So I plan on moving in May when my friend Laurel moves back to the States for a year on home assignment. I've been looking into buying a house for a while now. I thought this may be the time to go for it since she could help with the mortgage by paying rent for a year. But can I afford it is the question!
I went in and spoke to a loan officer at my credit union this week. It was pretty encouraging because they have a really good first time buyer program right now. Its just a lot of money a month, and I have to be approved for a certain amount to even get a decent home. The housing market is rising so much its hard to find something affordable and livable. And we all know I have "standards" to keep. It would be awesome if I could just inherit a big chunk of cash to help me. But the chances are very unlikely.
So I'm sweating it out, crunching numbers, and just generally overwhelmed. My goal is to keep the focus that no matter the outcome that God will guide me either way. He's a huge God who still intimately cares about the details of my life. What a relief.
1/19/2006
Lost, sad, confused...
So much has happened in the past week. Huge things in my dear friends' lives. Its hard to know how to be a friend when tragedy hits. When do you talk? When do you listen? What do you do?
A friend's dad died very suddenly last Thursday. It was totally a shock. He was a normal Dad and Grandpa one day and gone the next. I just cry at the thought of having my Dad just suddenly being gone from my grasp, my call, my life. I don't know how to comfort her. She used to get emails from him daily at work. Funny little things, maybe with pictures of her daughter or the last family gathering. Today she emailed me and said she was sad, because she'd never see one in her inbox again. So I just emailed back and forth with her for a while. A sorry, sorry substitute but it was all I could do.
Yesterday I got home to a voicemail from another friend saying to call her back. She has been having tests done on her little boy (he's just about 2 years old). When she didn't leave a status update in the message, but just said call me back I knew there was bad news. The second MRI he had showed he'd regressed in his progress and confirmed that the problem might be degenerative. Who knows what this means for him, but it won't be good, that's for sure. It was not the news they were praying for. Now its more blood tests and more investigation into a diagnosis, and apparently these kind of problems only rarely are treatable. I asked her how she was, knowing she was just crushed, but I had to ask to let her know I care how she's personally making it through. She just said "not good". I didn't know what to do! How do you help when the situation is just so sad and beyond you. You can't give trite little answers. Their pain can't be trivialized. Its huge, its life altering. I just asked if I could pray for her on the phone. I couldn't keep from crying through the prayer. All I could ask for was peace for them, this is truly peace that is beyond our comprehension.
So many big things, tragedies, have happened in this last year to my dear friends. They have been my family in so many ways for the last 8 years or so of my life. Its odd because I was directed to read this book that discussed heaven and hope in this last year. I had no idea why I needed to read it, but I felt God was prepping me for something. That unknown something scared me. Now I have some perspective and I see why I needed to read it. I feel God's just been telling me lately to just "be here now". Think only about today and what he's leading me to do in this moment. Each day I've thought this, he's put big conversations and encounters with people in front of me.
I don't really have a conclusion to all these thoughts. But I just had to put them down somewhere. I feel I'm in the midst of the battle. Pray.
A friend's dad died very suddenly last Thursday. It was totally a shock. He was a normal Dad and Grandpa one day and gone the next. I just cry at the thought of having my Dad just suddenly being gone from my grasp, my call, my life. I don't know how to comfort her. She used to get emails from him daily at work. Funny little things, maybe with pictures of her daughter or the last family gathering. Today she emailed me and said she was sad, because she'd never see one in her inbox again. So I just emailed back and forth with her for a while. A sorry, sorry substitute but it was all I could do.
Yesterday I got home to a voicemail from another friend saying to call her back. She has been having tests done on her little boy (he's just about 2 years old). When she didn't leave a status update in the message, but just said call me back I knew there was bad news. The second MRI he had showed he'd regressed in his progress and confirmed that the problem might be degenerative. Who knows what this means for him, but it won't be good, that's for sure. It was not the news they were praying for. Now its more blood tests and more investigation into a diagnosis, and apparently these kind of problems only rarely are treatable. I asked her how she was, knowing she was just crushed, but I had to ask to let her know I care how she's personally making it through. She just said "not good". I didn't know what to do! How do you help when the situation is just so sad and beyond you. You can't give trite little answers. Their pain can't be trivialized. Its huge, its life altering. I just asked if I could pray for her on the phone. I couldn't keep from crying through the prayer. All I could ask for was peace for them, this is truly peace that is beyond our comprehension.
So many big things, tragedies, have happened in this last year to my dear friends. They have been my family in so many ways for the last 8 years or so of my life. Its odd because I was directed to read this book that discussed heaven and hope in this last year. I had no idea why I needed to read it, but I felt God was prepping me for something. That unknown something scared me. Now I have some perspective and I see why I needed to read it. I feel God's just been telling me lately to just "be here now". Think only about today and what he's leading me to do in this moment. Each day I've thought this, he's put big conversations and encounters with people in front of me.
I don't really have a conclusion to all these thoughts. But I just had to put them down somewhere. I feel I'm in the midst of the battle. Pray.
1/14/2006
Another good thought.
Two posts in one day... I know you are all stunned but I was reading an article on Relevant's site and I found this quote. Thought I'd share:
J. Gresham Machen, founder of Westminster Seminary, had much to say about the decay of the modern Christian influence upon culture:“The loss is clearest, perhaps, in the realm of art. Despite the mighty revolution, which has been produced in the external conditions of life, no great poet is now living to celebrate the change; humanity has suddenly become dumb. Gone, too, are the great painters and the great musicians and the great sculptors. The art that still subsists is largely imitative, and where it is not imitative it is usually bizarre. Even the appreciation of the glories of the past is gradually being lost ..."
What say we try and change that? I know there are still pioneers out there trying to do just that and its exciting.
The article is not so much about the loss of art and influence on culture but great at provoking thought on how to be relevant in our society yet keep our culture. And that culture shouldn't be a copy of the world's culture but the unique culture created from following the God of the Universe. It is timeless. Check it out.
J. Gresham Machen, founder of Westminster Seminary, had much to say about the decay of the modern Christian influence upon culture:“The loss is clearest, perhaps, in the realm of art. Despite the mighty revolution, which has been produced in the external conditions of life, no great poet is now living to celebrate the change; humanity has suddenly become dumb. Gone, too, are the great painters and the great musicians and the great sculptors. The art that still subsists is largely imitative, and where it is not imitative it is usually bizarre. Even the appreciation of the glories of the past is gradually being lost ..."
What say we try and change that? I know there are still pioneers out there trying to do just that and its exciting.
The article is not so much about the loss of art and influence on culture but great at provoking thought on how to be relevant in our society yet keep our culture. And that culture shouldn't be a copy of the world's culture but the unique culture created from following the God of the Universe. It is timeless. Check it out.
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