Revealing Grace

Is it that time again? The time of the week where I procrastinate and write to you instead of doing the myriad of tasks I should be doing? Ah yes, I think it is that time. Well, let's see. I could report on my state of life, shall I do that? Ok, well then, I just realized I have my shirt on backwards (thankfully I haven't left the apartment since I changed into it), I discovered I have a deep love for grocery shopping (not just because I like to eat), and I woke up at 6am yesterday to go shopping (women turned into vultures and everything was four dollars!). Let me start from the beginning. Don't be worried, I have a history of wearing my clothes backwards on accident. In elementary school it was the red gingham dress made out of the extra material from my curtains. In college it was the sequined dress that had a confusing neckline. So really I am not going to worry too much that my lack of sleep is impacting my sanity seeing as I seem to just be continuing a rather un...

There seem to be special moments in life when something you have always known suddenly becomes real. It is like a lightbulb suddenly brightens even though the switch was always on. For example, the day in high school when I realized that a cupcake was a cake...in a cup. Magnificent logic! Tonight was a similar moment. All of a sudden I thought to myself, Wow. I know some really amazing people.  Obviously that seems slightly mundane and normal but hear me out. Tonight I realized that I have had one friend for 18 years. 18 years! That is so long it is ridiculous! Though we have lived far apart for a long time now I can still count him as one of my dearest friends and I am so blessed that we are still involved in each other's lives, even if sparingly. Or get this. I have a family in India who let me name their baby. One day I will get to hopefully hug this amazing little boy but for now, how blessed am I to have made friends in India who loved me enough to let me name their first s...

"God will see to it that the man who finds him in his earthly happiness and thanks him for it does not lack reminder that earthly things are transient, that is is good for him to attune his heart to what is eternal, and that sooner or later there will be times when he can say in all sincerity, 'I wish I were home.'" -Bonhoeffer, Letters from Prison  So I am sitting in a coffee shop reading Bonhoeffer's letters from prison and I am just in meshed in this reading. I feel like I am getting this intimate peek into his life and his struggles and he is so real it starts to feel like he has written these letters to me. I resonate with his pain, his sorrow, his optimism and his tiredness. I become sad with him and hopeful with him.  And as I am reading these letters I just start to have these aha! moments.  As he talks about separation from loved ones and times of war I stop and pray for my friend Kyle who is in Afghanistan, and for the loved ones who I know are m...

In 2003 I was a high school freshman with an eye twitch. Still stuck in that horribly awkward middle school stage where I had grown ten inches in three years and still didn't quite know what do with my hair, I was stressed out. I had entered into a high school program that was the equivalent of most people's freshman year in college and I was working hard to keep up. The classes were tough and seemed designed to weed out the weak, and I wondered if someone somewhere was giving me the stink eye, out to get me with integrated calculus and 7:30am classes. Though I was smart enough to get into the program, the other 99 kids all seemed a lot smarter than me. Hence the eye twitch. With awkwardness and stressful schoolwork combined, my nerves were on edge. So tonight, in 2012, I came home with an eye twitch and instantly recalled that this had happened before. I immediately reassured myself that at least this time I could endure with great hair and good fashion (let's admit, I ...

Politics. First reaction? Bleck. The bane of my existence (dramatic much?). Boring. Dumb. But alas, I am a grown-up with the right to vote and this time around I happen to be in a politics class. Theology and Politics to be exact. Yep, that's right. The only girl in a class of eight boys with a male professor. They are all married, so don't get your hopes up for me. I strut into that class in my pink cardigan with my silver heart hair pin and pull out my purple pen instead of the pink one because, you know, I don't want to look too girlie. I have to assert my tough I-don't-take-crap-from-nobody side. I think purple pens illustrate that pretty well. At any rate I love the class. It is more a historically based class where we read the greats like Ragatz, Barth (silent h), and Bonhoeffer. And I hold my own because obviously girls are just as smart as boys. But when I come home and turn on the Vice-Presidential debate I get a head-ache because apparently politician...

hope   noun 1. the   feeling   that   what   is   wanted   can   be   had   or   that   events  will   turn   out   for   the   best:   to   give   up   hope. It is my opinion that hope is one of the main things that drive us in this life. The Bible talks about the hope of becoming like Christ and the hope of His return. We live in a constant state of hoping that things will  turn out for the best and that Christ will return and make everything right. Therefore it is one of the saddest occurrences I know of when someone chooses to give up hope and end everything by their own hand. Having been through the experience of losing someone in this way I know that it is so hard for those left behind to understand. Why was the love they had not good enough? Why did they not just talk to someone? What made it seem like nothing could get better, that death was the only wa...

"Every man must give account on the Day of Judgement concerning the good things he refused to enjoy." -A Rabbi whose name I forgot to write down in class I love this quote because we so often get bogged down in life that we forget, or refuse, to enjoy all the good things we have been given. So today, and tomorrow, and the next day, let's make a point to enjoy all of the lovely things we have surrounding us. I assure you, if you look closely, there are many.