God's Fruit

The fruit of the spirit's not a cherry

The fruit of the spirit's not a cherry. 

If you wanna be a cherry, you might as well hear it:

You can't be a fruit of the spirit....

Cuz the fruit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control!

My little voice sang this over and over again in Sunday School and Wednesday night KidzQuest. Each time, I changed the fruit, and changed my voice to fit whatever fruit I was singing about. Teeny-tiny soft voice for cherry, deep voice for watermelon….you get the picture. Until recently, I’d forgotten about that song and about the fruit of the spirit. But the past few weeks at work, I've gotten a couple of unexpected complements...

Lyrics for LYFE

In the Midst of Earthly Life

Snares of death surround me

Where do I go amidst the strife?

To thee alone, my Savior!*

Flappy Bird Ain't the Word

Hey guys,

So I spend an awful lot of time on social media. That means Facebook,  Twitter & Pinterest, and really not that much time reading God's Word. Which is a problem.

I mean, I try to read it every night, and every morning when I wake up, but if I were to add up all of the time I spend on social media or horrid games like Temple Run (sorry, misleading title. I don't actually play Flappy Bird) it would FAR outweigh the time I spend with God, whether that be reading scripture or praying. 

I found this picture on Pinterest a while back, and it just blew my mind. It really made me think, what if we DID treat our Bibles like our cell phones. Wow.

Recently one of my friends did a presentation  in drug education on social media and internet addictions. I had never thought about internet being a drug before, but it makes sense. My friends and I are on it all the time. But why? We scroll through everything Facebook has to offer, and then go hit refresh just to do it all over again? At least that's me. Maybe you've got a Pinterest addiction, like my roommate (sorry, E). Constantly pinning and scrolling through her "pinfeed" trying to find new pictures and ignore homework that needs to be done. 

Why the internet? Why not the Bible?

This is why, for the month of May, I'm making a pledge to read my Bible every time I am tempted to go on Facebook, Twitter, BuzzFeed, or Pinterest to waste time. What kind of difference do you think it will make?

I'm Sorry For Being Creepy

Hi guys. I woke up today and my roommate told me that I probably have sleep apnea and that I also sleep with my eyes open. The things you learn. Here's what our conversation sounded like this morning.

One + One = FUN

So. Sophomore year of college and I've started my Early Field Experience. Look at this! I get a name badge! Yeah! It's kind of faded because I accidentally put it through the washing machine, but on the bright side I guess that means that I do my laundry, right? ;)

Starting on April Fool's Day I've had the opportunity to head down the road to a nearby Mankato elementary school and help out from 8-10am. I'm going every Tuesday and Thursday until May 1st. While I eventually hope to teach third or fourth grade, kindergarten is showing itself to actually be more fun than I expected.

Ok, yes. Five year olds are adorable. But in the past, the thought of having to keep 25+ snotty nosed youngsters in check has given me a headache (well, not really a headache. A virtual headache?) When I learned that I would be helping out in not fourth grade...not second grade...but kindergarten, my excitement level went down a notch. My misconceptions started popping up: They can't read. They're not well-behaved. They run screaming all over the place. They're so young! How can I teach them??

But...I like it. Yes. They are indeed snotty-nosed. They tattle on one another. They fake their reading so I can't actually tell if they can read or not. Yet...there's something endearing about that age.

One thing I've worried about is how I am going to manage to teach kids that don't understand simple math. However, I've noticed that in a young age like kindergarten, kids can learn things without knowing they're learning them! Here's some creative ways!

--Attendance Addition: Count the number of boys, count the number of girls. How many "friends" are in class today?
--Alphabet Association: Going around the circle and saying one thing that starts with a particular letter. It really gets them to think.
--Musical Memorization: Some people have a high musical intelligence and music can speak to them. It's also been proven that music aids memorization. They're  learning fun songs about our country by singing one a day after the Pledge of Allegiance.

Just some thoughts as I prepare for my future career. Oh and by the way! I passed my basic skills MTLEs!  (teacher tests) 3 tests down, 6 more to go!! (I think? Maybe 5.) ;)

Madelaine

More Than You Could Ever Know

"Marriages don't end because someone forgot to put the toilet seat down. Do people say they end because someone forgot to put the toilet seat down? Yeah, but that's not the real reason. They end because the communication was lost, there's stress, nothings going right and then- the kicker. He forgot to put the toilet seat down. And the marriage is just done."

I like this quote from my Interpersonal Communication professor the other day. Not because my marriage is ending, because, uh...that would be weird since I'm not married or dating, but because it actually kind of illustrates my life the past week. Bear with me through the rant.

For starters, I didn't get enough sleep. That's honestly probably what caused it all. We started talking about failing relationships in IPC and all I could think of was how I seem to be growing apart from my friends (I'm not really) which made my eyes begin to water/half cry in the middle of class. Then came honors auditions, which didn't go so well as I had hoped. Later, I opened my mailbox and found that I was not accepted as an RA, oh and by the way. I had YET ANOTHER late night, the blood moon WASN'T EVEN COOL and I DIDN'T DO ANY HOMEWORK. 

And then, just for the kicker, I didn't make it into Honors. 

Needless to say, I was a nervous and emotional wreck. My life basically was the marriage-situation from earlier, where I blamed the whole thing on honors. Was that it? No, it was the entire day's accumulation of events, but I just broke down and cried.

But then something beautiful happened. No, I didn't get word that they had made a horrid mistake and I was actually an RA. I didn't have my essays postponed, but I did get this in the mail, and honestly, that made all the difference.

No one could have known that all of this was piling up on top of me. They couldn't have known that it was the absolute perfect time for that note. But it was. So, I urge you friends, commit a random act of kindness sometime. You never know just how meaningful it can be to a person. 

God bless you.

Church

It's said that you never realize how important something is to you until it's taken away.

Today, my other-non Lutheran friend and I decided to be Lutheran for a day because Bethel Baptist treats Palm Sunday like every other Sunday. There's no palms, and the lesson isn't sculpted around Jesus' triumphal entry. Well, I slept through my alarm, only to wake up an hour later to my roommate's alarm. Other than totally standing-up my friend, it wasn't that bad, because there are about 50,000 other Lutheran churches to choose from in Mankato (slight exaggeration).

UNTIL I remembered that--oops. I have to work at 11:30. So I couldn't go to any other 10:30 or 10:45 church service. And then...maybe it was just me being tired, but I almost started crying with the prospect of not being able to go to church. I mean...I've never had church taken away from me.

So, I decided to go with my last resort: ONLINE church
I scanned it beforehand, and it appeared to be a good church. Here's what Calvary Chapels believe (NOT CALVINIST.) http://christianity.about.com/od/Calvary-Chapel/a/Calvary-Chapel-Beliefs.htm

So I'm doing a live-tweet of the service. Except, not on Twitter. Enjoy?

Opens with praise music. Typical. 

Some mash-up of In Christ Alone and "woah oh oh" to make it just a little more cool.

Wait only three songs??

Oops he's praying brb

Oh hey that was a good prayer. 

What even is this.

Ok dude. I am done with this. I'm finding a new church. 

I headed over to Fourth Baptist's radio station (AM 1030 WCTS) and their service was just about to start. Handbells were playing the prelude. Ahhh....it's like home. Ok guys, I'm actually gonna listen to this one. TTFN ;)

(But seriously, listening to online church is rrrrrrreeeeaalllllly distracting.)