i heart the rock

sooo my weekend was an adventure. i will post the long story with pictures once they are developed.

suffice it to say for now that i had a freak-out when i arrived back in winnipeg, but i made it to winkler for martha's wedding and i survived almost being late and not having my luggage. and i realized i have a hard time not asking God to do things for selfish little me.

if any of you watch veggie tales, this would be the appropriate place to insert a french pea yelling, "you're so selfeesh!"

my wedding day

tomorrow i'm off to newfoundland for adventures. the first of which will be trying to make my connecting flight in toronto. i've never flown alone before, so this could be interesting. i can't believe sometimes all the good things i've been given. part of me wants to write "god is good" behind this all and yet part of me wonders if i'm only saying it because "good" things happened to me. there've been a lot of things going on in the lives of people around me, especially my campers and friends from camp, that make me pause before i say that.

i hate cliches. and that is one. the more i read the bible the more that schocks me. so perhaps looking for evidence of God's goodness in the bible is harder to find because "good" isn't defined as we think it ought to be. how are we defining good? how are we expecting goodness to look and be shown in our lives? what is good? what is God's goodness? how does it look biblically? hmm.

my new bike helmet

my new bike helmet is one of a kind. although it came from a wal-mart shelf, so perhaps not so one of a kind. however, let me just say you will be hard-pressed to find another like it on the head of any other student at the university.

my new bike helmet is blue. sounds quite normal, you say. yes, but here's the catch. blue, with light blue hawaiian flowers aalll over. not only that - it came with a matching bike lock that is also blue with flowers on the lock. AND two pretty little flowered valve covers for my tires.

now let's see who questions my sense of style!! the reason for all of this is as simple as spelling m-e-n-n-o-n-i-t-e.

it was on sale.

well, not even really. but to have purchased an adult helmet and lock, it would have cost twice as much, quite literally.

and today i used it all for the first time. aren't you all proud to be my friends? don't you all want to go for a bike ride with me now? i thought so.

that was depressing

well, that last post was sad. so here's a happy one. our house is a home. i love it! we've made our "hobbit-hole" of a basement into a nice, spider-web free nook of niceness. at least i think so. i spent hours cleaning on saturday, and it felt really good. and then sunday we were inept with the cooking idea at our place, and the smoke detector went off and we had eggs stuck to pans. it was fun :)

i'm always being challenged by people. challenged to live differently - to live meaningfully and to live truthfully. sometimes i don't want to live up to those challenges. yesterday night i was challenged to be an effective teacher by a cheesy dvd from my education textbook. i began to get intimidated by the large amount of responsibility i have as a teacher to be effective and actually make a difference. and then i got scared. i started to doubt my ability to be that person, that teacher.

i never thought i was a fearful person, but the more challenges that are thrown at me, the more i realize how often fear stands in my way. perfect love casts out fear. i read last night that Jesus did not come to the world to condemn us, but to save us. maybe this is too much of a stretch, but i believe that applies to my fears. he did not come to condemn me and tell me i wasn't good enough, effective enough or not able. Jesus came to cast out my fears and tell me who i am in him. only by my trusting him and believing my identity is found in him, will i be free of these fears. i want to be rid of my fears! i want to live in utter abandon to his will and not be dictated by silly fears. i want to experience his perfect love.

and the winner is...

ièm not really a winner. this keyboard is a loser. i canèt type apostrophes. or question marks. i apologize. i wish i had more time to sit and process and order my thoughts. i donèt have a computer yet, but my new and precious macbook should be arriving next week sometime. perhaps then i will have words to put on this screen.

a thought on the lines at the bookstore: i really wanted to tackle a bookstore employee, steal their shirt, and then scootch to the front of the line. luckily my imagination never affects my actions.

iève been quite frustrated with myself lately. maybe itès a reaction to leaving camp, but i feel very out of touch with my emotions and my heart. my head is constantly saying things that i canèt connect to my spirit at all. fragmented would be a good word. gah. maybe whatès hard to do is to think about my own emotions and thoughts now, after a summer of putting them aside to listen to others and deal with their emotions. where is that balanceÉ (silly keyboard). i loved helping other people, but how do you make sure that you arenèt just turning yourself offÉ i donèt know. i do know that God is good and worth seeking. and so i will continue and keep learning about how much i donèt know.