Craziness

Life can be weird at times. I was on a missions trip last week and realized as I was going home that I hadn't studied my Bible quizzing material once in the preceding week. I only have six days until nationals begins, so I've been going crazy studying for hours the past two days. I almost have John 9 memorized backwards and forwards.

As stressed out as I feel, I can't believe the peace that's come upon me in the past few weeks as I started really cracking down and practicing hard in everything. I was anticipating a huge emotional breakdown about now, but I can honestly say that I really don't feel as stressed out as I thought I was going to be. (hmm... that didn't really come out the way I wanted it to)

Six days... the suspense... Can I make it?

Life and happiness 2x

As of yesterday, June 11, 2008, I am officially certified as a lifeguard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I start work at the pool on the 27th of this month.

So that's the highlight of the month for me so far. 

I also made a video a couple days ago of myself playing Rachmaninoff's (that's Romancheckoff to you, Chris.)I did really bad at the end and the video is pretty low quality but it's pretty cool. Here's the link, feel free to fave/rate/comment on it if you have a youtube account.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=564CO8-E4IM

Recital

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjcAXvnWPdM

So yesterday I had a piano recital. I played Prelude in G minor by Sergei Vassilivich Rachmaninoff (I spelled that from memory :D.) So I was really freaked about it since I've never played anything near so challenging on front of so many people. It was also kind of a dream come true because I've always wanted to play Rachmaninoff for an audience. Now I guess you can call me a pessimist because I was really expecting to do a lot worse than I actually did. I made a few big mistakes but for the most part I did really well in my eyes (or ears) and go lots of very positive comments afterwards.

And in case you want to hear it, you can watch the video at the top or ask me to play it for you sometime :D. Maybe I'll make my own video of it sometime.

Friends

So I was on a retreat with my beloved youth group this week and had a lot of time to think. I just couldn't get over how blessed I was to have so many great friends. They're all so supportive of me in whatever I do from music to bible quizzing and it gives me those warm fuzzies just thinking of them. All this led to me thinking how dead my relationship with God was then. I remember reading a while ago that we should treat our relationship with God like we do our relationship with our best friends. At that moment it just kinda clicked for me. When I thought of it that way it seemed like God wasn't the big guy watching from heaven anymore, he was the one standing right beside me my whole life. I used to have this vision that whenever I sinned, God was up there wagging his finger at me like a parent would to their three-year-old child. Now it's like he's right behind my shoulder and whenever I go to do something I know I shouldn't, he puts his arm in front of me and tells me that I shouldn't do it, yet he doesn't stop me when I completely diss him and do it anyways. Yet now whenever I do that it feels like I've let him down. I know what it's like to let down a good friend, and it doesn't feel good. Now that's what I get when I let down God. Now there's a whole new meaning to the verse that says, "And he walks with me, and he talks with me." (actually that might be a hymn, not a verse... maybe both.) Then there's prayer. Why do we have such a hard time with prayer? I've come to the conclusion that it's because we don't see God as a friend, but as one of those untouchable kings or emperors of old. When you're with a friend constantly for a few days, do you talk to him 4 times a day at meals and before bedtime? Of course not. You talk to them all day and that's how it should be with prayer. He's there, why not talk to him?