As we were driving to the gym tonight, the Amy Grant version of "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" came on the radio, so Jessica and I were pretty excited... a) because we both have a childhood love of Amy Grant music and b) we both have a love of Christmas music and will listen to it throughout the entire year. Anyway, Jessica somehow figured out that Kim and I had misunderstood the words to it and she explained the song to us. Its meaning completely changed for me tonight, so now I'm going to attempt to explain what I'd thought it was saying during the past 29 years and then write the actual words. Here's the part that I had REALLY misunderstood...
JB version:
"In the meadow we can build a snowman, and pretend that he is parson brown." (I just thought that they wanted him to be the shade of parson brown, instead of white. Like when you say the trees are forest green or her shirt was royal blue).
AG version:
"In the meadow we can build a snowman, and pretend that he is Parson Brown." (Turns out a parson is some type of preacher).
JB version:
"He'll say, 'Are you merry?' We'll say, 'No, ma'am, but you can do the job while you're in town." (I thought they were talking to the snowman and were saying that they were going to be happy when they got to see the Christmas lights in town. Just like I always am when we walk around Balboa Island on Christmas Eve). I guess it doesn't make sense that they would say, "No, ma'am," to the snowMAN, but still, it sounded polite.
AG version:
"He'll say, 'Are you married?' We'll say, 'No, man, but you can do the job when you're in town." (Parson Brown is a preacher, so he can do the wedding ceremony when he gets to town). I looked this up and this song was written in 1934... who used the phrase, "No, man," in 1934? I didn't think that expression came along until the 60's or 70's.
Anyway, I never knew it was a love song. I just assumed it was about friends hanging out in a winter wonderland. Now that song has a completely different meaning for me and I don't know if I like it as much anymore... (ok, I'll totally sing along with Amy Grant when it comes on the radio, but it won't be the same).
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Surrender
I've been having trouble surrendering some things lately and I finally figured out what I've been doing wrong. Every time I'm led to surrender something, I ask God to take it out of my hands or to help me let go of it. The problem is that I usually end up taking back whatever it is that I've said I would give up. This is because I'm depending on myself to give up something and I'm not letting God take control of it, even though I've been asking Him to do that.
I realized the other day that I'm called to be obedient when God asks me to give something up. I shouldn't be questioning Him, taking it back, or thinking that something better will happen once I've truly surrendered it. I only need to be obedient and trust Him. This is such a simple concept and I don't know why it took me so long to understand it. I'm constantly striving to listen to God's voice in my life, but that has usually meant that I wanted to listen to Him telling me what to do. I don't think I realized how important it is to obey when He tells me to get rid of certain thoughts and actions as well. I've felt some more peace over the past couple of days because of realizing this. When I've wanted to start taking something back into my own hands, I've been able to remind myself that God has asked me to give this up and I need to follow through on being obedient to Him. That's what I want to be better at now.
I realized the other day that I'm called to be obedient when God asks me to give something up. I shouldn't be questioning Him, taking it back, or thinking that something better will happen once I've truly surrendered it. I only need to be obedient and trust Him. This is such a simple concept and I don't know why it took me so long to understand it. I'm constantly striving to listen to God's voice in my life, but that has usually meant that I wanted to listen to Him telling me what to do. I don't think I realized how important it is to obey when He tells me to get rid of certain thoughts and actions as well. I've felt some more peace over the past couple of days because of realizing this. When I've wanted to start taking something back into my own hands, I've been able to remind myself that God has asked me to give this up and I need to follow through on being obedient to Him. That's what I want to be better at now.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Insight
This time in Kentucky has allowed me to spend a lot of quality time with God and He's been pointing out different things that I need to work on in my life. Over the past couple of days, I've had a couple of breakthroughs with Him about things that I've been praying about for quite some time. This has been wonderful because I'm gaining some understanding and also scary because it means change will need to occur.
I went down to Renfro Valley last Friday to eat lunch and continue reading "A Closer Walk" by Catherine Marshall. One of the chapters is titled, "Do I Really Want to Get Well?" and it was exactly what I've been needing to hear for awhile now. In this chapter, she writes about how one of her friends, Jessie, was married to an alcoholic. Jessie and all of her friends would pray for her husband, John, to quit drinking and for him to become a Christian. Jessie's prayers were eventually answered and he completely turned his life around. Everyone was excited about this huge answer to prayer, except for Jessie, which was completely strange because she should have been happier than anyone else. What her friends came to realize was that Jessie had enjoyed the attention that she had received by putting up with her husband and his alcoholism. She was able to play the martyr and feel that she was better than him when he was an alcoholic and didn't believe in Jesus. Once his life changed, though, they became equals and that was secretly disappointing for her. Catherine Marshall wrote, "The unsuspected desire of her deepest being had canceled out the prayer of her lips for John's conversion," in order to explain why it took so long for Jessie's prayers to be answered regarding John.
When I read this, it helped me understand what I've been doing when it comes to relationships with men. I've always known that my heart's desire is to fall in love and get married. I firmly believe that God is the one who planted it there because Psalm 37:4 says, "Take delight in the Lord and He will give you your heart's desires." The only problem is that I'm a Jessie when it comes to my love life. I realized that I have a deeper, subconscious desire to stay single and it's unhealthy because it's preventing me from actually falling in love and getting married. I know that some of the surface reasons are that there's a lot of freedom in being single. I was able to move across the country for a year because I wasn't with anyone, I can do whatever I want without checking in, and I don't have to worry about how the things that I do or say will affect another person. On a deeper level, I have gotten some attention for this... there are at least 10 people that I can think of off the top of my head who have said that they're praying for my future husband and me. It's amazing to think that I have that many people in my life who are so concerned about my happiness!
The only problem is that on the two occasions that I was in a relationship, I managed to sabotage it pretty quickly. My friends and family were so excited for me about both guys when I dated them. I was the one who didn't care about either one of them after about a month and figured that I'd rather be single. I distanced myself a lot in order to get both of them to break up with me and it worked. I felt really bad about it with Justin because we've known each other and each other's families for forever. There was a part of me that didn't want to disappoint those who had prayed for me to get into a relationship, but I also didn't want to be with him because it meant giving up the freedom that I have in singleness.
I'm going to be praying for God to show me more about this divided will in myself when it comes to this area of my life. He's revealed some of the reasons why I've been doing this, but I know that there's a lot more to it. If I really want to fall in love and get married eventually, I need to listen to what He tells me to do in order to change.
I went down to Renfro Valley last Friday to eat lunch and continue reading "A Closer Walk" by Catherine Marshall. One of the chapters is titled, "Do I Really Want to Get Well?" and it was exactly what I've been needing to hear for awhile now. In this chapter, she writes about how one of her friends, Jessie, was married to an alcoholic. Jessie and all of her friends would pray for her husband, John, to quit drinking and for him to become a Christian. Jessie's prayers were eventually answered and he completely turned his life around. Everyone was excited about this huge answer to prayer, except for Jessie, which was completely strange because she should have been happier than anyone else. What her friends came to realize was that Jessie had enjoyed the attention that she had received by putting up with her husband and his alcoholism. She was able to play the martyr and feel that she was better than him when he was an alcoholic and didn't believe in Jesus. Once his life changed, though, they became equals and that was secretly disappointing for her. Catherine Marshall wrote, "The unsuspected desire of her deepest being had canceled out the prayer of her lips for John's conversion," in order to explain why it took so long for Jessie's prayers to be answered regarding John.
When I read this, it helped me understand what I've been doing when it comes to relationships with men. I've always known that my heart's desire is to fall in love and get married. I firmly believe that God is the one who planted it there because Psalm 37:4 says, "Take delight in the Lord and He will give you your heart's desires." The only problem is that I'm a Jessie when it comes to my love life. I realized that I have a deeper, subconscious desire to stay single and it's unhealthy because it's preventing me from actually falling in love and getting married. I know that some of the surface reasons are that there's a lot of freedom in being single. I was able to move across the country for a year because I wasn't with anyone, I can do whatever I want without checking in, and I don't have to worry about how the things that I do or say will affect another person. On a deeper level, I have gotten some attention for this... there are at least 10 people that I can think of off the top of my head who have said that they're praying for my future husband and me. It's amazing to think that I have that many people in my life who are so concerned about my happiness!
The only problem is that on the two occasions that I was in a relationship, I managed to sabotage it pretty quickly. My friends and family were so excited for me about both guys when I dated them. I was the one who didn't care about either one of them after about a month and figured that I'd rather be single. I distanced myself a lot in order to get both of them to break up with me and it worked. I felt really bad about it with Justin because we've known each other and each other's families for forever. There was a part of me that didn't want to disappoint those who had prayed for me to get into a relationship, but I also didn't want to be with him because it meant giving up the freedom that I have in singleness.
I'm going to be praying for God to show me more about this divided will in myself when it comes to this area of my life. He's revealed some of the reasons why I've been doing this, but I know that there's a lot more to it. If I really want to fall in love and get married eventually, I need to listen to what He tells me to do in order to change.
Go, Rockcastle Rockets! (Part 2)
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how the city of Mt. Vernon moved Halloween to the 30th because of the Rockcastle County High School football game being on the 31st. I ended up going to the game last night with Jenny, Jessica, and Yong. My favorite part was that they would shoot off fireworks whenever Rockcastle scored a touchdown or made a field goal. It was kind of cool because I've never been a big fan of Halloween, but I love the 4th of July. I pretty much forgot that it was Halloween last night because there weren't people dressed in costumes AND I got to be reminded of my favorite holiday because there were fireworks being set off.
As far as the game itself, it wasn't that exciting :(. I had expected a crowd in a small town to be really pumped up about it, especially since Rockcastle was ahead during the entire game. They didn't cheer very much and a lot of people left early because they knew they were going to win... I was slightly disappointed about the crowd spirit. It was awesome that they won (10-6) because I haven't gone to very many high school football games where the team I'm cheering for actually wins. It was also fun to hang out with the housemates on a Friday night and we had a good time rooting for the Rockcastle Rockets. Plus, we got to eat at the truck stop after it was over, which is always a nice way to end an evening out.
As far as the game itself, it wasn't that exciting :(. I had expected a crowd in a small town to be really pumped up about it, especially since Rockcastle was ahead during the entire game. They didn't cheer very much and a lot of people left early because they knew they were going to win... I was slightly disappointed about the crowd spirit. It was awesome that they won (10-6) because I haven't gone to very many high school football games where the team I'm cheering for actually wins. It was also fun to hang out with the housemates on a Friday night and we had a good time rooting for the Rockcastle Rockets. Plus, we got to eat at the truck stop after it was over, which is always a nice way to end an evening out.
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