A Vengeful God

This morning I received a phone call from my dad at 7:00. I almost didn't answer since I had taken a Benadryl the night before and needed sleep but I wanted to make sure he was ok. Now, I regret having answered the phone. He had been driving to work and he heard of Kyle's accident on the radio. He wanted to know if I knew Kyle or anyone that attended UBC. After I explained what I knew of the story to him he started to ask me a few questions. The first did not catch me off guard, but after the second I knew exactly where he was going with his questions.

"Was he a respected pastor?"
"Yes."
"Were there any kind of problems going on in the church like any kind of church-split?"
"No"
"Was there anyone in the congregation that had any problems with him?"
"Not that I know of. It is mostly a college age congregation."

I didn't honestly know the answer to all of these questions but I thought they were completely irrelevant for the association he was about to make and I did not want to give him any reason for thinking what he was about to. Even though I knew why he had asked these questions I wanted to hear it in his own words. After I asked him why he wanted to know he tried to carefully (though he wasn't successful) find a way to say, "What goes around comes around." I was so infuriated by my dad that I was speechless. I let him talk a little more and then as calmly as I could I told him that I did not think that God worked that way. God is a just God but He is a loving God. What happened to Kyle was just a freak accident that could have happened to anyone. God did not cause bad things to happened to people.
"No Kessa, He does not cause bad things to happen, but he allows bad things to happen." I did not argue with this point so my dad kept going.
"Kessa, have you ever heard that 'vengeance is mine.' sayeth the Lord. And what ye' shall reap ye' shall sow. And..." He kept going but I tried hard to tune him out. I couldn't listen to him. I couldn't stand it. My dad quoting scripture at me... completely irrelevant scripture at that, for the situation at hand. I have never known my dad to quote scripture unless he is using it as a weapon.

Since I started writing this last night and returned to it now, I have been to Kyle's funeral. After hearing of what an amazing man Kyle was and of all of the lives that he influenced for the Kingdom of God, my dad's questions and scripture quoting infuriated me more. I didn't know what to say to my dad. What makes me even more sad though is that even if I did have the right words to tell my dad how I thought he was horribly wrong, I don't think that it would have made any kind of difference. I don't think that my dad has the capability to learn from me or the desire to at all. I hope that I never reach that point in my life. I hope that I never think that there is nothing that I can learn from another person no matter how young or old, experienced, or inexperienced they are. I include my dad in that group of people. No matter how much he infuriates me I hope that I never reach a point where I think I am too wise and knowing to learn from him.

It makes me so sad to know that there are many people out there with the same mind set as my dad. I know that my dad has been hurt by many people in the church and he is very resentful towards it. (Unfourtuantely I think that my dad may have had more of a relationship with the church than with God which is why his departure from the churchwas so difficult.) I find it so interesting to observe that he is so quick to throw his philosophy of "What goes around comes around" onto other people (potentially even someone he has never met,) and yet I seriously doubt that he takes that philosophy onto himself very much in his life. When he left my mom five and a half years ago I doubt he thought of all of the negative consequences that he would take on himself and force upon others. I don't even think that he thought that what he was doing was wrong.

Please don't live your life with a "what goes around comes around" attitude. Be more concerned with the consequences of your own actions rather than the consequences of other' actions. Show others the grace and love that God shows us. Leave judgment to God and do as you are told, "Love the Lord your God with all of your heart mind and soul and love your neighbor as yourself."

A Call for Prayers

This morning towards to end of the church service, our pastor, Julie was notified that the pastor of University Baptist Church in Waco was electricuted after a microphone fell into the waters he was about to administer a baptism in. His pulse was revived but not long after, Julie was given another notice that he died and she informed our congregation just before we dismissed.

I am writting to petition for your prayer. Kyle's family, friends, congregation and countless others will be going through incomprehensible pain from this tragedy. The congregation is a young one consisting mostly of college students. Kyle and his wife are young and they have three children under the age of four.

Though I did not know Kyle, I know a number of people who attend UBC. Please also pray for those of us who are indirectly connected to the pain. May God give us the right words when needed and the lack of words when the time is right for silence. May He comfort and console in a time when pain seems endless and relentless to many.

(For those of you familar with the band, this is the church that David Crowder band started in and they leave worship in when they are not on tour.)

BOOOOOO!!!!

That's all I have to say about what happened around 11:00 PM on October 26, 2005.

Oh yeah...And in honor of a few men, I'm not going to be sweeping my apartment for quite some time...(well...until I can't stand the crumbs on my feet anymore.)

Three disappointments

Tonight two friends joined me in the SUB to watch the progress of all of the sporting events I'm currently drowning myself in. There are three big screen televisions in the SUB and it was just my luck that they were showing each of "my" teams.

The first of the TV's was showing the Spurs pre-season game. Out of the the three teams I was watching tonight I watch the Spurs most avidly. I have been a Spurs fan since the first game I went to when I was seven years old. I grew up with the biggest Spurs fan I know, my mom, and her enthusiasm rubbed off on me significantly. Even though they were my favorite team tonight, it was just a pre-season game I didn't play that close attention... which is why we lost. If I had been watching like I watched the last game, we would have won. So far the only pre-season game they have won was the one that I watched. The funny thing is that even though we have lost 6 out of 7 pre-season games we are still expected to be the West Conference Champs...yet again. GO SPURS GO.

TV # 2 was showing the pennant series. I've never watched baseball very much. When I went to Boston last year I got really excited about the Red Sox history so I started rooting for them. I have to admit that I've had a similar "jump on the bandwagon" experience with the 'Stros. I did root for them last year and if they had ended up with the Sox in the last series I would have been happy with either team winning. My sister would be upset if she knew I wrote that. She has never followed many sports and never got sucked into basketball in my home, but she has always loved baseball. She and her husband don't live too far from the Astrodome and they managed to get their hands on some tickets for the last home game against the Cardinals. What a shocking ending!! Well...it was so disappointing to see the 'Stros go SIX innings without a run. Well...that was the second hit....er....uh....lack of hit....er...uh....bad pun.

The third TV provided the biggest disappointment. I don't particularly care to watch much football on TV, (except when we had fun SuperBowl parties at my house back in the glory days of the Cowboys,) and I can honestly say that the only football games I've gone to of Baylor's since I've been here have been the A&M games and that was only to watch the Core march at half-time. I don't like going to games if we are going to loose all of the time. Baylor finally has something good going on this year. We have had some really good wins and three disappointing losses. We played a strong game against Nebraska last weekend and even though we barely lost, it was nowhere near the scores that we used to have against teams like Nebraska where we would walk away from the game with a 50-60 point deficit. Tonight we took OU into two overtimes and gave them a run for their money with some great plays. We just couldn't pull it out in the last play though.

Regardless of the three disappointments it was a fun time to share in the company of a bunch of people that I didn't know that were my fellow fans. The time with Rebecca and Becca was also quality. I hope I didn't bore you with this post. I just wanted to write about something light tonight.

iConvert Revisited

Ok, so those of you who really looked at the pic below noticed that the ring was on my right ring finger and not my left. When I read the post I wrote before that a friend pointed out that it kind of sounded like I was getting engaged. It seemed probable too since Richard came into town, so, I thought it would be funny to post something like that.

Actually, my surprise just came today. As I am typing this I am sitting inside my favorite coffee shop (CGs) typing on my very own, (not my friends) iBook. As most of you know, I have been wanting one for well over a year now and I finally got it last week and it came via FedEx today. I wrote about my conversion here. I also got a free printer with it which was very convenient since mine was shot about two years ago.

My dad is still convinced that I am going to be so upset for getting this and he thinks that I am going to regret it when I get into the "real world." He does know that so far I am pleased with it and I'm adapting to the new OS pretty quickly since I've been playing around on other Macs for so long, so that's good. So far there are no regrets and I don't foresee any in the near or far future. I am having so much fun on it!!

Oh yeah...sorry 'bout the mean engagement joke. I just couldn't resist. It was too easy.

Exciting News

Take a closer look. 

If you take a closer look at my hand in this pic you'll see what the exciting thing that came my way was. More details later

Tired of Waiting...

I have something really exciting coming my way but it has been delayed due to reasons unknown. It should come my way within a few days (hopefully tomorrow) and then I will share with the world my exciting news!! To be continued...

Da Boston Blues

I got da blues... da Boston Blues. Ok, that sounds corny, I know but it's true for me. I cannot seem to shake Boston from my mind. A year ago on this day I was on a plane leaving Boston on a very last minute trip. Kelli came to me and asked me if I wanted to go check out Gordon Conwell because their Fall premier was in two weeks. I laughed at her and jokingly said "yes." Then she told me she found tickets for $130, (she left out the part that the airline was going bankrupt and that's why the tickets were so cheap, but we ended up being ok.) So we booked our flight to Logan airport and in two weeks we were off. I had zero expectations for this trip.

About a year before then I had this crazy idea that I wanted to go out of state for seminary. Why was it a crazy idea you ask? The main resaon was because any place I would want to go would be more expensive than staying at Truett and the other reason is because even though Truett is "the easier thing to do" I don't see it as being a bad consolation prize at all. I knew that I would be very happy if I stayed at Truett. After Kelli and Linds and I toook our Spring Break road trip up and down the East coast I thought that I had gotten the travel bug out of me and I was going to be ok with "settling" with Truett. So as I was getting ready for the trip to Gordon Conwell I wasn't even considering it as an option for seminary. I was happy with Truett and I had stopped looking at other places. Going on this trip was simply going to be a fun trip to Boston for me.

I was completely caught off guard on the trip. From the moment we got there to the moment we stepped off og the plane back in Texas I was overwhelmed with excitement and fear balled up inside of me threatening to ecplode inside of me. I can't really explain what it was about GC and Boston that I was so excited about. The seminary had everything to offer that I loved about Truett, but it also had the added factor of being 2,108 miles away from my comfort zone at home. Why wis this appealing to me? I honestly have no idea. I just feel that for some reason I'm going to be missing out on a certain area of growth in my life if don't take myself out of all of my comfortable luxuries and try something off of my typical path to follow right now.

I can still have the option of transfering to GC and I have considered trying to find a way to do my mentorship there. I have also thought about not doing the dual degree program at Truett and only getting my M.Div here and then getting my MA in Counseling at GC's program. That would give also give me a great opportunity to take some crossover classes at other Boston campuses like Harvard or the other BU and other places. I still have to remember though that even with the scholarship at GC it would still be significantly more than Truett.

I don't know why I can't shake it from my head. I find myself reminiscing in my "Boston and Environs" and "Massachusetts" travel books quite frequently. What am I to do?


Linds, Kelli, and me on Singing Beach on a dreary day in the North Shores. 


Lots of time on the "T" 


Where Everybody Knows Your Name 


Fanueil Hall in Quincey Market looks a little bit like Baylor In Boston. 


Me under the Weepeing Willow that I dreamed of getting proposed to under (too long of a dream to write about in the picture caption) in Public Garden.