i am taking the fatest test ever tomorrow at 2:00p.

i will be grateful to have it over and done with. and my nutrition project is due friday and almost wholly done. and meagan is going to work until 3 on friday.

that means that from 11:30a-2:45p on friday - i will have much needed FrEE tiMe!

FREE TIME! Complete freedom. And what will I do you ask?

1. put together pirate costumes por mateo y yo. (por? para? i dont know!)

2. CLEAN! glorious cleaning. everything will be clean.
i will vacuum and dust and wipe off counters and fold laundry and organize.

God bless Meagan and her working until 3pm.

I feel much hope about this test. It sort of goes back and forth - between "do i know it well enough?" and "he can't ask THAT specific of questions."

I really dont have anything else to write because all i'm thinking about is pharmacology.

DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME IS SATURDAY! an extra hour to sleep - we're sleeping in in angleton.... someone else (meegie's mom) - whom i love, love, love! -- is going to cook for us...

its like a dream come true. walking through a week of fire to wonderful bliss awaiting on the other side.

:)

freedom.

*i am not done with this post - i am posting it for natalie. i wrote it a couple days ago but havent worked on it again because 1. i am sick and 2. i am all pharmacology until thursday.

I would like to be someone who walks in freedom from other people's opinions. In the process I'm trying to figure who I am vs. who I try to be vs. who I want to be.
So. I'm starting of list of things that I am/want to be and I believe I will add to it from time to time. Things that sometimes I feel self-conscious about but don't want to!!!

1. I want to have kids early - as in young. (whew....)
- I like the names Nicholas and Abigail and will probably name my children that so I just wanted to put it out there early. Nicholas means "Victory of the People." - Isaiah 61:4 And Abigail is a biblical woman giant - 1 Samuel 25.

2. I am a wife. I am content being a wife. And I would be content "only" being a "wife" for the rest of my life.
- The greatest compliment I have ever received ever came from Matt (and still does from time to time). He told me that he looks forward to coming home, that he loves our home, he feels peaceful in our home and that he thinks I am an incredible wife. If nothing else is ever said about me - this is the one thing I want to be known for. And it only matters that Matt knows me for it. - Proverbs 31:12, 28

3. I love being outside. I was MADE for summer and I find great peace in sitting outside, running outside, walking outside, living outside. I absolutely love being outside. Being outside relaxes me.

4. I am going to be a great nurse. I find great joy in helping people in practical ways. I'm looking forward to being there when people hear hard news (I've already experienced this in deaths of residents) and pray for them, audibly when asked to intervene but also silently. But also celebrate with people as they experience health victories. And also just to hold their hand and give them company and clean them/do things that not everyone can handle doing. I feel like God has made it easy for me and I'm SO grateful to have that gift.

5. Mother Teresa is my absolute, hands down, no one trumps her - hero. She IS how I want to love people.

6. I want to live in another country in my lifetime - but not for "experience." I am not the least bit interested in "experience" and "seeing things before I die." While I realize this is a valid desire, passion for some people - for me it absolutely isn't. I only want to experience relationship. I am committed to loving people I know well. I may not always be good at it - but thats my aim. For the long-haul. I don't want to pursue things which fade - I want eternal results. Always. In every interaction.

you got to know that i love you...

this song really encouraged me at 7am this morning while eating my oatmeal. because, all I'm ever thinking about is Hope. So it was nice to think about this in light of Hope. God is faithful and *good.* I know this. I really do.

More Wonderful - Aaron Shust

God of unending grace, I come to You on my face
I need to hear You speak to me, won't You make me new right now
God of omnipotent power, visit us in this hour
And may we leave here changed because we1ve met with You, God

You've been more wonderful to me than I could have ever imagined
You've shown more love than I could show in a thousand years
And although it seems at times like it all means nothing to me
You gotta know that I love You
You gotta know that I need You

God of wisdom and love, settle down from above
Give us all a taste of what Your Holy Spirit can do
Time and time again we've betrayed, but our debt's already been paid
And all that leaves me wanting is to live for you, God

When the world crashes down around me
I know You'll be there to pull me out from the rubble
When my enemy surrounds and I call on your name
You1ll be there to deliver me from my troubled soul

Rescue me from all my selfish ways
and thoughts and deeds and plans
Lead me in the everlasting way
and I will follow you there

ache.

I feel really terrible. And all of my friends are at Hope Chapel in a meeting right now or they live in Egypt (Ok. Not ALL of my friends fall into those two categories but at least all of the ones that I would feel comfortable becoming completely undone in front of).

I feel completely undone.

I feel so much pain about the division in Hope Chapel right now - its suffocating.

At this moment in time its just pain. I don't feel bitterness and I'm praying SO HARD against building up offense and feeling judgment. Less at Geno - and more at other people. In fact, I don't really feel any sort of anger/offense at Geno despite the fact that I think what he did wasn't a great idea. I'm willing to offer forgiveness to him for his poor judgement, though am wrestling with the deeper issues on the inside.

Instead, I feel judgement against people who I FEEL like are making judgements about Hope Chapel. Their responses... their non-responses. And herein lies the deepest part of my pain.

I'm pretty much in love with Hope Chapel. One might call me... faithful to things I love. And at that meeting I was overcome with how much people are hurt. With how much Geno is hurt (he looks absolutely terrible). And how some people really are truly going to leave the church.

I was driving home thinking about how happy Satan must be right now. And I'm desperate for Hope Chapel to rely on the strength of our good, good, good God and be reconciled. Although, I agree in a large part with Mirabelle's dad (I never know parent's names.. only their children.. because those are the ones I see!) that it IS important to know about the hard, tough issues within our pastors and I do think it is reasonable to hold them to a certain amount of... something.

It's unclear what is going on in the inner workings of my heart.
But I just felt overwhelmingly upset (enter crying) that I think of Hope Chapel as my family and I am dead set on not letting Satan destroy it with his lies, decisiveness and deceit (I feel as though one family is enough to see go down under those things in a lifetime).

Truly. I want to scream from the rooftops or sob at the top of my lungs - I'm not sure which emotion will win over. I just really want judgment to fall away. Fully on my part. Fully on the church's part. Fully on individuals' part.

----->AND I WISH CHRISTINE WERE HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!<----- Oh Hope. Healing to you. Healing. I speak life and truth and healing and forgiveness and love. Lord, let love fall down.

"Do not gloat over me my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light." - Micah 7:8

The Lord will be our light
The Lord will be our light
The Lord will be our light

Oh Hope, Hope, Hope...

math is a tool.

A couple nights ago we were talking with Los Vorce about abortion in response to this:
http://www.statesman.com/search/content/news/stories/local/10/19/1019obamagelicals.html

Matt realized he didn't know exactly how everything measured up, so he decided to do some quick online research and create a table comparing abortion to other social issues.

The following is the result of that.

Matt blamed the following things solely on America (if given in a time period over many years, he divided by the number of years to get a "yearly" total):

Deaths in Darfur since 2003 ---- 500,000 (yearly: 100,000)
World Wide Death Penalty ---- 3900 (he rounded to 4000)
2003-2008 Iraqi civilian deaths ----- 96,466 (yearly: 19293)
US soldiers death total in Iraq ---- 4185 (yearly: 837)
2000-2006 death because of lack of insurance ---- 137,000 (yearly: 22833)
US Murder 2007 --- 16929
TOTAL of combined social issues: 168, 392

Abortions per year in US only ---- 1, 073, 000

So the following charts compare the number of deaths due to social issues blamed on America with the number of abortions (if you consider abortion to be the killing of human life, then number of deaths of babies in America due to abortion) in just ONE year:



In the first graph the first column is the total of social issues. The second number of abortions.
In the second image blue represents the social issues. Magenta represents abortions.

So.......
I dont have anything to say.

Except that I found in The Week a couple of weeks ago that 90% of pregnancies in which Downs Syndrome is diagnosed in the womb end in abortion.

The tests I found that are used to diagnose Downs are the Chorionic villus sampling (CVS) which can be done after 10 weeks and Amniocentesis which can be performed between weeks 15-22. I would imagine then that a baby must be at least 10 weeks at the time of these abortions. This is ten weeks development:


You can find that on my bathroom mirror - on a post it which reads, "Come Lord Jesus."

So, despite Obama or McCain, again I declare: "Come Lord Jesus..."

------------------------------------------------------------------


Below are his sources for the numbers. I think on Abortion he took the average of two different figures he found.

Darfur 2003 - current http://warvictims.wordpress.com/2008/04/24/sudan-darfur-deaths-could-be-300000/

world wide death penalty 2006 http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777460.html

2003 - 2008 Iraqi civilian deaths http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

US SOLIDIERS TOTAL IRAQ http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/

2000 - 2006 death by lack of insurance http://www.pnhp.org/news/2008/january/make_that_22000_uni.php

US murder in 2007 http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

(CDC + AGI)/2 Abortions per year in US ONLY

Abortions per year world wide http://www.abortionno.org/Resources/fastfacts.html

Celebration.

Today is a new day, with new hope. Thank goodness.

There have been better days than yesterday, but there have been much much worse days. So I think mostly I'm just grateful its today now.

Niko is back. Matt and I washed him last night. We got to use the HOSE outside!!! Washing a dog outside is infinitely better than washing a dog inside. It was good fun. And now Niko smells clean and lovely and I'll agree to hug him again. ;)

I passed on Natalie's magazines, 5 of them at once, on and on in the cycle of recycled magazines. It's a good system I think. Perhaps not for the economy but it is for the environment. And as someone I love once said, "This country could USE a little recession!!!" Ha..

I started reading the Simplicity chapter of Celebration of Discipline last night. Granted - I rarely have time to read, but I thought it might be good to break up the schoolwork before insanity hit in. I like a lot of what I've read so far. Especially that the author (who is the author... i know this.. richard something .. foster!) makes the point early on to say that despite popular opinion Christ and the bible IS quite clear on "economics." Which I enjoyed reading his references for. A lot from proverbs, but also from the life of Christ and others. If ONLY I could learn simplicity. He also talked about the assault from the world, especially this country, that wealth proves who you are. Unless you own this, or wear this, or look like this you are made to not fit in. One thing he said is that we are encouraged not to wear or drive things until the point at which they literally wear out. I don't know. I think its a great temptation for me to think that I am not as affected as I truly am by the mindset of consumerism and I would do well to try to break it. Matt and I want to live as though our money belongs to Christ as well. All of it. Proverbs, which I'm reading a chapter a night, speaks so much about generosity and how God is faithful to those who are faithful to give. Mother Teresa wrote something once about "the more you have the less you are able to give." So I get to thinking about what I don't necessarily need and what I can give. But it's a harder thought to deal with than I originally thought.

Anyways, Matt and I did decide to cut back our budget. Which I'm excited about. It's hard though because there are lots of birthdays and the what not. But I told him I would try to reign grocery store spending. The amount and magnitude of HEB in our checkbook is so silly.

So, there it is.

The David Crowder Band pandora station is the BEST STATION EVER! They play hymns.. mmm...

O great light of the world

Currently Listening to: Great Light of the World -- Bebo Norman

(I <3 pandora)

It was a year ago that Matt and I found the condo for sale, that my friends and I were training for 13.1 and that I still went to Texas State.
Life, life, life.


Last night Matt and I were reading in bed and we were discussing David and his psalms. O, David and your psalms.

I want to be faithful in prayer to Matt and my family. So, in an effort to watch God display his faithfulness to me here are some of my past prayers and or bits of wisdom I have picked up about loving my husband:

"I am the wife of a man with a strong foundation. Thank You for Your faithfulness to me in that. Father - make us holy. Teach us to serve and love with even greater power through your Spirit. We will go Lord. Send us, send us. Teach us Your will. Lord, make our family a light. I pray for our children - may they be devoted to you. " - journal, March 15, 2008

"God's plan spans lifetimes and generations. God's story is one of redeeming generations." - Jason Oban, "it is finished" Good Friday Hope service

"I married you -- not our goals, not our hopes and dreams - you. You is what I want." - Katie Fox, "into your hands I commit my spirit", Good Friday Hope service

"Most of the pain we experience in this life is caused by the loss of illusions." - Katie Fox - speaking volumes to me about struggling with disappointments in marriage.

"Lord, please help [Matt] get enough rest and somehow experience peace. Help me to serve him Lord. I need to understand service as a wife in greater ways.... Father I love Matt. Thank you so much for him. His love for me teaches me so much. Keep us ever faithful Lord. In word, thought and deed. I greatly desire for Your kingdom to be advanced because of our marriage..." - journal, April 13, 2008

"At times I am overwhelmingly more aware of my own depravities....[Bill Vanderbilt] spoke on the holy spirit and about Hope Chapel being the deepest well in Austin. I feel my spirit stir with these words. I desire to search and know the heart of God and yet I am so aware of my character short comings. Christ, teach me love....Lord, I invite the following with knowledge/awareness of your faithfulness: refine my character. By whatever means. Especially through Christine. Lord, help me to feed on the good things. Thank you for Matt. Lord, continue to reveal ways in which I dishonor him and help me to sacrificially love." - journal, May 1, 2008

" My Mateo. Gently encourage him Lord - to continue to pursue great eternal things. Thank you for his love - thank you for his gentleness and willingness to work hard and be faithful. Please help me to love him with patience and affection. He is a warrior." - journal, "May, 20, 2008

"Help my heart to be thankful. Thank you for Matt. I know. I know that he loves me. He is good and he has a gentle, loving and kind heart. I just don't want to get it after he has spent his energy on everyone else. I desire him. "For love is as strong as Death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame." I feel that. Teach us to protect our marriage. Teach us Abba - we are willing." journal, May 24, 2008

"Your faithfulness to Your word is outstanding (Psalm 37:4)." journal, June 3, 2008

and more and more and more.

I just felt like I should declare the testimony of God's goodness and His faithfulness to answering so many of those prayers. Without a doubt, I have felt a shift in Matt and my relationship. Our arguments play out differently. My heart is indeed more inclined to serve Matt than it was in our first year of marriage (granted, not always...) .

And also, I was thinking about how much God has protected and preserved our marriage despite Matt and my involvement in other activities.

Marriage is such a daily sacrifice. Dan Farrely said its common for people to think about all the good things you get from being married. You get to share a life, companionship, etc etc. But he said its a wake up call for a lot of people when you find out that marriage is rather about how much you can give. I think I truly believe that marriage is a great act of dying to yourself. I'm sure once I have children I will say that is another great act. But even in marriage it seems different than with a child. Because a child can't really help your needing to die to yourself. They can't do things for themselves - but husbands and wives can do things for themselves and yet, still one needs to submit and serve unto the other.

Its very interesting and I am enjoying greatly this journey of learning about it.
So, why not blog about it because I'm sure over time my opinions and thoughts will shift some more.

changing thoughts.

Currently Listenning to:
Come and Listen - David Crowder Band
The sound of a train on Mopac

Currently seeing:
Sunlight pour in through our sliding glass doors and the first workings of my next stats test sprawled across our table

Currently smelling:
sweet, sweet outside (windows=open).

Currently needing to:
Take a shower before class at 2.

Currently feeling:
Content


So, I prayed for God to teach me about abortion. Because, honestly, I haven't thought much about abortion. I mean, I think about it in that I wouldn't have an abortion and I would love to meet girls thinking about abortion and talk to them and let them know how big God's heart is for them and their child. But, being political season abortion is a hot topic. And since I'm almost always around Mark Proeger, I hear a lot about abortion.

Matt and I had a "heated discussion" about abortion on the way home from the HSL Fall Retreat. Matt is a ridiculously patient man. He explained the abortion debate for the first time to me in a way where it made sense. He explained all about the Supreme Court and the next president probably appointing the next judge (the oldest Supreme Court member is 88 years old...). If a president were pro-life, he would more than likely appoint a person who is also pro-life. Right now the supreme court is spilt, but with another pro-lifer - the country may get shaken up a bit.

My problem with talking about politics is that I'm surrounded by people who are highly, highly opinionated. And so, it's scary. It's hard for me to form arguments very fast or very quickly. Take for instance, Mark. No matter what I "debate" Mark on - I can't ever think of what I'm trying to say fast enough. Not just about abortion but about anything - in life. And the problem with that is that I still speak anyways. So then, I have half-thought about pathetic arguments that aren't well thought out or well researched. Plus, I just don't operate like that. In my opinion, I don't think debating is a very good way to change peoples minds - I would rather see action producing a response you hope for - and then I see the magnitude of what is going on. But that isn't the way lots of things work. For instance, Obama and McCain have mostly just been debating and airing nastly ads against each other.

All of this was stemmed from Natalie and Matt B. going to the abortion clinics and my desire to go with them. I think I need more compassion about abortion. The time I felt the strongest was not too long ago at a Lanier High football game.

There are lots of pregnant girls at Matt's school. There are lots of pregnant girls for a variety of reasons... family pressure, relationship pressure, lack of knowledge about the act of sex. Whatever reason. There are also lots of girls there who have had abortions. This thought hit me hard at a game recently. One of Matt's students last year has a baby. She brings him to football games and I think he is the cutest child I have ever seen. We get along. She lets me play with him and so I spend time with this adorable child. She has a best friend, who I also know. After the first girl walked away from us at the game, I asked Matt where her friend was. He said he didn't know but he did hear she was pregnant. Then he said, I hope she keeps her baby. Which was sort of surprising to me, since I thought that most people at Lanier probably just had their baby because there is acceptance of mothers (hence a baby and his mom at a football game...). But he said that the first girl and the second were pregnant at the same time, only the first girl kept her baby and the second did not. For maybe one of the first times my heart broke about abortion. It's because people can quote statistics to me all day long about 1.3 billion people, or whatever it is, that have abortions - but my mind can't comprehend that number! I can only think of individual cases and how they effect things. So then, I thought of that adorable child who I absolutely love and thought about the absence of another little person who I didn't have the opportunity to absolutely love. Not that their decision should be based on whether or not I get to play with their baby - that isn't the point. The point is in one case there was life, and in another there was an absence of life and for the first time in practical terms I felt the absence of life.

It was an overwhelming feeling - and I can' t stop thinking about it. I want to open an adoption center with endless funds to pay for people to have their children and let other parents adopt them. I searched online recently and found thousands of parents awaiting adoptive children. It's just such a weird situation that requires much thought and prayer. A topic that I never felt strongly about before the last couple months.

That may sound horrible - but there are lots of other things I feel passionate about... and I was never for abortion - I was just never for putting abortion above all other topics....

I dont know.
I'm working on all of it... and I'm just sorting it out through blogging. Que silly.
I'm going to shower.