As you can probably tell, I'm procrastinating. Like, seriously. Even when I cut out Facebook, I figure out ways to procrastinate. I check my email, check the college site to see if any more of my assignments have been graded (weird, right? But hey, that's college stuff... right?), take personality quizzes (Which Halo Character are You?....Apparently I'm the Arbiter. Wort-wort-wort-wort), write blog posts, etc.
Actually, sometimes when I can't think of anything else to write, I take a break and then come back to it a bit later. Which helps. So, don't completely push it off, but if your brain needs a break, do something constructive, and quick. Maybe take a nap.
Anyways. Who else listens to music while you study/do your homework? Hands up. Anybody? No? Really, guys? I listen to a lot of different stuff. Christian rap, Christian hard rock, Christian soft rock, Christian dubstep, Christian hip-hop, Christian electricona, Christian pop... uhh... can you tell I'm possibly a Christian?
Actually, what makes you a Christian isn't the music you listen to. Anybody can listen to Christian music and see it as just 'inspirational lyrics'. What makes you a Christian is the way you act, the way you walk out your faith in Jesus, the way you talk, how you live your life according to God's word.
Anyone who is offended by the fact that I like rock or hip hop, well... if your personal conviction is not to listen to rock or hip hop, be it Christian or secular, then good for you, stick with it, but please don't take your personal convictions and shove it down everybody's throats. God or my church's ministerial staff will talk to me if listening to that music is a sin. :)
This post is so scattered. Like my brain. I have stuff I need to do, but I either don't wanna do it, have no motivation to do it, have forgotten about it, or can't think of what else to say in that assignment but I need to write something. Ayo.
Well, guys... It's Wednesday. You only have a few more days 'til the weekend. Hang in there, sleeping in is coming soon!!!! Also, we're over halfway through April. Which means, SUMMER BREAK IS COMING SOON!!!!....for you. For me, I just do college through the whole summer, haha.
I know you got tests and finals and stuff to study up on before you graduate, either to the next grade or from high school, or from college (that will be me one day... college graduate... gaaahhh I wish it would come sooner) and I know they're hard (trust me. I may be homeschooled, but Statistics has been and is currently kicking my butt, I'm ready to chuck my computer out the window and burn my Statistics scratch paper) but you (and I) will get through it!!! Keep your chin up. You're gonna be okay, I promise. :)
Love you guys!!! God bless!!!!
--Sonya :)
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
Monday, April 6, 2015
Dawn's Coming, Just Hold On a Little Longer
It's my last day of Spring Break. Youth Convention was absolutely amazing, mind-blowing, convicting, life-changing, challenging, all that jazz.
I laughed. I cried. I lost my voice. I challenged myself to do hard stuff. God help me.
Sometimes you do things that God told you to do that you don't completely understand. Sometimes it's fun and easy and exciting, like maybe you make your commitment a little bit stronger by reading your Bible more or praying more often.
And other times, it hurts. You do it, and the pain doesn't hit you until maybe later. You don't realize how much it hurts until you're all alone. And suddenly you're asking yourself, "Uh, wow, what did I do?" You say, or scream, "God, I did not sign up for this. I know I'm doing what You told me to do, but I thought it wasn't going to hurt this bad. I didn't sign up for this kind of pain. I didn't sign up to feel like a punching bag. I thought I prepped for this. I thought You said You'd help me through this, where are You?" and you're crying yourself to sleep yet again wondering why you allowed yourself to start something in the first place when you knew that if God ever called upon you to give it up it'd hurt even worse.
I think it's kind of appropriate, since today (or, I guess now, yesterday) was Easter, for a little reminder. God's been there. He knows where you're at, what you're feeling. Don't forget, He did kinda come to Earth, humble Himself by robing Himself in human flesh and dwell among His creation as a servant. He was humiliated to the uttermost that a human can be humiliated, falsely accused, beaten within an inch of His life, forced to carry His own torture device up a hill while His own people insulted and screamed at Him, then nailed through His hands and His feet to a cross that had splinters and jagged edges of wood piercing the already bloody, bruised, torn up flesh of His back. He hung there for a few hours, slowly suffocating and succumbing to the agonizingly horrendous amount of pain that the people He'd come to reconcile to Himself had inflicted on Him.
And He endured all of this without raising a single protest.
Why? Because He was thinking of the future. He was seeing a kid about 13 or 14 years old, depressed to the point of attempting suicide who decided to see if maybe there was a God instead of ending his life. He was looking ahead to someone who looks like they got everything together when in reality they fall apart as soon as they're alone to when they'd finally find an altar of prayer and repentance and break before Him. He was looking ahead to you, to when you'd decide to turn to Him. He shed His precious blood to bridge the gap between you in your broken state to Heaven. He wanted to give you a connection to Him, and He wants you to know you're not alone. He didn't leave you. He knows exactly what pain you're going through. He made sure He would so that He could identify with you, so that you'd know just how much you're loved.
He didn't have to do that. He didn't have to feel the same pain we do as humans living in a jacked up world. And He didn't make it jacked up, you and I did with the choices we made. He just made a way so that we could have a different way to live. Life's not easy no matter what way you live, whether it's in the world or following God. But even when it's hard, if you have God you at least have the knowledge that you can get through it.
Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I'm overemotional. Maybe it really does hurt and there really is nobody I can really turn to except for God to help me through the painful transitions that I'm going through. The fire still burns, the surgeon's knife still hurts, but at least I know the God of the fire and the Healer behind the knife. He knows what we can handle.
Tears endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning, right? The nights we go through may be long and hard, but dawn's coming. Just hold on, man, dawn's coming. No matter how dark it gets, just hold on, dawn will come. Dawn will come.
Love you guys. God bless.
--Sonya
I laughed. I cried. I lost my voice. I challenged myself to do hard stuff. God help me.
Sometimes you do things that God told you to do that you don't completely understand. Sometimes it's fun and easy and exciting, like maybe you make your commitment a little bit stronger by reading your Bible more or praying more often.
And other times, it hurts. You do it, and the pain doesn't hit you until maybe later. You don't realize how much it hurts until you're all alone. And suddenly you're asking yourself, "Uh, wow, what did I do?" You say, or scream, "God, I did not sign up for this. I know I'm doing what You told me to do, but I thought it wasn't going to hurt this bad. I didn't sign up for this kind of pain. I didn't sign up to feel like a punching bag. I thought I prepped for this. I thought You said You'd help me through this, where are You?" and you're crying yourself to sleep yet again wondering why you allowed yourself to start something in the first place when you knew that if God ever called upon you to give it up it'd hurt even worse.
I think it's kind of appropriate, since today (or, I guess now, yesterday) was Easter, for a little reminder. God's been there. He knows where you're at, what you're feeling. Don't forget, He did kinda come to Earth, humble Himself by robing Himself in human flesh and dwell among His creation as a servant. He was humiliated to the uttermost that a human can be humiliated, falsely accused, beaten within an inch of His life, forced to carry His own torture device up a hill while His own people insulted and screamed at Him, then nailed through His hands and His feet to a cross that had splinters and jagged edges of wood piercing the already bloody, bruised, torn up flesh of His back. He hung there for a few hours, slowly suffocating and succumbing to the agonizingly horrendous amount of pain that the people He'd come to reconcile to Himself had inflicted on Him.
And He endured all of this without raising a single protest.
Why? Because He was thinking of the future. He was seeing a kid about 13 or 14 years old, depressed to the point of attempting suicide who decided to see if maybe there was a God instead of ending his life. He was looking ahead to someone who looks like they got everything together when in reality they fall apart as soon as they're alone to when they'd finally find an altar of prayer and repentance and break before Him. He was looking ahead to you, to when you'd decide to turn to Him. He shed His precious blood to bridge the gap between you in your broken state to Heaven. He wanted to give you a connection to Him, and He wants you to know you're not alone. He didn't leave you. He knows exactly what pain you're going through. He made sure He would so that He could identify with you, so that you'd know just how much you're loved.
He didn't have to do that. He didn't have to feel the same pain we do as humans living in a jacked up world. And He didn't make it jacked up, you and I did with the choices we made. He just made a way so that we could have a different way to live. Life's not easy no matter what way you live, whether it's in the world or following God. But even when it's hard, if you have God you at least have the knowledge that you can get through it.
Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I'm overemotional. Maybe it really does hurt and there really is nobody I can really turn to except for God to help me through the painful transitions that I'm going through. The fire still burns, the surgeon's knife still hurts, but at least I know the God of the fire and the Healer behind the knife. He knows what we can handle.
Tears endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning, right? The nights we go through may be long and hard, but dawn's coming. Just hold on, man, dawn's coming. No matter how dark it gets, just hold on, dawn will come. Dawn will come.
Love you guys. God bless.
--Sonya
Thursday, April 2, 2015
It's April, April Fools, and IYC'15
Sooo it's the 1st of April.
And the first day of Illinois Youth Convention 2015.
We missed the first service, buuttt oh well haha. No joke, we literally walked in when service was ending, we were all super duper bummed.
And I have a cold. Sadly, no joke there either. Stuffed/runny nose. Sneezing. No fun, but when you forget about it 'cause you have an awesome youth group who makes you laugh so hard you think your stomach's gonna turn into a rock and your head's gonna explode from laughing so much, it's all good.
Anyways. April's a new month. I passed my Astronomy course, so on to new stuff!!
And by 'new stuff' I mean, Western Civ. 1 that I didn't get done last month, and a Leadership and Communications Management course this month. Oh, and finishing up Intro to Statistics.
*In Stitch's voice* College means busy. Busy means nobody gets any free time. Or breaks. Unless your mother gives you an executive order that "YOU WILL TAKE SPRING BREAK OFF WITH THE REST OF US BECAUSE YOU NEED IT OR ELSE!!!!"
Okay, I take some breaks. Like, a few hours a day. Ya know, sleeping, watching Naruto, chillin' on Facebook, procrastinating a bit here and there, you get the gist. But no 'real' breaks. Usually, when I eat (if I remember to go get food from the fridge, that is) I do it while I do school work. More convenient that way.
But this week... It's been nice. No school. I mean, prepping for next course by cruising the course site and checking the breakdown of what's gonna happen during the course and what assignments and stuff are due isn't really work for me. It's like doing research for a book. Fun, daunting, exciting, etc.
Trying to juggle college work and Bible Quizzing (We have our big Bible Quizzing Extravaganza coming up where we quiz for basically 3 days straight, it's gonna be awesome but looong and hard haha, pray for me O.O) is a bit hard, but I finally figured out how to do it. Yeah, it means giving myself more time to finish my degree and pushing away some stuff, but it's worth it.
Bible Quizzing is something I've wanted to do for years. When I was two or three, I was running around in the basement with my friends, playing before Wednesday night service. That was the first time I saw a quiz practice. My much older teenage friends were up there, hitting this big button to answer questions, and I decided that day that I really wanted to hit that big button. But I was told I couldn't because I didn't know the verses. So I decided I would learn the verses.
Well, I didn't get to hit that big button that year, or even the next, or even the next. It was about 12 years later, and moving from Tennessee (where I first heard about Bible Quizzing) to Minnesota (where I heard about it again but wasn't able to participate) and finally to Illinois where a lady and her family from Texas ended up moving to Chicago to help out the same Home Missions church that we were trying to help out, that I was finally able to hit that button.
Mind you, it'd shrunk quite a bit to our modern handheld 'buzzers', but I was finally able to learn those verses and hit that button.
And yes, it's just as awesome as I thought it'd be, in my young, 2 or 3 year old mind.
I said all that to say this: Do what's important to you. Whether it's school, art, Bible Quizzing, music, whatever, take the time to do it. What you invest your time in will eventually give back to you. Find a way to balance what you have to do and what you're passionate about. And hey, maybe those two will one day end up becoming the same thing. That's what people keep telling us, right? 'Follow your dreams', 'follow your passion'.
If you don't know what your passion is, meh, it's never too late to find it. Pray, let God lead you. And if you know what it is, let God keep leading you to wherever that passion will take you.
For those of you on Spring Break, have a good one!!! And for those of you who aren't, keep holding on, weekend's coming soon!!!! :D
God bless!!
--Sonya :)
And the first day of Illinois Youth Convention 2015.
We missed the first service, buuttt oh well haha. No joke, we literally walked in when service was ending, we were all super duper bummed.
And I have a cold. Sadly, no joke there either. Stuffed/runny nose. Sneezing. No fun, but when you forget about it 'cause you have an awesome youth group who makes you laugh so hard you think your stomach's gonna turn into a rock and your head's gonna explode from laughing so much, it's all good.
Anyways. April's a new month. I passed my Astronomy course, so on to new stuff!!
And by 'new stuff' I mean, Western Civ. 1 that I didn't get done last month, and a Leadership and Communications Management course this month. Oh, and finishing up Intro to Statistics.
*In Stitch's voice* College means busy. Busy means nobody gets any free time. Or breaks. Unless your mother gives you an executive order that "YOU WILL TAKE SPRING BREAK OFF WITH THE REST OF US BECAUSE YOU NEED IT OR ELSE!!!!"
Okay, I take some breaks. Like, a few hours a day. Ya know, sleeping, watching Naruto, chillin' on Facebook, procrastinating a bit here and there, you get the gist. But no 'real' breaks. Usually, when I eat (if I remember to go get food from the fridge, that is) I do it while I do school work. More convenient that way.
But this week... It's been nice. No school. I mean, prepping for next course by cruising the course site and checking the breakdown of what's gonna happen during the course and what assignments and stuff are due isn't really work for me. It's like doing research for a book. Fun, daunting, exciting, etc.
Trying to juggle college work and Bible Quizzing (We have our big Bible Quizzing Extravaganza coming up where we quiz for basically 3 days straight, it's gonna be awesome but looong and hard haha, pray for me O.O) is a bit hard, but I finally figured out how to do it. Yeah, it means giving myself more time to finish my degree and pushing away some stuff, but it's worth it.
Bible Quizzing is something I've wanted to do for years. When I was two or three, I was running around in the basement with my friends, playing before Wednesday night service. That was the first time I saw a quiz practice. My much older teenage friends were up there, hitting this big button to answer questions, and I decided that day that I really wanted to hit that big button. But I was told I couldn't because I didn't know the verses. So I decided I would learn the verses.
Well, I didn't get to hit that big button that year, or even the next, or even the next. It was about 12 years later, and moving from Tennessee (where I first heard about Bible Quizzing) to Minnesota (where I heard about it again but wasn't able to participate) and finally to Illinois where a lady and her family from Texas ended up moving to Chicago to help out the same Home Missions church that we were trying to help out, that I was finally able to hit that button.
Mind you, it'd shrunk quite a bit to our modern handheld 'buzzers', but I was finally able to learn those verses and hit that button.
And yes, it's just as awesome as I thought it'd be, in my young, 2 or 3 year old mind.
I said all that to say this: Do what's important to you. Whether it's school, art, Bible Quizzing, music, whatever, take the time to do it. What you invest your time in will eventually give back to you. Find a way to balance what you have to do and what you're passionate about. And hey, maybe those two will one day end up becoming the same thing. That's what people keep telling us, right? 'Follow your dreams', 'follow your passion'.
If you don't know what your passion is, meh, it's never too late to find it. Pray, let God lead you. And if you know what it is, let God keep leading you to wherever that passion will take you.
For those of you on Spring Break, have a good one!!! And for those of you who aren't, keep holding on, weekend's coming soon!!!! :D
God bless!!
--Sonya :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)