And I thought I was late...

Sucker. 99 years past due! lol
This guy was for real.
He came and returned his library book checked out 99 years ago(his mother's fault--see below!). And i knew someone who had a hard time getting a job because they had a library fine on their record. huh.


Next time I scramble trying to get together the 5-too-many books that i've checked out from the libary to avoid my 25-cent fine, i'll remember this.




http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091216/ap_on_fe_st/us_odd_really_overdue_book

From Yahoo! news

a chipmunck christmas

This always makes me smile...



This is on my short list of Christmas classics

Life in Memphis

As many of you know, I just moved to Memphis. I’ve been here now for about two months. Some of you may be or may not be clear as to why I’ve moved here, and I want you to know this: that God is AMAZING (what an understatement) and that he’s been working tremendously not only in this past few months, but in my life in its entirety up to now.

(photo: on the road to memphis)

For the past four years at UNT, I had been working as hard as a little ant at trying to reach this goal of becoming a world class journalist. I had taken multiple non-paid positions working for PR agencies, magazines, volunteering at TV stations, events and non-profit organizations. However, the non-profit stuff I took on, I really did have good intentions with, but at the same time I did have ulterior motives sometimes.

Anyhow, I was really focused on this goal. And even hid behind the fact that I wanted to glorify God with the way I do my work…It was true to an extent, but my life was not really centered around him.


So focused and determined, I took on new event after new event and I was swayed back and forth as a wave, and bowing to the expectations of employers and recruiters and people that I believed held my financial future in their hands in this turbulent economy. But even beyond finances, I wanted validation from doing a job well done. I made time for God and said he was a priority, but I didn’t live like it. I spent most of my time doing journalism stuff, working at something that I felt that I wasn’t even good enough to do, but if I worked at it, I could be good enough and graduate and land a good job, save some money and then invest in doing things for the Lord. “Then,” I thought,. “I’ll do what I really want to do.” What I didn’t realize, though, is that I was bound by this.

I was a slave to people’s expectations of me, and I had really sorta kicked God to the curb. Ok, I did kick him to the curb.


Not saying that pursuing a career is wrong. And please don’t get wrapped up in a sacred versus secular jobs or your missing the point. He is much needed in the workplace, and most definitely needed in the church as well as people attend but their hearts are so far from him. This happens because this was me at one point.

I’m not ashamed to admit that there are people
out there like me.

Now, I still plan to be a journalist. This has not changed. What has changed is my heart….

I’ve loved the Lord since I first accepted him as a teenager. However, it was learning how to live in light of this in a world that doesn’t care about the cross and gives God the finger everyday by breathing the air that he made, but denying the Life that he gives that was hard.

Now by coming to a new place were I have no other to depend on but the Lord, I’ve learned that I really could have been living in light of him all the time, but because I was so busy, assuming and even trying to microwave God to fit into my life I missed him when he was still there all along.

And I’m telling you , too, that he’s there. And the cool thing is that when your looking for him with all your heart, you WILL find him. This is promised in several places throughout the His WORD!

That’s a challenge to you--to look.

Anyways while I’ve been here, I’ve been learning the Bible and volunteering, now with an after school tutoring program called Streets Ministries and wherever else I can serve there. I live in a house with four other women my age (like last year, plus one).

Some may look at this as a challenge or even a curse (lol)…however, it has been more of a blessing to me than I can even put into words. It’s amazing how God has brought us together and we get along; like, for real! We’ve been inviting people over for dinner and each of us cook, share recipes and everyone is so creative and artistic. I think that’s tight.

Please do not think of me more highly because of the things I’m doing. If so, then you miss the whole point of why I’m writing this.

Seek God.

BTW you have to die to yourself and your own desires. That’s what makes this walk un-easy. The reward of life with Christ far outweighs the trauma this world may inflict upon you.

I hope you don’t miss him.

Listening to: “We Need You” by JR. I just feel so energized every time I listen to this song! It makes me think back to when I was just a freshman or sophomore in high school and I prayed to God for good music that glorified him and allowed me to reflect on his goodness without me being distracted by the fact that I didn’t like the musicality. I desired to hear something that appeased my personal style, and this is it! Thank you Lord!

Photo courtesy of Sara Townsend

Real Talk 102 A Block Video by Osiriscope - MySpace Video

Real Talk 102 A Block Video by Osiriscope - MySpace Video

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Favorite Michael Jackson memory

After just watching the memorial service for the greatest entertainer alive--none other than Michael Jackson, I just had to post my favorite memory of him. As a kid, I was really into musicals. I'd love to watch the wizard of oz, but I especially loved watching The Wiz, which was like the Black version of the original. It had an all-star cast: Diana Ross, Richard Pryor (who is also missed) and Michael Jackson.
I looooved the scare crow (michael's character), and the best part was when after the crows were taunting him and after he got through singin "You can't win..." and then Dorthy (Diana Ross) helped him get down off the pole to go and see the Wiz, and then once he got it they started singing "Ease on down, ease on down the road.." MAN I LOVED THAT PART! I get excited to this day just thinking about it. Makes me wanna just do a little spin get up and dance and just... "Ease on down, Ease on down the road...(repeat) Don't you carry nothin' that might be a load Just ease on down, eason down the road!" Rest in peace Micheael. My prayers out to his family.

Free

Today was a crazy day!
I've never felt so free in my life.
~After leaving my geography lab, I was tired. So tired, not necessarily due to lack of sleep, but from life itself. I've been wrestling with how to really love people the way that Christ did back in the day, as application to my life (which is almost planned every second to the tee). And I realized (not on my own, of course) that I was in need of something. I felt I wasn't fully be able to care for another person because loving someone else when you're not receiving love is dificult. --same reason I thought that maybe I would never marry, but that's a different topic for another day--(Stay with me, this is going somewhere!)
I felt like, how could I give something that I lacked myself?
However, now I am no longer lacking.
Through reading from the book of 1 John I realized what love for Christ truly looked like. It's simply, loving your brother (or sis, you know. lol). But first i had to receive and accept the love of God. I had to allow him to take away the burden, the loneliness, the insufficiency and feeling of "not being good enough" and put on his cloths of love. His love is unconditional. He accepts me. He made me. I was reminded of this today and knowing this, allowed the Lord to take away the pain I was feeling and clean up my wombs--

“But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”- Isaiah 53:5-6

Now because of this we can love others as well feeling completely loved and full of joy. No matter how we're treated...Christ did it, and he made it so we could, too.

What a relief! but even more so I was so overwhelmed with thanks and gratitude that the One True God would humble himself to this level to this for me, you and those He's chosen in this world whom He loves deeply. Just thought I'd share it by telling you this. Holla

OMG, people care!

Hey, I'm sorta bummed that I missed this yesterday, but FedEx/Kinko's was offering FREE resume copies yesterday in response to the rising unemployment numbers (we're at more than 8% now, i'm hearing). Yay Fed Ex!

http://citizenshipblog.fedex.designcdt.com/node/621#comment-1723

I'm a broke college kid about to graduate in May. Couldn't have come at a better time!

Heroes and Villains

I really love the show Heroes that comes on NBC! I am telling you, it’s one of the best ever created (kudos to Tim Kring)!

Why?

It points out a lot about how we really are as humans. Portrays a struggle between our true selves versus what we want to be, exposing our fatal flaws and depravity. It plays on the fact that people want to be extraordinary and matter in life. I want to matter in this life just like the next person. The cool thing about the heroes in the TV series is that they all have these “special” abilities, and they’re on a mission to “save the world”, to make it a better place, to rescue us from ourselves.

Unfortunately on their quest to create a perfect world, they cause damages and deaths along the way. They seem to be going through identity crises & people end up cast along a trail of dispair. Events continue to overlap, causing the “butterfly affect” to a point where nothing really is what it seems….

I think it’d be pretty awesome to have a power (kina nerdy, I know).

But for real, on the bus home from Dallas today I was just thinking:
God has every awesome power that man (or the writer of this television series) could possibly even think of. He’s indestructible like Claire Bennett. In the show Claire cannot die, even after enduring excruciating pain almost to the point of death…(well, watch the show).

Who can say that God has not mastered the time continuum like Hiro Nakamora…
can’t take on many abilities and become all things like Peter Patrelli…
erase memory like “the Hatian”…
or like little Molly, be a human GPS system who can locate anyone in the world at anytime?
Can’t God read and change minds like Matt Parkman?

What about Matt’s dad who could give both good and bad dreams, also alter reality…
I bet we haven’t thought about the fact that God knows how things work, much like Silar (but without the psyco killing, power-hungry streak lol). Yo but even Silar in this show feels inadequate because he just can’t have enough power. Even with all he has, he is never satisfied.

God shows himself stronger when we fear him, and shows himself stronger in our weaknesses like the guy who grows stronger when people around him start to fear.
He has the power to give life and also take it away.
Paint the future,
and like Isaac Mendez he knows how the last page of the comic book ends and paints it into existence. He’s left behind his sketch book of the future (like Isaac) in the Bible, his word. And just like the show, no matter how you try to shake the future, it’s already been sketched, and it will come to pass one way or another,, even if not t

he way in which you think it will. This is all so bizarre. If you haven’t seen the show, watch it. And think about the attributes of our Abba Father God. He has the formula to give us all the power we need to overcome this life, and the catalyst is Jesus Christ.

Photos courtesey of nbc.com/Heroes