Christianity is not about building an absolutely secure little niche in the world where you can live with your perfect little wife and your perfect little children in a beautiful little house where you have no gays or minority groups anywhere near you. Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved and Jesus loved the poor and Jesus loved the broken.
- Rich Mullins

numbers

From a friend's blog..

Numbers.

this world seems particularly fond of them.

and sometimes i fall into the trap of arithmetic. and think that i am a series of numbers, ratings, percentages.

that value is just a fancy word for number.

it would be so easy to look at my weight and feel my value grow as the scale shrinks

look at my exam marks and feel the weight of my future resting on my percentages.

look at my class rankings and feel like i am above or below people.

feel grown up because of the candles i blow out on my birthday cake.

feel disabled because of the fleeting figure in my bank account.

feel broken because of the number of scars i have.

feel like a failure because my blood test told me my readings are too high.

feel unique because of the number of songs i have on my ipod.

feel popular because of the number of facebook friends i have.

my phone number my student number my account number

7225214311.2112499831231201251878850476.

i am not a number

Thoughts..

This is from my friend Will. I thought it made a lot of sense.

"FUCK.

Did you flinch when you read that? Cringe? Worry about getting in trouble at all? Double take the word and think it isn’t very nice?

No? I thought so…

Remember when you used to flinch, cringe, worry, and double take?

I was listening to “Photograph” by Nickelback the other day… The lyrics are: “And what the hell is on Joey’s head?” The CD I was listening to, I got from my aunt when I went to DC for a week over Spring Break when I was 13. A certain nostaglia came over me from the CD itself, and the song… As the song played, I remembered that it used to kinda bug me that the word “Hell” was there.

It occurred to me… That it doesn’t bug me anymore… and that bugs me. I can say/write and hear/read curse words and not flinch… Not even think about it.

What is it about this numbness that has overcome us? It’s with everything too… Curse words, sex, crimes, deaths… Everything. It makes me so sad. We just sit back, and don’t care. We’ll say: “Oh how said for those poor people” But it doesn’t really affect us…

Why not? What is it that creates this numbness in us…? Hmm… I’d like to see it end. -nods-

It isn’t right, world. Just so you know. I want my numbness to end, I want to cringe and flinch and double take what was said when something bad is said… I don’t want it to fly past me as if it’s just another word….."

For the record, I don't use this word. I never have :) I sound so goody-two-shoes. But I wish people stopped flinging words like these around as and when they like.

At the end of the day

At the end of the day, you'll always know who are the ones who love you the most :)



On an unrelated note,

Today a misstep down a double kerb send me sprawling on the first out of four lanes on a road. Thank goodness there were no cars approaching quickly in the lane, and that I picked myself up fast.

A taxi driver honked very loudly at me, and probably guffawed as he went by. Sure, I laughed a lot as well, but come to think of it, I was very lucky I didn’t become roadkill.

Dear Girls

Don’t ever let anyone talk down to you. Don’t let the images of airbrushed women in the magazines dent your self-confidence. Don’t listen to the lies of the media that skinny is beautiful.

Hear this right. You are a somebody, you are loved, and you are special. And no one can take that away from you except yourself. Beauty is something that shines out from your heart and manifests itself in your actions :)

Don’t belittle yourself. You Are Beautiful.