I give up!

Wow, giving up. What a low, sad, and undesirable place to be for some situations but for other situations it can be an amazing thing.
We could give up on a friendship, a marriage, ourselves, our dreams .. or we can give up on things like being content with unsucessfulness,bad habits and so on. However, giving up is all about in the way it is done and what it is done to.
As I sit here tonight, I think about the positive and negative ‘give-ups’ in my life. I think about the people who should have given up on me long ago, and yet for some unbelievable reason they did not. I also think about all the things in my life that were positive ‘give-ups’, like hoodies! : )
The one thing that keeps repeating in my mind is how many times God should have given up on me -- this young girl from a little place in the world called Walterboro who basically fails Him on a daily basis, who think she knows it all and can handle anything by herself, who takes for granted how blessed she is all the time, who doesn’t spend nearly enough time with Him as He deserves .. and yet He never does. It amazes me, because I know if I was God I would have honestly given up on us all. I mean, look at our nation and how far away we are from the truth yet He is so merciful to see us through. What an amazing love.
I don’t really have much to say, but watch this video because it inspired this post!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neveyJoWOwI

Blessings.
-Han

I'll give you a dollar if .. .

How many times have we all used (or heard) the line "If I had a dollar for every time I ______, I'd be rich!". I'm sure it is more times than could be counted with our fingers. An organization in North Carolina is taking the idea a bit further by giving girls (who are ages 12-18, in school and have a sister who gave birth before age 18) a dollar-a-day to stay in school, and be "baby-free". The group of 24 girls attend a meeting once a week and at the end of every week that they do not become pregnant, seven dollars is deposited into a special college savings account. By the time a girl has completed the entire program, she has about 3,000 dollars to help jump-start her college education.

I don't know how I feel about this whole idea of paying girls (who shouldn't be getting pregnant that their age anyway) to not get pregnant, but in some ways isn't it like paying children to do their chores? I know not everyone agrees with the idea of paying children to do chores, either -- but I do think it is a good way to build responsibility. What I know even more than all of it is that 3,000 dollars doesn't go that far when paying for college, but it sure could put a dent into it!

Anyway, I guess I should get to my point now. This idea made me think about what I would do if I got paid seven dollars a week to do it. Think of how crowded our churches would be if we paid people to be there? I'm sure they would be packed for every service and life group! How sad, but true it is that by our human nature we feel like we should be rewarded for doing things that should just be ordinary. However, in this world "doing the right thing" isn't very ordinary any more. Our nation that once was so devoted to God has seemed to stray so far from the truth, just like our teen girls who are giving themselves away without even thinking of the life changing repercussions that their actions could have.

This made me think of a song by Ken Holloway that my Dad used to listen to. It's called "The Ordinary". It is a country song that basically just talks about two guys talking after a date concerning "how far" they got with their girls. One of the guys says that "he loves this girl so much first he is going to buy her a ring". The chorus emphasizes the idea that what should be so ordinary to us, is quite the opposite of what is. The song continues on to talk about their life together.

The whole idea of what should be 'ordinary' to us has really got me thinking, so I'm sure I will write more along these lines later.

Here is the link for the paying girls thing: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,529037,00.html


-Han

Yay for blogging freedom!

Should this be called take 3? I don't see why not. Doesn't the old saying say that the third time is a charm anyway?! :)

As you all can tell the chapter a day thing was a bust. I feel like what God speaks to me through reading is far too personal to share with 'the world'. However, I do still recommend that you all read a chapter a day. If you give God the opportunity to speak to you, He will. Through reading He will speak to you about fears, disappointments, regrets, dreams, victories, hopes, desires (this list could go on forever) .. in more touching ways than you could ever imagine.

Now this is a theme free blog! I've realized that it obviously doesn't work well for me to write about only certain things, when my mind is actually extremely random. So, yay for blogging freedom.

Buckle in folks, this could be an interesting ride!

-Han