Oh Dreams

I haven't been updating much 'cause summer is lazy/busy...

My One and my brother are dating. Weird? Yes.

Then I had a "real" dream last night, which is where I learn what my subconscious is thinkin' about. From what I remember, Josh Newman, Pasha, Jordan, Elinor, and I were all in a van with an African guy driving. I remember wanting to tell Newman about Elinor and Preston dating, but we couldn't find a time when everyone wasn't around. Then I made a comment about it to Elinor, and she got a lil' mad.

I learned from this that I need to give my brother's new relationship to God and not think about it, find time to hang out with Newman, and go to Africa to have an African drive me around in a van.

Faith...Good Stuff

This past weekend, I relaxed. That's basically what happened. I also made a lot of progress with my One. Her best friend left her at the Dart rail and was a jerk to her, and this somehow got her back to God. I think she's gonna be committed.

Tonight, we had a YFN weekend squeezed into a night, complete with Pastor Jaycee and Regeneration. High expectations? Always. Trish cut my hair before service, 'cause we both hate my rat-tail. She did awesome. Props to her.

I'm gonna just spill a few things God told me. First off, in my Bible reading beforehand, I was in Luke 4:32+36. It talked about how Jesus was teaching at the temple. It says twice that "the people were amazed at his teaching". "Why?" thought I. To start with, they were amazed because He spoke with authority. He knew His capabilities, 'cause He had been filled with the Holy Spirit. In verse 36, the people are amazed again. This time, it's after He casts out a demon. His teachings are now amazing not only 'cause of His authority, but because He's got power to back it up.

I went for the alter call to have my faith-to-faith-to-faith strengthened, 'cause I was at the point that I didn't believe I would get accepted into any university, or that the things I had been obeying God with were gonna really have His ideal end result. I had a huge amount of doubt 'cause of Boston University, 'cause I had spoken it out in faith and felt like God had told me to go there. Then that whole deal fell through, my desire to go there with it. I was afraid to have faith that I would be accepted anywhere, lest I have a similar let-down happen again. But then God reminded me of something Pastor Benny Perez said. It's better to have faith in something and go down believing than to be doubting or uncertain about it. I think it's true. So I have faith that I'm going to UT.

During worship, I started thinking of an equation in Physics (don't worry, it relates). Energy is the ability to do work. Work requires displacement, or moving something to a new location. Power is a combination of all of these. It's the rate at which work happens. So, when Jesus worked in power, and when we work in power, it's energy causing a movement really quickly. When the apostles did deeds of power in Acts, their numbers grew by thousands. You know why? 'Cause the power of Jesus is a huge amount of energy moving hearts, minds, bodies, and spirits. It's science.

He also wants me to rewrite the angry letter I had written to Mr. Harber, apologizing for holding bitterness towards him, and making my points in a more kindly manner.

Good Monday To You, Sir

I'm feeling incredible right now. Here's what happened, a'ight? I was asking God the other day what on earth to do about my One. I kept hearing the song from Jason Upton's cd where he sings, "And they'll know we are Christians by our love." I was like, "But God, they already know that I'm a Christian. I've already informed them of this," but the song kept coming back to me.

So today, I woke up to my alarm (there's a wonder in itself) and went to Starbucks to get some AIDS coffee (5 cents goes to AIDS kids). I got one for me and one for my One, and also a bag of Flaming Hot Cheatos. I left the coffee in my One's locker, the Cheatos in Sydney's locker, and wrote notes about Paradigm on each of them. I also texted Jordan and informed him about how good the day will be if he gives it and any discouragement that comes with it to God, and he was excited too. My One and Sydney were both overjoyed to get gifts out of the blue. My One texted me later that she'll go to Paradigm after school gets out.

Galations 5:6b, "The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love."

Throughout the day, I felt a lot like I did last year. I'm pretty dern excited.

Pop-Ups And God On The Brain

I was watching Heroes online, and my internet was being crappy, so the video was choppy. I'm an American, and don't approve of this, so I Googled for a website that would play it better. I found such a website, but it had the "?" that my computer uses to tell me whether a website is good or bad. I now have pop-ups. They mostly use internet explorer, which I hate anyway, but when I clicked to delete it, it resurrected itself. Creepy, huh? It's been too long since I've had computer problems.

I got a detention today. They had a locker check and apparently empty water bottles are prohibited. I'll be taking all of my finals this year.

My One frustrates me. I wish I could know if she's joking about Christianity or if she's anywhere near serious.

I have research to do over break. Mr. Beaumont loaned me like six books on Alexander Pope, who I'm doing my poet research paper on, and he expects it to be way hard. I also have to read Dr. Seuss biographies and make notecards on his stuff.

I don't like to look to the past all the time, but today I was thinking about those men of God, well-known pastors and evangelists, who have God on the brain at all times. Their focus is totally on God, and He makes it into every part of their lives. I got pretty dern close to living that way last year. I wanna be like that again, except without doing harm to my body.

I sound frustrated as of late, don't I?

Big Brother Trouble

That Sunday night after the retreat, I was up till 4:30 AM doing homework and such, but God energized me. When I got to school, my One told the class (before the teacher got there) that she had quit smoking. Also, I had been praying for some guys (mainly Chad R.) to show off some Christian, and I was able to see it in him with the way he talked. That night, I began accountability with Alex, and he tends to rock out on guitar when he has his Word time.

The following day, I talked to my One when we both had a free period, and she and I talked about God-stuff. I told her about how I get upset at God occasionally, and it was a good talk. Then Caleb had to work late, so I stayed at home and dilly-dallied till it was time to go. Unfortunately, it was at this exact time that my dad decided that I needed to pick up some branches from the yard that he had trimmed. This was an hour's work, so I spent twenty minutes on it, and he allowed me to go to Prototype on the condition that I would do the work at 9:00 AM on Saturday morning. I reluctantly agreed. Prototype was great, as usual.

Wednesday, I had some good Word time at church, all about the way Jesus coped with the death of John the Baptist (Matthew 14, I think). I loved it. Then came the service, and a wonderful thing happened. Like five junior highers came up to the front for worship, and went all out. I was basically thanking and praising God for that for the entirety of worship, 'cause that's what I've been desiring forever. At the end of worship, Pastor Nick asked if anyone had a Word from God, and like eight people came up, more than half junior highers. One talked about cussing, and I was convinced that I should never let foul words out of my mouth. I talked to Pastor Nick and John Penry about ghosts later on that night, and I got my final answers on it. ZING!

Thursday, if I remember correctly, I slept. Good stuff.

Friday, we had a prayer team get-together, so we all met up at the McBride's house after school. It was here that Jordan revealed his plans and their confirmations. Mrs. Horan, after seeing the effect of the One Voice retreat, wanted/wants to have our own school retreat. We talked a lot about this, then I went to get a new hoodie from Old Navy (despite it being from Old Navy, it's still good). Following this, I was off to the Harbor to have some night of worship. They had some latino mixed in, which I was grudgingly fine with. Pastor Nick and Caleb invited me to go to a new restaurant in Royce City afterwards, where I had an expensive steak dinner (I had to search through my car for enough money to afford it).

Saturday, I woke up at 9:00 AM (maybe 9:30...) and finished picking up the branches. I spent the rest of the day up till around 6:00 PM working on college applications (which, by the way, take FOREVER for me). Then I was off to Cameron's Halloween costume party at CFNI, where I dressed as Nelson from "Undercover Kids". I danced the night away. Fun was had.

Sunday, I got to church, we had an SL meeting, then we went to the Meisters' home and had some Mexican (once again, grudgingly latino). I forced them to watch "Undercover Kids", and it became a classic once again. I went home immediately after, showered, had some Word time, met with Shayna, and then we had our small group at the park. Those junior highers are loads of fun. That night, I decided to buckle down and get some test corrections done. I was up for much of the night. I also became inspired in the middle of the night to write my essay for college applications on a completely different subject from what I had been planning to write on. Sound like God? Let's hope so.

Monday (yesterday), I showed the essay around, and it got widespread approval from the few I showed it to. Pastor Nick came and taught the Connect class, and he was great, but I have to discipline now by writing down the names of the talkers. How horrible! I went home after that, added to my essay, and worked at trying to understand Pre-Cal. False hope there. I also asked Alex if he wanted to go to Early Morning Prayer, and he said "yeah", which I wasn't expecting, so my courteous questioning recruited me to wake up early. It was good though.

If you start your mind out like that, it makes your head very clear afterward. This is good, 'cause I had to write an essay for Dual-Credit in first period. Unfortunately, I found out in Physics that Mr. Harber wouldn't accept the corrected test I had finished Sunday night (it took an hour or two), as it was late. That was funny *gritted teeth*. But really, grades are God's job. I'm just doing what I can to pitch in. The junior highers at school are loving me. Every time I see them, they all go in for a high-five and make some joke. It's good. Anyway, I have a test over Pre-Cal, and I still don't understand the concepts in the slightest. Joy!

Oh, and pray for my brother, Preston. He's what the Bible would call "shiftless". He doesn't have a passion or drive, so he's being lazy.

iTunes has flaws. Does this mean that Macs do?

Wednesday night, I had bought that video game, so I spent Thursday after school being a geek, playing the Wii since I had no homework. I beat the game that night. What a waste of cash! Maybe I can sell it back for a good price since it's still new? So, Friday was a pretty average day, except that during break there were doughnuts for everyone (no explanation as to who or why). Following that, I went home and wasted time, then, when it was time to go to The Sociables (a geeky men's discipleship group), I was dead tired, so I went to sleep at 7:00 PM.

I woke up at 9:00 AM (is this a record for me?), and spent the majority of the day looking at various colleges online. University of Washington is lookin' pretty good to me (GC might be an influence). At around 5:30 PM, Cameron called me up and told me he was in town, so we went to Ghost Town, which was good. I haven't hung out with Cameron enough lately, 'cause the first thing he said after the movie was that it wouldn't have been any good without that lead actor (who was the same as the boss on the British Office). This was true.

The following day, we had an Upgrade meeting where we talked about the structure of our small groups and Paradigm and such, and then the SLs who were picked to help with small groups were asked to stand up. His words were "We also asked a few of the older SLs to help lead, too." I was pretty bitter about it, knowing that I was the oldest of the SLs, but I also had the voice of wisdom in my head telling me to shut up. I talked with Newman (second time in a row) during the prayer time, and it turns out that just about everyone is having a hard time with their Ones, so there's some encouragement. I went to WaffleHouse with Cameron after that, then to Wal*Mart, where I bought a new bandanna (but I haven't been sporting it 'cause people have been complimenting my hair too much lately). On my way home, I demanded answers for why I wasn't picked to help lead a small group (demanding of God, not pastors or anyone like that). Unhappy with the sensible replies, I continued to be mad at God, and ended up taking an angry nap until our media meeting. Of course, the media meeting was glorious, and we made what looks like a potentially fantastic promo for small groups (no shifting gears in cars this time). I talked to a few people, namely Sarah Massie (still don't know if I'm spelling that right) and Katie about my God-anger, and, naturally, they both gave me sound advice, which I halfway accepted as I went to sleep.

This morning, a Monday, I patched things up with God on the way to school ('cause Mondays can be crap if you don't have God there helping you). Ol' flappy mouth had horrible allergies today, so his eyes were flappy too. This kept him out of class more, which made my time more endurable. I asked my One (through calculator, of course) if she could come on our retreat, but she is gonna be at A&M that weekend, so I'm gonna have to try to get her back to Jesus without a huge retreat doing all the work (I know that that's exaggerating, but still). Then, just as my study hall was ending, a wondrous thing happened. I FINISHED THE OLD TESTAMENT! All the way through. I have read the entirety of the Bible now. Time to refresh on the fun parts. In the Connect class, Mr. Pryor told me that I could teach for three weeks while he was gone, and I immediately volunteered. On my way home, I texted with my One about Heroes, then I texted about God, and didn't get a reply. When I got home, I got my lil' bit of homework done, then watched Heroes, which was pretty dern good. Besides the bits of inappropriate things. Then Alyssa Kay-- or, should I say, Claire Bennett, and I talked for awhile about dating, my God-anger-problems, and the like. Lastly, iTunes said that I had $1.05 left on my account, so I went to buy a song, but then it tried to get me to put in credit card information, and now my iTunes account is gone and my $1.05 is missing. I wanted that song. I emailed them about it. Maybe hope is on the horizon?