be happy whatever I end up doing, so long as it pays the bills (which, coincidentally, will be hefty come December and the crashing down of student loan payments), even if it's folding baby clothes at good ol' Wally's World.  Is it too much, though, to want a job that pays 30k a year...just enough to scrape by comfortably?  I suppose it may be.  

For now, I collect monopoly tickets at my local grocery store and hope to win their $25k cash prize.  That'd be the ticket.  

I've been thinking a lot lately about the ways living on my own in a far away place has changed me.  Forgive me if I list some of them off the top of my head.  It's always fun to look back and see where I've come from and what I've become.

1) I'm so much more independent and fearless (mostly).  I'll go anywhere, I'll do pretty much anything.  I'll fly wherever the wind blows, and I will love it.  I always knew there was a little of Pa Ingalls in me, but it's ever more apparent now.

2) I am a lot less naive, and a lot less innocent.  This isn't wholly good, I suppose, but it is what it is.  I would like to think I have not lost my childlike joy for little things in life that make it good, nor do I think I have lost my ability to see the good in people.  

3) I have not lost my faith; if anything it's stronger.  It's different, sure.  I wouldn't even say it's less certain.  A certain amount of realism has become a part of who I am, though.  I don't spout Sunday School answers, I'm no longer a summer camp counselor Christian.  I'd be terrible at being a counselor...although it occurs to me that's a somewhat valid summer job option.  Ok, not really.  Actually.....duuuuuude.  I just realized how epically amazing (and so strange and challenging) that could be.  Anyway.  You know, the fact I am even considering that is odd to me.

4) My music tastes are ENTIRELY different.  I listen to people like Christina Perri now.  My tastes are largely secular.  My 3 years ago self would have balked

5) I love spicy food. 

That is about it, I suppose.  

wedding day

This was it. Her day. He was everything she'd been looking for. Handsome, charming, witty, loving. She'd dreamed of this day for so many years. Of meeting someone like him. Of a big church wedding. Of flowers lining the aisle. Of his face standing at the front of the church, waiting for her.

As she walked down the aisle toward his beaming face, her mind flashed back through the past months of their courtship. The way he had shown her what it meant to be loved, the little things he did to make sure she knew that he would always love her. The many deliveries of flowers, the thoughtful cards, the romantic dates.
She smiled, remembering.

As she grew closer to the front, to the moment where she would pledge her life to this man whose love was unconditional, all she could feel was trapped.

She turned and ran.

6 inch what what!

Last night I went to subway and ordered my normal $5 footlong.

I wasn't able to finish the whole thing.

This is huge for me.  It means that I'm finally retraining my body to not pig out.

All good things in moderation.

And subway is certainly good.

the ostracized

Some days, there are no words.

How much could be averted with just a little measure of love and acceptance?

The story is as old as the world:

She was hated.  Not for anything she did wrong, but because she didn't fit.  She laughed at different things than most, she dealt with different struggles than most, and she looked different than most.  She didn't fit.  And we ostracized her.  Laughed at her behind her back.  Left her out of our inside jokes.  Committed unspeakable cruelties out of a need to separate ourselves from her ostracization.

And we rationalized our hatred by her difference.  By the little things that she did that drove us insane.  By the way she didn't fit.  We said we didn't hate her.

But our actions said otherwise.

And then one day she proved her ostracization through an unspeakable act of evil.

And we said, "I told you so."

And consigned her to an eternity in hell.