A Little Bit Brave

Here we are, on the last day of the year. We'll pull apart party poppers (say that three times fast), drink sparkling grape juice, make resolutions we sort of intend to keep, and make a big deal out of everything because "it's the first of this year!" And then there are those people who are always like, "remember last year, when..." and then go on to describe something that happened five minutes ago (okay I confess that person is me). I hope you had a good year, even if was a hard one. In some ways, I think the hard years are the best years. They're the ones that help us grow, that make us better.  For me, this has been a long year. On the outside, they don't look too different. but everything feels so different than they did twelve months ago. I'm ready for this year to be over. It's kind of like Christmas. It's great and wonderful, but only for a limited amount of time. If Christmas lasted any longer than it does, it w...

|| O come o come Emmanuel And ransom captive Israel That mourns in lonely exile here Until the Son of God appears || A nation in exile. A nation in exile again and again and again. A nation waiting. And waiting. And waiting. A nation losing hope. Until hope appears. *~*~*~*~*~* I love Christmas. I love the entire season, as it eases in from the beginning of November, growing up until Boxing Day. To me, it really is the most wonderful time of the year. I love the music and the traditions and the cheesy Hallmark movies. Admittedly, I'm not a huge fan of the shopping. I like being at home, or at parties with my friends, looking at Christmas lights inside and out, listening to Michael Bublé and drinking hot chocolate. It's just so wonderful and lovely and joyful. Because that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown. It started with a promise of hope glimmering in the darkness. That glimmer rose and fell. Hope seemed to com...

|| "Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring." Proverbs 27:1 || Nothing this year went how I expected it to. For instance, I did not expect "man buns" to become a big thing (unfortunately they did). Or for people to demand that I watch them do a stupid dance move (I'm proud to say that I have never whipped or "nae naed"). Or for people to demand to know what my shoes are (that was probably the most annoying thing). Or any of the other weird things that have happened this year. But more seriously, there was a lot of disappointment. In different ways, with different things. That's not to say there weren't great things that happened, because great things did happen. Like, I got a cat and went to NITOC. But not so great things happened too. Maybe it's just me, but I always have these unspoken expectations at the beginning of each year. At New Years, at my birthday, at the beginning of the school year. I exp...

If you've ever spent time in a Sunday School classroom, you know that 'the gospel' means 'the good news.' And obviously the Gospel (Jesus coming to save the people of the world from their sins so they can live with God forever) is good news. So what's the big deal? What's the point of this blog post? If you've ever spent time in the Youtube comments section ... you know that some people take "sharing the gospel" as "reminding someone that they're a horrible person who deserves to go to h-e-double hockey sticks" without giving these people any hope. At the same time, we see Christians who are like "yah do whatever you want Jesus loves you he just wants you to be happy" and neglect to actually remind them that there is a big problem with just doing what you want. So many modern day Christians have fallen into the trap of one of these two ideas: 1. You're All Sinners Who're Going to Hell  Heck ...