Hope in Jesus Christ

I had a conversation with a co-worker today regarding optimism. She said something along the lines of “I don’t mean to be condescending, but you’re young, you haven’t been put through the wringer over and over again.”

After a few moments of thought I slowly said:

My optimism isn’t because I don’t know the horrors life can hold – because I do. It’s because I’ve been given this gift – this beautiful, precious, priceless gift. How can I not be in awe of it? How can I not be grateful and share the joy that I have with others? The pain may seem insurmountable, but there is always hope because without hope all would be lost.

She mostly just gapped at me but she did ask if I meant that my gift was life. I told her that in a sense it was, but my gift was eternal life, that I my life had been bought and paid for and had been set free.

It sounds cheesy now, but it’s true. Later she came back to me and asked if I was a Christian. When I said I was she smiled at me and told me that was the more eloquent bible thumping she had ever heard. I laughed and said that I wasn’t bible thumping since I didn’t use a single bible verse.

This isn’t something that I put on or take off, it is who I am. I am not any different than I was 30 minutes ago before she found out I was a Christian, nothing changes except perhaps the lens she sees me with.

I don't generally do things on my blog that one might call political but I'm following Scott Westerfeld's lead on this one by setting my blog's time settings to GMT +3:30 (which is Tehran). Here's his explanation:

Here’s the reason for this change: Censors in Iran are currently searching for blogs with Tehran local settings as a way of finding and shutting down sites that are protesting Iran’s recent (probably stolen) election. The more blogs in the world that are set to Tehran time, the harder the job is for these censors to do their job.

(By the way, if you are a censor visiting here from the Iranian authorities, welcome! I hope I have wasted your time. In other news: your regime sucks. Why not just play Tetris today instead of quelling protest? It would be more fun, and you would not personally be contributing to the suckage.)

If you, dear reader, have a blog, you can also set it to UMT +3:30. Somewhere in your dashboard or whatever is a button called “settings.” Click it and you should be able to change your local time fairly easily.


Fighting this sort of censorship seems like a reasonable thing to do.

If you were a vegetable, what vegetable would you be?

I just had a great conversation with one of my co-workers in the file room. She turned to me as we were filing and asked, “if you were a vegetable, what vegetable would you be?” I took a few minutes to ponder this before deciding that I was sweet corn because of my blonde hair (usually) and it takes some hard work to get to the real me (shucking). My lovely co-worker thought this was a brilliant answer and said, “if I was a vegetable I think I would be a potato – all round and blah.”

I took great dislike to this statement and responded with, “but think of all the wonderful ways to dress up a potato! There’s the baked potato with all the dressings, mashed potatoes, parsleyed potatoes, potatoes au gratin, garlic potatoes. During the summer you could be roasted potatoes because they get all brown and crispy. And if you ever decide that you want kids you’ll have eyes on the back of your head.”

By this time she was laughing pretty hard and when she stopped she told that I was “quite the ray of sunshine.” Hence the sweet corn.

But really, it would be great to be a potato.

Better is one day in Your house

Today was a hard day for me. It always is when God shows you something He's been waiting to teach you. My church did communion for the first time since Easter today.

"The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes."

I sat there and thought and prayed to God about the meaning of the cross and how Christ gave His very life for mine, for everyone; for Ryan just as much as He traded His blood for mine. I couldn't bear it, the knowledge, the pain, the understanding of exactly what He did for us. I starting sobbing and praying to God in earnest what was in my heart, not what I wanted to pray for, what I knew I should pray for. In that moment He taught me something I had forgotten: this is not my home. I do not belong here.

I prayed, "Jesus, please take me home. I long to be in a place where it doesn't hurt any more, where all I do is sing of how great You are. You are the God who created the world and the moon and stars. Please take me home... O God, take me to You and make me Yours. Amen."

It hurts so much to be here, in this world. The only comfort is that I know that I will always have a place to go home to - that He has prepared a place for me in His house. I long for the day when I can go home to Jesus.

Cannon

Phil Wickham

It's falling from the clouds
A strange and lovely sound
I hear it in the thunder and rain
It's ringing in the skies
Like cannons in the night
The music of the universe plays

Singing, You are holy, great and mighty
The moon and the stars declare who You are
I'm so unworthy, but still You love me
Forever my heart will sing of how great You are

Beautiful and free
The song of galaxies
Reaching far beyond the Milky Way
Let's join in with the sound
Come on let's sing it out
As the music of the universe plays

All glory, honor, power is Yours, Amen
All glory, honor, power is Yours, Amen
All glory, honor, power is Yours, forever Amen