January 2016 (25x25)

The highlight of this month was time with my family, since we didn't get together for Christmas. I had the unspeakably great pleasure of spending two whole weeks with my youngest sister visiting with (at various points) all four of our grandparents, our parents, and our middle sister and her husband.

On our drive from NC back to FL, I crossed one item off my list! We stopped in Savannah, GA, to walk and drive around a bit. It is a very pretty place, and now Savannah Sparrow has been to Savannah.

Thanks to generous friends of mine, we were able to spend a day each at both Sea World and Disney's Hollywood Studios. Both days were full of fun rides and adventures, including meeting Chewbacca and Darth Vader.

     

In other 25x25 news, I also found a very useful app (thanks to the recommendation of a friend) that has numerous free audiobook recordings of classic books. It's called Librivox. In their catalog they have a recording of an unabridged version of The Count of Monte Cristo, one of my three long books for this year. In 10 hours of driving on the trip I listened to the first 17 chapters...out of 117. I am now in the middle of chapter 33 so #progress. I am also nearing the end of reading The Silmarillion.

In Bible reading I have made it into the book of Daniel and past the halfway point in the year-long Bible reading plan I'm using, so that means I have also crossed off that goal!

So, goodbye January 2016 and onward goes February.

December 2015 (25x25)

Yup, I know it's February. Oh well...here are some December highlights:

I made a pretty gingerbread house.

I saw lots and lots of carved ice at ICE! at Gaylord Palms.

The nativity scene carved out of ice.

And in preparation for Urbana 15, I helped one of the writers at Wycliffe put together a story about how Urbana encouraged me, my dad, and my grandfather to support missions work. You can read that story here: Three Generations of Faith.

November 2015 (25x25)

This month, thanks to a visit from my mother, I was able to cross off two items on my list.

On the Saturday of her visit, we went up to Silver Springs State Park, home of the famous glass bottom boats. I had gone on them once when I was much younger, but the whole experience is just as wonderful as a 24-year-old. You can see it all: fish, turtles, birds, more turtles, alligators, and even more turtles - and of course, the silver springs.

On Sunday I finally made it to Leu Gardens. That place is 50 acres of wonderfulness right in Orlando. I'm definitely going back. Name any kind of remotely tropical plant that you might want to see and likely it's there. Also, roses. So many roses.

November means my 24th year is halfway through. I still have a lot more to do on my list, but I'm making progress. Here's to many more adventures in the next 6 months!

October 2015 (25x25)

This month involved quite a bit of dressing up, going to Disney, and Bible reading - although not necessarily all of those things together.

Regina, Emma Swan, and Captain Hook

The dressing up and Disney pieces definitely fit together for a visit to Magic Kingdom to attend Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. 

Don't mess with Emma Swan (from Once Upon a Time).

Also, pumpkins made an appearance in October...featuring an adipose from Doctor Who. I had surprising success in hand-drawing this little guy on here from the template I was viewing on my phone.

Where does the Bible reading come into all of this, you might ask. I have now made it to the depths of 1 Kings, which means I am past day 100 on the plan I am using to read through the Bible in a year, with a daily psalm. Mostly I've learned that God stays quite consistent in his rules and guidelines and humans quite consistently fail to pay very much attention to him at all.

September 2015 (25x25) - Loving Well

Yes, I do realize that it is the middle of October BUT I wrote this in the middle of September...I just didn't post it. I was thinking about what love is and how hard it is to truly love other people well - people who are broken, just like me. So this is a very different post than my usual.

Loving Well

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

- 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NIV)

Love is not an easy thing. It is a really hard thing. Loving well and whole-heartedly means being vulnerable and real. It means talking about the hard things and being able to be yourself no matter what. Love looks for what you can give to the other person, rather than seeing what you can get for yourself.

The world's definition of love is entirely different than God's definition.

The world says love is all about me.
It is a transient feeling.
It asks “What I can get from this relationship?”
It says, if I don't feel it anymore or I'm not getting what I need, then it's time to move on.

God says love is action.
It's a choice.
It's sacrificial.
It's focused on giving.
It doesn't give up.
It forgives.

Only God can love perfectly. If you're looking for true love, it looks a lot like Jesus dying on the cross to make it so that we could be in a relationship with God forever. The rest of us just have to keep trying to imitate Jesus and looking for his love to fill us and overflow to others.

At the same time, though, we have to choose wisely who we love. Because loving someone who is just using us or who is totally lost in their own brokenness isn't healthy. At that point, that person needs to experience God's love to be able to love himself or herself and learn how to love others. We can't fix a person by loving them. God has to do that work of healing and restoration in them.

Fall in Maine. I wish I was there. Don't you? Photo credit: my mom

August 2015 (25x25)

And now I'm three months down, nine to go. Although I didn't fully complete any of my 25 before 25 list items in this past month, I've made good progress on several. Here's the report:

For #25 I learned two new things again this month. Please don't laugh at this first one: I have now ordered and picked up take out food from a restaurant. Yes, that's right, somehow I had never done this before. I know this doesn't sound like something that one should have to 'learn' how to do, but come on, I hadn't done it before, I didn't know exactly how it worked, and now I do. Oh, and that Thai food was delicious.

Also, I finally planted my banana plant that my grandfather gave me back in April. It now has a happy, pot-free home. I asked the wide world of the internet how to care for a banana plant so hopefully I will be able to remember its existence in my back yard and continue to help it live a long and illustrious (and potentially fruitful) life.

I have also made significant progress on my visits to Disney (#11). So far in August I have made not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 trips there with a variety of friends. It still amazes me that I live in that close to the place Where Dreams Come True that I can just visit for an evening after work.

And, finally, in the past month I started making progress on #3. After two months of trying to decide how to go about reading the Bible, a friend recommended a plan on the YouVersion Bible app. The plan takes the reader through the Bible in a year - Genesis through Revelation plus one Psalm each day. That Psalm each day is a life-saver, especially when reading through books like Leviticus, which is what I'm in the middle of currently. (Link to the plan.)

September, here I come!

July 2015 (25x25)

Two months down! And I am quite excited to report that I have now officially crossed two things off of my list.

#10 Waterski twice this summer
#21 Visit Atlanta

And here's proof:

There's nothing like gliding over a still lake.

Atlanta involved seeing two friends and visits to the World of Coca-Cola, the Atlanta Botanical Garden, and the Georgia Aquarium.

So much sugar!

Still friends even though we haven't seen each other in 2.5 years.

Whale sharks! And manta rays!

I also started reading The Silmarillion. Life doesn't get much better than reading about elves in a hammock in the woods of Maine.

Oh, right, and there was that thing about my sister getting married on July 4.