"Be Still and Know that I am God"

The other day I started thinking. It seems like every time I start thinking about something I end up writing a blog about it. But anyway, I was thinking about pleasure and emotion. If you really think about it, what is the purpose of pleasure? I know I find pleasure in a lot of things. I find pleasure in beauty, pleasure in people, pleasure in food, pleasure in a lot of things; but it's really hard for me to define exactly what this pleasure is. I mean, it doesn't seem really neccissary at all. Life would still be possible without it. All it really does it make life a little more worth living.

Even if food didn't have a taste, we would still eat it because we know that we have to eat to stay alive. So why do we have the ability to taste? Even if the world was dull and gray, we could still continue to live in it because its beauty doesn't really affect whether or not we can breathe or whether or not our heart still beats. So why did God create the world with so many beautiful colors when he could have left it plain and simple? If we never felt any emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, joy, or excitement, then live could still go on. Yet he did give us emotions and the abilty to feel things for ourselves. But why?

My answer(which may not be right) is this: He gave us the beautiful sky, the colorful flowers, the pretty trees, the abilty for something to taste satisfying, and just flat out pleasure in anything so maybe once in a while we will stop our busy lives and just remember where it came from. I think that pleasure is a gift of inspiration given to us maybe simply just to bring a smile to our face when we remember where it came from. And however big and powerful God is, that thought just shows me how personable he can really be.

I think that pleasure is an a privledge and is sometimes taken advantage of. Think about it. If it wasn't for the fact that food tasted so dang good, then I think there would be a heck of a lot less overweight people in our world. Also, I think sex can be another example of this. The only real purpose of it is to reproduce, but God made it pleasurable. I'm not going to go into detail with this, but I think you and I can both agree that it has been taken advantage of a lot.

So I think God gave us those beautiful summer days, that amazing transition going into fall where the leaves are all different colors, a gorgeous sunset, the delicious taste of food, and clear-blue ocean just so every once in a while we will be still and know that He is God. So maybe we will forget everything else and just take that in for a minute.

Something that tells me that our world didn't come out of a giant egg are the intangible things in life such as emotion. Again, emotions are not a vital thing, but we still sometimes feel happy and sometimes feel sad, feel angry, jealousy, joy, or excitement. I don't see how that is something that could have evolved. Apes don't have emotions, but if I evolved from an ape then how do I suddenly end up with emotions? It's a hard thing for me to explain, but try to understand what I'm saying.

I honestly don't understand how someone can feel love, can feel happiness, can feel anger; and how someone can look around at this beautifully complex world and then tell me that there is no God.

~*Elizabeth

Blog in the Round: Justin or Lee

I was recently asked a very strange, awkward, and highly complicated question. If you know Justin or Lee, then you know what I'm talking about. The question was this: If I had to be either Justin Gilbert or Lee George, who would I choose.( Thank you Danielle for slightly altering my topic. The original was for me to choose who I would rather marry) So to make my decision I decided to think about what I knew of the two guys and decide which I would rather be; even though I was already pretty sure of my decision. I will begin with Justin.

Justin: Oh Lordy, Justin. Where do I begin? Well I think I should start off by saying he is one of the loudest people I have ever met. About a week ago I was standing in line at the Skillet concert waiting to get my tickets when I heard a very familiar yelling sound way off in the distance. I knew immediately who it was and when I turned around I saw Justin yelling at someone standing 5 feet away from him. If you haven't figured it out already, his loudness leads to his obnoxiousness. Umm...he tries to play the guitar...also very loudly. That gets kinda annoying too. I think he dated Leanne, although few guys haven't. I think there is probably more to Justin than meets the eye, but I don't know him personally so its hard for me to really say exactly what that is. But I guess with his guitar playing he has gotten better in the past few weeks. I remember how horrible it sounded the first time he tried to play a song, and now when he plays I can actually tell what song it is that he is playing. So I guess that shows that he's a hard worker and if he puts his mind to something then he can do it. He's still not great, but defiantly better than he used to be.

Lee: Lee is the hairiest man I know. If you ever meet Lee then I can bet you money that the first thing he will say to you is "How old do you think I am?". This is because Lee does look much older than he actually is, and I think he's been told this many times. I remember when I first met him he was only about 13 and I thought he was like 18. Lee is the kind of guy you have to love, and his presence brings a smile to your face. Sometimes I feel bad for Lee though. I remember this one time he came up to me and Danielle almost in tears because he said people were making fun of him. Lee is the kind of guy who gets made fun of a lot. He lost his mom a couple of years ago, and he told me that the kids at school said that he can just go cry to his mamma's grave. I don't really see how anyone could have the heart to say something like that to him. But Lee has never hurt anyone; or if he has it was only an accident.(For he is a rather large man) A couple of months ago I read John Steinbeck's book Of Mice and Men, and came to the conclusion that the character Lennie reminds me a lot of Lee. If you haven't read the book then you should read it, and I'm pretty sure you will agree with me. He gets excited very easily, and that is something I can admire in Lee. After all he has been through, he still gets excited about life and excited for Jesus. To nobodies surprise, Lee raised the most money for the 30 hour famine. This is because he's the kind of guy who can talk to complete strangers about God and never feel ashamed or embarrassed.

So in case you haven't already figured out my answer, which I'm sure you have, then it is that I think I would rather be Lee. Even though Lee is a goofy kid who gets made fun of a lot, he's the kind of guy who you have to be a complete jerk not to love. He stands out and is unforgettable. He will shake a man's hand 30 times in a 2 minute period. He's probably a really good defensive lineman. He gives big sweaty hugs. He loves Jesus. He always brings a smile to my face. No matter who you are, he will never be embarrassed to talk to you in public. If he gets made fun of a lot, then I think in the end he is persecuted for righteousness sake.

BITR: If I were a food...

There comes a point in every persons life where we must ask ourselves this one very important question: If I were a food, what would it be? I have recently asked myself this question, and I searched through the depths of my mind and soul trying to find the answer. It is not an easy answer to find. In order to find it, food must be personified. So after much thought, I finally came to a conclusion. If I were a food I would be a pecan. You may be thinking "A pecan? Why in the world a pecan?" Let me explain.

Pecans are delicious nuts that come in a hard shell. Like a pecan, I come in a shell that is pretty hard to crack. I'm not the kind of person who just opens up easily to let the whole world know who she is. You see, some people are like a bag of chips. So easy to open, but once you do its just half a bag full of fatty salty chips. With me, you have to work a little harder to get me open but once you do it's worth it in the end. Once you open a pecan you have an all-natural, God-given snack. There are no artificial flavorings. There are no preservatives. There is no added fat. Just a simple little pecan. I'm not the type of person who needs to be like everyone else. I don't neccissarily need to change to please others. That kind of person would be a coke. You have regular coke, diet coke, caffeine free coke, cherry coke, vanilla coke, coke zero, etc...I do not need to change to please the needs of others.

And like a pecan, you never know what your going to get with me. My dad uses the "Elizabeth is like a box of chocolates..." quote with me all the time. Its kinda like that, sometimes you open the shell of a pecan and its rotten inside. Other times you open up a pecan and it tastes so good you think "I would rather have a pecan more than anything right now".

So there you have it. I'm a pecan. It's simple, and actually kinda boring; but its natural. Nothing really interesting has ever happened in my life before. I remember my grandparents had this pecan tree, and every year when I was little me and my Papa would take a basket and fill it up with pecans. Thats why they always tasted so good. Because it was a tradition. I don't even really like the pecans you buy in a bag at the store, but those pecans we picked up from the front yard were delicious. I digress... But I'm just gonna keep on being the same ole me because pecans don't change either. They just fall off of trees every year and when we pick them up and eat them they will always taste the same.

~*Elizabeth

I painted a pretty picture of a butterfly!

About a month or so ago my mom, my sister, and I were looking through a box of old things that we had written when we were little. I think there were about 482 birthday/Christmas/mothers day/fathers day/valentines day/every-single-flippin-holiday cards that my and my brother and sister had given to my parents. I remember how we used to get so excited about every birthday or holiday that would come so we would gather our supply of crayons, construction paper, scissors, and glue and we would use our imaginations to create a masterpiece. And then when the project was complete we would be so proud of what we had done and run to our parents to show them how good our coloring was. Of course now I look at it and think what a horribly un-talented child I was; but back then we actually thought it was really good. And then there was the poetry. Oh Lord, the poetry. None of it even make sense, but the thing was we thought we were doing something special and somehow our parents actually liked it.

That's the thing that sticks out to me the most about being 6 years old...the excitement that I would feel about the little things. And then now, being 15, life just lacks excitement. And then you have those people who try to do things that make "the important things in life" exciting for teenagers, but it never really works. For example, my Algebra teacher last year, who was a very nice lady, somehow got her hands on a bunch of books titled "How to Make Good Grades and Have Fun with it" so she decided she would give one to each of us for Christmas. Of course, I put that book on my bookshelf and haven't read a word of it. When we were in elementary school it was easy for the teachers to find things that make learning fun, but now that we're older it just doesn't work. I think the older you get, the harder it is to get excited about things.

I think this is kinda what Jesus means when he tells us to be like the little children. He doesn't mean we should go around acting like immature idiots, or crying like little babies. He wants us to feel that enthusiasm for life, that enthusiasm for Him like we did when we were young. And even though most things we do on earth are almost meaningless, they mean something to Him because we did it to the best of our ability and we were actually happy about it. In the same way that my stupid little poems or drawings meant something to my parents, anything we do out of love means something to Him.

I think that's something that's really hit me lately. I know I'm only 15 and I (hopefully) still have a lot of life ahead of me, but sometimes I just feel like I've lost all the good times and I will never be able to really feel excited about life again. I think sometimes I try too hard. I really just need to sit back and realize how wonderful life really is and try not to let it just pass by me.

Ok. Enough rambling for now.

~*Elizabeth

BITR:The Flying Dutchman

Although the Flying Dutchman was not in every Spongebob episode, he plays a very important role in the t.v. show. The Flying Dutchman is the green, ghost-like figure who uses his wicked-tight pirate skills to scare people. In one particular episode, he drops an anchor on spongebob's house. Of course, spongebob became curious and went to the smartest person he knew. Squidward. Even though Squidward is generally a pretty smart guy, he doesn't always make the wisest decisions. Climbing up the anchor was one of these un-wise decisions. Naturally, Spongebob and Patrick follow him and after a tedius climb they finally end up aboard the Flying Dutchman's ship. This is when we discover the Flying Dutchman's motives. What he wants is for them to help him scare poor, innocent, little sea creatures all over Bikini Bottom. This episode ends in the Flying Dutchman deciding he will eat Spongebob and Patrick. Luckily, the Flying Dutchman actually has a little kindness deep down in his pirate heart.(if ghosts even have hearts) so he grants them three wishes. After wasting two of the wishes, you would think spongebob would be smart enough to wish that they could get off the boat. But no, instead he wishes that the Flying Dutchman was a vegetarian so he wouldn't eat them. Although his wish was granted, Spongebob and Patrick soon found themselves in the form of fruit inside of a blender. Nobody knows how this ends up.

Although the Flying Dutchman may seem like an evil character, he actually does some things for the good of others. An example of this was when he taught Mr. Crabs a lesson about being cheap. Mr. Crabs forces Spongebob to sell a rotten craby patty found under the grill. After tasting the food himself, Mr. Crabs ends up on his death bead. When the Flying Dutchman comes to visit him, he sentences him to Davy Jones locker full of sweaty socks, which is ironic because the Flying Dutchman refuses to eat without his lucky sock. This makes Mr. Crabs feel very bad for his terrible sin. In result, Mr. Crabs becomes a happier person and hosts a "Grand Re-opening" at the Krusty Krab. Even though Mr. Crab's generosity doesn't last for long, and he sold Spongebob's soul for $.62, the Flying Dutchman still teaches him a valuable lesson.

So next time your being a penny-pinching cheap wad remember that the Flying Dutchman might come and throw you into a stinky locker full of socks...in humbles us all.

"This is my commandment that you love one another and your joy may be full"

Have you ever had those times where you feel like everywhere you go and talk to people its almost as if God told them to say something just because he wanted YOU to hear it? Almost like God is talking directly to you through those people? Well, I think I've been experiencing a little bit of that lately. Since we just did the 30 hour famine, we've been talking a lot about love lately. Talking about how hard it is to love someone you don't even know, and drawing the line between selfish and self-less love. Also, part of what my pastor has been talking about is basically how we are no better than anyone else.(or maybe that's just how I interpreted what he was saying. who know?) I think that these two things were connected together and shown to me because in a way its kinda something I've been struggling with in my life.

I never really realized very much, but now that I look back on my life I realize that a lot of times I can be a stuck-up jerk. I sometimes tend to push away people who I feel aren't like me or I think can't relate to. Sometimes its annoying people who just flat out get on my nerves, and sometimes its people who I just think are weird. But when I really think about it, there really is no definition of normal. In fact, I'm pretty weird myself, and I'm really nothing like the "average" 15 year old girl. So who am I to judge other people for being weird? A few weeks ago, my brother was getting mad at me for not liking one of his friends and accepting him for who he is; and although the kid is still loud, obnoxious, and gets on my nerves I've been trying harder to have patience with him and realize that not everyone is like me. The sermon text from this week was really something that stood out to me. Although we would never come out and say it, I think we tend to be a lot like the Pharisees in Jesus' parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector:

"Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, 'God, I thank You that I am not like other men--extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess."
-Luke 18:10-12

I think a lot of times we look at ourselves and think "Well I go to church every Sunday, I read my Bible, and I pray, so therefore I am better than the average person". This got me thinking back to the 30 hour famine and the fact that every day twenty-nine THOUSAND children die because of hunger. But why? I am no better of a person than they are, yet I am blessed with food and clean water to drink everyday. I have a house to stay in, a bed to sleep in, a shower to get clean in, I've never had to flee my house for the sake of my life; yet they do, and I am no better than them. It kinda makes me want to help them more. It makes me want to use the resources that I have not only for the well-being of myself, but also for others.

Someone(I forgot who it was) said that the difference between the most righteous man and the most sinful man is no greater than the difference between owing somebody $8,000,000 and $8,000,001. I thought that was a pretty good comparison because God is so much higher than us, that when we compare ourselves to one another there really is not much of a difference at all.

Another way God spoke to me in the last couple of weeks was actually through myself. A lot of times when I write things, I like to write things that I'm convicted of myself so I can try to work on my own problems. Apparently that's what I was doing in one of my few attempts to write poetry. I found a poem that I wrote basically about how we should show love to everyone and do what we can to help them, and one of the lines in it said "I believe that the day we realize we're no better than the man next door There would be less hungry, and fewer poor". I found this like a week before the famine and I'm pretty sure that I found it for a reason. In a way I kinda thought of myself as a hypocrite because I haven't really changed much since now and the time I wrote it. So I took those words and tried to use them as my motivation for the famine. In a way, I guess it helped because I tried to make what I was doing a little less selfish and a little more self-less. I tried to do what I was doing for the write reason, and knowing in the end that it helped other people besides myself. Because most of the time, my life is all about me and for once I wanted to make it about someone else.

So instead of being like the Pharisee and thanking God for not making me like the other people in the world, I am going to try to be more like the tax collector was because in the end he was the one better off. "And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying 'God, be merciful to me a sinner!' I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." (Lk. 18:13-14)

Scripture also tells us that we cannot love God if we don't love others. Its kinda a sad thought....not loving God, but I guess I've done it.
Just something to think about.

~*Elizabeth

Blog in the Round: Jeff Roberts and why he is every woman's dream

[before reading this blog please take note that these are not my actual opinions. I just wrote it like this because it might be funny. but i do NOT in any way feel this way. That is not meant as any offense to Jeff, but I firmly believe that Jenifer is the only woman for him]


So here are a few of the many reasons(not in any particular order) why Jeff Roberts is every woman's dream:

• He is a skateboarder. nuff said.


• When he got married, he had hair halfway down his back.


• He can run power-point with his eyes closed and his hands tied behind his back.


• He has a son, Ian, who eats mustard with his poptarts.


• He is the only man who would actually look good with tatoos all over his body.


• Cool is so much of an understatement for Jeff thats its actually an insult.


• He can pull off red neck jokes even though he's a red neck himself.


• He gets a new BlackBerry every week.


• He built a skate park in his very own yard.


• I'm pretty sure he can hack computers.


• He's probably beat every video game that ever existed 3 times each.


• Back in high school, he was what all the girls wanted but couldn't have.


• He has a six pack, but Jeff is not conceited so he wears clothes that fit loosely so nobody knows.


• He has a heart-warming smile, and when Jeff laughs, you can't help but laugh yourself.


• Despite the rumor, he is straight.

• Nobody has ever seen him mad. In fact, I don't think anger is a possible emotion for him.

So there you have it, just a few of the uncountable reasons why Jeffrey Lee Roberts is...every woman's dream.