Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Iowa City. Again.

Holly got home from Japan and came to visit/pick up her sister and Alex was in town for the weekend so I joined them for a little indoor camping. I brought Riley to teach her how to camp so she's ready for summer.

I got to hang out with Holly and see pictures and ask questions about Japan. Liz stopped by and we just sat and talked for a little bit. It really hit me that I've found true community with these people. Some people have lived their whole lives craving the kind of relationships that I have taken for granted these past few years and I'm newly thankful for them.

Moving away really has been an adjustment. I realized on my way there this weekend that I was missing my brother's Cabaret thing at his school. He'd been preparing for it for weeks and I felt really bad missing it. It was so strange to process the regret I felt about missing something like that. A year ago it would have been assumed that I wouldn't be there. In fact, I probably wouldn't even have known it was going on. It was strange feeling like I should have re-scheduled some things, that 24-7 with my friends wasn't as important as being there for Luke's thing. Being in a family again is weird.

This weekend I realized how much I've been putting off starting my life in Cedar Falls. I'd much rather keep hiding behind a constant cycle of packing and laundry, but I think it's time to just deal with it. There will always be a reason for me to go to Iowa City for the weekend and I need to learn how to miss out on the things that don't really matter in order to focus on the things that are a priority now.

Stupid life lessons.

Here are some pictures.



holly's home! post 24-7 milkshakes

action shot of riley and alex. i dig the blur.


blogging at hoa while rachel does perspectives homework


eiffert throwing food at me while i take a picture


deedee's failed s'more. it was chewy.


riley = xtreme

Saturday, February 25, 2006

product review #3


meet my new shampoo

I've always had trouble finding a good shampoo for my hair and I think I've found it. Thank you, Real Simple Magazine. My hair tends to get greasy by the end of the day and clarifying shampoo leaves my hair dull and gross, but this stuff is great. I'm confident that I've passed the "new shampoo" great hair days and am still pretty excited. Although I'm usually pretty excited to be washing my hair because I love taking showers.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

leave it to JP

Don’t Waste Your Cancer

February 15, 2006

I write this on the eve of prostate surgery. I believe in God’s power to heal—by miracle and by medicine. I believe it is right and good to pray for both kinds of healing. Cancer is not wasted when it is healed by God. He gets the glory and that is why cancer exists. So not to pray for healing may waste your cancer. But healing is not God’s plan for everyone. And there are many other ways to waste your cancer. I am praying for myself and for you that we will not waste this pain.

1. You will waste your cancer if you do not believe it is designed for you by God.

It will not do to say that God only uses our cancer but does not design it. What God permits, he permits for a reason. And that reason is his design. If God foresees molecular developments becoming cancer, he can stop it or not. If he does not, he has a purpose. Since he is infinitely wise, it is right to call this purpose a design. Satan is real and causes many pleasures and pains. But he is not ultimate. So when he strikes Job with boils (Job 2:7), Job attributes it ultimately to God (2:10) and the inspired writer agrees: “They . . . comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him” (Job 42:11). If you don’t believe your cancer is designed for you by God, you will waste it.

2. You will waste your cancer if you believe it is a curse and not a gift.

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). “There is no enchantment against Jacob, no divination against Israel” (Numbers 23:23). “The Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly” (Psalm 84:11).

3. You will waste your cancer if you seek comfort from your odds rather than from God.

The design of God in your cancer is not to train you in the rationalistic, human calculation of odds. The world gets comfort from their odds. Not Christians. Some count their chariots (percentages of survival) and some count their horses (side effects of treatment), but we trust in the name of the Lord our God (Psalm 20:7). God’s design is clear from 2 Corinthians 1:9, “We felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” The aim of God in your cancer (among a thousand other good things) is to knock props out from under our hearts so that we rely utterly on him.

4. You will waste your cancer if you refuse to think about death.

We will all die, if Jesus postpones his return. Not to think about what it will be like to leave this life and meet God is folly. Ecclesiastes 7:2 says, “It is better to go to the house of mourning [a funeral] than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.” How can you lay it to heart if you won’t think about it? Psalm 90:12 says, “Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” Numbering your days means thinking about how few there are and that they will end. How will you get a heart of wisdom if you refuse to think about this? What a waste, if we do not think about death.

5. You will waste your cancer if you think that “beating” cancer means staying alive rather than cherishing Christ.

Satan’s and God’s designs in your cancer are not the same. Satan designs to destroy your love for Christ. God designs to deepen your love for Christ. Cancer does not win if you die. It wins if you fail to cherish Christ. God’s design is to wean you off the breast of the world and feast you on the sufficiency of Christ. It is meant to help you say and feel, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” And to know that therefore, “To live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 3:8; 1:21).

6. You will waste your cancer if you spend too much time reading about cancer and not enough time reading about God.

It is not wrong to know about cancer. Ignorance is not a virtue. But the lure to know more and more and the lack of zeal to know God more and more is symptomatic of unbelief. Cancer is meant to waken us to the reality of God. It is meant to put feeling and force behind the command, “Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord” (Hosea 6:3). It is meant to waken us to the truth of Daniel 11:32, “The people who know their God shall stand firm and take action.” It is meant to make unshakable, indestructible oak trees out of us: “His delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers” (Psalm 1:2). What a waste of cancer if we read day and night about cancer and not about God.

7. You will waste your cancer if you let it drive you into solitude instead of deepen your relationships with manifest affection.

When Epaphroditus brought the gifts to Paul sent by the Philippian church he became ill and almost died. Paul tells the Philippians, “He has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill” (Philippians 2:26-27). What an amazing response! It does not say they were distressed that he was ill, but that he was distressed because they heard he was ill. That is the kind of heart God is aiming to create with cancer: a deeply affectionate, caring heart for people. Don’t waste your cancer by retreating into yourself.

8. You will waste your cancer if you grieve as those who have no hope.

Paul used this phrase in relation to those whose loved ones had died: “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). There is a grief at death. Even for the believer who dies, there is temporary loss—loss of body, and loss of loved ones here, and loss of earthly ministry. But the grief is different—it is permeated with hope. “We would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). Don’t waste your cancer grieving as those who don’t have this hope.

9. You will waste your cancer if you treat sin as casually as before.

Are your besetting sins as attractive as they were before you had cancer? If so you are wasting your cancer. Cancer is designed to destroy the appetite for sin. Pride, greed, lust, hatred, unforgiveness, impatience, laziness, procrastination—all these are the adversaries that cancer is meant to attack. Don’t just think of battling against cancer. Also think of battling with cancer. All these things are worse enemies than cancer. Don’t waste the power of cancer to crush these foes. Let the presence of eternity make the sins of time look as futile as they really are. “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?” (Luke 9:25).

10. You will waste your cancer if you fail to use it as a means of witness to the truth and glory of Christ.

Christians are never anywhere by divine accident. There are reasons for why we wind up where we do. Consider what Jesus said about painful, unplanned circumstances: “They will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake. This will be your opportunity to bear witness” (Luke 21:12 -13). So it is with cancer. This will be an opportunity to bear witness. Christ is infinitely worthy. Here is a golden opportunity to show that he is worth more than life. Don’t waste it.

Remember you are not left alone. You will have the help you need. “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

Pastor John



This is an article from John Piper, a man who has taught me a ton about God. God has used this man in huge ways in my life and I am usually left out of breath after diving into his writing. I'm humbled once again by his honesty and thought I'd share this article.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

HVD to you too, Bob

I got this email today. Pretty cool.


Hi Angie,

Happy Valentine's Day

I am going to be showing slides of Katrina Relief work in New Orleans to the Filadelfia Bible College in Udaipur, India today. Your pictures are included, I thought you would like to know. May it encourage others.

Your Brother in Christ,

Bob


maybe they'll show this one


probably not this one

Friday, February 10, 2006

the tagging game i stole from kieran

Here are four items for each category:

Four Jobs I’ve Had in My Life:

Four Movies I could Watch Over and Over, and Have:

Four Places I’ve Lived:

Four TV Shows I Love to Watch:

Four Places I’ve Been on Vacation:

Four Websites I Visit Daily:

Four Favorite Foods:

Four Places I Would Like to Visit:

Four People I am Tagging with this Meme:

Poverty reduction should be a moral imperative in politics. A budget that scapegoats the poor, fattens the rich, and asks for sacrifice mostly from those who can least afford it is a moral outrage. These budget priorities would cause the prophets to rise up in righteous indignation, as should we. Our nation deserves better vision.
-Jim Wallace 04.27.05

Budget Reconciliation Passes in Close Final Vote

Feb. 3, 2006

On Wednesday, February 1, Congress took the final vote on the fiscal year 2006 “budget reconciliation” bill, which cuts $40 billion in mandatory (“entitlement”) spending and removes support for a range of low-income programs.

The House passed the budget “conference report” (S. 1932) by a vote of 216 – 214. The Senate approved the bill in December. All House Democrats (except Rep. Blumenauer who was absent), Independent Bernie Sanders (VT), and 13 Republicans voted against the bill. The legislation will now be sent to President Bush to sign into law.

Passage of the budget will result in cuts to health care, child support, and educational assistance for low-income families. At the same time, Congress is planning to provide more tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. In fact, on February 2, the Senate passed a $70 billion tax reconciliation bill that may eventually include provisions to extend capital gains and dividends provisions enacted in 2003. Under reconciliation rules, the size of the tax cut package was allowed to rise from $60 billion to $70 billion once the budget bill was passed. These budget and tax bills (which together comprise this year’s “reconciliation” process) will increase the deficit by $30 billion, despite claims that the process is an act of fiscal discipline. Cutting supports for families is not a good option on its own, but doing that AND increasing the deficit is not fiscally responsible. Deficits affect our children 's futures just like social cuts harm low-income people now.

Some argue that past tax cuts, and extending them, stimulate the economy and help job growth. However, the current economic recovery has underperformed past recoveries in terms of GDP growth, and investment growth has been below historical norms (www.cbpp.org). Job creation under President Bush has been the lowest since World War II. Hourly and weekly wages are dropping, poverty has risen in each of the past four years, and food insecurity has risen in each of the last five. Plus, 9.2 million working families are on the brink of poverty. A study by United for a Fair Economy concludes that these tax cuts have not produced the jobs promised, the quality of jobs as measured by income, health insurance, and retirement benefits has declined, and changes in tax policy have no clear impact on job growth (www.faireconomy.org).

Instead of spurring economic growth, more tax cuts will lead the U.S. deeper into debt. Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, noted the connection between further tax cuts and the deficit: “We should not be cutting taxes by borrowing… We do not have the capability of having both productive tax cuts and large expenditures, and presume that the deficit doesn’t matter” (NY Times 11/4/05).

This is why I'm frustrated with Bush's presidency. People always find out I vote Liberal and freak out and ask me how I feel about the war in Iraq and ask, "So you believe in abortion?" or somehow relate it to me having friends who are gay. Nope, mosty the ridiculous things he gets away with under the radar. The country functioning under a moral budget is a much more Biblical issue than the War on Terror and although I have strong feelings regarding both, does no one care that ALL of the House Democrats and 13 of his own guys voted against it? Accountability? Anyone?

Woe to those who make unjust laws,
to those who issue oppressive decrees,
to deprive the poor of their rights
and withold justice from the oppressed of my people,
making widows their prey
and robbing the fatherless.
What will you do on the day of reckoning,
when disaster comes from afar?
To whom will you run for help?
Where will you leave your riches?
Nothing will remain but to cringe among the captives
or fall among the slain.

Isaiah 10:1-4

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

no longer afraid of the dark or midday shadows

how do we feel about this blog just being a photojournal of my life? yay or nay?

i drove with my stepdad to Cedar Rapids today because he had to get his left eye re-lasered (yikes!) so i had about 3 hours to kill. deedee gave me excellent directions (i only took one wrong turn! that's a crapids record!!) and i hit up one of her favorite places for lunch, coffee, quiet time and even found the article about Stephen Colbert in Newsweek. i headed across the street for a birthday card for Eli (didn't get anything, the only ones i could tolerate were too girly) and then hit up the art gallery to see the Mauricio Lasansky printmaking exhibit.

i spent some time in isaiah 1 during my time at the blue strawberry. i love it when god calls us out. "Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow." (v. 16b-17) i love it that God knows there's no chance that i can just stop doing wrong and immediately start doing right, i love that he knows i'm going to have to learn it, and that he's patient with me. then verse 18 begins, "Come now, let us reason together." i love that he is reasonable. i love that he made us to think for ourselves but desires us to not think only of ourselves.

anywho. here are some snaps.


they were roasting coffee. it smelled so good


i l.o.v.e. print-making
his daughter
there was also an exhibit called "inspired by nature" it was paintings. it was boring.

cracked paint is cool though
i only like landscapes up close
then there was some roman stuff
i probably shouldn't be allowed in museums alone

i had to go pick bryan up after his zapping appointment. he was all bandaged up and on valium. the nurse was giving him directions and he said "i'm okay to drive, right?" and she was confused and angry. it was funny. so that was my day. had some good talking time with bryan (on the way there, not so much on the way home), and some good driving time in his giant black pimp suv. i parallel parked it on the left side on the first try. it was amazing, i rule at parallel parking. i promptly started calling people and bragging about it and then my phone battery died. i talked myself out of having a panic attack about having 3 hours of total alone time. that's probably why i got friendly with the statue.

Monday, February 06, 2006



So I have this notebook I take with me to jot stuff down when needed. The point is that there's stuff to write down that I'll want to later look back on, so I decided to do that today. Here's some stuff I found.


what happens at main event with alex & cate

a weekly entry
andy kampman's thought process
benderism
zechariah 2:10-11
memorized?
sometimes there are notes from eli



in other news: Colin Meloy made another appearance on NPR's All Songs Considered with a sample of his live performance. it's lovely. i recommend it.



Sunday, February 05, 2006

every day really is a winding road!

lance armstrong and sheryl crow broke up. first nick and jessica and now this. she overhaulin'ed his car!! i bet she demanded that his kids call her "momma crow" and they wouldn't, ending in screams of "it's me or them!" and he said "sheryl...it will always be them" and he was crushed because he really loved her, and he cried a little as she stormed out the door. there's no hope for any of us. i'm going to go buy 5 cats and call it a day.

Saturday, February 04, 2006

weekends i don't even work for

After several weekends in Iowa City, I finally pulled out the camera to document the occasion. Pretty exciting. Mostly we just hang out in Eli's room, talk to Kevin Hockett, eat Sherbet or Quaker Oatmeal Squares, throw stuff at eachother, and watch the Colbert Report. There's pretty much nothing I'd rather do.

rachel and i went exploring


we eat a lot of sherbet


eli reads us poetry and plays his guitar for us. what a guy.

rachel being Tom Kaine

swanky record player (note the James Taylor...swoon)


i heart vinyl

almost lost in the world of digital storage

I found my old memory sticks when I was organizing some stuff and thought I'd see if there were any pictures on it. I found these. They're really random but pretty great.


matt's old new apartment



jess + fear = funny


the candlelight service last christmas



woo! the cove! i'm bow-legged!



a common occurance

Thursday, February 02, 2006