when its been a rough week....or weeks

Psalm 40

I waited patiently for the LORD;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear
and put their trust in the LORD.

Blessed is the man
who makes the LORD his trust,
who does not look to the proud,
to those who turn aside to false gods*. (the ESV calls them "lies")

Many, O LORD my God,
are the wonders you have done.
The things you planned for us
no one can recount to you;
were I to speak and tell of them,
they would be too many to declare.

Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but my ears you have opened;
burnt offerings and sin offerings
you did not require.
Then I said, "Here I am, I have come—
it is written about me in the scroll.
I desire to do your will, O my God;
your law is within my heart."

I proclaim righteousness in the great assembly;
I do not seal my lips,
as you know, O LORD.
I do not hide your righteousness in my heart;
I speak of your faithfulness and salvation.
I do not conceal your love and your truth
from the great assembly.

Do not withhold your mercy from me, O LORD;
may your love and your truth always protect me.
For troubles without number surround me;
my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see.
They are more than the hairs of my head,
and my heart fails within me.

Be pleased, O LORD, to save me;
O LORD, come quickly to help me.
May all who seek to take my life
be put to shame and confusion;
may all who desire my ruin
be turned back in disgrace.
May those who say to me, "Aha! Aha!"
be appalled at their own shame.
But may all who seek you
rejoice and be glad in you;
may those who love your salvation always say,
"The LORD be exalted!"

Yet I am poor and needy;
may the Lord think of me.
You are my help and my deliverer;
O my God, do not delay.

When my mouth fails to produce the words needed to cry out to the Lord, his Spirit is so faithful to intercede and lead me right to what I desperately need.
May the Lord give you strength to make it through your days with joy.

beautiful day

so to preface this, i need to say things have been a little crazy lately and i realized i have been struggling a bit with contentment in my present circumstances for various reasons. (thank you ryan for convicting all of us at exchange this week...ouch) how often we doubt that the Lord has good intent for us, even when he has shown us (me) extreme faithfulness. i am so much like Israel sometimes it makes me cringe.
but i have been feeling restless lately...like i want to pick up and go somewhere different. and the Lord has shown me that partly this is due to a little discontentment. so we are working on that. :)

anyways...in light of all this i went running today with paige. i thoroughly enjoy our runs. sometimes when we are running we dance (yes, even on market street)...b/c really we just don't care and it makes it less boring...and its even funnier if there are actually large groups people around watching us wave our hands in the air while sucking wind down the battery.

so today we were having one of the above mentioned runs...and i was listening to some U2. and i looked up and just all of a sudden was overwhelmed with how beautiful everything is...how blue the sky was ...and what a gorgeous city i live in... and how thankful i am to have friends like paige who have such a similar spirit as i do...and that i am ...alive...to enjoy all of these beautiful things.

and I said a little prayer of thanks to the God who has blessed me so much.

i'm telling you, this girl is a genius.

I am afraid of beginning
‘cause I don’t know how to end

But you told me:
that the mountain before us
would become a plain in our eyes

So I won’t despise,
I won’t despise the day
I won’t despise the day of small things.

Even when you tell me…
oh, even then I’m shaking
‘Cause I am afraid of believing

The plans that we make seem so big
But you’ve shown me
that we’re never alone
and your spirit will stay by our side

So I won’t despise
I won’t despise the day
I won’t despise the day of small things.
-alli rogers

when we are afraid of doing what the Lord tells us to do because we don't know how it will turn out, we need to (i need to) have faith that He can do much more than we imagine, and take comfort in knowing he will never leave us.
Sometimes I think I am afraid to believe the Lord...even when he gives me the blessing of clear instruction...because usually His plans are so much bigger than what I would choose. Yes, his plans are bigger...but so is His power.

Lord, I believe. Help me overcome my unbelief.
Mark 9:14-27

i have good genes

"Be patient, be wise, be still, be consistent."

-my dad


good advice considering none of the above come naturally to me. :)

i knew physics would come in handy one day....

first:
just need to say thank you to all the awesome people who have prayed for me during these past 1 1/2 years. ya'll are amazingly encouraging and throw incredible post cancer parties. ;)

somehow thank you doesn't quite seem enough.
the words are inadequate to really express my gratitude.
when i find a better way to say it, i will.


second: (for all of you scientists)
i read this a while ago and this is the first chance i have gotten to write it all down. Next time somebody uses the metaphor of light and darkness (with light = good and darkness = bad), think about this:

"In the Hebrew tradition...light is a metaphor. God makes a cosmos out of the nothingness, a molecular composition, of which He is not and never has been, as any thing is limiting, and God has no limits...And into this being, into this existence, God first creates light. This light is not to be confused with the sun and moon and stars, as they are not created until later. He simply creates light, a nonsubstance that is like a particle and like a wave, but perhaps neither, just some kind of travelling energy...Light, then, becomes a fitting metaphor for a nonbeing who is. God, if like light, travels at the speed of light, and because space and time are mingled with speed, the speed of light is the magic, exact number that allows a kind of escape from time....The faster you move, physicists have found, the less you experience time. And if you move at the speed of light, you will never age; you are outside of time; you are an eternal creature. But...you and I, made from molecules, cannot travel at the speed of light and cannot escape time, at least not with a body. Consider the complexity of light in light of the Hebrew metaphor: we don't see light; we see what it touches. It is more or less invisible, made from nothing, just purposed and focused energy, infinite in its power (it will never tire if fitted into a vacuum, going on forever). How fitting then, for God to create an existence, then a metaphor, as if to say, here is something entirely unlike you, outside of time, infinite in its power and thrust: here is something you can experience but cannot understand. Throughout the remainder of the Bible, then, God calls himself light. "

Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts

the Lord knew that perhaps the true, deeper meaning of calling himself light (and how the scientific properties of light reflect his glory) would not be discovered until thousands of years after he originally spoke it to the Hebrew people.

thank you physicists for figuring stuff like this out. and thank you donald miller for writing about it in such a way that us non-scientific people could begin to understand it.

how sweet the sound

if william wilberforce were not already married....

and dead.....

i might would marry him myself.

good movie. go see it if you haven't already:

http://www.amazinggracemovie.com/

a lesson on how to not waste your life

so yesterday in sunday school we had the privilege of listening to a married couple who have been doing missions in the Northern Africa area for about 40 years or so...and they were amazing.

on top of the incredible stories they told of their opportunities to share Christ with the people in the part of the world, two things really stuck with me about them...

the first being that they have not stopped their ministry (at home in the US or in Africa) just because they are old. john piper talks in "don't waste your life" about how the purpose of life is not to retire in florida and spend all our time playing golf, or bingo, or riding around in a big boat. in fact, if that is what we are working towards then we have missed the whole point entirely...and we have wasted our chance.

one of my greatest fears is waking up 50 years down the road living in materialistic suburbia and wondering where the heck the years have gone and what do i have to show for them? last year, getting diagnosed with cancer certainly bumped this up on my priority list. i had to really look at my life and ask how i was letting the Lord use my time and my talents in case my chance was almost up. now that i am CANCER FREE :) my constant prayer is that i would not waste the life the Lord has chosen to bless me with.

these two missionaries are perfect examples of what christians should be spending our time doing...and stop using our age (being "too young" or "too old") as an excuse. these two faithful servants are finishing their race well. i hope we do the same.

the other thing about them was their relationship with one another. the husband stumbled through several stories while his wife interjected with comments to correct him or clarify...not in a rude or condescending way...more like she was helping him to get it all out...encouraging him along. when she interrupted him, he didn't get irritated or frustrated, just humbly acknowledged his confusion or mistake and looked gratefully at her for her assistance with a smile. when her time came to speak, he proudly introduced her and let his wife tell her own stories.
....you could just tell that they really loved each other i guess. that they had endured incredible hardships together and they really needed one another's help. each had their own strengths to help support the other. it was awesome.

and in 50 years i hope i have that kind of love. i hope you do too.

freedom

i don't have cancer anymore.




last week was a whirlwind of prayer, tests, scary inconclusive results, and more tests. but as of 3:30 on friday, i am cancer free. cancer FREE. i am still processing this.

the Lord is so gracious...funny...but gracious. after leaving community group on tuesday night, he really was speaking to me about what it really means when he says "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (2 Corinthians 3:17)...reading through Isaiah 11 when it talks about the spirit of the Lord is the spirit of rest in the Lord, of wisdom, counsel, might, power, understanding, fear of the Lord, and delight in the Lord. Okay so since we have the Holy Spirit then we have all these things..and we have freedom when we are in the Spirit...what does that mean? it means we are FREE despite our circumstances. when i feel the need to just get out in the openness of God's creation or feel the urge to just pick up and leave, the Spirit provides the joy of this freedom even when sitting in our offices (or cubicles for some of you) or in a big white claustrophobic tube in the hospital. gosh this just blew my mind for some reason the other night.

the Lord was gracious enough to provide me comfort to be okay with finding out whether I had cancer or that I didn't have cancer. Good...I was able to trust in the Lord for those things. What I was not prepared for was the Lord telling me that it wasn't choice 1 or choice 2...but secret door number 3: learning to be patient and wait on the Lord and his perfect timing! How little my brain understands the ways of the Lord! He had to stretch me just a little bit more..just a little bit farther with something completely unexpected.

Isaiah 26: 3-8
3 You will keep in perfect peace
him whose mind is steadfast,
because he trusts in you.
4 Trust in the LORD forever,
for the LORD, the LORD, is the Rock eternal.
5 He humbles those who dwell on high,
he lays the lofty city low;
he levels it to the ground
and casts it down to the dust.
6 Feet trample it down—
the feet of the oppressed,
the footsteps of the poor.
7 The path of the righteous is level;
O upright One, you make the way of the righteous smooth.
8 Yes, LORD, walking in the way of your laws,
we wait for you; your name and renown
are the desire of our hearts.


The Lord is so faithful to me....and has been for the past year and a half. May the Lord bless you with a spirit of FREEDOM today. I love ya'll more than you know!

things that are funny to me...

riding in elevators. we have one at work, and if someone else steps in that you don't know...or know well...i can feel the air get thick with uncomfortableness and the awkward silence that follows till someone gets off.
people can be completely silent for the whole ride, then they'll say "goodbye" or "have a good day" right before they step off. we can only speak when we know we can escape quickly.

it makes me laugh.

maybe because we all subconsciously feel the need to face forward so it would be strange to turn around and talk to the person?
maybe we feel like its not enough personal space and we wouldn't be able to back away from the person since you're trapped in a box?

i don't know. but it is darn funny, let me tell you.

starting to lose it.....

i think i washed my hair 3 times in a row this morning.....and a couple of other days this week.

it could have been more than that or maybe it was just twice...

but it was definately more than once.

i am so tired...i just zone out and can't remember if i have already done it, or if i have just thought about doing it. weird i know.

valen'times' (that was for wimbo)

i love you.


ephesians 3: 14- 19
When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

i think this just hit me today.

i think the hardest thing about adjusting from being in school to working is this:

...it doesn't end.


there is not really a goal to reach for. no exam. no semester completed. no break. if you actually finish a project, then that just means you move on to the next thing on your never-ending to do list. another table to wait on. another person to call. (or for me, another post-it note on my desk) it just goes on and on and on forever.

you had better like your job.

most days, i do.

how you "know"....?

good song about our constant analyzation of whether a person is "the one" or not.....and how we question if there is someone out there that God has created who is better for us. you know how people say when you are with the person you are going to marry, you just "know." i don't know how you "know." sometimes i think we are looking for a perfect person....and that doesn't exist...well except for Jesus. my dad told me once that "loving a person is a choice...a commitment. you may not always feel like loving someone, but you choose too anyway."
when you really choose to love someone, (and you don't entertain the thought that they owe you something)...you are learning how to serve and encourage another human being. if you are worrying about what they are giving you (or not giving you), then eventually you'll be very unsatisfied and probably bitter. they are going to disappoint you. and tick you off. but if we would stop thinking about ourselves for one minute and think about them first, then that would solve a good bit of the problem right there. just a thought.

All At Once -The Fray

There are certain people you just keep coming back to
She is right in front of you
You begin to wonder could you find a better one
Compared to her now she's in question

And all at once the crowd begins to sing
Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same
Maybe you want her maybe you need her
Maybe you started to compare to someone not there

Looking for the right one you line up the world to find
Where no questions cross your mind
But she won't keep on waiting for you without a doubt
Much longer for you to sort it out

And all at once the crowd begins to sing
Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same

Maybe you want her maybe you need her
Maybe you started to compare to someone not there
Maybe you want it maybe you need it,
Maybe it's all you're running from,
Perfection will not come

And all at once the crowd begins to sing
Sometimes
We'd never know what's wrong without the pain
Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same

Maybe you want her maybe you need her
Maybe you've started to compare to someone not there
Maybe you want it maybe you need it
Maybe it's all you're running from
Perfection will not come

Maybe you want her maybe you need her
Maybe you had her maybe you lost her to another
To another

in the home stretch

a few more weeks folks.

i'm now officially off my medicine and on a "low iodine" diet (which = nothing containing salt, dairy products, eggs, soy products, seafood, canned foods or drinks, cured meats, or Red Dye #3...and no i'm not kidding about the last one) for the next 2-3 weeks until my blood shows i'm ready for my scan.

and then.........

we will know. one way or the other.
i'm ready to be done.

and when i am....time to party!!!!

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