Meditation

For another required thing I have to for school is journal about my experience as I used discursive meditation for a passage in the bible. I really felt God calling me to meditate on Matthew 6:25-33. The only way I will remember anything is to write down as I meditate, so get ready for a bunch of jumble.

Jesus is talking to his disciples on a mountainside.  The sky is clear, it smells fresh and clean. I can hear the birds in the air. I really wish that I had a pen to write down everything Jesus is saying, or maybe I do, I'm not quite sure about that. I know that Jesus is my saviour, but the rest of the disciples don’t know that yet. I can’t get enough of what he has just said. Gross, the grass is wet and is making my clothes damp. Guess I didn't notice as I have been sitting here for a while. I wonder what happened to all he people following Jesus, where did they go. Did they not see us go up here on the hillside, curious? It is a nice day, not too warm or cold; just perfect if you ask me. You know that smell when you are outside and it just smells like it is growing? Well that is what it smells like here; fresh.  

Jesus has been talking a while on being quiet about our prayer and our giving. This is so different from what I am used to! All my life I grew up thinking that we were supposed to be vocal about our prayers, using extravagant words and everything and make public displays of donation so that people will praise us, but no. That is all wrong. Suddenly Jesus came to the section that most astonished me! How can someone talk like this? I just sit here listening, my attention never wavering. 

"For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?

And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! 

Do not worry then, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or "What will we wear for clothing?' For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for you heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Does this mean that I have to trust that everything will be provided for me? So often I wake up and worry about what people will think about what I am wearing or how I appear. At times I worry about where the food will come from or how I will make enough to pay for my rent. I don’t know if I can just give it all up to him. It is easier to hold those things close and not let others know about them, so to fully give it up to God is so hard. I want to ask Jesus about what I should do if he doesn’t provide. What if I trusted in him and I didn’t get fed, or had enough to pay my rent and get kicked out. What do I do then?

So that was the end of the assignment. Hope you guys learned something from my rambling :)

Meditating,

Not-So-Princess Lizzy

Boyfriend Trouble

Do any of you who have boyfriends ever wonder if it is going to work out? That is what I am going through right now. I mean, my boyfriend is great, but we are so far apart. I just don't know how this is going to work. I knew him for like a year before I started dating him, but I had only really seen him for 4 days before I actually accepted his request to be his girlfriend. I know that is confusing so I will break it down for you.

We met at my uncle's place last Christmas. I was visiting and my cousin had invited his friends over, so he was there. We saw each other for like four days and I kinda liked him. We didn't talk to each other for a long time, until this past summer we started texting each other, and then all of the sudden he asked me to be his girlfriend. I was a girl craving male attention, so what did I do?? I of course said yes. When we saw each other again I was super excited to see him and we hung out for about 5 days. After that I had to go back home.

The thing is. He lives in Saskatchewan. I live in BC. So now I am going to college and he is back in Saskatchewan and he doesn't know if he wants to come out here next year for college and I know I can't go out there because I can't transfer my program. I really like him and all, but really, what am I supposed to do??? I keep asking myself and I even asked my oldest brother what I should do, and all he said was that I would know. I don't know if I want to stay with him forever or if I want to live my whole life with him. We have been dating for about a month and a half, and I am not sure what to do.

Do I continue going out, or do I be honest with him? I am so scared to hurt his feelings. I know that at this point he likes me more than I like him, but I am not sure that being in a relationship is what is best for me right now. I am honestly trying to discover myself here at bible college, so how am I supposed to be in a relationship with someone and trust them not to hurt me, when I am not sure who I am myself. Am I acting, or is that me? I don't know!

Another thing is that I am a very physical person. I like to be able to see the person in front of me, and I like to be able to cuddle. How am I supposed to survive without having them there? I am really struggling and honestly don't know what to do.

Relationship issues,
Not-So-Princess Lizzy

2 - Fair lady

Why oh why? I sat in my car fuming. How could Jason assume that he owns me. He hasn’t even been around for 4 

years. You can’t forget Craig. He thinks that I am single after meeting me two minutes before.

“Is there something wrong with me?” I whisper to Shelly, my car, but jump when I hear a knock on the window. There stood Jason, looking a bit contrite I notice satisfactorily. Maybe he learned his lesson. I gripped the window wheel and attempted to crank the window down, only gaining an inch. “Yes?” I question.

“Can I talk to you Jess? I haven’t seen you in 4 years except in pictures, and those don’t do you justice.”

I bit my lip, pondering the request, crank the window back up and reach across to the passenger side to unlock the door. Jason gave me his huge grin, something that I had definitely missed while he was gone and almost leaped over the car in his hurry to get to the door. I winced as the door creaked open.

He glanced at me incredulously. “You still haven’t gotten it fixed have you?” he questioned as he stared at my shrinking form.

“Well I haven’t had the time or money. I am constantly watching Nate, and Dave isn’t paying me enough to buy anything extra. I tried to tell my brother that his sister deserved more than seven dollars an hour, but he told me that I haven’t even taken my babysitting course so he doesn’t complete trust me. My own brother!” I talked quickly to hide the frustration. Doesn’t someone deserve more than that from their own family?

Jason sighed and said, “Do you remember when I went with you to get this car? You were so excited that morning that you hadn’t brushed your hair, changed out of your pajamas or even grabbed your purse. I had to drive you back home just so you could get your wallet. You didn’t even ask any questions like if you could take a test drive. When we drove out of that parking lot the entire vehicle seemed to shake.” His vivid explanation brought me back to a place that I didn’t necessarily need to be in right at that moment.

“Thanks Jason, but no thanks. That didn’t help anything.”

“Alright. What was that deal there with that guy about; the cocky know-it-all that acted like he owned the place.”

“He has a name you know. Craig.” I could feel my eyes blurring as I dazed off into the distance. I could just see it. Craig and me; living together in a big old mansion with 4 kids and servants at our beck and call. The flower gardens surrounding the house and the most massive kitchen in the entire world, the best for making cookies and choc---“

A hand was waving in front of my face. “Earth to Jessica Spring, anyone in there?”

Gosh. Why did he have to be so immature? Like it wasn’t like I was being unreasonable. Ok maybe a little, but still, what girl doesn’t dream about their drop-dead-gorgeous future children that didn’t look anything like them except for maybe the golden blond, luscious hair. Never mind. The kids would just have Craig’s thick black hair and tan body. His toned biseps and perfectly symmetrical face. His chiselled jaw and maybe ev—

“Jessica, would you just listen to me?” I could here the exasperation creeping into his voice. I don’t even know what his problem is. Seriously. He leaves for four years and expects us to be best friends and for me to tell him about the hot guy I bump into at Wal-Mart? Get real

“I’ve been trying to say is that I am sorry.” What! Jason never says sorry. At the most he admits that he made a lapse in judgement, like the time we went downhill skiing and took a massive jump and fell on top of me. Let’s just say I went up healthy and left with a broken arm, leg and even a bandaged head. He couldn’t have just said he was sorry.

Jason, what is going on? I mean you see me and you fly at the first guy that shows an interest in me. Do you know how hard it is? People never go out with me, I screamed in my head. Is it any wonder, not only am I ugly, but I don’t have a steady job, a decent car, or a functional family that anyone would like to be related to, let alone to know. My mother is a hoarder, meaning no one wants to see her house. My brother doesn’t know what is appropriate to speak about in public, and my dad. Being the town drunk doesn’t put you on anyone’s best friend list.

I stare at Jason and take 3 deep breathes. In, out. In, out. In, out. “Jason, I am not your girl.”

“That is right,” a look of astonishment crossed his face. “I can’t believe I said that, you aren’t my girl, you are my fair lady and I had to come and save you from the evil dragon.” A grin crossed his face and he said, “I have missed you Jess.”

A small giggle almost emitted from my mouth, so I tried to hide it with a gruff, “Me too.”

I turned in my seat as Jason reached across the console and gave me a hug, a real one rather than one while we were struggling to pick ourselves up off the floor. At that thought I smiled, a full blown smile. I sure did miss this man.

It was a long moment before I gasped, “Jason, my earring is caught on your shirt and it is pulling.” From the look on his face, he was surprised I was wearing any jewellery at all.

“Since when did you start to wear jewellery,” he pondered out loud as he unhooked the earring. I saw the look of astonishment on his face. “You are wearing the earrings I sent you in the mail from Egypt.” He grinned as he said it.

“Well, I... I liked them,” I managed to gasp out as I felt a blush creeping up my neck.

I ducked my head and risked a glance to my right, not even sure about why I was embarrassed. What was going on with me? I never blushed!

Journalling, a Discipline

So, for a college class called "Spiritual Formation and Discipleship" I am required to write a journal entry about my spiritual formation. I guess what I am trying to say is I am sorry, but I have to do this, so if you don't want to read it, that is completely fine.

As most of you know, I am a bookaholic. I tend to read a lot and have actually gone overboard with reading. When I was in grade 10 I read a book a day, and I don't mean like 100 pages, but around 300 page books. That is not healthy. What I am saying is that due to my excessive reading, I never really read my bible. I comforted myself with the fact that the majority of the novels were Christian Inspirational books. Don't get me wrong, reading is absolutely a good habit to get into, but not do the extent I was. I couldn't sleep without reading at least a page in my book, and once I read a page I couldn't put it down. I would read to the early hours of the morning. I am not proud of how I acted, and at times I let my studies drop because I was reading to much.

What any of this has to do with spiritual formation, well, I let fiction get in the way of my bible. I would try to do my devotions, but I have to admit, reading my bible is way less thrilling as my books were at that point in time. I couldn't get past the long lists and the way they were written. Yes they were stories, but they were written in a form that was unlike a novel. They didn't have much description and very little dialogue, just the decisions people made and the results of those choices. Not very interesting right? So I guess that reading got in the way of my relationship with Christ and my journey in learning more about him and what he means to me.

My life is full of pit-falls and struggles, and most of it I will share later on in some other posts, but God has been there through it all. There have been moments when I felt like throwing it all down and walking away because I couldn't see what he was doing to my life. When I feel like that God reminds me of a poem.

Footprints

One night a man had a dream.

He dreamed he was walking along the beach with the Lord.

Across the sky flashed scenes from his life. 

For each scene, he noted two sets of footprints in the sand:

one belonged to him and the other to the Lord.

When the last scene of his life flashed before him, 

h looked back at the footprints in the sand.

He noticed that many times along the path of his life there was only one set of footprints.

He also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times in his life. 

This really bothered him and he questioned the Lord about it.

"Lord, You said that once I decided to follow You,

You'd walk with  me all the way.

But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life, 

there is only one set of footprints.

I don't understand why when I needed You most You would leave me."

The Lord replied,

"My son, my precious child, I love you and would never leave you. 

During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints,

IT WAS THEN THAT I CARRIED YOU."

I know that God has been there in my life. Now that I look back I can see the whole picture and know that the only reason I made it through those situations was because he carried me. I would not have survived on my own. When I really needed him I would pray and somehow, somewhere, I knew that God would change me, change my life for the better in the end even if it didn't feel like it. At one point I felt so low that I temporarily considered taking pills and ending my suffering I could literally see God's hands reaching down and lifting me off of the floor!! Totally a Lord of the Rings moment. 

I continue to struggle with keeping in God's word, but I now find it much more interesting and intriguing than I did a few years ago. I just have to pray that God will give me the strength continue to seek his presence. I desperately need God's presence in my life, and I will not make it on my own. My struggle will be to continue to seek him when I am busy or just don't feel like it. I am praying that He wont let me do that, but will keep me in his hand, encouraging me to follow after him. I know that there will be other disciplines that I will have to learn to practice, and this is only one of them, so I don't know how well I will do at learning other things. I will try new things, and I think that it will be difficult trying new things when I may not feel like it.

Writing Her Feelings,
Not-So-Princess Lizzie

Chapter 1 – Superman + Barbie

“Ugh, where is it?” I scrambled through my bag while standing in the middle of an aisle in Wal-Mart, searching for the one thing that was evading me. My clashy gold metallic purse hung off one shoulder as I struggled to search through it and I almost threw it down in frustration. Pens, wallet, glue, tape, brush, makeup, buttons, toothpicks, and a Lego man. No phone. “Where is it?” 

As I fought a losing battle with my hand bag, it tipped upside down and out flew everything, including the elusive phone. “I don’t have time for this,” I gasped through clenched teeth, scooping up everything within my reach, dropping it within my purse. As I reached for the last item, I saw a hand reach it before me, speaking before I could.

“Excuse me ma’am. Do you need any help?”

I glanced up, wishing that I had worn something other than my daytime rags. It was my day off and I hadn’t gone through the trouble of changing out of my superman pajama shorts and Barbie tank top. The temperature was at all time highs and I didn’t see the purpose of wearing regular clothes when you weren’t going to work. In front of me stood a man with the name tag “Craig” from Delmonico’s on his shirt.

“Ummmmm,” I stuttered as I stared. Things like this just didn’t happen to me. Craig grinned down at me, with that knowing smile. He was drop dead gorgeous. I know that that is so cliché, but it was so true. There stood my dream come true. He was way too cocky, but hey, no one noticed me, let alone handsome men.

Note to myself: never wear pajamas to go shopping anymore, especially in Wal-Mart, because who knew who you will meet.

I was turning 22 in 2 weeks, and was not looking forwards to it. I didn’t have any men in my life besides my best friends Buck and Jason, and you couldn’t really count them. I had known Buck since grade school and there was nothing better than having another freak to help you through high school. ‘The Walking Dictionary,’ or ‘Dictionary’ for short was my name. I could still remember those days and I had struggled to forget and move on, unfortunately Buck changed very little besides removing the geek clothing, including the pocket protector thankfully.

I realized that I was still sprawled across the floor looking like road kill and I could feel my face visibly flare up. He reached down with his free hand and helped me to my feet. I couldn’t help but feel the warmth in his grip, warm and strong, but not overly crushing, just perfect. I really did not understand why some men found that they had to destroy your hand just to seem manly.

“Hi, my name is Craig. I saw you and figured you might need some help.”

“Thank you so much. I couldn’t find my phone, and that was my mom calling. She set “When I grow up” as her ringtone on my phone. She usually thinks that she is still super young and…” Ugh. I realized I was blabbing. I did this all the time when I met hot guys and they pretty much never talked to me ever again. “Sorry, I was blabbing. Anyways, thank you. My purse is way too full of junk. Like they always say, everything but the kitchen sink, only mine has that too.”

Why I can never seem to be able to talk like a normal human being when I am around men is beyond me. I tried not to grimace as I stopped talking, but much to my surprise, he didn’t even look at me weird. It has got to have been a first, and that was when I realized that I hadn’t introduced myself. I had to use willpower to not knock myself up the head.

“Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself, my name is Jessica. What’s yours?” Once again, I just couldn’t seem to control my tongue. I knew he had introduced himself; I just couldn’t keep the words in my mouth. “Thank you, I just have to hurry because I am late for nephew. My brother is mad at me because I keep forgetting to pick him up, or I am just super late so he has to wait for me.”

My eyes boggle as he grinned. He actually grinned!! No guy ever grins at me, let alone one with a dimple on one side. This has got to be my lucky day, thank you God!

“Can I ever see you again?” Craig asks

“Ummm,” I stammered, “I’m not supposed to give my number to strangers so.” There goes his dimple again. “But, I am pretty sure that if God wants it to be so, he will plan for us to bump into each other.” Finally, I got what I wanted to say out. If he wants to know me, he has to know all of me.

“You believe in God?”

“Yeah. He has saved me from a lot of deep pits that I had tried clawing out of, but all he had to do was fly over with his spaceship, zap me up, heal my cuts and bruises, give me a hug and send me on back down to earth.”

“You have a really strange way of looking at things.”

“I suppose,” I laughed out. I seemed to get that a lot from guys, right before they dumped me. Well, not technically dumped, because, they didn’t even try to go out with me. They just dropped my like a hot potato.

I suddenly remembered Nate, my nephew, and hurriedly glanced down at my phone. Five minutes late. My mom was going to kill me. This was my last chance to get back into her good graces. I sighed and realized that I had missed what he had just said. “Pardon,” I blurted out.

“Well,” he restated, “I was wondering if you wanted my number. This is my cell number.” He grabbed a business card out of his pants pocket and said, “Do you happen to have a pen on you?”

I scrambled around my purse for a couple of seconds before my favourite pink My Little Pony pen came into view at the bottom of the bag. I snatched it up, only I moved my hand too quickly and the pen went flying across the room. Could this day get any worse, I wondered as the pen skittered across the tiled floor and under a clothing rack. I looked up at Mr. Perfect, and wished that I hadn’t met him under these absolutely ridiculous circumstances.

He laughed and said, “It’s alright, can I just see your phone?”
I swear that I had never given my phone to anyone I didn’t know, but he quickly typed something down and handed it back. I hadn’t seen my hand shake that much since twelfth grade and was asked to prom, as I took the bedazzled phone from him and slipped it into my purse.

I felt a touch on my shoulder and a deep voice says, “Hey Jess, I see you still like superman and Barbie.”I quickly turned and squealed. There stood before me my brother’s best friend from high school. 5 years ago we had become great friends, but he ended up having to travel to Egypt on an excavation, and hadn’t seen him since. Until now.

Before me stood Jason, one of my two greatest and truest friends. His arms opened wide and I crashed right into him, bringing us tumbling to the floor. He laughed and helped me to my feet.

I laughed again and squeezed even tighter. I could see his gaze was on something else when I looked in his face. I turned to look behind me and that was when I remembered Craig, the hot guy that I had been minutes before gushing over and making myself look like a fool. My neck start to burn and I could feel the heat quickly travel up to my face. I had once again accomplished to look like a complete dweeb.

“Hey Jess, who is this?”

“Ummm, this is a guy I just recently met while I was looking like I was trying to sleep on the floor.” I glanced at Craig, and weirdly enough, he laughed. Guys never laughed at something I said except for Jason and Buck, and they were kind of didn’t count.

“Hi, I’m Craig. It’s nice to meet you.”

Jason reached out his hand and shook Craig’s. “I’m Jason. I see you have met my girl,” he said with a little hint of protectiveness.

Why he had to say something like that I don’t know. Maybe he was being all protective or something, but I could see Craig’s eyes visibly widen as he said, “I was under the impression that Jessica wasn’t dating anyone.”

Oh no. I knew this was going to get ugly. Before Jason could
reply I stepped in. “Excuse me people. I am here you know. Jason, back off, you haven’t been here for 4 years, don’t expect to just become my protector again. And Craig, I would appreciate it if you would ask me if I was free instead of assuming. Yeah, I don’t normally collect phone numbers from anyone I meet, but that doesn’t mean that I want to date you.”

I couldn’t believe I had just said that. I could feel a migraine forming between my eyes and I resisted the urge to rub my head. Here was another example of me being my normal ridiculous self.
The look of shock crossed their faces and before they could even blink I moved out of Jason’s grasp, and stalked out of Wal-Mart. 

Overloaded

I recently got all of my homework for college. Wow. That is so freaky!

Yes, I know that all of these projects are for a span of time, it just seems like so much to do in such a short amount of time! I scheduled it and it is just so frustrating to have to figure out when things are due and how much time I should put into them all. I am glad that I have it all outlined now.

If any of you have ever gone to college you know what this feels like. OVERLOADED!!! I just don't even know anymore. I look at my calender and I have so much to do it is freaking me out! Although it may not actually be that much, it sure seems like it and no matter how much I work in a day, I never get it all done! :S

I don't know if you guys have ever been so tired that you fell asleep doing homework, well that happened to me last night. I was just chugging away when I laid my head down and bam, I wake up half an hour later and know that I need to get my sleep. So not cool!! :S I recommend that you all get your sleep when you are at college, otherwise when 7 pm rolls around, you don't feel like doing anything but climbing in your uncomforted bed and sleeping for 10 hours straight. And this sucks even more when you have a job. I recently got a job as the cashier here at college. It is great, but it also is terrible because I don't have any more freedom, I have less. Yes I have money, but I have absolutely no free time now, when before I had a little bit, but not much,. This is greatly frustrating and I wish that I coudl just slow eerthing down and get all my work done in the first two weeks of school! Oh well.

So advice for those out there in grade 12 or younger. Be happy! Enjoy your last couple years of freedom. You will need it!

Baggy Eyed

Not-So-Princess Lizzy

I am too young for this!!!

This has got to be the freakiest thing that I have ever done! I am in college!! Like that is just so weird. I have officially moved into dorm rooms at Columbia Bible College. I never really considered how different it would be. For now, I don't think it has really hit yet. I have just been kinda living it out here, but it feels almost like I am at camp and I will go home soon.

I am not sure how long it will take for it to be more real. Unfortunately though I have some issues to figure out with financial stuff. I am not going to bore you all to tears with the boring sad details. It will hopefully get sorted out in the next day or two, but if not, I definitely need some prayer... but you if you aren't a prayer person, that is fine. I know that some people are totally against religion, and I have to say, so am I, but that is for another conversation.

Back to my dorm. I have an awesome dorm buddy. Her name is Jessica and she is the sweetest person alive. Strangely enough we have a lot alike, which is really nice. The coolest thing happened. Her uncle called her and said he was getting her a fridge, so now we have a fridge in our dorm! So I know that I am totally being lame and boring. Sorry about that.

Living in dorm has been so much fun so far, and I am looking forwards to the rest of the year though. Totally a strange experience, but one that I would not change for the world.

So SKYPE has become my new best friend. It is pretty awesome. Due to the fact that I have a long distance relationship with my boyfriend I will be using it a lot. Unfortunately the internet has been acting up. I hate it when it does that. Why do they have wireless if it will take forever to fix itself?? (so frustrating) But enough complaining. SKYPE is so nice to have, and if any of you ever are long distance from someone it is great because it doesn't cost anything and you get to see them. Although it is not as good as actually seeing them, it is still pretty cool.

So I am super tired and there have been so many orientation things the last couple days that I am exhausted. I will talk to you later.

Baggy-eyed

Not-So-Princess Lizzy