Hosea

We were just talking about the book of Hosea in my Old Testament Survey class the other day. It is the "second most important story in the Bible" according to my teacher.

Hosea documents the magnitude of the great romance between God and His people. Simply defined, "while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." This was the first thing I thought of when my teacher was talking about Hosea. I had actually started reading through this book on my own before we got to it in class. And I'm glad I did. I wouldn't have understand all of the implications of what my professor was saying otherwise.

A word used numerous times throughout the entire book is adultery. Sometimes also said as 'prostitution.' This is the picture of how we treat our God.

Some people think of Hosea as an allegory for our relationship to God, not as a true story. But I believe it to be real. They also say that Hosea couldn't have married his wife Gomer while she was a prostitute, that she must have become one after their marriage. This is because marriage to a prostitute went against the religious laws at the time. But honestly, when has God played by man's rules? It's easy to say that Gomer turning to prostitution after her marriage more accurately represents our relationship to God - we don't want to believe ourselves so sinful as to have started out that way. But in real life, the sequence of God's grace doesnt' go [loving relationship --> our sin --> broken marriage] it goes [our sin --> His love --> continued sin --> broken marriage]. Perhaps that's too simplified. But it makes the point.

Hosea married Gomer while she was still a prostitute. He took her out of her pattern of a life. In the same way that God loves us while we still sin, before we repent.

One of the main points my teacher made in class was that the greatest pain a person can feel isn't the loss of a spouse to death, but the loss of a spouse to infidelity. This is the kind of pain that God endures on a daily basis. It's the kind of rejection and betrayal felt by someone in a broken marriage - but to a much greater extent than any human mind can begin to comprehend.

Chapter 11 of this book discusses how God has shown grace to his people throughout their relationship with Him. He led them through numerous trials, provided a way for them into the promised land, and all the while forgave the sins they committed against Him. Yet somehow they forgot and moved on with their lives, leaving God behind.

We do exactly the same thing today. We forget. We use God for a while and then leave Him. How can we be so ungrateful? How can we be so blind? Who are we, that we should continue in this pattern and yet still be loved by the One who created all things?

This small glimpse of God's glory and majesty as displayed in His irrational love for us should bring nations to their knees. This is why Hosea is the second greatest story in the Bible (the first being that of Jesus Christ) - it is a tangible picture of God's all forgiving, grace filled, completely irrational love for us.

For Kaitlyn

So recently I got to see a real life monk up close. It was weird. As Alexa said, "I didn't think monks still existed" - well not in America anyway. The most notable thing about this experience was when, in passing, my friend said hi to a certain monk and asked him how he was. His response was simply "I am blessed," accompanied by a large grin.

This struck me. And maybe I put far too much thought into this short interaction, but I really enjoyed his response to that question. So often people blow off the question of "how are you" with a simple "I'm fine." Or, if you're me, sometimes you can't help but launch into a speech about how life simply isn't going your way at that precise moment in time.

What I liked about this monk's response was that it was something that would be true whether he was having a great day or a terrible day. It was a response that stands true for everyone at every moment in time. And I think that's what we need to focus our attention on. Not on how the small things aren't panning out exactly as we had planned or would like.

I think, too often, we (especially in our comfortable American lives) tend to forget that we are blessed. Every day. Difficult times do come and sometimes God leads us through sufferings, but only to strengthen us. And in the end we're still blessed. We still have the grace and forgiveness that He offers.

It reminded me of the book of Job. I had to read this for two different classes this past week (and I may or may not have also written a paper on him). Job had all of his earthly possessions and relationships taken away from him by Satan, yet he maintained an attitude like that of the monk. He never cursed God. Job had all the reasons in the world to recant his faith, yet he continued to say "I am blessed."

{Oh and by the way, college is amazing. I was determined at the beginning of the semester to not change at all while here. But I think I have. I have simply become a better version of myself that I didn't know existed. I still have a ways to go before becoming the person that God created me to be, but He couldn't have brought me to a better place for that. I am blessed.}

Blessings

Recently I have been reflecting on the amount of time I spend disregarding the blessings God has poured into my life. How he has blessed me in even the smallest ways.

It has been raining a lot the past week. And tonight was no exception. The rain took a brief respite, though, as the sun was setting. I watched the sun go down as I rode in the passengers seat of a friend's car and enjoyed this absence of precipitation. The blanket of storm clouds was pulled up to chin of the sky. Just a thin strip of the orange sunlight was visible beyond the tree line in front of us. It was beautiful. I feel closest to God in moments like this, moments when nature reflects His true beauty and appears to be exactly how it was made to be, perfect. I took this to be a blessing from God. This brief glimpse of His majesty. It simply added to an already glorious week.

This week I had a relatively light homework load. I got to spend a lot of time with my favorite roommate, bonding over the fact that we didn't have papers to be working on. I received mail from home. I made new friends. And I seemed to be constantly happy, something that had been difficult a few weeks prior.

At first school was hard. Adjusting to a new schedule, meeting all new people, and being completely responsible for myself for the first time ever. But God helped me adjust fast. He  blessed me with awesome friends to sing with in the stair wells. He gave me excellent classes with passionate professors. He helped me get an on-campus job. He brought me to this amazing school. A school where the professors sometimes lead worship in chapel (I can't get over how awesome that is).
And, perhaps best of all, He gave me a roommate who also turned out to be one of my favorite people ever. I can't imagine going into this school year without her.

God also blessed me with friends from home who call just to chat and see how school's going. He blessed me with parents who send care packages (homemade cookies enclosed). And a mom who doesn't mind editing my papers from across Lake Michigan.

After handing in my first few papers and finally getting into the groove of things, I'm pretty sure I can handle this college thing. No biggie. But it's only because of Him.

My prayer is simply that I waste none of these blessings.

Undeserving

Something I have been wondering about lately is why God continues to bless me even in the times that I push Him away.

Guilt and apathy are the two main things that have made me less inclined to try and step into His presence lately. I know how unworthy I am. I know I don't deserve His love or blessings.

Yet He continues to pursue me. It amazes me.

He blesses me with friendships centered around Him. He blesses me with opportunities. He blesses me with an awesome family. He blesses me with an awesome church. The list goes on forever. Each blessing becoming more and more evident daily.

Yet I flee from Him. Because, for whatever reason, I think at times that it would just be easier to live my life on my own. I'm so, so wrong.

He blessed me with an amazing weekend full of time with friends. And then, the Monday after, the Monday I was dreading, He blessed me with a good day at work. The first good Monday I've worked all summer.

It makes me feel all  the more rotten at times, though. To be so blessed when I'm so undeserving. I feel that what I have to give back is so not nearly enough. But isn't that exactly the point of grace?

Love is speaking in code, it's an inside joke, love is coming home

I just realized it has been over a month since my last post. How the time flies.
This is particularly scary, since in approximately 30 days my life will change forever. So I'm trying to make the most of the time I have now with the people I have here.

Everyone says that I will get so caught up in my new life that I won't even think about the things going on here that I won't be able to be a part of. But I think a part of me will still miss this; the creation of new inside jokes (and the constant recitation of old ones); the random dance parties or bursting into song; the spontaneous get togethers; the homeschooler jokes. Simply put, I will miss the friendships I have formed this past year.

As I think back over the past year I realize that all the people I am closest to now I didn't even know that well 9 months ago. Now, when I feel like we've been friends for years, when I've finally put down roots in this state, I'm leaving.

My one regret is that we didn't get more time together. I wish we'd met when my family had just moved in. And not three and a half years after the fact. Even though I know we were brought into each other's lives at the exact right moment. When I needed friends the most. When I was farthest away from God. He showed His love to me in a huge way by giving me the friends I had been asking for the past 3 years.

These friends have helped shape me into the person I am today. They've made me confident, somewhat insane (or maybe completely?), and utterly happy with my life. Though I still have bad days, it's the memories of the good ones that get me through.

It's difficult to think of finding better people anywhere else. More creative, passionate, hilarious people. I don't believe they exist. Not in quite the same assortment of personalities anyway.

I can only pray that over the years we won't change too much, move too far away, or forget the time we spent together. But part of me knows that God has excellent things planned for each person's future, whether or not the rest of us are involved in it.

The best week of my life

On this past Friday (June 24, 2011) at 1pm the best week of my life ended.

This was my second year at WVA. So my expectations were high. But the staff, lectures and students easily  exceeded them. I learned more in these 6 days than I learned in the entirety of last year. And not only did I learn more about the nature of my Lord and Savior, but I also learned a lot about myself as well.

I learned that it's not me doing God's work. Ever. No matter how hard I try, I can never accomplish anything on my own. It's always God. All I can do is follow closely, pushing my bubble mower behind Him as we mow the lawn together.
To me, this is the most comforting thing in the world. One of  the things I struggle with most in life is self consciousness. Wondering whether people are going to accept or reject me. But if it's God doing all the work, I don't have to worry about messing up. His will is going to be accomplished not matter what I do.
This was especially helpful when we went evangelizing on Wednesday. Which was quite an eye-opening experience. Sometimes I think we, as Christians, sort of disregard the fact that there are people out in the world with a different set of beliefs than us. People destined for eternal separation from God if we stand idly by.

I also learned that with my new found attitude of taking the focus off me, it's easy to make friends and develop relationships. I made some friends this past week that I will never forget. And hopefully never lose contact with. The pure fellowship at camp, a fellowship driven by the sole purpose of going deeper into a relationship with God, is something I haven't been able to find anywhere else. It's easy to walk into a church and run into hundreds of people just going through the motions. At WVA, you have the best of the best. Those committed to a Christ-like existence. My favorite part of the week was our coming together at the end of the night to worship through song. When the guitar would pause and every voice cried out to God in unison. Those are the moments I live for.

It's hard to sum up in words all that went down at camp this year. I'm leaving out many lecture topics and many events that took place. But I guess the most important thing I took away from camp is that anyone with influence is a leader. That means that I am a leader. Whether I like it or not. The only choice I have in the matter is what kind of a leader I am going to be. What kind of example am I going to set for those watching?

I wish to be an example of humility. Of servitude. And of grace.
The word grace always brings to mind the words of my favorite hymn, O Come Thou Fount. One of the first lines goes as follows, "Tune my heart to sing they grace."
Now, I have no idea if I am interpreting this correctly, but when I sing this song I imagine God as a great crafter of instruments. He takes my heart, like a violin, and tightens the strings so that they perfectly play this melody of grace. That may sound cheesy, but to me it's an awesome metaphor for God training and changing my heart so that it may extend love and forgiveness to those around me.
I know that I will not always exceed in this goal. But I would rather hold myself to a high standard and fall short than not hold myself to any standard and remain the same, apathetic person my whole life.
And I realize that by saying this I am making myself a target for anyone watching. A target for criticism and doubt.
But with God doing all the work, I cannot fail. So I will relinquish my delusion of control on my own life and see where he takes me. Because every time I let God call the shots, my life ends up way better than it was before.

Even though this week had to come to a close, I know the point of it was to prepare me for something even better. I look forward to the day that I step through the pearly gates and meet again, in perfect fellowship with all those from WVA. When we never have to be separated, never have to go back into the real world where life is full of suffering. And we can once again join together in song to praise the name of the Lord.

My recipe for getting through life

Originally, I only had 3 cardinal rules of life. But this list has been growing recently.

This first list is as follows:
1. Never make eye contact (with people on the street, customers at your place of work, or adults in charge of bringing you out of your comfort zone)
2. Never volunteer for anything (especially when you don't know what  you are volunteering for)
3. Never take the top lid in the stack of lids when purchasing a fountain drink.

The word 'never' appears to frequently on this list, however. So rule number 4 came about.
4. Spend at least 30 minutes a day in an attitude of ridiculousness (how else could one stay sane?)

And by ridiculousness I mean complete and utter disregard for the opinions of others. I usually spend my 30 minutes of ridiculousness frolicking in  large lawns, dancing about my house, singing at the top of my lungs or trespassing into other people's yards so that I can jump on  their trampolines.

In essence, these rules were designed to help me (and you, if you so choose to follow them) get the most out of life. And provide protection from bodily harm.
 

This random short blog has been brought to you by me, courtesy of my insomnia. 

Insomnia + "Knights of Shame" = This Blog Entry

As I type these words I find myself gripped by a strange case of the nerves. I'm not entirely sure why. Is it because I will soon be sending my innermost thoughts into the world, subjecting them to criticism and mockery? Or, is it simply a side effect of my nerve racking drive home tonight?

I hate driving in the dark. During the 15 minute drive all I could do was grip the steering wheel with my sweaty hands and picture large men in ski masks jumping out from behind the trees and bushes at the sides of the road. So, I played my music very loudly and tried to keep my speed from going too far beyond 5 over the speed limit.

Once I got on to better lit streets with stoplights instead of stop signs and more life than the random passing car I relaxed a bit. I let the GPS scream at me as I took a different way home than it was suggesting. I even rolled down the windows a little bit. Of course, when I got home I proceeded to watch a trailer for a new horror movie entitled "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark." This is probably the reason I can't sleep and am writing this blog in that awkward time between night and morning.

My insomnia may also be owing to the fact that I find myself incapable of shutting off my ipod mid song. I will sometimes stay up hours past the time I meant to fall asleep simply because I had to keep listening to music. Tonight I have been listening to Awolnation. Specifically, the songs "Sail" and "Knights of Shame." These songs are not exactly interchangeable with lullabies and therefore do more to ward off sleep than to promote it.

Plus, since school got out last week  the latest I have stayed up is 11pm. I felt like I owed it to myself to not go to bed that early tonight.

Now that I am running out of ways to tie my thoughts together, I am realizing that I probably should explain the name of this blog (the 5th of 6) in order to give this post a purpose.
Do you really wanna know?
I'm not convinced that you do. But I'll share it with you anyways. I'm nice like that.
Be warned, the explanation is probably a lot less awesome than you're thinking it will be. No, I did not place 5th of 6 in any Olympic game or chess tournament. No, I don't own the 5th of any set of 6 rare collectible items. I am simply the 5th child in a family of 6 girls. But that's a story for another post.

It is probably the time to lay the foundation for this blog as well. The purpose of this blog is for me to express myself through whatever words I deem necessary. I will be documenting the aggressively mediocre aspects of my existence for anyone who cares to join me on this journey they call life. Who "they" are, I'm not entirely sure. But people tend to reference them quite often, so they must be important. Right?

You'll be hearing from me again in the near future, so stay alert. The end.