"Yet, O Lord, You are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; We are all the work of your hand." -Isaiah 64:8

CONTACT:
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VERSE OF THE MONTH:

"from the ends of the earth i call to you, i call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than i."
-psalm 61:2

CURRENTLY READING:

confessions
-augustine-
* * *
the psalms
-king david-
* * *
daring to draw near
-john white-

RECENTLY WATCHED:

-chocolat-
"they're the river rats."

-o brother, where art thou?-
"i hate cows more than i hate coppers!"

-save the last dance-
"steps ain't no square dance."

SPINNING: 8/18/01

new way to be human
-switchfoot-

almost there
-mercyme-

coming to life
-the normals-

QUOTES:

"i believe in christianity as i believe that the sun has risen: not only because i see it, but because by it i see everything else."
-c.s. lewis

"when sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions!"
-w. shakespeare (hamlet)

"christianity has not been tried and found wanting. it has been found difficult and left untried."
-g.k. chesterton

"a cement mixer collided with a prison van on the kingston pass. motorists are asked to be on the lookout for 16 hardened criminals."
-ronnie corbett

"paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life."
-oscar wilde

"music is the art of thinking with sounds."
-jules combarieu

"only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and i'm not sure about the former."
-albert einstein

"i do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
-galileo galilei

"i love sleep. my life has the tendency to fall apart when i'm awake, you know?"
-ernest hemingway

 
of the things that i hate as i look at my life, the worst is my being alone.
posted by amber at 9:04 PM

 
i've been thinking a lot lately about how sin not only affects the sinner, it also affects those around you. the consequences to someone's sin can snowball and the effects of that can be enormous. when you're doing something that you know is wrong, you probably don't think much about what it's going to do to the people around you. it does something, though. whether you really realize it or not, it's still there. it exists in a very real state. i could elaborate on this some more but i don't think it's anything i'd want to put up here. it's just something i've been thinking about lately and it makes me sad.
posted by amber at 1:31 PM

 
for some reason, i woke up with the song "above all" stuck in my head. (probably because we sang it in worship at church the past 3 sundays and it always gets stuck in my head). part of it says, "like a rose trampled on the ground, You took the fall and thought of me above all"... but in my head (remember this was right after i woke up and i was way out of it) i was singing, "like a bird trampled on the ground..."

isn't that sick? i was disgusted with myself, but i didn't do it on purpose. i have no idea where it came from.
posted by amber at 8:00 AM

 
having been through quite a bit of "life" in the past couple of weeks, i had thought that i've been doing good to make it through each day hanging on by a thread...then as i was throwing up this afternoon (i'm on way too much medication right now and it does not have pleasant side effects), i found myself thanking God that He was that thread. as i think about every situation seperately that has taken place this last week and compile them all together, i'm incredibly overwhelmed. i'm sick. i'm weary. i feel torn to pieces. i know that i must be relying on His strength right now because i don't have any of my own anymore.

i've felt like i wasn't growing or learning spiritually at all this week because i really have just been trying to make it through each day, but i just realized that i was exactly where i needed to be...leaning on Him. i'm thankful that God knows us, inside and out, and He knows what we need and when we need it. right now i feel like i need a break from all of this crap and i think i need to get away...but He's said that He knows how much we can handle. (i still hope He doesn't think i can handle anymore...)
posted by amber at 5:57 PM

 
everyone's been asking me to put comments back up because the guestbook is retarded... and now no one is commenting. huh. i know i'm pretty boring...

my left ear drum exploded on tuesday night/wednesday morning sometime. i missed work yesterday and i don't think i'm going in today at all either. i need the money, but i don't think i can go answer phones and file in charts... i can feel my heart beating in my head.

it's been pouring for a while now...
posted by amber at 12:16 PM

 
i put comments back up on the site yesterday. my guestbook's been having problems lately and i've been getting error emails. sorry about that.
posted by amber at 11:44 AM

 
my grandma got to go home yesterday. my family's doing a lot better. i'm not so great, but glad that my grandma's on the road to recovery. i'm very thankful for everyone's prayers.
posted by amber at 9:50 PM

 
this is sort of an update on my grandma as well as some news about a doctor's visit i had this morning. first, my grandma had an angiogram done today. they not only discovered a significant amount of heart damage from thursday night, but also that she had had a major heart attack sometime in the past. how my grandma had a heart attack and managed not to know or not to tell anyone, i'll never understand. she's going to spend a few more days in the hospital, but then they will release her and put her on medication. they said they don't need to do surgery right now, but that's a possibility in the future. she won't be able to travel for a while, but when she's ready, my mom will be bringing her back here to stay with us for an indefinite amount of time.

in unrelated news, i had a visit with my arthritis specialist today. i haven't told many people, so if you don't know what i'm talking about, here's a brief update: i have had CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome) since my junior year in high school, but it wasn't supposed to act up and cause so much trouble after the first year. i've always had a lot of problems, though, and more recently, my hands have been hurting terribly and sometimes i'm unable to type or play guitar or anything else that i normally do. i had been seeing this arthritis specialist and was diagnosed with arthritis in my hands a month and a half ago. he gave me medicine to take until i met with him again and he got my blood test results from my regular doc. so, that leads up to today's visit...

the lab results showed the AA level extremely elevated (i still don't really know what the AA level is), and after going over all of my symptoms and checking out the blood work, the specialist thinks i have lupus. they took two more vials of blood today to test for lupus, and i'll get the results within the next week or two. he said the bad thing is that you can absolutely have lupus and the results can still come back negative, but we could at least see how all of my levels were and go from there. he said he would say with certainty that i at least have a mild case of lupus without getting the results back, and after more tests, he could determine just how bad it was and what treatment to do now.

my heart is heavy. i'm doing okay, considering everything that's been happening. my mom is being hit hard right now, though. she bawled on the phone for almost half an hour when i told her about my doctor's visit today. she's just lost her brother in a car accident, her mom is in the hospital from a heart attack, and now her "baby" (as she kept saying) may have lupus. she just kept saying she wanted me to be well and to get past all of the problems i've had over the last few years. all she could think of was that her cousin died from lupus when i was just an infant. they've come a LONG way since then and i know i'll be okay, but she's experiencing so much loss right now and doesn't want me to be sick at all. it was just bad timing for her to find this out as she's already fatigued and emotional.

on top of all of this, i was just denied the reinstating of my financial aid. i have to come up with $645 asap to pay for school and then a couple hundred more for books, and i've only got about $400 so far. i can cut back on hours and lower the price of tuition, but i really need to keep a full load.

i'm sad and weary and weepy right now. i feel very alone and low. i know God's purpose will shine through when this is all over and i rejoice in that... i just desperately need some rest right now.
posted by amber at 7:23 PM