the worst feeling in the world.

As I was contemplating life today ...hah I thought, love is deemed the best "feeling" in the world, though it is so very much MORE than a feeling, but what is the worst?

A major one people think of is heartbreak, but I don't think it is. Yes, heartbreak is terrible, but in order to be heartbroken, you had to, at one point or another, have had the best feeling in the world. I think that definitely detracts from its terribleness then the never ending argument of if it is better to love and lose than to have never loved at all. And so I thought some more about what it could be.

Anger isn't great, but it definitely has a purpose and need in life.

bitterness
That is what I think. I googled for some back up and this is what I found:

• definition: an expression of severe pain, grief, or regret; a characteristic of intense antagonism, resentment, hostility, or cynicism; a feeling that is difficult or distasteful to accept, admit, or bear; misery
• what the doc says: bitterness as a mental illness?
• biblical commentary: "Bitterness is one of the most crushing mental problems in a person's life. When a Christian is bitter, there is a loss of close fellowship with the Lord and a hindrance in one's relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ...Bitterness is neither consistent nor rational. A bitter person is his own worst enemy...selfish [and] inconsiderate of others." A bitter person may also put themselves in a state of implacability (unteachableness) and reject Biblical truth.
• verses: James 3:14 - "But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your heart, don't brag and lie in defiance of the truth."
• Proverbs 14:10 - "The heart knows its own bitterness, and no outsider shares in its joy."
• Isaiah 38:17 - "Indeed, it was for my own welfare that I had such great bitterness; but Your love has delivered me from the pit of destruction, for you have thrown all my sins behind Your back."
  

It is SO easy to be bitter and nothing good ever comes of it. I pray sometimes to not be bitter and I now realize how very important that is.

oh technology...

I was setting up all my new apple products recently and I stopped to consider the amount of technology we have these days. If I wanted to talk to one of my friends or let people know what I was up to, there are over 20 ways of doing so without actually physically being with them. On my cell phone, Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, Myspace, and Blogger. On my itouch, Facebook app, Twitter app, and all of the above through Safari. On my laptop, all of the above. On my desktop, all of the above. Then of course there is Skype, texting, calling someone, and using the good old USPS. And I'm sure I forgot some.

So I was sitting in my room and wanted to get on the internet...what do I use? My desktop, my laptop, or my itouch? Insane.

Technology is great. Great. Great. Great. Buuut, sometimes I have to remind myself that there are much better ways to spend my time...and to be honest, the excess amount of information on the web and internet choices have recently left me with little desire to use the www often. Like on FB...do I really care that the girl I sat next to in freshman english just took 30 pictures of her boyfriend and her and is now going to go shop for some cute boots? and if i'm just going to hide her on my newsfeed, then why am I "friends" with her anyways? The amount of fake friending online is ridiculous. If I'm never going to talk to you in real life, then I shouldn't and don't care about talking to you online. Although I wish it were not so, there is always a rebound in internet usage once the temperatures drop and the school year sets in. But in my time away from the computer, I've found that I like talking on the phone more than I previously thought, that it's so so much better to be with someone talking than to be online talking duh, and that I don't need as much alone time as I once believed I did. Good thing too, because I will have 3 roommates in a little over a month! My summer has been fantastic. I'm a very organized and clean person but I mean I don't even have time to clean my room because I'm either working or with my friends all the time. The change is satisfying...but the room does need to be cleaned soon. heh.

Something I'm looking forward to alot in the coming months is being in new or altered relationships, places, and situations. Making a house of strangers my good friends, not working, surviving and thriving in relatively impersonal education, not having to tell my parents where I am at all times, diving headfirst into God's word, being transparent. feels goooood...

land o' maple leaves

This last week I had the pleasure of having Thursday, Friday, and Saturday off. I wanted to take a trip to Canada for a couple days but other people were not available so it ended up being a day trip on Saturday to Vancouver with Hannah(her first time in Canada)! I spent about 8 hours driving and 8 hours hanging around the city and now I have $8 in Canadian money (loonies and toonies!) that I don't know what to do with ha.

Driving in Canada was...interesting. I passed about 3 speed limit signs in the entire city (there were many on the freeway though) and they were all really slow. That's probably why everyone drove at least 10 km/h over the speed limit at all times and usually much more. And I understand the idea behind blinking green lights...but they make for incredibly dangerous intersections. My day included lots of parallel parking as well (which always makes me nervous) but that's what it took to get free parking so I did it. Also, there are no freeway signs in Vancouver...at least not for the actual freeway (99) but there was for the alternative freeway that goes through every town between the border and Vancouver, takes twice as long, and is named 99a. Whoops.

Itinerary.
7:00a - Leave
7:30a - Finish using the one broken gas pump at Safeway
10:00a - Enter Canada, laugh at Hannah's passport photo, feel accomplished, cry, take memorable photos10:30a - Enter Vancouver
11:00a - Sophie's Cosmic Cafe - yummy thick french toast and waffles with berries1:00p - Stanley Park, walk the Seawall, laugh at Chevron gas station floating in the water, chase Canadian geese3:00p - Vancouver Aquarium, jellyfish room, dolphin show, beluga whales6:00p - Downtown, Kin's Farm Market, Cobs Bakery, Tim Hortons8:00p - La Casa Gelato - lemon raspberry sorbetto, delish9:00p - Follow signs on 99a
10:30p - Finally arrive at border, realize 99a is not hwy 99, desperate need to use restroom, try to eat a foot long cucumber before reaching customs officer
11:00p - US soil
1:00a - Home



I've decided that jellyfish are my favorite seacreatures. I think they are incredibly interesting, beautiful, and mysterious. Someday, I hope to own one, however unlikely. That would be SO so cool.

The rest of the photos.

thoughts

Right now I am doing a one to one discipleship study at my church with our associate pastor's wife (I couldn't have been blessed with a better discipler) and last week was the "attributes of God" lesson. We had studied this at camp the previous week too so I was excited to get it from another angle as well. Attribute #3 was omniscient: all-knowing; infinitely wise. It said this:

• "Think of His omniscience in relation to the certain salvation of the believer. If God knows all [past, present, and future], then obviously nothing can come to light after salvation which He did not know when He saved us. Knowing all about us, He still forgave our sins and accepted us into His forever family."

Isn't that an incredible way to look at salvation!? I mean it really blows my mind. I knew this already, but I had never had it stated to me in this way. It's like me knowing every hurtful thing a person will ever do to me (whether in thought, word, or action) and still loving and caring for that person wholeheartedly. I could never do that. I cannot even fathom God's perfect love. In-cred-i-ble.

We also talked about the end times at camp and one of the girls asked, "Will there be marriage in heaven?" My immediate answer was no (Matthew 22:23-30) and some of the girls were a little upset? or confused? by it. Why wouldn't we have marriage in heaven? I wasn't really sure at first. After thinking about it for a few minutes and hearing my cabin leader say that marriage is God's gift of the most perfect love we can have in a sinful world, I got it. Heaven is the place of God's perfect love and while marriage is based on love, earthly love is flawed. In a place of perfect love, everyone loves everyone equally and to the glory and love of God so marriage would be absolutely contradictory in nature to that because of its exclusivity and imperfection. Earthly marriage is but a small taste of the loving relationship we will have with God in heaven. Amen.
...It's incredibly strange for me to watch the age difference between myself and those getting married to become almost ignorable. I'm 18 in a month and a half. ...God is going to have to force me into the dating pool. I'm completely uninterested at the moment, but thankfully I have alot of time.


Calendar Excitements:

• Only half my summer is over!
  
• 5 weeks total left of working at Old Navy until Christmas break (I worked 4 hours yesterday morning at my dad's office and then over 8 hours last night at ON and got off at 12:45 am this morning. YUCK.)
• A good friend who has been gone cabin leading at camp in Oregon all summer comes home Monday
• UW registration in a couple weeks (hoping for nutrition, biology, and calculus? or a fun class)
  
• Church campout the end of august
• Abbie comes back from TCL at the end of august (She left today and I am sad.)
  
• Going to visit my cousins in Kansas the first week of September
• September 15th, my birthday!
  
• UCU move-in date: September 25th
• UCU retreat at Lakeside (!) for a couple days after move-in
  
• UW classes start the last day of September