Michelangelo

Michelangelo didn't just paint church ceilings, he also was a great sculptor as well. Michelangelo would get a huge, shapeless hunk of marble and start by using a large hammer and chisel to break away large chunks of the marble block away. After that he would use a smaller hammer and chisel to chip away at the marble to define the shape he was making. After that process was over sand paper would be used to round edges, smooth areas and define even more what Michelangelo was creating. And finally he would use a damp velvet cloth to smooth and shine the finished product, resulting in something such as this...

Many people would ask ole "Mike" how he created that from a hunk of marble. He would reply, "I didn't, it was there all along. I just let it out." He called it "Releasing the form inside"

All this reminded me of mankind and untimatly myself. I believe God created us all with something beautiful and wonderful and amazing inside of us. God created
me with something beautiful and wonderful and amazing inside of me! But ever since I was about 8 years old I havn't believed that to be true. That wonderful thing inside of me had been knocked around, chipped and roughed up. But it's still inside of me, waiting to come out for me to put to use and for the world to see.

But as Michelangelo shows us it ain't always a pretty process getting that out. It needs to be chiseled away, chipped, broken and sanded down. Fortunatly after all that comes the velvet cloth to sooth and shine.

If I want to live as God truly intended me to I need to bring out what He's already placed inside of me. Bring on the chisel Lord.

Smoking=Unattractive

Today I was driving out to deliever the mail and I noticed a 25ish year old guy standing by the water treatment center that I had never seen before. As I drove closer I will admit, I was checking him out. He was a very good looking guy, I was thinking to myself, "That guy is gooooood lookin" when he put a cigarette up to his mouth, drew in a deep breath and puffed it slowly back out into the brisk air.

Suddenly not so good looking. Smoking is not attractive at all.

Extreme Makeover: Joni Edition

No I'm not going through a makeover in the sense that I get a new hair style and colour, and get a new wardrobe I'm talking about more of a soul makeover. This week my small group Bible study started a new study, it's called Breakaway. It's all about breaking away from the world and living the way Christ intended ME to.

"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind..."

Most of the time I feel very comfortable conforming; being like the crowd. I've never really been one of those stick-out-in-the-crowd type of people, I really enjoy blending in in fact but that's not exactly what Christ has called me to. In the first session of this study we talked about our belief system and how that affects our decisions which ultimatly brings about certain outcomes in our lives. If we have obscure, unbiblical and ungodly belief systems it affects our entire life. When you are unhappy with your life it's usually because of the outcome. Whenever I am unhappy with an outcome in my life I tend to run away but I'm still me, I still have the same messed up belief system. So things remain the same. Thus I need to transform my thinking; my beliefs before I can be happy with who God created me to be and the outcomes of my life.

And so the transformation begins. It's not going to pleasant all the time, I know that already. As in any renovations it can get messy! But I'm committed to changing my whhhack beliefs!

I'll keep ya posted.

Sleepless in...my basement

I can't sleep. This happens to me every once in a while and I can't seem to pinpoint what the issue is that makes me temporarily insomnic (I'm not even sure insomnic is a word but bear with me) Is it gastric problems? No. A acting up foot fungas? No. An overactive mind? Possibly. But I can't figure out what it would be overacting on. Doesn't really seem like there's much going on up there considering that I can't come up with anything more interesting to write in this random episode of the bloggity-blog.

What are some ways I could put myself to sleep? So far I tried reading, that didn't work, I just got wrapped up in the story. So then I turned on the tv and watched an episode of "My Name is Earl". That didn't work either, it was funny! So now I'm blogging. I'm not feeling any more tired. Was "any more" supposed to be one word in that past sentence? The popular tv sitcom method of making a person sleepy is to drink warm milk. That just grosses me out.

I just reread what I wrote and noticed all my grammer errors but I'm not going to correct them so you can have some fun pretending to be an English teacher while you read this. I know that if James Ranson was reading this he would have for sure noticed every mistake I made, I apprecate that about him! Who needs spell check when you've got a James Ranson around!

Well I think I'm going to watch an episode of Hannah Montana and see if that makes me sleepy. Thanks for checkin in!

Just everyday life

Well...I don't really have anything to say today but I thought to myself, "I havn't written anything in the bloggidy-blog for a while" and not wanting to dissapoint all of my bloggidy-blog readers, (that's right all 8 of you!) I decided to write something anyway. So now you've been warned, this may not be interesting!

Nothing of interest has happened in my life latley. Just work, starting up youth group, small group bible study and life in general. Oh and I recently completed the Red Cross course to become a First Responder. It was pretty intense stuff but I really enjoyed the course. I got to have my own little dummy to practice CPR on, in case your wondering I named him Bartholemew and we got along qite well, although that might have had something to do with the fact that I saved his life at least 8 times. I also got to experience being strapped onto a spine board, it was a bit unnerving but I got through it, my blood pressure was quite high after the whole ordeal though!

Let me give you some advice if you are thinking of taking any form of advanced first aide, if you don't like people touching you don't take the course!

tea parties and ballarina moves

Last week I had a tea party with my friends 3 year old daughter. It was a marvelous time! She brought over her princess tea set...I drank from the Sleeping Beauty cup. I made ice tea, served some chocolate cookie type things as well as apples with cheese slices. The tea party began! We drank a lot of ice tea, ate he entire plate of goodies and talked about life, from a 3 year olds point of view! After we had devoured all the tea party goodness we turned on the tv to watch the Wiggles. If you've never watched them you should.
We were dancing along with the amazing Wiggles when T. looked at me and said, "Watch me okay, it's going to be incredible!" She did a twirling, tippy toe ballarina dance move...and it was incredible.

Learn from your dreams

Last night I had a scary dream...

I dreamt that it was time for our camp staff appeciation banquet and I apparently thought I could handle planning and executing EVERYTHING for it. Without prior preparations. I was trying to make sure the turkey got cooked fully at the same time I was trying to finish putting together the game board for Camp-Family Feud. I was trying to make to make alfredo sauce without a recipe while people were telling me it was time to make the thank you speech. Supper was late, the games didn't go as planned (in fact they went horrible) and no one recieved a candy beside their plate.

Everyone was very, very angry with me. There was yelling coming at me from all sides causing me to cry my big, green eyes out. It was horrible. Just when I thought I couldn't take it any longer and I was making plans to fly to Romania and change my name to Olga I woke up. I woke up to realize that the appreciation banquet is almost a month away still.

And then I decided to ask Debbie to be in charge of the meal.