Twilight.

Wow.

So much better of a film than I had anticipated.

Very, very glad that I decided to watch it. Some of the best written/portrayed characters that I've seen in... far too long a time.

Looking forward to any future ventures into that fictional universe.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, everyone!

May you more richly understand this day's relevance--even more so than you have before.

Much love,
~AngelicLionheart

Moving Pains

One of my best friends is moving away to the other side of the country, to go pursue an interesting and exciting career.

And, well... it hurts. This is one of the people closest to me. I'm happy for him, and excited for how cool his new job will be.

But yeah... a little part of my heart is going with him. He's like a brother to me.

And so, just writing this journal to say... that yeah, it hurts. I'm continuing moving on, continuing moving forward, trusting in God's grace and perfect plans to be more than I could ask for. But as grateful as I am for the time I've been given with this friend, and as sure as I am that God's goodness has not changed nor have His plans for me... as God already understands, this kind of thing hurts. It's only normal.

If you have a relationship with God, I would ask that you pray for me and my friend. We're going to miss each other an awful lot.

Much love,
~AngelicLionheart

What's going on?

Okay, it's 3:30 in the morning, and I can't seem to get to sleep.

It feels kinda scary. Every time I go to try to fall asleep, it's like some reflex in my mind floods my body with "awakeness" (it doesn't feel like adrenaline, so I don't know what to call it) as if losing my consciousness would be fatal or something. It's like it wakes me up out of fear or something.


This is not the first night that I've had this happen, but this IS the first night that it's been this bad.

I was able to get over it last night and the night before, but tonight it seems stronger -- way stronger.

I don't know what's going on, and it's kinda creepy because, as far as I know, it's not something that I'm consciously controlling.

I feel tired, but I can't seem to get to sleep.

I think this all started a few nights ago (I don't remember how many) when, when I was on the verge of falling asleep and my mind was wandering into like, imagining stuff out of boredom or whatever and I was only kinda "half-there" you know, like the way you get as you fall asleep, all of a sudden, I got this crazy SHOCK awake, like the kind of shock you get when you're falling asleep in class and you have that weird reflex that makes you jerk your head up and wake up, looking around you all confused-like as you remember where you are after having been asleep, except this shock was way, way stronger -- stronger than any I've ever felt to my memory. I've never had issues with this before, and so I'm really confused as to what is going on...

Additionally, as I sit here typing this stuff, I can tell that something is... off. I don't know how to describe it, but I feel slightly weird. I am feeling in my head occasional feelings that are similar to what it is like to fall asleep in class and then wake up suddenly. It has to do with the way you mentally "feel" when you're about to fall asleep. It's weird. And kinda scary. Especially since my father's side of the family has some people who have mental disorders. :(

I hope (and pray) that this is nothing serious...

Please pray for me, if you are reading this, because I am brave in the face of all outside adversaries, but the idea of facing a body that is malfunctioning or something is really, really creepy. Very not cool.

I place this into God's hands, who loves me more than words can tell, and who desires for me love, peace, comfort, and safety, beyond all of my understanding.

Self-Respect

I learned something of exceedingly great importance tonight at my Bible Study: I don't respect myself enough. Not nearly enough.

And I think I have a good idea as to what has contributed to that lack of self-respect: my own parents, most particularly my mother, have never really respected me. And I've always loved them and valued their opinions to a very high degree, so it's no wonder that I don't respect myself when they themselves regard me in their minds as less than I am. Far, far less than I am.

I wonder how many things this has cost me? How many days and nights of doubt and uncertainty?

No matter. All I care about is that now that I understand this, what am I going to do about it?

I hope to prayerfully and carefully pursue making up for years and years of a lack of self-respect. And I hope to incorporate this knowledge into my formation of myself as an excellent person (as opposed to a merely adequate person).

Fascinating. I wonder how many other instances of "you don't realize this but here it is, and now that you know it you are way better off than you were" are locked away on a videocassette somewhere?

All I know is, that God continues to be awesome, and I hope and pray that I don't stray from Him as I move forward with what I've learned and act on it.

My birthday...

...is tomorrow, August 21st!

I am happy to be turning 23 this year. I am alive, I have all my fingers and toes, I am not starving, I am not a leper, I don't have any diseases (well, A.D.D., but hey, you know what I mean -- I don't have cancer or anything like it), so yeah I'm very grateful to have been on this Earth for 8,400 days since August 21st, 1985.

Tomorrow will mark my 8,401st day.

What can I say? I have come through a lot of dark valleys and fires. And through it, I've come out healthy. Not only "healthy enough" but exceedingly healthy! Let me remove the ambiguity -- I have God to thank for these blessings.

That said, as of right now, I am SO tired. I didn't go to sleep last night. I couldn't, really. The reason why is a long, annoying story :\. But the consequences are that I am so freaking off-kilter right now. Heh, what makes it worse is that this is the second time in the past week! Yeesh! My body is not very pleased with its inhabitant at the moment. =P

I just finished shaving so that I will wake up without the beginnings of an animal on my face. I'm about to hit the rack even though it's only around 9:00PM. Why so early? I am taking what I've learned from this article and applying it: [link] .

I can't wait. I love birthdays. One of my best friends' birthdays is the day after mine, and that makes it all the better.

Off to bed with me now. I am considerably overdue. :D

God is good.

Yes He is. :D

Organization

Woot.

Praise be to The Lord God, for He has gifted me with great aid as I made the attempt to get myself organized.

I'm not sure what "getting organized" means to other people, but to me, it's very, very significant. I have very poor short-term memory. So, if something's out of place when I go to look for it, not only may I have trouble finding it, I may forget altogether that I was even looking for it in the first place, because of how my mind works.

For me, getting organized means getting my life into the rhythm that it is supposed to be in. It means getting it into harmony with the order that God desires to see in my life.

There is, of course, always a way to go "too far" when organizing yourself, some people suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and are basically psychologically affected by "the small stuff." While I tend to be called OCD from time to time when I organize myself, the fact is that I'm nowhere near being OCD. Because while I prefer to be organized, indeed, I have a very STRONG preference for it, I am not BOTHERED by the times when I am not organized to that degree, nor am I bothered by when I am completely and utterly disorganized.

My disorganization is probably in large part due to the fact that I've moved back and forth from my college town, Athens, so many times in the last 5 or so years. When you have to completely destroy, and then completely reassemble, your entire system of organization, and everything else in your life for that matter, that frequently, then even if it's only for a few years, you tend to adapt in a way that makes it easy to convince yourself that you don't really need to reassemble your systems of organization in any kind of hurry, because you know you'll probably just have to disassemble them again soon enough anyway.

That was way too long of a sentence. Jedi Master William Parker would probably be displeased, if he weren't so easygoing and understanding of my casual speech-mimicking method of journal-entry/blog-entry.

Anywho.

This post is just to say that I am, for the first time in a long time, developing habits, patterns, and organizational systems that allow my mind and thus myself to function at a far, FAR greater efficiency than I probably ever have before.

Most of my systems of organization are based on automation, or, the lack of a need to consciously think about something. The goal being to make it so that I need to waste as little mindspace doing something non-creative as possible.

Designing these systems of automation and organization are awesome. I love it. Maybe I'll design them to such a great extent that I'll provide them to the entire world, the followers of Jesus (Yeshua) especially, and the entire world will be able to function at such higher levels of efficiency. Not having to do stuff from scratch in your head is just really, really great. It frees your mind to think about so many more important things. One application of these tools and habits that I believe would serve some of the most good is for young-ish parents, and really just parents in general. Being able to manage the chaos by any means is surely a welcome one, but with these methods of "thoughtless automation of everyday tasks" they can focus so much more on enjoying their lives with their children and far less on what needs to get done, how to get it done, and whether or not that can definitely get done, based on what they don't yet know for sure.

Well, I'm off to go reap the glorious, God-gifted and God-blessed rewards of having some time to myself that I don't have to worry about possibly being used for some other, more productive activity. :D

Take care, and until next time (and even past next time) God bless!
~Angel

The Study of God? Deo-ology, maybe?

Hey everyone. Hope things are going swell for you. I used to think that to actually wish for things to be "going swell" for someone 24/7 all the time was dumb and unrealistic, but I don't anymore. But that's for another entry sometime. Maybe. :P

I've been walking with God a lot lately. Obviously in the metaphorical sense (me go bye bye if I tried to stand in the physical presence of God -- *poof!* :P ), but oftentimes it really does feel like I'm just taking a walk with Him the way that I would with my earthly father, and we chat. It isn't purely educational, though I always, always, ALWAYS come away from the "walk" knowing things and being certain of things that I didn't know of and wasn't certain of before. But yeah, it hasn't been educational in nature, it has been much more like how walks with my earthly dad were -- we talked. How can you really articulate "what goes on" when two people are talking just for the sake of talking? There's no one thing or group of things going on, it's far too dynamic.

But anyway. He fascinates me. And regardless of whether or not He went out of His way to make it so that the way in which I would receive the experience of these walks would be fascinating to me or not, they have fascinated me. Which is really cool, because I love being fascinated. More so than most things. I really hope that the love of my life, the girl of my dreams will fascinate me, because I know how ingrained into my nature that experience is.

But back on topic: I wonder -- really, I wonder -- whether or not I could just get by in this world while just learning more about Him, rather than learning more about some random institutionally educational topic (gutted by the box that man puts it in) like "English" or "science," take your pick of any sub-section of those two, like literature or microbiology.

I guess what I really wonder is whether or not it would be okay with Him, and whether or not what He wants for me would be somehow "shorted" by my singling out my study of Who He is to the exclusion of any other topics of study that aren't able to be easily related to this study, and would take up valuable "brain space" in the mind of this attention-span-deficient child of His. The obvious questions arise in my mind: what would your source of income be if you didn't do anything for a job? Would that money be enough? Can you study Him like this and still live the rest of your life the way that you desire to? But most of all, the question comes up: is this what He wants for you? Is this able to be what's best for you -- or might this not be able to work out in the way that you imagine it to be possible to work out as?

Sometimes, I think it's safe to say, this world and all the things in it, including the people, bore me. Old hat, you know? I'm sure that that has at least something to do with a lack of exposure to things, but, I also think that it has something to do with the fact that it's all a little too familiar. And it is limited.

But, I dunno. Maybe I'm just restless and/or impatient. Me? Impatient? NO...

This I do think can be said without doubt: I don't want to waste my time. Not even one scrap of it. And a lot of times, I feel like I am wasting my time, when I'm having to play some people's games by their rules. Like the rules for getting a college degree (Take these pointless classes to fill out these slots in your degree so that you'll be "a well-rounded student" and thus get our stamp of approval!) I hate it. I hate sitting there, aware of the vanity and being unable to extract any good info out of the experience in spite of the continuing pointlessness. I ask myself, "Why don't you just leave? Just don't go? Use your precious and vastly under-appraised time for more relevant or important things?" And the response is something like "'Cuz if I want these people's degree, I have to play by their rules." Which I hate, naturally. I don't like being caged. I wish that I didn't need these people's degree. Maybe I actually don't? And maybe in a future walk, God will make me aware of this, and perhaps also what the real reasons were for Him leading me to attend and continue to attend here. Maybe the people whose lives I affect while here need Him, and He's using me? That'd be cool. So my next question would be: "So... it WAS the right thing to do to always put the needs and desires of my friends ahead of the amount of time that I spent on class-related stuff? Was it okay for me to choose to not do what would have been necessary for an "A" in the class because of what it would have taken away from the rest of my life? (a note to y'all: I have a LOT of stuff going on in my head, 24/7, about stuff not related to school, that isn't just throwaway thought) Was it right that I only play the game by their rules to point of it being sufficient to meet my needs of them, because of how vain and pointless and ill-tailored their rule system was?

He has already shown me, through a prayer session the other day, that to expend the additional effort necessary to get A's in the pointless classes (not all of my classes are pointless) would be my decision, and that rather than falling in the domain of right and wrong, it falls into the domain of personal preference. And I DEFINITELY PREFER to not waste my time and "brainspace" with these people. For others, these classes aren't a waste of time -- they may even be essential for their future. But for me, they are a vain effort, because I will never use nor retain what I learn in these courses. I wish that I could, but I just won't -- you don't use it, you lose it. Especially with me, lol.

So yeah. Still emerging from this epiphany with what are sort of "partial, vestigial doubts" about "not doing my best" in classes that waste my time. But I've got to remember that the cost for "my best in these classes" exceeds what I'm able to pay while paying the cost for "doing my best to live my life."

This period of my life definitely seems to be the crux or pinnacle of contest for my being -- where different ideologies and movements wage war for the person that I am to become. To quote Uncle Ben from Spiderman 1: "These are the years where you become the man that you will be for the rest of your life." And, I dunno. I know that I want and that I consciously and willingly choose for The Lord God to be the centerpiece of my life -- you know, my GOD... that I WORSHIP... and IDOLIZE... but, beyond that, things get pretty interesting. I don't like the idea of living my life only in those ways which would make sense to the people living in this century/decade/eon/whatever. I think that I have a lot of ideas about life and how it can be lived that are unconventional and unusual; heavily idealistic, but with the resolution to see that idealism realized, among other things.

And a lot of these things, which aren't yet fully formed in my mind, are only there because of what I have learned about God and Who He is and how He works. Like the whole area of "just ask Him, and you'll get your heart's desire, so long as it is what is actually what's best for you" thing. Does anyone else here see the limitlessness of the possibilities that arise from that? I think that most people don't ask solely because they don't expect that they'll get an answer, or will be denied what they want. Like, the first thing out of someone's mouth when this is brought up is "Okay, well, then, I want a million dollars" or something like that. Well, duh. Try asking for something that ISN'T dumb. Like, "Lord, I'd love to just either skip ahead to the good parts or at least be made to enjoy the stuff in-between, because I feel like I'm wasting my time. I've got a lot of stuff that I want to do, and a lot of qualities that I want to adopt, like physical, health-related, and social qualities that I don't yet possess; and this other stuff is taking up so much of my time that I can't get to those things which I really want to do. As is pleasing to you, because you always have my best interests at heart and know what's going to happen and what's most pleasing to me, please grant me this. In your name, Truly." Now, compare the two: "I want a million dollars" and "Daddy, can I please? It'd be so cool!" Which do you think is able to be answered in a way that actually won't cause the person to go backwards instead of forwards?

I want to make games. I want to design missions. I want to explore cinema and artificial actors and novel adaptations and gameplay mechanics. I want to tell stories that both change people's lives, AND cause them to ask the right kinds of questions, all the while maintaining the kind of work ethic and passion and purity that God wants for me.

So why am I feeling like I'm stuck dealing with stuff that is dumb and uninteresting? Maybe I'm missing something, or maybe God is using this stuff to embetter me in some way, that I just don't yet understand. God only knows. And regardless of how much I dislike whatever things I come across while following Him, I will follow Him where ever He leads me. I've never regretted it, and I believe with everything I've got that I never will. :)

Take care, everyone. And never forget the fact that you're not supposed to be miserable. If things are going right, you should have a feeling of contentedness that surpasses whatever negative feelings you are feeling. If you don't have that... then just go ask God for it. It's free. Well, it's not TOTALLY free, you DO have to ask for it, and actually allow, in your own mind, for the possibility of it being given to you. If you don't allow for that, and ask in vain, then obviously even if God gave it you wouldn't receive it from Him. So, yeah: just ask.

The Purpose in Life. The point of it all

God is awesome.

Let me just tell you all that before I get started. And I realize that you have no idea what those three words, composed of twelve letters of the english alphabet, are supposed to represent. You can only imagine based on what is in your head. But I'm still going to tell you all that and I'll let you decide exactly how wide you open your head to let the concept of "God is awesome" soak in.

Because He is really, phenomenally, and indubitably the most awesome person ever. And that's not just some whacked out Bible thumper or some crack-attacking Christian zombie saying that. I am currently a Philosophy major. While you may not understand the significance of that statement within the context of this journal entry, let me just put it this way: a man that I trust quite a lot said that if you could still believe in God after getting a degree in Philosophy, that "that'd be something." So when I say that God is awesome, I want you to understand that there is a lot behind that statement. It is an unbiased, quite questioning, highly skeptical person proclaiming that fact.

Now, onto the journal entry.

I was talking with my friend Matt about the purpose in having a particular career. I have recently been considering going into game design as a career. And part of me, a very powerful part of me, just could not get past the idea that maybe game design isn't quite the glorious and magnificent "life that would be worth living" that I would seek to have. And Matt, being well-intentioned, tried to get me to understand something, but just didn't have the words to get through to me. Did I mention God's awesome? Because He is -- get ready for this.

So, I'm still up into the night, wrestling with life, and the meaning of it. The role of purpose and the "point" of things, and even after speaking with Matt, I find no resolution to the dilemma. So I go to my Dad. I go to God. And I couldn't ask for a better Dad. He has this A.D.D. son that can be such a pain sometimes, and He knows just how to get through to him. So I'm praying, and I find myself out in the living room. I'm sitting on the couch, in the middle of the night, and I'm praying, and I just get a kind of feeling to turn on the TV. At first I suspect myself of getting impatient while praying, as my A.D.D. self sometimes gets. But then I realize that it's probably God leading me, and that I should just "go with the flow.," knowing that I'll be led away from it if it turns out that turning on the TV wasn't what I was supposed to do. And after watching an episode of Conan O'Brian, the purpose of which I still do not know, I remember that I had set up the DVR to record a movie that I hadn't seen yet that I'd always wanted to see. The title of the movie is Jack, and it stars Robin Williams.

Yup.

Remember the 'God is awesome' part? Yeah.... You see, I enjoyed the movie a lot, but it wasn't until the end of it that I remembered that I had gone into this movie as part of an effort to get some answers from my Dad/God. And at that point, things went *CLICK*. What I had not understood before, I understand now. How profound the lesson in that movie is. I doubt that those who made the film even realized the potency of the message.

Here I had been, wondering how I could possibly go make videogames for a living, and have all kinds of things go my way, when I knew that there was so much suffering in the world. I could sacrifice at least some small part of myself to go and help them, couldn't I? And all these other people that I've seen who hate their jobs, or at least find them unfulfilling, what about them? I'd feel guilty having what I consider to be just about the best life that I could have when they were all left behind, not enjoying theirs as much. This is the direct lesson that Jack taught me:Never ask a child what they want to be when they grow up. Ask the child WHO they want to be, the kind of person that they want to be, when they grow up. And the person asking should understand that, too, not just the child that they're asking. Do what you ENJOY doing, not what might serve some end somewhere or something.

What God taught me, through watching that film, and in addition to the lesson that the film directly taught me, was this: this is your life. It's the only one that you've got here on Earth, and it's far, far shorter than you think it is. Let's not even get into whether or not you'll make it to old age or not. Let's just assume the unlikely, and assume that you will make it to old age. Even still, it will be too short. Your life is this tiny, precious, fragile, easily breakable, and death-prone thing that is just so rare and valuable that it's hard to get your mind around it. How could it possibly be justified, through unselfish thinking, to believe that you should just enjoy life as much as you can, live, laugh, and love while you still can? Because while there is a world in pain out there, they're not your problem unless you want them to be your problem. You are not your brother's keeper unless you choose to be. And your life is so very precious, there is absolutely nothing wrong with living, laughing, and loving being the POINT of you being alive. Your PURPOSE. Life's purpose isn't an achievement of some kind - it's a way of living. It's about relationships, specifically, loving people. Loving God, loving yourself, and loving others. If you're on top of those things, then do. not. fret. All is well. You are blessed. Enjoy it. Don't shrug it off as though it will freely and easily come back to you after you abandon it. No matter how noble the idea, do not sacrifice your life unless you are absolutely sure that that is exactly what you WANT to do.

Go watch Jack. And pray. And come to know the meaning and the purpose and the context of your life.

Insight

Right now, I'm basking in a world of insight.

Right now God is showing me, or, perhaps, allowing me to see, a very deep insight into... everything. Life. Death. The point of it all. The context within which it all occurs.

Why is it a good decision to live a simple life, enjoying the laughter and company of your friends, bringing smiles and comfort to cold faces and wearied souls? Why not accomplish something great, something fantastic? Something that will be remembered?

Because every single one of those things are going to be taken away from you. They will not always be there, and you will not always be able to go back to them "some other time;" some time AFTER you've accomplished your big goals. They will die. Your friends, your family, you. All dead one day. All of this, here, on earth, is temporary. You won't have it for very long at all. In fact, it is most certain that you will one day say that however much you have had is not enough - you will want more, and there will be no more, here on earth. Good thing that death is a blessing, as Beren told Luthien, and that this is only a taste of what is to come. But until we stand inside of heaven's gates, we are left here. Earth. And what is the point of it all? Life. Living it. Enjoying it. Moving past the negatives so that you can enjoy the positives, because if you refuse to battle the negatives by overcoming them and encapsulating yourself in the postiives, then you will be living here on earth in wasted time. Time you could have and should have spent enjoying this majestic world that your Creator has built for you to enjoy. Here, we live in Him. He is what makes life worth living. Specifically? He is the only reason why there is anything beyond this life. And the same reason that there is something so much more beyond this life is the reason for life being able to be great.

Sorrow, death, pain, anger, and fear call this place home as well. They are our enemies. And we must defeat them. But we are not to turn a blind eye to God permitting their existence. They teach us. Embetter us. In ways that joy, and comfort, and contentment, and jubilance were not designed to. We are not perfect creatures, and our willful mistakes make it necessary for us to be disciplined. And that is a wonderful thing, discipline, because rather than allowing us to go further down the road to eventual despair, anger, ignorance and hate, we are slapped in the face so that the better parts of ourselves can recognize the lesser parts of ourselves, and make the choice to evict them. We are not meant to be mere mindless servants, blissfully ignorant and drooling as we testify to God's glory. We are meant to be more than angels. More than mere creatures of worship. We are meant for more. And our experiences here in this world enable us to travel further along that path towards becoming something more. He has called us "friend." That means so much more than you or I can possibly fathom at this moment. It's incredible, the meaning behind that. It's deep. Perhaps the deepest thing that there is.

His love for us is not just some Hallmark card. It's real. It's living. He's someone that you can have conversations with, someone with whom you can interact, you being yourself, and Him being Himself.

There is purpose in sorrow, and in despair, and in pain. Believe me, I know from extensive experience with them. And I can testify that the pain and the suffering, while wrong in its origins, was used by my Lord and Friend to make me better. So long as I was willing to play along. And even though I didn't know it at the time, all that I had to do to "play along" with this was to seek His face and never give up on His love for me, and THAT was what enabled me to become more.

I recently read something in God's Word that went something like this: "How does God want us to live our lives?" God's reply: "Live humble and quiet lives, refraining from doing what you know is wrong. And get to know Me better." And that initially disturbed/disheartened me. "Where's the fun in that?" I asked. What I lacked then, I believe, was the proper context within which to view God's answer. I wasn't thinking about the fact that time seems to be passing ever faster for me as I age. I seem to remember a time when a year was one heck of a long time, and now it seems to fly by like it was in a hurry or something. Your job, your career, your goals, it's all secondary. The primary is enjoying the life you live, for the right reasons. And coming to appreciate what is truly good; what God has placed there for you. We're all just passersby, here. Earth is a very temporary thing, you know. It was not made to last. Just a place for us to pass through on our way to becoming something more. SomeONE more. You will arrive, and you will leave. This place is just some level in a videogame that you enjoy getting through before you go out there and live your own, real, adventures. Where you really live. And those of us that know this are meant to share that information, not hold it back, from the people around us. Not everyone - just everyone that we can. The degree of your sacrifice is up to you. How much of your time you are willing to dedicate to going out and introducing as many people to God as you can before you leave this place, is up to you. People try to put the degree of this sacrifice in terms of wrong and right. That's not the correct way to do this. Just like a gift for a friend's birthday, it's up to you how much you give. Be cheap, or give it all. Or something in between. It's really up to you, and you alone. God made it that way. Yes, it is better in His eyes for you to give when you can, than to be lazy or otherwise choose not to in spite of being able, but that is not the same thing as right and wrong. It's just your choice.

Thank you, God, for giving me this insight. :-)

The First Entry

Testing....

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