What Rhymes with Yogananda?

Baby Panda!

I hereby declare this day to be Baby Panda Picture Day!

(They can't help it that their faces make your heart melt.)

Perhaps too Deep for Beginners...

Instead of dwelling solely on our forgiveness (which I'm not saying should be overlooked, by the way), she emphasized that when Jesus dwells in us, He radiates righteousness through us. It was the righteousness that I had forgotten. Not only does God forgive us, but He declares us to be obedient, and labels us as righteous despite our sinful being. REALLY? How have I been missing that for so long??? What an essential reason to rejoice in God! Not only are we initially washed clean, but we are declared righteous from then on! I think I had been feeling that every time I sinned after accepting God's forgiveness, I would have to be washed clean AGAIN. AND AGAIN. AND AGAIN. And certainly we must confess to God our sins, our faults, and our misconducts, and be ashamed when we realize that we've sinned against God. But it doesn't force us to start over from the beginning again! We have been declared righteous by God, and no earthly power can rip that from us.

So, that was my first revelation of the week. The second was this... I dwell so much on how much I hate my current situation and forget how amazing God's gifts to me have been. In the past month or so, my thoughts have not only been on my struggles with civil engineering, but on how hurt I was by my former roommate's treatment of me. Then, in the same discussion with my psychologist, she asked what was different between my relationship with my roommate and my relationship with my friends at Wheaton. It was pondering that question that reminded me of how blessed I have been by the friends that have always stuck around. I am still dealing with the pain of realizing that I placed more importance in a relationship with someone than she placed in it and in me, but now, God is showing me just how incredible and consistent the friends that remain with me truly are. 

I've never been able to adequately say these sorts of things to people face-to-face. It is a shortcoming that may make me even more ashamed than my other sins. Shame that I don't dwell upon such blessings enough. Shame that when I am reminded of these things, I don't share my thankfulness with others. What good does it do to keep these things walled up inside? I have never bothered to push pass my own fear of rejection to say what an amazing amount of good you have been in my life. So, since I still can't say it face-to-face, here it is now. 

Before I wrap up this post, I want to tell you how I (haltingly and imperfectly) described how I feel about the relationships that have lasted. With those relationships, we have been open. In being open, we don't simply share the pieces of ourselves that we want others to see, but have been honest about our shortcomings. We know each other to be imperfect, flawed people, and yet we rejoice in each other all the same. Something about knowing someone on their worst day makes the good ones seem so much more real. They move from something fleeting and temporary to something real and lasting. So, thank you for sharing so much of yourselves with me, and thank you for being there when I act or feel small and mean.

The Purplish Shades of Schkundrat

Updates! Bretterson calls for updates, and Bretterson gets them! There will be so much to read! In this post, there will beeeeeeee ... cats! dorms! books! pandas! engineering! intrigue! murder! Okay, maybe not the last two. But.... maaaaaaybe!


So. I'll set the scene in my Lafayette apartment. I was happily situated for the summer, I was the proud owner of two extremely fluffy cats, my sister was living with me in order to take a French class, life was good. The thing was, my roommate was still around and things were up and down between us. A lot of it had to do with the fact that there were mixed feelings about the move to come at the end of July to a house owned by my roommate's parents that to me didn't feel like home (mostly because I wouldn't be able to bring my fluffy dependents along with me). 


The move came, we were in the middle of packing, and then suddenly it was discovered that I was expected to sign a lease that required me to remain for an entire year even though I'm graduating at the end of the fall semester (No more engineering! Ever! Until I get a job!) This had never been brought up before, and I hadn't expected  a lease to be involved since the home belonged to my roommate's parents, nor did I intend to sign away another 7 months of my life when the search for a job could lead me practically anywhere. 


In the end, I was forced to move back home to my parents' and hope and pray that housing could be found before classes started. The waiting list for on-campus housing was closed because so many people had applied, and everyone had already found housing for the coming semester. Who would take in someone planning to stay for only one semester only three weeks before the beginning of that semester?


Then, a call! The housing office had an open space in Hillenbrand Hall! I grabbed at it like a lifeline. After all, Hillenbrand Hall was for upper classmen, I wouldn't have to make my own meals, I would be close to my classes, and I wouldn't have to worry about falling through more loopholes like the ones I had already encountered.


So, there's my fun housing story. Now I am tucked away in a nice little double with Panda, Panda Jr., Beaker, and a new roommate from India who seems very sweet. (It's a little bit awkward because she found out I was a Christian on Facebook and now she does stuff like hushing her friends when they swear and asking if I'm okay with being alone in our room with her boyfriend and whatnot, but I find it rather amusing.) My two fluffy companions are living at my parents' house. They have yet to befriend my dad's new cat, Sweet Baby Otis, but they love the screened-in porch and the dogs usually don't bother them. Sweet Baby Otis is abnormally social towards other cats and will attempt to pounce on my cats when they don't expect it, which results in lots of hissing and running.


It's my last semester of engineering! Ever! My classes aren't too overwhelming yet, and I'm pretty excited about my senior design project, especially since I'm working with a team instead of individual work.


Ummmmm, what else? Oh, I read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. It was fantastic. It's a fictional story written from the point of view of a young man who is autistic and amazing with numbers. I found it to be very eye-opening and enjoyed the plot quite a bit as well. Definitely would recommend it to anyone who's interested.


Yep. Soooooo, I guess that's all for now. Hope that was all worth reading! 

Ponies

This post is for Amy Fleming.

Today I was thinking about ponies. Gray ponies, palomino ponies, dappled ponies, crazy ponies, tiny ponies, three-eyed ponies, and just about every kind of pony there is. Yay ponies!

End-Of-The-Year Countdown

ONE Nonsensical Sentence For Your Reading Enjoyment

1. While knitting your chocolaty lips towards the leafy doorknob’s kitten was bulbously superfluous, I was obstinately glazed by the oven’s back foot, allowing for the entry of those fluent toasted weather balloons.

TWO Serious Summaries Of This Year To Follow That Strange Beginning

1. Engineering is difficult.
2. God transcends my petty affairs and has renewed my life in every way that was needed, while providing challenges that were much overdo in my life.

THREE New Year’s Resolutions

1. Break big tasks into small pieces (or else I won’t do them at all!).
2. Remember to compliment people OUT LOUD (and not just admire them in my head).
3. Work on resolving self-destructive criticisms (and in turn become a saner person).

FOUR Things I’m Thankful For

1. A return to reading for enjoyment (this semester alone I have finished classics including Jane Eyre, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Far from the Madding Crowd, Count of Monte Cristo, and The Color Purple, which may not seem like much, but when coupled with mind-numbing engineering courses, I’m proud of myself)
2. Animals (you know me, I can’t live without them, and coming home to two obstinate stubborn cats every day feels AMAZING)
3. Increasingly good social life at Purdue
4. A change in outlook (I am NOW considering the possibility of going into real estate…that is, I REALLY like the idea of buying old rundown homes, restoring them, and selling or renting them for affordable prices to help people out)

FIVE Ways God Has Worked In My Life This Year

1. Living situation – apartment, roommate, cats…they all add up to an incredible experience that I wouldn’t trade for the world
2. Church community – living with a roommate that works with the church I attend has allowed me to become much more involved with my church DURING the college semester…I can only attribute this to God’s continuing work in my life, since I have always failed miserably at connecting with a church near my college in the past
3. Placement – this is related to my living situation, but I think that I may have been brought to Purdue so that God could introduce me to the community of Lafayette…with the extraordinary examples of Victorian architecture and the bright festive town community, I’ve found somewhere that feels like the right place to be for at least the next couple of years
4. Peace – I certainly break this peace very frequently with panicking and fretting about God’s plans for me, but God has already brought me to my knees and shown me that He is COMPLETELY in control of my life and has plans for me, and I am finally accepting defeat and learning to submit control to Him (key word – learning)
5. Forgiveness – He has given this to me every year, not just this year, but this year I have been much more aware of my faults and failures and how sinful I am…after condemning myself for years about my mistakes, it is unspeakably joyful when my pathetic presentation of my sinful nature to God is covered with Christ’s free grace.

So, if you’re reading this because you received my message on Facebook, I repeat, I have (sort of) updated you on my life…now it’s youuuuuuur turn! If you just are reading this for fun or your own personal edification, more power to you; you probably know more about me than you ever wanted to know. Woohoo!

Nothing new to report

Yesterday I was walking back to my car after class in the rain. Two cats were waiting at home for me to curl up on the couch and snuggle with them, and I anticipated some folksy Sufjan Stevens to enhance the drizzly, sleepy atmosphere. As the water weighed down the bright red and yellow leaves still clinging to trees and little drops thumped against my umbrella I couldn't help but notice how poetic the atmosphere was behaving. In fact, if someone had attempted to capture the moment in a poem or song, the emotions of the setting would almost seem cheesy in their boldness. Just another beautiful unusual day one-of-a-kind day God sprung on me.

When caring for the helpless gives way to musing...

Three weeks ago, I drove my sister home from the Humane Society with two two-day old kittens in tow. The time between then and now has been filled with disrupted sleep, messy cleanups and LOTS of growing and cuddling as these little fluffpuffs have learned to feed, walk, and sense the world around them. What better analogy to the way that God tenderly guides us through our rocky lives can be found?

"... How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!" (second part of Matthew 23:37). From the day these kittens first blindly stumbled across my lap to now as they lift their little tummies off of the ground to explore their surroundings, my sister has carefully watched their movements and gently corrected their direction when they have tottered near a drop or hovered close to dark gaps between furniture. They still know little about their surroundings, and as my sister observes them she frequently pulls them back to the safety of her lap. So does God long to guide us back to His arms, to safety, when we recklessly stumble through our lives, oblivious to the dangers that our own stubborn actions can lead us towards. There will be a time, though, when we have to let these kittens grow up and make their own decisions despite our desire to keep them safe under our supervision, just as God allows us to discover the consequences to our own actions before we finally relent and ask for help.