Sunday, September 21, 2008

I feel the need for little lists today:

Things I want to do when I'm an old lady:

Not get a short poufy haircut. I think long white hair would be quite eye catching, and you can't quite pull off the perfect grandmother look without a bun!

Not wear matchy pantsuits. Dresses and long swirly skirts are so much more flattering.

Wear wraps and hats on a regular basis. They're just cool. If I didn't feel like I needed to "dress the part" for my job, I'd wear them now. I think that will be one of the best things about getting old- nobody cares how you dress anymore.

Still do crazy things, just to make people wonder. Keep a garden. Create things. Sing, no matter what my voice sounds like.

Spend lots of time with kids, whether I'm related to them or not.

Never get too old to fight one more good fight.

Die of something more worthwhile than a stroke or a heart attack.

Things I want to learn:

Calculus
Chinese
Tailoring/ pattern drafting
Hammer Dulcimer
Landscape Lighting
How to run a business


Things I want to do:

Help kids with school
Teach something
Develop better relationships with older and younger people
Find a more satisfying job
Develop a specialized job skill
Pass part of the LARE
Get to know a special guy

Things I want in a Man:
Loves God, even more than he loves me
Biblical worldview based on the above
Reasonably intelligent
Curious about life and eager to learn new things
Willing to work hard when needed
Values family and children
Somewhat handy, or becoming so
Responsible, especially with money
Kind, especially to those who cannot help him in return
Treats women with respect and strives for moral purity
Reasonably healthy, takes reasonable care of himself
Not overly concerned about his image
Has outgrown juvenile pursuits- i.e. video game addictions, sports obsession

Monday, September 8, 2008

Too many things happening right now in the world.
War in Georgia, Russia getting restless. Not good. It's odd how many times Russia gets mentioned in discussion of the end times, yet until very recently, I was trying to figure a way around it, since it looked like an unlikely player. But it coming back now. Interesting...
China trying it's best to be a superpower. If only they could manage to be good as well as great. Either way, though, it's moving in a big way, and the Church, though in the belly of the dragon, will be heard from before all is said and done, I believe.
And as China creeps toward freedom, the US abandons it. Just a week or two ago, a total muzzle order of a hate crimes law passed in Colorado. When I first read the article about it that someone had photocopied, I really believed I was reading a make-believe "what-if" piece, so incredibly repressive was the law. But no, it's real. Prison ministry anybody? Though it will be a long time before sitting in a pew will be outlawed, I think those who try to live a holistic and authentic faith may join the ranks of their persecuted brothers and sisters before too long.
If our external freedom is to be short lived, so be it, but let us never go quietly. Let us make such good use of our remaining days that eternity will remember it.
And while the US creaks along it's decent, Iran is counting down to becoming a nuclear power- and one that has an unreasoning hatred of anything western or Christian.
And Europe is dying, preceded in it's cultural death only by the death of it's church. The continent which stopped the Moorish invasion and held itself impregnable against the Muslims for centuries is now disappearing beneath waves of Muslim immigrants- or colonists, whichever term you prefer. The London of Charles Westley, of Hudson Taylor, of so many Christian thinkers and leaders, has sections which now operate under de facto sharia law.
Hope, amid all this, is found in the unlikeliest of places. Africa is a beacon of faithfulness against the apostasy of the west. Asia is surging to the forefront as a sender of missionaries and planter of churches.
And hope is even found in the movement of the darkness itself. We know this will happen. We were told long ago. Finally the world is moving toward the end. All will have had a chance to accept Him, and all who are unwilling will move to oppose Him. No more excuses of ignorance, no more of the separate courses that have divided the earth since Babel. Humanism has failed. Buddhism, as more than a condiment on a religious buffet, is in decline. Hinduism can work out an understanding with Islam. Finally, the only two left standing at the twilight of history are the two sons of Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael, and their descendants Christianity and Islam. Islam has all the cards too, except one: Christ. In person. On the clouds of heaven.

I'm sketching here a bit, arranging scripture and trends and conjecture, but maybe...? But how ever it all gets there, we do know this: He wins. However dark the situation may grow, that hope is sure.