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penguininice
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Name: Sarah
Country: United States
State: Georgia
Metro: Atlanta
Birthday: 11/27/1984
Gender: Female
Interests: I'm the girl at the crossroads. I'm ready to go where my Father leads me, but am still driven by my own desires. I see the passion he's given me, and I long to use it to serve him and his children. I thank him for the massive growth I've experienced these last few years of my life, even the pains that came along with it, which were at times, unbearable. I can't wait to see where he leads me. I long to be blessed with a husband and family someday, but I have trouble being patient sometimes. Yet he has never let me down and never will.
Expertise: giggling, being awkward, making a fool of myself, being mellow and friendly, yet always wondering what others think of me
Occupation: Student
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
AIM:  seen from stars
MSN: penguininice@msn.com
Yahoo:  hellomoon30
Member Since:
2/25/2003
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| Wow.
I just found this xanga.
It's been forever.....
Maybe I'll start writing in it again.
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| so...
what's the deal with movies today being just 2 hour long pieces of art? i mean like..it's like watching a painting that's moving...
the colors and camera shots are gorgeous..and i love it...but what ever happened to depth, layers, plot, intelligent dialogue?
i guess its not a big deal, i guess a sistah just needs to be warned before she goes to spend 8$ on a moving painting...
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| so...just thinking...
life is SO short...why do we constantly live for the future, without really living today?
why do we fixate on "someday" instead of truly living now?
what does truly living now look like?
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| "We were created by a relational God to enjoy relationship, first with him, then with others. We were designed to love, so we were given the capacity to receive and give the love our Creator watned us to enjoy. When we receive love from God then give love to others, our soul is healthy. We are living according to design.
Everyone enters this world with a primary motivation to recieve love and to give love in relationships, and when that happens, a deep sense of well-being develops. But there's a problem. Something's gone wrong, badly wrong, with our capacity to enjoy love.
We do no naturally trust God's love. We no longer see him as the sun arund which all the planets revolve. We fail to honor God by abandoning oursleves to him with full confidence that his love will fill our soul. We've lost our appetite for God. So now we're in a pickle. Because we've withdrawn from God to eat somehwere else, God has withdrawn from us. He respects our freedom to not want him. If we instead want our own way, God will let us have it. So we eat in a pigpen and think we're at a country club enjoying the richest of fare. We're served slop and enjoy it as though it were a fine dining experience. The result is that we do not experience the joy of communion with God.
When we do not receive what we believe we need, we feel pain--deep, personal, soul-wrenching disappointment. When we do get what we're after--health, money, golf memberships, great family, applauded ministry--we still feel, in our quietest moments, an agonizing emptiness. Nothing matters more than relieving that pain and filling that emptiness. we are ruled by the consuming passion self-need. To use Augustine's phrase, we are completely caved in on ourselves.
A spirit of entitlement develops. We silently communicate to whomever listening, 'Look! I'm miserable, scared, and empty. I need to be loved. I need to feel worthwhile.' But there's no one we can count on to hear and respond. Only God has the love we need, yet we've turned away from him, except to demand convenient instructions and cooperative help. So we manage every relational encounter with self-need as our ultimate value. We talk about topics we can handle. We try to build our mate's self-esteem so we can feel good about ourselves. We pout so friends will ask what's wrong. We tell jokes to keep from revealing loneliness. Self-need plus self-management, a spirit of entitlement and an attitude of independence, become the foundation of our lives, the bottom layer of ice. We become hopelessly religious.
Without Jesus, that's it. There is no sunken treasure. The iceberg rests on dirt. There is no opposing motivation beneath self-need and self-management. Religion is the bottom line.
But look deeper. By faith believe what the bible says. Our rebellion has been forgiven, though our self-need and self-management remain. Beneath all its ugliness, however, is a restored capacity to enjoy God's love. We now have an appitite for him. We're now capable of enjoying him as our supreme prize.
Call that renewed capacity soul-thirst. And call our newly granted power to abandon ourselves to him soul-trust. Soul-thirst competes with self-need. Soul-trust opposes self-management.
Now here's the point. The bottom layer of ice is melted only by the heat of brokenness. Nothing else is hot enough. When we see our self-centeredness and hate it the power beneath the iceberg begins to flow into our personalities, melting the ice as it surges upward. Brokenness relases the holy passino lying dormant in the depths of our soul. And when it reaches our tongue we speak soul-talk. We speak out of a satisfied appetite for God."
- Do I manipulate or minister?
-Am I bolstering my sense of well-being when I speak with you, or am I eager to bolster yours?
-Do I see to it I never look bad, or do I provide the safety for someone else to look bad in the presence of grace?
-Is everything else, including my desire to bless you and to see you doing well, a secon dthing to my first-thing desire for God?
This is all from the book "Soultalk" by Larry Crabb
I'm actually taking a class he's teaching next weekend, and this book is just wonderful...
Thoughts?
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| so today was my final day of training at work...
it was lunch, it was packed, on a wait, craziness...
i was supposed to be observing the host behind the desk doing the wait, but people were telling me to do a million different things at once...
overall it's totally cool, totally understandable...the girls were nice enough to me...
but i was tired and my feet hurt and i was overwhelmed with information crammed into me, and then i had to do a "sit down" and get more information, and then another sit down and talk to a manager about the restaurant and how I think i did..(intimidating...), listening to his criticisms and what i need to do better, and iron my shirt, etc....(which is totally fine as well, just overwhelming)
so by the time i am allowed to leave, i'm so emotional, (for some reason) not upset, just emotional, that i had to almost run out of there because i was about to cry (which i barely ever ever do these days, so i was a little surpised at myself)
and as i'm walking out the door, the other host, ashley (who's in HS and was training me today) stops me and goes oh hey, are you a christian? i say oh yes! (a little taken aback...) and she smiles and goes i am too! i just became one about 2 mos ago! and i'm so excited about it!
and a little stunned i was like oh!wow that's so great!
and then we talked for a sec about churches and getting plugged in and stuff...
and i almost just hugged the girl right there on the spot (i should have)
because God chose that very moment, when i was about to cry from exhaustion and being overwhelmed with the weight of this world, to show me how awesome He is and how much He loves His children...
and i just lost it...i started crying right there..and the whole way home, just saying thank you God thank you for that...and for her...
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