Planes, Trains, and automobiles (but mostly planes and automobiles)

Today while cruising steadily at an alititude of 33,000 feet, I was asked if I had ever fallen in love. Pretty random, huh? I guess it's really not that weird of a question. The guy I was sitting next to and I were talking and he asked me about school and what I was studying, and If I had fallen in love yet. What is love anyway? There's not really a single clear cut answer. If you ask 1o different people what love is, you'll get 10 different answers. At best, it's complicated. But since the man I was sitting next to meant love in the romantic sense, I had to say no. To be Honest, I've never even come relatively close to falling in love. I've never been in any sort of position to. I've never had a boyfriend, I've never held hands with a guy, or kissed a guy, I've never been asked out on a date. And as far as I can tell, I don't even think a guy has ever liked me in *ahem* "that" way (some of my suitemates would disagree, but we won't discuss that) It's funny when I tell that to people, you can definitely tell they are wondering what on earth could possibly be wrong with me. Nothing's wrong with me, at least as far as I know. God in His infinite wisdom has decided that in my life, it would be better if I weren't in a relationship, thus far anyway, and I'm more than content with the plan that God has chosen for me. Do I wish I had somebody, Am I lonely? Hmm...tough call, being in a godly relationship can bring you such joy, and should strengthen your relationship with God. And yes, there are times when I wish that I could share my life with someone else and experience that joy. But, I don't want to compromise a blessing that God might have in store for me in the future because I'm impatient and not fully finding joy in God alone. Do I want to fall in love? Oh sure, who doesn't? But, I'm not going to search high and low for someone to fall in love with, because if it's God's will, it will happen at exactly the right moment. I'm more than happy to wait for God's perfect plan to reveal itself, and if God's planned for me to fall in love with someone (or even just get asked out, or be in a relationship) then it will happen when He wants it to. So in the meantime, No, I have not fallen in love with anybody, but if I ever do, it will be only because that's what God has ordained in my life and nothing else.

A nice conversation, and a near death experience...

I think the reason why I love going home so much, aside from seeing all those that I love, is that pretty much every day I have is a really good day. I don't know if that's because I've created this utopian vision of what my home is and I just can't see any bad in it, or if everything is just really that good, but either way, I had another super day.
Today, I was sitting in Starbucks doing some homework and just chilling out alone. It was pretty crowded in there and I don't think there were any tables left, and this man who looked like he was about 45 or 50 asked me if I minded if he sat at my table. Normally, you'd think "Ew gross, some old pervert is trying to hit on you" But it wasn't like that, he just needed a place to sit. So we got to talking in between me doing my homework and his working on learning the Korean language. He was trying to learn Korean because he knew a Korean guy at work. He worked at a mail place, and said that he liked it sometimes, but most of the time it was kind of boring. He asked me what I was studying in school, and if I had a good Thanksgiving, I asked him about his thanksgiving and he told me that he and his 3 roommates shared a thanksgiving dinner. He isn't married, but all his roommates were gone, and he doesn't like being alone. We didn't even exchange names until the middle of the conversation, but after we did, he kept calling me by name. He treated me as if we were old friends just catching up. It actually turned out to be a pleasant experience. You could just tell though that he was really lonely. After about maybe 30 minutes or so, he had to go, he wished me the best of luck in school and said it was really nice meeting me. He went on his way and then I started thinking. I just started thinking about how many lonely people there are in the world, and how even though this man Mark was a complete stranger, hopefully it brought a little comfort to his life. It was just one of those experiences where it was kind of random, but you're definitely glad it happens. It just reminded me how as Christians, we definitely need to be a light in the darkness, and even if we don't expect some things to happen, when they do we can spread the Gospel and show God's love, even in the seemingly smallest of ways.

Oh yeah, I also nearly died tonight by almost falling down the stairs backwards with a glass of blue kool-aid, a pair of scissors and a tube of wrapping paper in my hands. I'll be happy to re-enact it if anybody wants to know how I practically perished.

*Sigh of Contentment*

I don't know about you guys, but today was a very good day. Here's a recap, because I'm sure all of you care...

My "Good Day" morning started off with a white chocolate mocha and a bagel from the best coffee shop in Colorado, and quite possibly the world: Coffee on the Lowell. If you haven't been there before, bad for you, you are truly missing out. If you want to go there, call me so I can go to.

After Coffee on the Lowell, I went to the Colorado Mills Mall to look for a dress. Well wouldn't you know it, in only the 3rd store I went into I found a really pretty dress. Checked the price tag, it was cheaper than I thought, Tried it on, Bob's your uncle, now I have something decent to wear to the Christmas formal.

Then I had Dollar-a-scoop Chinese for lunch once again it was wonderful, I got my pictures developed, and then my dear sweet mom surprised me by scheduling a one hour professional massage for me. It was fantastic!

Then, probably the best part of my day, I got to spend time with my best friend Ruth. She and her boyfriend Jon and I all met for dinner at chili's and then we went to go see the Incredibles. What I love most about our friendship is that we can always pick up where we left off, even if we haven't seen or talked to each other in 4 months. It's always been Ruth and Missy and I. We've been best friends for about 10 years now and God has truly blessed me with such wonderful best friends. I love them dearly and I miss them terribly during the year, but it was soo good to see Ruth again (Missy lives in Minnesota, so I don't see her as much but I'll see her for New Years!!)

So that was my very good day, as you can tell, it was very good. I hope that you guys have great days too, and then post comments about how great they were! Bye!

Two posts in one day? You Betcha!

So Thanksgiving is officially over for me and my family. It was simply divine. I love my family more than anything else on earth. I love spending time with them and all the craziness that usually results. Here are just a few reasons why I love my family:

1) My mom is one of 6 kids and all but 2 live here in Colorado. We all live within about 15 minutes of each other. We had and 18 person Thanksgiving feast today and we were missing some people (this was one of our smaller years) and that's just my mom's immediate family- minus my brother who I miss dearly because he is in England

2) My family is loud, and for those of you that know me, I'm sure you will realize that the apple does not fall far from the tree

3) Since my family is loud, we all feel that we must speak louder to be heard. However, most of the time, we can't hear each other, so conversations will usually spiral out of control and very loudly too. For instance:

Uncle Randy: Hey, Alex (other unmarried uncle) When are you going to get a girlfriend?
Aunt Stephanie: Alex has a girlfriend?!?
Uncle Randy: (Jokingly) Yeah, isn't her name Hilga?
My Mom: Alex has a German Girlfriend named Hilga?!?!?
Aunt Connie: Who's going to Germany?
Grandma: We can't go to Germany! We don't have the money!!!!
Grandpa: I'm not going to Germany You can't make me!!!!
My Dad (quite possibly the only sensible one in the whole group): Everybody Calm Down! Alex doesn't have a German Girlfriend, Her name is not Hilga, and Calm down Grandma and Grandpa, we're not going to make you go to Germany!

I do not lie about the previous exmple it happened today at dinner.

4) Sitting around after everybody is stuffed while everyone watches the football game, except for my Grandpa and Uncle Randy, who fall asleep about 2 minutes after sitting down. God bless Tryptophan

5) Once they wake up, and we've all digested for at least a little bit, we eat my mom's homemade pumpkin pie (best in the world) and we exchange stories that we all know by heart because we exchange them every Thanksgiving. But they're fun stories, about how my mom and aunts and uncles were so bad when they were kids and the funny things they did. Stories like how my Uncle Randy burned down an entire field once because he was trying to scare a lady that was mowing her grass by throwing firecrakcers, but how once the field caught fire, he called the fire department, and they gave him an award for being so brave and such a good citizen.

Thanksgiving is probably the most comforting time of the year for me. Those are just a few reasons why I think my family, as crazy and loud and unrefined as they are the greatest blessing that God has ever given to me. Happy Thanksgiving Everyone, and I hope that you all will realize what an amazing blessing your family is, no matter how they may act.

If you But Trust in God to Guide You

Ok, here's the state of things:

I just signed up for a blog today for 2 main reasons

1) I have really been in the mood lately to do some journaling and with all this new fangled technology, I thought that journaling on the internet might save me a couple of bucks for paper and pencils.

2) Everyone else is doing it.

Ok, I'm semi kidding about reason number 2. But everybody else really is doing it, whether or not that is a cogent reason to do so, well that's debatable. Nevertheless, I have signed up for a "blog" I'm not smart with this website business, I don't know how to format things or what it really is even. If I tried my hand at formatting, I would thoroughly screw it up, but that's ok, because this blog is to be simply an outlet for my thoughts. So with that handy dandy introduction, I'm now a blogger. =) Yessssss

As you may have seen, I have decided to put the address as findingfulfillment. I'm not quite sure how I thought of it, but it seemed appropriate for my current state. I get those word a day e-mails and the word I had was "Entelechy" which is defined as "In some philosophies, a vital force that propels one to self-fulfillment." I liked the word, I thought it was neat, and I considered naming my blog that. Well, it was all well and good to think about it except for the one undeniable fact that I will never find fulfillment in myself. It's not possible. Oh sure, you may feel good about yourself and your career/financial station/lifestyle/ whatever, but how long does that last? We as sinful human beings are never satisfied. I can never ever ever find any sort of fulfillment unless it is through Jesus. I'm learning that more than ever this semester. We work so hard, and we push ourselves so that we can pass that test, or earn that A in the class, or land that job, but what's it for? What is it really for?

I feel like I've failed at a lot of things this semester. I have shut myself off to so many things so that I could focus on college and everything that encompasses. Well, focusing on school wasn't the problem. The problem was that I tried too hard and too often to do it on my own. My name is Gillian, and I have a problem. I signed up for 22 credits so that I could get them done, and be able to focus on interior design after this semester. I have a job, I play in the symphony, I play in the string ensemble, I am in the Interior design club, I sing in choir, I sing in the church choir, I am in Gamma Beta Phi, I am on RUF leadership, among other commitments. Now let's look at the problem- I. So many times I try to handle this all on my own. I can't. God has really purged me this semester, and through many hard lessons, I've been forced to learn to rely on God. It's been a terrible semester, but I kept going telling everyone that I was doing fine, acting like I could balance everything and still have a good spirit and be the overachiever that could do it all. Don't get me wrong, I knew from the beginning that God was the only way I could get through this semester, 22 credits and a job and all that other stuff isn't humanly possible. So why have I failed? Because I didn't always keep God first. Whenever I took my eyes off of God, I sunk. Things would happen (my car breaks down, I run out of money, etc.) and I would get freaked out and break down. Looking back on this semester, God carried me through it all, He was there the entire time, but my own foolish pride kept me from the total blessing that God was offering me. I failed, and that's hard for me to say, but it's the truth.

That's what I've been thinking about a lot lately, I know it's kind of...I don't know what it is, but that's my life right now. I didn't realize how bad I have been this semester until I got home on Tuesday. I called my best friend Ruth on Wednesday and I hadn't talked to her since August. I've been a terrible friend, I've fooled myself into believing that I've just been focused on school like a good student should be, but truth be told, I have just been so self-involved that I have forgotten everything that is and should always be more important to me than school- my health, my family, and my friends especially my two best friends Missy and Ruth.
Lord, I am a wretched sinner. I am broken down. I have nothing to offer except my sincere confession that I have sinned and fallen short of your glory. God, you are faithful and just to forgive my sin, and cleanse me from all unrighteousness, and I ask you to uphold me with your mercy and love.

Phew, so that was kind of a more indepth entry than intended, but if anybody was curious as to how I've been lately, there it is, the truth in all my failure, that's how I've been. God is Good. God's blessings to all who may be reading.

-Gillian-

If you But Trust in God to Guide You
And place your confidence in Him
You'll find Him always there beside you
To give you hope and stregth within.
For those who trust God's changeless love
Build on the rock that will not move

What gain is there in future weeping,
In helpless anger and distress?
If you are in His care and keeping,
In sorrow will He love you less?
For He who took you for a cross
Will bring you safe through ev'ry loss

In patient trust await his leisure
In cheerful hope, with heart content
To take whate'er your Father's pleasure
And all discerning love have sent;
Doubt not your inmost wants are known
To Him who chose you for His own

Sing, pray, and keep His ways unswerving,
Offer your service faithfully,
And trust HIs word; though undeserving
You'll find HIs promise true to be.
God never will forsake in need
The soul that trusts in Him indeed.