What I Learned Today

Nothing like going to church to make you realize stuff about yourself, and it's usually not something feel-good! The passage today, Proverbs 3:5-6, talks about trust. It says "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways aknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight". A lot of things about this simple passage cause me to pause. The word "trust" meand to have a bold confidence in someone else, and the word "lean" means to place your weight onto something else. It's the bold confidence that gets me. I try to trust God, but my fear gets in the way almost every time. It's like I feel like I need to hold onto some aspects of my life because I don't fully believe and trust that God is going to accomplish what He promised in my life. How sad!Intellectually I know that my fears and hesitations are irrational, but I have such a hard time balancing out what I know to be true, and what I feel to be true.

The pastor tonight said that to trust the Lord means that we should have the bold confidence to surrender control of every decision, every hardship, and every moment to God. What an intense thought! This is something I want to strive to do everyday, to bodly trust God no matter what the circumstances!

New Year, New Start

Well, it is almost 2010, wow, 2009 went by so fast! I have accomplished so much this year that I never thought I would be able to. My faith in God has propelled me through some tough times, and it is only by His grace that I am where I am right now! I plan on spending 2010 not vowing lose weight, or diet, or whatever, but to focus more on God, my relationship with Him, and let that lead me to my heart's desires. I plan on running the New York 13.1, a half marathon, in April with Team World Vision. Sponsoring a young boy from Malawi through world vision, I will be running and gaining sponsors with him as my driving force! I hope to accomplish a lot this year, more than I can hope to dream for, and some that I already am dreaming for. This will be the place for me to share my struggles and my journey through 2010 with a new outlook on life, and a new found desire for change! Toast to 2010!

Family

I am sitting here staring out my window with a heavy heart. I am so far away from the people I love. I am truly thankful for the opportunity that God has given me, but I am sad that my family can't really enjoy it with me. I am living my dream, and that is amazing, I just wish I could hug my family. This is the first time I have been too far to just come home for awhile. I am praying that I get the job with NCMEC. If that happens, I will be working in a position I would be awesome at, and I would have the money to visit home more often. I am disheartnend that I may not be able to get home for Christmas. I would not have left my pets behind in CO, but having them here makes for a more difficult vacation planning. Sure I could just pile them both in the car and drive home, but what if I get stranded there. My life is here now, and it is so complicated with going home. I miss my family and I wish we were independently wealthy so that money wasn't an issue. Unfortunately money is always an issue. I just pray that someday money is no longer a limiting factor in my and my families' lives.

Fun stuff

I had probably one of the best weeks ever here in VA! I was handpicked for an internship with the ATF-Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, as well as handpicked for an interview with the State Department for a PT student job. This week I went to the ATF to fill out the paperwork and am more than excited to start interning there. There will be some many amazing opportunities for me, that I can hardly wait. Then, I interview with the State Department and they put me on the short list of candidates that are being recommended for hire! Incredible! Plus I got assignments back and scored full points on everything, think I aced my midterm and feel totally confident with classes again. I am so excited and thankful for this chapter in my life. I can't wait to begin!

Reflection

The last few weeks, I have found myself thinking about life. The anniversary of the September 11th attacks started me thinking about the state of things. The apathy from people surrounding 9/11 is startling. Some people have forgotten the horror of that day, or are distancing themselves from it in order to justify their belief that we should not fight. I am not some crazy conservative that likes war and thinks that we should continue on this path forever. I am a firm believer that there are some things you just can't negotiate away. There are people in this world whose only goal is to anihilate Americans in any way possible. Al-qaeda can be compared to the Manson family in the United States. Their ideals and outrageous beliefs are originated from a psychopath and perpetrated by people to weak minded to realize that. Just as Charles Manson led his followers, and encouraged them to carry out heinous crimes in the name of something, Osama Bin Laden encourages his people to destroy innocent lives in the name of something. That something is Islam. Muslims, as a whole, may not be a violent people, but the book they live by speaks clearly about people less worthy than they are. It is not a far stretch to see how a psychopath could distort the Islamic views and beliefs into what these rogue bands of thugs believe. This distorted view of the world is what makes these individuals so dangerous. They will not bend to reason or compassion. No amount of discussion or reasoning or barganing  will prevent them from doing what they think they should do, snuff out American life. For everyone out there who blames President Bush for the war, sighting supposed evidence that they had false information and acted on it, stop. What would you have done? The Bush administration and the 9/11 attacks were the result of trying to negotiate with terrorists and ingnoring evidence in the Clinton administration. The clinton administration knew of the danger and did nothing, seeking to perpetuate there agenda. That resulted in Al Qaeda getting a backdoor pass to the United States. Anyone who thought this through would be aware that such an attack would have needed planning for years. It was not spontaneous. In the years since the war in Iraq, we may not have captured Osama Bin Laden, but the Bush administration took down Saddam Hussein, and many other tyrants and dangers to the American people. This is what the activists choose to forget so they can perpetuate their agenda. The truth is out there, people just have to be willing to see if for what it is. If people in the United States would unite against the true dangers to the country and stop fighting over religion, the president, healthcare, and all of the other smoke screens, we may be able to protect ourselves against further attack. Right now, we are weak and divided. We have succeeded in making ourselves a bigger target than we could have ever imagined. At this rate, we won't need Al Qaeda to destroy us, we will do that ourselves.

ACORN

Well surprisingly enough, more ACORN workers have been caught doing illegal and immoral acts. Arrest warrents were issued for 11 ACORN workers in Florida after enough evidence was found that they had illegally registered 888 voters for the 2008 elections. This came to light after being reported to the state attorney general's office. They claim that this was only an attempt to defraud the ACORN organization and that none of the names actually voted, but who can actually say that for sure. It seems that ACORN is unable to hire employees that do not turn out to be some kind of criminal. In 2007 workers in Washington were arrested on the same charges of voter fraud. It a more disgusting case of criminal activity, ACORN workers were videotaped giving information to people posing as a pimp and a prostitute on how to defraud the IRS, and secure 13 underage girls from South America to include in a prostitution ring. The ACORN worker, while telling the two that it is illegal to do so, also proposed they claim the children as "dependents" on their tax return. The undercover people were reporters who came to the Baltimore ACORN office. In the video an ACORN worker is shown to be offering to defraud the IRS by altering tax returns, charging a nominal fee. This is clearly not an organization that fufills is role as protectors and advocates for the underpriveledged. This kind of conduct is appalling, and it should be questioned that, anyone who continues to associate themselves with this radical group, whether or not they should be in the positions they are currently in. It should also be investigated further as to whether or not those positions secured were done so legally.

This information can be found at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,548827,00.html and http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/09/acorn-turns-florida-workers-voter-fraud-charges/

Lessons from the classroom

Class was very interesting tonight. We reviewed the case of Kenneth Bianci, one of the hillside stranglers. It is amazing how so many well educated people can be decieved by such an obvious case of BS. I guess that if you go into interview with criminals expecting them to tell you the truth, you are pretty clueless to begin with. At least it is good to know that there are some professionals out there who have a good head on their shoulders and think with common sense and discernment so that people like Bianci can't get away with murder. I hope that after going through this degree that I will be able to supplement the common sense I already have with the specific knowledge I learn from my classes.

Exercise in the South

Well, I am a new fitness fiend. This started back home in Colorado, so I figured it would be easy to transition my routine to a more hot and humid climate. Well, I was wrong! It is a lot more difficult over here in Virginia. It's easier to breathe, but by the time I am done, I need a beach towel to mop up what's left. I am not complaining really though, I would much rather have to work a little harder to achieve my goals, than to be unable to work out at all. Especially now that I am finally running. I have wanted to be a runner my whole life, but was not able to get there until recently. I am now on my way to running my 1st half marathon!!!! I begin training for that endevour in November, but I am training for that training right now. I successfully made it through one whole week of scheduled training, and went back tonight to start week two. At least now, I feel like I'm working out. In Colorado it was difficult to work up a sweat, over here in VA, all I have to do is look at the treadmill and I start pouring! It's really funny to me. Oh well. Eventually I will need to take this running outside, but I need to figure out how to get to the path from where I live. That's all for today.