puzzle

Ela's puzzle skills.
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chair

Ela sitting in a chair like a big girl.
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These are for my mom, who bought her this cute outfit.
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Good morning everyone!
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The Beauty From The Pain

There's always beauty to unveil; always pain to prevail. Yet often times, unveiling the beauty requires prevailing the pain.
Have you ever noticed a mother holding her newborn child, what ravishing beauty encompasses her? When minutes before all she could think of was the excruciating pain that childbearing is.
Have you ever noticed one finding salvation whose life has been characterized by struggle and sin? What beauty radiates from a soul freshly washed by the Savior. It seems that the dirtier the soul, the brighter the radiance. Beauty really does come from pain.
And you. Me. What beauty have we found in life? Often times it is simple: a hug, a star, a moment. But the beauty that comes from pain, that beauty marks us. Look at the scars of our Lord: such pain, such suffering, such beauty. His pain ensures the beauty of our perfection. Not because of righteous things which we have done, but because He loves us. We are perfect to Him.
So live, love, and never give up. Surely and with time, beauty will come from this pain.

Bathroom Bonding

The two of us sat in the bathroom, on the edge of the giant jet bathtub, talking. I had seen her around campus and I knew her name because we were in the same class, but I didn't know her. I had never had a conversation with her, let alone shared a prayer time. Yet, here we were, talking about our struggles and our prayer needs, getting ready to approach God together.
"Unusual" is the word that comes to mind. Yes, an unusual opportunity. Now, by "unusual" I don't necessarily mean gradiose or wowing, for opportunities like these are actually quite meaningless if brushed under the rug with a shrug. Every once in awhile, though, life throws us one of these unusual opportunities. Whether it is meaningless or wowing is up to us.
The assignment had been to scatter around the house in pairs and pray for one another. For the two of us, it became more than an assignment, it became a bonding time.

Quote from New Way To Be Human

The ability to image God should never be overlooked. It serves as the foundation for human existence with four cornerstone-like aspects on which all our being and doing on earth are constructed. These are: (1) the ability to imagine and think; (2) the ability to create; (3) the ability to make moral and ethical choices and act on them (to be holy); and (4) the ability to act freely, to choose what kinds of persons we will become. In all these ways human beings are like God--and yet we are his creation and clearly not God.

The New Way To Be Human by Charlie Peacock (pp182)

Looking for God

I looked for God.
Sitting on the edge of my bed with my face burried in my hands, I realized I was far from God. No, I hadn't turned my back on Him and I hadn't abandoned every thought of Him. It was more like a careless wandering away from God. I hadn't intended to stray, it's just that life got in the way. School, work and church had successfully kept my schedule packed and I had to make time for friends and family. Solitary time wasn't even an option, let alone time with God.
Every time this wandering happens, my recognition of it seems to come while I'm on the edge of my bed, alone. That very moment I'll reach out to Him, trying to gage how far from Him I really am. Most often, He's far beyond my reach. All I can do is cry, so I let go, hoping He'll hear my plea and reach for me instead. I ask Him to make me be close to Him. I ask him to help me pursue Him and desire to know Him.
So far, He's never just given me these things. I have to work at it. So I begin to pray and read my Bible more. I pick up some good Christian literature, then I further my search for God by doing what's "right". I stop my flirtyness and replace it with good deeds toward the needy. I try, in every situation, to sacrifice myself for others.
I try so hard to do good, but sometimes I still fail. I'm not of the noble type who naturally does what's right and acceptable. I'm weak. I'm a sinner who requires His grace and the assurance of the salvation I accepted long ago.
Looking for God is hard work and it often still leaves me feeling empty. As I sit on the edge of my bed and weep, I remember that even though God seems out of my reach, I'm never out of His. He's always been there, ever providing me with His amazing grace. He knows when I wake, when I pray and when I curse Him. He loves me anyway.
What more can I ask for? I looked for God...and I found Him.

Struggle: Personal and Political

Just last year we re-elected Presisent Bush. During the heat of opposing campaign adds, right before election day, I struggled. Of course I would vote Republican. I'm all for a conservative president who "upholds the Christian ideals". But I struggled with the "why" of my choice and the relevance of my vote. Does it even make a difference who I vote for?Why did I want Bush to become president? As I looked around me, I noticed that many of my peers and even my family and fellow church-goers chose Bush because of the simple fact that he's conservative. They blindly backed up everything he said, truly believing that the country would go to ruin if Kerry was elected. Their view was that the only way to save America was to have a "Christian" president. I realized that electing a Christian president won't change the world, it's love and compassion that will save the world. It's living out our Christianity is what will change America. I was slightly tempted to vote Democrat as a statement of that very belief. I recently read an interview with author Philip Yancey in Relevant Magazine. I like the way he talks about the tension between politics and faith:

Martin Luther King Jr. used to say that you can pass laws to keep whites from lynching black people, or require them to open up their restaurants, but you can't pass a law requiring one race to love another. That pretty well defines the tension. It took laws and Supreme Court decisions and federal marshals to overturn legalized racism in the South. But have we achieved King's dream of a "beloved community"? I'm afraid we have a long way to go.
We can pass laws against abortion--but will we be willing to step forward with compassion toward the woman who delivers her child? We can define marriage as between a man and a woman, as many states have, but no law can address the spirit of judgment and exclusion that so many churches project toward gay people.
A fine example of this is the twenty-five million people who are already suffering from AIDS in Africa: "innocent" women, promiscuous individuals, orphans, children infected from birth. Laws that dispense funding for treatment will certainly help, but the church needs to step up with an outpouring of human compassion. I've been in some of those clinics, with volunteer "mothers" who come in from churches every day and hold babies. That's not a legal issue, that's pure compassion. If the church responds consistently with compassion toward the marginalized and disenfranchised, then we'll simply be following in the steps of Jesus. And, I might add, that's not the reputation of the modern church.

Hope For The Future

Change is eminent; it is here. There's no stopping or avoiding it. It could be ignored for a short season, but it can't be postponed. The question is to embrace or to shun.
My instinct is to grab on tightly to everything that is familiar and not let anything new in. My life as it is now is by no means perfect, but I've already been through the dirty business of coping with present imperfections. I've improved some and become comfortable with others, which, in the end, are not so bad. My housing situation and my roommate are great. I'm finally happy being single. My job has ceased to challenge me and four years of college have made me quite accustomed to the lifestyle. Why must things change now that I'm situated?
It's the age-old question about God, time, and humanity. God gives us seasons and then takes them away. This wouldn't be a problem, except I've come to love the people and times that came with this particular season of my life.
It seems I must make a decision. With a tight fist and nervously gritted teeth, I let out a deep sigh and shout to the sky, "I postpone my future no more!" I'll gather up all the gumption in me and go against my instinct. I'll embrace the change and prepare for the mess that coping might make. In the end, it won't be so bad. Come December I'll find a new roommate, possibly find a new job and move to a different town. I'll be deciding about pursuing further education and the general direction my life will take.
Life comes in seasons. Sometimes you live for today, but sometimes you must embrace tomorrow. I really don't know what's to come, but there's always hope for the future.