Love Deeply

For Responsibilities class we were to write a paper over on of the books we read in class. I chose The Giver because I love this book. During my paper, I was trying to describe a perfect world and I struggled and struggled to find the words. It was at this point that I realized that my perfect world is one that I am reunited with God. Without Him, my world would be far from perfect. That night I read more in Crazy Love and it discussed this fact. "The critical question for our generation--and for every generation--is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, an with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?" For the longest time I know that I would have answered truthfully that I would love all those things even if it came without God. Now, I definitely can say NO. I cannot wait for the day that I get to be with Him. in fact, I crave to be with Him. The rest of the book that I read talked about having an astounding love for God. One that radiates to the world, so that we love other people with God's love as well. By loving God we will learn to love other people. God's love does not come from our works but our heart-felt works will come from loving God. Works that we want to do, not works that we feel obligated to do because we are Christians. Something I need a reminder of as I have trouble saying no to things and making myself way too busy at times.

Read for 1 hour 45 mins

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Reading Blog Reflection

I love reading and I've always loved reading. Yet, it always takes a back burner in my life. So, I consider myself a "seasonal reader." I read lots during the summer, Christmas break, etc. but during the school year, there's just no time. This assignment has made me take the time to read. It also made me see that I can fit reading into my busy schedule if I really want to take the time. I also found that reading is a stress-reliever for me (which I greatly need). When I read (a good book) I forget about the long to-do-list I have to complete, the laundry piling up in my closet, and the typical drama in my life. Once I start reading, it becomes incredibly hard for me to stop...I would be perfectly content reading all day long. Unfortunately, the real world calls me back and the to-do-list is waiting there for me when I get back. I know that I will be reading lots this summer. Infact, I already have a list of books started that I want to read over the summer. As far as next school year, unless I have to keep another reading blog up for class, I probably won't consistantly read. In years to come, once again it probably will depend on my busy schedule. Hopefully, I will be able to have the time to read more in the coming years. If not, I know that it will always be there when I need it.

The End

From my previous experience with Nicholas Sparks books, two things can be determined before even reading the book: 1) someone always dies and 2) a sad ending. I was completely surprised by the Bend in the Road. Someone does die but the ending...happy--despite circumstances.

This was a really good book but with my preconceptions with Nicholas Sparks books, I was dreading getting to the end because I don't like sad endings...I don't know a person who does. This book gives the underlying concept of nothing can change the past. Nothing. Not even revenge. It will always be there. The book also shows that love conquers all. That is all that I am going to say about this book because I don't want to ruin the ending.

Overall, great book and I would recommend this to everyone--especially education majors. Now, I have to find a new book to read...it's going to be hard to pick.

Read for 1 hour 30 mins

A Different Story Every Time

I focused my time reading the Bible. I love reading scripture. It gives insight, it encourages, and reminds me of how great and loving God is. One of my favorite parts of reading the Bible is that you can read the same verse at one time and then read it again later, and have a completely different meaning than the first. As my mom has always said,"the Bible is one book that you can read over and over again and still get a different meaning/story each time you read it." Scripture though, can be incredibly confusing as well. You can also read the same scripture over and over again and still have no idea what it means. That is when I seek out my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ and see if they have an interpretation that make sense. That is what I love about my small group. The people in my group come from many different backgrounds, denominations, and beliefs. They give insight and opinions about the scripture that I would have never seen. The Bible to this day is my favorite book and I enjoy reading it every night.

2 hours

Imperfection is Best

We had another assignment in Responsibilities to read a book. After the last book that was assigned to read, I would usually be hesitant on the next reading assignment. I've read this book before in the 2nd grade and remember loving it. So I pick up this book (The Giver) and started reading it. I finished it in two days, so it was a pretty easy read. I loved the book. I loved it because it made me realize how great it is to live it this world. Sure, it has it minuses but, we have a lot to be thankful for! The world that the main character (Jonas) lives in is a world that is completely controlled. They have no decisions to make: their jobs are determined for them, their spouse, their children. They have no feelings: love, anger, hate, pain. They can't even see color. While this world allows for perfection and no hurt, they miss out on also so many good things that come with imperfection and pain. I cannot imagine living in a world where I couldn't feel anything or know the love of a family. Jonas is able to receive these memories from the Giver and he realizes too that the people need to be involved with both the joys and hurts in this life. I am glad I read it again, because in second grade I didn't understand a lot of the meaning/ moral of the story that came with it.
Read for 4 hours

Literacy Trip and Family

I became very dismayed when I learned heading back to Kansas meant leaving the 70 degree weather in New York and coming back to SNOW! Despite this, I notice really how much my family loves to read. Every single trip we go on...reading takes place in the down moments and the transporting time. When packing my carry-on bag I always fill it with books. Eventually, I realize that all the books I have chosen to take on the trip will not fit, I go though the difficult process of deciding which ones to take. My mom has the same problem.

My sister, Michelle, has always hated reading. I was blown away on this trip by the fact that she was glued to a book the entire time (and well texting..haha). Every moment that we were in the airport waiting, on the plane, or in our hotel room she had her nose in this book! I was even more blown away when we were flying back and I looked over to see tears streaming down her face as she read on. This author HAD to be good if my sister was enticed and even moved by this book. The book she was reading was written by Nicholas Sparks, The Last Song. I plan on reading this book after both my mom and Michelle finishes it (I'm third on the list! haha).

My mom was reading another book...some book about a dog (mom loves animals). She was also glued to her book the entire time. We were all sitting in the hotel room one night relaxing before our big performance and my mom suddenly lets out this huge gasp and starts crying. My dad immediately asks what's wrong and she said that the dog has just died. She continues reading, and then about fifteen minutes later she lets out an angry grrr. We ask what was wrong and she said that it was a different dog that had died. This author continued to take her though an emotional rollercoaster...the best books do this! She finished that book that night and picked up another one.

My dad on the other had...doesn't read your typical books. He is one of those incredibly intelligent men that enjoys reading the technical books that I look at for five minutes and throw to the side. He brought two books to read...one was a book about a Microsoft computer program and the other about research on running barefoot (something that you really should check out Michelle...sounds pretty interesting when he told me about it). My dad doesn't show much emotion when reading but he is always reading something when every night when watching t.v.

I started reading another book that my mom loaned to me. I couldn't put it down from the moment I picked it up. I forgot what it was like to read a book that really enticed me. I had the book almost completely finished the same day I started reading it, but I haven't been able to finish it due to the fact I came back to responsibility in Kansas. The book is about a teacher and a murder mystery--something I can relate to and something that interests me. I hope to have this book finished by the end of the week...we shall see though with my busy schedule. But this trip has been fun to see just how much my family loves to read.
Read for 8 hours.

I am currently touring New York City and amidst all those crazy New Yorkers. It amazes me in how different life is here. I mean, I did expect it to be different but not on this level. Everyone is very materialistic: it's all about the Parda bags, the leather jacket and boots, the chic hair, and the perfectly painted nails. New Yorkers push the limits: they walk as far out into the street as possible with out getting hit by a taxi cab; they squeeze as many people as possible into a elevator or subway car; and they crunch time so closely that they have three seconds to catch their next transit...thus they run to get there...pushing and shoving along the way. A New Yorker can tell 100 yards away that you are a tourist: you aren't wearing all black, you are carrying a backpack and wearing tennis shoes (hardly a soul in sight wears tennis shoes!)...you stop at crosswalks when the red hand comes up instead of running into the intersection before the cars come racing down the street.
This kind of lifestyle reminds me much of what Francis Chan talks about in the next chapter of Crazy Love....having too much going on in our lives. When this happens, we are not able to grow in a relationship with God because there are too many distractions keeping us from him...especially when we want so many things in life (money, activities, etc.) David Gotez wrote that, "Too much of a good life ends up being toxic, deforming us spiritually." I wonder how many of these New Yorkers have a lifestyle that is toxic and deforming and not just spiritually but for their own well-being.
The second part of the chapter describes different situations that many of us exhibit in being lukewarm Christians. This chapter really changed my perception on what the bible means by being lukewarm. I thought it was just not being hot or cold on a subject but the book says that lukewarm can be halfhearted, distracted, or partiallycommitted for God. This chapter also helped me examine what areas I am lukewarm in and gave bible verses to help counter act these situations.

Read for 2 hours 45 mins

How Deep is Your Love?

This past summer I ventured out of the church I was raised in just because I wasn't getting spiritually fed. It had been this way for a LONG time and my relationship with God was suffering. So, a very good friend of mine and I started driving 45 mins to attend a nondenominational church. This caused a HUGE uproar at our home church but despite this, we kept going. I had one of the best summers of my life because of this church. Every sermon hit me like a rock and got me thinking until I came back the next week. But the sermon I remember the most was the one that questioned our motives in being a follower in Christ. One of the chapters I read in Crazy Love also questioned this.

God has this amazing and unrelenting love for us that we cannot even imagine. We can turn away from Him and He will always take us back...always. God doesn't need us but He wants us...He longs for us. So how deep is our love for Christ?? I really examined this when the pastor asked us in his sermon, "If there was no heaven and you received nothing for being a follower of God, would you still seek to know Him, live your life for Him, and love Him?" Wow. Never really thought of that before. The book says that so many people seek a relationship with God just because of what comes from it: eternal life, plans backed from the most powerful, etc.

I would like to say that, "yes! I would seek Him and receive nothing in return." Most of the time I can say that, but there are days that I am selfish. There are days that I go through a lot of suffering because I have taken up the cross and I just think what good is going to come from me being faithful. But mostly, I have realized that I need to learn to love God with all my heart, mind, and soul. Something that isn't going to happen over night, but is going to take a lifetime walking with Him.

Read: 1 hour 30 mins

Save Me the Details

Every time I get sick, I read. I've been doing it since I was a little kid. In fact, I remember faking sick a few times just so I could stay home and read (shhh. don't tell my mom!). Well being sick this past week made me so miserable, I couldn't read at all. Reading just added to my headache and watching television was out of the question. Finally, I got to the point that I was able to stand reading. I grabbed my favorite blanket, curled up on the couch and read away.

I read four hours in one setting. I wish I could say it was because I was completely into a book that I couldn't put it down, but no. I continue to read Oryx and Crake and...continue to hate it. I kept readingfor these four hours thinking that maybe this is one of those books that has a slow start, but I am over half way through it and I am still confused and wondering what is the point of the author writing this!

I also have found that I have become a reader that does not enjoy lots details in writing. My mind wonders every time an author spends a page and a half describing a thing such as trash can. Marget Atwood writes so many pages on describing scenes! I just want the basics: it was an container that people throw away items that are no longer of use to them--straight and to the point. Not: it was a rectangular shaped container about three feet deep with a white lining and a lid that opened and closed with the decent of a pedal pressed by a foot....etc. Let my mind create the picture! Just give me a frame to put it in!

My frustration with this book continues to build, but I am not the kind of person that starts something and doesn't finish it. Maybe, just maybe, the second part of the book will be better. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Read for 4 hours

Stress, Worry, & Technology

OOO technology...we definitely have a love/hate relationship. This would be the third time I am attempting to post a blog and retyping my thoughts on the books I have been reading. While typing on the computer is much faster (well, usually), I can't help but to think if I had written this on paper...I would have been done and on my way a long time ago. Alas, I didn't. So I am once again spending time rewriting a work I have already written twice. Oryx and Crake also see the negative side of technology. Society has developed pigs, called pigoons, that replicate human body parts. This way if a person needs an organ of some sort, they just replace the old one with a new one from the pigoon. This of course helps extend the life of any human, but it also has a negative affect on the food the people now eat. Since there are so many pigoons being produced, there becomes an excessive number of pigoons and a lackof everything else. So the people are now stuck eating pigoon pie, pancakes, and even popcorn! --yuck. Glad, I am not living in this world. I really have not been able to enjoy this book. Perhaps because it uses fowl language, has random flashbacks, and is set so far in the future that I cannot imagine it. It does give me insight to what can happen with technology...the good and the bad. My favorite qoute from the section I read was: "Each one of us must tread the path laid out before him, or her, [...]and each path is unique. It is not the nature of the path itself that should concern the seeker, but the grace and strength and patience with which every one of us follows the sometime challenging..." Some food for thought.

I also continue to read Crazy Love. I now understand the title of this book...because I love this book. The chapter that I read this week really hit home. It talks about living every moment to the fullest. While so many people have talked about this that it has almost become mundane, Francis Chan puts it in a completely different perspective. He tells readers that days fly by because we are completely caught up in ourselves and rarely even think about God. When I think about my day that is completely on target. I get up in the morning and say a short little prayer before I pull my tired body out of bed with a grown, I get ready, and then I am running around all over the place like a chicken with its head cut off. I come home exhausted and ready to go to bed right away. I pull out my Bible tiredly read a small portion of it, and the fall to sleep talking to God. Not exactly a life completely dedicated to God. It's a life that is full of worry but mostly stress. Up until reading this chapter, I thought that this was the way life was supposed to be--no biggie. But the book defines stress and worrying as this: "Worry implies that we don't quite trust that God is big enough, powerful enough, or loving enough to take care of what's happening in our lives. Stress says that the things we are involved in are important enough to merit our impatience, our lack of grace towards others, or our grip of control." WOW...chew on that for a while.
Read for 2 hours

A Crazy Love

Yesterday was Valentine's Day. I would like to say that I was completely caught up in this holiday established to show "crazy love" that forgot to write for my reading journal, I was not. I went with a group of 13 singles to watch Valentine's Day in the theatres (highly recommend this movie). While this event was fun and I found myself relieved that I was not the only single on the Southwestern Campus, I am still not a fan of Valentine's day. Do we really need a day to show love to the ones we care about? Can we not just do this every day? Which brings me to the book I've picked up (I know, how many books can a person read at one time?!). Crazy Love is it's title, and no, it is not a sappy romance novel. The main idea of this book is that we should be in crazy love with God every day. Yes, every day. Not like Valentine's Day when you go all out for that special person one time a year, but you go all out for God EVERYDAY.

Falling in love with God is like falling in love with a person. You have that first attraction that lights the spark. You see how amazing this person is from a distance. This is what the first part of the book talks about. The book goes in to great depth about how much most of us have forgotten how amazing God really is! He has created so many complex things and done so many wonderful things! The book aims to remind us of this and light the spark between the reader and God once again.

After this person has caught your eye, you want to get to know them more. The next part of the book tells you about God. He is Holy, eternal, all-knowing, fair and just, and all-powerful. The all-knowing section in this chapter really brought some questions to my mind. If God is all-knowing then does He know from the moment He created us, who will choose to follow Him and will not? Does He know what decisions we are going to make (good or bad) every single day in our entire life? And if He does, why does He choose to make some people that do not have the will power to not conformed to the evil ways of this world? The answers to these questions...I may never know.
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I continue reading Lady in Waiting. The chapter that I read this week talks about sexual limitations before marriage. I am not really going to go in depth about this issue because I think it is a personal matter. But basically the main idea of the chapter is that God only set these limitations in order to protect you and your heart from getting hurt. Not to make you hold out on something that is supposed to be amazing...but as a precaution.

Read for 3 hours: I read every night before I go to bed, when I need a break from studying, or I carry a book in my purse to read when there is down time between the things I am running around doing.

Loneliness and Virtue

Sitting on the beach listening to the waves make a slow, soothing beat of casting in and out, seems like the perfect escape from a world of intense ciaos. But for Snowman in the Oryx and Crake, it was only a reminder of his loneliness and memories of the past. Many aspects in life continue to change from day to day, week to week, year to year, but the ocean is one thing that remains the same. There may come a time in our life that we sit on the beach and just like snowman, we are reminded of memories of the past. Memories that our children wouldn't be able to visualize or even understand. I started reading Oryx and Crake this week. Although it is for a class (Responsibilities of the Future), I have a feeling that it is going to be a book that I will really enjoy reading and one that gets me thinking about the future.

I am continuing to read Lady in Waiting. This week, the characteristic focused on is virtue. A woman of virtue is a woman of many traits, but mostly, a woman full of God. "To be filled, something must be empty. To be filled by the Spirit you must empty or yourself and full of God." This is quite a challenge in this time and age. Society promotes to do everything for yourself and for your own well being. But this isn't the concept that caught me off guard, I already knew that I am to deny myself and take up the cross. This chapter pointed out a very important point that woman often do not think about (at least I don't): how we attract men. As women, our appearance has dramatic affect on men and also says what kind of women we are. If we are wearing provocative clothing, tons of make up on...we are going to attract men that expect a woman that acts like what she looks like. Men of character do not find these features appealing in a woman they would like to presue; they look for women of virtue. "Whatever you use to 'catch' a guy, you must also use to keep him. If you attract a guy with only your looks, then you are headed for trouble, since looks don't last." --> something every woman should take away.

Read for: 2 hours

A Lady in Waiting

Prince Charming-- ya ya, fantasy or not we've all wished for one. That is why we get caught up in the chick flicks, the notion of love at first sight, and the ridiculous romance novels. Some of us though get too caught up in these perceptions and miss out on the life that God calls us to live while we are single. The book, A Lady in Waiting, talks about becoming God's best while waiting for Mr. Right using the book Ruth as a reference.

I love this book. Love it. This is the kind of book that I wish I would have read a LONG time ago. Maybe I would have a better outlook on my life and my relationships. I have read the first two chapters in the last week. The first one talks about reckless abandonment--basically leaving behind the notions I talked about in the previous paragraph and moving forward in a relationship with God. It tells the reader that so many woman look to a man to "complete" them much like the movie Jerry McGuire, but looking for a man for completion will only lead to you becoming disappointed. A relationship with God is the only thing that will fill you. As the book says, "Incompleteness is not the result of being single, but of not being full of Jesus."

The second chapter talks about becoming a lady of diligence or being undistracted and unrelenting for God. Something that every single woman stuggles with--not getting too busy. Through this chapter I realized that I am WAY too busy and it is only going to get worse. I need to learn either how to schedule things around God now or learn how to say no. This chapter also talks about using this time of being singleness to your advantage. You will never have this time again because when you start a family...you don't have time to do some things. I never looked at it in that prospective before.

"God has called me to live right NOW. He wants me to realize my full potential as a man (woman) right NOW, to be thankful where I am, and to enjoy it to the fullest. I have a strange feeling that the single person who is always wishing he (she) were married will probably get married, discover all that is involved, and wish he were single again! He (She) will ask himself (herself), "Why didn't I use that time for the Lord when I didn't have so many other obligations? Why didn't I give myself totally to Him when I was single?"