Betrothed

I wrote this blog once already, but it wasn't witty enough. Very blah. I don't have much to say though. This is Aaron. I love him. He's convinced that we're totally made for each other and I think we're going to have a lot of fun being married. I keep waiting for someone to tell us that this is a bad plan - that there's something we haven't considered or that there are huge incompatibilities between the two of us. Mostly though we're just happier together and want to tell people about Jesus. Hmm.

June 4th at the Georgeson Botanical Gardens

9:30 a.m.

You're invited.

Aren't we cute? By the way, Aaron didn't think I could lift him. Ha! Totally owned.

Elation

I paid $1 for a vintage copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking today. I will not be making aspics, nor utilizing the sections on liver, sweetbreads, brains or kidneys. That said, I am SO EXCITED! You're all invited for dinner! (c:

from an email to my twin

The Holy Spirit has really been impressing on me lately what a tortured soul Paul was. I always felt like he was so cold and businesslike and like I had nothing in common with him. But lately, I've been thinking over a lot of the things he said . . . and . . . they really resonate with me. When he talked about living being Christ and dying gain, we think of that as a noble sentiment, but I think he might really have been saying he longed for death. We talk about Paul like he was superman, but he wasn't; Jesus was teaching him how much he would have to suffer. )c: Am I a wimp if I don't want to know?

Blackberries are here

Maija and I switched it up making jam on Saturday. Usually I make the jam and pour it and she's responsible for reading the directions (which I partially ignore) and preparing the jars. Yeah . . . so Maija has terrible aim! She's a quick learner though. She kept asking me things, or saying something wasn't working and I'd go, "Oh, I never do it that way." Or, "You should always start with a wide-mouthed jar first so you get a feel for the pour." (c: Hehe, it was fine. We did discover (again - it's been two years since we've made jam) that the people who write those recipes are silly-pantses. You DON'T have to add all their yucky sugar to have it set up. We made one batch full sugar (and by "full sugar" I mean as much as our "no sugar" pectin required) and it was gross. Well, my friend Heather will love it, but we're going to gift it, WAY too sweet for us. What's the point of having fruit that's not a little bit tart? That's the charm of fruit. If I wanted something just sweet I'd eat chocolate. (And I do.)

Other than that, I'm back from my motorcycle trip and on to troubleshooting getting it started now that I'm not driving it everyday; thank you Jesus it started on my trip! And moving into my apartment. Also, I need a job. I really want the one God wants for me. If you want to keep that in your prayers that would be great.

Words I never thought I'd type . . . so sad

I wish I had a camera.

I can't believe it. What I really want is actually a sketch book and the ability to draw. I flipped though this quilting book the other day while running errands with Mary Jane and was completely inspired with an idea for a quilt. Anyone who's interested can get in touch with me for more info on that, but I know most of you probably don't care, so I'll save myself the time and go get my tent set up. I am in Cortez, CO this evening. Colorado is beautiful; I'd live here anytime. Maija - we are totally a go on the B&B!

Other than that, I would just like you all to know that KOA campgrounds ROCK!!! (That's why you're getting this little cross-country update. Hmm . . . I guess it could be dangerous for me to post that I'm out of town if I had a house people could break into. Fortunately for me that's not a worry I have, everyone who loves me has different ideas about which town I'm out of . . . (c:
I love you guys, goodnight.

A Book Off The Shelf

I pretty randomly pulled a book off of one of Maija and Terry's shelves the other day, and I found this magical sermon (I do believe Rev. Claypool would appreciate me calling his sermon "magical") about the verse that talks about "soaring on wings as eagles."
Let me just say, that verse always struck me as kind of . . . over-enthusiastic. And John Claypool helped me realize why: People have always used the part about flying as the standard for life. But it isn't. The verse also says, "[T]hey shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." That is so beautiful to me. Yeah, sometimes life is awesome and you feel like you're flying. But there are certainly times when not fainting feels like a lot. Thanks God for being You; thanks for being realistic and the kind of Guy I don't mind betting everything on, because it's not a gamble with You.

Here's the passage in full just for your edification:

Why do you say, O Jacob,
and speak, O Israel,
"My way is hid from the Lord,
and my right is disregarded by my God"?
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the
ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary,
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.
ISAIAH 40:27-31

John Claypool

"The Bible arranges life and thought in just that sequence. First, we are called on to live passionately and openly and then to use our minds to try to understand and interpret what we have experienced. In this way life moves on and whatever insight is possible is born. If we turn the whole process around and try to put understanding before the living of life, however, everything freezes and we become immobilized.
...
"Harry Emerson Fosdick once wrote that 'a man can put off making up his mind, but he can't put off making up his life.' That statement has all the realism of the Bible behind it. The business of making up one's life, concretely and directly, is more basic than intellectualizing abstractly about it. And not only that, it is the way we were meant to learn. Making up our minds is not something we can do before we experience anything of life; it comes as we experience it, through experience, after experience.
"Centuries ago a philosopher named Descartes climbed into a stove and determined to think out life before he acted. When he finally came to the conclusion 'I think, therefore I am,' he set the whole direction of modern Western thought. His was a fatal mistake, however, for he reversed the true relation of living and thinking and 'got the cart before the horse.'"
"It was the same mistake that Adam and Eve made back in the Garden of Eden. God spread the whole creation out before them like a banquet table and invited them to participate in it fully. They were to eat, drink, work, multiply; that is, to live passionately. But instead of immersing themselves in life, they turned rather to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the symbol of the Ultimate explanation of all things that belonged to God alone, and lusted after it. In other words, before they lived they wanted to know all the answers, whereas God had ordained that knowledge was to come through and by and after experience."
~~~~~
Smart guy . . . I'm going to go look for a job.