Psalm 30:1-5

I drew this when I couldn't stop crying.  I'm not saying that these were the magic words to make it all better.  It was really comforting.

Psalm 8

Psalm 8 in its entirety.

Think about a rose bush.  Maybe your grandmother or your aunt had one.  Don't worry about whether or not it's big.  A little rose bush is fine.  How many blooms are on it?  Fifty?  Thirty?  Twelve?  Think about it.  Think about each flower on the bush, no matter how few.  Think about the intricacies of each one.  Think about the uniqueness of each.  No two from that bush are exactly the same.  No two have the same exact coloring.  No two have the same exact petal shapes.  No two have the same number of thorns.

Now think about a big bin of apples at the grocery store.  Your favorite kind.  Now, you're only going to buy four apples.  How would you pick those four apples?  You would pick a certain size and a certain color.  You would make sure that your apples have no spots, and they're closest to what you like most in an apple.  Yet, all four will be different.  In fact every apple of that type in every bin in every grocery store in every country will be different.  No two alike.

Now think about if it were your job to design every apple different.  If it was your job to create every rose different.  That's a tall order.  But someone out there does that: God.  He created EVERYTHING.  What's more, he created you.

In Psalm 8, David is marveling at God's creative powers, his importance in the universe.  And yet, even though he is so great and so mighty, he chooses to think of him--a single man.  And he cares for you, too.

Psalm 34:17-18

"The Righteous cry out and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from their troubles.  The Lord is close the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

Broken Bones

We had a group come in from South Carolina come in, and a few of the male chaperones constructed our lovely new playset.  It has two levels, but it's still safer than our old one.  The children are ecstatic, the adults are tired, and I'm feeling like an old lady because I'm worried for their safety.  Maybe it's just our kids.  They tend to try dumb stuff at least once.

Noah Knew

Have you seen these people?  Honestly, I live in a cave with little media influence, and I get most of my news from the front page of yahoo.  And I'm a google user.  Whatever.  But I started hearing people on campus laughing about May 21st.  So I looked it up.  Oh.  My.  Word.

"We Can Know."  Know what?  The date of Jesus' return.  How?  Because Noah knew.  Jesus even said that it will be like the time of Noah.

"As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man." (Mat. 24:37).

Of course, Jesus couldn't have been talking about the moral depravity of the time, or anything like that.  Oh wait.  He probably did:

"For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. "  (Mat 24:38-39).

I guess what they mean is that we're like Noah if we're Christians, so we can know.  Or something.  Of course, these verses are preceded by Matthew 24:36

“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."


How did they get to May 21st?  There is a looooong-winded numerological reason as to why.  Honestly, I couldn't type it all up.  Basically, since Harold Camping says that since the church is at the end of the Biblical age, it can now be discerned, because of a great verse in Ecclesiastes 8:5

"Whoever obeys his command will come to no harm, and the wise heart will know the proper time and procedure."  

Note that God is telling them to obey their earthly king in this section.  Even better, though, Ecclesiastes 8:7 says:


"Since no one knows the future, who can tell someone else what is to come?"


And the numerological lengths he goes to...numbers of shekels and whatnot...it's ridiculous!  What's more, Harold Camping, the man behind it already predicted that the world would end in 1994.  He's already 0 for 1.    Check out more about his illustrious career--here.

Spiritual Zombies

So I am a bit warped.  Today, I was in Personal Evangelism--which is an entirely respectable class--and Dr. Nix was reminding us of the condition of the lost, as we are apt to forget what it is like to be separated from Jesus.  See?  Shining and respectable.  The first point in the lecture was that the lost were under sin.  So, of course, I imagined a little man being buried under a rock labeled "sin".

The next point in the lecture was that the lost are spiritually dead.  Dr. Nix described them as just going through the motions--they come to church, they sing the songs, they pray out loud, but inside they're still dead.  They're just walking about dead--kind of like zombies.  Yes, his term originally, but you know that I championed it.  I was then overwhelmed by the image of zombies filling up a sanctuary and singing "Brethren We Have Come to Worship" in a slurring fashion.

The next point in the lecture was that the lost are "children of wrath."  Of course, the zombies then attacked the non-zombie choir in the choir loft.  There was great carnage.

The fourth point on the slide show stated that the lost are "without hope."  So, after decimating the choir in the choir loft, the zombies went back to the pews, and laid on them weeping because they have no hope as they had eaten every human in the church.

The fifth point informed me that the lost have "no peace."  Of course, at that point, an unsuspecting group of hippies in a VW microbus pull into the church parking lot, and stumbled into the sanctuary.  They were wearing peace sign necklaces and the zombies ripped them off before eating the hippies.  Dr. Nix went on to say that lost people try to find peace in their lives by filling it with drugs and sex, which are self-destructive behaviors.  So, a few of the zombies were trying to shoot up, a few were looking for a room, and a few had dynamite strapped to their stomachs, and blew up.  Very self destructive.  Dr. Nix then told us that this behavior was like sticking stuff in a black hole.  So, a black hole opened up under the pew where Mrs. Tuttle kept her special seat cushion, and sucked up most of the zombies.

The sixth and final point was that lost people are "spiritually blind."  Dr. Nix asked, "If you're blind, what do you need?"  I responded--no kidding--out loud, "Eyeballs."  Someone else said, "Sight," so he went with that, but it was too late for me.  I had already said "eyeballs."  So the remaining zombies had managed to lose their eyeballs in the black hole before it closed, so they are down on the floor of the sanctuary on hands and knees searching for eyeballs.  One of them is looking for a second eyeball, but his first eye is hanging on by a nerve.

After the slideshow, Dr. Nix showed us a video depicting several lost people in very real, very upsetting situations.  The last person on the video was a homeless man who lost everything including his family.  He asked the camera, "Anybody know where I can get a new life?"

Well, then, the last surviving zombie, asked me if I knew where he could get a new life, because he was hungry.

It is highly irresponsible for Dr. Nix to mention zombies in the middle of such great imagination fodder.

I'm a PC.

So, I am a PC, and yes, I'm even operating from Vista.  It doesn't upset me.  I know it's garbage, but I'm okay with that.  I got it at a great deal, and so far, it isn't inhibiting my life.  I know that both Windows 7 and Windows XP are better than Vista.  I'm not arguing that.  I also know that the newest Mac is also supposed to be better than all of them.  I've never cared for Mac.  Yes, they are wonderfully stable, but when you've been compatible with almost nothing, that works out well for you.  They are immune to most viruses, but in the past that may have had to do with the relatively low number of Mac users (yes, I am well aware that it is on the rise).  Wonderful for Mac users, that's fine.  Wonderful.  I am glad for you.  I have two distinct problems with Macs: 1) they have dumbed down computers, and 2) they're way too expensive.  Come on Mac users, even you have to agree on that.  I don't want to pay the extra just for mine to have a piece of fruit on the outside.  But you know what?  I'm not even griping about that today.

I was listening in on two girls in class today.  One of them was coaxing her MacBook to life, and it was makign a horrendous noise.  I, being a PC, was snickering inwardly, but didn't say anything.  Fellow-MacBook-girl was giving dying-MacBook-girl her condolences over her ailing machine.  Dying-MacBook-girl said that she was concerned because it was nearly three-and-a-half years old.  Fellow-MacBook-girl commented that her last MacBook hadn't lasted that long.

I have a six-and-a-half-year-old Dell running Windows XP that works just as well as well as it did day 1.  Granted, my needs have exceeded its original capabilities, but it still does what it always did quite well.  I reset it once, after a nasty virus, but it works great.  It has an non-wide-screen shape, and it's kinda thick, but it's a brick.  Honestly, though, other than size (and logically, and not untimely outdated design), it's perfectly fine.  In fact, I use it for a TV right now (to stream my media).

The Macbook has only been available since 2006, and apparently, people are wearing them out.  These all might, all powerful, Macbooks sound like they have three-year shelf life.  Why?  They're ultra-stable, unlike my Dell.  They're impervious to viruses, unlike my Dell.  They're apparently sent to earth by God on high for the soul purpose of giving us temporary happiness, unlike my Dell.  And yet, they break that easy?  I can't afford anything that expensive every three years.  This Vista has lasted me a whole year, and if I have to replace it in two years, then I will not have wasted that much money, or really that much heartache.  Maybe the newer ones are more awesome.  Maybe they'll last longer.  But honestly, I'm not impressed.  If and when my HP running Vista goes out, I will be filling the gap between computers using the green brick that is my Dell.  I'm hoping by that point, we'll have Google laptops, and I'll ditch Windows for something that's actually, you know, better and cheaper.