Oh yeah- Lent is over!

I almost forgot to post my last Lent entries!
Also, I'm not sure when the Easter entry will make its LJ appearance. We don't have our own internet at the moment; I am currently bunnyhopping my neighbors' Linksys, and the signal keeps going in and out, which is suck and makes is super hard to upload photobucket pics for the html codes.

Anyway, here are a few things:

Lent Day 36 (Tuesday, April 7)
My dad told me a story the other day. I liked it so much that I googled it, and decided to document it for myself, and share it with you:

---As part of his search, (John Kavanaugh) volunteered to work for three months at "The House of the Dying" in Calcutta, India, a place founded by Mother Teresa. The very first morning he was there, Kavanaugh met Mother Teresa. She asked him, “What can I do for you?” He paused to think and then asked that she pray for him. “What do you want me to pray for?” she wondered. “Pray," he said, "that I have clarity.” Her abrupt response took him aback. “No," she told him, "I will not do that.” When he asked why not, she told him, “Clarity is the last thing you are clinging to and must let go of.” When Mr. Kavanaugh observed that she seemed to have the kind of clarity he wanted, she laughed out loud and told him, “I have never had clarity; what I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust God.”---

Why is it so easy to forget that we lean not on our own understanding? We burden ourselves with trying to figure it all out and know exactly what we are “meant” to do…

“Many a Christian worker has left Jesus Christ alone and gone into work from a sense of duty […] The reason for this is the absence of the resurrection life of Jesus. The soul has got out of intimate contact with God by leaning to its own religious understanding.”

Lent Day 39 (Friday, April 10)
UGH, I am having the most terrible time choosing a BOY name! I tossed around the idea of Kyran, but Kyran sounds so….. I don’t know, untraditional. Perhaps because I completely made it up. I am a huge fan of traditional boy names (how my son came to be Adryel, I still have no clue. Ben prophesied it, so I blame him. However, Adry’s first name IS Benjamin), but ALL of the traditional boy names I love have been taken. Jacob- brother. Matthew- brother. Timothy- dad and brother. Caleb- cousin. Michael- mom’s dad and brother. Christopher- every other kid on the planet. SO, I decided to look up traditional biblical boy names and came across a few I thought were different, and maybe grow-on-me worthy:

Javan
Tobias
Elijah/Eli
…….and I’ll keep Kyran on the list.
I also like Cillian (but it reminds me of the beer- boo!), Jayden (but it is sooo trendy), Silas, Micah.

Dang you, boys names! Why do you have to be so hard?! I need to just have 4 more girls. I love all my girl names.

GIVE ME some of your favorite boy names!!




My mom got Adry this OSU hat, and I think he looks cute in it. Now if we can just get him to keep it on.

A Little Piece of William Barclay on the Kingdom of Heaven

Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like the Merchant who was seeking goodly pearls.  When he had found a very valuable pearl he went away and sold everything he had, nad bought it.  (Matthew 13:45,46)

 "Let us remember what the Kingdom of Heaven is.  To be in the Kingdom is to accept and to do the will of God.  That is to say, to do the will of God is no grim, gray, agonizing thing; it is a lovely thing.  Beyond the discipline, beyond the sacrifice, beyond the self-denial, beyond the cross, there lies the supreme loveliness which is nowhere else.  There is only one way to bring peace to the heart, joy to the mind, beauty to the life, and that is to accept and to do the will of God.
It is suggestive to find that there are many pearls, but there is only one pearl of great price.  That is to say, there are many fine things in this world, and there are many things in which a man can find loveliness.  He can find loveliness in knowledge and in the reaches of the human mind, in art and music and literature and all the triumphs of the human spirit; he can find loveliness in serving his fellow-men, even if that service springs from humanitarian rather than from purely Christian motives; he can find loveliness in human relationships.  These are all lovely, but they are lesser lovelinesses.  The supreme beauty lies in the acceptance of the will of God.  This is not to belittle the other things; they too are pearls; but the supreme pearl is the willing obedience which makes us friends of God."
-William Barclay

I just went to take a drink of lemonade and completely missed my mouth.  I was a few centimeters shy.
Isn't that supposed to be something humans instinctively know how to do?
Aren't our hands and brain supposed to be coordinated in such a way that we can drink without looking at or feeling our mouths to make sure we are hitting the right spot?
Apparently I am dysfunctional.

Also, it is January 21st (my MOM'S BIRTHDAY, BTW!!-- HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOMMA!!!!) and I still have my Christmas decorations up.  Talk about being lazy and procrastinating!  I promised myself I would get that done today.

"And now for something completely different:"

I've been thinking lately that there are areas in my life I need to shape up. prune. refine. whatever.
1) I recently noticed I am in a spiritual rut.  Big time.  I'm walking into a glass door over and over and it's getting me nowhere.  I am BORED.  I am bored as heck with church.  I can't stand to wake up and go anymore (but I do).  I am even bored with reading my daily William Barclay.  I LOVE Barclay, but I've been skipping out on him a lot, lately.  I am bored with praying- I feel like me and God are at that stage where we are an old couple completely used to each other, but we try to set a date at a nice restaurant to spend time together and we just end up sitting there in silence because there just isn't much to say.
I need REVIVAL!!!

"I concede, my love, that I need your love
I'm before you, a broken man.
And it's only you, no substitutes, who can renew this soul again...
I'd rather burn for you than fade away,
I'd rather burn for you than go my way."
-Toby Mac

2) I need to STOP WORRYING! 
I think way too much about what has gone wrong and what could go wrong.

3) I need to FORGIVE MYSELF! 
I blame myself for a LOT.
I am afraid that if there is anything wrong with Adry I will blame myself for the rest of my life.
I will blame myself for not eating the best I could,
or for not going to the dentist or the Gastro Paresis specialist on time,
or for not controlling my blood sugar well enough,
or for forgetting my vitamins sometimes,
or for playing music too loud,
or taking too hot of showers,
or breathing too many cleaning chemicals,
or laying on my back and right side too often,
for not exercising,
or for dying my hair,
or for a THOUSAND other things I could have done better during pregnancy.

And yeah, maybe I could have done better.  Maybe I could have been more careful sometimes.  But I need to LET IT GO!  The past is the past and there's NOTHING I can change about it.  I can only move forward.  Of course I want everything PERFECT for Adry.  Of course I want him COMPLETELY healthy from head to toe.  Chances are, he'll be a perfectly happy and healthy baby boy, but if something happens to be "wrong" I know I'll have the strength to deal with it, tackle it one day at a time, and he'll still be by beautiful son NO MATTER WHAT and I need to find peace, faith, and assurance in that.
And, if anything happens to be "wrong", I so desperately need to not blame myself.
Let go. Move on. Grow. Strengthen. Seek beauty, faith, peace.

I need to focus on:
a REAL beauty,
a DEEPER truth,
an ACTIVE love,
what's REAL,
what's RIGHT,
and what's IMPORTANT.

So... I know what I need to do.
Now I just need to do it.

LoveJess

CHRISTMAS

I wondered about something lately...
And so I did what I always do when I wonder about something: I research, ask other people's opinions, put all my gathered information together, think about it...  and I have come to my conclusion!

Christmas: Christ's mass

Why do people who do not confess to believe in Jesus Christ celebrate Christmas, what does Christmas mean to them, and does the secular commercialism and political correctness of Christmas deminish what the holiday means to Christians?

Why "Christmas" is not just "Christian":The truth is, Christmas is a big jumble of both Christian and secular traditions including Germanic Pagan Solstice festivals , The Roman celebration of the birth of Saturn, and other winter festivals.  December 25th is the tradtitional date of the birth of Jesus Christ (not his actual birthdate), and has been since about AD 221, but was not celebrated as Jesus's birthday until 354.  Though set aside as the day to remember and celebrate Christ's birth, Christmas, from the beginning, incoorperated the pagan traditions and was a public festival.

Commercialism: My brother made me sad one day when he said, "Christmas doesn't mean that much to me because it's not about Christ anymore."  I think a lot of Christians feel that way- they feel robbed.  They feel that Christmas is theirs, and it has turned into such a commercial holiday that Christ is no longer the center or the meaning... the secular world has taken their holiday and attached its own meaning to it.  However, I believe that the commercialism of the season does NOT deminish what Christmas means to me because I don't allow it to.  I, along with millions of other Christians, set aside the Christmas season to remember, reflect on, and celebrate my belief that Jesus is the good news, the fulfillment of God's word, and that through a relationship with Him I know God.  Anyways, most Christians are guilty of celebrating their Christian holiday using secular traditions (gift giving, Santa Claus, evergreen trees...) and the secular world has every right to their winter festivities without including Christ in the mix.  I think that Christmas can only be Christian when Christians set it aside and make it that way.

Political Correctness:  This does bother me to a certain extent.  I don't like it when people purposely try to take "Christ" away from MY "Christmas"- (they can take Christ away from their Christmas, but not mine).  And NO, I'm not talking about "Xmas" seeing as how in Greek (the new Testament language), "X" is the first letter of "Christ", so "Xmas" is actually a Christian abbreviation for "CHRISTmas".  But I'm not about to tip-toe around the subject of Christ, cautious about what I say, because for me, He is what Chistmas is all about.  You can tell me, "Happy Holidays", that's fine, I won't be offended if that's what it is to you- a nameless holiday...  But I'm gunna turn around and say "MERRY FREAKIN' CHRISTMAS" and I hope YOU won't be offended, either :-).

You know how I LOVE A Charlie Brown Christmas! :-)