Faithfulness

I lead a very blessed life. Much of this can be attributed to the faithfulness of my parents. They gave up so much in order for us to live a good life. To clarify a bit, we were not spoiled. We shopped at Ross (do you love it, I love it!), drove decently crappy cars, but lived in a nice house and attended private Christian schools for the entirety of our elementary years. I used to ask why we drove a Pontiac 6000 named "Cracker Haven," when our neighbors drove slick new purple Dodge Caravans. My mother would always respond that they made sacrifices by sending us to private schools and providing us with a Christian education. I'm very grateful for this. While I didn't always have a blissful experience at my Christian school, I had fantastic teachers, a great education, and made some wonderful friends that I am still close with to this day.

My parents tithed faithfully and attempted to pass this down to us. When I was five or six and earning an allowance of $2 a week, I remember them encouraging us to deposit 20 cents of this into a little plastic white church bank for tithe. While I was never able to successfully turn this into a habit as a child, I have somehow been able to pick up this as an adult.

When I look back at the life my parents provided for us, I see God's blessings everywhere I turn. My dad is a very intelligent individual and he never went to college. He has spent years and years educating himself to become the person he is today, and he's very successful. My parents sent all four of us to college, and paid for 90% of it. I have minimal student loans because I went to private school, but my sisters don't have to worry about them. They set us up for success by being faithful stewards of God, and for this I am very grateful. This is a large part of the reason why I have a job that I love.

 I look around at my life today, and I can't deny that I have been blessed because of faithfulness. Sometimes being faithful with my money is a challenge. I have a husband who isn't always fully convinced that the 10% we give to the church is the best thing to do. But every time he doubts and I still write out the check, we have received something unexpected that far exceeds the amount we have given. This isn't always financial, but to me, God's blessings are so easy to spot. People aren't just "this lucky." If I ever need convincing that God exists, I simply look around.

Hope

I'm not generally a hopeful person. I 'm not a doomsdayer either, but I'd like to believe I'm realistic.  I told my dad over and over again that Obama would be our next president and knew that we had no hope. And here it is (well, weeks later...).  Honestly, I couldn't write about it before this.  I've seen so many people shedding tears of happiness, and I've read blogs where people discuss hope and a new future, and I just don't see it.  It almost pains me to see these things- I feel like people are delusional in a way.  While I haven't lived a very long life, and I've barely been around for any important elections, this one didn't feel as pivotal to me as it does to the rest of the American population.  A person with darker skin was running. Great. He's not really African American, but that doesn't really matter anyway.  

I hate to say these things, but a respected friend once told me she could feel evil in people. At the time I wasn't sure I believed her. But I see evil in Obama ("Obama's gonna change the wooooorld").  I could be crazy, but I swear I do. Its not because of all the rumors that have been flying around about where he came from or what he knows... something just feels wrong about him.  And he's the new leader of our country.

Now, I suppose this shouldn't be surprising to me. Lets face it, we live in a world consumed with evil, so much that its often difficult to distinguish the truth. Right and wrong. Good and evil. Truth and falsities.  

I worry about our country, and I worry about my friends and family (hopefully not!) that buy into all of this. 

7 reasons to vote for Rossi

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=684699

I don't care what they say, I like her.

Jenna got a job.

I started my job this week and the results are positive thus far.  I like the environment and I like the people I work with. Although everyone seems to be stressed out this week, they somehow manage to keep in good spirits and suck it up.  Whenever I got irritated with the lazy people at Overlake I was told that these people I would have to deal with my whole life.  Ironically, everyone around me seems hard at work all day regardless of the stress levels.  Lazy lifeguards, you have no chance in the real world. 

I never really worried about getting a job.  Not like I was pompous or overly confident about it- I wasn't at all.  I'm thoroughly convinced that God puts me at peace when I least expect it, especially about things like this.  The day of the interview I lost all nervousness and gave intelligent responses... so out of character for me... Perhaps this was all part of some master plan.  

Ultimately, I'm very satisfied.  

Man of the people:

Weird.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow0MXs1E7-8

Executive Decisions

I'm seriously considering boycotting my daily gossip until the November election is over. Perez Hilton is a flaming liberal, and his dislike of Sarah Palin is getting on my nerves.  Its all that his page has become. 

http://perezhilton.com/2008-09-06-more-drama-for-sexy-sarah

RIDICULOUS.  Like McCain would have ever picked her if this were true.