And I'm just trying to love you, in any way that I can

Spent the evening with my little bro. He drives me NUTS sometimes, but he's still an okay kid and an ever-ready companion. For instance, I decided that my car was looking a little sad and dusty so it needed to be washed! Small was more than eager to help me wash it if it meant getting to play with the hose. Then we watched Pirates of the Caribbean (the last spelling bee I ever participated in, I got out because of the word Caribbean. I've been able to spell it fine ever since) and ate popcorn with butter on it--inspired by Jill.

Tomorrow will be a long, but hopefully fun, day. Making brownies in the morning followed by a meeting with Kirsten's new boyfriend, a walk with Nicole, and coffee with Jess...all in 5 hours. Then will be our last ever meeting as one big community group--so we're having a BBQ at Hannah's. After this week, we're splitting in half. Hugely sad, but I have confidence that God will grow each of our groups to be unique and a huge blessing to its community. I'm excited to see how we grow in these next 3 months.

Thinking of college, I found out my orientation date is July 28th. SUPER excited and a little nervous. At orientation I'll get to meet with academic advisors in both of my departments, get my picture taken for the ID card, and find out my dorm assignment. Afterwards, I'm planning on hunting down the local restaurants and finding out if they're hiring for the school year. If the Ellensburg PD gets back to me, I might have to meet with someone there to find out about volunteering, too. So like I said, super exciting but kind of nerve-wracking....hoping I get everything done that needs to get done, etc.

Oh, and I've been doing a little bit of reading these days. The first book I've gotten to dig in to is

I've started the book of James and have been trying a different approach with reading my Bible. I get a lot of application out of it, but it's easy for me to forget the "application" 3 weeks later. So I'm trying to read it just to get a better picture of Jesus and look more for the attributes of God. When I was in James 2, the section on partiality jumped out at me. The fact that we shouldn't pick favorites because someone is popular--that's in the Bible. Ugh. So convicting.

Second book I've been reading is

Yes, Radical Reformission by Mr. Driscoll. Last chapter I read was on how important it is to engage the culture without becoming just like it. What is frustrating to me is if you're living in a way that's relateable to the average person, why would they ask you about Jesus? I guess if you give Him glory for all the good in your life....but I've been a re-focused Christian for 2 years and no one has asked me about God. Fail.

Third book (and one I highly recommend if you like suspense/action novels) is

Separation of Power from Vince Flynn's collection of super amazing books. I don't want to give away too much plot, but they're political thrillers... plenty of assassinations and assassins involved.

That's a snippet for the day. Have a lovely Thursday y'all.

Tomorrow is in Your hands, help me live today

This weekend I will have spent 4 days with the same people...good thing I like them a lot! Thurs night was community group, as normal. Last night I got to go to prayer night at Heather's parents' house (complete with bonfire, yes that was fun!). Today, the cg is going camping for the weekend. I'm teaching T3 tomorrow morning, so I can't stay the night but Aaron and Jessie are going down for the day, so they're going to pick me up so I can gallivant around the campground with them! There will be a certain fun event going on there that I really can't blog about, but you'll have to text or message me on Facebook or something if you want to know details. Just know it's going to be a-mazing! And then tomorrow is church, as always!

I've been kind of "off" emotionally this whole week. I think it's partially due to the thing with my mom, and just being relied on for EVERYTHING. I am working on repenting of this attitude I have about how it's not fair that I'm stuck at home doing all the chores and responding to "Anna, can you help me do....." every 5 minutes. My mom has been a huge help my entire life, the least I can do is run errands for her, do her laundry, and help with the little things that are impossible to do one-handed. So if you want to pray for our family, pray that we will have patience for the results coming back and that I will have a joyful heart as I get to help out these two weeks.

I finished Hebrews on Wednesday, so I decided to just continue on and go through James. I ran into a section talking about temptation that made me think a bit. It says "let no one say when he is tempted 'I am being tempted by God,' for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death." (James 1:13-15 ESV)

I think what I had to figure out in this is when crappy situations happen, my response is usually "oh, God is teaching me something." Or like "God is teaching me to save money when I am driving and decide I need a Chipotle burrito." Skewed theology right there. Part of God's character is that he absolutely cannot tempt me to sin. If I want to sin, it's all in MY head. So when things come up that are tempting, it's not God putting those in my path. It's my sin-nature telling me I want something. I don't know if that makes any sense to anyone but me. :)

Oh! Oh! P.S. I discovered that there is a Mars Hill Music podcast on iTunes. BRILLIANT.