laughter is the best medicine

Friends are goood. Laughter is good. Obscene shriek-yell-laughter is also good (shout out to my housemate Rachel). I just got back from a random trip to Lonestar with some friends + Silas. Good times. Getting cards from long lost friends from oceans away and having days off is also fun. I'm really enjoying kingston in the summer. I'm realizing how much I love taking walks because nature is so beautiful. Naturally, k-town isn't as beautiful as the country back home, but it smells better that's for sure. I'm just so glad the wedding is over. What a gongshow. But i'm really excited for Amanda's wedding. Two more weeks!!!!!

moment of truth

So tomorrow is the day I've been hoping wouldn't happen for the last 5 years: my mom's second wedding. Between thoughts of busting out Matthew 19, and thinking it will probably just pass by like any other normal day I still have hope that God will use this for something good. But I still don't think it should happen.

It's been the weirdest week, though. Hating work, being exhausted, needing a break from life, losing prom dresses (how does this happen?!), having to get a weird lavender ball gown bridesmaid's dress just to be an attendee at a wedding.... I feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland must have felt. All these strange things going on around her and her not understanding how they could be happening.

My little brother's band is playing at a Christian high school in Orleans tonight, and I'm going to see them with Michelle (Nick's gf) and Vanessa (Kevin's daughter). That should be fun, although could be totally weird if nessa asks why I'm not in the wedding. "Sorry, I think it's sin" probably wont go over very well haha. I think the most interesting part about this whole process is how God has been repeatedly reminding me of how disgusting and painful my own personal sin is. Which is not exactly good times, to say the least

all the world's a stage

I was really tired after work yesterday. Exhausted is a pretty good way to describe it. Exhausted from only getting 8 hours of sleep (lame, I know), from working a long boring shift and then going directly to a potluck with my coworkers and friends of coworkers. Mostly I was tired because I feel like I can't be myself around my coworkers. I feel this way around a lot of new people who aren't Christians (or I don't know them well enough to know they are). I feel like I have to make sure they like me or know that I'm 'normal' because as soon as they find out I'm a real church-going-Jesus-loving Christian they'll write me off as a lunatic, or even worse: a conservative (haha that's a joke). But seriously, I really do miss my non-christian friends who just accept me for who I am, who don't try and get me drunk or don't ridicule me for living my life differently.

I guess part of me also feels like if they reject me - probably the closest thing they'll find to a normal person who still loves God (and I don't mean that in a proud way, but not all Christians are up with the times) - there's little hope for them giving God a chance or opening up to the message of Jesus enough to actually hear what the gospel really is (as opposed to what most people think/assume it is... a bunch of rules to make life difficult and exclude people from heaven or something, i dunno).

Hmm, that last paragraph makes me sound pretty self-righteous and lacking in faith in God. I want to represent Him and my faith well, but I also don't want to appear as fake or desperate for people's friendship or approval. After all, Jesus did say 'If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.' (John 15:18). I need to get over this whole desire/desperation to liked thing/thought of as normal. But on the other hand, if I don't care what people think of me and sound like a religious freak, no one will ever take me seriously enough to hear the things I have to say. Whatever.... in any case, I trust that this will all work out. Eventually I'll get lazy and be normal around my coworkers... or something

blonde moment... or is it early onset alzheimers?

don't you hate it when you have something really great to wirte about and then totally forget what it is?