Light in the Darkness

I have something I'd like to write about, and something I'd like to write down.

I'll go with About first.

Two years ago, my mom's friend Debbie introduced her to a devotional called Jesus Calling.  My mom has always been an openly religious person.  She enjoys taking her Bible and her coffee outside to the swing under the carport and reading/praying.  I am more of a private person in terms of expressing my love for God.  I pray when no one can hear me and I don't drag out the Bible in front of others, either.  I see it almost like religious PDA, and I'm not big on romantic PDA, either.  You know, a few hugs and kisses (in this case, maybe a Christian T-shirt or bumper sticker) is fine.  But making out (having an alter call) is outrageous to me.  My faith is no less than those who choose to be more public in their practices, but I just like to keep my one-on-one time with God down to just the two people it concerns.

Anyway, for Christmas 2011, my mom gave Justin and me Jesus Calling.  She said that it changed her life and that she hoped it would do the same for us.  Being the overly private Christian that I am, I didn't immediately jump on the devotional wagon.  After all, we all know how I am with daily activities!  2012 came and went without the devotional being used.  After doing some heavy-duty tidying near the end of the year, I came across the devotional in our bedroom.  I decided to go outside my comfort zone a little bit and give it a try.

I've officially been doing the devotional thing for a month now, and some days are better than others.  There have been two days in particular when the devotional's entry really touched my heart.  The second time that happened was January 26.  Here is the entry from that day:

I'm sorry it's a little blurry.

The part that took breath from my lungs for a second was, "My Light shines most brightly through believers who trust Me in the dark."  For each entry, the author puts verses at the bottom that she thinks either remind her of the entry, or were the inspiration for the entry.  I looked up John 16:33, and here is what my Bible said:

It turned out that the passage in question was part of a piece called, "I Have Overcome the World." As you can see, the piece talks about how we will always have problems, but that we should lean on God, since He has already overcome everything.  He knows what to do to get through things, and to solve problems, because He is all-knowing.  I truly believe that.  I love finding new verses to express my feelings.  It's so comforting.

I'll be honest since I'm apparently baring my religious soul today; I don't really accept the Bible as the absolute Word of God.  I think of the Bible as a really long game of telephone.  God/Jesus didn't write anything in here, everything in this book was written by someone who was either inspired by Jesus' teachings, or just the writer just simply jotted down their thoughts on things.  It's like a blog.  I'm a former journalism major, and sourcing means a great deal to me.  I'm willing to believe that some things in the Bible are absolutely true.  It makes every bit of sense to me that God/Jesus would have said/done those things.  But then there are things that clash so much with the general message of the Bible, it couldn't possibly have come from the same person.

I suppose this is becoming a topic for another day.  My main point for the above paragraph was to say that even though the Bible is essentially a very inspirational book to me, I still take a lot of its writing whole-heartedly, and this passage was one of those writings.  It made my heart happy.

Yesterday, one of my worst fears came alive when a group of tornadoes was headed for Durham.  I spent most of the day praying that no harm would befall my family or loved ones, and thankfully nothing came of it.  The weather report here had been clear about the order of patterns for the day, though: first we were supposed to get morning showers.  Then it would be very cloudy all day.  Then there would be around a one-hour period where the skies would clear.  Then all hell would break loose.  When we finally reached the clear hour, I snapped this photo:

For me, this was the light in the darkness.  If you stare at this picture long enough, you almost see the clouds moving.  God was telling me that we were going to be okay.  Among all the clouds and oncoming storms, there was this ball of light silhouetting all the trees.  It was exactly when I needed.

Deus Providet.  My new thing.

And now for the Down part.

After considering and wondering and more considering, I've made almost the full decision to move this blog to Wordpress.  I've been debating this move for the last several months, and I have some key reasons for doing it.

1. I found out sometime back in October that apparently my "photo storage limit" had been reached on Blogger.  I had no idea there was such a thing, and it seems like a complicated process to remove old pictures from the album they have apparently all been stored in.
2. I have been working with Wordpress since February 2011.  I began working at that time for an Internet solutions company that helps mostly self-run businesses advertise better.  This included setting up Web sites for them, and we used Wordpress for that (such an easy process, omg!).  In addition to helping set up the sites, I then maintained them, so I quickly learned most of the ins-and-outs of WP.  I guess I just like how to "do" things over there better than Blogger.
3. Blogger got picked up by Google not too long ago and therefore became linked to the email I used to open the account.  I use two different emails on a daily basis, and if I am not logged into the one associated with this blog, I can't access it.  Then I have to log out just to login to the other email for the sole purpose of accessing the blog.  I wised up and finally linked my other email, which is also a Gmail account, to this blog so that the login-to-logout thing wouldn't become as issue.  It's still annoying, though.
4. As you may be able to tell, I write book reviews.  I am currently in a phase where I am writing them more frequently than usual.  For the last several reviews that all deal with the same series, I have simply copied a prior post and pasted it, then substituted new stuff.  Every single time, I've had to go through the entire post and fix all sorts of random mishaps, like weird fonts or picture sizes.  WP offers an option to copy a post.  This will come in very handy for things like book reviews or other such posts that follow the same layout.

So, there you have it.  I am setting up shop today over on WP and will be good to go there tomorrow.  I think it's fitting that I would start in a new place in a new month.  I will miss being able to contort some of the HTML so freely on Blogger, but I think over time I can learn to deal with that.  And if for some reason WP doesn't work out, I can always come back.  I'm not going to delete this blog, just give everyone who visits a heads up to head on over to WP instead.

See ya on the flip side!

On Getting A Tattoo

I've been tinkering with the idea for a while about whether or not to get a tattoo.  Several friends have them, and I always find them fascinating.  My mom is of course really freaked out by the idea of a tattoo, since they are permanent.  But I know better than to get, say, Justin's name on my skin, or something like that.  Even though I have absolute and total faith that we are going to be together til the end of time, I still wouldn't chance it.  I'm superstitious, a realist, and paranoid.  All those things work in my favor when deciding on a tattoo.  So far, I've found 3 that really rocked my socks at the idea of having them inked on me forever.

1. A Sparrow.

I wanted a sparrow for the longest time for three reasons: Good Charlotte, Jack Sparrow, and "His Eye is on the Sparrow."  For me, the sparrow symbolized music that made me happy, a story that made me happy, and my faith.  Those things all meant a lot to me, and having them on my arm as a daily reminder really enticed me.  Since around August of this year, the sparrow idea was dropped in favor of #2.

2. A Bare Tree with the Roots Showing.

I know the tree here isn't bare, but the roots are perfect.

Autumn means many things to me.  It means love: I fell in love with Justin during fall of 2003.  We got married November 14, 2010.  Autumn means change.  All the leaves falling, and the temperature falling.  It's a magical time for me.  No other time of year compares to it.  For me, a tattoo of a fall tree with the roots showing says, "Remember your roots, but remember to grow."  It's perfect.  The leaves have the opportunity to grow back, to be reborn, but the tree is forever rooted in that exact same place.  I think it's quite lovely.

3. Walk By Faith on My Foot.

I found this picture on Pinterest (all of the pictures featured in this post link to my tattoo board), and cried when I saw it.  That particular Bible verse (2 Cor. 5:7) is sacred to me.  The first time I saw it was in Hobby Lobby on a wooden sign.  Afterward, I found it in my Bible, and have been in love with it since.  How swelled with love I get when I think of the meaning...it goes back to "lean not on your own understanding," but this verse is much more poetic.  Faith will guide you.  I lean more toward the idea of fate rather than choice, and so this verse works for that, too.  Having that verse on my foot is just genius in my opinion.

I have a few specific requirements for getting a tattoo:

• It can't be somewhere that I would need to have major surgery (like over the kidneys like a tramp stamp, or on top of my ovaries/hip bones).
• I have to be able to cover it up easily.
• It has to have significant meaning in my life, and I have to understand and be willing to remember that this is permanent.  So, Bieber lyrics are out.

My original placement plan for the first two was on my left forearm, just above the bend of my elbow.  That way, it fit all the above requirements, and I would be able to better moisturize it with my right, dominant hand.  But the idea of having the tattoo on my foot covers the requirements even more rigidly, and I could still moisturize it with ease.  I've heard from multiple people with wrist tattoos that they hurt like hell, so I dismissed that idea pretty quickly.  Plus, a wrist tattoo is pretty hard to cover up.  I have enough "padding" on my forearm that I feel confident it could protect against the pain for the most part.  And I know my foot would hurt, but now, thinking of putting that specific Bible verse anywhere but my foot doesn't seem right.

Because I feel like the sparrow idea (or at least the reasons I made for it) are much more whimsical and not very deeply meaningful to me, I have put that idea on the back burner.  If I do indeed go through with a tattoo (which has recently become an option for weight loss incentive), it will more than likely be either #2 or #3.  I'm really itching to get one, and may even do so this year, but the realistic side of me sees this happening next year sometime.

I will surely keep you posted. :)

A Pissed Off Rant.

I just came across something on Pinterest that made me really angry.

If you are a woman who has a Pinterest account (seriously, who doesn't?), you've probably seen pins with this same general idea..."# of things you can do for your husband," or "how to show your husband that you care."  I never really had a problem with these things, because I do want to show my husband that I care and I do want to do things for him to make him feel special.

However, I came upon this blog post tonight and it really boiled my blood.  It is titled, "25 Ways to Communicate Respect (to Your Husband)."  I took a look at it, thinking it was another little list of nice things to do in favor of your man that I could take a few notes from.

But in reality, it's just a chauvinistic list of ways women can feel less empowered and more possessed by their men.

I think that #2, which reads, "Honor His Wishes: Give weight to what your husband thinks is important. Make those things a priority that matter most to him, whether it’s having dinner ready when he gets home from work or keeping the house tidy or limiting computer time. Don’t make him ask twice. (Philippians 2:4)," is what really pissed me off the most.  Don't make him ask twice?  He's not my parent, lady, he's supposed to be my partner!  Oh, and by the way, please get a better Bible, because I looked up that verse in my own Bible, and it simply says to pay attention to other people's interests in addition to our own.  It doesn't say to cower to your husband (moreover, it is in relation to how Jesus wants us to act toward one another, not a one-way street).

What is this, 1952?  The author of this post clearly thinks so.  It says in black and white (according to her) that I as a wife should do whatever my husband asks of me, without the burden of him having to ask more than once.  Almost as if I should be honored he even asked me to do it once.  I am not his slave, his housekeeper, or his mother.  I am his wife.  He respects me and I respect him.  Know what's not respectful?  Treating your wife like a slave, a housekeeper, or an employee.

And what about the husbands?  It's okay for me to have to ask him more than once to pick up his dirty clothes (that I wash), or bring his dirty dishes to the sink (where I have to clean them)?  But I better not take one damn thing he says for granted or just flat-out not obey him, lest the Lord smite me?  What the hell!  Why is it that wives always get the boot where respect is concerned?  Why are wives always expected to respect and bow down to their husbands (according to the women who pin these things), but husbands are never expected to show respect to their women?  It's almost like it's the norm for women to poke around their homes in pre-pumpkin Cinderella garb and have lit-up faces at the idea of their husbands being satisfied at their work.  It makes me sick.

Yes, in case you haven't figured it out, I am a a feminist.  But if you want the truth, I'm more of an egalitarian.  I believe that men and women should operate on totally equal ground.  If a woman wants to be a mechanic, and a man wants to be a ballerina, there should be no problem with this.  Despite my current state as homemaker, I am not a big fan of gender roles.  To be more specific, I am the smallest increment a fan can be of the expectation of gender roles, which is what we have here.  Women are expected to cater to their husbands without expecting anything in return.  This is bullshit.  Men should offer respect right back!

As I said earlier, Justin is my partner.  We work together to form this life we live.  He does not own me simply because I am married to him.  Nor do I own him.  Not only is he lucky to have me, we are lucky to have each other.  I thank God for him everyday.  This absolutely does not mean that I am suddenly responsible for making sure he his happy.  I am solely responsible for making myself happy, and if doing things for Justin makes me happy, then that's one thing.  But being expected to always want to do things for him is being a slave.  Likewise, Justin isn't responsible for making me happy, either.  But he wants to.  And I want to make him happy back.  Because I love him.  Not because I'm afraid he'll have to ask twice for me to get something done, or because I cower to him.  We both said vows at our wedding, not just me.  I feel like the blogging/pinning community really forgets or understates that sometimes.

And how dare you bring Bible verses into this!  God never said that men should be the owners of the household, he said that we should love one another - that our joy may be full.  Not the husband's joy, our joy.  This isn't that hard of a concept.  Mutual respect and mutual love.  Marriage is many things, but a one-way street it is not.  That's 101, the first thing you learn in a marriage.  You both have to give, or the weaker side will crumble and the foundation will follow.  I just can't believe so many women feel this way.  The former pinner of this post even said that "every women should read this and start putting these ideas into motion!"  Ugh, disgusting!

Do take note: I am in no way, shape, or form saying that husbands should not be respected.  I am saying, with every fiber of my being, that that respect should be shared mutually between the couple.  I feel like women are already shut down enough through gender roles, and this just enables stereotypes and unfair expectations.

In closing, ladies, please.  Get a grip.  In the words of Sebastian the Crab, "Jeez, mon."

Like a High School Loner...

I finally have a date!

I finally know when Color Me Rad Raleigh is.  It will be Saturday, October 27 at 9 a.m.  Now I can tell people the day instead of just the month!  This is exciting, indeed.

Last night, I ran around my parking lot THREE times!  As in, I made a complete circle around my parking lot three times.  Not consecutively, but still!  This is a big deal.

Here's what's not a big deal...my "before" picture.  I want to track progress and the only way do that is in pictures so I can see for myself.  Ugh, I hate this.  Without further ado, me:

Day 1: July 29, 2012.

I know.  Seriously, what business do I have taking these kinds of pictures.  But, this is me.  I look a little more rough than usual here because I had just finished exercising and was beat.  I only remembered to take a picture of myself as I was getting ready to hop in the shower.

Maybe this is just more motivation to do something.  To get out and run!  I found the coolest bible verse yesterday that I'm going to write on my running shirt.

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
2 Tim. 4:7

Those are exactly the three things I want out of this 5K.  To do my best, to finish, and to have faith that God will help me!

Here I come, October! :)