ECHO. Echo. echo.

I will admit, I was creeping on my boyfriend's [two months later, and that is still super weird to say :)] sister's Facebook, which led me to her blog tonight. I honestly have no idea why I began this process...I think I went to write something on Andrew's facebook and then got sidetracked, never ending up writing on his wall-and I can't remember what I was going to tell him.  Anywho, I ended up reading quite a few of Ashley's blogs and scanning the ones that I was too tired to read. 

It's funny how when God wants something known, He will use every mode of media available to get His point across. My mind has been consumed with two thought paths lately....and every song, Bible verse, random note, sermon, television show-EVERYTHING- has reiterated these two topics. Ashley's blog did just that....I began tearing up reading one of her entries-baffled by how God uses random instances to express the words that my heart has been longing to hear...to voice...for quite some time now.

On the flip side, God isn't the only one that echoes His point over and over again until we choose to listen to it...and then continues to repeat it. Satan does as well. Satan echoes what he wants us to hear until we eventually break down and believe it. That's what I used to be sure of anyway, or atleast, that's what my life showed. Now, however, I am not so sure that he echoes only until we believe....I think he also stops if we get a bigger force to scream over top of Him. Satan's voice will keep persisting like the annoying little cricket chirp when you're trying to sleep until you listen to it....or until it is deafened by God's love alone.

 Each time we hear something like "Follow me" "You're beautiful" "You're Worthy of Love" "You're forgiven".......you are sure to hear "No!, Come with me, look at the fun you will have" "you're not beautiful yet, but I can get you there" "You can never be loved! Are you kidding?!" "Forgiveness?! You've screwed up too much". 

Our heart can't believe both sides of the echo at once....we, instead, must tune our ears to hear only the Voice of Truth [insert Casting Crown's lyrics here]. 

It's a battle....but the truth is, we are promised victory.

Much love & Prayer

Verb: It's what YOU do

I am an extremist personality. It's hot or it's freezing; it's sunny, or it's pouring down rain; it's all the way up, or it's all the way down; it's super exciting, or its dreadfully boring....that's just the way I am. You can ask my mom, she was constantly telling me to stop being so dramatic while jumping from one extreme to the other when I was growing up. 

This extreme personality plays a huge role in all of my relationships, including mine with God. I like to have all of the control...or give Him all control while I sit back and watch him work....yet, I have just recently realized that that isn't always the case. I have to let Him do what He does best...but I also have to do my fair share of the work. [once again, I still really have no idea what this looks like] 

My best friend and I have been reading through the Bible in a year: today while I was reading, I realized all the verb usage. [I'm an English major so I pay attention to these things...] We are now reading in 2nd Kings and wow...there are verbs everywhere! The people are constantly doing things. One man wanted healed, yet instead of God just snapping his fingers and healing him, God instructed the man to go bathe in one of the seas. The people were praying to an end of famine, yet God did not just beam food down from the heavens, the people had to work for it. 

There are so many situations in my life that I am constantly praying about while seeing little to no response from the Everlasting God. I am constantly praying for Him to move....yet I am learning that sometimes [probably many times] He is asking me to move instead. It's not enough for me to pray that something changes, I also must listen for God's direction on how to bring about that change. For example, one can pray for God to allow them to drop 150 pounds...but they aren't going to lose the weight just sitting on the couch praying....they must get up and move. 

I must move and trust that God will move also. The end.

Lord move in the way that I've never seen before. Out of this state of complacency into a world where I fellowship with thee. Lord move or move me. 

Hardy Hall Ekk: Beautiful Things

So each dorm puts together an Ekklesia each semester. Hardy Hall's was about a month ago and one of my girls taped it. Here is the youtube link for anyone who wants to see it. I am clearly a little biased but I thought it was fantastic!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_QBwF1pRag&feature=youtu.be 

A Smelly, Old Goat

    Today, I woke up and decided to do something instead of just sitting at home bored....or get a head start on my homework for Tuesday. I decided I would take the nice weather as an opportunity to trim the goat hooves that have needed done for awhile. I chose to do my favorite goat first...and after examining his coat, decided that a bath could help get rid of some of his dry skin. After doing a few other goats, I got the gumption to bathe our buck (fully intact male). For those of you who don't know....bucks attract females by urinating all over themselves. This buck is about three years old...a.k.a....three years of urine was built into his coat and he smells very bad. I got Willy into the stand, trying not to gag and began spraying him off. The water rinsed off a light brown color, that is how dirty he was. I worked for close to an hour to clean this thing, scrubby like crazy to get the built up urine to detach from his skin. When mom went out to feed him a few hours later, she was sad to report that the smell was back. His cleanness had only lasted for a few short hours before he peed all over himself again. stupid goat. 

        Being Easter weekend, I began thinking about this absurd behavior. I had just taken the action of cleaning Willy and all of his grime yet he went right back out and continued the action that got him all smelly. I find this disgusting, yet so often, I behave just like Willy. I cry out for forgiveness for all of those things that make me smelly....only to go right back to living my life and doing the very thing I had just been cleaned from. 
       I smell of sin. Other people are repulsed by me, yet Christ dared come close enough to me to clean me of my stench. Christ did this unthinkable action, yet I take it so lightly, I go right back to sinning and working up my smell. 
        that's absurd. stupid human. 

 Jesus paid it all
All to him I owe
Sin had left a crimson stain
He washed it white as snow

 

On Love...

I am normally not a fan of posting things from other people but I found this on Pinterest tonight and loved it.....
 
Back in 1958, John Steinbeck, author of East of Eden, The Grapes of Wrath, and Of Mice and Men, got a letter from his teenage son Thom, in which Thom confessed that he had fallen desperately in love with a girl named Susan at his boarding school.

Steinbeck wrote this wise and wonderful letter back to him the same day...

New York
November 10, 1958
Dear Thom:

We had your letter this morning. I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers.

First -- if you are in love -- that's a good thing -- that's about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don't let anyone make it small or light to you.

Second -- There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you -- of kindness and consideration and respect -- not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn't know you had.

You say this is not puppy love. If you feel so deeply -- of course it isn't puppy love.

But I don't think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it -- and that I can tell you.

Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.

The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.

If you love someone -- there is no possible harm in saying so -- only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.

Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.

It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another -- but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.

Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I'm glad you have it.

We will be glad to meet Susan. She will be very welcome. But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to. She knows about love too and maybe she can give you more help than I can.

And don't worry about losing. If it is right, it happens -- The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.

Love,

Fa

A New Name

I was saving two seats for friends when I went to church today. I was the only one in the row and nobody had bothered to sit next to me so I didn't even bother putting something on the two neighboring seats to ensure room for my friends. However, just minutes before the sermon was supposed to start, and just seconds before my friends would walk through the sanctuary doors, an elderly man came and sat in my row, leaving only one seat empty beside me.

If you know me, you know that I am one of the least confrontational people you will ever meet and I am absolutely shy when it comes to strangers. There was no way I could muster up the courage to ask this man to scoot over a seat, though there was plenty of room to his left. I would let him be, even if that meant that I would be sitting alone for the service, surrounded on all four sides by people I didn't know. [not to mention, they were adults that I did not know...which makes it all that much worse.] 

I was nervous to say the least. What if the preacher said something especially moving and I teared up? What if the Spirit really stirred in my heart, leading me to tears or kneeling and praying? What if the worship rang in my heart, probing me to raise a hand? What if the people around me neglected to sing, making my voice the loud one though usually out of tune?

Of course the sermon would start out with a saddening movie featuring children starving and neck deep in poverty in the Dominican Republic. [I can't even watch one of those commercials about starving dogs without tearing up, much less adorable children] I could feel a tear welling in my eye. The speaker continued, causing me to laugh a few times and sit in a state of solemn prayer after all was said and done. The worship was heartfelt, leading me to hold out my hand as a flag of surrender.

It was freeing. I allowed God to move me however He wanted regardless of the strangers surrounding me. I realized that even though I typically sit next to people I feel completely at home with, I still restrict the God of the Universe so that I don't act in any way that others may not appreciate. I am worshiping the God who sent His son to bare a crown of thorns yet I am still totally self-conscious.

Ironically [if there is irony in Christianity] the sermon was on "Wow moments" The moments that God gives us a new name, leading us to complete surrender. Once again, ironically, my name "Danielle" means "God is my judge" yet I often allow other people to trump this judge. Today God different give me a new name, He graced me with confidence in my old one.

Living Free

When I was little, I remember begging my parents to go to DisneyWorld. I wanted to see the princesses, I wanted to ride the rides, meet Mickey Mouse in person, get all of the autographs...you get the point. When I was little I loved my AmericanGirl dolls, I had one that looked just like me. I loved caring for them, taking them everywhere as if they were a real little girl. Little did I know that ten years later I would be finding out about the tears that went into making those dolls and the famed Disney T-Shirts. I would find out that the very items that make so many American children skip with glee are the same ones that chain children of the same age to work areas, forcing them to sew the shirts or put together the dolls for me to play with. 

Sitting at my computer, I am disgusted. The very thought of slavery in general [especially after this country long ago abolished it] makes me cringe, but thinking about the children sweating over, crying over, being beaten over, longing for their next meal over the very things that brought me joy and companionship as a child is repulsing. 

I sat at my computer tonight and looked up companies that were not free trade [free of slavery] the list was shocking. Things that I use to get by on a daily basis were all made through blood, sweat and tears.....mostly of drastically underpaid and abused children. CoverGirl, Crest, Cologate, Pepsi, Nestle, Hershey, Apple, Dell, Kelloggs...I could make the list go on and on. [go to http://chainstorereaction .com/home/ to see a list of more companies]

A little boy harvesting the chocolate that would soon be in my candy bars

Beauty products often use children to mine the mica, one of the main ingredients found in most make-up. Chocolate companies use children to harvest the cocoa while drastically underpaying them. Clothing companies higher children to sew the clothes and operate machinery [though child labor has long been outlawed].

I came away from Chapel tonight with my heart being pulled to live a fair trade life. I went to a survey to see how many slaves that I owned based on the items that I consume and it turned out that I was responsible for nearly 36 slaves! [go to slaveryfootprint.org to take the 11 question survey] Yes, this number could be off....and it's not like I own these slaves, but I do keep them in work by buying from the companies that abuse them. I was determined that I was not going to be responsible for the blood sweat and tears any longer. I got on the list to see what companies I needed to stop shopping with....only to find the list consumed nearly every product I use, making it nearly impossible, for me a poor college student to afford to shop elsewhere. My heart sank.

So I may not be completely able to live a free life [which sickens me], but I can cut down on the things that I don't need. I can cut out chocolate and pop [it'd be a good life decision anyway], I can try to avoid shopping at certain stores that are notorious for supporting slavery. I can write a blog and spread the word in order to challenge others who are more able. I can make people aware of the labor behind their everyday supplies, their childhood joys. But in the end, I pass the buck to you: I keep on praying because it's all I can do. I can not let my heart grow calloused to modern-day slavery and hope that it will soon be just another chapter in the history books. 

If you're heart is now plagued [like it should be] check out these apps that will provide you with the fair trade grades of companies...carry it with you as you shop! free2work and free world are just two of the many apps. 

two child minners

"It's quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor,
   be compassionate and loyal in your love"

~Micah 6:8 (the message)