sing me something soft sad and delicate...

*a disciple is someone who arranges his or her life to live the way that Jesus would live is he were them*

and as i read this i thought that it seems so simple and yet unatainable. and i feel like i am doing well and i fall flat on my face. there are days when i feel like the light inside of me is showing and there is a darkness inside still sometimes the darkness is pretty over powering though. i pray that i would take the time to clean the inside of my cup and not just the outside. thank God for life and learning i just wish i didnt learn the hard way all the time.

you were always the one...

sometimes prayer is sort of like a wish list or things that i want God to do for me. and i have heard so many people talk about living lives of prayer or constantly being in a state of prayer and it never made sense. there has always been something mysterious about prayer about petitioning the almight for my meager needs. to bother the creator of the universe with what i want him to do for me. it all ner really made sense. then as i read lasr night dallas willard said that there is this strange ocurance in prayer where when my heart is in the right place and i am serving God then the natural thoughts i have will be thoughts in obtaining the goals of God. so then my prayers depend on my knowledge of Gods goals for life. and i am learning more about these goals for justice and for the needs of the poor to be met and for me to plead the case of the fatherless and the widows. these are the things that prayers are made of. these are the way Gods heart is beating reconciling the whole world to himself and my prayers mingled with the power of the holy spirit in me give me the amazing oppertuniity to be a part of that. this blows my mind this makes me want to be a part of everything God is doing.

i saw a terrible crash and i couldnt help but laugh...

let there be nothing but grattitude in our hearts, we who lounge comfortably in front of computer screens, well fed and out of harms way! May God protect us from our comforts and luxuries, give us a holy restlessness with our apathy and give us the compassion that would allow us to give all we have to those in need not out of compulsion or posturing but to do our duty in love...

you have the kindest eyes that i have ever seen...

my sister convinced me that there are more people on my space and i should get an acount so i did. i guess when i am bored out of my mind and there is nothing to do in north dakota i can try to make some new internet friends. sometimes life is pretty wierd.

the tongs are out of town and i am bored. i am also going to be eating cereal for every meal until sunday cause i dont want to cook. plus i feel like a visitor here still so i wouldnt really rummage through the cabinets and try and find something.

i am going to springfield in 9 days and i am pretty excited.

the kingdom of God is here now and we are invited to join in on it. today i was reading in Luke and this thought was reaffirmed. i pray that i am living a kingdom life bringing the kingdom of God here and now to earth. i pray that i find a way to bring peace and justice to the community in which i live.

you knew that you had me it wasnt even fair...

my cousin shawn got married to her finace ryan and i think that he is probably one of the nicest guys i have ever met. i wish i could have been there. this is a picture of them with my papa im named after him, not wesley my first name Donald.

youre so easily red im so easily blue...

last night i went bowling with my kidds. it was pretty fun im not very good at bowling and i got bored after the first game but there wasnt anyone to act stoopid with and i figured i shouldnt either since i am the leader. but it really made me miss kaleb someone who would get bored with me and then make things fun. i think that i am going to be making a trip to my parents house and then down to springfield. it will be good to see all my friends and to hang out with people i love and who know me. i think that starting a second job is the best thing i could have ever done. i feel about 100 % better since i started working. Landon told me his theory on why it would be good to work and i think that he has a pretty good point. he said that since the fall we were cursed to work and sweat and women were cursed with the pain of child birth and so if we arent working or baring children there seems to be something missing. i think i agree with him.

today in my reading i read lukes acount of the transfiguration and i think that it is probably the most amazing story. im not sure why it amazes me but i just think it was such a cool thing for jesus to do. i bought a book called jesus the jewish theologian and in it there is a chapter about the transfiguration and i am tempted to skip ahead and read it. hopefully i get to read that one soon i need to finish up my books soon so i can move on to some more.

lock my heart in brass box...

yesterday was my first day at pro care, i am officially a carpet cleaner now! well im more like the guy who gets all of the stuff out of the truck as vance cleans the carpet. and we are pretty much the most technologically advanced carpet cleaners in town cause we have the Rx-20. its a 7000 dollar machine that i have no desire to use because i could see myself messing it up. anyway the first day of work was great i think it was the best first day of work that i have ever had.

still reading divine conspiracy because its pretty long, but i am half way through it and it has been pretty challenging. i like what he says a lot about having a kingdom heart. he goes through the sermon on the mount and he breaks it down verse by verse. i really have enjoyed this book a lot. i think the thing that has challenged me most is when he says that the things jesus says we should do arent laws they are examples of kingdom living and the only way we can live those things is to change our hearts. they are a natural occurence in our lives when we are loving God the way we should. so i have to think that when i am messing up spiritually it isnt cause im not doing the right actions on the out side its because my heart isnt beating like Gods, im not loving him the way i should. change comes frm the inside and effects the outside.

theres a great big tare in the sky...

so i finally managed to get a couple pictures developed from teh state fair. i think most of them were mediocre and really i wanted to take pictures at night but it was so hot that we left at 6. i spent some time in the petting zoo which was my favorite part of the whole thing. i dont know maybe im 5.

a cow that was albino i think it was kinda creepy looking.


this goat kept poking the other goats with his horns so that he could get all the food what a jerk!


tina! get your food you fat lard!


i thought this stand looked kinda neat with all the pastel colors and flags it probably would have been cooler at night but i wasnt there...


this is the ride section of teh fair which was mostly all it was. the rides at fairs scare me cause you know how sometimes you read about people dying on them or something going terribly wrong. so i decided not to ride them.


here are a couple pictures of the outskirts of town. it was almost stormy and the sun was setting so it wad kinda pretty.


and another

last night i had a dream

we went to disney land and we road on all the rides we didnt have to wait in line... ok not really that was someone elses dream. in my dream i became a photographer. yeah i drempt that i submitted pictures for a contest and not only did i win the contest but they thought i was so amazing they hired me. (dreams are cool like that) i guess the wierdest part of the dream was that even though i was doing something i loved to do i had the same feeling (the one where i feel like im going to puke) that ihave now. the one i feel even though i love working with the youth that i am so nervous that im messing it all up or that im not qualified... i dont know how to interpret dreams and im not even sure i think they should be interpreted. im glad that i am staying until december though. maybe sometime soon i can stop feeling like im gunna puke.

i got a hair cut the girl that cut it was pretty nice and i think she did a nice job. sometimes i hope that i marry a girl who knows how to was hair and give a nice head massage. thats pretty much my favorite part of the hair cut.

God is good and smart...

reading the divine conspiracy by dallas willard and yesterday he said that a lot of times we think that God is good but we dont think he understands much about what is going n in the real world. and on sunday jeremy was telling me that his plan to get rid of debt was to be generous and givemore money away because solomon says cast your bread on the water and in many days it will return... and i think that it goes against everything i know about finances to give your money away to insure that you are financially stable. but thats what jesus tells us to do on the sermon on the mount to live generously and graciously and i think God is good but this standard is high and these actions are *impossible* but in all reality jesus is smart also. he knows how to change the molecular structure of water into wine... heal tissue by touching it... open eyes that have forever been blind... and there are days when im not sure he can handle my little problems. so i ask for wonder and awe and i am given the oppertunity to live generously and not know how i will take care of things on the other side? i guess this is where i find out if i truely believe that kingdom living is the best possible way to live, and if i trust that jesus is not only good but smart.

the road goes ever on...

and on, down from the door where it began. now far ahead the road has gone, and i must follow it if i can, pursuing it with eager feet, until it joins a larger way where many paths and errands meet. and whither then? i can not say...

sometimes truth is hard to write down in a scholarly fashion... or explain in a book when you wish people could see what you see or feel how you feel and there is so much you could never explain sometimes it has to come out in art... you have to paint it or draw it or build something so that people can see whats inside of you and how it looks as it makes its way out. i feel the need to create there is too much trapped inside.

their playing love songs on the radio tonight... i dont get those songs on mine

last night i helped leland dig up a pole that was in the back yard. so normally people who put a clothes lines pole in the ground might put a little cement around to keep it sturdy. luckily the people put it real close to a huge tree and put four feet of cement around it. so we had to break the first 2 feet of it off with a hammer. and tehn there were some roots that we had to break through. basicly it took us two nights or about 5 hours. i think that i have girly hands cause they hurt a lot today, from the shovel and the hammer.

started to study I John with leland and i am pretty excited about thinking about love and life and how those things should look in our life. plus i think that it will be nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of someone. i mean i have a lot of new ideas going through my head but no one to help me balance them. its hard to be presented with a lot of information and try to sort through it on your own. i think new ideas are best explored with friends. i guess that i get to talk with landon about these things although he is leaving in 3 weeks. but i would rather keep exploring and learning than wait until i have friends to look around with. unless you want to look around with me just let me know.

my dear diary...its just you and me...tonight...

i started trying to read divine conspiracy again. i started it about a year ago but didnt make it all the way through. and since rob bell suggested reading it several times in his book i thought that i should give it another try. i think that even though i read quite a bit 400 pages is still a big commitment. it has kept me away from several fiction books that i havent had the courage to swim through. anna kirinina, war and peace, the fountian head... you know the long ones. anyway with 8 books under my belt this summer i thought that i might be able to move up into the next weight class (over 250 pages)so maybe this book will feel like quite an acomplishment. i remember ben talking about it last summer at camp and it seemed to have a pretty big impact on his life so i am looking forward to it.
today wasnt very exciting although last night i taked to a guy from church and i think that i am going ot be able to work with him cleaning carpets. that will be pretty sweet. i think i will like it more than working at the pizza place. maybe this will be the thing i need to help me feel like i do something. i mean i work at the church but there isnt always a lot to do. if i felt like i was productive maybe it would make my time here less lonely. or maybe if i wasnt a lone most of the day. i feel like i need more interaction. more connection. but i dont want to seem like that whiney girl who wants all your attention.

for love is a miracle...

putting together the puzzle of life is wierd. when you stop and think about 1 decision being changed and the whole course of human history (maybe not that dramamtic) but atleast my life and everyone around me would be different. i mean i guess its kinda like that chrsitmas movie where the guy sees what life would be like without him i mena kinda. see landon said how in the world did you end up in williston? and i said what do you mean. so he said it wouldnt be wierd to say i had been to kansas city or even springfield but to say you came to williston you had to do it on purpose. and so i started thinking about the chain of events that lead me here. and im sure if much would have been different in my life i wouldnt be here. i dont know where i would be. so im glad that i am here. and im so happy that i have experienced everything that i have in my life up until this point. crazy! life is wierd looking ahead is so uncertain and looking back is just as wierd.

jenny it was nice talking to you last night im glad i met you...

jess im glad that you will be home soon sitting at home every night is getting boring. i mean i know all you will talk about for the time you are home is hong kong but i guess that will be better than nothing. just kiddin.