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iHeartFriedOkra
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Name: Jennifer
Metro:
Gender: Female
Interests: love, truth, compassion, mercy, relationship, graciousness, wisdom, life-giving scripture, listening, the world, traveling, music, sleeping, reading, writing, history, good food, kids, seasoned people, people who can dance to hot beats, fried okra, laughing, sujfan stevens, africa, swimming, nature, poetry, art, sunny days, hospitality, the ocean, language, culture, hoboes, archeology, fairy-tales, memories, stories, the human body, and I love, love, love coffee.
Expertise: Drinking jello through a straw, tripping over my feet, encouragement, being silly.
Occupation: Student
Industry: Other
Message: message me
AIM:  RagmffnSojourner
Member Since:
1/7/2005
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| I'm going to write a xanga entry that actually involves updating on what's going on in my life for the first time in I don't know how long. I'm a little rusty, so bear with me. I'm currently in the application process for Cambodia. I have everything turned in, and I'm just waiting to hear back now. It's really kind of neat, because they have it set up where you can watch your progress online. My processing assistant is also super nice and really helpful, so it's not just a nail-biting, impersonal experience. Cambodia seems so far away, both literally and figuratively...but every once in a while a thought will float through my head of what it might actually be like, and I get really excited. Really, really excited! I know it won't be the same as what I have pictured in my head, nothing ever is, but that's a good thing. The really important things in life always seem to turn out bigger, better, messier, and more beautiful than I could ever imagine. Kara and I have recently reconnected with some old friends, a sister and brother, and it has been fantastic. We've known them since our Missionettes days (and his Royal Ranger days.) They've been in and out of our lives ever since. I have always felt this strange connection there. Like we're long lost siblings or something. I can't even explain it. It's been really neat to reconnect when we're all older and a little bit more comfortable with ourselves. There is some pain there that weighs heavy on my heart though. I've seen my friend chase after a lot of things to satisfy a hole in her heart. She has recently come to the realization that she does need God and she wants to live for Him again. There just seem to be so many things in her life working against her resolve. Why is it that we females are so easily broken? No matter how strong we try to make ourselves on the outside, both physically and personality wise, we are still so vulnerable on the inside, where it really counts. Kara and I were talking about how we know so many people whose mothers have really intense emotional damage. I'm going to be really transparent here and say that our mom does to. She has some very deep set emotional hurt that she has hung on to her entire life that effects her every action and thought. We know a lot of other people that have similar experiences with their mothers...and every one thinks that they are the only ones. What happened to the generation of women before us? And are we letting it happen to us too? I like to think that I have learned a lot of things that are going to help me combat it. I have known a lot of incredible, strong, Godly, women who have spoken into my life a long the way. I realize that life is hard, but beautiful. I want to thrive in conflict and difficulty. I never, ever, want to blame others for the things in my life that were meant to be opportunities for growth. Lately though, I have noticed my attitude being really negative. I work with a lot of women who are bitter, closed, gossip-y, and complain about everything. It really drags me down sometimes. I find myself only complaining about their complaining. I don't want to do that anymore. I want to be above it. I also don't want to run from my job to get away from things that I know I need to deal with head on. (I could definitely use a job with higher pay and more hours right now, but I want to leave for the right reasons.) Well I did it. I wrote an actual update! I'll try to keep it up. | | |
| Lately I've been watching a lot of the show "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition". The stories always make me cry, and it always makes me so happy to see these people who have been through extreme circumstances recieve their beautiful new homes tailored exactly to their needs. I think it's one of the most Christ-like shows on television because it's centered completely around giving to those who are less fortunate. And not just giving grudgingly, or giving a few old odds and ends, but giving extravagantly. Sure ABC and Extreme Makeover can afford to give some stuff away...but just how often do you see a popular television show all about thinking about others instead of yourself? It's a pretty rare thing in our society. I hear a lot of really jaded comments about the show. "Those people aren't going to be able to keep all that up." "Why do I want to watch someone else get all that stuff when I'm struggling myself? When do I get a home makeover?" "They'll probably just take out a huge mortgage on the house after the show's over and lose it all." What is the situation of our heart when we've come to thoughts like that? Why is it so difficult to watch someone else be blessed and have a smile on their face, even for a little while, without being so jealous? Comments like that come from a heart who hasn't learned a really valuable life lesson: When you focus on others, your problems don't seem so big. Whenever someone made a statement in one of my missions classes like, "I can never raise all that money," or, "I can't afford that," or "It'll never happen." Dr. White used to always say, "I'm sorry you serve such a small God." People who can't watch others be blessed, serve a very small God indeed...in my opinion. | | |
| When I was younger one of my favorite shows was Touched By An Angel. I was a lot more naive back then, and kind of oblivious to it's major cheese-factor. It was one of the few shows on television that I could watch with my parents and not worry about blush-inducing content. Well recently, my mom has started watching the reruns of the show and I sat down to watch it with her the other night, for lack of a better idea. This happened to be the two-part finale of the series that I had never seen before. (I stopped watching it somewhere along the line and missed a lot of the later episodes.)
Despite the fact that the jaded spirituality of my post-college years has turned me into a major snob about religious programming, that night I was incredibly inspired by Touched By An Angel, of all shows. In this show, Monica was up for an angel "promotion" pending her performance on her very last assignment as an angel case worker. Her assignment was Ascension, a dying town that had lost it's joy. There had been a tragic accident at the town's only school, an explosion, which had killed ALL of the town's children. On the bus on the way there she met a drifting handy-man named Zack who told her he was looking to find some work in Ascension.
I won't go into detail about the plot, but Zack basically goes around the town, fixing things up, helping people with their problems... he's an incredibly kind and gentle soul with a lazy southern drawl and listening eyes. He makes a teddy bear for the sheriff's mentally handicapped brother who witnessed the explosion and hasn't said a word since. He convinces the piano teacher who lost her grand children in the accident to sit down and play Beethoven again. He finds a lost kitten and sets it up so the sheriff's brother can have it to replace some kittens he had that died in the explosion. The whole time I keep telling my mom, "He's an angel." Through a series of events, however, he gets blamed for the accident that killed the children, and is convicted of it. Monica decides to give up her promotion and become his guardian angel for as long as he is in prison, (like three consecutive life sentences!) because she is convinced of his innocence.
He escapes from jail though, and at the end of the show, we find out that he was actually...Jesus. He really was there on the day of the explosion, but that's because He was carrying the children to heaven Himself. There's a scene at the end of Monica bowing before Him, asking for forgiveness and asking Him why she didn't recognise Him. He says something along the lines of, "You would have done anything for me, but look what you were willing to do for a lowly man in need. Well done, good and faithful servant."
Maybe it sounds cheesy, but it touched me. It really touched me. I haven't been thinking of Jesus like that in so long. At school there was a lot of talk in my religion classes about social justice, and how God cares about whole races and we need to look at everything in big picture form. And look at Jesus in this historical light. And look at him in that scholar's view. And study the Greek, and the syntax, and the grammar. And I think there's a time and a place for all that stuff...
But Jesus came to a small area as a lowly carpenter. He touched individual people. A little dead girl brought to life. A blind man given sight. Lepars cleansed. A woman looking for love in strings of husbands and lovers, given Living Water and a fresh start on life. He built tables...and stables...and watering troughs. He ate bread and drank wine and He laughed and He loved.
And He was God. He was the very Voice that created the universe, humbled, in the body of a man.
It also brought to mind something I read in a book a while ago called Spirit of the Rainforest. The book is a true story told through the eyes of a shaman in a tribe in the Amazon rainforest. The tribe this shaman was from had a belief that when little children died prematurely, they were carried into the after life by a good spirit that they believed was very powerful. After the shaman became a believer, he saw Jesus in a vision. He later told the missionary that was living among them that he had seen Jesus before. He told him that Jesus was the spirit who had always carried the babies to the after life.
Every time I think about it it brings tears to my eyes. Jesus is in the business of caring for the least of these. He carries the babies of mommys and daddys in the farthest corners of the earth. He is so Good. So Gentle. So Powerful. So Beautiful.
I am so, so, humbled. | | |
| Jars of Clay has a new song out that I really like called "Two Hands". The lyrics go like this: I've been living out of sanity
I've been splitting hairs and blurring lines
I am a house that is divided
In my heart and in my mind.
I use one hand to pull you closer,
The other to push you away.
If I had two hands doing the same thing,
Lifted high, lifted high... I have a broken disposition,
I'm a liar who thirsts for the truth.
And while I ache for faith to hold me,
I need to feel the scars and see the proof. And if we just keep digging we can reach the foundation
Of our souls.
And if we just keep cutting all the chains from our hearts
We'll lose control. And it feels like giving in,
It feels like starting over,
It feels like waking up, and you know it's coming,
It feels like a brand new day.
Open your eyes... The first time I heard this song on the radio I laughed out loud. It sounds pretty funny at first, especially after just having watched an episode of House where a guy had "alien hand syndrome." One of this guy's hands had a mind of it's own because of a brain surgery he had that split his right and left brain. The hand would do silly things like slap his girlfriend and throw his deoderant across the room. Definitely one of my favorite House patients of all time. The more I thought about it though, the more I realized how true the lyrics are. I often have spiritual "alien hand syndrome." Like the song says, I'm a liar that thirsts for the truth. I ache for faith to hold me, but I need to feel the scars and see the proof. Sometimes I feel like I have a split personality. It's like Jekyll and Hyde or Niki and "Jessica" on Heroes. In the Bible Paul said that he often didn''t do what he wanted to do and he usually did exactly what he didn't want to do. I think we all feel like that at times. It's a part of being human. It gets exhausting sometimes though. And sometimes I'm afraid the cynical, doubting, needs-proof me will take over for good. I know it won't, but sometimes I'm afraid it will. Today in Church I kept asking God to kill my split personality. Kill the skeptic, kill the cynic, kill the jaded person that was created from a deadly cocktail of intellectualism and pride. I don't want to become naive, but I don't want that part of me to dominate anymore. I want two hands doing the same thing. | | |
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“Lois, you say the world doesn’t need a savior, but every day, I hear people crying for one.”
-Superman (Superman Returns)
It’s no secret that I love superhero movies. Spiderman, X-men, Batman…I revel in the exciting, action packed, romantic escapism of these kinds of movies. They also often have a lot of symbolism that applies to real life and the spiritual aspects of our world. I was watching the newest of the Superman movies, “Superman Returns,” on TV, and I found myself inspired by this particular quote from the man of steel himself. Sure in the world where Metropolis and Smallville exist, Superman is the world’s savior. But I found so much wisdom in the fact that Superman knows that humanity can’t do it on their own.
Lois Lane represents a lot of people in this world who say that we have it all under control. If only mankind would stick together and work hard at fixing things, we could make our world a perfect place. Lois wrote a Pulitzer prize winning newspaper story about how the world doesn’t need Superman anymore. I guess Lois’ problem (aside from the fact that she felt betrayed by Superman, but that’s another story) is that the cries of the world had become voices just to tune out in the background of her life. She watched them on the news, and even covered their stories, but she didn’t hear their cries…not like Superman.
We can never hear the world’s cries like Jesus does. I think we can hear enough of them on a daily basis though, if we pay attention, to show us that our world does need a savior. Every charitable organization, every health care plan, every good intention of man is never going to heal the problems of this broken world we live in. It’s just too big. Too big even for Superman to fix.
I had a professor once that hated the fact that people tended to equate Jesus with Superman. I completely agree with that. However, sometimes it felt like that same professor often made Jesus seem less than Superman.
He’s so much more and He doesn’t even need a cape. He’s the savior of the world, but He didn’t save it through brute strength, or even super intelligence. He saved it through one selfless, beautiful, terrible act of love. He spilt His own blood for those cries across the world.
My dad and I watch country music videos together sometimes. It’s just something that we share. For some crazy reason, Kid Rock, decided somewhere a long the line to be a country singer. He has this song called, “Amen” that talks about the problems in the world. It’s a somewhat religious song, and the problems he points out are really important problems to address. My dad always brings up though, that Kid Rock (and a lot of others) are really good at pointing out the problems, but they don’t ever come up with the answers. My dad and I share the same motto: we don’t believe in no-win situations. (To make this entry even nerdier…we got this motto from Captain Kirk in the old Star Trek haha!)
The good news is, we aren’t stuck in a no-win situation. There is an answer to the world’s problems. In the end love will triumph over evil and apathy.
Jesus is the answer for the world today. (Even if He’s not the answer for “what’s furry and has a tail”!)
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