Media Fast

On July 1st I'll be saying good-bye to the computer and T.V. until September 1st. Because I love Jesus more than T.V, movies, computer and magazines, I perfer spending time with the Creator of the Universe, living out life with Him rather than watching other people live out fake lives on T.V. or in movies. Because I waste far too much time doing NOTHING when I could transforming my thinking to be more like Christ and falling more in love with him.
I have come to the realization that God is becoming 2nd to everything else I could do in a day and that is NOT OKAY! So...I'm going on a Media Fast. I won't be watching T.V., going on the computer, reading magazines, reading other literature often other than the Bible (Christian literature, although stock full of truth, is an idol in my life), or watching too many movies. My compadre in this fast is Margo Butcher.
Over the past few years I have gone of multiple Media Fasts because this is a definate hinderance to my walk with the Lord and everytime it has proven to be a fruitful experience. Join in if you'de like to....

Fakin' It

Wow. It is so easy to fake it. Unless you have friends who see right through you. Praise God for those people in your life!! Thank you Lord for Margo!!
I was "planning" to have an ordinary day yesterday but instead God had different plans. Plans to change me. Plans to stir my soul.
I've been living over the past few months a life not for the Lord. I've been living apart from fellowship with him and with others. And since my conversation yesterday with my good and wise friend, I no longer want to remain in that life. I'm breakin' out by the grace of God. THANK YOU LORD FOR YOUR LOVING CALL!!!! You've called me out of this pit and set me upright on my feet again. I'll fall again, it's for sure but now I know that I'm on a road and you'll be here all the time. Thank you Jesus for the cross, without it I would be fallen and I wouldn't be able to get up! :)

Hiding Place

as sung by: Jars of Clay

This song speaks volumes that I just havn't been able to put into words lately. This is my heart's desire...for anyone who reads this, pray this over my life...

Amidst the sorrows of the way
Lord Jesus, teach my soul to pray
Let me taste Thy special grace
And run to Christ, my hiding place

You know the vileness of my heart
So prone to act the rebel's part
And when You veil Your lovely face
How can I find a hiding place
Hiding place, hiding place

Lord, guide my wandering feet
Draw me to Thy mercy seat
I've nought to trust but sovereign grace
Thou only art my hiding place
How unstable is my heart
Sometimes I take the tempter's part
And slight the tokens of Thy grace
And seem to want no hiding place
Hiding place, hiding place

But when Thy spirit shines within
Makes me feel the plague of sin
And how I long to see Thy face
'Tis then I want a hiding place
Lord Jesus, shine and then I can
Feel sweetness in salvation's plan
And as a sinner plead for grace
Christ, the sinner's hiding place
And as a sinner plead for grace
Christ, the sinner's hiding place

Random--Not profound!

Food is from God. :)

I love double chocolate Milanos. Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. Homemade, chunky pasta sauce over Penne pasta (with garlic, basil, onions and mozzerella cheese). Yukon Gold Potato Bread (from QFC). Really good, cold chocolate cake. Day-old Beef Strogonoff (the kind my dad makes). Mother's Taffy cookies (not my mom, the brand "Mother's"). Homemade chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, mexican rice, really good chicken tacos with sour cream and tomatoes. Butterscotch squares from Seese Candy. ETC... hmmm, that was really random, I just thought I'd share. Hahahahahah!

What I really want

"I have come to realize that my own identity is not black-and-white; I am not easy to categorize. And if I choose to ignore the gray areas of life, I choose to ignore reality and, more important, the truth of who I am."

-Paul Meany

What do I want? What do I really want? What makes my heart come alive? No really...what makes my heart soar and tears brim my eyes when I really live it out? I don't know. I havn't ever really taken the time to examine my own heart. Sure, I've examined my will, my intentions, my mind, my action....but my heart? No. Not for a very long time, if ever.
Lord God, open my heart. Quiet my soul so that I can hear your soft voice tenderelly whispers to my heart, wooing me to yourself. So easily distracted am I from the life I was meant to live, chasing after lovers less wild than yourself. Oh God, I minimize you, I humanize you, I make you into a cheap cliche', and I do all this without even realizing it! I'm so sorry Lord Jesus, I'm so sorry Lord, thank you that the cross covers these iniquities perfectly. Lord, help me to examine my heart. No...reveal the desires of my heart and nurture them, as you are now. I long to live the life you have for me. Not one that I somehow tried to conjure up myself, these are all vain attempts. Like Paul Meany said, I have grey areas of my life, or I like to think of them as every color of the rainbow, all beautiful and unique but at the same time very hard to put into any category. I praise you Lord because I'm like you in this way. Thank you that I was made in your image. Wow. I was made in the image of God. Hmmm, teach me more about this Lord, I don't really get it, but oh how I want to. Thank you Lord that you are a poet. Thank you that you've make me one. Thank you Abba for instilling in me a poet's soul. Oh Lord, show me in your timing what your will is for my life. Your perfect and pleasing will. Hmmm, my heart is happy. :) You are beautiful Lord Jesus, lover of my soul, creator of the universe.

Love from your daughter,

Whitney Elizabeth

Screwtape and Wormwood

Holy cow! The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis is one of the most profound books I've ever read...and I'm only on chapter 4! It's amazing. It's a little tough to read, you have to wrap your mind around it to understand what it's saying and you probably won't pick up on it if you are easily distracted, but HOLY MOLEY, it's so worth reading. For anyone who is not familiar with the book. It's a series of letters, it's a satire, between Screwtape, a world-wise old devil (literally) and his nephew Wormwood, a novice demon. Screwtape is writing to Wormwood and encouraging him in his attempts to secure the damnation of an ordinary young man. It's a book about temptation written from the vantage point of the ENEMY. It's really creative and SO profound.
Here is a chapter from it, this one struck home, hardcore!

My dear Wormwood,
I am very pleased by what you tell me about this man's relations with his mother. But you must press your advantage. The Enemy will be working from the centre outwards, gradually bringing more and more of the patient's conduct under the new standard, and may reach his behaviou to the old lady at any moment. You want to get in first. Keep in close touch with out colleague Clubose who is in charge of the mother, and build up between you in that house a good settles habit of mutual annoyance; daily pinpricks. The following methods are useful.
1. Keep his mind on the inner life. He thinks his conversion is something inside him and his attention is therefore chiefly turned at present to the states of his own mind--or rather to that very expurgated version of them which is all you should allow him to see. Encourage this. Keep his mind off the most elementary duties by directing it to the most advanced and spiritual ones. Aggravate that most useful himan characteristic, the horror and neglect of the obvious. You must bring him to a condition in which he can practise self-examination for an hour without discovering any of those facts about himself which are perfectly clear to anyone who has ever lived in the same house with him or worked in the same office.
2. It is, no doubt, impossible to prevent his praying for his mother, but we have means of rendering the prayers innocuous. Make sure that they are always very 'spiritual', that he is always concerned with the state of her soul and never with her rheumatism. Two advantages will follow. In the first place, his attention will be kept on what he regards as her sins, by which, with a little guidance from you, he can be induced to mean any of her actions which are inconvient or irritating to himself. Thus you can keep rubbing the wounds of the day a little sorer even while he is on his knees the operation is not at all difficult and you will find it very entertaining. In the second place, since his ideas about her soul will be very crude and often erroneous, he will, in some degree, be praying for an imaginary person, and it will be your task to make that imaginary person, and it will be your takst to make that imaginary person, and it will be your task to make that imaginary person faily less and less like the real mother--the sharp-tounged old lady at the breakfast table. In time, you may get the cleavage so wide that no thought or feeling from his pryaers for the imagined mother will ever flow over into his treatment of the real one. I have had patients of my own so well in hand that they could be turned at a moments notice from impassioned prayer for a wife's or son's 'soul' to beating or insulting the real wife or son without a qualm.
3. When two humans have lived together for many years it usually happens that each has tones of voice and expressions of face which are almost unendurably irritating to the other. Work on that. Bring fully into consciousness of your patient that particular list of his mother's eyebrows which he learned to dislike in the nursery, and let him think how much he dislikes it. Let him assume that she knows how annoying it is and does it to annoy--if you know your job he will not notice the immense improbability of the assumption. And, of course, never let him suspect that he has tones and looks which similarly annoy her. As he cannot see or hear himself, this is easily managed.

4. In civilised life domestic hatred usually expresses itself by saying things which would appear quite harmless on paper (the words are not offensive) but in such a voice, or at such a moment, that they are not far short of a blow in the face. To keep this game up you and Glubose must see to it that each of these two fools has a sort of double standard. Your patient must demand that all this own utterances are to be taken at their face value and judged simply on the actual words, while at the same time juding all his mother's utterances with the fullest and most over-sensitive interpretation of the tone and the context and the suspected intention. She must be encouraged to do the same to him. Hense from every quarrel they can both go away convinced, or very nearly convinced, that they are quite innocent. You know the kind of thing; 'I simply ask her what time dinner will be and she flies into a tempter.' Once this habit is established you have the delightful situation of a human saying things with the express purpose of offending and yet having a grievance when offence is taken. Finally, tell me something that the old lady's religious positition. Is she at all jealous of the new factor in her son's life?--at all piqued that he should have learned from others, and so late, what she considers she gave him such a good opportunity of learning in childhood? Does she feel he is making a great deal of 'fuss' about it--or that he's getting in on very terms? Remember the elder brother in the Enemy's story?

Your affectionate uncle,

Screwtape

Things that fill me with joy (even the thought of them)

Going to cafes, filled with laughter, with friends. Deep conversations with no time restraints. Taking my closest friends to Carmel Beach in California. Feeling the joy of giving people gifts. Going to Europe, discovering little towns with little bookstores (with wooden floors, spiral staircases and books floor to ceiling),shops and bakeries. Living life with people. Christmas time in Downtown Seattle. Cruising in a boat on a beautiful day. Taking driving trips with friends, with music blaring. Singing with a Gospel Choir. Being truly loved by someone, living life out with them. Summer Camp. Memories of family vacations, those memories make the current family vacations more thrilling. Weddings.

Purity

VLC...it's the way to be.

Warning: Someone Hates Your Guts!

"The Story of your life is the story of a long and brutal attack on your heart the one who knows what you could be and fears it." -John Elderedge

"The Devil has more temptations than an actor has costumes for the stage. And one of this all-time favorite disguises is that of a lying spirit, to abuse your tender heart with the worst news he can deliver--that you do not really love Jesus Christ and that you are only pretending. You are only deceiving yourself." -William Gurnall

"The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy; I have come that they might have life and have it abundantly." -Jesus Christ

There is a battle raging. The objective? Your heart and your mind. If the Devil can get ahold of your mind he can distract you so badly that you don't even remember what God did for you and therefore you live like nothing ever happened. If he can get ahold of your heart then he can get ahold of your affections and your passions and then destroy those slowly but surly. We are called to fight against these attacks with the power given to us through Jesus Christ. And suffer like good soldiers of Jesus Christ...we are in God's army!! (2 Tim. 2)

Actions in Light of God's Presence

If I actually belived that God existed, if I actually belived He was the God he says he is, then the way that I lived my life would change. Not just because in the light of this amazing God I would be ashamed of my life but because when I know someone is watching what I am doing I feel self-concious and most of the time I change. Much like how I wouldn't watch certain things if I knew my grandma was sitting next to me. Gosh, if I really belived that God was real then how much more concious would I be of what I did knowing that the Creator of the Universe is sitting next to me. And you know what, if the Bible is in fact the Word of God and if in fact the entire thing is true and reliable then I can believe this verse: "How precious are your thoughts about me, O God! They are innumerable! I can't even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand! And when I wake up in the morning, you are still with me!" (Psalm 139:17 NLT)
I certainly don't live like I believe that there is a God who is always by my side. But the truth is, no matter what I, in all my human perspective, think is "right", no matter what I live like, no matter what I feel, Jesus Christ was fully God and fully man. He came down to earth, he lived a perfect life so I would never have to, he died on my behalf and when all hope seemed to be lost he ROSE FROM THE DEAD to prove that His love conquers even death. And now, through beliving that this is true (even though I won't even fully conprehend why) I have eternal life and the salvation of my soul. And not only that, because that's not the only reason Jesus came, I can have unity with God. I can actually talk with the Almighty, and he has promised (and he's good and keeping his promises) to always be with me. Never leave my side. Gosh, my prayer comes in the form of Psalm 139:23-24:
"Search me, O GOD, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. Point out anything (and everything) in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life."