FULLY?

Tonight I sit saddened and perplexed at the condition of our hearts. The Bible tells us that Jesus died so that we can be in a right relationship with our Creator, but what is that relationship supposed to look like? After a conversation with a close friend, I am suddenly struck that relationship with my Creator must include relationships with others. When we aren't being pursued by others, the pursuit of the Lords seems distant, why? The Bible says we can't survive on bread alone...hence the need for others in our life. My friend has been processing what it means to be fully known and fully loved. Someone might argue that those are inherently tied together, my friend believes that it is much easier to be fully loved than fully known. I agree, we also talked about how if we all knew each other fully, it might be a lot harder to love each other fully. Why would God make that hard to do, why should we ever feel a void when we know that we are fully loved and fully known by God? Because we are human and were created for relationships, and without them I don't necessarily think that we truly know God or love God fully. "What you do to the least of these, you do to me"(paraphrased verse from the Bible), if my pursuit of others isn't to fully know them and to fully love them, what does that say about my relationship with Jesus....to me it is says "Your shady". Shady in the regard that you aren't following what Jesus asks of you.
SIDENOTE: For those of you who don't share my faith please know that this is my attempt to figure out how it is really supposed to be, not how the church has created it to be, and to forwarn you, I will fail(daily) so don't see it as hypocritical but rather a damn good effort.
I guess what I am really saying is that it makes me sad that people walk around our great green earth and feel as though that they aren't fully known or fully loved by God, and the root of all of that is, that people have not pursued each other to know or love them fully. Now is the application, what relationships do I hold back getting to know someone, and what relationships do I not let others in? How do I change that? Ultimately I hope it leads to a better knowledge of how wide and deep my Creator knows me and loves me. I fear that it will take time, but I do feel that it hugely important.

New Year = New Adventures

SOOOOOO, I am real nervous right now because I just bought my first internatioanl flight. I am going to Costa flipping Rica this summer, by myself. "What the hell were you thinking?"...you may be asking yourself this question...well to be honest I am not entirely sure that I was, but I am confident that I am going to have an adventure. To explain how I got to point of booking a flight at 11:24 pm on a wednesday night might help those of you who know me in understanding why I made such a brash decision. Well, it goes little something like this....at Lola happy hour on Monday a friend asked if I was going this summer, to which I replied "NO" and then began listing off a bunch of reasons why...I made them sound legit, though I knew that it was fear that held me back from doing what I really wanted to do. After expressing some of those fears I realized that, though they are in fact real fears, they didn't represent the reasons for going...LIBERATION, FREEDOM, GROWTH.

I am going and I couldn't be more excited/nervous about the whole endeavor. This trip represents a chapter in my life that reveals my character flaws and strengths, and hope for adventure. YAY!! I will keep an update on how I feel about the whole thing but for now, I feel like a dangerous woman...watch out world I am coming to get ya.

Cecil "THE DESIEL" Sapp

This was the night of multiple "celebrity" sitings...John Madden(kind of a jerk), that asian kid from the "Heroes", John Lynch, and my favie------------> former CSU alum, Cecil Sapp. He is a real great guy...this was last season when the Broncs had a fighting chance and Shanahan still ruled the field.

What will the future bring....

New beginnings kinda scare me, because there are always unknown variables which means that there are things that are out my control. I have a combo of feeling for this new year, part of me wants to vomit at the thought that it could end up being another hard year, the other part is excited for new experiences, new friendships and maybe some adventure. Soooo, how do I step into the good, the bad and the ugly? I have a sense that it is going to require a lot more of heart than I might be willing to give...my prayer is that I can allow it (whatever "it" is) to affect me to my core and that I will get to a place where giving of my heart is simple.

To end new beginning are scary, but I hope to learn how to embrace them with excitement rather than with trepidation.

Happy New Beginnings to all...

Ash

i only have 8 minutes...

Hye there party people...this day marks the day when I start the hard but short haul to the end of the semester. I realized that my procrastination is posing to be much more of problem than I anticipated. In the next week I have seven things due....BOOOOOOOOO. After I have dinner tonight with some friends, I will go home to plan out every minute of the next four weeks. If you think I am joking I assure you that almost every minute will have some "thing" planned, Seeing as I have entirely too much to do and too little time(my own fault) to do it in, this is what I must do to survive.In fact, I only have four minutes to continue to write this blog. For those of you who know me well, know that I operate well under structure, but I am rarely the one to implement on myself. Damn the odds. So you may or may not hear from me, unless I have planned a call while driving in "Cori" the Corsica. With two minutes remaining I will say good-bye and bid you ado and hope to see you soon.

Your pal,
Ash

The Climate is....

No, I am not talking about the weather or global warming, I am talking about the political climate. Today I was walking around the Wash Park neighborhood with the baby that I nanny and couldn't help but notice how many people are promoting their particular party or opinion on their lawn. I got to thinking about a few things, first...how great is it that we can live next to that crazy(fill in the blank with any one of the political parties) and still get along, second...how is it that we can so easily promote our brand of politics but get furious when others do not agree with our particular viewpoint, and lastly...I can't wait till the elections are over. I was talking to my grandfather on this walk and he asked if I was going to vote, to which I replied "Of course". He said that is was important for us to vote for who think would save the world.....I told him that I didn't think that anyone was able to do that. WHAT THE HELL HAVE WE DONE TO OUR WORLD, that the most important topics are taxes, abortion, same sex marriages, oil prices, a war(that I forget why we are even at war) and whatever the media deems important. We only care that there is "an economic crisis" because it now affects us, where were our concerns as many american children went to bed without food, where were we when the elderly died because they can't afford health insurance, where were we when the many poor cried for a loving hand? I ask these questions because I am disappointed in myself for not caring for others better, I am disappointed that it takes so much to get me motivated. Will this "economic crisis" level the playing field, or will it just increase our selfishness? I don't really have the answers, but I want to ask them of myself before I go out and start getting pissed.

Peace, love and politics(which seems to be devoid of the former words),
Ash

GIRLS ONLY....

Tonight was the first night spent in community with sweet women that I am super excited about gettting to know. Girls Group(officially the unofficial name) is something that roommate, roommate's sister and I have been talking about for a while and tonight it came to fruition. The point is to get women of all ages to come together and fellowship with one another. This gets me excited beacuse I haven't really made too many close connections with ladies in the Metro Denver area. I hope that with this time with the ladies that I learn and appreciate the community of people that God has put in my life. Tonight we talked about what we wanted our time to look like and I am happy to say that goodies bags for homeless will be something we do, however, we decided that throwing them out our cars to unsuspecting homeless would not be good. Next time we meet we will be dining on our most favorite comfort foods and enjoying champagne, to toast to the good things in life. My toast for the evening is that I got to enjoy Jesus loving, laughter making, dance party chicks. Here's to girls group...watch out pepsi center her we come...startin' a revolution.

woop, woop
A-TRAIN