Sorry I annoyed you with my friendship!

One of my favorite quotes from The Office, right before Andy punches his fist into the wall in a furious rage... perfect.

Anyway, I love reading blogs, especially Christian ones - I find encouragement at the oddest/unexpected times and most awesomely, Godly perspective. It's always cool after reading a common passage in the Bible, listening to every sermon on the subject and then reading a random blog about it and being transformed by some new perspective. Speaking of... here's some of a blog I like from Stuff Christians Like about the prodigal son, from Luke 15.

I think that is something we Christians forget that we need to be found. We think it's already happened. We ascribe events to our faith and say things like, "I became a Christian in the fourth grade" or "I gave my life to Christ last year." I like the present tense better. I like how words like becoming and being and giving, capture that faith isn't so much an event as it is an experience. It isn't so much something you do once, but rather something you do. We need to be found. Not once in a single moment of salvation but daily. Hourly even, we need the God of the universe to come running. To find us. To know us and love us.

I don’t know where you are right now. Maybe you’re found, maybe you’re lost, but regardless, please know that there is a father watching your road. It is all he does. His beard is growing long, his stomach is going empty as he waits by the road for you. He won’t leave. He can’t leave as long as you’re still out there. You need only get up and go and wait for the sound of desperate feet in the distance.

I like envisioning God growing a beard, it getting longer and wispier as He waits for His children to turn the corner and embrace Him.

- Alicia

Is this so much to ask, friends?

I wish everyone I knew would stop getting engaged. There - I said it. There have been a handful of engagements that I can think of just off the top of my head, just from the summer!


My scope of friends who were in that 'single & happy ' crowd is dwindling, and it's dwindling fast. Some thoughts... it's so hard to be content being single when 1) guys you've liked for a good year but never really told them decide to match up with someone else out of the blue, 2) everytime you log into facebook there's a new, cartoon heart letting you know that yet again, a dear friend has found their soul-mate, 3) you keep seeing more and more photos of engagement rings you hadn't known about a week ago, etc. Lately this week, being home, with a family that's barely home, there's been huge opportunities to become a second mother - whether is cleaning, cooking, organizing, or keeping the household in order. My wife/mother mode has been turned on high these past days and I don't know why. I certainly doesn't help that more and more great friends of mine are getting into relationships, getting engaged, getting married (there have been three weddings in the past two months alone) and having babies... granted I do not want children now, I don't want to get married or engaged... but I do want a relationship. What girl doesn't? And of course as I type this I'm convicted that perhaps, God does not want me in a relationship. And even as I type, again I am convicted of the silliness of my problem and how really, my focus is too worldly to be a follower of Christ. How to fix it?

- Alicia

Philly blog to come soon.

Very soon, I hope. When it's not 2 am, when the Olympics aren't on and Michael Phelps isn't around to distract me with his swimming greatness and adorable grin... So part of the reason I've waited from writing a Philly blog is because I am drained. Spiritually I am drained, concerned, not necessarily dead inside, but my quiet time is more of an obligatory drudge through 2 Corinthians than what used to be joyful time spent falling in love with God. I want a good day of relaxing, of no worries, maybe away from the house, on the beach, with my Bible and John Piper and the grubby Chesapeake Bay. Maybe some pomegranate juice, my favorite. Maybe this day won't happen and it's just wishful thinking on God's agenda. Maybe I am being lazy and just waiting for God to do His magic. Also I'm buying a new computer this week, but I'm still comparing prices and getting advice from my dad about what computer is best and yatatta yatatta. It's all very stressful.

Onto this great new blog I found called Stuff Christians Like and it's wonderful. It's pretty funny and just shy of offensive - but it's fresh and at times a stark realization of how weak, hypocritical, judgemental, etc. we are (I am). Reading some of them shows me how silly I am about certain things, but also encourages me that some things I've been recognizing this entire year in my walk are recognized by tons of other Christians - at least this guy, Jon, who writes the blog. Some of my favorites are:

# 373 - The Prayer Ninja
# 92 - Riding on the cool van in youth group
# 370 - Getting addicted to religion

My testimony of finding Christ deals with this. Here's a quote from this entry I like:

I didn't know there was such as thing as too much faith or too much Jesus or too much Bible or too much God. But that's not what the counselor said. He said I was addicted to religion, not God. And there's a big difference. I tried to push back on this new piece of information. It wasn't possible. I couldn't possibly be using religion as a way to act out, as a method of gaining an emotional high or medicating a pain I didn't want to deal with. I couldn't possibly be hiding inside the constructs of religion to escape reality.

But slowly but surely, I started to see the truth. I realized that after coming home to God in the sense of the Prodigal Son story, I had grown impatient. Things were not happening as fast as I thought they should. My definition of redemption was not unfolding in the way I would have planned it. And like author Gerald May writes, I began "trying to command the very process of healing."

# 367 - Asking for money at church
# 366 - Holy quotes at the end of emails
# 364 - Feeling unqualified for "that thing"
# 263 - Competing in the "VBS classroom decoration wars."
# 262 - Hoping TBS edits the Sex and the City movie, too
# 260 - Drawing in the bulletin
# 259 - Thinking faith is an event
# 253 - Painting God mad

I challenge you to read them all. They are wonderful and delightful because they are true. I have experienced half of them and know others who have dealt with the other half of the issues this blog is all about. Definitely visiting this more often!

Fave Philly Photos.

Pre-hair cut, with my new Buddah friend, at Morris Arboretum.

At the Chop Shop. Brooke did a stellar job AND she was super cute. She's getting married this fall! <3

Before taking my new hair out on the town, I had to try my first ever falafel. Minus the Satanic hot sauce I mistook for pesto, it was delish!

We celebrated my (and Kim's) new hair by trying on the most horrid 80s prom dresses we could find and violating the thrift store rules by taking multiple photos in them.

Kim says I'm the new Disney princess!

Thank God for telephones.

They're great for limiting awkward face to face time with people you'd rather, well, not talk to face to face. Yet they still allow for copious amounts of awkwardness. I just got off the phone with a dear friend of mine, and can I just say for various reasons it was the most liberating conversation of my life? Issues were dealt with, maybe not in an obnoxious and dramatic way, but they were dealt with. I can honestly say a particular issue with this person is out of my life. It's certainly easy when God makes it that way... or the person initiates the convo...

In other news I have officially Israeli folk danced. I felt like I was the bride at a Jewish wedding. We rode the subway to a synagogue half an hour out of Philly to attend a class taught by a connoisseur of folk dancing, this amazing man who makes his living off of teaching people this beautiful art form, that really is an expression of joy. I want to bring this to my school and start a club. What a stress reliever and just what Kim, Sonia and I needed after nine hard weeks of work. I can't believer there is only one week left of this beautiful city with my beautiful new friends. I'm going to miss them a ton.

In even other news I am officially addicted and obsessed with Twitter. Except it's hard finding people I know on Twitter - hopefully it will catch on this year! I love it and it's such an amazing way to keep in touch with and connect with friends and family. Here's my page: https://twitter.com/alicialandale. Check it out! <3