Book Review: When God Winks At You

I just finished reading this book, When God Winks At You, written by Squire Rushnell. It was my vacation book of choice, and one that offered me relaxation and rejuvenation like a good vacation should. This book is full of various stories of God winks; things that could be perceived as coincidences, but better perceived as divine winks of hope, encouragement, and reassurance. Each story was empowered by faith and for faith. I found myself often times reflecting on various situations in life and having no doubt that I'd experienced many God winks of my own, and that's what's so great about this book: it proves to us that we all have a story to tell and that our faith can bring us through anything. It encourages us all to review happenings in our lives and to pay closer attention in the future. This book is a quick and easy read that leaves a heart warm. It's one I'd highly recommend. 5/5

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Violated

I hate when life unexpectedly slaps you in the face with pain that I'd imagine a bag of quarters to be. On the flip side, there's always a more positive perspective to counteract that feeling. Last night, someone broke into Madison's truck in ATL while he was inside enjoying a lifetime experience of a concert, and they stole our new GPS/stereo system. The only word that describes this feeling is "violated". We feel violated. Someone thought it was ok to invite themselves into our personal space and take something that was ours completely careless of how it would affect our lives. Ultimately all that matters is that he's safe. It really could be so much worse, they could have taken more than they did, invoked vandalism to partner their thievery, or even worse, Madison could've walked up at the wrong moment. As wide of a range of emotions this makes me feel, angry, violated, hurt, fearful and frustrated, the point here is to focus on the only thing that matters which is the fact that my husband is safe and alive. Material things are nothing at all. Upon expiration they can be replaced, unlike a human life.

You might wonder why I'm writing this blog. Writers will do write to relieve thoughts, feelings, or stress. They may write for self-expression, or with a motive in mind to make a difference. They may even write because not writing isn't an option. And this blog is a little bit of all of that. Despite whether or not anyone ever reads this, I've put my feelings into words freeing them from my mind. Ive satisfied my need to analyze this situation in its entirety through verbalization.
In the occurrence that someone does read this, I hope what you take from it is the concept of life that I believe in most: the direct correlation between perspective and attitude which drives our lives into the direction of our choosing. That's the beauty of it. I can and will choose to see the bright side of this, the big picture, which will continue me on a path of positivity.

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Universals

This weekend has been quite rigorous for me as far as Quantitative Methods go. I labored for 7 straight hours on Friday over only 6 statistics homework problems. I even had to bring out my trusty friend, my rice sock, to sooth my neck pain from the strain of constantly looking down to read and from calculating 13 hand written pages worth of mathematics. Believe it or not, I found some moral perspective amidst the madness.

Fact: Math is a universal language, understood by everyone, everywhere regardless of origin. If you think about it, pain is too. At some point in all of our lives we face some form of it. Now here's where it matters: if pain is universal, so should be understanding. Even when all we may see on the surface is a problem we can't understand, or a person who's actions we can't understand, there are underlying variables, or pains, that may be unknown or undefined. Once these variables are acknowledged, once we know what someone is dealing with in their life, it's so much easier to look past what appears to be "a problem", or their flaws, and to simply discover an understanding that leads to resolve. That being said, it's important to face every challenging action that one may bring towards us with a deep breath and an understanding that it is simply what it is. 2 + 2 = 4. IT JUST IS. The coefficients of our lives combined with the variables we may face result in the beings that we are. And that's something that's simply a universal truth.

Faith

I'm lying in my bunk tonight with a heavy heart for a family that has faced their worst fears as parents. On December 7, 2010 they discovered that their son, only 21 years old, was murdered after he'd been missing since they last saw him over Thanksgiving dinner. They are soon to be reminded of this on the upcoming one year anniversary of their loss, as if they'd ever forgotten anyway. I'm sure whatever feelings they've managed to get through at this point will soon resurface in a way that is more painful than they can imagine. My spirit has been burdened for them for about a week now and I can't seem to pray for them enough. Tonight though, something occurred to me. When we truly have faith in God, when we truly believe that our prayers will be answered, when we lead faithful lives, God proves his faithfulness to us in return. It's one of those "you get out of it what you put into it" kind of things which is incredible if you think about it. How much hope that offers! If we simply choose to live a life of faith, everything will really be ok. Please remember this family in your prayers too.. Pray that comfort, strength, and peace find their place-today and tomorrow and in a few months when the holidays that once held a promising feeling of joy will no longer feel joyful for them but will stand as a reminder of what they've lost. It breaks my heart to think of a time once regarded as so good is now tainted by such a tragedy for this family. If God cares about the desires of our hearts and we all desire peace for this family, they are surely to find it. That's what my faith tells me anyway.
A friend posted this scripture on twitter tonight and I find it very relevant in this situation.
"God is close to the broken hearted". -Psalm 34:18
Your prayers are much appreciated.


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Stop This Train

You know... out of the list of qualities I like to think I possess as a person, being honest is one of the most important ones to me. And in the name of being a good blogger, I want to write what I know and bare my soul fearlessly. If I'm being completely honest with you, lately I've been dealing with this whole growing up thing that I didn't know I had not dealt with: I've been mourning the loss of my childhood. Don't get me wrong, I'm not AT ALL unhappy with my current life. In fact, it's better than it's EVER been. But I suppose there's just some things we all deal with in this progression that is life, and growing up is simply one of those things. I'm finding myself clinging to the things that bring back that childhood feeling for me: watching The Lion King, playing Nintendo, a familiar song that I loved as a kid, anything really that takes me back to a time and place. You know that feeling.... that nostalgic feeling that for a moment allows you to forget that you are an adult with the responsibilities to match your age.

Stop This Train is a song by John Mayer that I've always admired as a songwriter. It's undoubtedly brilliant lyrically and his melodies are always just as brilliant as his writing. Until this past week, I never appreciated it the way I do now though. I've listened to it a hundred times before but this time it reduced me to tears. It says simply how I feel: so scared of getting older, I'm only good at being young. The thing that frightens me so much about getting older is that everyone else is getting older too and there's nothing I can do about it. If you've never heard this song, take a listen. Here's to clinging to those memories and allowing them to encourage me to continue making more. Tomorrow, today will simply be yesterday and I want yesterday to always be worth redesiring.

Scholarship Entry

I entered a scholarship contest and with your help, I could potentially win! There are only 10 remaining days of voting and each computer can vote once per hour. For some reason, the option to vote on cell phones is unavailable because FB hasn't enabled this feature yet but laptops and desktops are a go! If you were to have any downtime and have access to a computer, I'm begging you to simply click the link below, then click vote! Your support means so much to me, as would this scholarship!

..and if I'm not mistaken, one voter will be chosen for a $500 scholarship too!

Thanks in advanced!

http://apps.facebook.com/offerpop/Contest.psp?c=23657&u=8205&a=100142423390621&p=98010892793&v=Entry&id=89208&rest=1

Help Me Help Others!

I've recently tweeted a request for you to join me on my Free Rice team, Making a Difference, and I wanted to take a moment to further elaborate on this request so that you have a thorough understanding of what my team is about, how it helps others, and what it entails on your part. In case you aren't familiar with Free Rice, it's basically a game of questions and answers where every correct answer donates 10 grains of rice to starving children in Africa. There are various subjects in which you can choose to play like English Vocab, English Grammar, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Mathematics, Literary, and Art. I've personally enjoyed using this tool to strengthen and reiterate the little bit of French I've learned in classes. All you have to do to join is create a free account, or simply log in by connecting to your facebook (it entails maybe 2 clicks of your mouse at most). But don't worry, Free Rice doesn't post to your facebook page unless you click "Share". This is an easy fun time passer, especially if you're anywhere with a few seconds to waste. As I've previously said, giving is a gift itself; the opportunity to make a difference in the life of another, and Free Rice only entails giving a few seconds of your time! Anyone and everyone is eligible!

My personal goals for my team is to bring people together so that we can see the impact we can make as a team. We currently have 3 members, including myself, and have already donated 22,000 + grains of rice for those in need. If only 3 of us can donate this amount, imagine what 5, 10, 50, or 100 of us could do! I am enclosing a link to my group page so that it's easy for you to join: http://freerice.com/content-group/making-difference-5.

So as my final plea, please consider joining my group. By helping me, you are also helping others, and in return helping yourself in the gift of giving. The feeling you'll get inside is irreplaceable. Thank you to those who have joined and those who are soon to join! It means a lot!