What really matters...

O Holy night, the stars are brightly shining. It is the night of our dear Saviour's birth. Long lay the world in sin and error pining, Till he appeared and the soul felt its worth. A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices, For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn. Fall on your knees! Oh hear the angel voices! Oh night divine! Oh night when Christ was born! Oh night divine! Oh night! Oh night divine! Chains shall he break for the slave is our brother, and in his name all oppression shall cease. Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we; Let all within us praise his holy name. Christ is the lord, that ever, ever praise we. Noel! Noel! Oh night;oh night divine! Noel! Noel! Oh night; oh night divine! Noel! Noel! Oh night; oh night divine! This is one of my favorite Christmas songs, and there are several reasons why I love it so much. But this year particularly, I love the sense of hope that this song has. This has been a rough year in many ways. But tonight is about hope. The

I want to live with no regrets. I want to get to the end of my life and be content with the decisions I have made. Oh, I know that I will make mistakes. I am not perfect. But I think right now my regret is that I push people away. The truth is I am pretty self-sufficient. I visited my mom recently and when were talking, she told stories of me growing up and how I would just take care of myself. Once when I was really little we were visiting my aunt and uncle, and I had been sitting on the floor and then suddenly they noticed I was gone. I was little enough that this was something to be concerned about, so they went looking for me. And eventually found me asleep in the room that I had been told I would be staying in. That's me. I'm the person who manages by myself. But that's not who I want to be. I want to let go of that control. I want to trust someone wholly with who I am. I want to let people in, let them see the real me, not just the image I project on t

I feel like a part of me is an adult, but only a part of me. I have an adult job (well sort of - I work with teenagers). I work full time. Most of the people I interact with are adults who I interact with as contemporaries or youth who I interact with as "students" for lack of a better word. They are my youth group. And yet, I am 28. I am single. And sometimes I feel like that part of me gets lost in the mix. How do I honor that part of me? I mean, I think about this week. Other than Friday night when I went to dinner with a friend, I was home every evening except Monday when I went to a middle school volleyball game and Wednesday when I was filling it at the children's afterschool program. And even those nights I was home by 8. My friends are growing up. They are dating. They are moving on. And I don't know where that part of me fits. And it's not that I don't love my job. I do. It's amazing. But I don't know where I fit, as Katy. N

So yesterday's sermon was about the difference between expectancy and expectation. The basic point was that an attitude of expectancy is believing that God is at work, and good things are to come, whereas expectation is more like a sense of entitlement as to what we deserve. As my pastor was talking about this, I realized that I had expectations. I set expectations about what my life should be like, and I feel upset, disappointed, even a little angry that my expectations aren't being met. And while I still think my feelings are legitimate, I also realize that I can't tell God how my life should go. But I need to move from having expectations about what should have happened, or what should be having, to having a sense of expectancy that God will do great things in my life if I allow it. So there is my goal. It's really what I started working on this weekend, though not in so many words, while on retreat. But it is still what I am working on. This weekend was good

so i skipped yesterday on accident... today... today there are simply no words...

how important is routine? When I think about what to write, I am forcing myself to come up with something simply because I committed to doing this, and I committed to this because I feel like I need to include greater reflection in my routine. But how important is that routine? Is this really helpful? I'm just not sure. So far I don't really feel like I am really getting anything out of this experience. Not that we have to get something out of everything, but the point of this was to deepen the spiritual reflection in my life. So the question remains, for that to happen, is routine necessary?

One of my favorite Bible verses is found in 1 John 4 (I don't remember which verse exactly and I am too lazy to look it up) where it says "perfect love casts out fear." The idea of overcoming fear seems to be a theme in my life today. I don't really know why - just the things that I have been watching and the things I have been thinking about seem to follow along these lines. Overcoming fear. Being ok with making mistakes. It's a hard thing. But it's life. In life we make mistakes. Again, I return to the theme of the Olympic games. As I watch the Olympics, the announcers talk about all the ways that these athletes overcome their fear. Tonight, the ice dancers left it all out there on the ice. They did their best, and that made them capable of accepting whatever the results were. In life, we can do that too. If we put our best out there, we then can be accepting of whatever the results are. But in order to put our best out there, we need to overcome

Yesterday a girl died. She was a senior in high school. And while I don't know the details, from what I've heard, she was a beautiful girl full of life, but at some point was told she had cellulite... Like I said, I don't know the details, but apparently she became anorexic. I didn't know this girl, but the pictures I have seen - she was beautiful. And it's such a tragic reason to die. Why do we do this to each other? Why do we say such harsh words? Why do we make these comments that hurt for so long? And most of the time we don't even think about what we're saying - we don't even realize the damage our words are doing. We say things affectionately, or as a joke, and the damage we do has lasting consequences - consequences that even the people dealing with them may not see for years. So today my goal is to be uplifting, to remind people how beautiful and wonderful and amazing they are, just as the people they are. TWLOHA

Today I was shopping at a local Christian bookstore and I heard a woman say to her friend something along the lines of... "I don't want to judge her; I just hope the holy spirit will convict her about what she's doing." They were talking about the clothing choice of someone who attends her Bible study. Now I don't know this woman, but my mind went immediately to the speck and plank - you know - trying to remove the speck in someone else's eye when we have a plank in our own. We always seem to want the spirit to convict someone else, but we definitely don't like it when we are the one being convicted. In fact, I have frequently felt convicted about being judgmental about judgmental people - gotta love the irony :-P

So I forgot to post yesterday, so here's the first for today that's actually for yesterday :-P In the spirit of the Olympics, this is my reflection on what happened in the men's figure skating - Both Evan Lysacek and Yevgeny Plyushchenko skated awesome performances - but they had very different feelings about the outcome (granted one got gold and the other silver so that is definitely a factor). But in listening to Plyushchenko's arguments about why he deserved gold, I feel that the difference really is this: Lysacek used the rules and the new scoring system to his advantage - he made his program with the rules in mind. Whereas Plyushchenko seemed to have decided that he could win without accounting for the change in rules - that they didn't need to impact him. In an interview immediately after the medal ceremony, he essentially said that in the old 6.0 system he would have won. And maybe that's true - but he knew going into the program that the rules were

My favorite part of the olympics is the moment when the athlete realizes they have won the gold and that look of pure joy crosses their face - some cry, some laugh, some fall down in their joy, but all of them it's just awesome to see the look on their face the moment they realize they won and all of their hardwork has paid off. Tonight, Evan Lysacek won the gold medal in men's figure skating, and the announcers kept talking about how much he trained - to the point that his coach sometimes has to tell him to stop practicing. But I think we do the opposite in life the majority of the time. We expect to succeed at things, but we don't really prepare for them. Especially in faith. I know I am guilty of this. I wonder why I am feeling so frustrated with life, or why I am having so much trouble planning a youth group Bible study, or so many other things. And then I realize that I have gotten away from the point of what I am doing. See the Olympic athletes have a clear cut

This is the beginning of Lent and as such the beginning of my reflections about life. I get into moods where I am very reflective, but often I am not in such a mood and in those times I do not really reflect on things the way that I should. So this Lent, my goal is to spend some time each day reflecting on life, faith, and anything else that happens to cross my mind in my reflections. So for today, it seems only appropriate to reflect on Lent. So often we think of it as a time to give something - like chocolate or pop - up. But why? Why should you - or should you not - give something up? I used to do that myself. In fact, I gave up pop once many years ago, and even now I very rarely drink an entire can of pop. But most of the time when those are the kinds of things we give up, it doesn't really change anything after Easter. In fact, to me, it sometimes seems that we become more excited about Easter because we get to eat chocolate or drink pop instead of being excited about