It's Not Even Springtime!

January 26, 2006There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no-one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is hell.
-- C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Bob Dylan

January 23, 2006I miss China. Last night, I went to bed before midnight (shocking, I know). I don't usually remember dreams, but last night, I vividly remember dreaming about China. When I woke up, I had a few emails from some Chinese friends in my inbox.

I'm ready to go back.
Here's what I'm missing:

Failing Nerves

January 22, 2006So for the past few days, when I took off my shoes, I noticed that my right foot is partially numb. I thought it was just from being on my feet, in my boots all day. Now I'm beginning to wonder, though. I've been sitting here and noticed that it is tingly.

The right side, including the three right toes are definately going numb. I can still move them and have no problems walking, but it's starting to get on my nerves. It kind of feels like my foot is asleep and not waking up.

It's probably not serious.

All You Need is WHAT?!?

January 18, 2006

"Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails;" -- I Corinthians 13:4-8a

Had an epiphany tonight sitting at dinner. I think I caught a glimpse of why love is such a crazy concept for humans (including myself).
I Corinthians 13 is a very popular passage of scripture, and not without reason. It describes the attributes of a concept that humans live for, dream about, hope for, die for, and sometimes do evil for. This... concept, for lack of a better term, plays a huge role in our lives and has massive weight in our decision making process, but is so confusing for so many of us.
 Look at the attributes of love: Patience, kindness, not jealous, doesn't brag, isn't arrogent, isn't rude, isn't self seeking, isn't easily angered, forgives, doesn't find pleasure in evil, rejoices in truth, bears, believes, hopes, endures, it never fails.
To sum it up, love is everything that depraved man is not. This idea of love is an extreme polar opposite to man! I'm definately not patient (ask my friends), I get jealous, as much as I fight it, I'm arrogent and prideful, I seek out what's best for me, I get angry, then fight to forgive, every single day I find pleasure in some sort of evil, then it burns me up when the truth comes and convicts. I FAIL every single day of my life. Sometimes, it seems kind of hopeless. How can I have something such as love, which is so foreign to my character?

I thank God that I'm not myself. Oh, straggling pieces of my former self may linger and irritate like a splinter under the skin, but those are gradually being pulled out. Romans says I'm being conformed to an image. The image is of the One who fits every description given in this chapter and more. He is the beginning and end of all things, including this crazy idea with a four letter name. God is love.

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." -- I John 4:7-10

The Bends

January 15, 2006Yeah, I'm in deep and coming up too fast.