Month: November 2009

Day 4

A lot of people don’t like treadmills, maybe because they make them feel like “lab rats”. I like the machines, and I’ve only felt like a lab rat once. (That was a few weeks ago during a stress test in which I was walking on the treadmill while hooked up to several machines and surrounded by 6 medical professionals of varying rank and job description who kept asking me questions – “how are you feeling?” “any pain?” – and continuously made incomprehensible remarks about my ever-changing vital signs which were being displayed on multiple monitors. See? Very lab-ratish.)

The reason I like treading on a fast moving strip of rubber-like material is that all the pertinent info is right there in front of me. Speed, mileage, time. It’s right there in all it’s digital brilliance, staring back at my sweaty face. For someone who never ventured beyond pre-calc and took one math course in 7+ years of post-high school studies, I sure do love the numbers. I love time and distance. I love racing myself even on days I say I’ll take it easy.

So, onward, in more ways than one.

Leviticus is a bloody, bloody book. Reading the precise instructions about burnt offerings makes me so very thankful that I am not under law but under grace (Romans 6:14). Thank you, Jesus, that your blood was sufficient to cleanse me completely, not just cover my sin temporarily.

Day 3 (of my 30th year on earth)

. . . with pizza. It’s the bump just behind your top front teeth.  That’s why I call it the “pizza burn bump” when I’m trying to get my kids to say t,d, l, etc. I’d credit the person I first heard that phrase from if I could remember, but I can’t.

I enjoy putting things into “kid-friendly” language. I especially enjoy stealing phrases from colleagues who are good at it.

Onward.

Memory verse for GIBS:

Exodus 15:11 “Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like you, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?”

Answer: None one of them.

 

 

14 years ago, I was a sophomore in high school. In my English class, we were assigned to write an essay on what age we would like to live to, and why. After some consideration, I put down “30”. My reasoning was pretty simple. By 30, I hoped to be finished with school, have a job, maybe have a family. I would have experienced “the big things” in life. Today, I turned 29, entering my thirtieth year of life.

30 is a lot closer now, but my heart feels pretty much the same. I have lived a good life, in so many many ways. I have lived on both sides of the world. I grew up an Easterner (and finally got to see my Phillies win the World Series last year), but now am becoming a Midwest girl. I have laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe, and cried so hard I wanted to stop breathing altogether, just so the pain would go away. I have seen someone die before my eyes; I watched a man be born again in a downtown Chicago soup kitchen. I was a student, now I have sweet and rascally students of my own. I have friends who have blurred the lines and are now more in the family category. My days are sometimes mundane, sometimes hectic, sometimes unpredictable. My 29 years have not been all that unusual. I’m an average girl. I have done nothing extraordinary, never had 15 minutes of fame.

And I am content with my life.

If God should take me home soon, I am content. If God sees fit that I should live to 102, I am content.I can rest in His wisdom. I can cherish my life, knowing who I am, why I am here, and where I am going when I die. I am a child of the One True God. I am here to shine a light on Him. Because Jesus Christ died for me and rose again, and I trusted in Him, I’m going to live eternally in Heaven.

Thank you, Lord, for 29 years. Thank you for whatever I have left. May I glorify you.