haiti

today i stared at a wall for an hour and a half.

and somewhere between 30,000 - 100,000 people died.

that really sucks.

can we pray for them?

a morning letter

 One of my classmates from UNLV sent me this. And I cried.

I was sitting at the hockey game tonight and a family brought a little girl maybe 7 years old with cerebral palsy. They carefully walked her down the steps and sat her down in the seat. Her hands were twisted but she had the most pure and innocent smile on her face. I couldn't help myself and I burst into tears. I thought about my own disability and wondered if God saw us as broken and disabled. I remembered the shortest verse in the Bible: Jesus wept. It shows me that God has compassion on us and Jesus did not come to make us feel bad about ourselves but that He loves us. He weeps for us like I wept for that little girl, so innocent and tragically disabled for life. I just feel so bad that we don't have the power to heal people like Jesus and the disciples did. And I always go back to the same thing everybody does: If God is all loving and all knowing, why did he allow for all this suffering and disability to hurt so many people? Why is there so much awfulness and ugliness in the world? And the only answer I get is that God wants to show how much He love us. And that we can show His love to them through the work that we do. Maybe that little girl will be one of our students one day. Maybe she'll grow up and do something great for the world. Or maybe she'll draw one broken man closer to God.

God Bless,

Wesley

like a werewolf, only not at all.

i am the happiest girl in the world. most people would say that. most people would say that i am obnoxiously joyful all the time. and i am, its whats in my guts.

but those same people dont see me 1-2 hours before i go to sleep. because i morph into a grumpy, hopeless, crazy person. im not really sure what happens in my brain, and i think its because im tired, and it used to not affect anyone but me.

but.

then i married this guy who has to hang out with me. specifically during the 2 hours before bed. and i take it all out on him. almost nightly.

how can you love someone more than life itself and completely hate their freaking guts twenty minutes later???

okay, thats an exaggeration. but still. its really annoying to be married to me when im tired because im a heartless grump.

and then i wake up the next morning singing and giggling at butterflies, and hes like wtf? you wanted to die last night.

which makes no sense to me when im happy. like, sounds like hes crazy because how could i be SO happy, but so miserable 14 hours later?

anyway, that is my weakness. and there is a certain enemy who attacks right at that time. this nagging feeling of misery that isnt even real and why do i keep listening, when i KNOW whats true?

conundrum.

end rant.

husbands and wives and healthy eating

omar: mmm i want some ice cream.

me: ughhh, i cant have any ice cream.

omar: yes you can. this ice cream is all natural.

me: oh. well. the whole idea is not to eat crap. ice cream is cra.....

 omar: me, on the other hand, im a man. my body was built to eat poison. and survive.

it all started when omar and i decided to do a 40 day fast, which involves not eating junk food. which turned into an all natural fast. which turned into me only eating fish and nuts and vegetables, and him eating ice cream, apparently.

i've been a junk food fiend since childhood. im pretty sure it started when my mom told me that sliced apples were cookies for the first four years of my life. i was deprived, and so i made up for it by being addicted to chocolate and doritos and anything made of sugar or with more than 10 grams of fat. once i ate a jar of nutella in 3 hours. dont act like youre not impressed.

anyway, i started wondering what it would be like to be healthy. like, if my body wasnt filled with chemicals and reeses pieces. so, we got ourselves a copy of P90X and some salmon and brown rice. then, suddenly, i realized i married a freakshow.

  

here is how we eat our food. guess which one is his.

Join us!

a productive day, 525,600 minutes and a speech

today i went to

3 Targets

2 Ross'

80% of the stores at the mall

2 random boutiques

Nordstrom

Marshalls

and

PROM!

where i wore a ballgown. it was pretty legit.

so, im pretty stoked for 2010. it just seems so new and awesome and has so much to look forward to and im just kind of over this decade.

i mean, like every significant thing that has ever happened in my life happened in the last decade, but its also been pretty hard in some aspects.

tonight was my friend Max's 30th birthday and after we sang happy birthday everyone started chanting

for him to give a speech, so he did. it was more of a thank you, yada yada yada kind of thing, but what do you even give a speech on?

"how do you measure a year in the life?" (name that musical)

okay, so i was thinking about life speeches and whatnot and heres what i would say to all of my people if i had to give a speech:

"hi, ladies and gentlemen of my life. its new years and we have lived another year of life. and thats really cool because there are alot of people who havent lived another year of life. some people died, but we lived! and thats so awesome and totally out of our control, but good job! this year some people were born, and some were married, and some loved and some fought and there were wars and peace and joy and i brushed my teeth more than 600 times. okay, probably like 400, because i always forget to brush at night. anyway, im really glad that we got to live this whole life thing together, lets keep doing it! its so great! and im having so much fun! i hope you are too. i love you. thank you for being my friend."

and then i would bow and omar would cheer the loudest because hes the best fan ever. and then i would go home and think about how really really really grateful i am to get to be a part of this life with all of you people. youre the best people in the history of ever.

You probably had pimples.

"It is much easier to keep the humanity out of the incarnation. Clean the manure from around the manger. Wipe the sweat out of his eyes. Pretend he never snored or blew his nose or hit his thumb with a hammer. He's easier to stomach that way. There is something about keeping him divine that keeps him distant, packaged, predictable. But don't do it. For heaven's sake, don't. Let him be as human as he intended to be. Let him into the mire and muck of our world. For only if we let him in can he pull us out”

-Max Lucado

 Jesus, You came in to all of this. In the midst of the ugliest places of my soul, you sought out beauty. You called me precious, beloved, wanted, as You were born in my heart. You haven't given up on me, even when i've given up on You. You have fought for me and with me, pushing me to seek redemption, to understand, to want You and want the things you want. You are holy and yet You have made me whole. Your physical presence on this earth has taught me how to love, how to learn, how to be okay with being broken and how to love the brokenness in others, and yet without your holy spirit given strength, I wouldn't know how to face any of that. You saw me from a long way off and you waited patiently for me with open arms. You are my Father, my rock, my strongest anchor, my freedom, my hope, my vision, my savior.

Happy Birthday from your prodigal daughter.