Long Time, No See

Well, it's been a while since I've written on here and I deleted all of my other posts partly because my view on things has changed a bit since then. Also, I didn't particularly like to read them because I thought I was kind of a dork... but I guess I can't really help that.

So, what's new with me? Not a ton, although lately I've been thinking about growing up a lot. I had a conversation with Bethany yesterday when she was driving me home from a service project we were doing and we were talking about one of Piper's sermons from The Blazing Center on suffering. He started out talking about how we're supposed to go and make disciples of all nations and how Muslims and Buddhists and everyone else doesn't want us to do that. How they don't want us coming and telling them about Jesus and trying to convert them. And how there are people who die because of that. Well, I want to be a missionary in Morocco, where Christians are treated kind of similar to the way African-Americans were treated in the earlier 1900's. I just looked some stuff up on the persicution in Morocco and found that there have been times where police officers will not investigate a crime because the victim is a Christian, when a pastor was falsely accused of theft, he, his wife, and a member of his church were thrown into jail for two days just because they were Christains, a Christian recieved 15 years in jail for proselytizing, and then there was also some other stuff (see http://www.persecution.org/suffering/countryinfodetail.php?countrycode=31). It was also number 33 on the top persecuted countries in January of 2007. So anyways, when I was talking to Bethany, I was wondering if my dad was having a hard time with that. Because I've heard him say that he has struggled with that and while we were watching it, he kept looking at me kind of different. I know there's NO way he's going to prevent me from doing what God has called me to do (whether that stays the same as I feel it is now, or whether he changes that and wants me to be a surgeon--which I would NEVER want to do, but do it if that's what He called me to do). But then I was just thinking that I only have three more years of high school! Which was a completely mind blowing thought. And then I'll have a few years in college and after that, maybe Morocco? Which means I could possibly have only 7 more years here, depending on what God does. Growing up feels like it's happening all too fast. Sometimes I wish it would just be done and over with, but at other times, kind of like now, I wish time would just slow down for a while (geometry class is not one of those times... that class can not end quickly enough). One of the things that would be extremely hard for me if I did end up in Morocco is the distance from my family. My family means more to me than I can even describe and I just don't know how I'd deal with being so far away from them by myself. Which is one of the many places where God comes in. There's no way I could get over that without Him. But He has done the impossible in the past, and I have no doubt He can do it again in the future.

Okay, well, I've got a bazillion more things to say regarding church, school, our adoption process (next time I'll have to talk about Gracie, the stuffed lamb, which we got for Hannah), and our possible trip to Greece. There's a bunch of other stuff, too, but those are the first things that come to my head. I'm totally wiped so I'm going to get to bed early tonight and maybe be not so wiped tomorrow for LOST!!! Oh, that'll probably be a pretty big topic next time I write, too. Last week was about Desmond and it had THEE cutest ending ever and I'm really excited to see what they're doing with that this week!! And I'm also hoping they'll show when Kate comes back to the beach, since they didn't really develop any of that stuff last time.

Okay, for real now, I'm off to bed!! 'Night!