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- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: goals
As you may have noticed over the last few months, I really enjoy reading on the internet, and I have been inspired by all kinds of articles and blogs and google searches to try many new things!
One interesting idea that I have come across recently is related to setting goals and is called the 3in30 Challenge. The basic idea is to set three goals at the beginning of the month that you plan to achieve by the end of the month, so you will accomplish three goals in thirty days. It's a simple concept, and it is appealing to me, but I am not QUITE ready to jump on board.
- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Life
Something new that I decided to try while I was on my own in July was to make my own granola. My verdict is that it was a raging success, and Matt agrees it is delicious and he would happily eat it! The one thing I will do differently next time is not add any dried fruit to the granola before I bake it. Most of my craisins turning into little cranberry rocks.
I used a recipe from thefrugalgirl.com that I would link to but it's a huge post because she has tons of pictures and a give-away on the same post. It boils down to:
Mix these ingredients together:
6 cups oatmeal
1 cup chopped nuts
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup dried fruit
Combine the below ingredients on low heat in a small pot, stir together and pour over oatmeal mixture:
1/2 cup oil (I used coconut oil as recommended. Pricey but healthy.)
1/2 cup honey
3 tbsp brown sugar
3 tsp vanilla
Spread the entire mixture out on baking sheets and bake at 300F. Stir after 15 minutes and every 2-5 minutes after that until golden brown.
- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Life
Matt, Esther and I enjoyed the civic holiday on Monday downtown exploring Kensington market. I do not have pictures because we were too busy enjoying our day! We wandered and window shopped in Kensington, had Mexican food for dinner, and spent the evening down at the water front. We sat on the boardwalk with our feet in the water and watched boats, and there was a really funny busker. It was a gorgeous day, and we wore sunscreen, so no regrets!
UPDATE: I found this picture on my phone. How could I forget the sun visor/welding mask Esther stubbornly refused to buy?
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- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Life
With an unknown length of time before Matt and Esther get back from their two week mission trip, I decided it would be wise to attempt a blog post since this might help me get back in the swing of things for August.
Nimoy and I have been toughing out the heat, and we had a couple cool days this week to give us a break. Today is hot again, although nothing like last week. I managed pretty well since I ran the air conditioner and fan in my room at night, but now that Esther will be back, it seems fair to put the air conditioner in one room and fan in the other. We'll see how that goes, lol.
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- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Life
And tomorrow has been forecast to be the hottest day yet. So after taking Nimoy on his nighttime walk and taking the stairs up (one of the elevators is broken and I skipped kickboxing because it was so HOT), my sweaty self taped aluminum foil to our west-facing windows.
Dining room above, kitchen below. Now from outside, we look like crazy people who don't want aliens or government satellites reading our minds :P But we are not the only ones, and I am praying this makes the apartment slightly less of an oven to come home to (and wake up to, sigh)
For the record, the blinds will also be down, so from inside I think everything will look pretty normal. There are a few girls coming over for small group tomorrow night, and I don't want to scare them off!
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- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Life
Dear family and friends and random readers, if you exist.
Due to my sister visiting, loving outside and gorgeous weather, and possibly moving this blog to my own domain in the next month or so, posts will not be as frequent as they have been the last few months.
I hope you will continue to check back/keep me on your blog reader to see when there are new posts, and hopefully Moving With God will have an awesome new look in the near future.
I'm not taking an official break, just slowing it down for the next month or so and wanted to give y'all the heads up why posts are not as frequent.
Much love! Until next time,
Alyssa
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- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Life
It has been an amazing (and busy!) couple of days - June ended, my sister arrived for a 40-day visit, Matt turned 25, and I worked an 11 hour day to catch up from the long weekend mail.
SO I made it through June without using shampoo (although I was tempted once or twice) and am going to stick with no-poo for the time being. I have occasional greasy-hair days, but I have been tweaking my baking soda mix and experimenting with how long I let it sit in my hair (sometimes no time, sometimes a few minutes), so for now I think it is worth it for healthier hair and scalp plus its dirt-cheapness.
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- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Thoughts
I am slowly reading The Gospel According to Job and wanted to share an excerpt from the last chapter I read because this paragraph struck my heart:
Some Christians treat love as though it were an evangelistic strategy, a kind of gospel-bait. Love is seen as a useful tool for attracting or luring people into the Kingdom. Naturally, once the fish has been hauled into the boat, the lure is cut from its mouth. But love is not a silver spoon or a jitterbug. Love is not bait for the gospel; love is the gospel. Love is not a means towards some other end; love is means and end together. The moment love is used as a tool, it ceases to be love. When people try to use love in this way, what they are really doing is using God. Instead of being used by God, they try to turn the tables and use Him. Religion becomes an instrument for the expansion of one's own personal power. Love becomes a weapon of aggression. Little wonder that the person who is suffering comes to hate it. For true love is not aggression; true love is not concerned with gaining power over others. Rather, love is the humility in which self becomes subservient to relationship.
In the Kingdom of God nothing moves, nothing happens, without love.
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- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Scripture
I was walking home from kickboxing today, exhausted and sweaty, not experiencing as many endorphins as I had hoped, and I was trying to remind myself why it was worth it. I met a new person, and we bonded a little bit over chatting between combos and encouraging each other through burn outs, so that was good. Plus the workout itself was good, even if it didn't feel super, I knew it was good for me. And then the thought My body is a temple sarcastically busted into my train of thought.
So I thought about it for a little bit, what that cliche really means. People usually use it in reference to physical fitness or not smoking or drinking. They use it to explain how they treat their bodies, not to say what their bodies are for. However, the actual Bible passage it comes from relates to sexual morality:
- Details
- Written by: Alyssa
- Category: Uncategorized
An envoy was sent from the army camp at Ebenezer to Shiloh (where the tabernacle was for worship), and the ark of the covenant was brought back to the great excitement of all the soldiers. It is interesting to notice that two priests accompanied the ark of the covenant - Eli's two sons. These men have been exposed earlier in the text as self-serving and abusive of their priestly power, so they were probably not accompanying the ark out of concern for this holy relic. Maybe they were hoping for a cut from any spoils of war that might be won, or maybe they wanted to be front and center in the celebration with the ark as it came into the camp. It's not very important, but it definitely ties in to the theme of this chapter of religion gone wrong.
So the ark arrives, and the reaction from the Israelites is "such a great shout that the ground shook." Often when the Bible refers to the ground shaking, it is a natural response to God's holiness, but in this case it is a reflection of the people's emotions and excitement.
The Philistines hear the shouts from the Israelite camp and are terrified to learn that the Israelite god is there. They fight with all of the strength they can muster for fear of being conquered by the Hebrews, and they win. 30 000 Israelite soldiers were killed, the ark of God was captured, and the two terrible priests also died.
All in all, God seems so absent from this chapter, especially in contrast to 1 Samuel 3, where God calls Samuel, makes him a prophet, and continues to speak to him and, through him, to all Israel (see 1 Sam 4:1). So what's the deal?
God never promises an easy life for his people, and oftentimes setbacks or disappointments (even crises) test our relationship with him. Can we trust him even if he doesn't intervene? Or do we threaten and manipulate to try to make him rescue us?
It is curious to me that the elders do not think to consult with Samuel rather than march the ark of the covenant off to war. Maybe he was too young to have their respect or to know about warfare. Maybe they really didn't want to know the answer to "why did God bring defeat on us?"; they just wanted to win the battle.
It is also curious to me that the elders think bringing the ark of the covenant to battle will have a greater influence on God than the lives of his people - did they think he cared more about this ark than the soldiers who had been killed? Did they think he must not know the losses they had suffered or he would have intervened, that he needed a front row seat?
When the Philistines speak of Israel's god, they are not afraid of a supreme being, but of a powerful spiritual force that they know based on Israel's history. They know not of Yahweh, creator of heaven and earth, but the "mighty gods... who struck the Egyptians with all kinds of plagues." They are in despair to be up against such a power, but they harness their fear and fight with everything they have, and they demolish their opponents.
When religion goes wrong, it can still stir up powerful emotions, but it is disconnected from spiritual power. Often people want to equate the two, to be moved emotionally as confimation that God is there and cares. However, pursuing the thrill of intimacy with God instead of God himself can lead to confusion and destruction on a much larger scale than we ever saw coming. The Philistines did not defeat God, but they routed the Israelites who thought they could harness Yahweh's power by putting his precious ark at stake.