Want to know why I'm blogging??

Take a gander at my introductory blog: Explicate Your Analog


Saturday, January 19, 2008

Playing with make-up and my digital camera

All of a sudden the desire came upon me to play with eye make-up. For those of you who don't know me, I typically do NOT wear eye make-up unless it is for a dance performance on stage. I played with it to see if I could apply it and not have it look quite as dark and drastic as when I apply it for being on stage. I was rather pleased with myself, thus decided to take advantage of my good job and snap lots of silly photos with my nifty digital camera. Enjoy the picture collage below!



Thursday, January 17, 2008

Snow, snow, snow, snow, snow...



"It won't be long before we'll all be there with snow. Snow, snow - I want to wash my hands, my face and hair with snow. Snow, I long to clear a path and lift a spade of snow. Snow, to see a great big man entirely made of snow..." ~White Christmas

Yep, twice this week it has snowed in lovely Louisville, which makes me think of the "Snow" song in the movie White Christmas. It may be well after Christmas, but I'm still enjoying my first few experiences with snow. On Monday, we had quite the downpour, and last night it snowed which left me to wake up to a beautiful landscape covered in white. Below is a picture of the view outside my living room window with the snow that fell last night.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

My Story

The pastor of the church I am attending challenged everyone to write out their story in 100 words or less. Usually, I think of myself as being a fairly succinct person when it comes to writing. I never was quite able to come up with enough thoughts to fill those 20 page papers in college. However, when it came to writing out my story I couldn't come close to keeping it under 100 words. Even after several cuts, it still comes to 355 words (according to Microsoft Word's word count). Thus, since I've already written it out and shared it in class today - I figured why not go ahead and post it up on my blog too. Here you go:

"The summer before my sophomore year of high school, my best friend took me to this new start-up church. I enjoyed it and started attending with her and her family. Soon, my sister tagged along with us, and eventually my parents followed suit. That fall my parents decided that we would join the church with my sister and I joining by profession of faith. It was only by the excitement of our youth minister that I caught on to what that meant. As the day of our baptism loomed closer, I realized that I had not really made a commitment to Christ. It was the night before my baptism alone in my room when everything I knew about Christ and God became real to me. I knew that God did not take lightly things done in His name, and it was with this realization of His power and my brokenness for what Christ had done for me that I prayed thanking Him for sending His Son on my behalf. Even though my family was based in Christianity, it was truly a work of God that my sister and I became Christians. He used my best friend to draw us to His church. Without that foundation early on in our adolescence I know the course of our lives could have been much different. My sister and I both struggled with daddy issues due to our father being a functional alcoholic. We could have easily ended up laying our self-worth at the feet of high school boys in an attempt to gain the affection we longed for – instead God stepped in and saved us. He changed our priorities and saved us from what could have been a self-destructive future. He also prepared us by surrounding us with a strong group of believers for when we would have to face the most devastating time of our lives – when our father’s alcoholism killed him. It was a long, dark and lonely time even with my faith in Christ, so I can only envision how much worse the outcome could have been if I did not have that faith to ground me."

Monday, January 7, 2008

All Moved In! (for the most part)

I flew back from Houston on Thursday, January 3rd and promptly moved into my apartment on Friday, January 4th! I should have taken pictures of all the amazing people who helped me move into my new apartment - yes, I know some of you are begging for pictures - I'm sorry! I think of taking pictures before and after, but usually get so caught up during the event that I forget. While I do not have pictures of the generous people who helped me, I do have a collage of photos for those of you itching to see my new place. It's still a work in progress - so far only the entry hall message station is up on the wall, the rest of them are bare. Here is the "Tour Through the Apartment Collage" for all to enjoy!



Row one of the collage begins the tour with the entrance to the apartment. Then on to the guest bath, guest bedroom (all that's in there is the desk), and guest closet (where I'm "hiding" all my unpacked boxes). Row two features a picture of the entry hall table from the guest bedroom, a view of the dining area, two views of the living room, and a view of the kitchen. Row 3 provides two closer views of the kitchen area, as well as a look straight down the galley style kitchen. There is also a view of the dining area, and the first picture of my bedroom. Row 4 concludes the tour with more pictures of my bedroom, bathroom, and closet.

More pictures to come as everything starts to come together on the decorating end.

Explicate Your Analog...

Now that my trip to Houston has come and gone, I can finally get down to the business of unpacking for anyone reading this rambling blog - why in the world I'm blogging and what led me to choose Song of Songs 2:10 as the theme of my blog. In the words of my father, I must "explicate my analog."

My journey to Louisville, KY began about two years ago when Marcie McClendon challenged me by saying that she didn't see me working at SYSCO for the rest of my life. At the time, I thought I was fairly content. I had a great job, had been out on my own for over a year, loved my church home even though it was going through some turmoil...and yet what she said gave voice to this part of me I had been pushing down for years - that God might have something more for me out there, something that He was preparing for me. Of course, it took these past two years for me to even come around to accepting that because of the walls I had built up most of my life. You've got to love how your family of origin contributes to your view and interpretation of God. As such, I didn't believe that He was all that fond of me. Intellectually (because the Bible says so), I knew He loved me - but I had seemingly interpreted that love as the kind of love that one might have for a relative you just "have" to love because you're related. I had no idea of the depth and sweetness of His love for me, His jealousy and pursuit of my heart, or the gentleness with which He would woo me into His embrace. I'm getting misty just thinking about Him!

Back to the journey...As I sought out what and where He wanted me to go, one opportunity before me was England. I have dreamed of going to England almost as long as I've been alive, and Marcie was able to connect me with a group going to England as part of a vision trip for a mission trip they would be doing the following year. In the fall of 2005, I went on a trip with a group of complete strangers to England to see if God wanted me to work with the youth of northern England. The trip was fantastic; England was gorgeous; but while I am still in love with the United Kingdom it did not seem that was the place for me - plus unbeknownst to me God wasn't quite done preparing me for my next adventure. That winter was also the first time I got to visit my friends in Louisville. I had taken one other trip that year to New York City, but of all my traveling my visit to Louisville was the most relaxing.

Throughout 2006, God continued to challenge me and woo me. He forged within me a desire to reach out to young single women between the ages of 18 and 30. Thus, I opened up my apartment on Tuesday nights to those who wanted to come, rest, share, and grow in the Lord. There ended up only being two young women who attended regularly, but we plunged ahead to see what God had in store for us through John and Stacy Eldridge's book, Captivating. I had already read through the book once, gone back and read through it a second time dwelling and working through certain hard-hitting parts, and yet He still had even more for me as we dissected it together. It was during my third jaunt through Captivating that the Lord was opening me up further.

In February of 2007, as the girls and I were still slowly making our way through Captivating (you see we had to sprinkle our time equally with chick flicks and all out therapy gab sessions in order for it to be a well-rounded women's study group), I received an e-mail from my friend Kevin Bryan. In it he was extolling all the amazing things God was doing through City on a Hill, and ended with a plea for my help as he and Shane were in desperate need of an assistant to organize them - would I be willing to change my worldview on fundraising? And as much as the Lord had been growing me - my first and immediate response to him was - no thank you! Been there, done that - didn't go so well. Yet, after more study, more stretching, more gentle nudging and tugging by God on that place within me yearning for adventure - I e-mailed Kevin that God was in fact changing my worldview on fundraising and I would like to reconsider the opening at City on a Hill.

So where does Song of Songs 2:10 fit in? Well, it was one of the verses that My Lover used to speak tenderly to me, to draw me out of my cozy hibernation in Houston to follow Him and trust Him that He's got something for me to do here in Louisville and something to show me, as well. He has dazzled me with the fiery colors of fall and caused me to sink lower beneath my warm bed covers with the cold morning air. He arranged for me to stay with the generous Bryan family before granting me a place of my own again, and He has surrounded me with new friends and acquaintances. I am loving all of it and looking forward to where and what else He will invite me to "come along" with Him!