So my roommate here (the one from North Carolina) just made this thing called potato candy, and I've been watching her for the past 20 minutes and have gotten to try some of it. It's really good and sweet and pretty much STRAIGHT UP SUGAR. So here's the process!
1) Bake a potato.
2) Peel off the skin and mash it up with some vanilla extract.
3) Mix confectioners sugar into it until it becomes doughy (you use approximately one bag for half a potato--like I said, it's straight up sugar!!!). It'll first become really goopy, but you just keep adding sugar until it becomes a dough (and yes, I WAS analyzing how it all worked--what with hypertonic solutions/osmosis/supersaturation).
4) Roll it out until it becomes a half a centimeter thick sheet.
5) Spread a thin layer of peanut butter over it.
6) Roll the sheet with the peanut butter up until it looks like a sushi roll (kinda).
7) Cut it up into bite-sized pieces.
8) Eat.
It'll harden over time, and I suppose it's even better then. But I had one piece and I was on the verge of a sugar overload. So, diabetics, beware. Also, it tasted like a Chinese candy that I can't name or really even remember, but I guess I'm not surprised that there is a Chinese candy that has potato as one of its ingredients.
And yes, I tend to put up misleading titles in case you haven't noticed already, but anyway, it's our night of reflection once again, and I'm doing it early because there are fireworks tonight (whoo 4th of July!!!). I <3 fireworks =].
As I said, I'm about to tear myself apart. Always a humbling and relieving experience I suppose.
I've now been on Summer Project in Long Beach for 6 weeks. During this time, I've struggled with various issues, such as being extremely busy, not resting enough, getting frustrated with the "American" lifestyle or attitudes of my friends here, finding myself lonely and seemingly forgotten, skipping out on daily quiet times, not praying for others/not praying well, hurting deeply/really feeling my isolation from this world, losing it (hahahaaa that doesn't happen often.......) at a small meeting, and in general getting ticked off at how people treat each other and how they treat me. On top of that, I'm really missing some of the best people I have ever met in my life back home (aka my karate dojo), and who love me pretty darn close to unconditionally, and whom I will not be able to see until winter break (uhhh maybe earlier, but I doubt it). Also, I feel like I am failing the goal I set before myself to learn about and love Jesus until He is the greatest and primary love of my life, and it's nothing legalistic, but rather out of the love I already have for Him and because of the glory I want to bring to God.
And oh, this foolish and fickle heart of mine that goes wherever I go, this deceitful and wicked thing, this pride. My greatest downfall, the root of all of my sins: my own self. Well duh. But just look at me! My thoughts and feelings over the last six weeks, the joy that I have but have also set on the back burner, the times with God that I've let slip through my everyday actions. It's like this glop of sluggish, black, slow-moving dross in my system, making me sick and crotchety (sin). So the devil is for sure attacking me, but my defenses have thus far proved weak/mediocre.
All to say:
Who am I to judge others? Am I judging them? Or do I really have an anger in my heart for what angers God? I believe it's right to hate sin and hate it in others, but is that what I'm doing, or is that hatred leaking out onto the person and turning into bitterness? I think it is. Don't let it, Stephanie. Why do I think I'm so good? I think I'm so gifted, talented, better than anyone else here that I can see the lie poking me to let it be truth, and that is dangerous. What's hindering me from loving well? Why can't I accept the way my friends are? In some ways, I shouldn't, but that overarching lie, again, is pushing me towards being my own little self-sufficient machine that steers away from Project people. I've given so much of myself during the school year, I think, and why is it that I should always be the one to reach out?? To extend myself further so others can feel cared for? Why can't anyone do that for me once?? I'm just sitting here...waiting for someone to sacrifice him/herself for me. Come on. What did I expect? What I've been given in this world is already a blessing far, far beyond what I deserve. I deserve nothing--less than nothing. I deserve pain; I deserve sorrow; I deserve suffering. And yet...God has blessed me. And yes, it hurts, and yes, it's hard and discomfiting to always be the one reaching out, to be the one who "leads" in unnoticeable ways, to let it be so until Satan twists it into a lie. Be cautious, little and weak one. How to love the subtly unlovable? In mind and thought? And isn't it prideful of me to call them unlovable when I myself am so unlovable?
Discipline. I have too much adopted a "screw-it-all" attitude towards having daily quiet times lately (geez, how unholy. But it's really the most honest way to describe what I just realized). I'm too busy. I've done so much today. I'm exhausted; I don't have a quiet or private place to connect with God. If I don't go to sleep now, I won't have slept enough for tomorrow. And even then, it won't be enough. Waking up early in the mornings is out of the question. Why? Because I already wake up early enough!! I forgot. I don't have time. I just don't want to. I just don't want to. I don't want to.
Whaaaaaaaat a complaining annoyance of a fly I can be! Ughhhhhh I'm disgusting sometimes, you know?? I looked in the mirror the other day and really, really felt disgusted.
And to know I'm missing out on the cure, the one person who can save me from all of this, if only I would seek him and pursue him. It's on account of God that I am redeemed, that by the grace of God, I am saved.
Ugh. My guilty heart needs conviction. I feel like I'm saying all this, and yet nothing will change.
FALSE. The one thing to start......quiet times with the Lord. Whatever it takes. My relationship with the Lord must be right first. The other things will follow. Whatever it takes. He's worth it all, you know? My heart knows, however much it wishes not to. And why it wouldn't wish to, I don't know.
It's Jesus--He's the one. He saves me continuously.
My mouth feels sugary just reading about that candy you two made!
ReplyDeleteOne thing you wrote about loving others, specifically about always feeling like you have to take the initiative--I've experienced that several times in my life, and I think God is teaching me that to love is to love without expectation. Love freely, not on loan. Love without controlling that person, instead giving him or her the freedom to love you back on his own choice. That is true love.
But as for discipline: it is accomplished by the grace of God. We keep these disciplines because we are motivated by love and commit to the pursuit of holiness, again all by his grace. I know when I don't have quiet time, my entire day is pretty much a waste. Think of that time with God as that time you have to get the strength, the wisdom, the courage! you need to face the day.
I say this kindly, and I think you already know all of this, at least in your mind.
But Stephanie, while you are a sinner, I want to remind you that by his son's blood, you are now righteousness, holy and blameless before his sight. You are precious, honored. He loves you, and he will show compassion to you. Love yourself for he loves you.