I have had such a wonderful weekend that I decided it's worth writing about. And I'm kind of procrastinating on studying....typical.

First of all, me and Seliece went to the Greenbelt Friday afternoon and went on a great hike/walk. Then I came back to the Tridelt house and read Twilight (oh peer-pressure...) until Christy came back from babysitting. She picked me up and we went to Jason's for dinner and both got delicious spinach wraps and soup. Then we returned to the house and grabbed our stuff to go study. She hadn't been to the Cafe Medici on West Lynn so we went there. Erin was working so we chatted for a while and then Christy helped me a little with making a resume, since I figure I should have one on hand while I'm in New York....and I guess just in general. Anyways, while she was helping me she realized that she had a really great connection for me. Last summer Christy worked at a PR agency in New York City called Edelman and worked with a woman named Autumn. However, after the summer Autumn left Edelman and went to work at the American Bible Society, whose main office is right there on Broadway. Both of us went to the website and I immediately realized this was the type of company/non-profit I would want to work for. I loved their mission statement, "to make the Bible available to every person in a language and format each can understand and afford, so all people may experience its life-changing message." Lately I have left really confused/frustrated on what I want to do when I graduate, even though I know that God is in control,  I also want to be intentional with pursuing what careers might interest me. Anyways, Christy said she would definitely e-mail Autumn on Monday and ask her if I could possibly intern with them while I'm living there in the Spring. It's so neat too, because I looked up where exactly the office was in relation to where the Hovnanian's live, and it is 0.9 miles away....and my walk would be right across Central Park! I thanked the Lord this morning for being good and faithful, despite the inconsistency of my trust in Him to provide. 

So that was Friday. Today has also been great. Me and Jordan both woke up at around 10 and since she needed to go get her car at the house she had left it last night, I took her and then we went to Pacha to get some breakfast. I got 2 breakfast tacos with coffee and she got an acai bowl with granola and a coffee. We sat on the back porch since the weather was perfect and had such a good time talking. I am so thankful that God put us together this semester- she has been such a blessing! After that she went to watch the football game at a friend's and I went to Town Lake. I decided that even though I am currently very out of shape, I am going to try building up my stamina and start running again. It's always super hard the first week or so, but it always gets easier. I decided I was going to do the 4 mile loop, and I did it, even though I probably ended up walking about 85% of it.....baby steps, right? After this I made my way over to Cafe Medici again to "study"....which I will begin doing in about t-5 minutes. They had blueberry bran muffins, my all-time favorite, so I decided this could be my lunch/reward for some intense spanish phonetics reviewing. I need to find other rewards for my behavior besides food....still working on that one. Tonight I think me and Mallory are going to hang out and possibly go to dinner or see a movie, so I'm looking forward to being with her. 

Nana is in town this whole week helping my mom recover from her back surgery, so I'm excited to spend some good time with her! 

New York update: 60 days!

Hasta. 

I get an e-mail sent to me everyday called the "Catch of the Day". I usually delete it, unless I have a few extra minutes or the title "reels" me in.....no pun intended.

Today I found what I read very interesting and refreshing, especially in light of all that has been going on lately with the election. 

Wrong ideas about Christians 

by John Fischer 
Thanks to Marc Drayer for this quote from one of my favorite writers, Dorothy Sayers (1893-1967), who has written on education, women, and Christianity, not to speak of her smashingly famous English mystery novels starring the aristocratic amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey. 

"It is more startling to discover how many people there are who heartily dislike and despise Christianity without having the faintest notion of what it is. If you tell them, they cannot believe you. I do not mean that they cannot believe the doctrine; that would be understandable enough since it takes some believing. I mean they simply cannot believe that anything so interesting, so exciting and so dramatic can be the orthodox creed of the Church." ["The Dogma is the Drama," from Letters to a Diminished Church, by Dorothy Sayers.] 

In that the life and work of Dorothy Sayers spanned the first half of the 20th century, it tells you this thing about people rejecting Christianity for all the wrong reasons certainly isn't new. It could be that Satan knows he can keep people from hearing the good news of the gospel by sidetracking Christians into all kinds of diversions that then become how the world defines us. If so, it appears that it is an old trick of his. 

For years it was all the things we didn't do that had the world believing that a Christian was basically a killjoy. Then Satan got us fighting with each other over doctrine and the world got the idea that a Christian was a nitpicker. Then he got us looking for Satan everywhere (that's right, he diverted us with himself) and we boycotted Halloween and skewered Harry Potter, which caused the world to assume we were freaked out on fear. Then we got into politics and they thought Christians were all conservative Republicans trying to take over the country. 

See how valuable all these diversions are to forming the wrong idea about what a Christian is? The enemy will get people to believe anything about Christians but the truth, and the problem is, we cooperate too much by not staying focused on who we really are, merely sinners saved by grace. 

It's a diabolical strategy to keep the world sidetracked into thinking that Christianity isn't what it is, because what it is is simply too good to be true, and the story of how we came to be saved sinners is still the greatest story ever told. 

I pray that Christians would rise up during this time and not fall into these traps, but be lights and beautiful reflectors of Jesus Christ. 

Today marked a huge day in the history of the United States of America as Barack Obama was named the 44th President of the United States of America.

Even though I don't know exactly what to think about the outcome, I know that God works for the good in all things, so He will do so in this. I also know that He is sovereign over all things and allows things to happen because He is God and not only can see the "big picture", He is the big picture. 

I keep remembering something I heard at church a few weeks ago, and that is that social justice must be coupled with the cross of Jesus Christ to succeed. No president is going to fix our human nature and all the change and hope and love and peace and unity in the world won't either. 

My prayer for America is that through this, we would not focus on the inabilities or inadequacies of the president elect or divide over issues which will never fully be resolved or settled, but rather we would unite in the fact that we are all humans in need of a Savior. 

The verse that just came to my mind is a verse that many people have heard and read a million times, but holds so much truth and hope. The truth is not hidden, we just have to seek it. 

John 3:16-17

"For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."