A gimmick after all?

Does football count as a gimmick for Thanksgiving? I'm not sure it would be in the same category as Santa and Cupid and all that other stuff, but suddenly it occurred to me that Thanksgiving it not completely without fault.

Sorry, that was a random PS.

Give Thanks!

I just love Thanksgiving! If I had to choose just one holiday to celebrate for a whole year, Thanksgiving would be my top choice--even over Guy Fawkes Day! It's not because I love the food (turkey, blegh), but because it's so... cozy! In a way that no other holiday is, Thanksgiving is without pretensions, I feel. Sure, it's a super shopping signal--but that's just because Christmas is around the corner. Black Friday is more about Christmas than Thanksgiving, in my opinion.

Thanksgiving is what it is: about giving thanks. There's no crazy gimmick, no bunny or fat dude or cupid, there's just family and turkey. How much better could it get? (Well, minus the turkey it could be better, but this isn't the time for me to be worrying about such things.)

Plus, I've been super encouraged recently about how awesome the assurance of Heaven is. Here's the deal--no matter how difficult our times on earth may be, no matter how much we don't feel like giving thanks, we can still rejoice, because it all ends in GLORY! Doesn't that just make every day a million times better?

So this year, if you're not feeling thankful for anything at all, just remember, no matter what trials we may experience, it'll all be worth it in HEAVEN! Even so come!

The same grace

I remember the first time I ever heard a mournful Christian say something to the effect of, "Boy, I sure do wish I'd been a drunkard or something." Instead of appalling me, like maybe it should have, I thought, "Boy, I sort of wish the same thing." Not that I want to be a drunkard, because I certainly do not, but because sometimes when other people have these awesome conversion stories, it makes those of us saved-while-innocent-children people feel sort of badly that we haven't really had a chance to show forth the amazing grace of God like all the heathens around us.


But someone was talking about this the other day, and it was one of these "good point" moments I love so much. Basically, what's the difference, this person was saying, because at the end of the day, both of you are saved. I've heard that all my life, but I was just so happy to hear someone say it again, and so forcefully. The amazing grace that saved John Newton is the amazing grace that saved me--even if I never sold slaves or turned my back on God.

I don't remember getting saved, but I know I am saved, at that is enough for me.

PS, I still sort of wish I could remember getting saved. And sometimes I still wish I'd been a total heathen before that day, just so my testimony would be awesome. But I've been spared all that pain, so it's more than OK.

What wilt Thou have me to do?

For years, I've struggled with the concept of "What wilt Thou have me to do?" Basically, I understand the question, but how do we really know what the Lord is telling us in reply? I think it's just my stubbornness that has made me ponder it so much (want to talk about consecration? I am the wrong person to talk to that about, stubborn ol' me...), but it just seems... difficult.

One thing that always sort of got to me was about the whole when-I-grow-up-I'll-be-a-whatever question. For school, at the end of every year, my mom would have us write what we wanted to be when we grew up. For the first few school years of my life the answer was, without fail, "a missionary or a nurse," but once I was in about third grade, I realized that I didn't really want to be a missionary or a nurse. I wanted to be a "wife and mommy." By the time I got to twelfth grade I made it all sophisticated and wrote "homemaker" but the idea was essentially the same.

Which is all good and well, but that's the sort of thing that the Lord has to determine for you, at an appointed time (also good and well, don't get me wrong). So I've spent the last few years sort of floating around, doing random jobs and enjoying myself thoroughly. Also fine. But there was one thing that always sort of got to me--what was I really doing with my life?

Well, I still have no idea what the answer to that question is, but this isn't so much about what I'm doing with my life as what I'm letting the Lord do with my life.

Last Wednesday there were a lot of remarkably helpful comments made, one of which sort of eased my mind about what I was doing with myself these days. They were reading from Ephesians 2:10 "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."

They were pointing out that every work we do is specialized and prepared, and God has a very specific path He wants each one of us to travel. Basic stuff, true. But then someone made the remark to the effect of, "You know, kids today try to decide what to do based on what they're good at, which doesn't make a bit of sense, because they're really supposed to be doing whatever God wants them to do, not what they want to do."

As an aside, anybody who knows anybody in my meeting can guess who this might have been (one hint, it wasn't my dad).

Anyhow, there was more to it than that, but it was a good thought for me, one I needed to be reminded of. I'm in insurance right now, which is weird, and certainly not something I would have chosen of my own accord. But that's OK, because for some odd reason, this is where the Lord has me. I was enjoying the verse from Ecclesiastes 9 about, "whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." For some reason, my hand has found insurance, and I need to make sure that I do it to the best of my ability so that I might honour the Lord.

Which is scary to me, honestly. Because it means that I've got to work extremely hard to make up for what I lack in common insurance sense. But... I can do all things through Christ Who gives me strength!

And that's why it's called life-long

So, some of us were talking about marriage last weekend (does Monday count as part of the weekend?), and it wasn't one of those "yay marriage" times, but one of those "HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN???" times. Basically, here's what we were wondering: How do people ever get married?

Seriously, how do two people decide that the Lord is telling them without a shadow of a doubt that that other person is absolutely the person for them? Honestly, how does a person get to that place in their life? And on a closer level, how do two people decide that it's an appropriate time to start a relationship at all? I was just reading about Jim and Elisabeth Elliot, and they waited for five years until they thought the Lord was cool with them having a relationship. As crazy and long as that sounds, sometimes I think that I'll have to wait for at least five years, just to make sure I think I know what I'm getting into.

But I'm just jaded. Marriage is something I'm looking forward to potentially being a part of one day (though I may not be, which is fine), and I assume that I'll have times of extreme dislike towards my husband. Isn't that awful? I like to think I'm just practical, but secretly, I think I'm just way more jaded than any 20-year-old should be.

I had a chance to recount this story to someone the other day, and usually once I've recounted a story once, it's out of my system and I'm good and done, but this story is a good one, so I'll tell it again.

The other day I got home from work and wanted a chance to put through some laundry before supper, but I knew my dad was coming home soon, and could see that the table wasn't even set yet. So I as I was flying up the stairs to put my stuff away, I hollered at my brother, "hey, the table needs to be set!" When I came down with the laundry I saw that the table still hadn't been set, and I didn't want to seem like I was getting down on my brother, so I set the table myself. When I came up from the basement after putting through some laundry, I was greeted with the sight of my mom and brother carrying in groceries from the car.

"Mom, how did you rate? I asked him to help me set the table, and he didn't. Why is he helping you carry in groceries?"

(I just want to go on record as saying that my mother is far more worthy of help than I, but I was saying this loudly enough in his hearing to try to drive a point home.)

A blank look came from my brother. "You didn't ask me to set the table, you just said it needed setting!"

I seriously stared at him in... something. My mom just looked at me and laughed and laughed and said that boys were like this, and I should get used to it. And of course I had to laugh as well, because it was rather funny.

But... that's just another thing that frightens me about marriage--being married to an obtuse creature such as my brother. Sometimes I understand why so many woman are staying single these days!

im not you're spellcheker

One thing that I've nicely avoided (thus far) by being raised in a smart family is an excess of grammatical errors. We used to laugh on car trips, because while us kids were drooling over billboards with food and pools and candy, my mom would always point out the mistakes on the billboard, and, without fail, she'd wonder out loud why in the world nobody could seem to afford an editor. While I make a number of mistakes myself (a LARGE number, sad to say), I do make a concerted effort to edit materials before other people see them. It's really not that hard to spend a few extra minutes on things that I'll be sharing.



So why is it that at my new job, I'm constantly bombarded with editorial mistakes? It seems that I'm surrounded by instructional manuals filled with typos. It's driving me crazy.



Sorry, I just had to vent.

Shapes in the dark

I love my room at night. Well, I'd love it a tiny bit more if it were darker, but that's beside the point. What I love so much about my room at night is that all I can see are the shapes around me. And I'm not usually a shape person--all it took was a year of geometry to solidify that thought forever in my brain--but I love the feeling of being surrounded by solid patterns and shapes.

I think this love of the concrete stems from the fact that for most of my childhood my room was markedly NOT full of clean lines. I tend to be... well, messy, and my room is the first to suffer from my not-so-tidy habits. Since I have been endevouring (for the past eight or ten years) to put away my childish things, I tend to keep my room a little cleaner than it once was. For instance, my dressers typically have tops not covered with things, these days (though today they are covered with pictures, and books, and hairbrushes, and to-do lists, so today isn't a good day for this illustration), and so when I look out at night, I just see the square shapes of my furniture.

But what I love best are the walls. I love to look on the far wall and see a cacophony of squares, rectangles, and circles. It's like geometry exploded on my wall, but in a happy way. I can't even explain why this makes my tired heart happy, but when I look out at night and see a patchwork of shapes, I just have to grin. I think, maybe, it's because I look at those shapes and think "that's the needlepoint that Grammy made me when I was born," and "that's a photograph of my first and favorite (I mean, uh, they're all my favorite) niece," or, "that's the verse Mom and Dad got me for my birthday one year," and the list goes on. Actually, most of my shapes are from posters of sunrises and sunsets, but they don't usually show up so well in the dark, due to the high amount of brightness-from-sun in them. Ah, well, the rest are cool.

So there we have it. Sometimes, orderliness and... shapeliness?... are actually things I appreciate. It's like pigs are flying overhead this very second.

Uh, and I hope we all realize that I don't mean shapeliness in the traditional way. I mean, actual shapes. So, yeah.

Yes, I am obsessive

When my new boss was interviewing me, he decided I was tightly wound to the point of OCD. Well, there are some things that I am sort of OC about. A lot of things, actually. (I've decided that saying OCD is just wrong. How could I be "disorder" about anything? I don't understand that statement.) And I just realized that he might be even more correct than he thought.

After my first full day of work (I didn't want to count chickens before they hatched and do this prior to having at least a full day under my belt), I came home, went into my tasks in Gmail, and checked "get a job" off of my to-do list. Now you tell me, is it normal to have "get a job" on ones to-do list? Is it normal to remember it's there, and then check it off? I'm not sure, obviously, since I only live one life (I may be OC, but I'm not bi-polar, thankfully), but I was just remembering my weirdness and decided that maybe somebody could enlighten me on the rules of to-do listing.

Though this bodes well for my job, since apparently one of the things I'm supposed to do is successfully finish to-do lists. That's cool, lists are right up my alley.

Hey there, Delilah

Sometimes I just get upset when I read the story of Samson and Delilah. First of all, Samson was a judge, he certainly should have known better than to be cavorting around like a fool. (Plus, I wish the author of Judges had written at least a little about his judging. I mean, what did he do? How did he act as a judge? Was he less retarded in those twenty years than he was during his woman-hunting days? Seriously...) Secondly, I don't really like stories that end with eyes being poked out, or thousands of people dying. This story ends in both.

Alas, for I make up stories in my head. Honestly, I pretty much can't help it (I can do all things, etc., I know, but this is something I haven't worked too hard to stop. I can't decide if the stoppage of this is actually necessary), when I see someone on the street, or meet someone for a split second, or bless the person who sneezes when I'm grocery shopping, I wonder about them and their life. Do they have a spouse and family at home? Are they caring for an elderly parent? Are they all alone--nobody to care for or be cared by? I just always wonder.

Well, this transfers a tad (uh, tad times 57) to my Bible reading times. For instance, I've got all these fake stories (well, they're not really firmly-implanted stories, so to speak, they're mostly just vague wonderings, like maybe there's something about their life I'd see if I just studied their chapters hard enough) about Jonah, and Job's wife, and Potiphar's wife (actually, I've given up that one, after enough reprimands about it), and Martha, and, well, just about every character you can find in the Bible. I read and I wonder, might it have been like such-and-such? And usually I try not to share my rambling thoughts with anyone, lest it seem as if I'm spreading bad doctrine, but I present them only as things I wonder about (seriously, mrg, I've never been as dogmatic about these things as you think me to be), and sometimes, apparently, even blog about.

So yes, Samson. First, WHAT WAS HE THINKING? I mean, obviously Samson knew what was going on. Delilah would tie him up in different manners, tell him that the Philistines were upon him, he'd wake up, get out of there, and that was that. But he knew that she had the Philistines on her side. Check out Judges 16:11 "If they bind me fast with new ropes, etc." Uh, pardon the obvious, but they? Don't you think that if Samson had a brain in his head, he would have stopped to think "Oh hey, Delilah is conferring with the Philistines on how to kill me, maybe it wouldn't be wise to explain to her how to cut off power to my strength."? But nooo, Samson had to stick around and eventually cave in to Delilah's whining. I don't want to get down on men too hard, but the sheer level of stupidity astounds me. The things men do for love.

Speaking of. I have a theory about why Delilah did what she did (hint: it wasn't for love). Only, it's not a theory, because the Bible clearly shows that she did it for the money. But sometimes when I read this chapter I feel as worn down by the end as Delilah. I feel almost like she didn't really expect a real answer, and it feels like she's almost as sad in verse 18 as I am. "And when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, etc." I feel like there must be a prevailing reason as to why Delilah wanted that money. Could it really be that she just wanted it? I wish there was a little secrety verse in there that was all like, "Just so you know, Delilah didn't really want to turn Samson in, but was a single mother and needed to care for her children, lest social services take them away." Clearly, Social Services wasn't an issue in old-timey Gaza, but I always want to make Delilah into not such a bad person, and explain away her greed with a more human side.

But... there's really nothing like that in this chapter, not at all. Samson was just a foolish man who thought he was in love, and Delilah was just a woman with an agenda.

This is just a bad, bad chapter in the saga of humankind.

What am I thinking?

I mentioned that I was doing NaNoWriMo this year, right? Well, I commented to my brother the other day (back in October) that I was interested to see how I'd do with my full-time job plus trying to write a 50,000-word novel. Well, I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that... it's tough. I leave my house before 8:00 AM, and don't get home until after 5:30, at which time I skip straight to supper, and with all of our extra evening events, I'm not usually free to reach the computer until at least 7:00 PM, and usually later (those nasty dishes, goodness).

Plus, I'm still trying to get used to the job, so I'm needing as much sleep as I can get. Which means I'm just not tempted to stay up until all hours of the night writing words I know I'll be disgusted in as soon as the month is over. But, I said I'd do my best, so I will. Also, I've given several friends a hard time for electing not to do NaNoWriMo this year, so I think it's only fair that I prove that it can be done. And even if it can't be done, an attempt can be made. There's no sense in deciding before you begin something that it's too hard to do.

Then again, that's what I say now. We'll see what happens as the month drags on!

Party: Guy Fawkes style

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
The gunpowder, treason, and plot,
I know of no reason,
Why the gunpowder treason,
Should ever be forgot.

This poem is just to remind us all of the glorious holiday that is coming up tomorrow. (And lest I forget, happy birthday, mrg!) I guess it's maybe a little odd that I love Guy Fawkes day so much. After all, it's in celebration of a man who tried to blow up British Parliament. But since they celebrate it in England, I think it's only fair that we get to celebrate here, too.

People always ask me: why do they celebrate it? Well, I always answer that it's fun to run around and light off fireworks and have bonfires and the such, but I'm pretty sure that the only reason it is a celebrated holiday is because it used to be a mandatory holiday. No joke, for about 250 years after that not-fateful-after-all day, English folk were required to celebrate the deliverance of the King of England. My theory is, they just got so used to having a holiday specially for blowing things up that they just couldn't stop that train of fun once they were on it. So they celebrate to this day. And some of us poor North American folks, who don't know any better, celebrate right along with them.

This year, we're having a big Guy Fawkes Day party at my house. I'm not really organizing it (here's where the realities of work set in), but mrg is planning it for me. And coming over to cook the food, too. Nice...

Anyhow, I don't really have much else to say about GFD. I don't even know how I could wax eloquent about blowing things up. Except to remind us all that the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. How great a matter a little fire kindleth! Guy Fawkes no doubt never considered the power his tongue wielded. Unfortunately, he was too busy trying to kindle things with a little (or lot) of fire. My problem lies more with the tongue thing--I'm more tempted to spout off at the mouth than I am tempted to light things on fire. Though I do accidentally burn a very high number of pot holders... Hmm, maybe I have more of Guy Fawkes in me then I thought.

Theou

I'm the most mixed-up pray-er ever, I think. Not in terms of to Whom I am praying, don't get me wrong, but in terms of how I refer to Him. I've recently tried to evaluate my prayers, because I noticed that I switch back and forth between Thee and You a lot. My prayers are jumbled masses of words, though, and it's difficult to tell what I'm really saying. I think I've decided that I tend to begin my prayers in Thee form, and switch to You partway through my prayer. I'm not sure why this is so, though.

When I sing songs, I find myself automatically switching all the Yous to Thees. I sing, "Lord, we lift Thy name on high, Lord, we love to sing Thy praises." Everyone else around me sings "Your name on high" so it gets as confusing as when I slip Thees into As the Deer. Most of the people around are singing "so my soul longeth after You" and there I am, forgetting to be a team player, singing Thee.

Which I guess isn't a big deal, and I'm not sure why I thought it was enough of a point of interest to waste time talking about, but I was thinking about it the other day, and, well, this blog is my thoughts in print. Well, some thoughts. I don't go public with most of what I think, actually. So consider yourself blessed to be able to read even this tiny little bit of my life.

Oh, the irony

Today, I went back and looked at a blog post I wrote back in January, but posted just last month. It was one where I was talking about insurance, and how I didn't understand it, and how I was trying to help my grandparents switch their insurance company, but just didn't understand anything insurance-related. Why is this ironic? Well...

So, about a week and a half ago I submitted my resume to one of my best friends, who works at an insurance company. That was a Thursday. On Friday, her boss called me to set up an interview. On Monday, I interviewed. On Tuesday, I accepted the job. And on Wednesday, I started. Which means, my friends, I now work at an insurance company. The exact type of place I still don't understand.

I pretty much have accomplished nothing on my few days on the job, though I am constantly assured that I'll be learning so much that new information will be coming out of my ears for the next six months or so. That's fine with me--I've always liked being challenged with new information. But the fact that it's an insurance company. Oh man, it cracks me up.

I was pondering to my friend (the one who works there) over the legalities of the situation. First of all, I'm supposed to leave everything I hear about people behind me when I leave the door of the building (so says my new boss--good policy, I must say), so I won't be spilling too many beans about tales of my working life, but there was one thing that made me laugh. So I was signing all the legal papers for my file there, and one paper I signed made me promise to not share any personal information about clients with any insurance companies within 50 miles of my current office until after I leave (should I get fired or married or bored or a new job) for at least 24 months. So I asked my friend: can I tell that information to insurance companies outside of a 50-mile radius at any time? Well, apparently.

So, I guess if you have your insurance company call me, I can tell them whatever I want. But I won't. Partly, because that would be boring and pointless, but mostly because I'm a Christian, and that's just mean. So, I'm sorry if you were just dying to hear about all the people whose files I deal with every day. You can't have the information. Muahahaha...