More than just ramblings…

SO its been a while since I’ve posted but I just cannot hide these feelings of love that I have for….CALIFORNIA! (ha, you thought it was going to be something juicy didn’t you!)

So, I spent the past five days in San Diego, CA with my mom. She was there on business and so she flew me out for fun/birthday present. Thursday and Friday she was in meetings and conferences and so I had a lot of time to explore and wonder through the vast CA countryside. This post is going to be dedicated to the reasons why I (heart) CA.

1. The scenery/landscape is BEAUTIFUL. We are talking like land of Oz pretty. I took a lot of pictures (which I will post later) but I don’t really feel that they will capture the greatness of what I saw. The flowers were vibrant colors. I wanted to call them a certain color, like red or purple, but I don’t feel like those words give them justice!! The mountains were very captivating too (I guess they weren’t REAL mountains but they were bigger than any hill I’ve ever seen). It was just soooo pretty.

2. The culture is very RICH. There was a large hispanic/latino population where I was and I LOVED it. I know un poco espanol but enough to make small talk and communicate what I want to get across. But I loved walking into places and seeing both languages on signs and hearing people that weren’t speaking English. The people were also just very family oriented…and not just mom, dad, and kids…but extended families too…aunts, uncles, grandparents. And then there was the culture I connected with a lot….the young, single, people. I went both days to coffee shops and hung out for hours just watching and observing and praying for the people there. And the people that I did talk to just had the coolest stories about their life, pasts, present…and I feel like thats the outlet to connect to the people there. I had so many opportunities to just share MY story which is kind of interesting (I had a bit of a wild streak during high-school).

3. The NEED. I didn’t see many Christ-following churches where we stayed. And the people I talked to kept saying that the churches they had gone to really didn’t fill any void in their lives or meet any of their needs. It really touched my heart. I’m not sure if all of CA is this way but I would imagine so.

So what now you ask. I don’t know. I’ve always thought that my place for furthering the Kingdom was overseas. But I know that this weekend the Lord put something in my heart for the state of CA and the people/culture there. What might come of this? I don’t know…maybe going to school there (grad or seminary)…church planting…ministry….the options right now are endless!! I just cannot wait to see where my life goes after college, my future is so unknown (but so known by the MAKER)…and people think that Christ followers are boring, ha! Just when I think that I’ve got MY life figured out, Christ reminds me that its not my life at all. Welp, there’s a post for ya….

I cannot figure out how to post pictures from my hard drive…someone guide me!

Ok…on to the post.

Man…the lingering question in my mind this afternoon…how to maintain a Christ following life after college…the statistics show that ONLY 1 in 10 college students really follow hard after the Lord upon leaving their college ministry. So, I am very confident that I am not going to have a “normal” job after college. I want to do some type of ministry/missions. And after saying that many of you are going to think I have a secular job and I am in a ministry/mission….but I am talking non secular job. OK…but the thing is I just do not know WHAT to do. I have or feel like I have sooo many options. How to discern these things???

So I am going home this weekend and am SOOO excited. My best friend from home, Jodi had her baby last Saturday and I get to meet her and hang out. Man, I cannot imagine having kids right now. Just the other night, I was reading this article and it was about this 16 year old girl who got mad at her bestfriend because she had talked to her boyfriend or something and she choked and killed her, burned her body, and then cut her friend into little pieces and spread her around their town….WHAT!?!?….I was in complete shock and disbelief. I just do not know if I want to bring a child into a world like this. And I have heard a lot of arguements well Christian people should have kids so that there are more Christ-followers but there is no guarantee that your kid is going to be a Christ follower just because you are…what do you all think about this??

So I read a few chapters from Donald Millers book, “Looking for God Knows What”. It was good but I wasn’t sold on it as some others I know that read it. I felt like he was very good at making cool anologies and he told some good stories. I guess I didn’t feel like he said anything “new” or “profound”…it just made me want to go read my Bible. Which I guess is a great thing. I was thinking though after I read the book that the reason I didn’t like it much was because he made Jesus seem like too nice or some flighty character passing out flowers to everyone. I mean I don’t know, maybe I am completely wrong but I think Jesus probably raised his voice and was firey with passion when he spoke. And then there is this whole issue of justice. Did Jesus show justice to people?? I’ve heard that this is just an Old Testament thought but I mean God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow so if was once just he cannot just be not just now. I just do not know.

I like this blog, it seems like a safe place to let out my thoughts like these

Well here I am…in voxtropolis. I hope that I utilize this site to be a place where I can come and write about things that are deep and cause other people to think in a larger scope. This is a challenge for me too as I do not always think on a large scale. But I was challenged this weekend to step outside of my midwestern, MO box and start thinking big….we shall see how it goes!!