church

Today Rachel and I went to Elim Family Worship Centre instead of our regularly scheduled church for a couple reasons, first Steve is gone tree planting and second, our church is showing a boring video series.

So Elim it was, within walking distance and I know the Pastor. I certainly enjoyed the service but could never go to the church regularly because of some doctrinal friction. However, this service was quite profitable because it reminded me of what our church is missing and therefore the reason that I am a member of Riverside.

Notably the service included both the proper use of prophecy and tongues. And by "proper use" I mean as described in 1 Corinthians 14, with only 1-3 people doing so, one at a time, and the tongues with interpretation. The tongue speaking itself was distinguishable as being a real human language with actual syntax, morphological structure and natural sounding inflections, and the interpretation translated it with the same tone and structure. It gave me chills because so far my only experience with "tongues" is what I would call either fake, or even Satanic. However this was certainly the real deal. Rachel laughed at me because apparently my face had a look of amazed shock the whole time!

Operating in the Prophetic is something that is taken for granted in more Charismatic churches, but it is something I strongly desire to see my church embracing, but without a change in our Reformed theology of course.

We had to leave the service early though because Rachel was feeling sick and I had been awake for 20 hours and needed to sleep for tonight's midnight shift. But yeah, just thought I'd report, see y'all later.

All is quiet

Well I'm off to work soon for what will be the first of my four last midnight shifts ever. Sucks. I hate midnight shifts. Good news though is that my ESV "Journaling Bible" came in and I've been making some use of it. Quite nice to have the space to write ideas/notes and feel no guilt (I'm SUPPOSED to write in it!)

Had dinner with Rach and my mom. Jerry? Are you free tomorrow evening? If so you're mine!

Talk to y'all later.

Wire(less)

After much groaning and pain, both physical and mental, I now have a wireless network in my home! YAY! And this post is brought to you by said wireless network.

argh too much nintendo the past few days, starting to hear bleeps and bloops in my head in the quiet of 2am

do you still believe?

Argh. No sleep last night at all. I must say that funny as it is, I had a normal bed time for 22 years but after 4 months of working midnights last summer I still haven't been able to regulate my sleeping pattern. Some days I go to bed at 10:00pm, and other days, probably as a combination of my overly thoughtful nature, caffeine on an overly sensitive nervous system, and a burdened spirit... no sleep. I look at my clock at 1am and realize I really need to sleep before my alarm goes off at 4:3oam so I can go to work. Next thing I know, three hours of rumination upon a combination of the biblical precept of tithing, Super Metroid, missing Rachel, and song lyrics forming in my brain, my alarm goes off and I laugh. I am still awake, for almost 36 hours by now and I'm still only partially tired.

My friend Peter really, really wants to start a spazz-thrash band, Slayer meets The Chariot style. He has invited me to do vocals and I will oblige if anything comes of it, but since all my past musical forays have failed I'm not going to get my hopes up. However I am surprised by the ease at which I am writing lyrics, not straight poetry, but actual lyrics that I could fit to music. We'll see how it goes. In any case the band would be called "Whores." and my lyrics are taking the direction of humanity's infidelity with God, so "Whore" is probably the best descriptor. Funny thing is that everyone Peter has asked to be in the band is a Christian, and he is not. Sounds like a good opportunity to me!

And as another note Ashamed is definitely the best Suffering & the Hideous Thieves record...

And uh, I miss Rachel, haven't really seen her for a week minus the 10 minutes spent at her place with Jerry on Wednesday. This rather sucks as our relationship tends to improve both of us. We need some improvin' says I!

On another note I am unfortunately back on the heart meds as well as the thyroid stuff, so 5 pills a day until June 1st then 3 a day. The pills are having a strong effect on me. I guess I never realized how much of a role metabolic hormones play on my personality. I feel calmer, however still easily agitated. If I miss a pill or two or take them irregularly I become flightly, tired and light-headed.... kind of like I want to vomit and sleep at the same time...

Please keep praying over this. I would like a full recovery and would prefer to not take pills for the rest of my life, especially as they do modify my personality (some would say for the better no doubt! lol)

that will be all for now, see yas!

It's super!

I've had an enjoyable weekend. To start off, I walked into Chumleigh's Friday night only to find a copy of the game Super Metroid for the SNES, long regarded as not only one of the best SNES games, but one of the best video games ever. Its charm comes from its challenging and innovative game play, equal parts adventure, puzzle, shoot 'em up, and RPG. The graphics and level design are impeccable, the labyrinthine structure of the levels actually creates fear within me as a player. Not to mention that one can only save the game at save points throughout the levels, and if one dies before reaching a save point, everything since the last one is lost. Anyway, this game is fun to play, fun to watch, and overall great.

Yesterday I hung out with Steve and Rach and we had dinner and watched some TV (Mythbusters for the win!) Today was church and some fun hang out times with everyone. After, I met Rachel at Beavermead park following her soccer game and we went back to her place for some ice cream and tea.

Good times for all!

cha cha cha

thoughts & ideas:

1. The Lord has a keen sense of irony. Last week I mentioned something to my pastor and this week he preached on the exact thing that I mentioned. And it convicted the hell out of me.
2. I love sushi. Specifically, I love Matsu Sushi, the awesome and friendly local neighbourhood sushi joint.
3. The Chariot's new album will rip your face off and, not coincidentally, also convict the hell out of you. These are Josh's best lyrics. It's like non-cliche worship with pummeling heaviness... and southern mass-choir-ness! Enjoy at your own risk.
4. Nerdy news: Today I bought a Western Digital 120gb portable hard drive. Two purposes in mind: first, remove all valuable files and documents from my Craptacular Dell, and also to digitally back up ALL of my CDs onto it. This will be quite nice for traveling/partying purposes.
5. Rachel is amazing. Thanks for being there.

falling from the sky

It is so nice having Rachel so close! I can visit often, and it doesn't require long bus rides or staying up late! It is so refreshing. The ease of seeing each other has also done great things for us in our prayers and studies, which have become more regular and even spontaneous at times. We must remember to focus our relationship on nothing other than Christ, but that is impossible unless our own individual lives are focused on Christ, and this is easier said than done. So a prayer request would be, "pray for Rachel and I as a couple" because we don't plan on separating any time soon!

In other news, Rachel keeps finding old SNES games lying on the side of the road after work each day. In three days she has found three games, two of which are currently in my possession! And, to make it better, they are great games. Mickey Mania and Kirby Super Star. They are in decent condition and play fine. My best guess is that someone either dropped them accidentally and never returned for them, or someone threw out a box of games that someone found and decided to play a game of "Kick the Cartridge," thankfully these old school games hold up to abuse so much better than modern CD and DVD games.

So yeah, if anyone wants to get in on some multi-player SNES action, just bring a controller, cause I only have one! And if you got some good games, bring 'em over too! Hrmm, do I sense an old school SNES party in the works or what?!