Rants and Ramblings

Hey there Bloggerverse. Nice to see you.

It's been a while since I made lists. And I miss that. So here you go. Lists. :)

COOL GOD THOUGHTS:
-The way God answers prayer. Oh wow. My congregation had a prayer session last Saturday night about Thinking Souls, asking for opportunities to reach people and the courage to talk to them and all that stuff, right? THE NEXT MORNING there are two teen girls visiting. So we asked them to sit with us up front where we usually sit and told them about the devo after worship that night. And they CAME! And now I'm texting them and they're coming to our Girls' Retreat tonight. Awesome. God doesn't hesitate to give you opportunities if you're asking for them and looking for them!
-The Gospel of Mark is an awesome book. Fact. I love the use of "Immediately" throughout the book. I wrote an article on it, actually, if you want to go check it out.
-"Thousands of humans have been brought to think that humility means pretty women trying to believe they are ugly and clever men trying to believe they are fools." (C.S. Lewis). But that's so not what humility is! Pride is all a matter of keeping yourself in perspective. It's okay to appreciate your talents and rejoice in them, but it's when you start putting yourself in a place you don't belong (i.e. above others or even above God) that it's a problem. If you remember your talents are coming from God, and not you, and that God has given everybody equally awesome talents (even though they're not all the same), you oughta be fine. Yeah. Rant.
-Would you think twice about saving a complete stranger who was drowning if you knew for a fact you could save them? No? Then how come we do that almost every day? How many hundreds of souls do we pass right by in a week without saying a word to them? How many people do we write off as "complete strangers" and so decide not to share the gospel with them? Just a thought.

NEW GOALS:
-Weekly posting on Christ Crossed My Heart. And not the same articles I send to Come Fill Your Cup.
-Deeper study in my articles.
-Chapter a week on my book (more on that later).
-Chapter a week on my still-in-progress novel (but that's last on my list of priorities at this point).

FUN STUFF:
-Girls' day out with my mommy last Saturday. I love hanging out with her. She's the coolest. :) And, this day resulted in my purchase of a new hair flower, some chopsticks to do up my hair with, the complete works of William Shakespeare (for THREE BUCKS!) and a one volume Lord of the Rings trilogy (for two bucks). Oh! And Valentines! Hehehe. I won't tell you what's on them because some of you are getting them (hemhemhem Holly and Aimee). But suffice it to say that I'm pretty stoked about their awesomeness.
-Girls' Retreat tonight into tomorrow! I'm stoked. This is the fourth year in a row I've gone and they're always really great and uplifting. Love it.

NEW MUSIC:
-I gotta LOT of iTunes money for Christmas. And I'm quite happy about it. So I recently acquired Four Thieves Gone, The Gleam, and The Second Gleam all by the Avetts. (And Four Thieves was only $3.94 on Amazon. I am the bargain queen.) Oooooohhhh man. I always think I love the Avetts as much as is possible until I get a new CD and then I fall in love all over again. Quick favorite song run through (by track listing):

Four Thieves Gone:
1. Talk on Indolence, even though I like it better live. I like the odd little drum in the background starting at the "I've grown too aware of my mortality" part. That's not in the live version.
3. Colorshow-- because this is just a great song.
5. Sixteen in July-- because it's beautiful.
7. A Lover Like You-- Because it's cute.
8. Pretend Love-- Alright, this is only on this list because I love WHERE they put it on the album. The song itself probably isn't my favorite but you listen to the sugary sweet "Lover Like You" and then this comes on and you feel like he's talking about everything he said in the last song. Maybe they didn't even do that on purpose, I don't know, but if they did they're BRILLIANT!
10. The Lowering (A Sad Day in Greenville)-- The melody on this is just indescribably beautiful and the lyrics make me want to cry.
12. Famous Flower of Manhattan-- I've actually had this one for a long time. It was one of the first Avett songs I ever heard and the first time I listened to it I cried. I love how the Avetts can do that. They get under your skin and into your heart before you even know what happened.
13. 40 East-- This is my current favorite Avett song, I think. Maybe. I don't know, I have too many. But it's beautiful. Bob Crawford rocks. I LOVE Bob Crawford songs. They should let him sing more often.

The Gleam:
2. When I Drink-- I talked about this one in my Live Volume 3 post but it's just unbelievably good. Enough said. (And again. It's not really about drinking. It's about LIFE.)
3. Yardsale-- This is just a cool song. I can't put my finger on exactly why I like it so much, but it's good.
4. If It's the Beaches-- If you listen to this song and it has absolutely no effect on you... check your pulse. Oh wow. Gorgeous. I love how they put phone messages in songs. They did that with "Pretty Girl from Chile" on Emotionalism too. I do hope they're real phone messages and not fake studio recorded ones. Being that it's the Avetts, I'm pretty sure they're legit.

The Second Gleam:
1. Tear Down the House-- "And I remember cryin' over you, and I don't mean a couple of tears and I'm blue. I'm talking 'bout collapsing and screamin' at the moon..." Poetry. Pure poetry.
2. Murder in the City-- Just listen to it. It's a good song.
3. Bella Donna- This is just a beautiful, beautiful melody line. And a belladonna is also a poisonous flower. Which I doubt is a coincidence.
6. St. Joseph's-- There's a St. Joseph's hospital downtown. I doubt it's the same one they're talking about, but there is! Haha. But for real, this is a gorgeous song. "It's not where I am, it's who I'm with."

In other music news, I discovered Florence + the Machine and Blitzen Trapper. Neither of which are a thing like the Avetts. Well, Blitzen Trapper CAN be. But they're not ALL the time.


MISCELLANEOUS INJUSTICES:
-Lady Gaga. Katy Perry. Justin Bieber. What do all these freakshows have in common? They're ALL GRAMMY NOMINEES. Proving that the Grammies have ceased to mean a thing when it comes to talent, depth, or musical quality. Boo.
-The Dark Knight Rises casting is out. First, Johnny Depp is NOT in fact playing the Riddler, which is an injustice against me. (The Riddler's not even in it. I'm mad at whoever started that rumor and got my hopes up.) Second, ANNE HATHAWAY is playing Catwoman, which is an injustice against all of humanity. NO! Anne Hathaway cannot pull off Catwoman. No taco.
-I have to plod through a book analysis on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn... enough said. Five symbols, three targets of satire, three key scenes, and a reaction. Phew. Shoot me now.

OTHER STUFF:
-I can officially give blood again! I am past my 52 day mark and I can't wait to go again. We're trying to get my mom to go with me this time... she's kinda terrified of blood, but I keep telling her it was soooo easy. When we do go (whether she gives with me or not), I shall blog about it.
-American Idol came back this week, and I was pleasantly surprised to find I like Steven Tyler AND Jennifer Lopez as judges. I mean, I was bound to hate one of them, right? But I don't. Steven Tyler is hilarious, but he takes over the blunt criticism from Simon quite nicely as well. And I was expecting Jennifer Lopez to be a prima donna "I know everything" type of girl, but she appears to be quite down to earth. A pleasant surprise.

AND FINALLY....
My book. :)
Here's my thing with books for Christian girls. The premise is "Pray. Read your Bible. Don't have sex. Don't do drugs. Don't drink. Don't dance. You're good!" So what do the good girls do? How do we go any deeper than that? I've kinda reached the point where I've heard it all a million times. I KNOW to read my Bible. I KNOW to pray. I'm a "good girl". I don't have an issue with sex or drugs or drinking because I was raised to know those things were bad. So where do I go from there? So I'm going to write a book for "good girls" (maybe called Higher Ground) about how to go from good to BETTER. :) My ideas so far for topics:
-Prayer (specifically getting a better more personal prayer life, ACTS, stuff like that.)
-Bible STUDY (not just Bible reading)
-Evangelism
-Encouragement
-Speech
If you're a teenage girl and you have ideas for me, PLEASE PLEASE comment for me! I'd love to hear it! I kinda want to focus more on the do's than the don'ts, because I feel like we know the don'ts inside and out at this point and Christianity isn't just a checklist, but regardless of what you have an idea for let me know! Muchas gracias!

Mmmm... alright. I have to go get ready for my retreat. Thank you for reading my useless rambling. Much love, Bloggers. :)