It's called Thanksgiving, not Turkey Day.

So when I wrote this I wasn't thinking I'd be posting it on the blog. Lizzie read it and said that I had to post it so there ya go. :P
The following is VERY long a perhaps boring, feel free not to read it, and there will be no need for applause at the end. (:P @ Jessica)

---------------------------------------

Thanksgiving. It's the only holiday in which gluttony is considered part of the observing the special day. Really though, it's not about food, just look at its name. Thanksgiving may cause us to think about turkey, but it honestly doesn't have the word turkey in it anywhere. 'Thanks' is a expression of gratitude, 'thanksgiving' is the act of giving thanks, so thanksgiving is a day for giving out of 'expressions of gratitude'.
So, who do we give these expressions of gratitude? Probably, the host(ess) of the thanksgiving lunch, and all the people who helped cook all the food. Special thanks may go to the person(s) who cooked that delicious turkey. If any members of your party are Christians, or even simply go to church, or really, if anyone is not an atheist, someone will pray before you eat (or maybe if they forget, after a bite or so) and thank God for the food, friends and family. Perhaps later, your party may take turns telling about what they're thankful for. Everyone says friends and family (duh, no one wants anyone else to think they're not grateful for that) Christians will say they are thankful for their God, who saved them. Probably everyone will think of something they're thankful for, that they'd rather not say. Kids, who don't really think about stuff like that might repeat what a parent said. After that, everyone is glad that's over; now they can eat the rest of the day and not feel ungrateful.

I admit, last year I was one of those kids. I never asked myself what I was thankful for, I just wanted food. (Thanksgiving! Mmm... turkey day) Then when I was asked by some one else, I just repeated my parents. The only thing on my mind was drumsticks and dessert.
This year was different. Very different. First of all the day I described above didn't happen. But I'll get to that later. Also, this year I asked my self the question, 'what am I thankful for?' This is to answer that question.

In order to understand what I'm thankful for, you must understand how my year went. I said it was different, and it was. A lot happened that I never dreamed of in the year before.

Only a month after I couldn't think for myself on what I was thankful for, I got sick. Just a few days before Christmas. It was the sickest I've been in a long, long time. I remember falling asleep on the bathroom floor, because I was too dizzy and tired to make it back to bed. I was still sick when the family came for Christmas. No delicious turkey for me. I was only a little better on Christmas day. Nevertheless, there was something about it that made it a very good Christmas for me. Perhaps it was simply because the worldly part of Christmas was taken away (no food and I couldn't properly enjoy the opening of gifts). All I was left with was the Christmas spirit.

Occasionally, during the basketball season, my sister, brother, dad and I would take the time to cheer for the Raleigh Hawks, the team my swim Coach coached. We were the only people who went to the games regularly, but didn't have family on the team. I took a small amount of pride in that. I thoroughly enjoyed these games, and took a boatload of pictures with my Canon Rebel XTi.

March was the East Coast Homeschool Basketball Championships. I imagine it was 'East Coast' because it was hosted on the east coast. Liberty University in Lynchburg Virginia to be exact. Any homeschool team in America could compete in the championship. I was thrilled when my dad decided to drive nearly 5 hours to watch two games, (the championship games for JV and Varsity) and then drive 5 hours back again. We arrived in the enormous court just in time to see our JV boys lose, and get second. It didn't take me long to realize, second means there was only one team better then us in the whole competition. After a couple hours break, it was the Varsity boys' turn. It was a amazing game. They were tied nearly the whole time, but our boys pulled it out, winning by 2 points in overtime. The best of the best. I was enthralled.

Not at all long after, the baseball season officially cranked up. Coached by the same coach of those awesome basketball guys. Even several of those guys played baseball as well. The teams' name was Raleigh Hawks too. This though, was a bit different, because my younger (but not smaller) brother started playing on the middle school team. I was pleased with this because it meant I could go to all the games... and I did. I tried to savor them, enjoy every minute, and capture the great times with photos and dairy entries. Still, the season swept by quickly leaving me suddenly depressed, and wondering where it had gone.

Sometime in the middle of the baseball season, NRCA's Beauty and the Beast snuck up on us unprepared. Somehow, we managed to get tickets, and after a baseball game, a small group of us headed over early to try and save good seats for a few more people. We arrived early, but too late for good seats. We sat in the very, very back. The rest of our party arrived a few minutes after the performance was supposed to begin, and after we were threatened with having our saved seats taken away for other people if they did not come soon. Fortunately, they were running late, and started just after the rest of our group came. The show was absolutely incredible, even with the bad seats. It was all worth it.

Two years ago, I was thrilled to see one of my ultimate favorite books hit the big screen. C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. since then I counted the days for the second book out of seven to also come to theaters. May 16th was the day Prince Caspian premiered, and I was going to begin to see it within the very first few minutes of that day. I didn't, however think I would see it with friends, though I wished I could. It was last minute, as it is often, but there we were, goofing off in the near-empty theater, and hallway until midnight. I had so much adrenalin I couldn't contain myself. Then again, I didn't exactly try.

Ever since the beginning of the year, North Carolina had been in a drought. Because of this, a law was passed that owners of pools may only open their pools if there was water already in the pool, or if they had a well. Coach, the coach of the basketball, baseball and swim teams owns a out door pool, where we have our summer meets. It had no water in it and there was no well. Or any money for a well. So our summer pool did not open. Instead, we swam inside, as we did over winter, and was always the away team in our meets.

Not only did we swim indoors, we swam long course (50 meters a lap instead of 25) two days of the three our team practiced. I absolutely hated long course. With a burning and undying passion. Because of that I began to hate swim practice. I lived for meets and water polo. Water polo became my passion, a reason to go through with the week. I began to love it even more than I hated long course.

In the middle of these strange changes, the play "Annie" which we'd been working on for some eight months sprang up on us. (plays have a way of doing that) we hadn't even run all the way through on production day. Since there was two performances, the first was like our dress rehearsal. Surprisingly, (but then again, not really) both went rather well. Still, I was glad for not having a main role.

July rolled around. Slowly.
I had turned fifteen in May, and was rather annoyed with myself for still not having taken Driver's Ed. I wanted to do it with people I knew. So when the opportunity came to take it with three other people, I took it. Even though the class was at a high school, so I'd be one of very few homeschoolers, I figured it'd be okay. I'm still not sure if I was right or wrong. On one hand I learned how to drive properly, and had a bit of fun with my friends. I also built a considerable amount of character. It was definitely a experience. On the other hand.... I got headaches almost every day from sitting in front of the computer for so long, the teacher wasn't especially good or nice, and my mind was numb by the end from forcing so much boring information in it. It definitely could have been better.

Now I had been taking private flute lessons for four years, and known of the Lighthouse Christian Homeschool Band for nearly just as long. Mum and Dad seemed to want me to join, but I felt that it was too much of a unknown. I simply didn't know enough about the particular band, or even being in a band in general.

During the baseball season I met the director of the wind ensemble. When he heard of how long I had been playing he told me that he thought I should be good enough to make it.
In my opinion, that suddenly made the band so much less of a unknown. I began to seriously consider trying out. There was one not-so-slight problem. Band Practices were on Monday and Wednesday, and the Wednesday practice conflicted with water polo. Thinking maybe I could skip out on Wednesday every so often in order to play water polo, I tried out, making second and also last chair.

After the first band practice I realized what a bad idea it was to try and play water polo, even only so often. Every Wednesday since, I've showed up at that church where we practice, at least five minutes early. With a undying longing to play water polo inside.
It's not that I don't love band, if I didn't, I could just quit. But I haven't, because I do love it. I just wish that somehow I could do both.

It didn't seem like very long after Annie until theatre started again. This time we were doing "Oklahoma!" I tried out for the part of Laurey, knowing I wouldn't get it, and was not surprised. Nevertheless, I took the time to learn the monologue and song, and then I got stressed because I'm a perfectionist.

With the stress of everything that was happening, I could hardly concentrate on my projects for the NC State Fair. Before I knew it, I was rushing, and didn't finish all that I wanted to enter. I ended up with seven entries. I was very pleased when out of those seven, four won first and one won second. Wining a considerable amount of money.

A very short baseball season followed. My brother practiced but didn't play with the team, and we went to all the games.

Then basketball season started, and both my brothers joined the team. As the first game came up I realized a problem. A considerable amount of games are on Tuesday nights. Theatre is on Tuesday nights. Last year everything seemed to fit together like a puzzle. This year? Not so much. Now I was really glad I didn't get a main role; it wouldn't be so bad when I missed a few rehearsals. I skipped theatre to go to the first two games of the season on Tuesday.

NRCA's production of "It's a Wonderful Life" didn't sneak up us. Who am I kidding? Really, it certainly did. We bought our tickets at the door.
There was a guy I knew who was playing the lead role George Bailey. I was rather looking forward to seeing him play the crazy character. Imagine my surprise and disappointment when I read the playbill, which declared that he would be playing George in the night show. Not the one I was at already. I thoroughly enjoyed the show, but couldn't get over that minor detail. We came back that night just to see the guy I knew play George. I actually enjoyed it more than the first time.

The day before "It's a Wonderful Life" we noticed that my cat, Shadow was acting strange. She was refusing to eat and just sitting around. We tried to figure it out, but when nothing changed we took her to the hospital. She has kidney failure. The doctor's figured there was nothing we could really do, and hinted that we might be wasting our money. Somehow, she got better. Well, enough to come home. It was honestly nothing short of a miracle. She progressed slowly after that, and even stopped eating, but slowly began again.
Today (Thanksgiving) she ate some turkey.
Because of Shadow we went nowhere for Thanksgiving. Normally, we would've gone to my Aunt's and my Grandmother's. Instead we had our own meal, all by ourselves, at home.

What you have just read is what I'm thankful for. Not all of it mind you; it's just the out-of-the-ordinary things. The things which have happened to me... really, the things that made me even think of writing this. Not friends family possessions or food. I am, of course still thankful for those things, and I'm thankful for my loving God. But mostly, I'm thankful to my God.
Thanksgiving has two similar definitions: the act of giving thanks, and, a payer expressing gratitude. This holiday is for giving thanks to God. For everything. What we have and what we don't, what we've lost and what we may lose. The good, bad, the painful and wonderful.
There is nothing for which we should not thank Him.

--Sarah

Living Sacrifice

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."

~Romans 12:1-2

"...that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice..."

Recently I have decided that it is much more difficult to be a living sacrifice than to die a sacrifice. Obviously I wouldn't actually know, because I have never died. But recently I had begun envying the martyrs who got to die for our Lord. Sometimes this life is so painful, I really don't know if I want to keep on living. However, God has apparently decided that, at least for this moment, that He will be glorified by my continuing to live on this earth. Anyway, I don't know if that's actually what that verse means, but it makes sense to me and it encouraged me.

"...but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."

And when I am happy with living, it seems I don't do anything right. I confess, sometimes it seems I'm just too busy to take time to really pray and concentrate on reading my Bible, when I know it's just that I'm not MAKING time. Like right this second, instead of writing this pointless blog post that's really only benefiting me by organizing my own thoughts...
So anyway, that would be the renewing of my mind... praying, reading the Bible, and absorbing what I've read. And according to this verse, that will prove the good, acceptable and perfect will of God. Which I admit I've been kinda doubting lately.

There, my two new favorite Bible verses.

~Lizzie

Life is so confusing

When I was little, everything was so simple. My tiny world included my family, "friends" and church. I say "friends" in quotes because I didn't understand then what it meant to really be friends with someone; my "friends" were just people whose first names I knew and was permitted to use - all others were adults, who were addressed by their title and last name. I didn't know what it was to dislike someone. I knew simple things that I expected were widely understood and accepted by all Christians, like "all have sinned" and "by grace we are saved through faith." It was unthinkable to me that Christians could disagree on Biblical issues and I believed that God would answer every prayer with the right answer.

In the past 7 years or so, almost everything I believed has been torn from me. People that I considered my friends have shown that they didn't care for me in the least. I realized that friends are harder to come by and people are not nearly so forgiving as I had once thought. I have found that there don't seem to be any Christians who agree on everything, and some don't even agree on principles that I had always considered imperative to being a Christian. And, on top of that, some people claim to be Christians without really being Christians. Like Hitler. And worst of all... that maybe God doesn't always answer prayers with the right answer, because maybe the person asking didn't have enough faith.

I didn't know what it was like to despair. I was perfectly happy and content. And then the real world shattered my pleasant little life. I realized that there is evil all around, in everything. Malicious and horrifying evil, like I had never understood. Even in my understanding of Satan's evil I had never comprehended how wicked he really is. I probably still don't, but my greater understanding sickens me.

Now I feel so lost. My bright, happy world has disappeared like a pleasant dream to a miserable and shocking awakening. I was so secure in all that I understood and now I feel as though I'm being tossed and pulled in a million different directions in the dark. Of everything that I believed, the only truth I have left is God's word. And that I will not relinquish.

~Lizzie

By Popular Demand

Here is a review of a movie that I like! Unfortunately, like all realistic people, I can't help not being *perfectly* pleased, but nevertheless, the enjoyment of this movie outweighed the slight flaws of a little flat acting and a bit too much preachiness.

Time Changer was a really good movie. As a Christian movie, it definitely has a 'B' movie flavor, but they did a really good job making their point interesting. Russell Carlisle is a young professor at a Bible college in 1890, and has written a book that he is hoping his colleagues will endorse. The other men must all unanimously agree to endorse the book, and only one refuses. Dr. Anderson has a slight disagreement with a statement in Dr. Carlisle's book. A seemingly very slight disagreement, which frustrates Dr. Carlisle, as his publisher is anxious to print, and is asking for the endorsement as soon as possible. Dr. Anderson invites Dr. Carlisle to his house to settle their differences.

Upon arriving at Dr. Anderson's house, Dr. Carlisle is sworn to secrecy, and then introduced to a time-traveling machine. Dr. Carlisle doesn't believe that time travel is possible, but Dr. Anderson gives him instructions about the "new world" he will be in, and persuades him to stand in the portal. Dr. Carlisle is transported to 2000, amid some outdated special effects of lightening flashes, and glittery particles left behind floating to the floor.

In 2000, he realizes what Dr. Anderson intended for him to realize: his statement that teaching good morals without Jesus would be beneficial to society, particularly if the people in the society don't want to hear about Jesus, is wrong. Without Jesus' authority, morals mean nothing. He confronts a little girl who stole his hotdog: "Don't you know stealing is wrong?"
"Says who?" Demands the girl as she runs off, having relinquished his hotdog.

He runs into many more shocking things, including an immodestly dressed mannequin, people kissing on TV, God's name being blasphemed in a movie and people in a church being uninterested in the service and more interested in all the activities (among which include going to the blasphemous movie).

After meeting a Christian librarian who helps him with some "research", and a "good" laundry owner named Eddie, Dr. Carlisle prepares to go back to 1890. He visits the church and gives an inspiring message about the culture. Then he stops by Eddie's laundry and gives him a Bible (written in his own language, Spanish) and shares the gospel. On his way back to the alley where the time machine will beam him up, he notices that he's being followed by two cops in the church who have been suspicious of him. They demand an explanation just as the time for his departure is arriving. He has time to tell them that Jesus is coming back and that he was a messenger before the time machine collects him. "Dude, I think we just missed the rapture" one cop mutters as he disappears.

Back at home Dr. Carlisle revises his book and finds a little boy he reprimanded in the beginning of the movie. The young boy tried to steal some marbles, and Dr. Carlisle told him it was wrong; now he tells young Roger about Jesus (and gifts him with a bag of his own marbles).

And thus the happily-ever-after-the-end.

Please be aware that I expect uproarious praise for finally posting a positive review, and certainly do NOT want to hear any criticism for the first movie I selected. I realize that those of you that had issues with my opinion on Eagle Eye will probably disagree with the principles portrayed by this movie, however, the point was that it was a positive review. And I really did like the movie. So there.

~Lizzie

Weekends are like... 2 days out of 7

So this just randomly popped into my head last night:

During weekdays it's like you're riding around the block of your neighborhood... shotgun in a convertible sports car... with a crazy maniac driving. Swerving all over the place, stopping and starting randomly...etc. On the weekend, your crazy chauffeur stops at your house for a quick break. While you're inside, trying desperately to calm down, and get as much rest as fast as possible, he's still in the car. Reving the engine, blaring music, and occasionally honking the horn. Once your time's up, you're back out there for another go-around.

*is rather proud of herself for accidentally thinking of such a perfect analogy*

--Sarah

Move the Picture 2

Sarah and I went out to get some art supplies and groceries and stopped at the mall just to see if they had any good sales. (They didn't.) And have you ever noticed that people at the mall seem to have a less than average understanding of how parking lots work?? I got stuck with the back of my car sticking out in a somewhat busy area going by the food court because I made the mistake of trying to go down a parking aisle behind a car that stopped in the middle of the lane waiting for a van to pull out of parking spot. Then, after the van finally got out, it was coming our way, but the car in front of me was in the middle of the lane, and I was to the left of them trying to pull in as far as I could and keep my trunk from getting blown off.

So we had a van coming our way and we had the entire lane blocked. The car managed to pull around and get in the parking space, but I was stuck because a huge group of people walked right in front of me, and the van was just sitting there. I could feel the glare. The people sauntered on down the middle of the lane (people walk sooooooo slooooowww) and I finally managed to get out of the van's way. Then I barely inched along as the mall-goers continued to give me no room to get by. I did eventually park. Miraculously.

But anyway, the whole point was to mention the Move the Picture petition of a month ago. A&F still has that picture up. I guess the protesters lost. And I bet A&F keeps that picture up even longer than they originally would have in the first place. "www.movethepicture.com" is a blank page now. They just slunk off quietly like whipped dogs. And really, that seems like how we, as Christians, take everything. We can fight vigorously for a day or two, but when it comes down to it, we usually don't have the endurance, strength and belief in our cause to keep fighting. We just give up.

I hope that changes. We will probably have to fight for the right to homeschool in NC in the next decade. I hope we fight to the end, and never give up. And I hope we win.

~Lizzie

Sleep over!!

That's the great thing about sharing a room with your sister; you get sleepovers every night! Some are more amusing than others....... Tuesday night was one.

First, we were trying to figure out how many more 4-hour days of swimming are left, and how many I would have had left if I missed the practice Thursday. We bantered back and forth, "3 more Thursdays" "no, 2 more Thursdays... plus the Tuesdays which makes.... 5 days" "no, I think it'll be 3 Thursdays" "no, it'll only be 2!" and so forth. We finally decided to abandon mathematical equations of that difficulty at 12:30am.

So then we were discussing another topic (about my evil-ness in supposedly poisoning Sarah's mind against someone [I didn't!!]) and she said, "Ooh, that would make you Gollum! And that would make me Sam!!"
I humphed insultedly, and then she said, "Oh, wait... actually, that would make me Frodo...." *snicker* "and *so-and-so* Sam."
I said that I thought we were abandoning mathematics since it was so late (early) and we were obviously not functioning well, and she asked if that was math.
"Well, you have to decide if 'a' equals 'b' or 'c'. "
She thought for a moment and then asked, "Would that make me 'b' or 'c'?"
I stared at her dark shape on the other side of the room. "That would make you 'a'."
And we collapsed into giggles.

Then she wailed, "Oh, I'm so blonde! Is my hair changing color?"

This brought to mind a quote from about a year ago. We were looking at pictures, and Sarah goes, "It looks like my head is connected to my neck! Oh... wait.. it is."

Then Wednesday night we had too much caffeinated tea with supper... we ended up staying up til 3 in the morning. We ate a bag of chips, and played this great game where we listened to our not-iPods and guessed what song the other person was listening to by the way they were bouncing/bobbing their head/pretending to sing. It was fun... but not something that I'd let just anybody see me do. I'm sure I looked dorky.

So Thursday (after going to bed at 3, mind you) Joel and I had a little swim competition. You see, we're pretty close to the same speed, and we have a tendency to pass one another. On Tuesday I was making a hard interval, and Joel had already missed, but he wouldn't let me pass him, so I missed the interval. And yes, I confess that I was pretty frustrated. So Daddy decided that we would swim 10 50's on the :45 (the interval that we did on Tuesday [and that basically means that you have to swim 2 laps in 45 seconds, 10 times]) and the one who makes the most gets the permanent right to go in front of the other person.

And I confess.... I was prideful about that. I mean, he missed an interval before I did, and that's why he messed me up. Surely I could beat him... right?? What I didn't count on was him making ALL 10. And thereby qualifying for the Platinum team. (We have 4 levels... Masters for parents, Blue [which is the easiest], Silver [harder] and Platinum. The top. He is officially a Platinum member. I'm still Silver. I only made 8. I'm so bummed. And the really sad part is that if I'd managed to get a good night's sleep, I probably could have done it. :(

Kara and I had a very interesting discussion about courting Thursday night. I might even do a whole post about it. Basically we were discussing why we might say 'no' and whether you should have feelings for the guy before you say 'yes' to courting. But it's really made me rethink a lot about what I believe about courtship. I'm kinda uncertain right now.. still mulling it over. Fortunately, it's not an issue right now, because I certainly don't have guys lining up at my door. :P And Daddy would likely say that I'm too young anyway. I tend to agree.

Faith for the Man He'll Become
This one was just an interesting point of view. Not really an article that I need at the moment.... but I realized that I was kinda expecting the spiritual qualities that I see in older men in younger men, and it's true, "The qualities you can see in a 50-year-old man's life were developed over 50 years. There are 25 more years of growth ahead for the 25-year-old man before it's fair to compare them."

You Made Me Sin
"In the same way, when we get squeezed by the circumstances of life (an inevitability), we ooze the overflow of our hearts. We usually don't like what we see, so we blame the squeeze. We blame the circumstances. "I wouldn't have reacted that way if I hadn't been tired." Or, "I only said that because I was hot, thirsty, and uncomfortable." That's our default setting: blame the circumstances."

What Girls Wish You Knew
Before you ask, yes, there is a "What Guys Wish You Knew." There's a link at the bottom of this article if you'd rather read that. I decided to share this one because it clarified some things that I only half understood about myself. And yes, guys, those are exactly what we wish you really knew. But girls, this is for you, so if you happened to be like me, you can finally understand those vague ideas.

You know, growing up is so depressing. There's so much of a burden that comes with the knowledge you gain. When I was a kid, I didn't worry about anything. Now I see so many things on a different level.... everything is so much deeper. It's richer, and possibly more enjoyable than the blissful obliviousness of childhood... but still, I see things now that hurt me.. that I never would have noticed as a kid. And I'm not sure that I ever felt emotional pain as physically as I do now. All I can hope is that I'll outgrow it. That just seems like such an unlikely possibility now though, especially since it's been years since I've outgrown clothes. Ah well.

I don't want to end on a depressing note, so I'm going to share my favorite Bible verse (as of today anyway): "Even youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint." Isaiah 40:30-31 (KJV)

~Lizzie

Move the Picture

You've probably heard of the horrible scandal involving Abercrombie & Fitch at Triangle Town Center mall. (link) A group of people are spending this weekend outside the mall, handing out flyers and asking mall-goers to consider signing a "Move the Picture" petition, contacting mall representative and A&F to register complaints, and to not shop at the mall until this picture is removed.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for getting the picture removed. I'm just wondering, "why now, and why A&F?" I mean, has anyone walked by Victoria's Secret recently? This is from their site: "As a side note, many people have said, "Why not target Victoria's Secret?" "Is it because this is a man?" No... we want all sexually explicit pictures in the windows of mall stores to be moved so that CHILDREN don't have to see them."
So why haven't they objected to Victoria's Secret already? Victoria's Secret has been displaying inappropriate ads ever since the mall was built (which, if I remember correctly, was in 2003, 5 years ago).

Better late than never I guess. But it certainly makes the job harder. For example, they're now citing the mall's own policy, "In order to help ensure a pleasant shopping environment, we ask all visitors to refrain from the following: ... 12. .......wearing clothing or lack of clothing.......that offends community standards of decency or that impinges on the sensitivities of others in the mall." This has been in place ever since 2003, and Victoria's Secret has been "impinging" on my sensitivities the whole time. No one complained. At least, not on this scale. And now, all of a sudden, they're jumping all over A&F. No wonder the mall is reluctant to comply.

I'm not sure what to do. I have yet to sign my name to this petition. By my previous silence about my opinion of Victoria's Secret, I think I've lost my right to complain. I'll only seem like another of the masses picking on A&F. And I'm still not convinced that there isn't more to this than just another bad picture.

~Lizzie

Truth and strangers.

Most people think I'm strange when I say this, but I actually take the Bible literally. Not only that, but I put the Bible as top authority. Meaning that I take what it says, and believe that over anything else. The Bible is over science, "logic," text books, the government, and, believe it or not, even....*gasp* what I read online!

Sometimes, when my beliefs don't match up with someone else's, I wonder why I'm so weird. Why do so many Christians disagree? For example, (and this is something most of my friends do agree) I believe that the world isn't millions and billions of years old. The disagreements come into play when I think that the earth is 6,000 years old. (And we won't get into that, because that's not what this post is about. It was just an example.)

I think that the real issue is that we don't focus enough on the fact that this world is NOT our home. We are strangers in a foreign land, here to bring glory to God. So, as strangers in a foreign land, what do we have that isn't foreign? We have the Holy Spirit, and the Bible. The Holy Spirit guides us, and the Bible is the book that God gave us. Other than that, everything should be weighed against the Bible. Does it match up? Or does it contradict?

There is a third question that I just recently realized you can ask. Sometimes a particular issue doesn't seem to be addressed by the Bible, and in that case, you can ask: Does it really matter? For example, the Bible doesn't say you should always wear purple. Nor does it say you shouldn't wear purple. Does it really matter? No. It really puts things into perspective for me to think about it this way. I get so caught up in gray areas being right or wrong, and I feel like I have to decide for myself since the Bible doesn't specify. It seems like such a simple concept, but it's hit me very suddenly, and I'm really excited to be able to say that, "I've weighed such-and-such against the Bible, and I don't believe it's necessarily right or wrong." (Just for clarity, I'd like to point out that I'm not talking about issues of the magnitude of whether or not to wear purple here.)

But before you ask "does it really matter?" you really have to dig into the "does it match?" and "does it contradict?" questions. I try to have a Biblical reason for everything that I strongly believe in. Sometimes my beliefs seem pretty removed from the Bible, and probably most people wouldn't agree with my reasons. For example, I'm very opinionated about herbs. I don't do "modern medicine" and I don't do homeopathy, which is probably more common than herbs. And I have a Biblical reason, not because the Bible says "Thou shalt only use herbs for thy health and not medicine or homeopathy or any other substitutes" (we all know that's not in there, right?) but simply because God created plants for our nourishment. He didn't create chemotherapy, vaccines, sleep aid pills or water containing the energy of a certain substance.

But it's not the side issues (like herbs) that really gets to me. What really bothers me is when Christians can't agree on things that are obviously addressed in the Bible. Like, what really counts as stealing? If money is just lying somewhere, is it stealing to take it? Well, is it yours? Does the lack of an owner standing right there make it any less stealing? What about lying? Does it count as lying if the truth might hurt someone's feelings? I mean, what are you supposed to say when she asks what you think of that horrible skirt?

We as Christians need to start taking the Bible seriously. It applies to everyday life, not just becoming a Christian and following the rules. The more I read, the more I realize it applies to EVERYTHING. If you don't agree, I challenge you to read your Bible more. Read the whole Bible, all the way through, and then come tell me that it doesn't apply to every aspect of life.

~Lizzie

Before You Meet Prince Charming

**Warning to guys: discussing a book meant for girls. Read at your own risk**

I decided to read this book ("Before You Meet Prince Charming") because of a blog that I found while blog hopping (certainly not because of its somewhat cheesy title) and was convicted by Miss Mally's view on emotional purity. I have had my share of crushes on the male population, and I didn't really see anything wrong with it. I never thought that emotional purity was part of keeping myself completely pure for my future husband. With shame and regret, I realized that I have already given little pieces of my heart to the guys that had caught my attention over the years. Thankfully, I know that God has restored those pieces of my heart to me, and I'm determined to guard my heart for the man that God has for me.

Miss Mally had some very good points in her book, and I don't want to go over all of them (girls, I really recommend that you read this book!) but I really have to share my very favorite idea, and the thought that really stuck out from the whole book to me:
Instead of trying to see how much you can get away with (Can I have a crush on this guy? Just one date?) why not try seeing how much you can SAVE? Can I save every single little piece of my heart? Can I wait until God brings along "the one" before I allow ANY romantic feelings? Can I see ALL guys as brothers in Christ and nothing more? I challenge you, my sisters, to jealously guard every single precious thought and feeling for the one God has for you. I charge you to think of yourself as already belonging to him. I hope that the white dress that you may wear one day will represent your heart, mind, body and spirit in godly purity.

And that was really serious. Eeek, I really must be getting old. Help!! Kara, this is all your fault....

~Lizzie

Do Hard Things

Alex and Brett Harris's new book, entitled "Do Hard Things" arrived in the mail today. I eagerly began devouring it, and it wasn't long before I got one of my intense revelations. Okay, so it wasn't really intense. But it is kinda disturbing.. to me anyway.

Just in case you don't know who Alex and Brett Harris are, and maybe the book title is giving you ideas of hanging by your toes or drinking a gallon of mud, let me give you some background. (You can also check out their blog The Rebelution.) Alex and Brett Harris are twin younger brothers of Joshua Harris, the author of "I Kissed Dating Goodbye," "Boy Meets Girl" and other such helpful books. As explained much more eloquently on their blog, they discovered some very interesting ideas about those of us who are commonly called "teenagers."

Our culture today expects very little good of us. Most teenagers are expected to be irresponsible and childish, interested only in having fun. We are completely capable of behaving like the adults that we physically are, but we don't. Why? That brings me to my point. Ready? No....? Seriously? Whatever.. I don't care if you're ready or not!

We live up to what is expected of us.

Really, we do. Fortunately, most of us who are home-schooled have diligent parents who DO expect us to behave like adults. Or at least better than the average American teenager. But I've sidetracked from my point. .... what was my point? Oh, yes.

My revelation. My expectations for myself have dropped sadly in this past year. And actually, (not to try to place the blame on someone else, but....) I think it's mostly due to the Chemistry class that I've been in this year. The whole class started off with fairly good grades, if I remember correctly. But somehow we've slacked off terribly. All of the tests for the rest of the year are going to be open-book. I'm not trying to brag about my grades or anything, but I've never ever gotten a 76 before that I remember..... and I got a 76 on AN OPEN-BOOK TEST. Don't tell me that isn't pathetic. That is so far beyond pathetic that I can't even find a word to describe it.

I'm not blaming it on the teacher. It's really my fault, I'm certainly capable of getting just as good grades without him expecting it of me. I just haven't been expecting it of myself. I even stopped doing the homework. We have class tomorrow, and even now, with almost all of the homework still left to do, I'm writing a blog post about how low my expectations of myself are. No kidding.

And not only have I slacked off my Chemistry, I've slacked off almost everything else. My piano practicing has completely died. I haven't practiced AT ALL in nearly 3 weeks. I did worse than I've ever done before in my piano competitions this past winter. My math grades have been sloping almost as bad as Chemistry. My room (which I'd actually been keeping clean!) has gone back to the mess that it's been for most of my life. I've been staying up late, and sleeping in to disgraceful hours. I have a script that was supposed to be memorized before Christmas break and I've memorized a grand total of one scene. It's all my fault. I AM capable of doing things that aren't expected of me, but naturally it's so much easier if they are expected of you.

So, "Do Hard Things" has nothing to do with unnecessary pain or stupidity, but everything to do with requiring of yourself things that are hard, but beneficial. Like it's going to be really hard for me to drag my grades back up, practice piano, go to bed early and get up early, memorize my script, keep my room clean, and various other things that I need to do. But I'm going to do them, and proudly be one of the "teenagers" rebelling against the low expectations of our society. And I honestly can't believe how sad my list sounds.... I should already be doing all those things, and not thinking twice about it! Man, I have sooooo much work to do.

And just so all of y'all know, I refuse to be called a teenager. *shudder* What a degrading term....

~Lizzie

Powerful Faith.

One morning the plates and cups and bowls on the table were empty. There was no food in the larder, and no money to buy food. The children were standing waiting for their morning meal, when Mr. Mueller said, "Children, you know we must be in time for school." Lifting his hand he said, "Dear Father, we thank Thee for what Thou art going to give us to eat." There was a knock on the door. The baker stood there, and said, "Mr. Mueller, I couldn't sleep last night. Somehow I felt you didn't have bread for breakfast and the Lord wanted me to send you some. So I got up at 2 a.m. and baked some fresh bread, and have brought it." Mueller thanked the man. No sooner had this transpired when there was a second knock at the door. It was the milkman. He announced that his milk cart had broken down right in front of the Orphanage, and he would like to give the children his cans of fresh milk so he could empty his wagon and repair it. No wonder, years later, when Mueller was to travel the world as an evangelist, he would be heralded as "the man who gets things from God!"


George Muller has always been one my favorite men of faith. Imagine having so certain a belief that God will provide your needs that he could look at all those orphans and bless the food that hadn't arrived yet. It's certainly not very difficult for me to pray and ask God for something, but I'm too scared of looking foolish to say anything to anyone about it. I'm guilty of the kind of faith where I'll just wait til after God does it to proclaim that I believed He would. Envision yourself looking around at a sea of children's faces and blessing invisible food. What would happen if God didn't come through?

I think it's interesting that God didn't provide the food until after Mr. Muller prayed. It wasn't out of God's power to provide the food before the children came to breakfast. I believe one of the reasons he waited was to increase the children's faith as well. Not only that, but if Mr. Muller hadn't thanked God for the food He was sending, how many of those children do you think would have just believed that it came from the baker and the milkman?

I believe God does provide things that people ask for but don't openly believe until they receive. But God is more glorified by an open, praising faith, that believes even if it's set up to look stupid and thanks God for what hasn't been given yet. And if you believe Him strongly enough to say, "Hey, I believe God's going to give me what I've asked for!" I bet He'll come through better than you thought possible.

But what if you aren't sure God wants you to have what you've asked for? This is probably my biggest area of doubt. I don't know how to answer that question. That's what I've been wondering all spring as I've been praying that the Christian Community Summer pool will be able to open this year. It's a Christian pool, encouraging modesty and Christian behavior and is the highlight of every summer (or rather, it's my entire life during the summer). Is it possible God doesn't want it to open?

Perhaps it's worth looking foolish to openly believe God for something and have Him say no. I think I'll try it. I'm believing that God will provide the necessary funds to open the pool this summer. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Politics and Religion

Back when we had a decent selection of presidential candidates, I was hoping Thompson would make it. Now that it's basically between McCain, Obama and Hillary, I'm just hoping for a male.

But I was just thinking.... while it's definitely good for Christians to try and keep this country the way it should be.... this is a fallen world. God's already decided to destroy it. There's really no hope for this world. And that's fine, because this is not anyone's eternal home anyway! I'm here...... for what? To give God glory. And sometimes God's glory shines better when circumstances aren't that great.

That said, I certainly don't mean to say that Christian shouldn't care about the state of this country. I'm very opinionated about a lot of things, my top being abortion. I cannot stand to see all the animal-rights tree-huggers who care more about animals, inanimate plants and the environment (not that it's wrong to care about them! They just have a misplaced importance in my opinion) than they do about all the tiny innocent humans who are killed every day just because they inconvenience their selfish parents. Yes, the Twin Towers attack was horrible. But at least those 3000 Americans were killed by our enemies. 4000 Americans are killed every day by American doctors.

Another thing I can't stand is when Christians compromise their beliefs to fit with this secular culture. The Bible should be every Christian's top authority, yet there are so many Christians who will try to explain how the Bible fits with science instead of considering that maybe science should be fit to the Bible! There are so many compromise theories about Creation that it's not even funny. My least favorite is Theistic Evolution. This is the idea that God "started" the world and it evolved as evolutionists claim after that. This is definitely the easiest way to fit God into evolution, but it's also completely against how the Bible says Creation happened.

So anyway. That's just a really unorganized rant about some of my views. If anyone wants something clarified/elaborated upon, a friendly argument, or to share their views, I'll be more than happy to explain, debate and/or listen (or rather, read). :D

~Lizzie

The Moment of Truth

I stumbled upon a show of that title yesterday evening. Fortunately I didn't see the whole thing, but from what I gathered of the few disturbing and horrible minutes that I did view, apparently this show is paying people to get up on stage in front of the world, with their friends and family there, and answer questions that shouldn't be asked, and definitely not answered; at least not in public or on TV!

The question I saw them ask this man was, "Is your wife the most attractive woman you've ever dated?" He beat around the bush, and finally (trying to soften the blow, I guess) said, "She's attractive and beautiful and I love her, but no." I have 2 points and a wishful comment.

1) Attractiveness is an opinion, so they shouldn't have had the robotic voice announce that that answer was true. (It seems that they think they are capable of determining the truthfulness of answers.)

2) That question should never ever be asked, especially in front of the wife and ESPECIALLY if the answer is "no"! I'm not sure why, but women desperately need to feel attractive. Not super-model-gorgeous, but at least attractive. And I imagine that it would be somewhat important to a woman that her man think that she is the most attractive woman he's ever seen. Obviously I wouldn't know for sure though. And once again, she doesn't have to be the PRETTIEST or most beautiful, but most attractive. There's a difference that I'm probably incapable of intelligently explaining since I should be asleep right now.

Wishful comment: The absolute perfect answer to that question (that the woman would love to hear) is this: "She is the most attractive woman on earth, I love her with all of my heart, and she's the only woman I've ever dated/courted."

So, for those of you who are curious, the wife was indeed present, and she looked close to tears at his answer of "no." And just for the record, she was extremely beautiful. Aaaand, I don't recommend that any of you view that show because the next question made me scramble to turn the TV off.

~Lizzie

The evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.

21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
- Romans 7:21-25

18If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker. 19For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. 20I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!
- Galatians 2:18-21

I've been pondering those verses. I'm not sure that I fully understand them.

"Jesus, I'm trying so hard, to stop trying so hard; just let You be who You are in me." Casting Crowns

~Lizzie