Background for this post:
Romans 1:18-32
Verses 22-23 are so sad; they basically talk about when humans first started making and worshiping idols:
"Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible (perishable) man - and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things."
At this point, they didn't have the 10 Commandments or a Bible or anything. They "only" had God's creation to see and His interaction with them. Verse 20 says this should have been enough!
"For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - His eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."
How sad. . . becoming so focused on themselves that they became blind to God and decided to create their own versions of what "god" should be. They turned from the creator to start worshiping the created (verse 25). And this caused them to just give themselves up to all kinds of consuming sin (verses 26-32).
Moral of the story: Don't take our eyes off God!
Sunday, January 31, 2010
The sky can't help but display God's glory
I read Psalm 19 the other day, and it reminded me of a post I wrote back in October. Please go read it before you continue reading this post. :-)
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Psalm 19:1-6
"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens He has pitched a tent for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion, like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is hidden from its heat."
*
The skies declare God's glory constantly. In verse four it says God has sent the skies (and their message of His glory) throughout all the earth. Basically, God has revealed His glory to ALL creation through the sky! And other things too, but even the sky should be enough!
*
*
*
Psalm 19:1-6
"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens He has pitched a tent for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion, like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is hidden from its heat."
*
The skies declare God's glory constantly. In verse four it says God has sent the skies (and their message of His glory) throughout all the earth. Basically, God has revealed His glory to ALL creation through the sky! And other things too, but even the sky should be enough!
Yeah. God created that!
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Captured memories
One of my Taiwanese friends had a birthday party at an authentic restaurant last night, and we ate all kinds of exotic foods until we were absolutely stuffed. It was really fun! But it also made me miss East Asia so badly. I miss the culture, I miss the people, I miss the food, etc.....
I met up with one of my friends for lunch yesterday, and we ate our classic favorite - a Vietnamese noodle soup called pho. We hadn't seen each other since last spring semester, because I spent the summer in East Asia, and she spent the fall semester in Argentina studying and traveling throughout the country. It was so good getting to catch up with her and share our experiences.
She said something that really resonated with me, though, because it's so true. She talked about how people look at her pictures from Argentina and think "Wow, that's a cool street scene" or "What beautiful mountains." But she looks at those pictures, and it means so much more. It's not just a random street with random street signs and a random guy playing an instrument on the sidewalk. It's a street corner she walked past every day to go to class, and there is an actual memory associated with it. It's not just a random "postcard picture" with mountains, a forest and a lake. She can't even describe what it felt like to stand there in the middle of all that beauty; she even remembers what the forest smells like.
I know exactly what she means.
You might think, "That's cool, Hannah spent the summer in East Asia, and it looks like she had fun. Now she's back in America, and it's just a part of her life I wasn't involved in, but it's moved on now." No. Every time I use chopsticks, I remember using them for every single meal, and I remember my friend who peeled a boiled egg with just chopsticks. Every time I eat family-style (where plates of food sit in the middle of the table, and everyone reaches in and gets what they want as they go), I think of all the crazy food I ate. I remember all our wonderful friends eating around the table with us. Every time I hear honking, I remember the constant, incessant honking in our city, and how it actually became a comforting, barely-noticed sound after the first few nights. I remember waking up to the the street vendor's recorded voice crying out the price for her tofu.
I met up with one of my friends for lunch yesterday, and we ate our classic favorite - a Vietnamese noodle soup called pho. We hadn't seen each other since last spring semester, because I spent the summer in East Asia, and she spent the fall semester in Argentina studying and traveling throughout the country. It was so good getting to catch up with her and share our experiences.
She said something that really resonated with me, though, because it's so true. She talked about how people look at her pictures from Argentina and think "Wow, that's a cool street scene" or "What beautiful mountains." But she looks at those pictures, and it means so much more. It's not just a random street with random street signs and a random guy playing an instrument on the sidewalk. It's a street corner she walked past every day to go to class, and there is an actual memory associated with it. It's not just a random "postcard picture" with mountains, a forest and a lake. She can't even describe what it felt like to stand there in the middle of all that beauty; she even remembers what the forest smells like.
I know exactly what she means.
You might think, "That's cool, Hannah spent the summer in East Asia, and it looks like she had fun. Now she's back in America, and it's just a part of her life I wasn't involved in, but it's moved on now." No. Every time I use chopsticks, I remember using them for every single meal, and I remember my friend who peeled a boiled egg with just chopsticks. Every time I eat family-style (where plates of food sit in the middle of the table, and everyone reaches in and gets what they want as they go), I think of all the crazy food I ate. I remember all our wonderful friends eating around the table with us. Every time I hear honking, I remember the constant, incessant honking in our city, and how it actually became a comforting, barely-noticed sound after the first few nights. I remember waking up to the the street vendor's recorded voice crying out the price for her tofu.
This campus is beautiful, but I remember living here for two months; it was my home.
This child at the orphanage is precious, but I remember how she barely responded when I played with her because her tiny body is disfigured and she has Down Syndrome.
It looks like a cool scene, but I remember watching this plot of dirt outside our dorm:
Turn into this by the end of the summer:
This classroom looks average, but I spent three hours every morning with some of my closest friends in this room, with the windows open, learning the language:
I still long to go back there. But then I look at pictures from last semester here at UT, and the same thing happens. What about all my friends and family who don't go here?
They look at this and see a cool stream. I look at this and remember hiking outside in the gorgeous air and watching the sun glint off the water with some of my closest friends:
You may think this is just an awesome studio, but I spent hours in here working on a feature story watching a wig-maker interact with her students:
You may think this is just a cool skyline, but this is my school. This has kind of been my life the past several years. And this picture was taken one day when Stephen and I climbed to the top of a parking garage to watch the sunset:
These aren't just random pictures. They're all memories to be treasured. But if I sit here and dwell on the past, I'm making no room for what God can do in the future. I look forward to everything He will do this semester!
Friday, January 15, 2010
Fear and trembling
I've been reading through the book of Job in the Bible, and I've been focusing on learning more about what it means to fear God. I'd read Job all the way through in high school, but never with a "theme" in my head. If you've never read Job straight through before, I would encourage you to do it, because you start seeing patterns and themes, and it's way more than just a back-and-forth between some disgruntled friends and a suffering pity party.
If you've never heard of it, the quick summary is that Job was an upright man, and Satan wanted to prove that if someone was faced with awful enough circumstances, they curse God (basically saying that no one truly trusts or fears God). God said that Satan could mess with Job, just spare his life. All throughout, his friends and his wife try and convince him to either curse God and be done with it or repent to God for some heinous sin (that Job didn't do), rather than just worship God and fear Him because no matter what happens, He is the same.
Anyway, the other night I read Job chapter 21, which is Job's response to an accusation one of his "friends" made, saying he just needed to quit being a hypocrite and repent, and that he would be destroyed and cut off like the rest of the wicked, haghty people in the world.
Job reminds them again that plenty of wicked people prosper. He notes that that's the terrifying part: God works far beyond the simple cause and effect system they're trying to pen Him into.
"Is my complain directed to man? Why should I not be impatient? Look at me and be astonished; clap your hand over your mouth. When I think about this, I am terrified; trembling seizes my body. Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power?" Job 21:4-7
The biggest thing that struck me about this chapter, though, was Job's fear of God. Job trembled when he thought about how far beyond human reason God is. It terrified him. We can't explain God away. Sometimes He does things that don't make sense to us at all - that don't fit into what we think should happen or be deserved, and when I think about it, it is frightening! I don't like not being able to explain things. I don't like sitting there, mouth agape, knowing that God is good but wondering what just happened.
That magnitude 7 earthquake in Haiti the other day was devastating. As one of my friends put it, "Why did tragedy come to those who had nothing? Now they have less than nothing." It doesn't make sense that they should be "punished." But oh, the earthquake happened anyway. This isn't a reminder to myself that crap happens to "good people" and "bad people" alike. This is a gripping reminder that God isn't bound by me.
We need not live in terror, because even though God can (and does) do things that don't make sense to us at all, we can know that He loves us. Our response to anything should be worship, though, because no matter what, He is great!
Job reminds them again that plenty of wicked people prosper. He notes that that's the terrifying part: God works far beyond the simple cause and effect system they're trying to pen Him into.
"Is my complain directed to man? Why should I not be impatient? Look at me and be astonished; clap your hand over your mouth. When I think about this, I am terrified; trembling seizes my body. Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power?" Job 21:4-7
The biggest thing that struck me about this chapter, though, was Job's fear of God. Job trembled when he thought about how far beyond human reason God is. It terrified him. We can't explain God away. Sometimes He does things that don't make sense to us at all - that don't fit into what we think should happen or be deserved, and when I think about it, it is frightening! I don't like not being able to explain things. I don't like sitting there, mouth agape, knowing that God is good but wondering what just happened.
That magnitude 7 earthquake in Haiti the other day was devastating. As one of my friends put it, "Why did tragedy come to those who had nothing? Now they have less than nothing." It doesn't make sense that they should be "punished." But oh, the earthquake happened anyway. This isn't a reminder to myself that crap happens to "good people" and "bad people" alike. This is a gripping reminder that God isn't bound by me.
We need not live in terror, because even though God can (and does) do things that don't make sense to us at all, we can know that He loves us. Our response to anything should be worship, though, because no matter what, He is great!
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Buckling in for the final sha-boom
Have I really not updated since November? Yikes!
The most eventful thing in my life right now is that I got a car a few days ago!! I thought it would be a miracle if I got one before I got married, but my 2002 silver Accord is now sitting in my parents' driveway. Wilbur (yes, I named him) drives soooo smoothly, and he actually has a CD player too. What a huge blessing! My mom thought I should name him something Japanese (because he's a Japanese car), but I told her it's ok, because I named Stephen's car "Sven the Munchkin" a long time ago, and it's not Scandinavian, it's an American.
* * *
I will return to Austin on Friday, and my final semester of college will launch into action. How weird is that? On one hand, I am looking forward to moving on in life and saying goodbye to all-nighters and droning professors. Three weeks after I graduate, I will marry my best friend, and that day cannot come soon enough! (It's 144 days away, if anyone was wondering...) I'm looking forward to married life and being a grown-up. It will be great not having to scrape by with what little sleep I can pick up here or there.
But on the other hand, I can't even imagine life without school. I have no idea what it's like to actually get paid for slaving away all day (aside from part-time jobs). I have no idea what it's like to look at the clock, see that it's 11 p.m., realize I have no homework and just go to bed when I'm tired. I have no idea what it's like to wake up in the morning and know I won't be seeing all my favorite people by lunchtime. I won't have to slave for days over intense homework assignments, but I also won't have the inexplicable feeling of utter freedom when it's completed.
I will miss meeting new people at Epoch with Suzie at 2 a.m. when we're trying to study. I will miss scrambling around in my apartment with Ashley trying to find more chairs for all the international students who came an hour and a half late to a dinner party. I will miss dropping by the BSM to eat my sandwich and getting caught up talking with Robbi, Marcy and Jamie. I will miss piling into a bus with 20 of my closest friends to go to a retreat. I will miss walking across campus between classes and seeing the Tower, ancient trees, beautiful buildings, interesting people and the bluest sky you could ever imagine. I will even miss sitting in the freezing cold Union at 7 a.m. studying for a test in a few hours (listening to Newton Faulkner and Fleet Foxes, of course).
I love Austin. I love everything about it (except the heat and humidity). It's such a crazy place with such interesting people. It's beautiful, and there's always something to do for everybody. It's so alive! And Arlington... well, Arlington will always have a special place in my heart, because that's where I lived during my freshman year of college. I love Arlington, but it's no Austin.
But wow. I still have a whole semester of adventures left! I know God has me here at UT for a reason - I hope I can use my time wisely while I'm still here before moving on to a whole new, exciting phase of life.
The most eventful thing in my life right now is that I got a car a few days ago!! I thought it would be a miracle if I got one before I got married, but my 2002 silver Accord is now sitting in my parents' driveway. Wilbur (yes, I named him) drives soooo smoothly, and he actually has a CD player too. What a huge blessing! My mom thought I should name him something Japanese (because he's a Japanese car), but I told her it's ok, because I named Stephen's car "Sven the Munchkin" a long time ago, and it's not Scandinavian, it's an American.
* * *
I will return to Austin on Friday, and my final semester of college will launch into action. How weird is that? On one hand, I am looking forward to moving on in life and saying goodbye to all-nighters and droning professors. Three weeks after I graduate, I will marry my best friend, and that day cannot come soon enough! (It's 144 days away, if anyone was wondering...) I'm looking forward to married life and being a grown-up. It will be great not having to scrape by with what little sleep I can pick up here or there.
But on the other hand, I can't even imagine life without school. I have no idea what it's like to actually get paid for slaving away all day (aside from part-time jobs). I have no idea what it's like to look at the clock, see that it's 11 p.m., realize I have no homework and just go to bed when I'm tired. I have no idea what it's like to wake up in the morning and know I won't be seeing all my favorite people by lunchtime. I won't have to slave for days over intense homework assignments, but I also won't have the inexplicable feeling of utter freedom when it's completed.
I will miss meeting new people at Epoch with Suzie at 2 a.m. when we're trying to study. I will miss scrambling around in my apartment with Ashley trying to find more chairs for all the international students who came an hour and a half late to a dinner party. I will miss dropping by the BSM to eat my sandwich and getting caught up talking with Robbi, Marcy and Jamie. I will miss piling into a bus with 20 of my closest friends to go to a retreat. I will miss walking across campus between classes and seeing the Tower, ancient trees, beautiful buildings, interesting people and the bluest sky you could ever imagine. I will even miss sitting in the freezing cold Union at 7 a.m. studying for a test in a few hours (listening to Newton Faulkner and Fleet Foxes, of course).
I love Austin. I love everything about it (except the heat and humidity). It's such a crazy place with such interesting people. It's beautiful, and there's always something to do for everybody. It's so alive! And Arlington... well, Arlington will always have a special place in my heart, because that's where I lived during my freshman year of college. I love Arlington, but it's no Austin.
But wow. I still have a whole semester of adventures left! I know God has me here at UT for a reason - I hope I can use my time wisely while I'm still here before moving on to a whole new, exciting phase of life.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
A mind of its own
It amazes me how the brain decides it's done working. I've experienced this countless times, being the sleep-defying person that I am. Let me set up a few situations, because I'm sure you can relate. These are all things that actually happened, the evidence of which I have kept for laughs.
1. Reading late at night
We're all familiar with this one. You read a book or article for class the next morning, and you're super tired, fighting to keep your eyes open. Your book eventually falls off your lap, and when you pick it up, you have no idea where you were when it fell; flipping through the pages, you don't recognize anything until you return to the very first page, which you realize you've read about eight times. I've seen some curious highlighting jobs, too.
2. Making notes to study
I distinctly remember a time during sophomore year when I was making notecards for a French test the next morning. I was really tired, so I ended up going to bed. I woke up early the next morning to finish studying and, to my shock and dismay, found notecards with random tangents about football quarterbacks and carrots amid conjugations and sentence structure. Another set of notes for an advertising class included random, tired, barely legible sentences like, "I'm not gonna try it though... I won't get THAT tired." Yet another set of advertising notes included this random interjected nonsense, which I now put in brackets: "It's amazing how [sometimes you just don't pay attention to how tall someone is] you start, and then all of a sudden midterms are upon you..."
3. Taking notes in class
This semester, while studying for an exam, I discovered a particular gem in the midst of class notes about Brahmans, Ashrama, and Buddhism. "Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. He who continually goes forth weeping, bearing seeds for sowing, will doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." It was barely legible, but I was able to recognize it. I'm glad my brain knows Psalm 126:5-6, even if it should have been writing about Veda rejection and paradox. At least I got back to taking notes on the next line, though some of those are completely illegible even now. I'm sure that will be particularly helpful when the test rolls around...
5. Writing papers
I wrote a two-page paper this morning between the hours of 6:00 and 7:00. It included various delicacies such as "easter border," "their are," and "the dynasty's Kind[King?] Ashoka" that I discovered as I reread it this evening. However, I do not really remember the action of writing the paper, so I felt like I was reading it for the first time. This is not the first time this has happened. One time, I repeated two full paragraphs (my half-asleep brain must get copy/paste-happy). I've written "laugher" for "laughter," "one" instead of "once," and "she girl" instead of "the girl." I've repeated the phrase "on Wednesday" twice in the same sentence. A rough draft of a paper had a particularly gripping closing sentence: "This semester is home, and I wasn't Sister to some back. Sometims was long butt I've learned a nplot." Thankfully, my grammar is good enough to where I can get away with a few "typos"...
Do you remember anything funny like this happening to you? I'd love to hear about it. Usually I'm able to keep my mind on track, but sometimes I'm just so tired that my poor brain starts shutting down without permission. It's such a curious happening, and I'm always fascinated to see the results of these instances. Maybe one day an essay will write itself, and I'll wake up the next morning with the week's homework completed. Until then, I'll just have to be satisfied with random, illegible musings of football and tall people.
1. Reading late at night
We're all familiar with this one. You read a book or article for class the next morning, and you're super tired, fighting to keep your eyes open. Your book eventually falls off your lap, and when you pick it up, you have no idea where you were when it fell; flipping through the pages, you don't recognize anything until you return to the very first page, which you realize you've read about eight times. I've seen some curious highlighting jobs, too.
2. Making notes to study
I distinctly remember a time during sophomore year when I was making notecards for a French test the next morning. I was really tired, so I ended up going to bed. I woke up early the next morning to finish studying and, to my shock and dismay, found notecards with random tangents about football quarterbacks and carrots amid conjugations and sentence structure. Another set of notes for an advertising class included random, tired, barely legible sentences like, "I'm not gonna try it though... I won't get THAT tired." Yet another set of advertising notes included this random interjected nonsense, which I now put in brackets: "It's amazing how [sometimes you just don't pay attention to how tall someone is] you start, and then all of a sudden midterms are upon you..."
3. Taking notes in class
This semester, while studying for an exam, I discovered a particular gem in the midst of class notes about Brahmans, Ashrama, and Buddhism. "Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. He who continually goes forth weeping, bearing seeds for sowing, will doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." It was barely legible, but I was able to recognize it. I'm glad my brain knows Psalm 126:5-6, even if it should have been writing about Veda rejection and paradox. At least I got back to taking notes on the next line, though some of those are completely illegible even now. I'm sure that will be particularly helpful when the test rolls around...
4. Text messaging
I was up really late last night reading an article about African influence in early Asia, and I was drifting off, so I decided to set my alarm for 6 to get up and write the summary.
A text message to Stephen this morning around 6:30 said: "So i went to bed at c and ive been up since 6 writing a 2-page article summary, and i am indescribably tirf :-(" I don't even remember sending that message; I found out about it when he later texted me back something along the lines of, "I can tell."
5. Writing papers
I wrote a two-page paper this morning between the hours of 6:00 and 7:00. It included various delicacies such as "easter border," "their are," and "the dynasty's Kind[King?] Ashoka" that I discovered as I reread it this evening. However, I do not really remember the action of writing the paper, so I felt like I was reading it for the first time. This is not the first time this has happened. One time, I repeated two full paragraphs (my half-asleep brain must get copy/paste-happy). I've written "laugher" for "laughter," "one" instead of "once," and "she girl" instead of "the girl." I've repeated the phrase "on Wednesday" twice in the same sentence. A rough draft of a paper had a particularly gripping closing sentence: "This semester is home, and I wasn't Sister to some back. Sometims was long butt I've learned a nplot." Thankfully, my grammar is good enough to where I can get away with a few "typos"...
Do you remember anything funny like this happening to you? I'd love to hear about it. Usually I'm able to keep my mind on track, but sometimes I'm just so tired that my poor brain starts shutting down without permission. It's such a curious happening, and I'm always fascinated to see the results of these instances. Maybe one day an essay will write itself, and I'll wake up the next morning with the week's homework completed. Until then, I'll just have to be satisfied with random, illegible musings of football and tall people.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Sewing makes life so much cheaper
Halloween is this weekend, and I'm looking forward to dressing up! The past two years I went as a black cat and an Indian (Stephen brought me back a beautiful outfit from India, along with tons of bangles that everyone thought I got at Urban Outfitters). This year, I'm going with a group of six people, and our costumes all go together! I sewed my costume out of two shirts from Goodwill, for a total of $4. The fake eyelashes I bought to go with it cost $2 more than that. Thanks, Mom, for teaching me back in kindergarten how to sew and be creative. :-)
I'm currently trying to figure out how I can acquire a car within the next six months or so at the latest. It's kind of daunting. I just now thought of a genius idea that could have earned me some money to put toward it, but of course, it's too late. :-) I love making costumes, and if anyone remembers the Human Torch costume I made Halloween of 2007 for John, it won two costume contests. Of course, part of it was his amazing makeup job, but the whole thing was just so much fun! Anyway, this is all just a massive lament of a moneymaking opportunity that slipped delicately through my oblivious fingers.
(I took this last one from someone's Facebook...)
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