Psalm 51:9-12

Hide Your face from my sins,

   and blot out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

   and renew a right spirit within me.

Cast me not away from your presence,

   and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation,

   and uphold me with a willing spirit. 

Prayer; God; Fellowship

This week has been rough. But the way my friends have truly cared for me has helped my heart in more ways then words can describe.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God."

Hebrews 13:3 "Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body. "

Romans 12:15 "Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep."

The bible calls us to help others, and to see the bible played out in my own life has been a positive thing

4/1/2009

I started reading bibleinayear.

I recently finished this, and it was wonderful. Plus 8

I read THEMESSAGE//REMIX PAUSE-and it wasn't until 100 days prior to finishing that I realized how much I wish I had picked any other translation to read. Minus 2

Don't get me wrong, I have a love for The Message and the way Eugene wrote it for 21st century relevance, but I got a little tired of him inserting his theology into God's word. That being said, I am going to keep The Message around for years to come to compare translations and to read for fun, but no hardcore bible studies. Let's be real. Plus 2

Therefore!

Favorite Old Testament books

1) 1 Samuel (DAVID is my favorite OT character not including God duh)

2) JOB!!! (God is SOOOO sarcastic to Job. Yea I said it. Sarcastic. Love Him so much) Plus 3

3) Amos

4) Isaiah (Only because of how obvi Jesus is in it)

5) Ecclesiastes

Favorite New Testament books

1) Romans, Philippians, Ephesians (in no particular order)

2) Jude, Colossians, Hebrews, James, 1 Peter (in no particular order)

It was hard enough to limit myself to those. Sorry about all the ties, I just can not pick. You should see these books in my bible. Pretty much every verse is highlighted. And I don't say that to make myself sound SpIrItUaL, I say that because I am being completely ridiculous. Love them. Can any of us really pick a number one? Or number 2? The books not listed I still LOVE. Plus 1

Gospel's in order of most favorite to favorite

1) Luke

2) John

3) Mark

4) Matthew

They are all pretty close though. Maybe a tenth of a point off. Because they are all lovely. Plus 1

Honestly I have learned so much. The bible is SO relevant (and I don't just say that because I was reading the Message) most of the time when I found a monumental story I'd read it in NIV and ESV. Plus 2

Speaking of, I have converted officially to ESV. AmyKitchel bought me an ESV study bible for my Baptism (which deserves its own blog entry but I've been too lazy to write/busy finishing the bible) and I have been rocked by it. Plus 6

A) I got a code for esvstudybible.org which is my new favorite website. It will read you the bible, you can store your notes about certain chapters, highlight whatever you want and read study material about most verses. Pretty much it's your bible online. I know there are like 10000 sites that do this already but no, I promise this site will change your life.

B) It is awesome. Word. For. Word. (not thought-for-though like NIV or an thought-for-thought translation from NIV...like The Message) Word for freaking word. ANDDDDD with the study bible, (and most ESV's) if there is a variation they list the variation at the bottom. So tight.

Anyways, I am a full supporter of the ESV translation. Obviously any translation is fine because if you are reading the bible in a certain translation it's pretty awesome that you're reading the bible in the first place. That being said, if you are studying the bible and looking for God's Word- I wouldn't take NIV or The Message too seriously. Nothing against them, there is a reason they are considered translations of the bible, just from personal experience I feel like I would much rather read word for word then thought-for-thought.

Sorry about that long rant, Minus 2

Final score = +19!

Read the bible, ftw.

I'd love to say something like, read the whole thing before you make judgments about it but if I'm being honest I think it's pretty sweet that you are reading it in the first place. 20 bonus points. Since I spent this whole post lightly bashing The Message I am going to go ahead and contradict myself, if reading the Old Testament is hard and you can't keep to it-- read the Old Testament in The Message so you understand what is going on and then read it in ESV or another word-for-word translation! Do it!!!!

Final final score = +39!!!!

Tonight! Yes, TONIGHT!

First week of school = over! My classes seem... ok. I thought they were going to be a lot easier because they are basic classes but I know it will be alright. My western civ 1 class is going to be my toughest class because all tests are accumulative and its over lecture and the book (they don't overlap) Sad day. I can't seem to pay attention in my classes so I'm going to look in to figuring something out to keep my focus! Minus 3

I don't think I really have a "favorite class" but there are pros and cons of each class. Art History: The teacher reads from a script. Word for word. pro- its hysterical when she loses her place and makes excuses so it doesn't look like she lost her place. con- she's reading from a script and its the most boring 50 minutes of my life. Psyc: My teacher is a TA. pro- it shouldn't be too hard con- at times I feel like I know more about a subject then he does. Communications: My teacher is an Honors teacher so she's teaching the course the exact same as an honors class even though its just a regular class. pro- she really knows what she's doing and it's a lot different from a regular boring class con- I'm not getting an honors credit for an honors class. Human Diversity & Social Work: This is my major class & I'm really interested in everything we talk about. pro- 90% of the class are social work majors and everyone seems to be a "people person". Also, the teacher doesn't pronounce the "th" infront of words like the, this, then she supplements it with a "d" da, dis, den. con-the lecture is so boring. Western Civ 1: This is a 300+ lecture class pro-none con- see paragraph 1. Paying for college and getting a great education/all A's Plus 2

YoungLife is going to be amazing. Period. The first YoungLife College club was on Wednesday and it was so fun! A lot of freshman showed up and I'm really excited to get to know all the new girls. We had a little bump in the road today with High School YoungLife but it was fixed before we even had time to worry about it. Good one God. I can't wait to hear all about the details on Sunday during the leader meeting! Plus 5

In about 30 minutes I am going to the ticket office so I can camp out and buy a Arkansas/A&M Football ticket. They go on sale at 8:30 am tomorrow and Sara, Gini (some of my roommates) and I are going to camp outside and get amazing tickets! Yayyaya. I surly hope my phone doesn't die or it starts raining! Great time bonding! Plus 4

Today I was reading the last chapter of Numbers (Yes! Yes! Yes) and as I was reading I was thinking about how everything in the bible really happened. It's history, whether people believe in God or not is the only questionable thing. But everything is history and really happened. So while I was reading it I pulled up a map of all these places Moses & the gang were going and thought it was kind of neat to follow them with my finger as I read. THEN in my art history class we just so happen to talk about all the places I had read about earlier. It was awesome that I got to see the bible brought to life! Plus 10!!

I promise to put up pictures asap! Now I'm on my way to camp out for football tickets! Yay! Can't wait!

Total points: 18
Plus Jon Jordan's comment puts this blog to 100,018 points.

If you're keeping up with the prayers all my prayer requests are the same! Yall are the greatest!

This is new.

Is this the start of something new? Let's hope I get good at blogging to keep my friends and family up to date. I'm shooting for everyday but let's be real, my practical goal is 2 times a week!

I moved into my dorm yesterday and so far so good! 2 out of 3 of my room mates have moved in and I really like them! They live across the living room from me and I hope I get to know them better this year. My actual roommate (that I share a bathroom with) is moving in tomorrow and I am pretty pumped about it to say the least. Last night at 10ish I finished setting up my room and am finally all moved in! I am so thankful that my parents made the 10 hour (round trip) drive just to help me move in, I was extremely stressed out and without them I would have had a heart attack. I am so lucky to have parents that would do this for me and hope they know how appreciative I am of them. One week from today I will have finished my first day of Sophomore year and so it begins...

This morning when I woke up I read a little bit of Numbers and a little bit of Romans. In Numbers I read a lot more about the people of Israel and they lashing about against God pretty bad. The thing is they really wanted to eat meat and were complaining to Moses that they were hungry for meat and it's not fair because they had so much meat before they started all this Godmumbojumbo. So God gets pretty upset because they can't seem to just follow Him without all these questions and without whining and He pulls Moses aside and He says "I'll have the meat, and I'll have so much of it that it will be coming out of your ears" Moses doesn't really believe Him but brings some people the next day, long story short all of a sudden there was quail overflowing out of the sea. Anyways, it got me thinking- Do I truly believe God is in control of my life? and when I complain that life's a drag, how does it sound to God? When has He given me what I begged for? Did I regret that He did? I do believe that God is in control of my life, and I so often without thinking about it complain that my life is boring or so "hard". I've never once thought how insulting that must sound to God. And He has given me what I've begged for a number of times but right away I turn around and forget who gave it to me. Then I read Romans 2 and thought it was so harsh but I needed it. I found that the devil had gotten to me and created a bitter tone while reading. Don't get me wrong Romans 2 is hard to read but it's needed and I can't forget that God wants me to succeed. He gets His heart broken when we fail and it does upset Him but He isn't going to shun me forever. I need hard evidence in my life to back up being a "real doer", just talking about religion isn't enough.


I have been praying about going to Australia for Study Abroad in Spring 2011 and if you'd like to pray for that as well that would be awesome. Also, I am doing 40 days of believing God [http://blog.greggstutts.com/] you should do that, or if not please pray for Kristin and I to finish strong! (we're on day 16).

So I guess that wraps up my first blog ever. Yay. Update soon, promise!

P.S. My sister just moved into her house and it's really neat! I am really excited for her!