What a day!

Today was an all-around excellent day. I just love those days!

I finished all of my homework by noon which is unheard of! I'm still usually slaving away into the wee hours. Not tonight...I'm free (if I can keep my eyes open much longer).

After work today I went and picked up Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell at the library...another book that I am already obsessed with (that somewhat parallels the writing style of Blue Like Jazz). I was annoyed that the library makes you pay to park there - especially when I was going to be there a grand total of 5 minutes. So I parallel parked - successfully (which is a big accomplishment seeing as this is only the second time I've ever parallel parked!)

I then proceeded to Walgreens where I picked up my free 3-D glasses for tomorrow's Regis & Kelly Live 3-D Halloween Show!! I'm so pumped! (and yes, a complete nerd).

Then on to my free taco at Taco Bell!! (Because a Red Sox's player stole a base during the World Series). Which was wonderful because it was free and delicious.

Then I went on a date! (Well that's what I'm going to call it...because that's an exciting word, and as we talked about doesn't have a scary long-term commitment attached to it :) Which was a blast, Tom and I went to Thai Tom where I tried Phad Thai which was pretty good but still not my all time favorite. Then we went to Yunnie's and had yummy bubble tea and proceeded to talk the night away and play wonderful card games (my favorite). The best part? I'm going to go see a movie with him on Saturday night! Across the Universe and I will meet again, and it will be great!

What a day, what a night, I'm going to sleep with a smile on my face.
:)

All on a sunny afternoon...

Today was absolutely gorgeous and not a cloud in the sky. I walked to Gasworks Park (hence all the pictures) I love days like these...

More quotes from Blue Like Jazz that dug deep into my thoughts.. "'And a person who thinks himself unlovable cannot be in a relationship with God because he can't accept who God is, a Being that is love. We learn that we are lovable or unlovable from other people,' Paul says. 'That is why God tells us so many times to love each other.'"

"The problem with Christian culture is we think of love as a commodity. We use it like money."

"I never chose not to like the guy. If felt more like the dislike of him chose me...I rolled my eyes. I gave him dirty looks. I would mouth the word loser when he wasn't looking. I thought somehow he would sense my disapproval and change his life in order to gain my favor. In short, I withheld love" (emphasis is mine)

'That is, instead of withholding love to change somebody, I poured it on, lavishly...I loved the fact that it wasn't my responsibility to change somebody, that it was God's, that my part was just to communicate love and approval."

And I laughed out loud at: "I thought about that movie A Beautiful Mind and wondered whether any of my housemates existed or whether those guys who kept following me were in the FBI"

This is such a phenominal book...I reccommend it to everyone. Blue Like Jazz, by Donald Miller

My class Christian Scriptures also stirred new meaning in my beliefs this past week, we were talking about the belief that God "knows everything you will do" Dr. Nienhuis said: "It is like a play, God set up the setting, the characters, the music, every element but the 'actors' are improvising and don't always stick to the script. It is not that God has mapped out every move we will ever make but that he knows us SO well that he can ultimately see what we will decide."

Last night I went to an event on campus called Step Up. It was amazing! It challenged me in so many ways. The night started with worship then Leonard Weaver (fullback for the Seattle Seahawks) came and gave his testamony and talked about how he had to "step up" in his faith and his career. He was hilarious and really inspiring - Shaun Alexander was there as well! The Katina's preformed and were sooo wonderful! They were so full of energy and played all of my favorite songs. Another key speaker spoke after that: Mike Silva, who told us the story of Jesus and Peter in "Hawaiian pidgin" which was entertaining, "Yo Peter...John's boy" (that was my favorite) - this was all taken from "Da Jesus Book" The best was Peter's answer to Jesus' question of "Do you love me" was "Fo sho boss"

Then he told this story: (I can't tell it quite as well...)

"There was once an old man and his son. The son had a knack for spotting great art so they would buy it at a low price and be able to sell it high. The old man loved his son and was heartbroken when his son was called off to fight in the war. Years passed and one day the father received the news no father wants to hear, his son had died while saving the life of another. The old man's grief consumed him and he shut himself in his house. A few months later the old man heard a knock on the door. He opened the door a crack and asked, "Who are you?" There stood a young soldier who said, "Sir, you do not know me, but I am the man your son died to save and I have brought you this..." he handed the old man a painting of his son. It was not a professional painting but the old man began to cry and invited the soldier in. They spoke and the soldier told the old man how much he had cared about his son. Someone had painted the portrait and he wanted the old man to have it. The old man cherished the painting and displayed it over the fireplace. Time passed and the old man died. The art community was full of excitement because they knew the man's collection of artwork would be auctioned off. At the auction all the paintings lay waiting and many eager attendants were ready to begin. The auctioner brought the first painting up, it was the portrait of the son." "We'll start at $1,000 anyone...$1,000" no one raised their hand, one man commented, "We don't want that! It is not even good!" The auctioner took to price down and down until he was at $100 and still no one raised their hand to bid. "We have to sell this piece before moving on!!" the auctioner said to the silent and angry crowd. A hand in the back tentatively went up, there stood the soldier who said, "Sir, I don't have much money, in fact all I have is $7.25 but I would like to buy that painting" The auctioner said, "I have 7.25, anyone for $10? No going once...going twice...SOLD to the young man in the back for $7.00 and some change" Then the auctioner started packing up and said to the crowd, "thank you for coming this concludes the auction" the crowd became angry, one man shouted "What do mean it's over?? There are still all the paintings to auction off! That's what we came for!" The auctioner said, "The old man wrote his will on the back of this painting of the boy and said that whoever buys this piece receives the whole collection. Whoever receives the Son, receives it all."

Whoever recieves the Son. Receives it all. Step up and be a Christian. Step up and take a stand. Step Up and live your faith. Step Up.

Step Up.

Across The Universe - Trailer

"Let it Be..."

I saw Across the Universe last night.
It is now my new favorite movie. It was an incredible film.
Here's the trailer check it out...gives me goosebumps everytime:

Is it Monday already?

Weekends are entirely too short.
This one was no exception.

Friday afternoon started off with Laura and I walking to Queen Anne. It is quite the hike! At least when I lived in Ashton I was already half way up Queen Anne Hill but this was ridiculous! So we huffed and puffed until we got to Safeway...bought next weeks worth of food and realized we really did not want to carry all of those groceries back down. It's quite the trek. So we decided to enlist Alfonso to help us...we so named our shopping cart Alfonso because "he" (with much strength and chivalry) carried our groceries back to campus. Alfonso is still currently in my room loaded up with recycling and trash that I still need to take care of....

Friday night was game night at Laura's where we played Egyptian Rat-Race...tried to take The Impossible Quiz which surprise! turned out to be impossible and then ended with the most intense and chaotic game of Uno I have ever played. We played with the rule that you must draw from the pile until you draw the current color. After we ran out of cards to draw from and much shouting and confusion we drew only one card (from the non-existent draw pile) and well, it was the longest Uno game ever; but a complete blast.

Saturday ensued with a trip downtown. Finding parking is always a chore and elevates my blood pressure but Brie and I scoped out a parking garage that was 5.00 all day! Pretty fantastic...then we wandered around downtown for 1/2 an hour trying to find the Public Library in lieu of said parking garage. Once at the library Brie stayed on the lower level while I aimlessly walked around the SEVENTH floor of the library trying desperately to find my book. This library is incredibly large and rather confusing. Once finding my book I could not figure out how to get back where I came from. While on my adventure Brie relayed the story that she witnessed: a women downstairs began screaming at the barista saying incoherent things until a police squad was called dragged her to the ground and pinned her and took her outside while she screamed bloody murder the entire episode. All that time I was lost. I miss all the action!

Today we continued to decorate our living room and I think it is coming along nicely. We took on the coffee theme and these are the results:

Feet??

A few classes ago in Christian Scriptures we were going over Exodus 4: 24-26. The random story that no one really understands why it is there. It says "Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin, and touched Moses' feet with it..." While the class was asking questions about this passage our Professor pointed out an interesting translation. In Hebrew the word for "feet" was usually a word meant to mask a word that was inappropriate to say. (Namely the males privates) thus the class erupted in laughter and pointed out other passages where "feet" are mentioned. Then Dr. Nienhuis said that in another class when he brought up this translation a student tentatively raised his hand and asked,
"Um, how are we then to interpret John 13 when Jesus washes his disciples 'feet'"? Again the class erupted with laughter and Dr. Nienhuis quickly said "But that's another language remember! It's Greek! And in Greek feet mean feet!!"

And who said the Old Testament was boring...

Starbucks and strangers

Last night Brie and I went and studied at Starbucks. There was this guy there who kept coming up to talk to us (not in a creepy stalker way) but I think he really just wanted a friend...and someone to talk to. He told us about living and growing up in Alaska, how he loves music, new gadgets he had just bought, we talked about genetics (what Brie was studying) and God (what I was studying). It was really interesting. Seattle is so full of interesting people.

Some of the passages that struck me last night...I am truly obsessed with this book!
"I don't feel like God is teaching through me. I feel like I am a fake person, you know. I say what I need to say, do what I need to do, but I don't really mean it...I have become an infomercial for God, and I don't even use the product."

"I never asked to be human. Nobody came to the womb and explained the situation to me, asking for my permission to go into the world and live and breathe and eat and feel joy and pain...I spent an entire week feeling bitter because I couldn't breathe underwater. I told God I wanted to be a fish. I also felt a little bitter about sleep. Why do we have to sleep? I wanted to be able to stay awake for as long as I wanted, but God had put me in this body that had to sleep. Life no longer seemed like an experience of freedom."

"I am being tempted by Satan, we are all being tempted by Satan, but I am preserved to tell those who do not know about our Savior and our Redeemer. This is why Paul had no questions. This is why he could be beaten one day, imprisioned the next, and released only to be beaten again and never ask God why. He understood the earth was fallen."

"...what a great responsibility it is to be human."

"He asked me if I was a Christian, and I told him yes. 'Then why don't you want to defend Christianity?' he asked, confused. I told him I no longer knew what the term meant. Of the hundreds of thousands of people listening to his show that day, some of them had terrible experiences with Christianity; they may have been yelled at by a teacher in a Christian school, abused by a minister, or browbeaten by a Christian parent. To them, the term Christianity meant something that no Christian I know would defend."
-- Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz

This incredible book is reiterating what I have been feeling as of late. It's convicting and inspiring.

Saturday mornings are the best, pancakes, no alarms, no agenda. Just curling up with a good book while the sun hides (yet again) and it rains (yet again).

Profound things I encountered today:

Nowhere in Genesis 3 does it say that the serpent was the devil. It simply says there was the serpent. The snake does not lie. His "half-truths" end up becomming fulfilled.

There are three ways to be lost. And I am all of them.

I am lost because someone lost me. I am too easily distracted.
I am lost because I don't think and I am too good at befriending the "thieves"
I am lost because I deliberately went the wrong way.
And for that my shepherd will search night and day for me and when I come home He will robe me in honor, give me the ring of mastery and give me shoes of brotherhood.
Things I definitely don't deserve nor understand.

"a God whose name is Love."

How closed my eyes are. How off the path I am.
How blessed I am that he lets me find my own way but loves me just the same.