The Journey

Why did Adam and Eve have to eat that fruit? It's all their fault my life stinks! Have you ever thought something similar? I sure have. Every time I read Genesis I find myself wondering what it would have been like to live in Utopia: The Garden of Eden. No death to steal our loved ones away from us, no disease to wrack our bodies, no arguments to seperate best friends, perfect weather without crazy heat waves or cold snaps, no pollution to dim the beauty of creation.... The list could go on and on. And it does. And it's all Adam and Eve's fault! It's funny, isn't it, how much we blame them for our problems? Somehow it calms our conscience a bit knowing that we can blame even our sin on them. I mean, we wouldn't do the things we do if they hadn't messed things up! But wait- let's consider a moment what that means. What would life be like today if Adam and Eve had kept their hands in their proverbial pockets? What if that fruit were still o...

Happy 2015! May your year grow increasingly better and may the love of God shine in your life. The last several months have been busy and challenging- hence the lack of updates here. But if you’ll take a look at my Twitter feed you’ll find that there is not much more recent written there, either. What’s been going on? Well, I’m so glad you asked! ;) In the quickest, most succinct way possible, I will tell you: flights from Romania to Ohio, summer camp counseling, new job, move, then move to a new state, apartment remodel, problems with the remodel, more problems with the remodel, Christmas, then moving in and trying to organize my whole life into said apartment. Like I said, busy. The remodel was pretty challenging considering that we were turning an old pool room in a 130 year-old barn into an efficiency apartment. I nearly gave up on the whole project several times, and wallowing in despair was tempting. But the Lord’s Will prevailed (and my parents’ visiting three o...

Hypocrisy. Wikipedia defines it as  " the claim or pretense of holding beliefs, feelings, standards, qualities, opinions, behaviors, virtues, motivations, or other characteristics that one does not in actual fact hold. It is the practice of engaging in the same behavior or activity for which one criticizes another. In  Moral psychology , it is the failure to follow one’s own expressed moral rules and principles." Human beings are really good at hypocrisy. And it's not just something that unbelievers have a problem with, but Christians as well. How often have you heard someone say, "The Bible says X is a sin," but you know that they do that very thing when they think no one is looking? Let's face it: Society is stuck in the mire of hypocrisy. It's a disease that is often misdiagnosed as "parental prerogative" or "higher standards". The problem with this is three fold: People no longer trust each other. Their standards chan...

I've always thought that life was like a painting. Each person has their own and they are all unique. Some people's have primarily dark colors, others have mostly bright ones, but each one has a mixture of both. No one's life is either all happy or all sad. No matter what you may be feeling right now, at some point in time you experienced the full range of emotion. Veduta Di Piazza Della Signoria by Carlo Canella Emotions. Good and bad situations. Think of them as the colors in your painting. Each one produces a different shape, shade, or effect to bring about the beauty that is your whole life. And it is beautiful. The only problem is that we as human beings only get to see one stroke at a time. But God sees the whole picture. Action painting by VenusVanity Everyone seems to fall into one of two categories: A Veduta or an action painting. For those of us who are not fine art connoisseurs, a Veduta is a highly detailed painting (usually of a city scape). An action ...

So, dear Reader, today has been tough. Well, to be honest, most of it hasn't, but I had another tough moment. And guess who it involved? My brother. If you guessed right, you get a gold star. Little brothers are like... the puppies of the human world. When they want to be, they're cute, funny, and sweet. But most of the time it seems like they just make too much noise, play a little too rough, and need a bath. I'm not saying that I don't like  my brother. That's not it at all. He's just... a little brother . If you have one, you know what I mean. As I usually do, this morning during my prayers I asked for peace, love, and patience. I'd been doing pretty well with him, so I didn't really think much about the prayer or put too much fervency in it. A half hour later he came tromping down the stairs in his sweats (the ones my sister and I threaten to burn every so often) and opened the fridge. I made an off-hand comment about how we had left-overs. ...

I am a missionary kid. MK's are not like other children. We see things that kids our age and older may never see- abject poverty, people who are hurting in almost every way imaginable, and religious/nationalistic prejudice against other Christians/Americans, our families, and ourselves. We have counseled people younger and older than we are and know when our family's funds are a little short in any particular month. From very young ages, we are forced to grow up. When we go back to our mother countries, people flock around us. (It can be overwhelming to go from servant to rock star overnight.) They ask all kinds of questions that we gladly respond to with half answers because deep down we know what it is they want to hear. They want the funny stories and the adventure. But the one thing they don't want to address is the emotional toll that seeing the world like that has taken. They don't know how to help or deal with it. But it's okay: we don't either. ...

Do you ever get that sick feeling in your stomach that just won't go away? Are you strung tight from being tossed about by things beyond your control? Yeah, that's what I've been dealing with these last few days. It's a feeling of weightlessness, but not the good kind. It's that feeling that I imagine astronauts get when they get knocked into a tailspin in space that they can't pull out of. No matter how desperately they try, all they do is spin. And if they aren't hooked in and can't grab onto anything... they just keep going forever. That has to be the greatest fear- aside from asphyxiation- that every space man has. Sometimes life is a little like space. One moment you feel yourself firmly planted on the ground, life is good, and everyone you love is fine. And then something happens and gravity is ripped out from under you. All it takes is one thing... one tiny, infinitesimal thing and we lose all orientation. Up becomes down.... Left bec...

Do you want to know who one of my favorite women of the Bible is? No, it's not Mary. Or Esther. Give up? It's Deborah. Bet you didn't guess her! You may be wondering what this has to do with the title of this post. I admit, Deborah isn't a very talked about woman and there's not much known about her, but there's not much that we know about encouraging the boys in our lives to become men either. If you were to ask just me and me alone how to do this, I would have to tell you that I honestly don't know. But Deborah does. Let's take a look at what we do know about our dear Deborah: She lived in a time when everyone around her was doing anything but what God had commanded them. (Judges 4:1) She was being plagued by an enemy nation that seemed like all it wanted to do was pick on her people. (Judges 4:2,3) She was in an unusual position of authority (that most women in that time period did not have) as a prophetess and judge. Everyone and anyone w...

Whew! It's been a long time since I've written anything on here other than that little advertisement for the Living On The Edge sermon. And I think by now I owe you guys an update. So here it goes! The first camp we took part in this summer was the camp for people with disabilities. It was so  much fun seeing some old friends and getting to know new ones. All of the people who came as participants- or campers- were Romanian, but out of the leaders and volunteers we had a little bit of diversity. There were three girls from Ukraine who all spoke Romanian, several people from Britain (most of whom were Scottish and only spoke a little Romanian), and the Luse family minus Rebecca (from America, in case you didn't know, and all speaking Romanian fairly well). Since there were so many people who didn't speak Romanian, Kenneth and I did more translating than I think we have ever done in our lives. Alyssa, mom, and dad would be able to say the same thing except they were ...

Emotions. Fear. Joy. Hatred. Euphoria. Anger. Love. Loneliness. These are all only a few examples of the many complex entities that we package into one tiny word- emotions. Sometimes they seem to live and breathe of their own volition. One will grab us, shake us, try and control us. And then in the next minute it will disappear as quickly as it came and another will pop up in its place. In today's society, the subject of emotions is something many Christians have a strong opinion about. They read a passage from Scripture that says, "Fear not," so they believe that all fear is wrong. Others read that "God is love" and latch onto that, believing that we are to love, love, love people to the point of accepting everything about them- including their sins that they refuse to change. I'm just going to say it right now: Christians need to stop seeing emotions at black and white (i.e.- all good or all bad). They need to take a good long look at not only w...

Pride. It's the bane of our existence. No, I'm not talking about patriotic or paternal pride. I'm talking about the silent and deadly type. The kind that causes so much trouble. "Trouble?" you may ask, "What trouble?" Let's think for a moment. What was the first sin? No, not the first sin that man committed, but the other one. The Bible says: "How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.' -Isaiah 14:12-14 I would argue that the first sin was committed by Satan. He thought he could be god better than God. What do we call that? Pride. Now, I would also argue that there are two main types of pride. ...

In my previous post Prince Charming: Real or Pretender , we discussed what a princess looks for in a prince. We made the point that sometimes it's hard to tell the real thing from a royal pretender. Well, today we are going to turn the tables. We're going to take a good look at ourselves and determine if we are a Sleeping Beauty or Snow White. You all remember the stories, right? In Sleeping Beauty  the princess is fated to prick her finger on a spindle and die on her eighteenth birthday. But one of her fairy godmothers changes the curse so that she actually falls asleep for a hundred years before her prince comes to wake her up. The second story, Snow White , is about a beautiful girl who incurs the wrath of her stepmother and has to flee for her life. She runs as far as she can until she discovers a little hut where seven dwarfs live and she offers to clean and cook for them. After spending many days there, she is tricked and killed by her stepmother. However, a prince...

Have you ever thought to yourself, "What on earth in my life is there to be thankful for?" Maybe it's always too hot or too cold for you. Maybe your children or siblings are fighting. Maybe you're stuck in a job you hate. On those days- how can you be thankful? Confession time- I just finished the worst month of feeling unhappy with my siblings that I think I have ever had in my entire life. And that includes when we were little. It seemed like everything they did got on my nerves. I would feel myself getting annoyed, and in an effort to not lose it I would say something quick and sharp. As I would say it, I would chide myself, "Way to go, Nikitah. You just got an F in Siblings Harmony class." I knew what I was saying, but I couldn't bring myself to stop that little comment from slipping out. I felt unhappy and ticked off all the time. There was nothing  to be thankful for. You know how you are going through something and it seems like suddenly ev...

John 21:12  Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord.    13  Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and so with the fish.   14  This was now the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.    15  When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.”    16  He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.”    17  He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I lo...

Perfect-Match Don't bring me a Prince Charming In silk and shiny tights. Don't bring me someone rich. Just bring me Mr. Right! He doesn't have to be perfect. His eyes don't have to be blue. He doesn't have to sing real fine, But let him, Lord, be true! He doesn't have to be talented, Or wear running shoes. He doesn't even have to be handsome, But, Lord, let him love you! I don't ask for the Mighty Hulk Or even Superman. All I ask for is what I know you'll give me- My Perfect-Match-Man! (The above is an old poem I wrote several years ago. But the truth in it still resonates today!) Let's face it- if you are a girl who grew up in my generation, at one point in time or another you dreamed of being a princess. And if you dreamed of being a princess, you dreamed of a castle. If you dreamed of a castle, then you obviously dreamed of a prince to share that castle with. Hey, maybe it was even his castle to begi...