Melancholy

Here I sit.... at 1:00 in the morning (don't believe the time at the bottom... it's not set properly)... contemplating life and feeling a little bit blue. I don't know why really. Because I'm actually quite excited to be going away to school and having new adventures. Yet here I am, wasting time instead of sleeping.... eating crackers and cheese whiz... which wouldn't even be necessary if I'd just go to sleep! No one's even up for me to talk to.... haha

Ok, I'm being a dork! But I guess I'm just feeling the loneliness set in already. I know I'm going to be fine and I'm going to love school and meet tons of people. But the transition time really sucks! I'd love to run back to camp and hide! I'd even take another week of working with PAT over this thought of the unknown just around the bend. (That was a joke, by the way)

Anyway, I'm gonna go to sleep and stop thinking....

Goodbye Camp... Hello Briercrest!

Wow... it's hard to believe the summer is over. It went by so quickly! I must say it's been quite an interesting summer. There's no way I could actually describe it in a few sentences so I wont even try.

So, now I'm off to school. I leave for Saskatchewan in about two days and I'm not ready at all, but it'll happen. I find myself with very mixed feelings these days. I'm excited, yet nervous. I feel like a wimp 'cause I'm older than most kids that go away to school for the first time... but I think part of it has to do with the fact that I can't just come home whenever I want. The price of flights definitely prevents that! But anyway, it'll be quite the adventure and I'll be fine once I settle in!

Anyway, enough of that. Hopefully I'll still have time to continue on here... hopefully I'll be able to afford internet, actually! Ok... I'm done....

The Bible is SO Cool!!!

And what sticks out to me today in coolness is the story of Rahab! What an incredible story! How come I didn't notice before how interesting it is?? For one thing, I love stories where a "girl" does something daring! Like in Lord of the Rings where the girl kills the big giant thing that couldn't be killed by a mortal man, or however it went. I love that stuff!

Anyway, back to Rahab. I don't think I ever took a close look at her role before. It was just a part of all that Israelite stuff. They marched around the walls, the walls came down, Rahab was saved.... cool. But, no! What Rahab did was so brave! It must have taken guts to hide two spies that had the city terrified! Then she defied the king of Jericho, who probably could have had her killed. Then she told them exactly what to do to get away safely, trusting that putting that cord in the window was going to ensure she lived out the week! What faith it took to believe in a God that was never even presented to her in glowing terms. (By "a" God, I mean "THE" God!) And to top it all off, even though she was previously a prostitute, she ended up in the lineage of Jesus Christ.

So, I don't think my brief explanation does the story justice, but read it for yourself(Joshua 2) focusing on her role in the whole big picture. I don't think I would have been as brave as her!

I Love Me!

Okay... so maybe that sounds a bit arrogant. But I've been thinking lately about all the time I've spent over the years being dissatisfied about who I am. We are told from a very young age how we're supposed to dress, how we're supposed to look, and how we're supposed to act in order to be accepted... in order to be good enough. I've done my years of trying... that's highschool for you. So now I've decided that I love me! This is the way God made me... this is the way He wants me.... He has a plan for me! He will continue to mold me, but my basic personality and character will stay the same. So I could spend my life wishing I were more witty or more beautiful or more anything.... or I could be happy being the person God meant for me to be!!

Here is my favourite song by BarlowGirl:

Mirror

Mirror, Mirror on the wall; Have I got it?
'Cause Mirror you've always told me who I am
I’m finding It’s not easy to be perfect
So sorry, you won’t define me
Sorry, you don’t own me

Chorus
Who are you to tell me
that I’m less than what I should be?
Who are you? Who are you?
I don’t need to listen
to the list of things I should do
I won’t try; I won’t try
You don’t define me; You don’t define me


Mirror I am seeing a new reflection
I’m looking into the eyes of He who made me
To Him I have beauty beyond compare
I know He defines me

Money: Could we live without it?

Although, I'm not incredibly concerned that I'm thousands of dollars short in the amount of money I need for school, I must admit to a little bit of apprehension. It's not easy to go a couple of provinces away from home knowing full well you don't have enough to make it through the year. Being at camp helps to keep me from spending what I do have. However, when it comes to thinking about things I'd love to have (ie. a digital camera!) I get a little frustrated about my lack of funds. Why does it seem like our whole lives revolve around money? I'm not suggesting that we dwell on it every moment or that it's in any way the most important thing in our lives. That would definitely be wrong. But if you think about it, money is a rather big part of our lives. Without money, we can't eat, we have nowhere to live, we can't be formally educated, we can't get clothes, we have no transportation, and, in some places, you can't even use the toilet without sticking a dime in! I am personally tired of adding up the numbers and seeing if I'll have enough for school. I'm tired of thinking about things I'd like to have and wondering if it's okay to buy them or not.

All this was going through my head the other day as I contemplated buying a digital camera. My frustration about money led me to wonder if I could ever live without it. Would it be possible to spend a year or even a month without using any money? (And living at your parent's house doesn't count!) I don't know if it's right to "test" God like that. And it's not likely that I'll ever try out this experiment that went through my head. But I'm sure there have been people who have had to live from day to day wondering where their next meal was coming from. Or wondering if they would be able to buy new clothes to replace tattered, holey ones. It would take such incredible faith to go from day to day trusting that God would provide.

In conclusion, I'm not a big fan of money.... I'm thankful that God continually supplies me with jobs, even before I really look for them! And I've determined not to "worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself". I'm also thankful to live in such a wealthy country. Although, sometimes I think it would be easier to live somewhere where I had only to think about buying food and clothing and not digital cameras and internet time!