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