The Buried Life...

My new favorite show is MTV's: "The Buried Life". It follows these four guys as they try to accomplish evey item on their "Before we die..." list. And each time they complete something on their list they try to help a stranger cross off something on their list. It's this very sweet and surprisingly touching show. It also doesn't hurt that the guys are too cute. Anyway, it's got me thinking about what I'd put on my list. They have 100 items; so here's mine.

1. get married
2. be a mom
3. visit every single country in Africa
4. create my own cereal
5. sing kareokee with jon bon jovi
6. write a book
7. get that book published
8. work on a horse ranch
9. kiss in the rain
10. adopt
11. tour the white house
12. meet nelson mandela
13. be interviewed by jimmy kimmel
14. see every continent
15. go to london
16. live in a small town
17. deliver a baby
18. have enough money to spend it without thinking
19. spend 1 month all by myself in some secluded, beautiful place and just think and be with God
20. be in two places at once
21. get a tattoo
22. write for a sucessful TV show
23. learn to play piano
24. learn to play guitar
25. dance all night long
26. spend the night on the beach
27. get to take a mission trip with all of my closest friends
28. invent something
29. time travel
30. do something truly artistic
31. help someone's dreams come true
32. go to walt disney world
33. stay in a castle
34. sit on a beautiful, rolling hill, while drinking something hot and wonderful, and just "be" in ireland
35. have a song written about me
36. pet a baby hippo
37. ride an ostrich
38. figure out a really great halloween costume and execute it beauitfully
39. live next door to tim and carlee
40. learn to sew
41. watch jay, jake, and patrick change the world
42. buy my momma a cottage by the sea, just like the Lupin Lady's
43. be able to finance all of my missionary friend's lives
44. have my very own, wonderful library
45. be a cartoon
46. have an occasion to wear a really fancy, oscar-type gown
47. get to play with baby farm animals
48. go fishing with barack obama
49. get to be a guest co-host on the view
50. pay off my student loans
51. have a real pen pal
52. swim with dolphins
53. see a superbowl live
54. go on tour with U2
55. become more handy
56. carve a cool piece of furniture
57. be on survivor
58. walk with daisy on a deserted beach
59. find out i had a long, lost, evil twin
60. scare my brother, like really bad, like worse than all the times he's scared me added together
61. go to tea with someone fancy and british
62. take sally to south africa
63. play paintball with the new england patriots
64. have a reunion with our saturday morning worship group (with phil leading worship for it)
65. fill a swimming pool with jello
66. beat kevin in anything fantasy football related
67. be really, truly surprised
68. never have to plan another one of my birthdays
69. come up with the world's best cupcake recipe
70. design a t-shirt
71. go on a roadtrip with matty, tyler, lala, and oliver
73. help with extreme home makeover
74. take beautiful photographs
75. get a puppy
76. have my own treehouse (and an awesome one)
77. have one new year's eve that lives up to the hype
78. find a way to thank all the people that have changed my life
79. get a better sense of direction
80. go to space
81. have lunch with all the captains of the enterprise
82. learn to sail
83. beat my students at stupid guitar hero
84. have a white christmas
85. be in a play
86. crash a wedding
87. see a real circus
89. sit in a pub, drink a beer, and watch rugby in london
90. learn to speak another language fluently
91. ride a train
92. stay in a super fancy hotel, in their fanciest room
93. see both poles, north and south
94. visit ernest hemingway's house
95. design my dream home
96. roadtrip across these united states
97. have a vegetable garden
98. ride a hot-air balloon
99. learn to bartend, and then get to do it for a night or two
100. spend a few days on a deserted island with someone i love

john hughes changes everything...

do you ever wish you could just be a character in a john hughes film? i do. a lot. his movies were just genius. the breakfast club, ferris buller's day off, pretty in pink, sixteen candles; that is a list that continues to define teen angst and love and figuring out who we are. anyway i've been in an 80's mood lately so i thought i'd post a little tribute.

a cup of sugar...

i usually hate baking. i find it tedious and constricting. i love to cook, but that's an entirely different beast than baking. there's a recipe that must be followed and the timing has to be perfect. all things i'm horrible at. but a few years ago when i started working with high school students i invented a game called "cookie points". basically i handed out points haphazardly and when a student reached a specific number of points i would bake them a batch of cookies. this did practically nothing for the girls, but the boys loved it! they would work so hard for the points. and in turn i spent a lot more time baking than i ever had before.

so here's what i'm learning: baking is constricting and there are rules and you can't just throw in some lime juice because you think it might add a bit of a kick. but baking gives you a different kind of freedom. as you knead the dough or whip the egg whites there's this knowledge that following the recipe is going to get you where you want to go. when i cook it's wild and haphazard. not everything i put in a pot works well together (although i must say i get it right 9 out of 10x). but with baking i can follow each step and trust that my pie will deliver. it's a nice thought when my world seems so out of my control.

so go grab a recipe and make a pie or some banana bread and relax in the knowledge that you can't screw it up... well, i mean you can screw it up... uh-oh...

And the Lord was with him...

my sophomore year of high school (i think. potentially it could have been my junior year. ask phil if you want the exact date) one of my leader's started a saturday morning class. we'd meet at church and worship in the balcony of the sanctuary and then we'd go to this room by my dad's office and have some sort of lesson on discipleship. i want to be clear: this was SATURDAY MORNING! and it was early, really early. i don't remember exactly how early, but trust me, it was definitely a sacrifice. and although my body would yell at me each week to just skip it, i never did. those mornings were some of the best worship i have ever participated in. and that's saying a lot, because i have been in some really dynamic worship. it wasn't because of the caliber of the worship leader. it wasn't because the music was so new and exciting. in fact it was just a small group of us, one guitar, and some off-key voices. but there was this beautiful spirit of adoration in the room.

after awhile our leader was off to new adventures. and so saturday morning class stopped. i didn't think much of it. i missed the worship, but i wasn't like desperate to rip my body from my bed that early anymore. one day i was hanging out with my friend tyler and he mentioned that he really missed devoting that morning time to the Lord. he told me he was going to start a weekly morning prayer group. he wanted to meet wednesdays before school. now we're talking even earlier. this i distinctly remember: 6:30am! it was still dark out when we would head to church. and although i felt this slight twinge of sadness for my warm bed, it was infigorating to begin my day with the Lord. for a few weeks it would just be me and tyler. we'd meet up in the balconey and just seek the Lord's will. i loved it. i have never felt so sure of my faith as i did on wednesday morning.

i would say that the past 5ish years have not been great when it comes to my devotion for God. i'm still seeking Him, but it's always half-hearted and on my terms. and slowly i have drifted from His side. i'm no longer the same girl that put everything in her life second to her savior. i've been trying so hard to get back there. and this morning i was reading a verse that a friend sent me: "... one of the servants answered, 'i have seen a son of Jesse of Bethlehem who knows how to play the harp. He is a brave man and a warrior. He speaks well and is a fine-looking man. AND THE LORD IS WITH HIM.'"

and the Lord is with him. and the Lord is with him. and the Lord is with him. no matter how many times i hear those words they never stop being powerful. i never stop missing them; those words used to describe me. it's time i went back to walking with my Jesus. and that means it's time to put my hand back in His.

copy-cat, 2009 edition...

so clearly i steal my best ideas. but i was reading my friend haley's blog (a great pastime you should try) and i loved how she summed her year up. i've been trying to find a good way to do the same... so i'm stealing hers: the following are the people, places, and moments that defined me this year. some of them helped me to better grasp who i am and who my God calls me to be, others were just plainly a bad influence. I want to be clear that the following items are listed for all sorts of reasons. so don't take any of it as an advertisement (necessarily)!

BOOKS: The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay), The Furious Longing of God (Brennan Manning), The Twilight Series (Stephanie Meyer)

SONGS: divine romance (phil wickham), don't stop believin' (glee cover), i didn't know my own strength (whitney houston), by your side (tenth avenue north)

PEOPLE: President Barack Obama, Sally Cook, Pierre Bartels, The Klug Family, Kevin Cox, and Chelsea Handler

WEBSITE: www.youthspecialities.com/jobs

Album: Line on the Horizon (U2), ACTS 2009

MOVIES: (this was by far the hardest category to sum up) Invictus, Schindler's List, Last Chance Harvey, P.S. I Love you, Star Trek

TV SHOWS: Sons of Anarchy, Survivor, The Real Housewives

MISC: Directing ACTS, Leaving SAPC, Last Family Camp, Moving Out, Standing Up, Tyler getting married, Letting Go, AAA, Joining and Leaving the OAM Board, Trust

brave new world...

there have been a lot of ways in which st. andrews presbyterian church (sapc) left a distinct mark on my faith. so much of how i view God comes from the love and support and tears and anger that i got while attending sapc. but i think that if i had to sum all that up in one program it would be the acts (ambassadors for christ through song) program.

at first acts was this place that as a girl i just couldn't wait to be a member of. it represented everything cool and enticing and awesome. as i got older acts came to be the place where i met God. it was the process of going to practices and working hard and then enjoying a week of tour away from my life that taught me what relationship truly means.

and over the years with every tour i have fallen more in love with this program. i have seen it from every possible angle, worked every imaginable job. there is nothing more precious to me. it is what i look forward to all year. but this year for the first time in 19 years i won't be going. this past sunday acts had it's first practice and i wasn't there. they've picked the music and i had no hand in it. as i have been making the transition from sapc to resurrection lutheran church there haven't been many noticable disappointments. but here is one. i want so badly to get on that bus in june. i want to help students to see how necessary God is. i want to laugh with kevin about whether or not he'll actually get to be in charge of the movies. i want to roll my eyes with matty as albie puts a cold snapple on his neck. i'm going to miss out on the stories. i'm going to miss out on the fun and the blind hatred of modesto, california. and there is this very significant part of me that is mourning this loss.

however, there is another part of me; a smaller and less vocal part. this other part is so excited to see how God will use me with a brand new summer. for the first time in my entire life i am facing a summer without the traditions of st. andrews. no vbc, no family camp, no sunsets. and i think that this fresh summer holds many wonderful surprises.

so i wish the acts choir all the success in the world. i love you all fiercely and when i watch the home concert i expect to see those altos kicking some major ass!

divine romance...

This year the song that has changed me the most is Divine Romance by Phil Wickham. I don't really want to take the time now to explain what the lyrics have meant to me or how they have kept me standing when all I want to do is lay down. I just want to write them here and hope that they will have a chance to speak to you.

The Fullness of your Grace is here with me.

The Richness of your Beauty's all I see.

The Brightness of your Glory has arrived.

In your Presence God, I'm completely satisfied.

For you I sing, I dance

Rejoice in this Divine Romance

Lift my heart and my hands

To show my love, to show my love

A Deep, Deep Flood; an ocean flows from you.

Of Deep, Deep Love, yeah its filling up the room.

Your Innocent Blood has washed my guilty life.

In your Presence God, I'm completely satisfied.