Jesus&Vaccines

Last night I saw a friend who had recently been away on a mission to a third world country. She said she was under the weather, I asked if she got vaccines, and she replied she hadn't. Instinctively I stepped away. I then joked how she may have yellow fever, meningitis, malaria, etc.and I suddenly realized I was vaccinated for many major diseases from third-world countries, after going to a third-world country recently.

I was no longer afraid to share my friend's air. I was not worried about getting some funk in my system. I would not catch any disease anyone would have that I had been vaccinated against. I may get a small taste of it, but after vaccination I would only get a small taste compared to what the disease could normally do.

And BAM! An epiphany hit me.

Jesus is my vaccination against sin.

No, He is NOT sin, but He is the anti-sin.

Even though I still sin, if I keep Jesus fresh in my veins, I am sin-free. I will have sin until the day I die, but if my Jesus is kept up to date, fresh, and healthy, my version of sin would be much smaller if I had never been "vaccinated."

"He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world." 1 John 2:2

With merely accepting Him into my heart, I am instantly covered for eternity. God will no longer see sin in me, He will see His son.

Forgive and Move On

"Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you." Ephesians 4:32

The way I've seen forgiveness, it is a potpourri of bitterness, betrayal, admittance, and letting go.

Forgivness is one of the hardest things in the world. Especially when it's something deeper than a misunderstanding. It is human nature to have a bubbling, bowl of bitterness brewing in our hearts. It is interesting, you never really comprehend how much even a small tad of bitterness can envelop the entirety of your being, until it is gone. Until it is forgiven.

Sometimes forgiveness is asked for, sometimes it is not. But I think it is truly one of the wonders of the world. Forgiveness can ease a gnarled heart of anger, and sooth it into something mallable.

I'm not a person who likes to fight. Even as a little kid, I hated fighting. I'll banter with you, tease you, but if you hurt me, I will 9 times out of ten not be mad and yell. I'll tuck it away into my heart where, unfortunately it spreads.

I'm not advocating bitterness by any means, I'm saying it's a part of my flesh I hate and am learning about, and learning to rid myself of.

Especially when I read verses like Ephesians 4:32.

It doesn't mean the person you forgave and you have to be BFF's, but it means we are to love that individual as Christ loves us. We are compelled to love, even if we don't always like. It's going to be a life-long lesson, but I'm a learning.

I am forgiven, therefore I must forgive.

How are ways you have been forgiven?
Whom have you forgiven?

Como se Llama?

"A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold." Proverbs 22:1

When I first read this, I didn't understand the context and was considering changing my name.....

I mean this is a cool verse and all, but to understand it, I had to go deeper.

I learned in a bible study that a person's name was a reflection on a person's character. In the bible study, I also learned that the name for character literally meant an etching out of the person's character. And it is a well-known saying that "character is who you are, when noone is around you." I personally learned that one from those self-motivation posters at school.

One of my favorite cross-references to this is Song of Songs 1:3
"your anointing oils are fragrant; your name is oil poured our, therefore the virgins love you."

I believe this is a literal letter of two people's love. The woman is deighting in how her beloved's name is something fragrant, something other women (presumably her friends, since they are virgins as she is) absolutely love. They delight in it over her.

I was meditating on this, and it's really cool, because these two verses alone show different seasons. Wherever we are in life, we are to have good name, a good character, good reputations, and to be fragrant of Jesus Christ. I need to work on this a lot, I'm going to dish it out and eat it too. ;) But think, what does your "name", your character say about you?

On Measurement

Even though I'm a perfectionist, I don't like measuring things.

I was always the obnoxious kid in geometry who asked what the use of it was. When the teacher said if I ever wanted a hexagonal garden, I'd need it. I'd then make a remark of who'd ever want a hexagonal garden?

There's a great song that has lyrics saying:

"Five hundred twenty-five thousand
Six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights
In cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife."

There are things that are abstract in life, and things that are tangible.

For instance, 48 hours ago I was on a different continent. The milage was tangible, over 4,000 miles. What was abstract was my communication with me. How did I measure my trip?

I measure it with me finding a place I loved, felt safe, and visited multiple times.
I measure it with the times my dad called to make sure I was feeling better.
I measure it with the texts from my Mom saying she was praying for me.
I measure it with all the world-renowned painting I saw in person.
I measure it with the all the movies I caught up on the plane.
I measure it with the times I was lost in translations.
I measure it with the thanksgivings I had for skype.


These are all more or less abstract. What I know is I cannot measure my blessings. My blessings from God for health, ability, and traveling mercies. My blessings from my parents allowing me to go. My blessings from my friends who prayed for me, kept in touch with me, and asked me about my trip.

Really Digging It

Because it's my blog, I will post 2 consecutive posts that probably have nothing to do with each other.

My first time out of the country without my parents was with my church's youth groups on a mission to Herborn, Germany when I was 13. I fell in love with the language, the people, and the country. I digged it. I loved everything about it.

Being the homeschooler geek I was, (still the geek today,) I decided to learn this foreign tongue. The day after I got home, I went to Costco with my mom and bought Berlitz's German program. I didn't learn much, but started. I went into High School, and continued German. I found it interesting and stuck with it, eventually making it to AP German.

Today was the first time I've been to a German-speaking country since picking up German. I was thrilled to find I can ask where cough drops are in the market, order food, and small talk with the cab driver.

I never thought all those hours of slaving over prepositions, conjugations, and vocabulary a little everyday would pay off like they did.

The point is, I was consistent everyday. I kept chipping away. I've found consistency is the key in many functions of life. Like getting to know someone requires 'x' ammount of consistency, learning to drive, cook, another language requires a certain amount of consistency. I found out that I wasn't necesarily brilliant at German. There were people just as smart, and smarter people who got lower grades than me because they weren't willing to put in effort, or they were willing to pull an all-nighter before a final instead of spreading out that same time over2 weeks.

I've found inconsistent people fail; it doesn't mean you have to make whatever you're aiming for your life goal, but it means you have to be willing to put in a resonable amount of effort over a certain amount of time.

Breaking through the language barrier has inspired me to map out my time better, and really become more focused over things I really dig, the things I desire to pursue.

How the Years Pass

My 9th grade English teacher explained it as having little "hooks" in your brain. The little hooks were things that connected us to vocabulary words, but also as places, people, things, foods, smells, etc.

I was just recently in Paris, France. The last time I was there I was 12 years old. Today I went to the Eiffel Tower, the one I visited 5 years ago. When I had braces, was obsessed with straightening my hair, just finished growing, and didn't wear make-up.

It was while I was climbing the stairs today I've thought of how different my life is from then; I speak another language, I have been to 2 other continents, I have lost friends while gaining others.

I think the Eiffel Tower will be my symbol of change in my life, it is really the only monument I've ever visited twice and can justly compare my different walks of life.

The antithesis of change however, is consistency. I'm very blessed to say my faith, and family have been consistent; a statement that not so many people can make nowadays.

Humpty Dumpty

Generally speaking, I'm a decently put-together person. But sometimes I crash. crash and burn, so the other day I cracked. Like totally cracked. Humpty-Dumpty status. The stress of life, school, plans, were overtaking me.
Those days rarey happen to me, but this one hit like a tornado, causing my life to go even more awry.

The next day or so I read something that collected my body and put me back together. It was my superglue.

"For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority." Colossians 2:9-10

Wow. Okay now read that again.

The entire being of the deity dwells within me? Within ME?! And I have been FILLED.

Well let me tell you something, if I would have known that the day I cracked, I would have clapped my hands and everything would have been peachy keen. ;) Hahah just kidding.

But this verse taught me a lot about perspective. Yeah, I know I talk about perspective and balance like all the time. But in my defense, those are two of the most principle fundamentals of art, if you don't have balance you may have a lot of negative space or it may be really busy; and can't have great perspective, your drawing is going to look a little funky. No offense or anything, but it will..

I get so scrambled so easily, I forget that inside me is something sacred. The God of the universe dwells within me, and I can't trust that He will make everything alright. Even if I crack and all the kings horses and all the kings man can't put me back together again, Jesus can.