I sat, perched in the green mechanical chair, every movement accompanied by the irritating rustle of the paper chair protector. “And I want to be a nurse… why?” I asked myself over the screaming of my nerves. “So that you’ll get to torture loads of innocent patients,” I reminded myself logically.
The door swung open and three figures in white coats stepped inside.
“Hello, BookFreak.”
This man seemed to be the leader.
“My name is Dr. Roth. These are my assistants, Miss Han and Miss White. Now, you’ve had this… mark… on your face for how long?”
“Three months,” I answered, nervously.
“Two days after her very first vaccination,” Mom added.
“Hm.” Dr. Roth stepped forward. “Miss Han should know what it is. Miss Han?” The pretty Asian woman stepped forward and touched my face gently. Three minutes later, I was still under close examination by all three practitioners, and none of them had a solid idea as to what it was. The closest thing they could agree on was that it might be some form of a disorder starting with the letter L in which my immune system starts attacking my own cells. But they needed to do something called a “punch biopsy” to be sure.
I was fine when I saw the needle. It was reassuring to know that I wasn’t going to feel whatever they were about to do to my face. I was okay when I saw the scalpels. Hey, I use scalpels, they’re pretty cool. I was still okay when the chair laid back and the light shone directly in my eyes; I mean, let the doctors do their work, right? It wasn’t until Dr. Roth was leaning over me, scalpel in hand, that it started to bother me.
“Oh,” he added thoughtfully, lifting the bloody knife for a moment, “this will scar.”
Eventually, he got the skin sample they needed, stood up, and dropped the sample. And couldn’t find it.
I laughed until I cried, and I kept crying for an hour and a half.
Well, it’s been two weeks and I still haven’t gotten the second half of my Job post finished. I had it almost to the point where I liked it enough to post it and then I decided to go a totally different direction with it. I never like anything I write. Anyway, I haven’t forgotten about you all and I am going to get the other post up SOMETIME this month. Hopefully.
Until then, I have a challenge for you.
I love to talk! I talk to everyone, from close friends to the person standing next to me at the sink of a public bathroom. One thing that I almost always ask is
“How are you?”
And 98% of the time, the answer is
“Good”.
No matter who I’m talking to, from a dear friend to someone I’ve never met before, I get an ambiguous, monosyllabic answer: “Good”.
But it goes the other way, of course. If someone asks me how I’m doing I always answer in less than five words. Why?
Because when someone asks you how you’re doing, they don’t really want to know! They don’t have time to listen to you gripe about what’s going on in your life! Every now and then I delay answering their polite inquiry for a few seconds, just to see what happens, and nearly every time they turn away without even noticing that I didn’t answer. Disgustingly, I am exactly the same way.
Caleb is one of those people who takes just a little bit more time than everyone else. I know that if I ask him how his day went, he will tell me all about it and I will be trapped in a one-sided conversation with him for a solid fifteen minutes. For this reason, I go out of my way to only say hello to him as I’m rushing past on an urgent mission to compare plans for the weekend with the other girls.
For whatever reason we do this, I am challenging you this week to stop and listen after you ask someone how they are doing. Even if he or she is a Caleb.
-BookFreak
The story of Job is an incredible one. It’s about a man whose absolute devotion to God caught the attention of the devil, who came before God to ask permission to destroy him. But God had complete confidence in Job and gave into the hands of Satan everything Job had, knowing that Job was strong enough to remain faithful throughout it. Eventually, everything was taken away from Job: his sons and daughters, his oxen and donkeys, his servants, his sheep, his camels, his health, everything. Everything except for his wife, who advised him to “Curse God and die!”, and a broken piece of pottery, which he scraped himself with as he sat among the ashes. Yet in everything that he went through, Job did not sin.
Can you imagine having such faith in God that God himself notices you—points to you and says “Have you seen my servant, Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”
When it was all over, the Lord gave him twice as much as he had had before and his wife had seven more sons and three daughters.
But what about his other sons and daughters?
What about all of his servants?
In Star Trek, there’s always an expendable crewman dying. It lends drama to the episode and emphasizes that they are really in a dangerous situation without permanently damaging the main characters.
What if I’m an expendable crewman in the story of someone else’s life?
More to come… [I promise!]
-BookFreak
We were looking at Dealing with Conflict.
During the study, a fight broke out between me and two of my sisters over a frozen chocolate drink we had indulged in. We were stilled by the voice of Mom, pointedly reading Proverbs 12:16 from the lesson outline. “A fool shows his [or her] annoyance at once, but a prudent man [or woman] overlooks an insult.”
It was so ironic it would have been funny had we not been so irritated.
I was working at the computer a few weeks ago when Dragon walked over and sat on the bed behind me. After a short silence she began to comment on the music I was listening to—the rhythm and undertones, specifically. She likened it to the music of a certain artist. I, waiting for my next page to load, absently disagreed. She replied that she knew a bit more about music than I did, thank you very much, but that it was alright, I couldn’t be expected to pick up on anything so advanced.
I glanced over at her, slightly annoyed. So, maybe she did know more about music than I, but she needn’t rub my nose in it. Besides, she’d only been taking music lessons for 18 months. That didn’t qualify her as a professional in my opinion. I pondered upon Dragon’s imponderableness for a few moments (what was taking the page so long to load?) before deciding that this was yet another social blunder that Dragon is so painfully oblivious to. Unwisely, I decided to educate her.
“Normal humans dislike being looked down upon, Dragon.”
“What?”
She appeared genuinely flabbergasted.
“But… I am superior, as far as music. You surpass me in other subjects, you know!”
“Yes,” I admitted, (to the second, as well as the first) “but it isn’t considered proper to flatter yourself.” (As I did above.)
“I don’t know why God had to make humans so they can’t stand the truth,” she grumbled, rising and stalking out of the room.
I turned back to the glowing screen before me and, finding my page loaded, I continued about my business, though only employing a third of my brain to the task. With the rest of it, I lingered upon our conversation. My thoughts were involuntarily drawn to 2 Timothy 2:23. “Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels.”
What have I been doing the past sixteen years?? One would think that I would learn!
~BookFreak
Well... I'm back!
What have I been doing that could render me so incapable of posting the past month? I have been pondering how to explain my prolonged absence to my fellow bloggers and I have decided to simply tell the truth.
First, we took a van full of girls to:
They had some amazing speakers there! :)
We even got Alex's autograph!
We got home safely and
went rock climbing and
paintballing, which was fun, even though it hurt.
After that, I had a birthday.
Then I went to church camp for a week! It was AMAZING!!! Amazing like.... pink shoelaces!!
Camp really wore us out so....
...we went home and "relaxed". It was fun.
Dad even taught me to drive a standard!
On Monday, I got to go wakeboarding!
Okay, okay... i probably wasn't quite as good as the guy in the picture... I was more like this:
Actually.... she's probably a lot better than me. I was a bit more like...
...this most of the time. Ah well.
Yesterday...
we watched Ratatouille, which was desperately cute.
And... I think that's all!
~BookFreak :)
There’s a new book coming out next month! Its arrival will be heralded by hundreds of thousands of teenagers across the globe waiting up into the wee hours of the morning of July 21st for its imminent release. What book, you ask?
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Shockingly, I have read all six of the previous books. Actually, I have not only read them, but I have thoroughly enjoyed them. In fact, I was a bit obsessive in my knowledge of them. I probably knew as much or more Harry Potter trivia than Jocelyn knows LOTR trivia.
But... God touched my heart. I started to realize that I was spending more time reading Harry Potter than my Bible and puzzling out Snape’s loyalties instead of praying.
Was it satanic? Was I being possessed by a book?
Um... no, I don't believe so. But Satan was using Harry Potter to draw me away from God. A few months later he used Lord of the Rings to do the same thing.
The Devil will use whatever I let him use, be it books, TV, or that cute guy who smiled at me. The thing he uses doesn't have to be evil in itself; it just has to be powerful enough to distract me from what really matters.
Personally, I think that the Harry Potter books are just that: Books. But if reading Harry Potter or anything else detracts from my relationship with God I want nothing to do with it.
~BookFreak
NOTE: In my previous post, The Will of God, I introduced you to a rather questionable method of interpreting the Bible. I do not use this method and I am sorry that my disapproval of it was not blatant enough.
How do we discover God’s plan for our lives? If only there was a book of BookFreak in the Bible—I could just flip it open and it would tell me what college to go to and what to major in, who to make friends with, and whether or not I should buy that t-shirt.
People try to discover the will of God different ways. I ran across a site a few weeks ago that made me laugh. It was dedicated to translating the word of God. Hey, yeah, I get that; I work on that all the time. But they went about it in a rather unique manner.
They take passages from the Bible and sort them different ways until they end up saying something relevant. Interesting, eh?
If the letters were shifted a bit more on the Titanic mosaic, it spells my name! Thus, I must be a direct descendant of someone who died on the Titanic! *koff*
Meh. Well, I’ve discovered one way that doesn’t work in finding out the will of God… That’s a step in the right direction, I guess.
~BookFreak
April 16th, 2007; Virginia Tech, 7:15am. Two students are shot. Police arrive on the scene within minutes, but rule the shooting an isolated incident. Two hours later, thirty more students and teachers are murdered. The shooter, twenty-three-year-old Cho Seung-hui, was found in the basement; he shot himself.
Why could no one stop him? Where were the police when the students were being killed? Frankly, there wasn’t a thing they could do. The only people in a position to defend the students were those already on campus, padlocked into the building with the shooter-- unarmed by a law passed in 2002 outlawing guns on college campuses in Virginia. Unbeknownst to them, the last hope of the victims in the Virginia Tech massacre winked out in 2005, when a bill allowing students and teachers with licenses to carry their guns on campus failed, cut down by the Virginia legislature.
"I'm sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus."
-A Virginia Tech spokesman
Boy, I bet the "university community" felt safe while they were being slaughtered.
Sickeningly, what has been ruled the worst mass shooting in the history of America could have been prevented if not for the narrow-mindedness of the Virginia legislature.
Are we really so naïve that we think that banning guns will keep guns away from criminals?
What’s a Christian’s view on this? My great-grandpa strongly believed that Christians should not own guns-- even for defense. He felt that if it came down to killing an intruder or being killed he would rather be the one to die, knowing that he would go to heaven.
My Dad would rather protect his family and their souls than that of an intruder.
There are a lot of people who disagree with my view of gun control. I’ve read their side and frankly, I don’t give a hang. Our house always has and always will benefit from our 2nd amendment right to keep and bear arms. If that makes you feel unsafe, keep away from our house.
Urgh, this is giving me chills. Where’s my magnum?…
~BookFreak
Boy oh boy, I like to drive! Sometimes I like to drive slow and let people take note that BookFreak is driving and sometimes I like to drive fast so all people think is "Whoa, what was that??".
My Grandpa wonders why I can’t drive him places yet. He doesn’t understand (anymore) that there’s more to getting a license nowadays then just proving that you’re tall enough to see over the dashboard. Actually, there’s quite a bit more, I’m finding out!
While I’m learning the masses of laws I never knew existed my little sister is also discovering new rules. One that particularly bugs her is the rule about not being allowed to play in the street. Rules, rules, rules! Will we ever escape them??
Nope!
God gave us a LOT of rules! He gave us environmental rules (like gravity), rules given to us by parents, social rules, state/country/county laws and spiritual rules: laws learned from reading the Bible (to name a few). There are a lot of them, but we follow them because we know that there are always consequences for breaking them—in this world or the next. Actually, there’s only one thing that can get us to break a rule (guess who I’m talking about).
Satan has his strategy worked smoother then a shaved baboon. He’s so good, in fact, that he gets us to do half the work!
God gave us a lovely little charm that’ll warn us when our borders are being tested--our conscience. Satan’s first task is to wear down our conscience and he does it by prompting us to justify "small sins" until we’ve become immune to the warning sting from our conscience.
When I was younger I was very sensitive to anyone using God’s name in vain. When I was 6 I even had my mouth washed out with soap for saying "gosh." But as I’ve gotten older and oh-so-much wiser *koff* I’ve been exposed to the words so often that they don’t bother me—in fact, I use some of them.
It’s so easy to justify a wrong choice:
--But the other kids can say it!
--The company is cheating me!
--It’s just a mass of tissue!
Hey, maybe it is unfair but (again) you’re the one who’s going to pay the price; in this world or the next.
Q: So… how do you repair a worn-out conscience?
A: Pray. Pray, pray, pray, pray, pray.
Satan is wily. He’ll wear us down little by little, day by day, choice by choice. Make good choices; choices that God wants you to make. I want to meet all of you in a lovely place called Heaven.
Everybody sins, Romans 3:23 But "In him [Jesus] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins," Ephesians 1:7 Ain’t that nice to know?
You know; I probably wouldn’t have gotten caught. But that doesn’t matter; it was wrong. God knows that I did it, even if the authorities never do. Anyway, I need to end this post. I have a CD to buy.
~BookFreak
Satan is wily.
He’s been around long enough to know how far he can push a human in the wrong direction without them noticing. He’s not going to have some pierced, tattooed, vile smelling stranger (please forgive the stereotype) walk up to you out of the blue and offer you cocaine without softening you up first.
You’ve probably seen the commercials: "You wouldn’t steal a car… you wouldn’t steal a DVD… you wouldn’t steal a handbag… downloading pirated songs is stealing! Illegal downloading: Inappropriate for all ages."
Q: If you were offered a pirated song dirt-cheap -or free- would you take it?
A: Naw… I’m a good kid! Besides, if I turn it down I’ll be able to tell all my friends about how good I am and let them praise me! (ß My mindset)
But… Satan didn’t slap it down in front of me like in the commercial. First he got me good and frustrated.
I wanted to buy a CD to put on my iPod and iTunes didn’t carry it. "Not a problem," I thought, "A little annoying, but I’ll just request it." But every time I opened the ‘request a song" window the computer locked up! "Fine," I growled, "I’ll try Napster." They didn’t have it. Neither did any of the other legal music sites I went to. Smoke was beginning to drift lazily out of my ears as I decided that I’d just find a store and buy it in person. I started comparing prices at some of our local stores. "$20?????" I gasped. "The CD only has 12 tracks on it!! What a rip-off! How can the recording companies cheat me like this?? What happened to a dollar a song? How can they place me in this kind of bondage? What about liberty? What about my self esteem?"
Okay, okay, that has nothing to do with it. But… that was really what started it. I was justifying what I was about to do by telling myself that it was the recording company’s fault for not putting the song where I could purchase it legally; they were trying to dupe me, and besides, tons of other people do it and don’t get caught!
So I did it. Satan wore down my conscience enough during the few hours I was online to cause me to ignore the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach telling me to hit "Stop Download."
"THOU SHALL NOT STEAL" –The eighth commandment. Note that it doesn’t say, "Thou shall not steal from anyone unless they deserve it".
Take a deep breath; this post isn’t over with yet—I’m just giving you a chance to remove me from your friends’ list. If you decide to keep me on (or even if you don’t) please come back on Monday when I hammer the final nail into my coffin.
~BookFreak