hello december, so long yesterday

when you miss someone and the pain is like a picture.  you think of the december, of last year, of august, of april, months gathering like a dust you never thought would be so consuming.  you thought life was supposed to happen differently, faster, according to your perfect timelines.

when current desires are dimming the old, and when you realize it, a certain sadness creeps in.  yet a joy too.  but i despise the new joy and wish for the old sadness.

every picture a memory too strong, a longing null and surrendered.  a place to be now a different place, and you are just being.

but it's not like you thought.  it's much different.  it's dead of winter.

and you start to fear that everyone knows, everyone can see your inconsistencies and the things that embarrass and you wish it was silent, hidden, forgiven.

the face of love that helped you through, the silent, firm hand that made you come alive.  you knew it would, and you were right.

i'm afraid i'm not good at hoping.  i'm better at being pessimistic, and i wish that could change.

too many strange thoughts of hope.  brotherhood attractive to a holy hoping soul.  don't think it strange.  one day you will see the recompense.  i know one day you will see, and maybe it will even make tears for you to wash your thirsty face.

april fifteenth 2 0 1 4

a journal from april.

I know that there are a lot of messes to clean in the house, but it's late and I'm listening to Prophetic Ministry in the End Times by IHOP.
I want to be pure in heart, but I am the farthest from that.  I see my own inconsistencies, and they are not 'perfect imperfections.'  They are beasts, howling and tearing at those around me.  I wish for so much but knowledge does not take me far in life.
The disorder in my life is not because of others.  It is because of MYSELF.  My faults are not others' faults.  I am such a fallen creature, my dust flies far when I fall.

an arrogant smile has definitely been mine.
offenses have been my burden to bear the knowledge that I have borne to others.
the humans i so dearly love would so clearly see my impurities, my glaring indifference to their point of view.

I am not wise to know and not put to action.  It is only wise to apply that knowledge.
Wishing that I could be a better person.
Trying to be thankful, be graceful.  To not let honesty supercede love.//

Victorious Eschatology

In the book Victorious Eschatology, Second Edition, Harold Eberle and Martin Trench say that some of the things in Matthew 24 and Revelation have already happened.  Eberle is not saying that Jesus has already returned; of course, that would be heresy.  He does not say all has happened yet, but some.  He makes a controversial argument for this stance throughout the book. He calls himself a partial preterist.

Eberle says that generation referenced in Matthew 24:34 (Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.) means about forty years, which was about the length of how long a generation would be alive in those times.  Of course, this is not true for today because a person lives much longer than 40 usually now a day.  However, if forty years was a generation then, and Jesus was telling the disciples that a generation would not pass, I think it makes sense.  Exactly forty years later, 70 A.D. in an event recorded by secular historian Flavius Josephus, of which I read the entire original document in 2010, the temple of Jerusalem was destroyed.

Eberle and Martin go into much depth describing the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D.  They say how the seven years is not when the anti-Christ will come but that Jesus is the one mentioned who sits in the Temple and destroys the sacrifices.  They purport that since he is making there to be no more need for a Jewish animal sacrifice.  Literally, take a look at history.  Jesus’ sacrifice happened exactly three and a half years into Jesus’ ministry.  This sounds a merely contrived, concocted argument.  Could this be?  Harold shows how the beginning of the seven years was Jesus’ start of ministry and the finish being when the gospel was meant to go out to the Gentiles now (when Jesus gave the animal vision to Peter.)

What does that mean for us today?  Well, it could destroy the whole system of belief that a temple needs to be rebuilt in Jerusalem for Jesus to come.  It might stop certain people from investing money in building a Jerusalem temple (not that it would be up to the common people to donate to that).  It would stop the ideology that animal sacrifice has to be continued again, because we have found that Jesus has been the sacrifice and we do not need another.

These two men give room to believe that some of the words similar to  “end times” in the Bible are actually referring to this generation referenced in Matthew 24.  He gives proof from the only four places in the NT that mention.   Authored in this is also the 10 provinces of the Roman Empire: Italy, Asia, Egypt, Spain, Britain, Achaia, Syria, Africa, Gaul, and Germany.  Next come the seven heads, or Caesars of the Roman Empire, as follows: Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius I, Nero, and Galba.  You can guess what this is attempting to prove.  We would have no more need for a Revived Holy Roman Empire and certainly no need to figure out what those four creatures composing it would be.  These are defined by Irvine Baxter of End Time Ministries as the nations of Germany (the four Reichs) revived from a great wound, Great Britain as the lion, Russia as the bear, and the U.S. as the eagle wings coming out of the lion, Britain.  There would be no need for Irvine’s eschatology because the events would have already happened!

Eberle and Martin Trench give two different partial preterist views on the thousand years.  The purpose of the book is quite outwardly honest: he is trying to literally convince readers to change to partial preterists, and at the least, a victorious view of end times, rather than a pessimistic defeated view.  I would give the contrary point through that I do not necessarily think a “futurist” view, as Eberle calls it, is defeatist.  We believe in the end Jesus wins.  We know that even if trials and tribulations come, we do not need to ever be afraid of them, and supernatural protection of the church on earth could occur during that time.  Even further, I also know some Christians believe they will just be raptured out of the tribulations.  The author tries to show there will not be a rapture.  The “rapture” will be a gathering together of the Christians, not just letting them get out of the seven years, and besides, Eberle think the seven years have already happened!

At best, the information presented in this book can sound confusing and like horrible theology if not wholly examined.  Even after thorough examination I am not sure if they can hold water.  Of the sun turning black and the moon to blood, the authors say that this is “a Jewish idiom in reference to coming destruction and the transfer of authority.”  Huh?  What?  As proof, in Ezekiel, these kinds of prophecies are given of Egypt, which he says have already happened, but the sun, moon, and starts did not literally go dark.  This is proof in his eyes that the end times stuff will not be literal but a destruction of governmental authorities that keep ordinary people from the real Christ.  This seems very out there, very “taking things perhaps too far” in my eyes.

I will be honest; I do not know whether I agree with everything Eberle has to say.  At times it seems he is doing everything he can to prove so many things in Revelation wrong.  The reality, however, may be that he is doing his all to prove and expose wrong misconceptions about Revelation.  To me, it is frustrating but also strangely exhilarating.

Take things back to the first century.  Emperors were murdered; the kingdom was divided against itself.  Wars, civil wars, and brutal, inhuman murders of Christians occurred.

Scoffield brought in futurism apparently.  This whole End Times view experimented widely with the whole Left Behind Series.  I look back.  I have read many of the Left Behind Series and watched either one or some movies.  I remember it was entertaining. Maybe the whole purpose of these books and series was to point people to Jesus, to get a culture that is so anti-Christ to take a look at Jesus, or maybe to give Jesus a second chance.  Maybe the purposes of the Left Behind Series was to encourage Christians, help people be ready or get ready for Jesus’ second coming.  Maybe people just needed to take a look into Revelation, and this was what peaked their interest.

Regardless, maybe the Left Behind Series was wrong.  Or perhaps it was right.  From earlier times, I have always known the series may not be exactly biblically correct but it was a cool series and fun read and it was so captivating to watch their chosen actor for the antichrist to portray this.

The Muslims believe in a second coming too, you know.  They just do not hold his divinity.  They do not have a savior coming then, just a prophet.  Jesus cannot merely be prophet.  He is God.  It is a deceptive religion, gripping at their necks.  We know Jesus will come back for us.  The bottom line, I believe, is to be faithful to Jesus, remain faithful not simply called and chosen.  Knowing he will return does not guarantee salvation.  It is if you know Him, not as a prophet only but as a worthy sacrifice for your many sins, and ultimately He knows you.  Gain a relationship with the prophet and you will know he is a God too.

I think Harold has a lot of good at least interesting points, including that there may not be an antichrist coming, as in that one antichrist that sets up the abomination and calls himself God in the temple and stops animal sacrifices in the middle of the seven years.  I did not necessarily think that Satan would take over the religious systems of the world, except for the one world religion set up to eventually worship the antichrist.

To me, this book is frustrating.  I had to deal with a lot of stuff I did not want to deal with.  It was a quick read for me because I was so intrigued.  I finished it about a week ago in about two days with only a few pages left for a third day.  I was that into it.  It was just so capturing.  Perhaps it was because I bought the eBook and the way the pages slid made it easier for me to read (since I heard from a fellow student that he kept falling asleep on it).

I do not think Harold Eberle hits the point in a few areas.  He says the church does not focus on the harvest but it does.  He says that we are not victorious but we are.  We live in victory and make sure Satan does not have his. Yes, we fall short of God’s glory in all these areas, but I’ve seen much good fruit from sincere Christians.

I like the idea of there not coming a great falling away, I really do.  I want to believe it.  BUT IS IT TRUE?  Harold says it is.  I thought there would be (that’s what IHOP teaches).  I know IHOP could be not right in everything, but niether is Eberle perfect and what if Eberle is wrong??  The only trouble was, pretty much everything he said tore at everything I just learned.  I had just been learning so much about the end times in the last two years and now he is basically saying all that is pretty much wrong.  See, you have to see that the way I was newly taught these years is not common thinking.  I have different views than a lot of people, even members of my own family. 

Now he is challenging what I have learned at IHOP and these last couple years.  This is why it is so frustrating:  I thought I was finally understanding and now he’s messing it all up and I honestly don’t know what to believe now!  This was even my speaking topic, now I do not even know if I can do my 20-minute topic knowing all I have now read in this book.  The classmates will have the upper hand knowing all this from the book to disprove things I might say!  Dude.  I was not taught much in depth at all in Revelation growing up, and I was learning so much that I thought was accurate and amazing and revelation into all this.  Now he tears it into pieces.  He is calling the views I that I had before reading this book “common thinking” which I view as uncommon thinking.  I do not think it is common to think believers MIGHT have to go through the tribulation.  Usually I view them think they will be not there.  As I read the Bible, though, that does not seem to make sense or to be what the Bible is saying.

Eberle tries to convince readers from a rapture mentality to a harvest theology, purporting that Christians who focus on the harvest do not have much time to worry about a rapture.  Man, his views are really messing with some theology.  I am not even sure if his teachings are not heretical.  They are surely messing with some edges.  For partial preterists, Cal Pierce states, “Their goal is to get as many people into the kingdom as possible in preparation for the wedding.”

True, yes, pastors may have preached on God pouring out his wrath, but I had come to believe that as various troubles (trumpets) coming over the whole of the earth and then seven bowls of wrath coming only on the unbelievers.  Baxter believes that some of the trumpets have already happened, and gives specific events that are what he thinks they each are.  One of them is the fall of the Berlin Wall.  Irvine says God told him this was when “time changed” and things started speeding up.  But theoretically how can time speed up?  A runner still runs at the same speed whether time is “slower” or “faster” because distance=speed x time.  So if distance stays the same and because the runner would not run faster, both being stable in the equation, the time stays the same.  I do not even understand then how time could even speed up to make things easier for believers. It could be possible if the Bible says it, but who can explain it?

And in recent times as I have studied in Revelation I have even thought in my spirit maybe it (that the bowls would be poured out) is referring to literally the very end, possibly just in the DAY of God’s coming and not over a span of years.  What really concerns me is that Christians do not “miss it.”  I know they will probably be prepared, but for some reason it just does not settle well with my spirit for us to have all the wrong preconceptions about Jesus’ second coming just like the Pharisees did for the first.  I know we may be saved and ready, but I also want to figure this out.  I want to know what is truth.  I want to know if this book is true, if what I learned is true, if what I am living is true.

Where I find the inconsistency with Harold’s book is in verse 26, Matthew 24.  It says “SO if anyone tells you” there is Christ; etc.  This verse seems to be saying that because of the so, all the previous verses were not in fact talking about the destruction of the Temple and Old Covenant, but of the time just preceding Jesus’s return, and by that I mean literally the immediate time preceding that.  Yet at the same time as I read the first verses of Matthew chapter 24 after reading Harold’s whole book, it actually seemed to make sense and match up with what Eberle was talking about.

You know to be honest when I had read that passage before I had wondered about the word “generation.”  I wondered why Jesus could have said that all those things would happen in a generation. Could Jesus be mistaken or have said something wrong?  The answer is obviously ruled as a “no.”  We know Jesus is always true, right, real, honest, and what does it mean?

Another criticism of the book is the book mentions a quote by Wesley.  My question is, ‘What does Wesley mean when he says “re-established universal holiness and happiness”?’ This is where I see there is a different view because I don’t understand this viewpoint.

I REALLY liked how he interspersed evidences by ancient men of faith to back his points and views.  It was akin to having pictures in a book, refreshing, anti-dull.

Harold basically compares the battle of Armageddon to “when every human being must face God.”  What?  Is he just sneaking in heretical thinking into the church?  He is saying the battle will not physically happen.  To me, it seems that there is a battle before the thousand years and then a second one after Satan is taken back out of the pit (this being when Gog and Magog are mentioned, also referenced in the stunning battles prophesied of Ezekiel 38-39).

So, to sum up, Harold Eberle says that 40 years, is a generation, this being the type of generation length when our Jesus was alive.  Could this be?  Sure.  I think it could be.  Could Jesus have been describing the Temple’s destruction?  Wesley said that generation (forty years after his death and resurrection) is when they expected the Messiah to return.  This I do not like because it assumes that disciples falsely expected a time when he would return.  I do not think this is right because it would disprove credibility of other things that are written by them in the Bible.  It is all inspired, so it cannot be that the disciples were mistaken when they mentioned his soon coming.  It is God’s Word, not theirs.  Harolde gives a convincing point when he says the disciples meant that forty years preceding the end times of the Old Covenant and the need for the Temple.

This book presented ideas I had never even thought of before.  It gave so much proof from old men of the faith who I already trust and have read up on before.  The book brought up conversation between me and my mom and me and my dad.  I think it is good to have a conversation starter, to a point, and that point is if this material is even useful.

This book challenged the way I think.  You have to understand the way I think is new.  Like I said I did not really get much teaching on Revelation for my life in church or home until these recent years.  And the little I did hear at church about the dimensions of Jerusalem not being literal, my mom taught me was wrong.  She said it probably really is literal.  In the recent years I thought what the little I had known and been taught was not completely correct.  So I adopted a new (TRUE) view.  Now this book is even challenging that.  It’s not only challenging the first views I had growing up, but now the new ones I had gained.  I admit, this guy has to be smart to know this much on all these sides I had just learned.  He attacked my new view that the believers would possibly have to go through a tribulation (while growing up I had been taught all believers would be taken away before the seven years).

I suppose I could say the change in attitude would be that I have been opened up to a view and that my attitude has changed to maybe think I can possibly accept it, but I will not say more than that as to agreement.  I will not claim to agree with it (even just) yet, and maybe I could even claim all this to be false and heretical.  I believe we are on slightly dangerous ground here and yet, contradictorily, possibly safe ground at the same time.

I am sure this book helped grow my walk with Jesus, as long as all this is true.  Even if it is not it must grow and stretch my relationship with Him because I must wrestle to see and ask Him if it is.  In another sense I am not sure if it helped grow my walk with Jesus.  What is a walk with Jesus?  Is it to be reading every sort of false opinion out there?  I do not think so.  I think it is a walk of intimacy and I am not sure how to sort out all this “out-there” stuff.  This only counts as a strength to the walk because it was a required read.

My favorite part of the book was when he included all the references from the people in different generations.  It gave evidence and perspective that maybe I could trust.  Also, I enjoyed the way it was interspersed so refreshingly throughout this book.

Josephus said the destruction (of that time during the generation) was a time of great turmoil and civil war broke out in Rome.  I had not known there was civil war during that time.  There were also famines and people saying they were the anointed of God (Messiah).  Very interesting.  There was the famine of Claudius’s time, prophesied in Acts.  But my question is why are these specific famines so important when so many have occurred in such various places on the earth?

Earthquakes happened before the horrible destruction of 70 A.D.: many were in that area that Harold says Jesus was referring to, including Smyrna and Pompeii.

I had already thought of the rooftop (flee, don’t go into house) was referring to just that Judea area or the whole world during the end times, he says that other people have said it means the whole world.  I didn’t think that.

He says in the Luke and Mark accounts all that Jesus described was also in Matthew 24.  He says this refers to that time because it was clearly used to describe the answer to that first question of when will these things (the destruction of Jerusalem) happen.  In Matthew there is an addition question, but in all three books are described these things.  Matthew 24:4-22 is answering the first question only.  This book says Jesus answers their question in Mark and Luke and goes into detail about a whole bunch of earthquakes, destruction, famine; etc., which is also included in Matthew, so it is concluded that since material in Matthew 24:4-22 are used to describe the first question in Mark and Luke it is also being used in Matthew to describe the next forty years.

Ultimately, I can try to explain the concepts in this book to others, but if they really want to understand, I think I would just tell them to read the book.  It’s way too in-depth and descriptory for its own good.

He addresses something that could be a stumbling block, which I agree because I had already been thinking it, “well, the futurist view is victorious as well!  We know in the end Jesus will conquer here and now and increasingly in the future as well.  The church is victorious.”  But Eberle and Trench say a futurist perspective (thinking there will be bad things happening, a great falling away, an anti-Christ, Christians alive during the seven years, and a literal battle at Armageddon) is not as victorious as his great, fancy, partial preterist view.

My questions as reading were as follows: “what about the 1000 year reign?  What about the antichrist?  Can he address these things?”  Well, he did eventually go on to give a section for each, and he started to let us know that he would address these things later in the book.  Not sure if his evidence was convincing enough for me.  It seems he tries to “spiritualize” so many “literal” things in Revelation.

Someone figure this out for me.  I am so glad I read this book.  I would say to anyone who has never read it, if you have time, or you feel that God wants you to read the book, read it.  If you feel God does not want you to, do not.  Partially, without getting my oats in too much water, I would say this book is weird. And in fact, the book is so weird.  I would go as far to say the book was entertaining and I got a few good laughs…AT it.  However, who knows, perhaps this book will get the last laugh.

one day, I was filling out a form.  I would run all the way across the house to ask my dad the questions each time there was a new question because right when I finished asking him a question I would have a new one.  I come running down the stairs and take a running jump to the bottom, fall on my ankle, and sprain it.  I'm sprawled out on the floor and say to my dad, "so did you file taxes ELECTRONICALLy in the last three weeks..?"  as he is laughing at me...

and,
"You are beloved, you are beloved, you are beloved by a Savior who sings over you. I want all my life to be this message. Let me sing truth from the depths of my soul, for all my days. This is the only legacy I want to leave: that I lived fully surrendered and wholly alive to being beloved by Christ, and it shaped all I did." by +Hannah Nicole 

the rest (the story game part II)

Once upon a time there was a girl who liked to dance.  Her name was Tweedledum.  And she jumped so high she had birds in her hair.  The birds decided to make a nest in her hair!  Tweedledee was NOT her best friend.  Someone taught her that "once upon a time" was not really a good way to keep starting stories.  Of course, the most difficult part of birds in your hair is keep your hair clean.  Bird droppings are a messy thing, especially when the birds are having stomach problems.  Tweedledum decided to go to the hairdresser and get her hair washed then she looked beautiful.  But an ostrich knocked out her two front teeth and she looked like a hobo.  And there was a little bird that made her teeth look better.  (mom's story)

A sun beam frolicked onto the dusty armchair.  It was too sensitive of a story for him to have understood its nature.  He was just learning to write sentences, that is why the first sentence in this store makes no sense.  Tony the cat jumped onto the chair to take a nap.  He got sunburnt and lost all his hair.  And it grew back.  very quickly.  He had a new brother Fern the cat and they played, purring happily while Andrew teased them with a palm branch.  Then the palm branch broke, got stuck up the cat's nose, and the cat...died.  Thank God he died cause bad cats don't deserve to live.  (:O  my grandpa wrote that sentence..)  But he's not dead!  He is risen from the dead, Halleluiah!  (my story)

It was a cold dark night and the mice were shivering as they slept.  I got up and grabbed a coat for a blanket.  I grasped the mouse by its tail and ate it in one gulp.  Gross!  I was barfing mouse guts for two hours.  Then I ate two more mice and sung songs from the jungle mariachi bands new cd classic. What a weird sense of humor!!  Why was I even listening to this band?!  I don't even like their music!  Flowers were growing all over the trees.  It was a nice evening.  I wasn't cold anymore.  I decided to not eat mice.  (dad's story)

Once upon a time there was an amazing purple dragon.  He had a fire breath + started many forest fires.  Oh no!  The forest is on fire!  Sumo wrestlers could not stop them!  But oh, how love can quench fires!  So someone quenched this fire with love and this is how:  They clicked their heels three times and ended up in Kansas.  A tornado hit us in Kansas sweeping us up into it--dropping us in Minnesota where it was a beautiful spring day.  Until it snowed and a fierce snowstorm froze the dragons tongue to a pole.  Then the dragon blew fire.  So that the fire let him get his tongue free and he was able to fly around and visit his favorite friend Ben.  (Andrew's story)

Again, when I say whose story I mean they are the person who wrote the first sentence or two.

This was an email my grandma sent me when I was in Seattle at International House of Prayer-Northwest.  I miss this.

-----Original Message-----
From: Bonita Mckevitt 
Sent: Thu, Sep 12, 2013 7:23 pm
Subject: New life in Seattle

Hi Ash,

Hope you find a bit of time to let your grandma know how your life in going for you in Seattle. 

It must all be amazing.  The trees are so huge and the background is filled with very large mountains.  Just absorbing the scenery takes some time.

Your mother tells that you had your first grocery shopping experience for yourself.  You must have some kind of cooking arrangement where you are living.  Do you have a kitchen?  Send us a picture of the place where you live.

What are you doing for activities?  Have you started the prayer sessions yet?  Good thing you had some cooking lessons. ha ha

Love you, gr Bonnie

The Story Game.

My family likes to play this game where we write stories together.  Each person gets a piece of paper and starts their story with one or a few sentences.  Then all the stories are passed around in a circle and each person writes a new sentence to the story until they all reach the people who originally started the stories.  We share so many laughs when we do this game, along with when we do that one dictionary game...

This is what we just did today and it was so funny.  I thought I would share the results.  One of the funniest things was that our grandpa doesn't usually do this with us, but since he was here he did.  He took it so seriously and started his story about his own life (usually we aren't making stories about our own lives).  It was HILARIOUS.  When my sister and I had turns writing in that one, we laughed so hard because it was just so funny...I just wrote down three of them, but Lord-willing, will add the rest later!  Because right now I am headed out to have coffee with my mom and sister Coley Kay (me biking and them rollerblading there)!!

Once upon a time their there was a dog.  He was a beautiful golden retriever with a brand new owner.  It loved to eat glass and the owner got mad.  Then he chased his tail till he fell down dizzy.  The owner was getting very angry.  he said, "Did I get a dog who is crazy in the head?"  But, no matter, after all tea doesn't grow on bushes!  The dizzy dog was crazy, so they brought him to the psychiatrist.  The psychiatrist talked to the dog and had the owner train him to sit & stay then to heel as he walked him to the park to play.  He ate fern the cat at the park.  (brooke's story)

My life is full of happy times, talking with my coffee drinking friends at McDonald's.  Sometimes we play in the play place because we're still young at heart.  Trees and reports are a daily repertoire of our conversations.  Wendy sometimes brings my coffee out too old & stale, but other than that...it is still the same cheap coffee beans we all choke down.  I still have fun laughing with my friends and we get a side ache after a while because we laugh so hard.  That's why we all have six packs and thunder thighs.
What?
What I really mean is that life is full and great with wonderful friends in spite of how the coffee is.  I love to eat beans and sing the toot song (editor's note: he meant the song about beans "beans the magical fruit..." sorry about the inappropriateness of this, my brother was trying to be funny, I think).  It makes my heart sing and dance. (Grandpa's story)

Brooke woke up to the sound of laughter.  And the laughter was from the zunep band.  This band played zunga music from the native jungle.  Tomorrow it was going to the Jungle Mariachi Band and play with them in Japan.  This story is the dumbest one I have ever read!  (Grandpa wrote that last sentence.)  Why is Brooke waking up to a native band laughing in her room..?  Chaling was marinating in the oven.  That is a native dish from the land of Ompalumpa where the Thing 1's, boondocks, and Dr. Seuss people are from.  I guess she saw the movie about Ompalumpa land the night before, that is why she was laughing.  She finally stopped laughing until she called her girlfriend and told her what happened then her & her girlfriend laughed so hard they they rolled around on the floor.  (matthew's story)

grandma post

Grandma would say: "you don't have to brush all your teeth, just the ones you want to keep."

april fourth

I find it so funny...when certain persons write letters to me, they use my middle name, addressing
Ashley Rose McKevitt on the envelope.
so cute of said individuals.

I have been starting to read the books Pride and Prejudice and also Jane Eyre.  I had started Jane Eyre with school and read pages of P & P as well, but now am getting more into them.  Pride and Prejudice is simply stunning!  I am thoroughly into it!  oh, the wording..
to finish with a quote from Catherine in Pride and Prejudice:

"I often tell young ladies, that no excellence in music is to be acquired, without constant practice."

to the one who will be a believer:

I don't know you yet, but when you know Jesus, my heart has already rejoiced with joy inexpressible for this very fact.  I'm so excited to hear your voice tell me of how exciting the new Map you've found is, how glorious are its streets and buildings and people and purposes.  I'm excited to meet you.  I love you already and know that Jesus has anointed you to be called, chosen, and faithful.  I'm so excited to share stories together and to ask Jesus for more time together worshipping Him around campfires.  I'm so glad that I can look forward to you like a mother awaits her child.  Guess what?  Being His child is so much fun!  It's literally the bomb.  It's the ultimate challenge with the best trainer.  I'm writing this so you can see this note one day, Lord-willing.  I'm so excited to see your new life.  It's going to be beautifully holy.
Yours because He's going to find you,
Ashley

Brooke

I wrote this for school in tenth grade (2010).  The assignment was to tailor my writing to how Hollis Woods would write in the book Pictures of Hollis Woods.  

--

Grandma framed this picture and placed it in her living room above the cabinet filled with teapots.  She sometimes served us tea in her cozy green kitchen, the panoramic picture lying in the background.  It's a special picture for more than one reason.  It was a picture of our family, and our cousins were in it, too, the ones who were living in Korea.  They didn't get to visit us much, so this was special.  Our grandma and grandpa were in the picture, and Andrew was snuggled in Grandpa's arms.

Then there are the pictures of the crabapple tree in front of grandma's house, four pictures in all.  Well, not quite...the fourth one hasn't been taken just yet.  Grandma wanted to capture the tree in all the seasons.

I could try to match the first picture, the one with our cousins, to the ones in front of Grandma's tree, but I wouldn't be able to do it exactly.  First, the background's different.  We were all crunched down in that first picture in front of Lake Superior, smiling and young.  It was taken in Bayfield, Wisconsin.  I remember playing on the beach nearby the place we took the picture, by the rented condos on the sand. "Let's build a sand castle that will last till next year," we said, piling up huge Lake Superior rocks like a castle fortress.  It was a good technique, but hardly suitable to withstand the waves for a whole year.  There were fishing boats, too, in Bayfield, lots of them, almost too many to count, and there were fireworks on the Fourth of July.

But there are seven of us in the tree pictures instead of thirteen.  Of course, our cousins aren't in them, but there were others missing, too.  Grandma was taking the pictures as she backed up each time to get closer to the wooden fence.  She mostly wanted to get the tree on the screen, but we can be seen, too, at least our shapes under the shade of the sprawling tree.

But there's someone else missing: Grandpa John, and while he's in the Lake Superior shot, there is someone in his place in this picture.  In between two sturdy branches of a tree, the crabapple tree, sits a little girl.  Grandpa never got to meet this new addition to the family, but she's my sister, four years old.

And it's not just in this picture that we can be seen together.  There are actually many, many more pictures...pictures of Brooke, of us.  When she colors pictures, usually, her name accompanies it somewhere.  The big bold letters of her name, known to her, are announced on paper: B-R-O-O-K-E.

Sometimes she has even tried to capture the family in her drawings.  "This is mom," she's says, pointing to a figure engulfed in a mass of curly hair, "and I'm in her tummy."  Then we all ask her who everyone else is.  The huge figure with the big feet is dad, so similar to how I drew him on the driveway when I was about Brooke's age.

So now there are seven of us: a father, a mother, two brothers, and three sisters...a family.

my journal from the 2012 National Bible Bee

11.13.2012
All my hope is in You, Lord!
Tonight I was feeling very defeated.  I truly want to be away from these trials/rise up with wings like eagles and strong and courageous and knowing God move truly and getting victory.  I've given in to temptations to think thoughts I know are evil.  Forgive me, Lord.  I do not pretend that I am mastering living by grace.  I know my failure is so huge that it not only encompasses many failures but also the inability to see how exactly I failed or what sin led to the failures or how I might fix things.
Greek words that have encouraged me:
kalen (used so many times in 1+2 Timothy!---This one I call my favorite Greek word right now!  It is flooring to think of this word being in Greek with this simple and beautiful meaning and purpose.
charis-grace, kindness
I AM BEGGING God for his grace and kindness.  I've heard that I am not to come to Him as a beggar but as a child.  But I'll humble myself and first come as a beggar.
Am I really a child of God?
Where is the proof?
God has lavished His love on me!
So thankful for all the people who've worked behind the scenes for the 2012 National Bible Bee, Convergence, and "As in the Days of Noah."
Another Greek word meaning:
makrothumia-when you could get revenge, not going for that; patience, long-suffering (an attribute of the Holy Spirit in Galatians 5:23!)
-from 2 Timothy 3:10 and 2 Timothy 4:2
How can I get victory like Israel did?
How should I march around the walls 7 times?
How must I be foolish to be wise?
Where is the Holy Spirit leading me?
Will He use Nationals to provide the finances to go on His missions?
We left our house in record time!  Dad and I are very excited about that!
Are the obstacles I'm facing merely giants in the land that I am not to be afraid of?
Huge obstacles:
No matter how hard I try, it's never good enough.  I'm sure God delights in my weak love, but it's just that-weak.  All the smart homeschooled people who can recite word-perfectly when I cannot!  I just wish I could stop placing 49th + 60th + 70th.  I didn't even know that Dad drives 45 minutes to work every day.  I know this, but when picking him up from work to head on our way, I realized how long he drives day after day for our family.  I'm so thankful for him and proud of him.  He is amazing!  He really loves God and leads our family to honor and love Him.
I don't want people to praise me.  I want people to have a high opinion of God.  I want to win for legitimate reasons, but are my reasons not great enough?
All my delight is in Him, but I fear I am not abiding in Him well enough.
Set a tract from the red ones from Ignite on the counter for the gas station worker around Wisconsin Dells!  praise Jesus for boldness.  One down.  A lot to go.  That was our first gas station stop.
I'm so sorry for all my sins, and I ask him for the strength to change.  I know that even if someone else has set a bad example for me and scared me into thinking God is still against me even when I humble myself truly before him.  I know this isn't true.  I know God is for me!  God loves me, even when others don't have the time to help with real needs I face.  God loves the humble.  He crowns the humble with salvation.  He doesn't close the door on them and turn them away.  He loves us.  He loves the humble.  I want to be humble.  I want to humbly see people come to the light out of darkness.  I'm ready for you to use me God.  By your strength, I courageously ask you to break me, mold me, cleanse me, and use me for your noble purposes.
I still desire to win, even though it looks impossible, even when it's already Tuesday and so much review is necessary on my part to be fully RESPONSIBLE before the Lord.  I strive to be a champion.  I strive to not give up.  I strive to repent.  I strive to be true.  Through Jesus Christ, my Savior and LORD.  I strive to be a blessing to others.
I can't just give up.  I can't just let myself do poorly or not make it.  Jesus, come renew that closeness we once had that gave me such uprightness and true life and true victory.  But add to that the humility and kindness to others unlike me that I lacked.  I want to have studied hard, so hard I gave every last drop of myself.  I want it to be said that I gave my very best.  i am so lousy.  I need to do my best job!  My absolute ALL!
Enduring.
9:00
Great.  Just realized I left papers at home.
Fill me with faith, hope, and love Jesus!
Destroy how the enemy's trying to destroy me!
Reason I shouldn't win in the natural: I post too much on FB and blog to be a winner.
Stop the pity party.  It is my responsibility to be strong.  I am COMMANDED to be strong, to strengthen my weak legs + feeble knees, so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.
Natural reason: it took me all fall to even finish the summer study.
Grateful: they're (my family) coming on this trip for my sake!  Wow!
So thankful!  Of course, they're all glad to come together on a vacation, but their support + love for me is tremendous.
My "man of self"=ungratefulness NOOO!
let's pursue righteousness!
Remaining plan of action:
perfect all verses
pray
perfect all notecards
last 11 pgs. of Bible study
study 1 Timothy inductively
Perfect current Greek words
trust God's Word
KNOW God
be joyful
AND...ALL cross-references
11.14.2012  Set out 13 gospel tracts in the bathroom and building of the rest (truck) stop in Indiana.  One more left on the telephone booth.
One left under U of T shirt.
So thankful for the massive prayer support that has gone into this.
Tried to sleep last night but didn't (had slept all day on Tuesday thought, but after being up late packing Mon. night).
I've just been doing nothing, feeling like one who is losing, not winning, one who has lost, not won, who lost, who didn't win at all in any so many aspects of life.
Accidentally/unintentionally through Knoxville.  Gospel to homeless man.  Tons of homeless people.
12.12.12
I love you, LORD.
2012 National Bible Bee Journal Ends Here :)

This place is seriously like heaven on earth.  When I'm not with everyone, it feels like it was a dream a bit thinking back on it.

All my delight is in you, Kurios.

God is with us, in the every day moments.

Heart aches.  desires passed over.  H E   I S   S T I L L   T H E R E.  What happens when you mess up so badly that the entire course of your life is forever altered..?  He forgives, his presence is to comfort, to caress our souls to love Him.  God is faithful while we are unfaithful.  He sees our every need, our every weakness.  He sees and understands, surprisingly.  He sees our failed attempts and broken heart.  I used to think God saw the broken heart as having sinned.  I read in his heart an addition to this: He is close to the broken hearted.
I must come, we must come, clinging to His mercy, for only mercy will satisfy what we have made of our lives.

Trusting in his faithfulness, surrendering to Him, letting forgiveness be uttered for all the messed up moments and things undone.

My Family

I love my family so much.  Over the past two months I have been so blessed to love on them, spend moments with each of them, and grow in friendship.  They are blessings from the Lord.

my sister & brother

Add caption

my brother Matthew

my beautiful mother

2.20 & a Miracle

God is faithful in trials.  He is good all the time.  I can trust Him.  I don't have to worry.  Ever.

One of the most amazing things just happened to me.  All God.

So, let me tell this story.  I so delight in sharing God's goodness in my weakness.  This is a story of how I see a recurring theme: when I really seek God, like REALLY seek Him with all my heart, I continually see Him work.  It is amazing.

As you may have known, God brought me to the International House of Prayer.  I had a VERY good time.  So blessed.  I am blessed and highly favored by the Most High King.  I love Him.

As of two months, I had a problem because last minute under tons of stress, I had to leave a bunch of luggage behind in the Northwest.  I even took an evening prayer meeting off in order to prepare for my departure, but alas, not enough.  I sadly missed the blessing over the interns, but I know God's mercy and blessing over me is firm and solid.  I asked a bunch of people to pray for me.  I was very overwhelmed.  I tried not to worry and just pray.  Yesterday, however, I really made the effort to seek God's help.  This is to exalt Him, showing the power of God, that I was having trouble finding a solution and in prayer God responded.

God is sooo faithful.  In prayer, He answers.

So I prayed last night.  Today, I sent a text to my cousin's friend.  My aunt had asked me to contact her.  So anyway, before I had prayed about all this last night, I prayed and then my aunt contacted me at the last minute.  JUST before all my luggage was going to be shipped halfway across the US to me.  God is sooo faithful.  Thank you, Jesus!!  He provides!!  I tell you, He provides and gives so much mercy!!!  I needed it.  Anyway, I didn't want to bug my aunt.  I had a lot of things left behind and didn't want to be a problem.  But I also couldn't leave things behind at the gracious host home that I was at for three months.  I didn't want to be a problem to them either!  So quick story: I prayed last night, today, I contacted my cousin's friend, and she offered to pick up my things within the HOUR...like, do you understand this??  I had been so worried and yet trying not to worry and just trust God and give it to Him in prayer, and when I really sought him with all my hard, even though it is SO hard and it takes literally energy from your body in prayer...he not only answered, he answered MIRACULOUSLY.  A recurring problem over two months I was speedily rescued from in ONE hour.  To top it all off, my roommate had been on the way to drop everything off at the post office for me so graciously later today.  She had everything in her car and so this wonderful young woman just has to swing by IHOP--which also miraculously, not to disclose too much info, but she lives close by IHOP..wow, God--and it is all packaged neatly and ready to go!!

I am utterly in shock.  Utterly blessed.  Once again, God surprised and delighted me.  To you, it may not seem like a big deal.  If you were in my mind and saw my thoughts, you would see and know how big of a deal it is to me.

I was just saved almost 100 bucks because of a generous young woman.  This, people, this is why you develop merciful and kind characteristics like this anonymous little helper who God is using to save the day, so that you can bless others like she has just blessed me...wow, I am quite speechless, although that seems untrue seeing that I just wrote a whole journal entry on the miracle.

Thank you, Jesus.

2.19

Today I was studying Latin and thought it would be a good idea to write out some of my vocab on here, just because I want to & it helps me study:
via: street
videt: sees
villa: house
vindit:sells
vocat: calls
venit: comes
vituperat: finds fault with
valdē: very

Words.  What do we do with them?  Do we as Americans write too many of them?

English.  I have come to a conclusion that I have not put enough value on my own english, the words God has given me to say in my first native language.  I think the only things worth talking about are grandeous Biblical meditations, but God values my every day too.  In order for me to love others, I have to love them as I love myself.  That is pretty hard to do if you don't even love yourself.  True, in the last days, people will be lovers of themselves, but God also commands us to love ourselves because He says to love others as we love ourselves.

Simple.

What about cups?  Have you ever looked through your family's cupboard and decided that half of the cups need a good reckoning?  time to organize.

1.26.2014

I want to be God's pure vessel, loving God and loving others.  I desire to be a servant, pouring out my life for the success of others.  I'm finding more and more joy as I develop a deeper friendship with my mom.  She truly has done so much for our family.  She doesn't just give us healthy food and train us in the ways of the Lord and love my dad, she PRAYS for us.  I can't count the number of times she's let me know she's praying for me..
Now to the topic of songs.  The song "All I Have is Christ" by Sovereign Grace Music is sooo meaningful to me.  It hold so many precious memories.  It has held a lot of tears, of surrendering my desires to the Lord so He can have His way.  I want God to do His will in my life.  I want to live for Him.  Truly God must be glorified, and He is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him.  God is so gracious.

2 0 1 4

I think sometimes I embarrass myself so much..and there was an ending to that idea but I forgot what I was going to say..
John Cacioppo on loneliness and Facebook:
'Loneliness burrows deep: “When we drew blood from our older adults and analyzed their white cells,” he writes, “we found that loneliness somehow penetrated the deepest recesses of the cell to alter the way genes were being expressed.” Loneliness affects not only the brain, then, but the basic process of DNA transcription. When you are lonely, your whole body is lonely.'

"We are living in an isolation that would have been unimaginable to our ancestors, and yet we have never been more accessible. Over the past three decades, technology has delivered to us a world in which we need not be out of contact for a fraction of a moment. In 2010, at a cost of $300 million, 800 miles of fiber-optic cable was laid between the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange to shave three milliseconds off trading times. Yet within this world of instant and absolute communication, unbounded by limits of time or space, we suffer from unprecedented alienation. We have never been more detached from one another, or lonelier. In a world consumed by ever more novel modes of socializing, we have less and less actual society. We live in an accelerating contradiction: the more connected we become, the lonelier we are. We were promised a global village; instead we inhabit the drab cul-de-sacs and endless freeways of a vast suburb of information."

Agust.

I wondered why the fire had been started in my heart.  that one year.  the music was both the embers and the glow.

To each his own.  Funny, isn't it, how my gaze had not stayed for long on any?  I was-was I not?-continually drawn AWAY.  What was it about this time?  Surely the others could be viewed as accomplices.

I never meant to..I simply meant to be wholesome, intelligent, and quite quite witty.

Farewell, I had said, to my heart's desires.  Bless his soul.  Surely he was the one.  I loved him.  Agape love.

I love him still.  What if my fingers ran dull and for me there was no tomorrow?  Or if tomorrow for him was a better tomorrow, filled with roses of the best quality and seeing people in dresses walk past with no hope in his mind of a ring on my finger?

If you keep listening, I will listen too. Fine qualities of sound.  Do you not know that each tendril of hair, each object mine eyes glimpse, every sound I made, every desire my heart invisibly whispered (or ached so loud anyone who looked carefully enough would see) were as the notes of a masterful classical composition?

Piano, where my heart had weeped over the no more body of that one soul.  But such is loss.  It gives you no more than it takes.  I wished for another to take her place in the manner of teaching this art and of talking this art and of listening to me be this art and of giving this art to me.  Then we could bond as friends and no more evade each others' existences, pretending the others' feet not walk the ground in tender humility and soft conscience before God.  For such were our hearts and lives.  And it was to always be that way, said of our hearts, that they walked with that tender humility and soft conscience before God.

To be honest, I wanted a living room. with.  to be.

Just one more song?  Why did you stop?

Go to the next song.  If it was the Lord.  I don't want to be too trusting of what my mind just thought, lest ye smite me with a stone saying I said that which He didn't say.  oh, tomorrow's song was only followed by Agust, not tomorrow's song, and Lag Fyrir Ommu by myself.  I served the Lord by prayer in that moment.  The next song didn't come, the next song didn't come!!!  Why?!?!