Noah

Noah:  it's the film that has divided Christians, has delighted critics, and has intrigued movie goers.  When I first heard of it, I was skeptical to say the least, skeptical that it would actually follow the true Biblical story of Noah.  With actors such as Russell Crowe, Anthony Hopkins, Emma Watson, and Jennifer Connelly, none of whom I have ever heard claim to be Christians, I doubted that anything good would come from this film.  When I heard that the director, Darren Aronofsky, was an atheist and had claimed that Noah would be the "least Biblical film ever made", I was even more suspicious.  And for my part, I think I was correct.  Nearly everything I have read points to the fact that Noah strays as far as possible from the actual story while leaving in just the bare minimum of truth so as to be able to call it the story of Noah.  The Matt Walsh Blog gives a well thought out and fairly detailed synopsis of the movie from a Christian point of view.  I would check it out before reading the rest of this post.

Serving the Lord at Home

A couple days ago I blogged about how I was working at planning a trip to Japan with Samaritan's Purse to help with the rebuilding going on there.  I also mentioned that I wasn't sure if I would be able to go because the page said they were looking for experienced carpenters.  As it turns out, I'm not going to be able to go because I don't have the experience needed, which on the one hand is disappointing, but I'm also really glad because just knowing about it got me really interested in working with Samaritan's Purse period.

Chance of a Lifetime

One of these days I'll stop blogging at midnight, but I doubt it'll be anytime soon.  Pretty much all inspiration comes to me sometime around or after midnight.  It's really bad.

In any case, I did want to share a really amazing opportunity a very dear friend of mine shared with me.  She and her husband have a passion for working in disaster areas to help rebuild.  She just recently got back from spending several months in Japan working at rebuilding homes.  It is truly her passion and she shared that passion with me.  Hearing her talking about her experience made me remember how much I used to love going down to Mexico and doing missionary work down there.  Now granted, Japan is very different since it's Samaritan's Purse and they're doing construction whereas when my church youth group would go down to Mexico, we mostly did VBS and outreach with very little construction work.  Well, as she was telling me about her experience, she asked me if that would be something I would like to do.  My answer:  Heck, yes!

Taking a Chance

Anybody who knows me knows that I'm overweight.  Okay, actually, I'll just be honest, I'm fat.  And it sucks.  But I'm not going to bore you with a really long sob story or anything, because I'm actually pretty excited.  As of two days ago, I am in the running to be on the Biggest Loser.  My parents and friends think I'm pretty much crazy, but I'm really excited and pretty darned determined to do this.  Remember, I'm stubborn.

Pre-registration is done, my application is over half filled out, and my mom and I are flying out to Phoenix on the 20th for some much needed girl time as well as for my audition.  So this was pretty short, but I just wanted to share because I am so super excited to take advantage of this opportunity!

This post was originally published on Thursday, June 7 2012.

Trusting Through the Doubt

When I can't sleep or I'm up late reading a book or doing something on my computer, I tend to think a lot.  Tonight was a reading night and now it's almost 2 o'clock and I'm still awake and thinking and looking at facebook.  Now normally I don't look at people's pages all that often.  But tonight I was looking at some friend's pages and a few of them were recently engaged or in a relationship and had pictures up.  Looking at the pictures of them so happy in love I felt that familiar clenching of my heart that's part pain, part jealousy.  And as I kept looking at the pictures of these people that I had graduated with  or were only slightly older than me, I felt all the doubts coming back.  Doubting that God had someone out there for me, doubting that anyone could ever possibly love me, doubting that I could ever truly love someone again myself.  And then there was the jealousy too.  Why did they get someone and I didn't?  Why couldn't I have that?  In a matter of minutes, I was dealing with a full on war between my heart and my head.  My head telling me that I was right to doubt and that my jealousy was rational, even reasonable, and my heart was simply naive.  And then there was my heart telling me to trust God and remember that He has a plan for me even though I can't see it and also telling my head to shut up.