if there's one thing i've learned, it's that I have so much more to learn....

I am 19 years old. I go to a really great university with excellent professors and wonderful classes and I learn a lot of really great stuff. And the crazy thing is, the more I learn, the more I see how much more there is to learn. If that makes sense.

Sometimes when things are going really well, or when I feel like I've grasped a certain concept, I get this attitude like, "Wow, this is great! I have now Learned. I am now Mature. I Understand. I'm practically Finished, like, 60 years ahead of schedule! Must be because I'm part of that chosen generation."

And I think God must really think this is hilarious! I think He sort of laughs and says, "Oh honey. You're nineteen. You're a freshman. You might think you're an Adult, but you are still My Child, and I have so much more in store for you."

And then in His infinite love and wisdom something happens to put me back in my place. To humiliate me, literally! to make me humble. And He shows me how infinitely more there is for me to learn, and how far I have to go.

That's how life is I guess. We learn line upon line, precept upon precept. I have all these thoughts today, and experiences are going to happen tomorrow that will change me and teach me more, and they'll build on each other, and I'm never done! There is always more for me to learn. That's the beautiful thing about it :)

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. 

Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. 

This is a kind of death. ~Anaïs Nin

work stories by julia II

Julia Denise Green is one of my most favorite people in the world. I think she is simply fantastic. ♥ And her work stories are the funniest of my life. So fabulous I must share them here with you :) :) 


work is literally the most awkward thing of my whole life. 
~customers trying to swipe their cards on the thing where they enter the pin. i swipe it on my own machine. you just enter your pin. also, customers grabbing a pen to sign the receipt when they said they wanted debit. you don't have to sign for that....
~me asking "debit or credit" right as they are saying one or the other so i don't actually hear what they say and have to ask them again.
~my interaction with customers. i'm not good at small talk. i hate small talk. "how are you today?" and "wow, it's rainy out!" are so done. therefore, customers are literally running out the door to escape the discomfort i cause them.
‎~when my boss comes to drop off the orders
me: eldon, loni said the computer is being weird. {describes problem}
eldon: well maybe, but the problem is probably just loni.
me: oh yeah. okay... {awkward silence.... and SCENE!}
~me nearly tripping and dying any time i try to dance. that place is a death trap.
what is wrong with me? they surely didn't hire me for my social skills...

to forgive

Growing up, I had forgiveness explained to me a lot of different ways.

One was simply that God asked us to forgive, so we should. This is a good reason. Sometimes we do things just because God said so; we don't need a reason, we just trust Him. But it's not very convincing to me.

So another reason offered is, how can we expect forgiveness if we do not extend it ourselves? Jesus said,

“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." {Matt. 6:14-15, NKJV}

In the Parable of the Unjust Servant, Jesus teaches me that I can't expect God to forgive me if I withhold forgiveness from others, and reminds me that I have been forgiven a much greater debt than I can ever imagine. I owe Jesus Christ such a huge debt, and He frankly forgave me. How then can I withhold forgiveness from my fellowman, for such a pitiful debt in comparison? "Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?" {Matt. 18:33, NIV} C.S. Lewis wrote,

"To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgive the inexcusable in you." {“On Forgiveness” from The Weight of Glory}

I have done so many incredibly stupid things in my life, yet still I hope that I will be forgiven. Can I expect that God will forgive me, and not them? If I believe that I can change and be forgiven, then I have to believe that everyone can do the same; that nothing is outside the scope of Christ's infinite Atonement.

work stories by julia

by my favorite girl, Julia Green. I likeloveadore her work stories :) :) 

-awkwardness at work
~shirt was not ready for a customer that i sort of recognized from school last year
~me resuming singing before the door fully closes behind customer so he pops his head back in the door thinking that i said something to him
~tripping on the drawstring of a laundry bag in the back while customer is by front counter
-i think that's it but i feel i had more to tell you
i love you lots and lots more. i hope you enjoyed my day. i think i did.

why it's so hard t

"Normally, when a person tries to read or concentrate on a project or task, the amount of beta waves in the brain increase. 

beta waves

These are the fastest waves in the brain and help keep a person attentive.

A person with ADHD who tries to concentrate produces slower theta waves, which have the opposite effect."

theta waves

--Matters of the Mind, W. Dean Belnap, M.D 

So telling a person with ADHD to "concentrate harder" is really going to have the opposite effect; sitting down and "focusing" is going to make them more antsy and distracted. They'll need to learn other ways of producing beta waves. 

I don't know if I have ADHD; without any formal training or real knowledge, I'm inclined to believe that a lot of people have it to some degree. This quote intrigued me because sometimes I feel like the more I try to concentrate, the more difficult it becomes. Maybe it has something to do with brain waves!

in.ter.es.ting.

:)

new favorite vocab word

eschatological {gesundheit!}


it means "referring to the last days." 


as in, Isaiah's prophesies can be Messianic {referring to the Messiah} in nature, eschatological in nature, or both! 


:) 


and that is the vocab word of the day.

of Jyana, understanding, and becoming One.

In Hindu belief, one of the ways to escape the eternal wheel of reincarnation is Salvation through the Way of Knowledge, or Jyana. This belief holds that an understanding of the reality that all things are One is the way to salvation.


In order to leave this wheel of perpetual reincarnation, one must understand that Brahman (the One Reality, the Universal Life, the World Soul) and Atman (the Individual Life, the Human Personality) are one and the same. Their scripture records an effort to describe what this means:


A father asks his son Shvetaketu to break open a fig, and then to break open one of the seeds inside. "What do you see there?" he asks. "Nothing at all, sir," his son replies. Then the father says to his son:

"Verily, my dear, that subtle essence which you do not perceive - from that very essence, indeed, my dear, does this great fig tree thus arise. Believe me, my dear, that which is the subtle essence - this whole world has that essence for its Self; that is the Real...; that is the Self; that (subtle essence) art thou, Shvetaketu." Chandogya Upanishad 6:12-14 

Kind of confusing. But I like it for that reason. It makes me think.