gettin old

today i saw an elderly man in walmart with an old fashioned walkman and headphones on, hobbling/dancing around and singing pretty loudly. he did not care one bit that people were staring at him...or that he looked like he was insane (maybe he was?). he was jammin' and smiling and singing. he had a twinkle in his eye. he looked happy.

it made me smile. i wanted to ask what he was listening to that made him want to dance and sing in walmart. it must have been something good. and i like that music can make people do things like that.

i spend a lot of my day hanging out with old people, or talking about old people, or thinking about old people. pretty much my job is to make sure they are happy and to find them a good volunteer friend. unfortunately, a lot of the old people are not happy. they are bitter and grumpy and ornery. and i don't want to be like that.

i hope to be like the old man at walmart...i hope i don't care one bit what people think of me...i hope i am happy with a twinkle in my eye...even if it means i have to be a little crazy.

beautiful words

"For thus says the Lord, the Holy one of Israel, 'In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength'...For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, 'This is the way, walk in it,' when you turn to the right or turn to the left...Moreover, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day when the Lord binds up the brokenness of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow...You shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept, and the gladness of heart, as when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel. And the Lord will cause his majestic voice to be heard..."
passages from Isaiah 30

Roundhouse kick to the face....

ever since someone sent me the cancer quote about chuck norris' tears...i have been a fan. so i found this really interesting:

"Chuck Norris' first column for WorldNetDaily consisted of yet another response. It began similarly to the above quote from chucknorris.com, but then disclaimed Norris' own prowess in favor of God and Jesus Christ.
In response to "There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live.", Norris said It's funny. It's cute. But here's what I really think about the theory of evolution: It's not real. It is not the way we got here. In fact, the life you see on this planet is really just a list of creatures God has allowed to live. We are not creations of random chance. We are not accidents. There is a God, a Creator, who made you and me. We were made in His image, which separates us from all other creatures.By the way, without him, I don't have any power. But with Him, the Bible tells me, I really can do all things – and so can you.[2]
In response to "Chuck Norris' tears can cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.", Norris said
"There was a man whose tears could cure cancer or any other disease, including the real cause of all diseases – sin. His blood did. His name was Jesus, not Chuck Norris.If your soul needs healing, the prescription you need is not Chuck Norris' tears, it's Jesus' blood."

who knew chuck norris was a christian? not me.

breathing

soooo.....
2006 was a little rough.

okay a lot rough. it started weird and ended weird. honestly, i'm glad its over, although i learned a WHOLE lot.

I experienced God in ways I didn't know was possible. I learned what it means to be loved well by your family and friends...and how everyone needs love like that. really and truly... if you are primarily concerned with loving other people (which means not thinking about ourselves so much)....it solves a lot of problems and answers a lot of questions. you want what is best for them....and whats best for them is more of Jesus.

despite all that...sometimes you just need a break...a little normalcy. and i feel like i have that for the moment.
i spent 2006 on a field on landmines. its like i was holding my breath for a whole year, afraid that if i relaxed then one more thing was going to explode under my feet.

i can breathe again.
my mom called me on the morning of new years day just to tell me that she thought 2006 "sucked" and 2007 was going to be "fabulous."

i think it will be.

christmas...

seems kind of a blur now.

for several reasons, it didn't feel all that much like a normal christmas....we were in a rental house...i had to work right up until the weekend...no trip for me and daddy to pick out a much too big tree for our house...no weeks of prepartory gingerbread baking with rachel...no christmas eve service...no fireside naps with our pets on the floor (it was 73 degrees).

now, i'm not complaining....even by my obsessive proverbial standards for holiday cheer, it wasn't a bad christmas by any means...just sort of weird.

some normal-cy was acheived when, as usual, our family complied with the unspoken southern rule that every holiday meal must contain: collard greens, congealed jello salad, and pecan pie. sort of like a food version of the trinity. yum.
and of course we had the usual hysterically funny comments from my family:

Nana: "I think the funniest hurricane was that one a while back...Hugo?"
BoDaddy: "There was nothing funny about that hurricane!....All those darn people from Charleston drove to Walterboro and bought all our bread!"
(you can see that, despite my grandpa's apparent 17 year grudge about the lack of carbohydrates left for the poor residents of the 'boro, they were both very concerned for everyone's well being during one of the worst storms to hit Charleston.)

this was the first christmas in a long time that our tree did not fall over. strange accidental tradition i know, but in recent years we have had to resort to tieing it to a door. and it didn't fall over because this year our tree was a 2 foot plastic one (gasp! in my eyes this was christmas blasphemy) that was perched atop the entertainment center along with all our presents due to the spaztic tail movements of our new puppy.

but despite all the weirdness, i still got so excited on christmas eve that i hardly slept at all. i LOVE christmas...and as long as i can remember i have always been the first one awake. in the middle of the night, i tiptoe out to the den to just look at the tree and the lights and just listen... to the silence.

christmas eve is always so quiet...so still. when i was little, i used to wake up to make 100% sure that yes, Santa had come and then I would go back to sleep happy....Now when i wake up, i sit in the dark and think about things....about my family...about the past year...about what was going through mary and joseph and everyone's minds thousands of years ago. about how they had no idea what their miracle in a cave really meant for the world.

and then i climb back in bed and try to sleep for a few hours until i hear the rustlings of someone else awake...fixing coffee...putting something good smelling in the oven....and then the craziness of christmas begins.

i hope you had a merry christmas.

alli's are smart

When I’m away from my source of peace
Something fills that space in me
And it feels like I don’t need you

It’s easy to get by
When I don’t even try to find the truth
Today I learned that faith
Is not to be obtained like a place I can go

--alli rogers

tie God up and put him in a little box

"The very scary thing about religion, to me, is that people actually believe God is who they think he is. By that I mean they have Him all figured out, mapped out...It makes me wonder if God created us in His image or if we created Him in ours." -donald miller



hmmm...interesting that we often create ridiculously screwed up, although usually convenient, versions of God in our heads. How many times when we pray do we tell him what we think he should be like and what he should do in our lives....that really he doesn't understand and he's doing it all wrong.

sometimes we forget we serve a mighty, passionate, jealous, loving, all powerful, holy, patient, strong, creative, genius sort of God.
and if we haven't forgotten, how come we aren't living like we know that?

i know its not thanksgiving yet,

but in honor of the christmas spirit....i have a question.


what is a sugarplum?

is this a real actual food/candy item?
has anyone ever actually eaten or seen this infamous christmasy entity?
if so....is it good? have i been missing out?
and.......is it more of a sugary plum or plum flavored sugar?

thanks abc

extreme home makeover makes me cry.


i'm such a sap. :)

workin 9 to 5 (and then some)

God is so cool.

not only do i have a job, but i have a job that i didn't technically apply for, and its a job that couldn't be better designed for me! If i would have known that this was coming along, i could have saved a LOT of time not having to fill out 357,952.844 resumes and cover letters. but maybe that was to make me more appreciative once i did get this job. hmm.

i am now the volunteer coordinator for carolina hospice care.
basically i get to:

-recruit and train volunteers, and then match them up with the right patients based on their gifts and personalities.
-hang out with patients
-plan events/ marketing stuff
-do whatever anybody else tells me to do :)


some days i wonder if its true that i really get paid for this. so far i have gotten to dress up for a therapy dog halloween parade at musc childrens hospital, go to the fair for our booth to give stuff away at senior day (aka old people trick or treating for pens and plastic cups), plan two wine and cheese parties, and the best part....go visit a lot of our patients.

i think i might have the coolest job ever.

its about time

i have a job..................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

tiaras and plastic high heels can make a girl's day

this morning i saw something wonderful.

two little girls walked into a restaurant with their mom, completely decked out in sparkly princess costumes, tiaras atop tangled hair, and plastic dress up shoes. they proudly pranced in, completely unaware and unconcerned with the various reactions of everyone else in the restaurant.

many people (including our table) laughed or smiled, although i noticed a few dissaproving stares from people who clearly thought it was a ridiculous decision and/or poor parenting for the mom to let her kids out of the house like this. secretly i think part of me wanted to go shake those people.

i don't really care if the mom lost a battle with the little girls over getting dressed this morning or whether she actually encouraged the girls to dress up for their morning out. whether it was purposeful or not, i think it was a great decision. their excitement at wanting to show the world how special they were struck a chord in me. i think all girls want to know we are beautiful....that is probably why we like to get dressed up.

they made me smile because they reminded me of how little girls are by nature so secure in their beauty and confident in the belief that they are made to be princesses. its like it is instictively build into our very spirit. God made our hearts to work this way! ...sadly, after years of being hurt, rejected, taunted, or abandoned, the world strips us of our confidence, telling us we are too fat, too short, too stupid, or too weak. we are told that we are just like everybody else. bitterness and insecurity make us doubt that we are anything special...that we deserve to be loved.

and all the while God is gently trying to whisper to us how beautiful he thinks we are, how much he values us, how we are princesses and heirs to his kindgom. the King is enthralled by our beauty.

God whispered that to me today, and i am grateful.

but he talks like a gentleman

"You sit there in your heartache
Waiting on some beautiful boy to
To save you from your old ways
You play forgiveness
Watch him now, here he comes
He doesn’t look a thing like Jesus
But he talks like a gentleman
Like you imagined when
you were young"
-the killers

interesting how we sometimes compromise our standards for simply "nice guys" because we are lonely and afraid that nothing better will come along....

yet its a constant battle to make ourselves (myself) understand and really live like we believe that, while someone may compliment your personality very nicely, no other person will ever be perfect enough to complete us - otherwise why would we need jesus?

such a delicate line between having legitimate spiritual expectations for a relationship and extending grace and understanding for the sin and failings that are present in all human beings.....

working on finding some work

so its been a looooooooooooong time.

sorry.

the only excuse i have to offer is that i have been distracted by the extremely time consuming process of finding a job.

really, it takes an awful lot of work to find a good place to work. so far, i probably have written, oh...about...537,246 cover letters/resumes. i even applied for random jobs i found on the internet that i am extremely NOT qualified for...just to see if they emailed me back.

i think i feel pressured to find something that, well...fits. not only because this will be my first "real" job...but also because i don't think i could handle wasting my life away doing something that i don't agree with or feel passionate about. also i am tired of being asked what i do for a living and having to respond, "well thats a good question.." i think its funny that so much of what we consider our identity is wrapped up in what kind of job we have. but strangely, i feel....sort of lost....without this part of me being fulfilled. its not a lack of purpose...more of a lack of routine maybe?

i guess i am slowly narrowing down my options....for instance, during these past few weeks of interviewing/applying i have realized that God did not make me to work in a large corporate environment. yuck. just going into some of these offices drained a few years off my life i think...these interviews consisted of me outwardly smiling and nodding while the person tried to convince me that i could be very happy in a grey forest of cubicles, while inside my head i'm thinking "RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!"

we'll see what this weeks interviews bring.....say a prayer for me! :)

we have the best neighbors

exhibit A: the lady who lives next door pushes her dog around in a stroller, inside a shoebox, with upside down hangers for safety rails in case the dog should try and.... leap out or something.

i don't know.

maybe she's afraid the dog will get dirty if it walks on the ground?

well, linds and i have seen this lady many times and its really hard to explain the hilarousness of this to other people. so we thought it would be a great idea for me to take a picture of it.

mainly to prove to people that this lady really did exist and that we weren't just making it up.

i have made several previous unsuccessful attempts scrambling to get my camera on days that we spotted her out our kitchen window. however, a few weeks ago i saw her coming from a distance and i was ready. so, trying to be very sneaky-like, i took the picture from inside my room looking out the window....problem was, my stupid flash went off and i think she might have gotten a little suspicious because she started looking around everywhere. oh well.

if i don't get a job soon, then i think i might try and be her friend and we can both walk....or rather stroll...the dog together. or maybe i'll go get a dog and just start strolling it around myself. we'll see what the week holds. :)

having ninja adventures...

...at midnight in clemson is always interesting.

somehow bill and kyle convinced me and lauren to go on the above mentioned sort of "adventure" this weekend. all we were told is that it would involve some climbing and having to dress in black...which made us a little skeptical at first, we did end up having lots of fun.

and while i won't go into too many details because i really don't know who reads this...i will just say that we got to see some great views of campus that we probably weren't supposed to see. :)

ssshhhh....its a secret

me and lauren holding tillman...kinda

me and my peter pan shadow!....this was real cool and fun

time for a job

so....in the upcoming weeks i am working on getting some sort of job.

full time, part time, temporary, whatever...i am pretty open.

interestingly enough, i am trying to secure a job that is more ... ministry/counseling/grief/nonprofit/service type related rather than advertising/marketing related.

basically i feel the need to work with people and not design advertisements in a high-stress corporate environment. some people are gifted and called to do this. i realized i am not.

if i haven't talked with you recently, the quick explanation is that God has changed my heart a lot over this past year and he is slowly reminding/revealing to me that my passion always was (and still is) encouragement and helping those who are hurting (spiritually, emotionally, financially, or health-related).

I am not sure what exactly this type of work will look like yet, but I am researching a lot of options right now. I am in much prayer about it and i would appreciate your prayers (and/or career suggestions...haha) as well.


after this year, i have faith that God will make his purpose ever clearer in the days ahead.


"In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation..." Psalm 5:3

Getting sized up

so quick little note about the (strange) highlight of my week:

in my doctor's visit a few days ago, they put me in the exam room RIGHT next to the scale AND left my door open.

I was very close to the scale....as in, the scale is against the wall beside the open doorway to my room. So, this...arrangement...thus enabled me to hear every comment of the people who walked past my door and got weighed in.

most of which were hilarious.

some of my favorite comments:



"well crap. that's awful high. hang on let me take off my hat." ---old man with a baseball cap.

"are you sure you are doing that right? do it again." [noise of nurse slowly sliding the scale again.] "well, i know what i weigh and it is NOT that. so you must be doing it wrong. here, let me do it. "[lots and lots of noise of the woman messing with the scale] "oh nevermind...is it really that important?" ---50ish year old lady

"oh my. do you think i'm shrinking?" ---really tiny old lady

"honey, i am way too old to be worrying about that anymore. i'm just happy i can still walk." ---really, really, really old man

weekend update

went to the doctor on friday and as always, i made friends with some random people which were a huge blessing in my day.

here's the news:

over the next 6 months, the strong dose of radiation that I recently recieved will kill off the remaining thyroid cells in my throat (cancerous and non-cancerous). i will be on my thyroid pills for the next 6 months and then I will stop them again to get scanned/checked at the end of january. Then based on whatever they find then determines the next step, if I'll get checked a year later, etc. etc. for several years.

with thyroid cancer, there is no real black and white, "cured, not cured, cancer free, in remission" type of terminology...at least not for a few years. what they can tell me is that they "expect" me to make a full recovery...sometime... eventually.

it makes me laugh because the poor stressed out doctors can't give anybody straight answers because they really are doing the best they can, but they don't know how the human body is going to react and they have to cover all the bases so they don't get fired or messed up in some nasty red tape for telling somebody the wrong thing. Sometimes I want to tell them that no matter what they tell me, that God is in control of whether I am miraculously healed tomorrow or whether we all are killed in the next 5 seconds....so really they can just do their jobs to the best of their ability and relax because ultimately someone else has the final say in what happens in life.


pretty much as soon as I finish getting adjusted to my medicine (another 2, 3ish weeks?) I should basically try to resume "normal" life and not worry about it until the end of january! God is asking me to faith it for 6 more months. And after the tremendous blessing of everything that has happened this year, I have no problem with trusting him with my health and everything else. :)


also this weekend, we all had the pleasure to send off sally katherine in style to serve in Central Asia for 2 years. leigh and i were lucky enough to get to distract her for the weekend while everyone else prepared for her surprise party (i will post pictures soon)....which was a surpise indeed, both for sally katherine, and for all of us in a way. whitney and emily did an amazing job orchestrating a great time of prayer and love and God's presence was definitely there.

you want to meet someone with a lot of faith? well she is blonde and about 5'2'' and she is about to burst because she is fulfilling God's purpose for her life in overseas missions in just a few more days. she inspires me to keep going. i love you sk. and we are all praying for you.

something is coming but I don't know what

God is doing amazing things...crazy things. I don't know what else to say except it is weird and cool and beautiful and its all I can do to keep up...

"Look at the nations and watch - and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told." Habakkuk 1:5

I keep telling mom I'm not going crazy.

But truthfully I am delerious with wonder most of the time.