Sheeeeeeeee's Baaaaaack!!! 
Can’t wait to get my hands on this book and smell that wonderful book smell. I sound weirdly psychotic, but if you understand what I mean then you are awesome too.
I chose this picture to describe my spiritual walk at this current moment because I was recently with a group of people and we were singing “our God” during worship and I could not handle (literally had to run away to express what I was feeling) the fact that people were not jumping up and down, celebrating exuberantly the words that were coming out of our lips. But I understand, sometimes you don’t feel it. But I couldn’t just do it because it was NOT the vibe of the room… any way. The lyrics talk about the miracles of God, the power that he holds, his authority over all and therefore, as his children the power behind us….
The main thing that drove me crazy was it kept repeating and it was the like the truth was being shouted out over nad over again and we were just STANDING THERE SAYING IT!!!!!!
Water You turned into wine
Open the eyes of the blind
There’s no one like You
None like You
Into the darkness You shine
Out of the ashes we rise
There’s no one like You
None like You
Our God is greater, our God is stronger
God You are higher than any other
Our God is Healer, awesome in power
Our God, Our God…
Into the darkness you shining
Out of the ashes we Rise
There’s no One like You
None like You.
Our God is greater, our God is stronger
God You are higher than any other
Our God is Healer, awesome in power
Our God, Our God…
Our God is greater, our God is stronger
God You are higher than any other
Our God is Healer, awesome in power
Our God, Our God…
And if Our God is for us, then who could ever stop us
And if our God is with us, then what can stand against?
And if Our God is for us, then who can ever stop us
And if our God is with us, then what can stand against?
Then what can stand against?
Then what can stand against?
———————————-This picture because this was one of my FAVORITE locations in Israel. Jacob’s well. Where Jesus spoke with the Samaritan woman (the longest recorded dialogue that has ever been recorded between Jesus and another person!). It was where I touched the water from the well and had an experience that words could not describe. It forever changed my spiritual life and relationship with God. I know that might sound strange, I touched water and I felt different, but in all truth it was a pivotal point for me.
It has been a long time- this will be long
First off- I am working on starting a new blog for Tim and I on wordpress.com. It should include the life of marriage and every day struggles, our life lessons learned along the way and bits and pieces of us that we want to share. It is still in the making so I will soon be off of this or…something. We’ll see.
I haven’t blogged in a LONG time. A lot has been happening. First major EXCITING thing. Tim and I are now married!!! YAY! 9-10-11. Plenty of things to vent about there. Main thing- weddings are BEAUTIFUL but will cause the WORSE drama that everyone has seen since Junior high. For that reason, I despise weddings. To attend or to see the pictures without hearing all the background shit is wonderful thing. But man oh man! Gathering people is a nightmare. I can count at least 5 major relationships that were rocked through this event. At least three of them were affected in a way that the “common person” is having problems with more than one person. How ridiculous is that? Isn’t this supposed to be a happy time? Well forget that!
I am sick of people being so selfish (I am including myself in that mix- but it was my wedding… just saying). It breaks my heart to HONESTLY come to the reality that some of these relationships (both LIFELONG friendships and Family) will never be the same if EVEN re-kindled. I don’t want to hold this bitterness, I just want to understand.
I have been reading through an EPIC book “The Poisonwood Bible”- by Barbara Kingsolver. It is a book I recommend (if you are into this type of thing) about anthropology and mission work in the Congo during their time of independence. It takes place over three decades and is about a radically baptist family learning how to live with and among the congolese people. I am taking so much from it. About every other page is dog-earred for a different reason. haha. Something I was reading tonight really hit home about what life has been throwing my way lately:
“Listen. To live is to be marked. To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story, and that is the celebration we mortals really know.”
When old friends are upset with you and say “you have changed. You are not the person I knew.” They are right. You have changed. But as long as you still are confident in who you are and what you stand for you are the same person, you have simply kept living past the point when your paths have separated. “I am still here. It is still me. This is me now.” Is the response so many of us fail to have the courage to respond. We think, ‘Oh, this person has known me for so long. This “new me” must be wrong.” That is BS! Life is about change. You will continue to grow. You meet new people every day with every step you take. Each person you meet will shape the person you are. Every encounter. If you want to stay the same, good luck. The world keeps turning and soon you will look in the mirror and see the same soul behind tired eyes and an older body, wondering when life passed you by.
Okay. So change is coming. Something that I have FINALLY grasped over the long hard lessons that I was trying SO hard to refuse to learn. Friends come and GO. There are certain seasons of friends. We are blessed if we have friends that last through several seasons. I CHERISH my friends with all I have. I cherish my friends with all I have. But sometimes it is not mutual so…life must go on. BAM. It hits home. Hard. Home run. Run Home.
Once I signed on Tumblr to finally blog about my current life this was the picture… which, thank God was the perfect description to my emotions and my life at the moment. I feel like I am being pulled every which direction from so many people, things, expectations, life happenings, etc and the face… I couldn’t express it more perfectly. Thank you, tumblr.
(Source: sarahssuperadventure)
via sarahssuperadventure
The comparison that teaches
WOW. The guy who bombed Oslo was a white Christian. I am curious to see how the media and “politics” will react to this. I have some very VERY good assumptions that I am sure will be accurate. Since this was being compared to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, in some ways… to set the reactions to the “terrorists” side by side, I am sure we will see some interesting things that will teach us a lot about ourselves. Veryyyy interesting.
a good reminder that we all need
You are treasured, you are sacred, you are His
You’re beautiful!
Before you ever took a breath
Long before the world began
Of all the wonders He possessed
There was one more precious
Of all the earth and skies above
You’re the one He madly loves
Enough to die!
You’re beautiful, You’re beautiful
In His eyes
I am a Pennsylvanian!!
I was raised in Pennsylvania, where flip flops come out in June, we don’t have fireflies, we have “lightnin bugs”, we say crick instead of creek, “yinz” is a proper noun, hoagies are baked in the oven, Kool Aid is the house wine, we red up the house, we eat Gobs, and our blood runs black and gold :) and you would never disrespect your elders!
Our own little worlds…
In my own little world it hardly ever rains
I’ve never gone hungry, always felt safe
I got some money in my pocket, shoes on my feet
In my own little world, population: me
I try to stay awake during Sunday morning church
I throw a twenty in the plate but I never give ‘til it hurts
And I turn off the news when I don’t like what I see
Yeah, it’s easy to do when it’s population: me
What if there’s a bigger picture?
What if I’m missing out?
What if there’s a greater purpose?
I could be living right now
Outside my own little world
Stopped at a red light looked out my window
I saw a cardboard sign said, “help this homeless widow”
And just above that sign was the face of a human
I thought to myself, God, what have I been doing?
So I rolled down the window and I looked her in the eye
Oh, how many times have I just passed her by?
I gave her some money than I drove on through
And my own little world reached population: two
What if there’s a bigger picture?
What if I’m missing out?
What if there’s a greater purpose?
I could be living right now
Outside my own little world
My own little world
Father, break my heart for what breaks Yours
Give me open hands and open doors
Put Your light in my eyes and let me see
That my own little world is not about me
What if there’s a bigger picture?
What if I’m missing out?
What if there’s a greater purpose?
That I could be living right now
I don’t want to miss what matters
I wanna be reaching out
Show me the greater purpose
So I can start living right now
Outside my own little world
My own little world
My own little world
a prayer for the world and my life.
So Father, give me the strength
To be everything I’m called to be
Father, show me the way
To lead them
Won’t You lead me?
To lead them with strong hands
To stand up when they can’t
Don’t want to leave them hungry for love,
Chasing things that I could give up
I’ll show them I’m willing to fight
And give them the best of my life
So we can call this our home
Lead me, ‘cause I can’t do this alone
Father, lead me, ‘cause I can’t do this alone
Conifucius.
Sounds good to me, Conifucius. Sounds good to me. This has basically been the gist of my philosophy for working for quite a long time. With a little more added….
The signs from Texas that I have long been waiting for!!!
FB Status: First of all… AFRICA! AFRICA! AFRICA! AFRICA!!!!! Had such an AMAZING and random middle of the day adventure of getting lost in San Antonio with Tim, but God met us in amazing ways and just opened our eyes for Africa. I was about to scream out the car window in joy!!! I could and can not stop smiling. I am FLOATING in joy! PRAISE GOD!
Wow. Is all I can say at the moment. I need to try and slow my mind down enough to get all of this out, but at the same time type fast enough so I get it all out. I hate when this happens!
SO I haven’t been blogging in a while… I have so many other things to get done. Like finding a better job that can actually pay my bills and planning a wedding for finding a good social life. :-/
I gave in to the fact that I did not like living here. I tried to fight it for a while, honestly. I knew that if I actually said “I don’t like living here” out loud then I would start really living and thinking that way… moreso. But I can’t fool myself anymore. This is not home and I am homesick. And I have several GOOD reasons which make perfect sense to me. Someone that I was talking to about my feelings of this subject said “well it isn’t home, of course you are not as happy here.” WRONG. I have been many places far from home- Africa, Jerusalem…- and for long periods of time and I never felt this way. I never felt REALLY homesick. Maybe it is the fact that I am having to LIVE here. I know. I am trying to see it as just another crazy long trip I am on. “And now Robyn spends a year in Texas”. Tim and I both agree that this is not the place for us. We look forward to August 13, 2012 when he is able to leave the major bonds of the marines and we can move back to PA. We hate being chained to a place.
I don’t like this place for several reasons. (warning this paragraph sounds super stereotyping and judgmental, but I am venting. I read through it and felt ashamed, but I have been feeling this for a while. I have met some great people here. Just my frustrations with the others are currently outweighing the good.) The main reasons are employment options. I have had NO fun with this here and that is quite the understatement. I have had quite the disaster when it comes to jobs and the current one that I have some of the managers are horrible to me and are far from unable to read, which has gotten me into some weird situations and even in trouble a few times. Tim has tried to encourage me through it by saying “if there are good places to work in PA there must be some here… you just haven’t found it”. But in my thinking… no, this is TEXAS where everyone who is a boss is so power hungry and simply rude because they are Texans where their mindset is “We must be on top”. (ouch… I know). Okay, moving on. I also think I am not as comfortable here because I don’t have any friends. That sounds so depressing. haha. Tim is my only good friend. I felt at home in Africa and Jerusalem because I was surrounded by people who had the same mindset as I did and we were basically stuck together in some crazy situations where you basically had no other options then to be friends. I know, I had it easy and “WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD”. Let me tell you… it is hard, boring, and not so fun and mainly… lonely.
But today, some things, some thoughts did a total U-turn as well as Tim and I… literally. It was a pretty random day. I worked 11-3 and had my own share of craziness at work, as usual, but some extra adding in. Some kid throwing up and some weird comments from customers (Oh! EXCUSE ME… “GUESTS!!”) and of course, manager power struggles and politics/ drama. But when I got home, I walked in the door ready to eat dinner and someone knocked on the door, not even five minutes since I was home. I was so confused… I heard the lock jiggling… so I knew it was someone with a key (either Tim or the maintence or owners and the others would have announced themselves). So I expected Tim… but at the same time didn’t. He was working a “night shift” and I wasn’t expecting to see him until later when he got off. He would have just started. I open the door and it was him! He said he got some time off to go to a farewell party of a fellow marine. Came by to pick me up. So I changed and we headed to the understood location. We were wrong (to speed up the story) THREE TIMES!!! and got turned around (missed exits) at least twice. We were AT LEAST an hour late. When we got there… people were leaving and we just talked to a few and then left, which we figured would happen when we saw the time it took us to get there since Tim had to be back to work at a certain time.
AFRICA!!
But the story of random God interjections in this chaos of a random day just flooded over us in the midst of our confusion and being lost between the road and the restaurant.
(background info so you understand a bit more): We have been attending a church that was recommended to me by a friend I spent some time with in Israel. It is called “Riverside”. It is actually about 40 minutes away from where I live but it is worth the drive! The first day I went, in the first conversation I had, it came up that my fiance and I were going to be missionaries in Africa and what I went to school for. I had a big heart to live in Africa. They have several different orphanages in Uganda which they are affiliated with and a missionary that they support is running them all. They send teams all the time and have been praying for someone to come along the main missionary over there to help him. (CHOIRS OF ANGELS IN MY HEAD!!!). He is from Texas and told me to get in contact with him. Long story short he is home from Africa now and they are trying to get us together to meet him and set up some plans for us to work with him. THIS IS JUST SO PRAISEWORTHY!!! The one lady I talk to when we get to the services (can’t always make it) just smiles so much because she can’t believe how we ended up in the church when they have been praying about finding someone to go to Africa to help the missionary!
So we are driving in the car today and for some reason that I can’t remember this all just starts running through my head again. Tim and I are discussing it and we just start seeing some CRAZY stuff on the sides of the road! We were talking about how we were going to raise money and if it was going to be possible and all of this stuff and when we should work out a time to meet him… We began to see business signs and church signs and road signs that we both had to laugh and praise God for how it was confirming so much! (some of you may be laughing and not believe in seeing “signs” but it was so powerful!). I saw a sign for a hair studio that reminded me so much of hair salons in Africa. It was titled “BY FAITH Hair studio”. REALLY?! If you have been to Africa you understand that one! We passed a huge sign that said “Jesus Christ is LORD!” Ummm YOU GOT THAT RIGHT!!! “Deaf” was another one, which connects me to Africa through my Moses story. There were some others that made Tim and I feel good about some current decisions we made about our wedding and our relationship. I was almost crying tears of joy. I was so elated.
That is pretty much all for now….
Random Daze theme by Polaraul
