i lay it down … December 24, 2009

now that i’m an official seminarian, you have to believe every thing that i say.  why?  because i speak with the authority of someone who is in seminary and knows.  so there.  it absolutely doesn’t matter that i’m only 2 weeks into my first class … and already behind.  dOOd.  the required reading list for the class is 8 books long!  and let me tell you – the Rhyme Bible isn’t on it.  the week before i left for ptown, i started getting all the books delivered, piecemeal.  as each package arrived, i ripped it open like a toothless 5 years old on christmas morning, to see which title was inside.  glorious history of church I information!  waiting to be read, internalized, synthesized and regurgitated in the form of a bazillion page paper and three tests!  that is, until i realized that NONE of the books had pictures.  and they were all printed in that for-smart-people-scholastic font that would make “clip clop.  clip clop.  the donkey is brown.  joseph and mary go into town” (the rhyme bible, matthew 3) hard to read and understand.  as the titles, such as “A Scholastic Miscellany:  Anselm to Ockham”, written by men long dead piled up on my desk … my back started sweating and i wondered how in the world i was going to keep up with all the housewives (of the OC, NJ, ATL, NYC, DC).  don’t get me wrong.  church history is the bee’s knees.  i’m super excited to learn all about it – juicy detail to juicy detail.  the problem i’m running into is that i will now have to exhibit some time management discipline. which, apart from gluttonous deli cart discipline, is my achilles’ heel.  i am procrastinator extraordinaire.  i rock at putting things off and off and off.  then frantically throwing it together in the last hour.

lots of the time when i pray “Lord, please edumacate me”, i’m always referring to other people.  like, “Lord, please give me more wisdom than Sally who thought it was a good idea to date that ‘really nice wiccan’ “.  and “Father, I ask that you would teach me how to be smarter than everyone else in my Project Timothy group”.  and “Jesus, let me know some good things to say to my small group.  like stuff they really need to hear” – i know that God gives a polite little sigh.  so, lately i’ve been trying out something a little different.  instead of telling God what I think I need, I’ve been asking to reveal to me what He wants me need, love, desire, want and where He wants me to grow, mature and be humbled.  skary!

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in key largo, i did a little experiment and successfully read two whole pages of Bainton and watched Access Hollywood … at the same time!  i had a friend quiz me later that night on both subjects.
Seminary:  Nero blamed the early Christians for some fire in Rome.
Access Hollywood:  Tiger Woods and Jessica Simpson had a private moment.
see?  i. can. do. both.  yes. i. can.

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who knew that with my seminary edumacation, i would get a life lessons thrown in for free.  God likes to give value for the money.  no more padding my free time with reality TV, facebook and staring off into space.  i know it’s going to be hard.  but i’m hoping to that this will be the kick-in-the-butt i need to start using my time, all of it!  more wisely.  i know that this is just a season in my life – study! study! study!.  but this has been an embarrassing wake-up call on something that sneaky sneaked into my life so subtly that i didn’t even notice it until now.  and something that even after i have earned my m.div with super high smarty pants honors, will always be on my radar and not so ROUTINE.  that way, at least when i sit down to watch a bravo marathon of the rachel zoe project on a sunny saturday afternoon, i understand what it is i’m exactly doing.  xxoo.

sometimes things change, sometimes they don’t December 17, 2009

i realized that it’s been quite a while since we’ve last connected, when it took me 3 minutes to remember how to create a new post.  sigh. 
***HELLO!  how aRe yoU?***

before we get started, i would like to throw out a disclaimer:  i’m currently typing this with only 1.04 eyes.  i woke up this morning. (yes, i woke up).  and shuffled into the bathroom to put in my contacts.  left eye.  check.  right eye.  holy mother freaking burned like a foretaste of a literal fiery hades.  i have no idea what was wrong, but i squeezed my eye shut and went with it, thinking that it would subside.  plus i had to get beatrice to the 92nd street petco to get her fur did, before i left for work.   so no time to think too hard about possibly going blind.  fast forward a couple of hours.  eyes still mildly burning and eyesight = foggy.  and then of course, as i’m taking off my nail polish (yes, in my office) i shake the bottle and a HUGE drop of nail polish remover splashes DIE-rectly into my right eyeball.  holy mother freaking felt like a foretaste of satre’s hades.  i ran to the bathroom and flushed my eye out for 15 minutes, while chatting politely with a co-worker who was doing her business.  i ended up making an emergency appt with my optometrist.  who looked at it with her special eye- light, concluding with a snap of her click pen, that it was totes dry.  i was sent off with super eyedrops, a rx for antibiotic eye drops ”just in case”, and the directive not to wear my contact for 48 hours.  sha right!  obviously she doesn’t realize that my glasses are direct evidence of the fall.  they are satan’s glasses.  so here i am.  only one eye working.  blogging to you. 

i have a friend coming to stay at my apartment while i’m away for the holidaze, so last night i was searching for a good hiding place for my diary, when i stumbled upon my past three.  i spread them out on my bed and stared at them – the whole “adult abby diary” series before me.   i picked up the first one – the inaugural entry dated april 2002 and started reading.  feeling slightly guilty, like i was sneaking a peek at someone else’s private journal.  as i flipped through the pages, i recognized the handwriting, but sometimes not the person.  and i sank into the knowing of just how far – and how little – i’ve come over the past 8 years.  there were lots of prayer requests that now, in the last days of 2009, i could check off as “answered!!!”.  i felt relieved, satisfied, happy.  and i told God that He was big, and mighty and sovereign.   but then there were lots of other things that, save the particulars of geographic location and people, were the same.  i felt discouraged, annoyed, mad.  and i said to God (rhetorically), “seriously?????”  and wondered how these things fitted into His “big, mighty and sovereign”.  i know that they do … but sometimes it’s just hard to feel. 

about a year ago, i was with my best friend, chanting “everything will be fine in 2009!” and as we drove around the cold, dark, sparkling streets of indianapolis, i knew we were both wishing and hoping for things that a new year could bring.  now looking back – we understand that things didn’t really turn out the way we both wished and hoped.  some for the good, some for … the good.  because i know that it can’t be anything else.  God is good.  which means every up&down, laughter&tears, the heartjoys&heartache is good.  and so i would like to give some mad props to 2009.  for stretching, growing, strengthening, breaking and teaching me.  as you grow up  you realize that life never goes the way of carefully laid plans.  reading through 8 years of journal entries reminded me of that undeniable fact.  and so what do you do, other than cling to the ultimate sovereignty of God and searching out the jOy in it.  i believe that you can sob with just as much jOy as you can laugh.  i’m blissfully looking forward to 2010.  even though it means that i’ll be 33.  gasp.  here’s to fresh starts.  and promise of renewal.  merry christmas. xxoo.

tick tock. (i was not raptured). November 12, 2009

hello friends.  i’m finally emerging (no … nOt emerGent) from under a pile of seminary applications, essays, PT studies, google group creating, RENEW duties and one nasty birthday-cheddar-biscuit-coma. with my new-and-improved schedule, i probably won’t be able to post daily – at least for the near future … but will be back on here on a regular basis.  sweet!  i missed my blog.  see you all soon! xxoo.

Perfect excuse to stay home tonight and watch TV! October 5, 2009

Driscoll’s on Nightline!
Preaching against idolatry! (so hot).

 

 

Ten Commandments: Pastor Preaches Not to Worship Modern Day Idols – ABC News

hoRtoN October 2, 2009

this week i got to have a mini-sleepover with my two favorite girls dasia (left) and samia (right) (with, of course, their mom, finky finkstra (center) - one of my college BFFs). aren’t they all pretty????  the remigailo’s are in town for a wedding, but came a night early to see moi! which meant that i got to sit by dasia at dinner (and carry her home!), hold samia until she started crying, play preschool itouch games, and inventory all of the “fun stuff” (which included a large pack of orange tic tacs.  dasia got two, i only got one) in her new purple and pink butterfly princess backpack.  it’s crazy how much i absolutely love my all of my BFFs kids.   ugh!  hugs!  kisses!  snuggles!

finky and her family are missionaries in africa.  they are hard core and crazy cool.  i remember sitting on the dorm room floor in olson hall, talking to finks about cute boys, weekend plans, when EXACTLY we were to make our apperance at the DC and how she wanted to grow up and be a missionary.  last night i sat across the table from her and her perfect-for-her husband, damon, talking about cute boys, weekend plans, and about how i am so.so jealous of their distinct and clear calling to be missionaries overseas.  oh, just to have their confidence!  they KNOW without a DOUBT that they are doing what God wants them to do.  

(sometimes i think it would be “easier” (in so many ways) if God wanted the same thing from me.  a hut in ethopia). 

and i’ll tell you this much.  i consider myself a sort of a missionary-in-training.  currently my mission field is nyc.  theirs is freaking AFRICA.  whatever.  anyway, we all love Jesus.  but they LOVE Jesus.  in ONE night they shared Christ to more people than I have in, um, the 6 years i’ve lived here.  sad, huh?  and it wasn’t the creepy, evangelical hard sell either.  they just were nice and friendly to everyone.  since people generally aren’t that nice and friendly in nyc, at least to perfect strangers, these hardened new yorkers always assumed (in this case, correctly) that they were from out-of-town.  “where you are you from?”  damon, “oh, we actually live in africa”.  skeptical new yorker, “oh, really?  you’re a long way from home.  what do you do there?”  damon, “yeah.  ha, ha.  we work for an NGO …” the conversation continues, amicably, culminating in damon fearlessly handing them a small tract with information about their organization.  in my horror, and surprise, it’s always accepted with interest and respect.  wha??????  i was seriously put to shame. 

i need to stop seeing nyc as my playgroud and start seeing it as my missionfield.   lesson learned, and this time finks didn’t even have to give me “the LOOK”.  xxoo!

filthy roman sponge October 1, 2009

 

this is a clip from driscoll’s latest sermon series (he’s going to spend THREE years in Luke! so hot).

oh, that the love for my Savior would overflow.  xxoo.

la de da September 30, 2009

there is a bunch of stuff in my life that i firmly stated i would NEVER EVER (i-would-rather-die) EVER DO.  and then there are also a ton of things that i vowed (cross my heart and hope to die) i would always do. 

then i hit adulthood. 

i was crushed when i turned 29.  because that meant i had only one more year of my roaring 20s … and then my life would officially be over. and so, in my grief,  i wasted that whole 29th year, in mourning and researching retirement villages.  once october 2007 rolled around, i was a mess.  mopey and irritable.  xboy2 was at a loss at my despair and i begrudged him all the more for it, since he was 28 at the time. 

all my friends tried to make the most out of my 3rd decade milestone with a fancy dinner at STK and VIP access to a club with rihanna and JT on rotation, and a live amazonian dressed bongo drummer in the middle of the dance floor.   i give them all an A for effort (or as NY would say, “an E for effort”).  but, that was the last time i stepped foot in a meatpacking district club.  mostly because that night i realized that all the girls there were 90 pounds of  jailbait and the guys were creepy and 40 or in their early 20s in tanktops and a chain. 

so now i’m 31, quickly going on 32 and i must confess, i’m actually enjoying my 30s.  even though, according to popular culture and all my midwest friends, my life is the perfect storm for clinical depression, anxiety and deseperation with the capital D.E.S.P.E.R.A.T.I.O.N.  i’m single, childless (human children, that is) and in school, again. but, to their surprise i’m not drowning my sorrows, “online”, looking at options to freeze my eggs or dressing in bebe and waiting around for a rich man to save me. 

i’m coming into myself.  and happy for it.  gasp! to be honest, i’m actually really super relieved that i’m finally emerging out of awkwardness and insecurity and all of the other stuff that comes along with figuring out who you are.

i digress. 

things i once though i would never (have) do:
actually want to go to bed on time.
eat a square meal … and make sure there is a large scoop of vegetables on my plate.
not be able to drink anything caffeinated after 12noon.
want to work for God fulltime.
want to marry guy who works for God fulltime.
think a prayer meeting on a friday night is super fun.
relate to the parents in movies more than the kids.
like cherries, asparagus and raw spinach.
love fall and spring more than summer.
wear shoes and clothing purely for their comfort factor.
pay for my own braces.
see friends and people my age die from cancer, divorce and lose children.
work in an office job everyday.

at some point, pigs will fly … trust me.  xxoo.

Our God is a GOOD God September 29, 2009

since God knows EVERYTHING (even stuff like, “which came first – the chicken or the egg?” and “how much should i tip?”), He knows that sometimes I need tangible reminders that He is GOOD.  Sure, i KNOW that God is good no matter what … duh! but when my mom is hugging me goodbye after a fun NYC girls weekend, it’s just a lot easier to feel, especially when she tickles my back a little with her fake nails, while her arms are still around me.

to my supreme delight, fall is upon the great city of new york.  in the morning, when i step outside i get to say ’hello!’ to crisp and cool, instead of muggy and gross.  and i feel the goodness of God, refreshing and brisk.  i coventally (heart) fall.   along with fall comes all the fun fall stuff.  like apples and apple crisp and root vegetables and pumpkin bread and butternut squash soup and … APPLE CIDER DONUTS.  i’ll tell you one thing, if the goodness of God feels like mom-hugs and autumn, then it has to taste like a bag full of warm apple cider donuts. 

when i was little my parents would take my sister and me to tanner’s orchard on the edge of town.  it was the best.  corn maze, petting zoo, pumpkins, hayrides and applecider donuts.  back then my mom would only let me have one donut.  now that i’m grown, i get as many as i want!  when i went with the girls on an orchard day upstate, steph turned to irene_murray and me, as we waited in line and asked if we wanted to share a bag with the group.  i shot her a look of disdain and said that we were most definitely each getting our OWN bag.  greedy, i know.  but i didn’t drive 2 hours north of the city to rah-rah in leaf piles and pick apples.  i came for the apple cider donuts and the hayride, which irene_murray and i rode for an hour straight as the rest of the girls gathered their bushel of apples in the orchard. 

that said, sometimes, when i’m in a fall-state-of-mind, i imagine that the ultimate goodness of God (other than Jesus dying on the cross for my sins) would be sitting at my parent’s house with beatrice babycakes in my lap, my mom tickling my back, eating hot apple cider donuts and watching The Office.  hmmmm … xxoo.

hope for the world September 28, 2009

Monday HOPE

got the munday blues?  then listen to this awesome sermon (hot off the presses!  preached just last night! audio player above picture) from my pastor, Tim Keller (TK to you and me)! 

it’s amazing, inspiring and injects massive amounts of hope into your worn down, worn out heart.   

i’m so glad that God tells Tim what to say, and that he says it super super super well.

enjoy!!! xxoo.

if you can’t get it the audio player to work, here’s the link to the sermon.
Hope for the World

 

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no reason to hide September 25, 2009

for some reason i always wake up before my alarm.  it’s crazy annoying. 
as soon as beatrice senses i’m coming to, she scrambles up and out from under the covers to vigorously cover me with good morning kisses-kisses.
and i feel around for my iphone, squinting hard to make out the time. 
of course … exactly 8 minutes before my first (of 3) alarms was to go off.  i groan and roll over, sending beatrice flying to the other side of the bed. 

i’m sprawled out and motionless, doing the calculations in my head.  working backwards from when i need to arrive at the office.  weighing the options of sleeping in vs. showering, not showering, before work workout, during work workout, after work workout, morning walk for beatrice, no walk for beatrice.

and then i remember.  my mind moves from the sweet escape of nothingness and dreams to reality.  i remember good things, bad things, life things.  sometimes it comes crashing down like 10,000 tons and those mornings i’m thankful that i’m completely surrounded by down and feathers to soften the blow.  and then sometimes it floats softly around me, twinkling and hopeful. 

i’m always tempted to immediately turn on the tv to NBC, so i can lay there in bed, eyes closed, listening to the breaking news of the day, while beatrice flings various toys at my head in a desperate attempt to get me to wake UP! and PLAY!.  but most mornings before i reach for the remote, i’ll talk to God for a minute or two.  remembering to thank Him that i get to wake up in my wonderful bed, with my dog, on the upperwest side of manhattan. 

i remember making a practice of this, starting back at Taylor.  thanking God first thing.  and since then it’s just stuck.  it’s helped a lot.  because there are times when the first thing i want to do when i wake up is cry.  and sometimes i do … tears will pour out of my eyes as i lay there, beatrice frantically licking them away, unable to keep up.  and i’ll sob to God that i don’t want to get out of bed.  that i didn’t want to wake up.  that i don’t want this to be my reality.  and then there are times when the first thing i want to do is smile.  and i’m comfortable and excited for the day.  so i’ll lie there and hug beatrice happily and think “thank you Jesus”. 

but most of all i’ve learned to keep those first waking moments, where you linger between sleep and life, sacred.  no matter what is going on in and around me, i give it to God.  in tears, hope, anger, gladness.  i bask in the Almighty allowing Him to fill me with his good pleasure and love. 

then i throw back the covers, find my glasses and start my day. 

“For Christians, the beginning of the day should not be burdened and haunted by the various kinds of concerns that they face during the day.  The Lord stands above the new day, for God has made it.  All restlessness, all impurity, all worry and anxiety flee before Him.  Therefore, in the early morning hours of the day, may our many thoughts and our many idel words be silent and may the first word and the first thought belong to the One to whom our whole life belongs.”  -Deitrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

 

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