Revealing Grace

T here are two things I really want to talk about tonight. The first is food, the second is missions. Both are important and both are on my mind. Don't judge me that I am about to pick food. Tomorrow will come a brilliant post on missions and you will feel glad that I let those thoughts seep into the depths of my mind before I put them down on paper  the internet. So let's get to it. I am passionate about food. Not the fancy gourmet kinds of foods, but the kind that God put on the earth to feed us kinds of foods. Now, you are about to get some of my honest opinion here so if you really love cheeseburgers and cheez-its....well, keep reading. I believe that God gave us all we needed to eat when He created the world, and yes He gave us innovative skills to learn how to pair those things together, but I do not think He intended for us to "enhance our foods" with extra chemicals and artificial things that are not nice to our bodies. So I am going to let you in on a s...

My dear faithful readers, Have you been prone to wandering around your kitchen, slightly hunchbacked, with a scrunched up nose and a quizzical brow? Has your mind been on one lone track, pondering the details of my next wandering?  What's that?  No? You have not been doing that?  You had more important and pressing things to think about?  Oh....Ah well. At least it put a nice picture in my head and a momentary proud aire to my self-centered notions. At any rate, you can probably guess that I am now going to answer the questions you did not have and the ponderings you did not ponder. In addition, to save myself from constant self-centered notions that all people really want to do is read my silly writings, I ask that if you have a blog, then please put the link in the comment section of this post. I want to keep up with you and your silly notions and lovely lives! But back to me.  Today I started the Spring quarter! Wooo! The reason for the wooo is th...

Today I ran out of money. Ok, I didn't totally run out of money but I did the whole look-at-all-my-expenses -for-the-next-quarter-thing and thus realized that I will not actually have the money to cover the rent and the school and the food for the next ten weeks. A total bummer.  There was actually never a moment where I considered giving up food to save money, so maybe I was not as desperate as I felt, but I did freak out for a solid fifteen minutes. As I called my parents with tears in my eyes, I felt like a fool. How did I end up with no money? Shouldn't I have planned better for this? I should have definitely skipped all the froyo I have eaten in the past six months. I am not the kind of person who calls my parents for a loan as big as the one I just asked for. I don't think I have ever even asked my parents for twenty dollars! I felt like I had come to an all new low.  Its some tough loving that pulls you up when you feel so low. After applying for some more b...

I have to share this with you guys because it is such a joy in my life and such a reminder of God's grace and love in community. As many of you know this is my spring break, so this afternoon I headed over to my church here in Pasadena to hear two cellists play an AMAZINGly difficult five movement duet in preparation for their doctorate recital. Just being invited to hear these two cellists play was really a treat. A little background on the church I am attending is probably necessary at this point. So I will put the deets in 3 simple points. 1. The church is called Lake Avenue Church. 2. The church is huge, with over four thousand members in three services. 3. The church is just across the interstate, so I can walk there in an easy ten minutes. I recently started working to get connected at Lake Avenue and it has been such a joy to connect with the people here.  The director of the orchestra has been so full of grace and so intentional about getting me connected, a...

A week of rest is a glorious thing. I have spent copious amounts of time in pajama pants reading books and thinking of nothing unpleasant. Today I went with two of my favorite friends, Elizabeth and Nolan, to Manhattan Beach. I can complain about the smog and traffic for decades but the fact that I can drive to about fifteen different beaches within an hour is most certainly a Southern California perk. We spent the afternoon eating sandwiches on the windy pier, walking down the deserted beach (not everyone is so lucky as to have a Monday off) and gawking at the amazing houses built up these cute walkways on the hill. Manhattan Beach is apparently the home of beach volleyball, which is awesome, but looking past the beach to the town it seriously looked like an upper-class slum because the houses were all only six feet apart! People seriously take up every inch of land here. Interesting that it is such a popular place to lay down your bucks since earthquakes are so common...hmmmm. Not th...

Another finals week down! I am officially 1/4 of the way to my Masters! Now for one week off and then back to the last quarter before summer. Though there are plenty of things on my to-do list I plan on watching a lot of movies, spending a day or two at the beach, and changing my diet from cheerios and yogurt to more substantial grown-up meals. This week is going to be great!

I just wrote 4,116 words on the Navajo people and the poverty that exists on their reservation. You see, I have been learning in my Poverty and Development class that poverty is more than physical needs. It is a web of things like vulnerability, powerlessness, spiritual depravity, and broken relationships. The root cause of poverty is sin, and from that sin comes broken relationships and marred identity, which leave people impoverished. A web of lies has left the poor captive to the God complexes of the non-poor, and we have been left with a broken world. But as I finish those 4,116 words I raise my eyes and my arms to praise God. For as I finished this paper, a paper that should have brought me a sense of duty and deadlines, I was brought to tears. For it feels like the scales have fallen from my eyes. Because of writing this paper I can see and feel the hurt of not just the Navajo people, but all native people in the United States. And at the same time, I can see and feel the hop...

The open roads are calling my name. It just takes one adventure and you are hooked. It is like a string attached to your insides. Every few months it begins to tug at your heart, like on a schedule. Your heart slowly starts beating in your chest towards the road. And then your mind moves there too. You can smell the fresh air whipping through the open car window. You can see the landscapes, feel the adrenaline, the adventure. Now your whole body has caught on. Your legs keep twitching, nudging you to just get up and go. Your brain stops focusing and your hands keep taking to packing. Your stomach, your heart, your feet, say go! Go to the road! Take a trip. Your heart beats loudly you need this, you need this, you need this. But one part of you stays sane. One part of you says softly amid the beating and the moving, not yet. Your time will come again. Stick it out. Not yet. So I put away the suitcase, I take a deep breath and release the string attached to my heart, and my legs sig...

Unnaturally orange powder and macaroni will never go out of style. So gooood. Do you want to know what else is good? I moved and got a roommate! If you know me even remotely well you know I am most definitely an extrovert. Having Nayeli here I feel like I can finally breathe, like I am at peace, because living alone is not really that conducive to extroverted tendencies. I am going to go ahead and put it out there that my new roommate is a straight blessing from God. He knew what I needed, and what she needed in moving here, and we get along so well. I will say that it is so nice to come home to a big apartment complete with my own room, a living room, a dishwasher AND a washer/dryer! I feel as if I am in the lap of luxury, even though I am just one building over! But it is even nicer to have a friend in the next room who I can laugh out loud with and who likes to watch silly television. It feels like we have been friends for so long, almost like a piece of home has come to me (and...