The 21 Day iPod Shuffle Challenge
If you come to the TinyChat meetings on The Endtime Tribune, you know that my dad talks a lot about the 21-day "prayer fast," where you pray about one thing and one thing only for 21 days. Well, I'm taking that challenge myself. But to add to that, I have a hard time having faith that God will even answer my prayers--ya know, cuz God does whatever He wants to. So I have to work on my faith the same time I'm praying for 21 days, so that I have the determination to keep that covenant. The way I'm going to do it is the 21-day iPod Shuffle Challenge--something I came up with myself.
A lot of the time, I'm praying for an answer and I ask God to give me that answer through a song. I just grab my mp3 player and put it on shuffle, and whatever song that comes up--be it a love song or a praise song--is supposed to answer my question somehow. Does it work? Well, sometimes. A few times I think God's sense of humor has kicked in and He gives me a song that has nothing to do with what I'm asking about. Well, for the next 21 days, once a day I'll put my mp3 player on Shuffle and think of a Christian lesson that goes with that song!
Today's Challenge: Lift Me Up by The Afters
I turned my mp3 player on shuffle this morning when I was riding my bike with my brothers and sister--and boy, does that make some nice background music for a beautiful day! There's not much to say about it, since the song itself pretty much says it all. The lyrics are beautiful. ♥ So is the video, so watch it!
I've been saying this in the last few posts (actually, hasn't it been in every post by now...?) that humans are not perfect. We're not very strong, either. The devil really hates us, and he surrounds the world with trials and temptations. When he can't get us to turn away from the path of our own free will, he tries to force us into it by putting us through trials. We're in a world of darkness; that's all there is to it. We're born into it and we become it, and even when we become children of the light, it's hard not to go back to our true nature. But you have to remember THAT JESUS UNDERSTANDS!!! All you have to do is go back to him! He'll pick you back up off the ground, brush all the dirt off you, and give you the strength and courage to go on!
The 21 Day iPod Shuffle Challenge
If you come to the TinyChat meetings on The Endtime Tribune, you know that my dad talks a lot about the 21-day "prayer fast," where you pray about one thing and one thing only for 21 days. Well, I'm taking that challenge myself. But to add to that, I have a hard time having faith that God will even answer my prayers--ya know, cuz God does whatever He wants to. So I have to work on my faith the same time I'm praying for 21 days, so that I have the determination to keep that covenant. The way I'm going to do it is the 21-day iPod Shuffle Challenge--something I came up with myself.
A lot of the time, I'm praying for an answer and I ask God to give me that answer through a song. I just grab my mp3 player and put it on shuffle, and whatever song that comes up--be it a love song or a praise song--is supposed to answer my question somehow. Does it work? Well, sometimes. A few times I think God's sense of humor has kicked in and He gives me a song that has nothing to do with what I'm asking about. Well, for the next 21 days, once a day I'll put my mp3 player on Shuffle and think of a Christian lesson that goes with that song!
Today's Challenge: Collide by Skillet
So far, this challenge is definitely working--because God really IS telling me something with every song! My interpretation of this song is that it's about Christians, and how the world tries to "tearing down our lives."
Let's face it. Christians just flat out aren't welcome here. They laugh and point the finger and us because we're "too good" to go to parties and waste our lives away. And here's another cold, hard fact: sometimes we want to join them. It's not easy being a Christian, and we really don't get to do whatever we want. It's hard. The devil will always try to find some way to break our faith. As humans, we have a fear that things won't turn out all right, even if we're doing what God's telling us to. And there's those moments when we just don't know what God wants us to do. We stumble and we fall sometimes. Jesus never said it would be easy.
As Christians, though, we have faith inside us as well. I've mentioned on the past couple of shows that Christians have an assurance in their hearts that God is there for them, and that everything will turn out OK in the end. Even in the darkest of nights, that faith shines bright, like a candle burning in a window. It encourages us to keep going, to hold on, to take just one more step, to fight our way back to the top of that cliff.
Faith and fear collide in our hearts. Like it says in Ephesians, the battles we fight are not of flesh, blood, and bone--it's of the spirit. The spirit is willing--the spirit has that faith--but the flesh, the part where fear comes from, is weak. Think of the spirit and the flesh as oil and water. They just plain don't mix.
We have to hold onto God's hand and commit our lives totally to him. Don't feel bad if you stumble and let go of his hand for a moment--remember that he's always standing there waiting for you to accept his hand again so he can pull you back on your feet. Just hold on.
The 21 Day iPod Shuffle Challenge
If you come to the TinyChat meetings on The Endtime Tribune, you know that my dad talks a lot about the 21-day "prayer fast," where you pray about one thing and one thing only for 21 days. Well, I'm taking that challenge myself. But to add to that, I have a hard time having faith that God will even answer my prayers--ya know, cuz God does whatever He wants to. So I have to work on my faith the same time I'm praying for 21 days, so that I have the determination to keep that covenant. The way I'm going to do it is the 21-day iPod Shuffle Challenge--something I came up with myself.
A lot of the time, I'm praying for an answer and I ask God to give me that answer through a song. I just grab my mp3 player and put it on shuffle, and whatever song that comes up--be it a love song or a praise song--is supposed to answer my question somehow. Does it work? Well, sometimes. A few times I think God's sense of humor has kicked in and He gives me a song that has nothing to do with what I'm asking about. Well, for the next 21 days, once a day I'll put my mp3 player on Shuffle and think of a Christian lesson that goes with that song!
Today's Challenge: Therapy by Relient K
When this song started playing on my mp3 player, it was like a revelation. First I thought, "Really, Lord? Another Relient K song?" Then my next thought was, "Thanks for the reminder." This song is about a guy getting over a breakup--he's crying, he misses her, he's having a hard time moving on without her. But he takes a drive out in the country so he can have a one-to-one talk with God. He calls that his "therapy."
Life is really frustrating. Why? Well, it's LIFE, that's why. We get harrassed with a billion things that distract us. It gets to the point where we can't even think straight because there's so much drama going on! (Have I been there? Why yes I have, thank you.) Sometimes we vent to our friends, our family, or maybe even a random stranger. But there's other times when nobody's around. Either they can't understand or they just plain get sick of having to listen to you all the time. Or maybe you get to the point where you only wanna talk to that one person you just can't talk to at the moment. Those are the times we need to clear away all the distractions--lock yourself up in a closet with heavy metal music blaring at 31, or walk to the middle of a forest, or drive somewhere just to drive. We need to get alone with God. And once all the distractions are gone, you can have a good talk with Him.
Something I'm sure you've all heard me say on my show is, "When nobody else is there, God will ALWAYS be there for you." In fact, I'm pretty sure I say it at least once a show. I say that not only for your benefit, but for mine as well. As a teenager, I have lots of drama going on around me. Oy vey, I can't even BEGIN to tell you. The people who know me either aren't there for me when I need it, or they're just plain sick of me complaining! It's really lonesome because I feel like no one is on my side. I'll lock myself in my room and cry, mumbling all my frustrations out loud because I wish someone could hear. I need someone to wrap their arms around me and let me cry on their shoulder, and tell me it's all right. I feel alone.
I forget sometimes, though, that there IS someone who hears. There IS someone who wraps His arms around me and tells me it's OK. Sure, it's not physical, but He's still THERE. I may be stubborn and want whatever I want, but no matter what, He's not going to leave. He's the person who's going to take out fresh sheets of paper and a nice expensive pen to take down notes about how I feel--because yes, God DOES listen to your feelings, even if you don't think He does! And unlike those fancy-shmancy therapists in pressed suits who take those notes and make an "educated guess" as to what your major malfunction is, God knows EXACTLY what your problem is. He can administer the best cures because He's inside your mind! He made your mind for Pete's sake!
And you know what? In those moments where I remember God's there, I feel a lot better after venting all my frustrations out on Him. Sure, I'm saying the same things over and over again, but He doesn't mind hearing it. For the past 2 days I've been praying as hard as I can about just one thing, and I can't think of any fancy words to change up what I'm saying. I'm repeating myself over and over. I hate doing that because I'm a writer, and in a piece of writing that's redundant, but to God, it's not redundant at all. He knows we need it.
Today I feel like I let God down because I had to do the prayer during TinyChurch. Who knows, maybe I did. For like half an hour, I locked myself upstairs and cried because I felt like I couldn't do ANYTHING right!! But as I'm writing this, I remembered: well, I'm praying because people need me to. If I need to add a few extra days to my prayer fast because I have to pray during TinyChurch, then I will! I just have to keep pressing on. I can't let something like that bog me down. I have to keep going, I have to keep trying. God knows my heart. He knows what my intentions are, and most of all, He knows I'm a teenager and I can't do every little thing just exactly perfect! So after I vented in a bunch of random gibberish, actually, I set my jaw and I decided I'm going to keep praying about this thing anyway.
Let me tell you a little something. Ever since I was about 13, when I really need to talk to God, I get this picture in my head. It's me, as a little girl in a black dress. There's two rooms with a big brick wall in between--one room has me in it, the other room has Jesus in it, sitting on a chair. When I need to talk to him, I go outside my room and knock on the door of His room. He lets me in, of course, and I just sit down on the floor next to him and tell him all my troubles and ask him to forgive me. He hugs me and lets me cry, and then when I'm finished, I walk out of that room with a white dress on. Silly, isn't it? But we all have our own ways of praying, I'm sure. It helps me to picture Jesus better.
Nope, I'm not perfect. Not even by a long shot. I'm not as smart or as helpful as most of the people on The Endtime Tribune, but I do my little part. God gave me a job to do, and I'm going to do that. I'm going to pray about what I've set out to pray for--I'm going to talk to Him about it, cast it all on Him, ask Him to make things better and help it to work out. I'm sure the devil doesn't like that. But you know what, ole devil? This is me sticking my tongue out at you. :P Nyah nyah nyah! God's my therapist and you can't knock me down.
Hey Guys! Sally Kurtie here with a post, after like three months. O.o It would help if you guys posted comments and stuff (as soon as I finish this post, I'm gonna mess with the settings so that people without Blogger accounts can comment). Anyway, I've come up with an idea that will give me ideas to post for the next three weeks!
The 21 Day iPod Shuffle Challenge
If you come to the TinyChat meetings on The Endtime Tribune, you know that my dad talks a lot about the 21-day "prayer fast," where you pray about one thing and one thing only for 21 days. Well, I'm taking that challenge myself. But to add to that, I have a hard time having faith that God will even answer my prayers--ya know, cuz God does whatever He wants to. So I have to work on my faith the same time I'm praying for 21 days, so that I have the determination to keep that covenant. The way I'm going to do it is the 21-day iPod Shuffle Challenge--something I came up with myself.
A lot of the time, I'm praying for an answer and I ask God to give me that answer through a song. I just grab my mp3 player and put it on shuffle, and whatever song that comes up--be it a love song or a praise song--is supposed to answer my question somehow. Does it work? Well, sometimes. A few times I think God's sense of humor has kicked in and He gives me a song that has nothing to do with what I'm asking about. Well, for the next 21 days, once a day I'll put my mp3 player on Shuffle and think of a Christian lesson that goes with that song!
Today's Challenge: Curl Up & Die by Relient K
Now this one's a little tricky! This is actually a love song, and the meaning is a little encrypted. The singer feels bad for hurting the girl--and he's ready to move on, since the relationship is pretty broken. She's not, however; and he feels bad, because he DOES love her. So he says, "I'll just curl up with you and die too."
So how do I make this a Christian value? It's kind of easy, really. It made me think of this verse right off the bat:
Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool that returns to his folly. --Proverbs 26:11
My dad used this verse on me A LOT when I was...oh, 10-14 years of age, which were my difficult growing-up years. For as far back as I can remember, I got in trouble for the same stuff over and over again. Like waiting till my parents were gone and then rifling through the cabinets to steal snacks (I got a little overweight as punishment, by the way). Or I'd continually forget to clean off the highchairs or the coffee maker. Honestly? I'm still doing that. I'm just a backsliding person, honestly. It's hard for me to change my ways, unless I'm praying and reading my Bible every single day--if not multiple times a day.
Remember how Jesus said, "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak?" I don't know what it is about humans, but we naturally want to follow the crowd. We want to obey the lusts of our dirt-filled bodies and practice those stupid things that the world thinks is cool. Like lying, for instance. People really don't think lying is wrong--until someone lies to them!
It's so easy to belt out a little white lie, like if you want to check your email for a sec, but your mom walks in and asks if you're done with your homework. Even if you're not, you immediately respond, "Yes." Why? Because for some stupid reason, your flesh would rather go to hell over checking your email than doing your homework like you're supposed to! And then think about the trouble you're going to get into if your mom comes in later and sees you working on your homework again! Either you admit that you weren't really done with your homework (if you ask me, that's the easier route) or you pile on another lie to say "Oh, I forgot this lesson," or "I'm just double checking my work." Or, even worse, you don't even bother to go back to your homework to cover up that little white lie--and get into trouble later because you didn't finish your homework!
Now what does this have to do with the song? Well, let's use some figurative language--personification. Imagine the flesh and the spirit as two people, a girl and a guy for instance. The guy is "breaking the girl's heart" by ignoring what she wants and going with what God wants. It hurts to be spiritual! Like the email story I told you a minute ago. I don't know why, but for me, that darn email is a temptation to me. I'm always wanting to check my email when A) I'm supposed to be doing something else or B) I'm not supposed to be on the computer. (FYI, I've checked my email four or five times in the time it's taken me to get this far in the blog post, and I'm getting that urge to check again.) I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've gotten in trouble because I was "just checking my email." In those moments of weakness when I give in and check my email when I'm not supposed to, that's the guy feeling sorry for the girl and going back to her.
It's stupid. I mean, why would I want to go to hell over checking my email? Well, because it's fleshly to love fleshly desires, and my flesh is a part of me! If I don't keep my spirit strong, going back to God every single day to get my daily dose of prayer and Bible vitamins, I'm going to cave in. Because my spirit feels "sorry" for the flesh, because it gets tired of denying itself, it "goes back"--just for one touch. But that one touch can grow into a whole lot more, and before long, I'll be in a relationship with my flesh again. So I'll be back to square one, and all that work I did to get away from my flesh is for nothing. Kind of like that dog going back to his puke.
So today's lesson: Don't "curl up and die" just because you want to do what you want to do. If you start getting weak, go to God. You don't even have to talk about what you're going through--talk about, I don't know, your peanut butter sandwich! It's human to want to feel accepted by whoever you're talking to, and if you're talking to God, you're gonna want to do what He wants you to. :)
WHOA-WHOA-WHOA. HOLD UP. Since when is some bearded, old, fat dude in a red costume the guy we gotta be good for??! And he...knows when we're sleeping and when we're awake? And when we've been bad or good? That is just...disturbing. O.e Sometimes I just gotta wonder who came up with this stuff.
When I was 5 or 6, I thought the whole idea was funny. My mom and dad never really told me Santa Claus was real; I kinda got that into my own head because I just think like that and I'd seen a lot of movies. I figured it out one Christmas when my mom forgot to fill the stockings until the morning and I got out of bed and caught her doing it. XD Something like that, anyway. Maybe I "accidentally" peeked into some Wal-Mart bags after my parents went on a shopping spree in December and later found the same things in my stockings. I can't remember. I was only 5. I just remember what house I was in when I figured it out, and a few snatches of memory.
I upgraded a little after that. I just thought it was a gag that parents did to add to the surprise at Christmas. In all honesty, I liked the idea of Mom and Dad putting stuff in the stocking MUCH more than I liked having some stranger do it. I just didn't understand why.
Later on, around 12 or 13, I figured that Santa was a way of teaching kids about God. The presents stood for blessings that God gives us when we're good. And since He's, well, I dunno, GOD, He knows what we've been up to. That's why we have to behave ourselves. Then there's the spirit of Christmas--giving things, not getting things. And God's all about that. Santa, I figured, was a really primitive and childish way of leading up to teaching kids about God.
Getting older, I decided Santa was a symbol. He stood for everyone across the world who delivers presents to kids and such. He was, essentially, Christmas. He worked for God, I figured! Maybe he was even some kind of angel! After all, in all the movies he's such a sweet, jolly, loveable old man--kind of like the grandpa I always wanted but never got.
But the older I got, the more contempt grew in me for Santa. There's nothing wrong with Santa himself; he's just a character. The character's pretty awesome! But here's the thing: God-haters use Santa as a replacement for the real "reason for the season." Jesus and His birth is wiped out of the equation. Santa is the sweet old man who gives us presents, and gives us the so-called spirit of Christmas. We should all try to be like Santa and be giving...to heckfire with Jesus!! Just say "X-Mas" or "Happy Holidays" and you've got no problem.
See, I really HATE people who try to keep God out of the picture. Especially when it comes to holidays. I agree with Sarah, wholeheartedly. So what if it started out pagan. Agreed, that's not right. Agreed, we should celebrate the birth of Jesus every single day of our lives. But that doesn't mean we can't have a special day to celebrate it. Cuz humans are kinda stupid. They forget what Jesus did, because in the run-on sentence of life, they get too busy. But around Christmas, they remember, and they get pumped up with a lot of "giving" power that will last them through the year. ^_^
And here's another thing. I was going to write it up all by myself, but yesterday (Sunday the 18th, actually) I stumbled across this news article... O_O I actually have a little bit of respect for Justin Beiber now...I won't bore you with the entire post, but here's what he said:
"With Christmas just one week away, Justin Bieber isn't planning to head to bed early Dec. 24 to await the arrival of Santa Claus. In fact, the teen pop phenom says he's never believed in the man in the big red suit. "My mom always told me there wasn't a Santa," Bieber says in a new interview with AOL Music. "This was her logic: She thought if I grew up knowing about Santa then finding out he wasn't real, that it would be like she was lying to me. And then when she told me about God, I maybe wouldn't believe her.""
--Stolen from Yahoo News or something like that. XD
So, JB, I still don't like you. I still think you dress like a little Elvis punk and you sounded a whole lot better when you sounded like a kid. I still think that crazed fangirls totally overrate you. I still think you would sound WAY better singing rock than pop. BUT I'm gonna cut you some slack cuz we were brought up the same way. XD Just so you know.
Boy, I am terrible with concluding posts lately. lol I just wanted to say that Relient K's "Santa Claus is Thumbing to Town" (featured below) completely describes how Christmas goes crazy and wild and nuts if you only count Santa and not God. And I shall leave it at that...trusting you ACTUALLY watch the video. Otherwise, you will be lost...And sides, I went to all the trouble to find a funny video for it!!!!
There's something beautifully magical about a silent winter night. I've been out in quite a few--well, at least it was still dark, because thanks to Daylight Savings Time I had to go outside and wait for the bus before the sun even dared peek over the horizon. And since I was so eager to get away from home, I was always the first to the bus stop. Standing there alone on an icy street for about fifteen minutes, I felt so much closer to the rest of the world. It was like I could sense everything. I could hear the wind whispering in the trees, I could see the city lights glowing on the clouds, I could feel the snowflakes caress my cheeks gently as if to apologize for the biting wind that carried them. God felt closer; the angels felt closer; the whole world felt closer. Without the noise, without the chaos, without the crowds, the winter wonderland was perfect. I can't even begin to describe the inspiration that ran through my veins, forming into words as I stood there freezing my tail off. Everyone else would come around, calling me crazy and complaining about the cold. But I endured because of the blissful silence.
Life is so full of noise. Doesn't matter what you're doing, something's always bound to interrupt you. Responsibilities, hobbies, friends, family, enemies, innocent and not-so-innocent bystanders, books, machinery, music, TV, cell phones, Facebook, Blogger, sports, news...and the list goes on. Something's always happening, something always needs to be done, something can always be done. Our heads get crammed so full of useless information that our internal computer starts going slow, processing all the easy things first to get them out of the way. It's the important stuff that gets ignored, that gets left until later and maybe even forgotten until it's too late, and your hard drive crashes.
"Goodness gosh, why don't you just get to the POINT already?!" you guys must be yelling at the computer screen right now. Boy, do I love getting figurative. x3 What I'm trying to say is, the noise and busyness in our lives drown out the gentle whispers of God. We get so darn absorbed in other things that we forget to remember Him. See, God doesn't like having to shout over all the noise. When He does that, things get pretty ugly--like they did with the Great Flood and in Sodom and Gomorrah. And hopefully you've never done anything QUITE that nasty!!! No, God prefers to whisper gently in our ears, in the silence...like during a winter night. Like during that silent winter night 2,000 years ago, when a little baby was born into a stable, among all the animals and smell, to an unassuming poor carpenter and his wife.
The Hebrews looked forward to their Messiah. But they were looking for a knight in shining armor on a white steed, someone who would stomp all the Romans' heads in. They weren't looking for a cute little baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. That's why, unfortunately, they never found Him. People like the Pharisees had all the noise in their heads and they looked in all the wrong places. People like the poor shepherds, who were just sitting outside watching their sheep during that silent night, didn't have all that noise in their heads. When the angels came to tell them, they heard and they knew where to look.
So, like the title says, a silent winter night was a perfect night. It was the perfect time to bring around His little whisper, our Lord and Savior. For those who were listening, the glad tidings were loud and clear. So this year, make sure you keep your ears strained. We can't erase all the noise, but we can close ourselves in our bedrooms and have a quiet little talk with Jesus. Maybe He'll tell you something you need to hear.
"Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for there by some have entertained angels unawares." Hebrews 13:2, KJV
What is an angel? Most of us think of a beautiful creature with long shining hair and soft white wings. Or if you're like Sarah, you picture a fierce warrior wielding a sword. Angels can be both. The Bible tells us about angels, heavenly beings that come from God to do His business. Sometimes they're delivering messages, sometimes they're kicking bad guy tail; but either way, they make a pretty big spectacle. Like that first Christmas two thousand and some-odd years ago, when they lit up the whole sky singing about the Savior's birth. “GloooOoooOooooOooooOriaaa...In Excelsis DeEoooo.”
Can you imagine, the whole field full of bright white heavenly light, and the whole sky full of these beautifully horrifying beings, and the whole ground shaking with the sound of their voice? Those poor shepherds. x]
Given, it's pretty awesome that God has special beings that He uses for messengers or on-call guards, depending on what needs to be done. Maybe someone needs encouragement (like Elijah), or guidance (like Joseph), or even a spiritual slap upside the head (like Balaam). Those angels seemed to come around all the time in the Bible. But the funny thing is, they don't show up as much as they used to—at least, not the real deal. You hear all kinds of stories about fake angels saying they're sent from God when they're really from the devil. A lot of people lose heart because they think God must not care about us very much anymore, just because He doesn't send angels or prophets or messengers anymore. That we know of.
Back in Bible times, people would have believed it when an angel appeared and spoke to them. In these modern times, there's fifty million things that angel could be besides an actual angel sent straight from God. It could be a hologram, or a computer generated image, or a robot, or a hallucination. They'd think the angel was an alien before they believed it was from God. My dad and I talked about that back in April when I was helping him paint a house. I was eating a peanut-butter-and-honey sandwich, quietly listening to him rant about how stupid modern-day Christians are. “Why doesn't God send prophets anymore?” he wanted to know. Usually I don't say much when he's talking, because I consider my own opinions to be pretty stupid. But my mind was preoccupied with something else, and I answered before I could catch myself: “Well, nobody would believe them.”
People don't believe in miracles or magic anymore. In a world where science holds all the answers, there's no need to believe in higher powers. There's no need to believe in a higher meaning. Sci-fi has become the new Bible and the new religion. Even the real Christians who believe in angels and such can hardly believe it when an angel or a prophet shows up—because there's been so many fakes cleverly staged by either demons or people who want publicity. So it's pretty feasible to assume that God doesn't send heavenly messengers anymore simply because nobody would listen to them. But that doesn't mean He doesn't send messengers at all. God never loses. He just changes His tactic a little.
Sometimes when I look back at my days in public school, I smile a little and wonder...what do they think of me now? I was a mysterious girl, beautiful, sweet and kind. No matter what anyone did to me, I braced myself and took it with a smile. I was never mean to anyone, at least not in their eyes; I may have lost my temper and cursed every once in a while, but I never did low, underhanded things like they would have in the same situation. No one knew who I was or where I came from. And when I left, I might as well have vanished into thin air. There would have been no way of proving that I'd actually been a real person. For all they know, I could have been an angel. I could have been sent by God to shine a light in that dark place. And who knows, maybe I was.
A friend of mine calls me Angel. Every time I see it in a message, I have to smile a little. Me, an angel? I was a brat in my childhood, I was a sneak in my early teens, and I was just plain evil when I was 16. Nowadays, I can't seem to do anything right. I'm always having dark, morbid thoughts. Some angel I am...at least, in my own opinion. What's the definition of the word angel? A messenger, a guide, a protector. I've been all of the above. With my smile and with my kind acts, I carry the message of salvation. With my encouraging and inspirational words, I point out the light waiting at the end of the tunnel. With a heart that cries out to everyone I see hurt, I do my best to shield my closest friends from harm...and I usually end up saving them in one way or another. God has obviously appointed me to be some kind of backup angel here on earth. That's a big responsibility! Sometimes it makes me pretty upset, because I feel like I'm not good enough. But if I wasn't good enough, God wouldn't have assigned me in the first place.
And have I met angels of my own? Well, sure I have! I won't name names, because I don't want anyone to feel embarrassed. But let me tell you right now, none of those angels exactly fit the stereotype that people have going on in their brains. Most of them are either rebellious punks or brokenhearted individuals. Still, they've been angels to me. They were there when I needed someone. One of them gave me the message to never give up. One of them guides me down this lonely road of life. One of them is my protector, shielding me from hurt. Goodness gawsh, I know angels! O_O Not only that, they're my close personal friends!!!
So many people go around looking for angels. Funny thing is, most of them are in plain sight. They're in the disguise of the tough punk girl who thinks she's ugly and mannish, or the hyperactive fat girl who's always crying, or the bad boy who seems destined for trouble. If you can't see them, be an angel yourself. It doesn't take much--and I tell you this from experience. It's as easy as a smile. Just try it out and see what happens. :)
