To be or not to be?

This weekend I asked a random question.."If you had to be the opposite gender what would you look forward to the most?" ...I was thinking about how sometimes it would be nice to pee standing up. The guys proceeded to say they would never want to be a girl and even the other girls there where saying how there is nothing good to being female. WHAT!?!?

Have we all been so diluted by the media and our culture that we acutely think there is something bad about being a female? I sat and though about this...girls have more cutting names thrown at them then guys, women are seen as weak and inferior, and that we are one big emotionally charged, sobbing, out of control person.

Wow, don't you get it? Satan does. Women are so powerful yet we allow guys to call us things such as sluts, whores, and worse. Why do you think our culture is geared towards putting women down, abusing them, using them, and then walking away?

We have the privilege of protecting new life with in us (being pregnant), raising childen, and supporting our husbands and showing them love, which in turns perpetuates them to greater success. True we may be emotional sometimes...but so what? What is wrong with that? I like being able to cry and sound ridiculous sometimes. I sit with my friends upset and by the end we are crying from laughing. Too much of my life I bought the lie that it is better to be a guy then a girl, and I am sick of it!

Embrace being a girl, and if you are a guy affirm the girls in your life. When we put women down we are putting God down. He made us ALL (men AND women) in HIS IMAGE. We are all a piece of Him.

My Bridal Shower

I am getting my own apartment. But unlike half of my graduating class I will be buying most of my necessities. I am not getting married, meaning I will not have 5 bridal showers in order to acquire the things I need. I am not really bitter about this but see this as an unfair advantage to those girls.

Just because they have a shiny rock on their left ring finger, a date picked, and a guy they are going to get hitched to. What about me...I have student loans to repay, grad school to start, and a new job to start in August.

So in rebellion I have thought about going and registering for gifts...but what kind of party could I call that? And would people actually come just for me and not for me and some guy they might not even know? I think in the world of Christian culture single girls leaving college are expected to be able to provide for them selves and the girls who are getting married are seen as being in need.

Not really sure why...but I think that is a little bit backwards. I am proud to be graduating single and very excited about my job and apartment. I only wish I had a way of getting the things I need on the meager budget I have...though I do hear they have nice looking rings at Wal-Mart.

Antiqued

They came creeping up the stairs,
silent and unheard.
The roommates slept, undisturbed.
A flash of white,
A "What the heck?"
Flour covered our home.
Now we vacuum all night long,
wishing we had been prepared.

horrible Poem...I know. But this represents last night, or shall I say early this morning. Three cheers to the guys who pulled this off, my roommate and I did not see it coming, having believed they would not rise to the challenge of returning a prank, we were both passed out (I did not hear anything, but woke up because I felt something falling on me), and creativity...they did it to us before we got a chance to do it to them!

Lessons learned....Flour sticks around on everything!
Boys leave behind evidence(cough, Matt)
My Roommate is slightly allergic to flour
We now have the "white lung" (for any Zoolander fans)

Way to go guys...good prank.

Goodbye

I've been thinking about good-byes lately. (I wonder why (note sarcasms))

This past year of my life has been amazing! I want to say that I think of all the staff's on campus... we have the best! I love every moment of hanging out with everyone, it never felt like work or an obligation. (ok so sometimes rounds did) I hope my future holds more people like those I had the privilege of working with this year.

I know I am getting all mushy and girly, but this needs to be said! I guess I wanted a chance to put my emotions out there and let the people I work with know I care. I see sooo much potential in each and everyone one of you. I am excited for God's plan for your lives. People will be blessed, lives will be touched, and people will be changed. You might wonder how I can predict this...it is what you have done for me.

The interview

Job interviews...a reality of life. Some will be good, maybe some bad. But in order to get a shot at the job you want you have to go through them. I had such an interview on Thursday. After the day was over I was exhausted, puzzled by this I took a two hour nap and woke up realizing I had spend 5 hours of that day selling myself. I know I don't fully understand what I'm jumping into, but I have had doubts filling my mind. Was the interview bad you ask? No, it went really good. But I think I am getting scared of the real world. It doesn't always have Salomon colored buildings, meals obtained through swiping, and people putting speakers to their windows and sharing their tunes. I will miss that!

Life seems big and scary, but I don't have a choice. God will take care of me. I have been blessed with the prayers of a lot of people for this whole job process, yet all I can think about is every possible way I could mess it up if I do get it. But I have not been trying to think about it...it is in God's hands. Where ever He leads...I will follow.

God has been preparing me for something, and no matter what it is He will help me through it, He will give me strength to complete it, and He will not worry about me messing it up.

Letter to the Editor

Dear Kara,
I just wanted to drop you a letter and clear some things up. I know we have known each other for a long time, but I have not always been completely honest with you all the time. I just wanted to apologize for some of the things I have said and done to you in the past. Ok, here goes.
I'm sorry for lying to you. I'm sorry for all the time I have told you that you were not good enough. I'm sorry for making you judge people and not trust them. I'm sorry for keeping you from taking risks. I'm sorry for making you believe lies about yourself, how you look, and how others see you. I'm sorry for making you think that what others think of you is so important. I'm sorry for forcing you to say hurtful things. I'm sorry for putting you down and never encouraging you. I'm sorry that I bring up the past all the time. I'm sorry that I hold you back from loving people sometimes. I'm sorry that I cause you to be selfish sometimes. I'm sorry that I don't forgive you when you mess up.
I really hope I have covered everything. I guess I would like a second chance. I mean...I really can't live with out you. I will try really hard to fix everything I just apologized for. I can't make any promises but I can only offer the hope of God helping me. Think about it and let me know.

~sincerely,
Your "flesh"

The social agenda

Everyone has an agenda...no, there is no way out of this one. I saw a girl walking around today in a short skirt. Her agenda might be to look cute...but that doesn't mean everyone will look at it like that. Or take a vocal person who has to verbalize a strength in the face of someone's perceived weakness...what is there agenda, to make themselves look good and put the other person down?

Everyday a little piece of me wants to impress the world, look good for those who have to interact with me, and be socially acceptable in making people laugh and feel comfortable. What I do with these thoughts and possible actions is huge. If my agenda is to please myself and others I have missed the point of why I am a Christian. My agenda has to be God's agenda. I have to learn to look at people through God's eyes and live everyday seeking his truth for my life.

I want to love those around me. I want to help people understand God better. I want people to become Christians...but why? For me, for my world, for my culture, or for the Creator?

All things new

Spring, we have all been anticipating it for months now and yesterday re-awoke the desire for it. As I walked back to my house I heard a noise and realized it was the tree branches groaning and creaking in the wind. I looked at the tree and realized it was full of wine red buds. The potential of life waiting to burst worth. I became excited and thought about the seasons. Would we be thankful for spring if it was not the light at the end of a cold, white, tunnel of winter? Would summer seem as fun if it was not the climax of warmth and sunshine? Would fall's tapestry of color be less beautiful to us if we saw it every day?

I know I am asking rhetorical questions, but it is because we all know the answer. We would hate to admit it but winter gives us the joy for spring. Spring helps us love summer, and so on. Yet we easily become board with what we are given...always seeking change when the current surroundings no longer fits into our wants and desires.

I find I do this with God sometimes. I catch myself in a moment of joy and excitement but the novelty soon wears off. My culture thrives on instant gratification and so my ingrained desire is to run and find the next moment to fill me with joy. I grow tired of the valleys and become frustrated with God. Yet in all these things He is whispering "Patience". I have found that when I dwell in the moment and not wait with an anxious heart, that's when I find God, that's when I see a little more of the plan for my life, and that's when I feel loved. I take the time to allow God to show me.

So dwell in the last few cloudy days, the cold wind, and rain. Let Spring come in its own time...

The cripple

Well before Spring Break I sprained my ankle. Under normal cirucmstances this would not be so bad...but for Spring Break, no one wants to limp around. But to make matters more interesting I was going on a Mission Trip To Sri Lanka. There is nothing better then limping around when you are trying to make the impression that you are there to help.

The point to all this is that my ankle ended up not even being an issue in stopping me from having fun and being able to help. But before I went on the trip I caused a fellow student an interesting quandry one morning....

I went to breakfast that Wednesday morning as usual. A little tired from lack of sleep and limping because of my swollen ankle. My plan was simple, go in and get breakfast and then head to the nurse's to find out what they could do for me. I got my tray, filled my plate, and headed over to the drink line. I was half way there when I realized the guy in line behind me for food was also heading to the drink line. This normally would not be a problem but he was walking full speed and then noticed I was limping in the same direction that he was. He hesitated having the choice of either slowing down and letting me go first or staying commited to his brisk walk and clearly beat me to the line. I chuckled to myself knowing it didn't matter to me and slightly ammused at the quandry I was putting him in.

Tattoo's

So last spring break we took a day to go to Daytona. I was excited because I had never been to Daytona before. While driving we had found out one of our fellow road trip members had a tattoo. We talked and joked about stopping and getting tattoo's. Something in my mind got really excited about this and wondered what I would get. Something Christian of course, because if I am going to mark up my body it would still have to be glorifying to Christ. But time ran out and we never ended up going.

Now for me a tattoo is about the most impulsive and out of control thing I could do. My mom holds firm to them being Biblically wrong, my brother has a lot of them, and here at school a lot of people sport them as well.Though here people tend to either flaughnt them or hid them. Obviously there are different motives for both...all this to say. What is truely wrong with marking your body if it is going to be for Christ? Would people be able to be "Sunday Christians" if they had a cross on their body that everyone could see. Wouldn't it help serve as a reminder of what we are to live up to? (Now for my mom, don't freak out...I'm not going to get a tattoo.)

But just think about what this would do, a higher call to accountablility. People couldn't put on or take off their beliefs when they served their purpose. How much different would our world look? Our churches? Our campus?

life

Our school is such a bubble. Today it bust on me. I found out that a kid from my youth group was killed this morning. His car slid off the road, a guy stopped to help, and they were both hit by another car. He died and the other guy was injured. It seems so random, so unreal. I am having a hard time understanding that it really did happen. All day I kept having these random memories of him from HS. We weren't close, but he was always there at youth group, always at the events, and camp. He was the person you could always count on to be there. Funny how life is, so today as I walked around campus I realized that we are so removed from the world here and that made me sad.

God's love

Lesson learned about God today: His portion of love to me is so much greater then I know...check out the story of Hosea. (pg. 701...after Daniel)

I see in my own life how often I run from God or prostitute myself out to other things. Everytime I turn around God is right there to buy me back, take me home, clean me up, and love me even more. I break inside thinking about this. I have slapped God in the face and spit at Him so many times. I feel ashamed and so undeserving of Him. Yet He is sooo patient with me, He helps me learn and grow in Him. Do you know how much God loves you? Can you grasp the depth of His love?
I guess this is sort of a heavy blog for being only my second one...but Ali and I had a good talk at lunch today about this and wanted to share it.

Learning to fly

Life is so unpredicatable. I guess that is where I find myself right now. Talking with a friend I realize this is the season of risk. With risk you can't calculate it out and know the exact outcome. This drives me nuts. I always think big decisions through, but with risks it is blindly jumping. I am excited for the rush but I can't enjoy the moment of free falling because I am thinking too much about what is going to happen when the falling is over. I think things to death sometimes. And I guess this would be productive if it took me somewhere, yet I have to laugh everytime because I always end up right where I started, God still sitting there smiling asking me if I am ready to give it to Him. I always laugh and say yes God I don't want to think about it anymore, here ya go.
Why can't I do that right away...I think I would save a lot of brain energy. Which leads me to my poem...I just wrote it thinking about taking risks and having to leave what is familiar and trust God with the rest. Let me know what you think.

Learning to fly.
Spreading your wings
And daring to try.

Not looking back
or needing to know
what is behind.

Beating wings
Flapping strong.
Sometimes faltering
but never for long.

The wind is there
to lift the wings
high,

This is what happens
When you are
Learning to fly.