Updates and Encouragement

InterWebs  - it's been a little while.

Just a brief update on mein Leben...

I have two awesome opportunities right around the corner. The less than awesome part is the fact that I have to choose between the two...I'm not sure I'm well-enough equipped to make such a big-kid decision. Imma be prayin' hard on this one: for guidance, wisdom, and I'm kind of praying that one falls through so it makes my moral obligations and decisions a whole lot easier...Let's see what happens. I can't wait to tell you what goes down.

And also - I haven't found someone to do my taxes. So. Again. Let's see what happens.

That's MY life, in a nutshell.

In lieu of making up stuff to write about, I'll just post some pictures instead.

Molly and I made low-budget pizza with rolled out Pillsbury crescent rolls as the crust. It was actually fairly yummy. Also, she told me never to make this face again, which is why I thought it was worth posting.

 I just think my little German studmuffin in lederhosen is so adorable sitting in my nested teacups. Or creepy. I'm going with adorable.

And finally, I want to kind of start a new "series" (yes...another series) of posts focusing on encouragement. My heart beats for lifting my brother and sister up with a kind word. I know the power of an encouraging blurb when someone is hurting or depressed. And I always always love when a friend writes a note or sends a kind word my way - even if it's already been a great day. So these encouragement posts will mostly be picture posts of little encouraging things. 

Right now, the lady who discipled me during my co-op is sending me a series of postcards with the verses and quotes on them. A lot of my encouragement posts will probably be pictures of them. 

You all know how great I am with a camera, so bear with me. 

One of the encouraging postcards Ashley sent me.

And on that note, I've got to go get some engineering econ understanding on. 

-bRob

Technicolor: Things Across the InterWebs You Should Find Interesting Simply Because I Do

Truth: I have turned into an internet junkie. I spent too much time browsing the InterWebs this week, foraging for pictures, articles, and all sorts of fun things. Mostly I love the design and architecture and art blogs/sites/forums, and with the recent introduction to stumbleupon.com, well...the fun doesn't end.

I wanted to share with you what I found most entertaining and interesting this week. Aside from Rebecca Black's rockin' debut. (look at bRob and her viral references...impressed?)

So here you go, fellow InterWeb-ers: 

My Week in Links, Pictures, and Videos

 source

I love love love this picture and all those books. Infinite books.

Music Matrix.

Go make your own tune. Your new addiction. You. Are. Welcome.

via apartment therapy

This open floor plan + a loft is killing me in the best way possible. Minus the brown chair.

i like it.

CO2 to O2: fake urban trees

    Read the article about these synthetic trees that convert CO2 to O2 (via Alice at mymodernmet). 

You do NOT want to miss this article about Trump.
Oh I can't wait for 2012.

"Re-Imagining the Hoover Dam" via Eugene @ mymodernmet.com
source (i think)

Assembly Line Eye Surgery

Check out this article about Russia's assembly line for eye surgery. Manufacturing Engineering + cataracts? What do you think?

Read about the frog that swallowed a light. Don't hate - this is the one cheesy post here, and it's cool.

Discarded Subway Cars
read the interview at alice @ mymodernmet
artist: stephen mallon

A poignant picture series.

source

...

via mymodernmet
artist: jagnefalt milton

I am crazy about this rolling house idea. Click the link to see the rolling hotel as well...


Why You Should Reset Your Facebook
Haha.

source

Giant windows with luscious, green views? yes please.

Cave Hotel in Turkey
Check out these sick hotels from all over.



 This TREEHOUSE is the bomb diggity.

(I would live here)

 source

via contemporist
architect: Christian Pottgiesser

                                                                             Office Space.

via apartment therapy

What a sweet and simple room.

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I took so long to do another post partially because I was researching copyright laws and picture posting rules. I'm still a little fuzzy on everything, but I did my best to document sources, and if anyone should ever have an issue with whatever I'm posting, I'll remove the portion in question.

I hope you enjoy my week as much as I did. Hah.
-bRob

Concrete Prayer

Recently I've discovered the power of praying for specific things. In a book I recently read by Sproul, Does Prayer Change Things?, the author describes how the vague prayer can debilitate our prayer life:

"We pray in vague generalities. When all our prayers are either vague or universal in scope, it is difficult for us to experience the exhilaration that goes with clear and obvious answers to prayer...Having a broad scope of interest in prayer is not wrong, but if all prayer is so general, then no prayer will have specific and concrete application."
- R.C. Sproul

I was pretty angry with God for the way some situations had gone down a couple of weeks ago, and I shared this in prayer group - I told them I was angry and bitter about certain situations and having a hard time talking to the Lord about it. When the prayer for spiritual healing wasn't answered within a week, when I sat down and prayed and spent time with the Lord and I wasn't instantly better.... I grew even angrier. Seriously - was God not going to honor my request for a peaceful spirit not warring with my Creator?

I continued reading the Word, despite my frustrations, and sure enough, the Lord cleared some things up with me.But it wasn't until I came back to school that I noticed I wasn't angry anymore. It happened gradually, but God restored me. And, out of curiosity, I spoke with my friend, a sweet prayer warrior from my group to see if she'd continued praying for me. She said she had specifically thought of me during a sermon and lifted my angry self up in prayer.

Prayer works. Specific concrete prayer for the things that seem unchangeable works. I am currently challenging myself not just to pray for "wisdom for so-and so" and "trust in suffering" and whatnot, but for specific everyday situations - focus during studying, guidance in conversations with various people, etc.

I wish we could all sit here and glorify God by sharing how He has answered our prayers and also encourage one another to fight the good fight and pray continuously. I hope that you, whoever you are, are seeing the Lord answer prayers in His sovereignty.

And in that same vein of thought -
I encourage everyone to be praying for Japan - for the people, for the government, for the world - that all would see and recognize and depend on the Lord's movement through this difficult time.

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Like I did with the picture/colorful post, I will start tagging these sorts of posts. I will be tagging them truth nugget, as they are generally my reflections on the Lord's work in my life - little morsels of the Truth in my life. I'll go back into the archives and tag the older ones at some point as well. If you want to filter these sorts of posts, you can go down to my tags at the bottom of the page and click truth nugget to find them.

-bRob

Technicolor

I can't really art, design, or graphic [or use nouns properly], but occasionally I like to do picture and music and colorful posts. This one is dedicated to the things with which I'm currently enamored.

And because I'm constantly enamoring [so not a word] over something, I imagine this type of post might be a regular sort of post. If you like it, check out my tags at the bottom, and look for the posts tagged technicolor...

Have you ever heard the saying I dream in technicolor? That's why.

via Osiris Navarro

 And in an attempt to stop stealing artistic properties, I'll make sincere efforts to document my sources.

 My Technicolor Enamorations [still not a word]

via nymag

Airstream trailers. Actually, this one is even cooler. Perfect for traveling across the country. With someone awesome. Someone would have to be awesome, I guess, because that adorable trailer is puh-retty small.

This cover by Fiona Apple. So smooth. 

Steve Madden 

This pair of boots. I like to pretend I could wear these with so many outfits, but given shorts season is on its way...that's probably not super true.

via make and takes

Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie. The summer I worked in Colorado, I lived in the mountains with a beautiful view. And if you drove eleven miles further up the mountain, you'd drive along a rocky road and pass lush pastures dotted with peaceful cows, tall trees, winding creeks, sweet homes with garden plots, and steep Rockies flashing in your window. Only they wouldn't flash very quickly, because that eleven mile drive took over twenty minutes, as the rocky mountain road [cue John Denver?] was fairly narrow. But once you made it up that eleven miles, you'd find a quiet little grill nestled beside the road. And that grill served the best grilled cheese buffalo burger. Which you could, oddly enough, eat while watching buffalo [ok, just kidding, cows] graze nearby. But the absolute best part was the strawberry-rhubarb pie. Mouthwatering and luscious, if a pie can be called luscious. I haven't had it since, but I crave it on an almost-daily basis.

Backpacking in the Coloradan Wilderness

My cabin and favorite camper

And on that note...Colorado.

via the heart of the sea home

  Wraparound Porches. Giant wraparound porches on big white houses in the middle of nowhere.



The chorus. This song. Note...NOT this video. This song.

Sadly, this was the first and best in a long series of failed vest shots. Please ignore my big toe, but pay special attention to my first ever Picnik edit. Overall, I'll count it as a win.

This orange vest. I saved it from my brother's Goodwill pile. It is so bright and so rusty-colored and it hardly matches with anything, so of course I like to wear it with everything. I stole it from him last week and wore it four times by Saturday evening.

via All Star Dance Supply

Hip-Hop Dance.  Did you see Mike Chang dancing to Michael Jackson's P.Y.T. in Glee? I loved it. And in all seriousness, I'm starting a bucket list, and "Learn how to hip hop dance to one Michael Jackson song" is on it. The idea is pretty laughable given I hate dancing and have the coordination of a drunken elephant, but that's why it's so cool. What's a bucket list for, if not for achieving the impossible?

Joe Purdy

This man's voice. Any song he sings will do. 

The Library from Beauty and the Beast

  Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Endless amounts of literature in a library with arched ceilings...Pantheon style?

Watch the clip. Skip to 43 seconds to avoid pelvic-fives...which make me uncomfortable.

The term InterWebs. JD used the term InterWeb in an episode of Scrubs, which made me melt almost immediately. Even though he forgot the -s.

I like this technicolor thing. Let's do it again real soon, mk?

-bRob

Two Monks and an Olive Sapling

    In light of yesterday's post, InterWebs, about entrusting [I'm STILL not merriam-webstering it for you], I thought this parable I read today was pretty on spot. 


And since there is no literary device the Christian loves so well as the extended analogy/parable, I figured I'd share it with you.

"I need oil," said an ancient monk, so he planted an olive sapling. "Lord," he prayed, "it needs rain that its tender roots may drink and swell. Send gentle showers." And the Lord sent gentle showers. "Lord," prayed the monk, "my tree needs sun. Send sun, I pray Thee." And the sun shone, gilding the dripping clouds. "Now frost, my Lord, to brace its tissues," cried the monk. And behold, the little tree stood sparkling with frost, but at evening it died.

     Then the monk sought the cell of a brother monk, and told his strange experience. "I, too, planted a little tree," he said, "and see! It thrives well. But I entrust my tree to its God. He who made it knows better what it needs than a man like me. I laid no condition. I fixed not ways or means. "Lord, send what it needs," I prayed, "storm or sunshine, wind, rain, or frost. Thou hast made it and Thou dost know."

Olive sapling on a Palestinian coin

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Entrust-ingmentation?

Do you ever do that, InterWebs? Just keep adding suffixes to a word until it sounds right-er? I do. Obvs.

Anyways - I wanted to write a post about entrusting. And I thought about employing that wonderfully over-used device in which I look up the dictionary definition of "entrust" and put it in bold, italics, and all caps at the beginning of this post, centered, of course, so you would sit there and ruminate on the Merriam-Webster version of entrust (which, btw, is "to commit to another with confidence"...oops, I caved!). But I mostly avoided this cliche, if only because I think it's kind of corny. Still - focus on the word entrust.

   Have you ever suffered? Clearly, this is probably a really stupid question with a fairly obvious answer. Of course you have. We live in a broken world where pain exists and things hurt sometimes. But how do you handle it?

I was dealing with my own suffering the other day, and I wanted tangible advice - what is it we're supposed to do when we cannot get past our pain? Tons of people will tell you tons of things about dealing with suffering. "Give it up to God." "Let it go." "Deal with it." [<<< that's what the less nurturing people might say.... that, or "Yeah, that really sucks." My friends could stand to be a little more encouraging. hah.]
    And if you're anything like me, half the time you'll roll your eyes and give a curt but polite thank-you and then continue to dwell on how difficult your life is. 

    The fallacy lies in the assumption that one simple action, pattern of thought, or prayer will always eliminate suffering. As if it is a one-time thing.. But that's not always the way it works. What happens, when, the day after you've given your hurt up to the Father, it still hurts? The thorn in your side still remains?
Maybe, if you're prone to melodrama, like me, you'll find yourself in the throes of despair.

But I feel like the Lord, who knows our hearts, has to have words for those of us who suffer? Truths that will get us through the long-haul, not a cute quick-fix pick-me-up that might get you through the day.
And I was flipping  through the pages of my Bible, the Lord directed me to a passage about His Son.

"...and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously."
- 1 Peter 2:23

I seriously doubt you or I have suffered at the same magnitude as Jesus Christ. In fact, my definition of "suffering" is probably pretty pitiful outside of safe and comfortable suburbia. But Jesus is our supreme example for how we should act, yes? So, if this is His response to suffering, are we called to anything less?

Peter makes it clear that entrusting is not a one-time thing, but a habit. KEEP entrusting.

And to whom? To Him who judges righteously.

So then, it's a daily thing. Keep entrusting. Keep committing your situation to the Father. When you're sick of it, when you're tired, when you're burnt out, habitually entrust. Entrust daily - pray it each day, or maybe each hour, if that's what you need to do. And remember that you are NOT entrusting to just anyone. But rather Him who judges righteously, fairly, justly.

-bRob

Missing teeth while fighting zombies during my break

Wut up, InterWebs?
   I'm updating simply because I haven't in...foreverish.

I'm home on break. I kind of wish I was doing something exciting - but apparently it was of utmost importance that some of my teeth be yanked out of my face before they ... warp my mouth?

Crossing over a very mild stream. very mild.

I was bored on Monday - so I went hiking. Are you so so impressed by my initiative? Spending my spare time hiking? It was meant to be my Sabbath hike. The Bible commands us to Sabbath - so I went on a hike, as odd as this sounds, to rest. I'm not sure I've got the hang of Sabbath-ing quite yet, but I suppose practice makes perfect. Here are some pics from my seemingly-neverending jaunt (the last 3 miles of the 7 mile hike were what did me in...).

Look how hardcore I am.

It was not a very pretty hike...and when I got to the top, ice kept melting/crashing and I kind of felt like my life was in danger, which makes this sign all the more real and scary. Ja?

I have yet to master the art of layering when camping/hiking/running in cold weather. Do any of you know what I mean? You know how, when you go hiking in cold weather, every appendage threatens to fall off due to frostbite, so you and Michelin tire man have a puff-off and see who can pack on the most layers. Only three miles into your jog/hike, you begin to hate every single layer and start stripping like it's your job. So you're sweaty and down to a t-shirt and shorts, and then a breeze blows, and suddenly the sweat, which was once so hot and gross, is now conspiring with the wind to give you a mile case of hypothermia. And then all the layers come back on for two more minutes until the next big sweaty hill comes along.

Before I started stripping I was wearing this adorable hat seen here - my sweet friend Darcie made it for me. Isn't it precious?

This picture might be more acceptable if I told you it was taken immediately after my wisdom teeth extraction. Unfortunately, it was the day before. No, dear InterWebs, that is simply how my face looks.

Speaking of my wisdom teeth removal...all I remember is them putting the laughing gas on. And then I started freaking out because the IV was coming next. Dr. WhatsHisFace told me to take five deep breaths, so of course I began to hyperventilate into my masky thing and that's all I remember. One day later, I'm not even in any pain. I tried to milk it for all it was worth yesterday, but either I'm not very good at whining [hahahahHAH] or my parents aren't all that nurturing. I'll let you decide who is at fault ;)

So last weekend, due to poor planning and an ill-timed nap, I ended up staying at my apartment instead of coming home. I have this slightly bizarre fear of the woods right outside my complex, especially at night. Between M. Night Shyamalan's (yummy:) the Village and AMC's The Walking Dead marathon that was on, there was NO way I was leaving my apartment alone. However, I had a strong craving for diet coke and cookie dough - my go-to comfort food. Between zombie commercial breaks and me running from the room in sheer terror from the living room, I complained to my dear friend about how hungry I was. Bless her heart, she went ahead and decided to shut me up by bringing me:

Molly - you're the bombin'ist. This girl came all the way to my apartment so I didn't have to face the cruel zombies lurking in the woods while crossing the road to the grocery store. You know, once I had a nightmare about zombies. They broke in to my really adorable apartment in Charleston (dare to dream), and they were lumbering around my living room. My roommate and I tried to play it cool and pretend to be zombies too, but eventually the deadbeats (hah - see what I just did?) attacked and started eating my brains. And then I woke up and went to work.

I'm reading approximately 5 books right now: Mere Christianity, Calm Your Anxious Heart, I Dared to Call Him Father, Same Kind of Different as Me, and, given my recent change in summer plans (hint hint), I've picked up my German Bible again. I'm really excited about all of them - I'll share more when I'm further along.

Alright - off to do whatever it is I'm doing today. I am *hoping* it involves Chinese food, smoothies, a new pair of boots, a new skirt, the Big Bang theory, and maybe typing that paper for the co-op office that was due around two months ago.

hah.

-bRob