Quite possibly the most boring post, ever…

This is where I’m currently sitting.  Yeah, super exciting, huh?  I’d show you the rest of the room, but I’ve been making a skirt and there are pattern pieces on the floor and I’m ashamed.  Shameful!  Gee, I sure have a guilt complex.

But sometimes when it’s warm and nice, I can blog from here…

I have a nice, comfy iPad, and an iPhone, and a laptop.  Now I just sound spoiled.  Seriously. 

Xanga Home Photo Challenge.  Read the rests of the posts, here.

I’ve heard it said that if God loves you a lot, He gives you lots of hard things in your life.  Why?  Because like fire, hard things in life burn away the stuff in us that sucks.  If you stick a lump of unrefined gold in a fire…it burns away the impurities and the pure gold is left.  In fact:

Malachi 3:2 – But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap.

Hebrews 12:6 –     For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.

He must love me an awful lot.  Lately everything gets on my nerves.  Every. Little.  Thing.  I’m talking tiny things…things too small to mention.  Chad and I fight.  Then we fight about fighting.  Then we fight about not fighting.  It’s rather maddening.  I’m sexually frustrated.  I’m emotionally frustrated.  I’m spiritually frustrated.  I’m artistically frustrated.  I’m grammatically frustrated. I’m frustrated with my job, my body, the world we live in, with music, with TV, with my messy nature, with my sin.  I’m frustratingly frustrated.  And God won’t freaking leave me alone.

Yes, God must love me an awful lot.  If he didn’t, surely he’d just leave me alone to be my own bad self, right? 

About a year and a half ago I lost two friends on the same day.  They decided, (I have always guessed) together, that I just wasn’t worth their time anymore.  On nights like tonight I sit up and think of them, and wonder if they ever miss me, or if it was just good riddance.

I have recurring thoughts that I wish would up and leave me.  I feel totally helpless and ineffective against them sometimes.  As if all the good I’ve done, all the good I know how to do…and have the potential to do…is utterly sapped by these thoughts.  Can you stop thinking?  Can you stop your thoughts from going down a certain path? 

I certainly have not ever been able to.  Now would be a good time to start.

Christ before me, Christ behind me
Christ on my left, Christ on my right
Christ at my head, Christ at my feet.

Today it is so warm and lovely…I am having some serious nostalgia back to being 19 years old the year after my freshman year of college.  I came home that summer, took some classes at the local junior college, would send decos and slam books in the mail (anyone know what those are?) and drink mint chocolate iced coffee from a local (now defunct) shop.  Mmm…memories.  Such a simple, delicate time.  I was such a girl then.

My garden has started blooming where I didn’t plant anything.  I wonder if it’s common grace.

Long day today of watching other people perform…first a funeral, then watched my students in Guys and Dolls, then the show choir I choreograph.  Wheww!  I got a video of Bohemian Rhapsody.  I hope you enjoy.

These are amazing kids.  I taught most of them voice lessons in middle school, and now they are high school juniors and seniors. 

Happy Friday, y’all

Day 2 of challenge.  Show the view from your window.

This is the window in my room.  As you can see…all I see is mostly the next house over.

This is the room next to it…you can see our dead winter garden and pool, and a bit of the skyline.  It looks like it’s going to rain!

You can participate in this challenge here.  Jump in and play!

I’ve known only a handful of truly kind people in my lifetime.  One is my mom, another was my grandfather.  My Bible teacher in high school, Fr. Jacob, my friend Joy, my boyfriend Chad…all are truly kind.  I on the other hand…not so much.  When I am kind it’s only because I’m fighting selfishness tooth and nail. 

I lost a truly kind friend today.
Mr. Payne, his wife, and my mom were all buddies in high school and college.  They were musicians together, attended the same church, played at each others’ weddings and later funerals for parents.  I have known them as great friends, comforting, they came to all my shows would send me birthday cards.  When both of my grandparents died, they were the only people at the church that reached out to us.  Mrs. Payne is the church secretary…the same church where my grandfather was pastor in the 1960s, and where my parents were married.  He was a drummer at the church, and possibly a deacon (if I remember correctly). 
I remember being absolutely beside myself with grief when my sweet grandmother died.  Mom and I drove to this dear couple’s house and just sat and talked about how much death stings.  What a clear memory, and how consoling.

His wife found him dead on the floor this morning.  We still aren’t sure what happened, but he’s gone.  The world goes on, but I pause to feel myself with hot tears on my cheeks and a tight throat.  Christ is the Resurrection; Christ has conquered death.  But still we feel it…still it taunts us. 

Love is as strong as death, jealousy as unyielding as the grave.

This is where I sleep, peacefully or otherwise.
 

I have some gray pillows too, but I don’t know where I put them…lol!
As you can see, I have a poster of my favorite movie – “Gone With The Wind”. 
The pictures on the shelf at the foot of the bed are Chad and myself, my grandparents, and my great-grandparents.  I have my True Love Waits card there, some books and other collection type things.

The bed I got from a store called Bombay back before it went out of business.  I loved that place.  The furniture was styled after the furniture in British India in the 1800s.  It’s pretty high off the ground and has a good hiding space underneath…not that I go under there a lot.

So that’s where I sleep.  There ya go!

This is part of my photo challenge.  You can participate here.

Christianity isn’t about being a good person.

It’s about being a bad person, realizing it…crying to God for help, and realizing that you deserve to go to hell.
It’s about realizing that Jesus literally took your punishment and that if you become the property of Jesus, then you don’t go to hell any more. 

The “good person” part comes in when we realize how grateful we are to Jesus for his salvation from the wrath of God, and want to try to be good anyway even though we can never be good enough. 

We can never be good enough.