hurst

I live in Oakhurst. I was just eating some Cheez-Its and it said they were distributed from Elmhurst, IL. That piqued my curiosity (what doesn't?) so I did some research on "hurst". And it's cool. Here's what I found:

hurst

A wood or grove; a word used in the composition of many names, as in Hazlehurst.

Origin: OE. Hurst, AS. Hyrst; akin to OHG. Hurst, horst, wood, thicket, G. Horst the nest of a bird of prey, an eyerie, thicket.

Source: Websters Dictionary

(01 Mar 1998)

Cool, huh? So they call this "Oakhurst" 'cause it's in a grove, or wood or thicket of Oaks. And that's true! There's lots and lots of oak trees around here.

There's another tidbit for ya!

peace

some argue that islam is a peaceful relegion. i would disagree.

another quote from the VOM newsletter (VOM = Voice of the Martyrs):

Reuters reported in 2003, that a top leader of Kulanka Culimada, the Islamic terror group that runs the Islamic courts, said: "All Somali Christians must be killed according to the Islamic Law. Such people do not have a place in Somalia and we will never recognize their existence and we will slaughter them."

oh, you may argue, that is only in Somalia. only? what about the persecuted Chrstians in Egypt? Iraq? Indonesia? Guinea? Nigeria? Turkey? Iran? etc. etc. etc. All more or less Muslim nations. sorry, the only main reason Islam is looked at as a peaceful religion is because America wants to be PC (Politically Correct).

to the PC people i say: If you're offended by the truth what are you living for? (Answer: you're living to cover it up and abolish absolute truths.) if you don't believe there is absolute truth then you're living in a dream world. if you still think I'm wrong, then go ahead, let the Muslims think whatever they want, let them determine what is good for them...let them continue to kill innocent Christians. i tell you again, there is absolute truth.

faith this strong?

Is your faith this strong?

CHINA (Religion Today)
Although China allows "belief" in a religion, the Chinese constitution does not guarantee the right to practice that religion. Adults often face severe consequences for religious actions but generally are not required to deny their faith. However, officials attempt to weaken children's faith by encouraging them to deny Jesus altogether. According to Open Doors, Public Security Bureau officers recently burst into a Sunday school room and herded 30 children into a van. Despite the scary situation, one child started singing. The van soon was filled with song. Upon arrival at the police station, the children marched bravely into the interrogation room still singing to the Lord. Threatened with having to write "I do not believe in Jesus" 100 times before they would be released, the children instead wrote: "I believe in Jesus today. I will believe in Jesus tomorrow. I will believe in Jesus forever!" Exasperated, officials called the children's parents, some of whom denied Christ. When a widowed believer came to pick up her twin sons, she refused to deny Jesus. The officers threatened her: "If you do not deny Jesus, we will not release your sons!" The widow replied, "Well, I guess you will just have to keep them, because without Jesus, there would be no way for me to take care of them!" With no avenues left open to them, the officials said, "Take your sons and go!"

Give thanks and praise to God for the faithful witness of these children. Pray the light of their faith will brighten the spiritual darkness around them. Pray God will continue to strengthen them as they face the pressures of adulthood.

(This is from the VOM Newsletter. Check out VOM here.)

so heavenly minded, no earthly good?

i heard a guy say that the most important thing about Christianity is not about if we are going to heaven or not but it's about how our life is right now.

i understand his point. because he agrees with the sentence "don't be so heavenly minded that you're no earthly good." if someone focuses on heaven so as to escape from the daily requirements of life on earth and the service that we should be doing here on earth and the abundant life that God has promised to us NOW, then, yes, I would agree with him.

the thing is, i don't agree with the statement "don't be so heavenly minded that you're no earthly good." i think it should be "the only way we will be earthly good is if we are heavenly minded." what? well if we are not focused on eternity, if eternity is not in our hearts, if we do not have an eternal perspective, then what purpose does life here and now have? because really this life is only the blink of an eye, it's like leaves that quickly fade away. it is unimportant in the scheme of things. i just met with my pastor and he was talking about when we die being the end...then he said "or the beginning, depending on how you look at it." That's so true, the end of this life is really the beginning of real true life. It's like when we're being trained for something, we think that's the purpose. But it's not. The doing and/or performing of that thing is the purpose, not the training. This life is short and passing away. But eternity is....eternal! And that's what really counts. And if we don't have that perspective then life on this earth will be meaningless. But when we realize that what we do in this life counts for eternity...that'll change your attitude and how you live right now. And it's changed because you are so heavenly minded that you are also earthly good.

wrote this up quick...might add or change it later...we'll see

here's more later (25/12/2005 22:50). I found this cool quote from C.S. Lewis which relates really well to what I said here:

If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.
~C. S. Lewis

as lambs

more lyrics:

YOU send us out as lambs amongst the wolves
but the LION stands by our side
YOU will be my guide
i need YOU to lead me
i am so weak without YOU
i am tired of fighting
i need YOU to fight for me
will YOU be my guide
JESUS
YOUR voice is so sweet in my ears
JESUS
i desire to be close to YOU
fill me with YOUR SPIRIT GOD
YOU'VE given me a sword to kill my enemies
FATHER, take these struggles from me
~haste the day - "as lambs"

rewards card

my regular old credit card just sent me a new one and said "activate this one and it'll be a rewards card with your current terms and conditions!"

"that's cool!" i thought, "i've been looking for a good rewards card for a while now. this one is free and won't change anything except for now i get rewards."

so i was in a 'thinking-about-rewards-cards' mood. then i had an apostrophe (i think you mean an epiphany) (name that movie and you get the prize) -- my apostrophe was this: we should make a "Heavenly Rewards Card" and we could encourage people to use it in the following ways:

Use Your "Heavenly Rewards Card" to:
*Buy gas for the person next to you!
*Pay for the person behind you in line!
*Donate to your favorite charity!
*Let a needy person borrow it for a month!

Rewards not redeemable in this life. Rewards value system based on God's perfect judgment. Rewards only apply with compatible heart attitude. Other restrictions apply. For details please consult your Bible. Any questions comments or concerns may be discussed with your local pastor, mentor, etc. Any remaining questions you may have will be automatically cleared up upon arriving in Heaven.

beauty 2

i blogged a while back about beauty. i wrote about beauty as God sees us and about beauty as we see God. since then i have wanted to write more but haven't been in the mood. now i am...so now i will...

Something that I hadn't read yet (or at least didn't remember) about God's love toward us is that with love between God and man the "lover moves the beloved" as C. S. Lewis says. In other words God puts the beauty into us. We are not beautiful in and of ourselves. We have no beauty by which God is moved. God does not look directly at us and say "Wow, look at the beauty that person has!" Rather He loved us while we were still unlovely. BUT GOD moves the beloved. He causes any and all beauty that we have. Were it not for the grace of God we would be completely ugly. But He has moved us and has caused us to be beautiful. Isn't that great? It's so great because we don't have to work at being acceptable to Him. We just allow Him to work in and through us.

Well what I really wanted to write about is beauty in/for/between humans. They say "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Which is very true. But what is in your eye? What do people see in each other? A friend of mine blogged a few days ago about how people seem to not like a certain hair color or eye color. And I got to thinking and I remembered something I want to share. You know how soooo many people in CA (probably the whole US) go to tanning salons because they want to be tan? They want to have dark skin. Well, when I was in Indonesia, I was walking through this one store and I saw something on the shelf I've never seen before. Given, I was in a foreign country and I saw a lot of things I had never seen before. But this thing, though different, was the same and it helped me realize something. I saw a bunch of products labelled "skin lightener" or "skin whitener". Over in Indonesia they all already have dark skin and they want it to be lighter. Over here in the US we all (well most of us) have light skin and we want it to be darker. Both the US and Indonesia want the same thing: What we don't have.

My friend's question was something like, "Why do guys like dark hair?" My answer would be that guys who like dark hair usually live in an area where there are few dark haired girls. I just took a group of high schoolers down to Mexico. Before we went one girl mentioned she was planning to dye her hair blonde for the trip. I warned her against it because the guys down there like blonde hair. Why? Have you ever been to Mexico? In the area we went to 99% of the women have black hair. They like what they don't have. They want what they don't have.

I have said in the past that my dream girl would be a hisasian. A what? A hisasian, a combination of a hispanic and an asian. Why? Because the hispanic part of her would be familiar with the Spanish language and the hispanic culture and because I think asians are attractive. There's about 47 Mexicans in this area and 12 asians. I counted.

Sure, I admit, it's not the same for everyone. Not everyone wants a dark eyed dark skinned girl. But I'd bet there's something that they don't have in what they want.

But what should be in our eyes? What should we be looking for? Because physical beauty is vain and it fades away. I guess if she has dark eyes and dark skin it'll always be that way (unless she uses skin lightener), but the thing I'd like to and I'm beginning to find the most attractive is an intellect and an overpowering love and desire for God. I think I wrote it somewhere recently but I forget where--that I want a girl who I am not her first love. Because I'll let her down. And she's not going to be my first love. So if she expects to be then she'll be let down. God should be everyone's first love. More and more He's becoming mine.

My pastor said something really cool. "I love God first and foremost. In doing this I allow Him to love my wife through me." I thought that was amazing. No husband can love his wife with true love. No human can love anything with true love. Only God can love with perfect love because God IS love. So, true love between humans is where they are so focused on God and loving Him and being loved by Him that the human they "love" is really being loved through them not by them.

my 2 cents.