love

"This is what it means to be loved by the King"

In order to understand what it means to be loved by the King, I must release myself to Him.

"The almost impossible is thing, is to hand over your whole self - all of your wishes and precautions - to Christ. Until you have given up your self to Him you will not have a real self." ~ C.S. Lewis

By releasing myself to Him I also fulfil the purpose for which I was made.

"I was made to love and be loved by You." ~tobyMac

a lovely person

potentially lovely
perpetually human
suspended and open

These three lines make up the chorus of Regina Spektor's song Down the Road and Up the Hill. It just hit me that the people I think are the most lovely are also the people that are the most open. I was thinking about a girl in my church who just began courting a guy in my church. When she came to my mind, I had this amazing sense of beauty. While she is very physically attractive, her outward beauty really didn't come to mind. It was her openness. She is ready and willing to help and encourage everyone and she is frequently shares her own faults and shortcomings. She admits that she is human. These things make her most definitely lovely.

19th century novels

I have read and do enjoy novels from a majority of time periods (see my book list), but I tend to prefer novels written in the 1800s. After deciding that most good novels were written in the 19th century,  I was determined to figure out why I felt that way. Three major factors came to mind. 19th century authors, in general, do an excellent job with character development. With aid (Katie), I can generally determine the Myers-Briggs type of each main character. This means that these characters pass puppet status and possess the depth of real people. On the contrary, older and newer novels both contain a general lack character development. Plotline provides the second point. Many modern novels only have a single plotline, but 19th century novels have two to four plotlines on a regular basis. This again increases the depth of the novel. Third, 19th century literature often includes the author's thoughts and commentary alongside the action of the story. While only so many general story templates exist, the addition of the author's thoughts and commentary provide the moral of the event and allow readers to acknowledge the application in their own lives. This point adds the final feet to the depth of 19th century novels. For example a sentence from Middlemarch says the following: "He thought it probable that Miss Brook liked him, and manners must be very marked indeed before they cease to be interpreted by preconceptions". A modern novel would have simply contained "He thought it probable that Miss Brook liked him" and ended there. In this way the plot is continued and a character's thoughts have been expressed, but the sentence looses its distinction. The moment I finished reading the sentence in Middlemarch, I first thought that the second half was excellent quote and then realized how applicable it was in my own life. If I had simply read the first half of the quote, I would not have inferred the rest on my own. I would have moved on with the story. The greatly increased depth of 19th century novels creates much deeper pools of thought than most novels from any other time period.

my life

LORD, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
   behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
   and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
   it is high; I cannot attain it.
...
For you formed my inward parts;
   you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
   my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was being made in secret,
   intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
   the days that were formed for me,
   when as yet there was none of them.
           ~Psalm 139:1-6, 13-16

I  have spent many hours trying to figure out how my life will be. I have spent many hours day dreaming about possible situations I may find myself in. I have spent many hours stressing over the possibility of making wrong choices. I have reminded myself of my life goal, to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, but I am not sure of how best to do this. I have spent all this time trying to figure things out by myself and therefore putting all the pressure on myself. INTJs tend to do anything they want done themselves because they have very, very high standards. Consequently, if the INTJ does not feel that the person handling the situation is doing it accurately, the INTJ usually takes over (notice the "I" at the beginning of each of the previous sentences). If I apply this truth to my life, I see that I am taking over my life because I want it done "correctly", but this also means that I don't trust the person in charge of my life. I don't trust God. God cannot be inadequate and therefore my understanding must be inadequate. I already acknowledged this previously when I realized that I don't know how serve God best. But I didn't think it all the way through until talking with a friend. Sometimes, even though you know the truth, you need to hear it from someone else. I finally realized how little I had been trusting God after reading Psalm 139 last night. I also realized that I don't need to figure out my life. "...in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them." My life is already written out; it has already been decided. It hasn't been thought about or talked about, it has been permanently written down. I don't need to figure out my life, I only need to trust God and submit myself entirely to Him.

good books :)

I have been cleaning out all of my school binders and in the process I found many pieces of literature that I had forgotten. I really enjoyed and learned from many of them and so I decided to start a list: 

 Books/Plays/Short Stories I Love:
   Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen, 1813)
   Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte, 1847)
   Elsie Dinsmore (Martha Finley, 1867)
   The Picture of Dorian Grey (Oscar Wilde, 1890)
   Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad, 1902)
   Pygmalion (George Bernard Shaw, 1916)
   The Glass Menagerie (Tennessee Williams, 1945)
   Cry, the Beloved Country (Alan Paton, 1948)
   To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee, 1960)
   A Raisin in the Sun (Lorraine Hansberry, 1961)
   The Chosen (Chaim Potok, 1967)
   A Father’s Promise (Donna L. Hess, 1987)
   Letters from Rifka (Karen Hesse, 1992)
   Ella Enchanted (Gail Carson Levine, 1997)

Books/Plays/Short Stories I Like:
   Hamlet (William Shakespeare, 1603?)
   As You Like It (William Shakespeare, 1623?)
   The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew (Margaret Sidney, 1881)
   The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (Mark Twain, 1867)
   The Dead (James Joyce, 1914)
   Our Town (Thornton Wilder, 1938)
   Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway, 1952)
   Mara, Daughter of the Nile (Eloise Jarvis McGraw, 1953)
   Island of the Blue Dolphins (Scott O’Dell, 1960)
   From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankwiler (E. L.
          Konigsburg, 1967)
   Shadow Spinner (Susan Fletcher, 1998)
   Chasing Vermeer (Blue Balliett, 2003)
   The City of Ember (Jeanne DuPrau, 2003)
   The Tale of Despereaux (Kate DiCamillo, 2003)
   Airman (Eoin Colfer, 2007)
   Artemis Fowl Series (Eoin Colfer, 2003-2008)
   Inheritance Series (Christopher Paolini, 2003-2008)
   Tales of the Frog Princess Series (E. D. Baker, 2002-2009)

His great bidding

But prayer against His absolute decree/ No more avails than breath against the wind/ Blown stifling back on him that breaths it fourth./ Therefore to His great bidding I submit. 

~Adam from Paradise Lost by John Milton

So often I want to have a set plan that should be accomplished at any cost. I put time a lot of time into preparing and doing tasks well. Because I put so much time into each thing I do, I expect each one to go according to my plan. I forget that any amount of my time and any amount of my effort is worthless without the Holy Spirit. I can try to move a mountain all day or all year, but if God wants that mountain there, it is not going to move. My time and effort would be much better spent if I were to use them for His glory and I were to seek out His plan for me. Therefore to His great bidding I submit...

the value of life

"What broke in a man that he could bring himself to kill another? What broke when he could bring himself to thrust down the knife into the warm flesh, to bring down the axe on the living head, to cleave down between the seeing eyes, to shoot the gun that would drive death into the beating heart?"
~Alan Paton, Cry the Beloved Country

The value of human life has greatly diminished. Several months ago my sister convinced me to watch G.I.Joe with her. I was astounded. Several characters took the liberty to kill entire rooms filled with innocent bystanders in just about every scene. Well at least until halfway through the movie, at which point I turned it off. Putting myself in the shoes of an actor, I don't understand why someone would want to be paid large sums of money to entertain masses of people by pretending to extinguish life. I am well aware that I tend to over-analyze everything, but this really upset me. Sin has corrupted mankind so much that we don't even place a value on human life. We are immune to and even entertained by the destruction of human life. And if we don't value life that is scientifically proven to be human, is it any wonder that we don't value debated human life in the womb?