Worship

Worship. It's more than just the songs of praise and accolades we sing during divine hour every Sabbath. It's more than just the devotionals we read each morning or at the end of each day. It's a state of being. A state of true transparency. Where all facades are broken, and all walls crumbled. It's the fortification of bonds and resurrection of bridges worn down by life's assaults and this world's distractions. It's allowing oneself to be completely vulnerable to forces beyond human control. Complete surrender to the only Power than can break all chains, dismiss all fears, tackle all obstacles, and calm every storm. It is in true worship that one can experience true freedom and true Love. It is in true worship where things are put into perspective and lies are replaced with truth. It is where the face of God is seen more clearly and his presence felt more real. It is where true faith is born, and reborn, daily. It's the only place where your armor can be rebuffed and readied for the new battle ahead. It is the place where stone becomes flesh. It is our connection to the throne room and invitation to sit on our Father's lap. It is the one place I feel safest and the one place that I don't want to leave. It is the experience that makes me realize the lacking of earth and makes me long for heaven all the more. To be with my Father in eternity; the greatest joy I can ever experience. Worship is the tip of that iceberg. Just a glimpse of things yet to come.

50/50? #GMG

Hey, guys! I'm starting a new segment called "You Know What Really Grinds My Gears?", GMG for short. Just to talk in length or not at all about the things that grind my gears (Family Guy was useful for something).
So, without any further ado, here's GMG:

You know what really grinds my gears? When I try to meet a person half way, but they don't make an ounce of effort to meet me half way. Mostly this has only happened to me when talking to people. I'll do my best to see things from their perspective, but still indicate where exactly I disagree. I try really hard not to disrespect their personal opinion. Yet, when I share my opinion on an issue, my opinion is almost always automatically BS. Excuse me? What happened to respecting opinions? Oh, you thought "no offense" was cutting it? Well, it's not. Now, thus far, I haven't actually lashed out at this kind of response to my ideas, but I'm done with that. I won't go around chopping people's heads off for telling me they don't agree with me, and I definitely won't get mad at people who don't know me, but I will be more expressive about my level of offense and if I can't receive the same level of respect that I gave, I just won't give honest opinions anymore. You may as well go talk to cleverbot. I'm sure she'll give much more caring responses than the occasional "uh-huh", which is all I'll have heart to give after that. I'm not here to stroke your ego. Especially if you're just gonna skewer mine. If you want to actually discuss things with me, I'll be glad to actually respond to what you're saying but only if I know that when I speak, I'll be respected.

And that's what really grinds my gears. Leave a comment and tell me if you ever felt like you weren't getting your fair share of something. Respect, time, effort, money, whatever.

Letter to my body

Dear Body,

There are something I just can't stand about you. You're such a hoarder. You hold onto things you and I both know we could live without, but you swear we might need it one day. All it's doing is holding us back. You're so immature. You make noises at the WORST possible time. I don't care if you took whale speaking classes with Dory. The world doesn't need to know. especially not during a lecture! The world also doesn't need to know about every single thing that hurt you. You get a cut, bruise, burn, you heal, and you should move on. Why the long term evidence? Oh and the constant moving when I'm not moving? Why aren't we in this together? If I move a limb, you should move at the same pace. Why so much inertia? Body, I can think of a lot more things wrong with you, but guess what? You're the only body I have. I don't care what the plastic surgeons say about giving me the best body ever. You were given to me, and you're all I need. You've been with me since the beginning, 07-18-93. You've grown with me. I've seen your ups and downs. You've seen my ups and downs. I know you're not perfect, but hey, neither am I. and one day we both will be. So until then, we'll work together on becoming what God's vision of us as a unit is. I love you body. All the noises, all the excess, all the scars, all the pains. We're in this together. Until death do us part. <3

Bubbles

Audience?!
Ok, so, bubbles. I hate them. Not the ones that fill bathtubs or that come in bottles with small rings. I love those. Even as a 19 year old sophomore in college, I am not above chasing bubbles. I'm talking about social bubbles. Little worlds people create to encourage false senses of community and identity. I HATE BUBBLES. What's even funnier is that people think these bubbles are enough to keep people out. As if the rest of the world can't see them. Doesn't know of them. But guess what the word "Bubble" implies. It's see through. Better yet, it's very penetrable. The whole world can see you and the whole world knows about you and is gaining information by the second. You are not in a fortress, you are not behind a wall. You are in a psychological created spherical film made of soap. Now, I get it. I get that it's nice to think that you belong to a special community. There's some security in knowing you belong to a group that the whole world doesn't have all 10 fingers in. I get that. But should the film of your bubble be so thick that you lose touch to those around you? That you completely  forget what it is to connect with people outside of your bubble? Or completely block people from being able to join your bubble? This is definitely not Christ like. Christ invites ALL people to become part of the Kingdom community. So, what's the alternative? Haven't gotten a metaphor for it yet. But the basic idea is to have something that allows others to come in, but protects what's inside as well. Protect your culture, but don't be so foolish as to think the world so ignorant. And SHARE your culture. Celebrate your culture your lifestyle with others. (Create a metaphor for the environment I'm talking about and you earn 50 cool points :D). Peace out! Bu da dododododododo Subscribe!

Just Breathe

Hey guys it's Monday here on RTS and you know what that means....it means nothing yet lol. (This blog is starting to feel like I just complain but I promise, I'll eventually post more than that.) So, ever feel like you barely have time to breathe? If you're still in high school and you're breezing through everything (like I did for the most part), then you probably haven't felt it all that much (except for maybe the night before that History portfolio or senior research paper/presentation). My fellow college students however can definitely testify to this. I mean, between tests, quizzes, work, labs, I just feel like I barely have time to just stop and breathe. And the moments I do take to relax just end up back firing because I lose time to work. It's really bad when I just wish I'd wake up terribly sick or in pain just so that I'd have excuse to stay in bed and miss work and classes. It's just becomes too much. There never seems to be enough time. Thank God, the semester is almost over. I know I will triumph. I just need strength to hold on, to keep moving. Let's pray that God will give us each an extra breathe from His lungs to survive the last couple days (weeks or months depending on where you are) of the semester. Jeremiah 29:11

Neither here nor there...

hey beard lovers. so a couple weeks ago i posted a status about being in the midsts of a crisis. id been thinking about my life progress and my relationship with god. (sorry, this post is gonna be all lowercase cuz my phone is stupid). i realized i'm not the same person i was in highschool (praise god), but i'm still not the person i want to be, and i don't see myself making progress towards that. my next problem? i don't know where to begin in becoming that person. the person i wish to be is someone who quiet spirited, but not shy. someone who defaults to "lets pray" as a solution. someone who doesn't just blend into the wall, but also isn't overly concerned with being seen. most importantly, i want to be fearless. I'm tired of living life in fear of things. Fear of failure (i figured out how to uppercase now) (this is where my phone went berserk.  The rest of this is typed on a computer.) Fear of rejection (especially this!!). I've missed out on sooo many opportunities because I was too afraid to be rejected. Even in situations where I should have expected acceptance. I run. Because it's easy. Because it's safe. Because rejection sucks. Heartache sucks. But....it's boring in the "safe" zone. And I know that any risk worth taking is either going to end with me feeling elated or depressed, but it's the possibility of failure that makes the feeling of victory so good, right? I just wish sometimes my heart had shock absorbers, but I know that will never be the case. So, where do I go from here? How do I lose the fear? For I know my Father has not given me a spirit of fear, but how do I let go? Just the thought of doing things boldly freaks me out...What's the first step? Pray for me you guys. I need it.

Hey! I'm Blogging Here!

Hey guys, how ya'll doin. So I guess I've officially decided to blog now? I've always considered vlogging but 1) I have a crappy camera, 2) I HATE my camera voice, 3) ain't nobody got time to learn how to cut and edit videos. So, this is the next best thing. Blogging. I probably won't make the longest posts. I probably won't make the most interesting posts. I just need a space to release, to vent, and to collect my thoughts. To figure life out instead of allowing 101 things to just swim around in my brain. I'll probably just post as often as things pop into my mind. That's all for now. peace!

P.S.: I'll be doing opening (and probably closings) of famous Youtubers in my posts. The first person to guess correctly who I'm quoting will get a shout out in my next post.