how many mistakes do we make in life? unfortunately, many. today i made a mistake, not a big one, but still a mistake.
i sold a book through half.com and the girl asked for expedited mail, so when i went to the post office i said "expedited mail please" and the lady said that would be $17.50 (wtheck!) because expedited mail means that the person receives it the day after you send it. ...but i figured this was what the girl wanted because she was in a huge hurry to get the book, and i figured half.com would reimburse me anyways. wrong. half.com's definition of expedited mail is sending it out 1-3 days earlier than normal, so you'd have to pay like, an extra two bucks to do that. USPS' definition is ship it out as fast as humanly possible so that the person gets it the next day. so i paid an extra $12 bucks, and when i figured out my mistake an hour later, it was too late. a waste of twelve dollars...i felt like i had lost something even though twelve bucks isn't a ton of money. still, i was thinking of all that i could have done with that extra twelve dollars. MY 12 dollars. i could have bought 9 pints of halo ice cream, gotten a nice on sale shirt from gap, saved it up, and the list goes on. and all this was going through my head because i felt like it was my money. All mine. And i had a right to do whatever i wanted with it. but as i was driving back (i seem to do a lot of thinking in the car), i realized it's not my money. it's God's. He's the one that provided it. so i apologized to God for wasting his money and tried my hardest not to feel resentful that i had spent an unneeded twelve dollars.
hey and who knows? maybe like me, this girl's classes start tuesday and she HAS to have the book by then. and if she gets it monday she will be so so thankful and amazed that it came so on time. and maybe this would save her a lecture from her parents asking why yet again, her books came in late. and maybe her teacher is super strict and checks to see that everyone has their books on the first day. and after the first day, there's already a reading assignment, and thank goodness she has her book which was sent on saturday and came on monday. maybe i will make this girl very happy. or maybe she won't give it a second thought. so many maybe's...so few definitely's.
i hate losing money, but i think i have to let it go more. i think it's time to tithe tomorrow. i keep forgetting, but maybe this incident will serve as a more permanent reminder.
classes start tuesday!
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Friday, August 21, 2009
today i gave everyone the stink eye
so today i went into new york with my dad and i felt like i was giving everyone i met the stink eye. i couldn't think of a better term so i drew on juno where i remember them mentioning a girl in there with a funny looking face that makes it look like she's always giving the stink eye.
SO, what does a stink eye mean?
well since i couldn't find a definition in the normal dictionary, this is what i found on urban dictionary:
and what does it look like? something like this:
that's pretty much the way my face looked this morning when i woke up. a misquito bit me right under the eye and my whole eye swelled up, making my eye smaller then it already was, red, and puffy. i won't put a picture up..it's not very attractive.
but other than that, NY was fun! haha. there was this really interesing exhibit called "waste not" that showcases an old chinese woman's belongings that she collected over a lifetime. She never threw anything away because growing up poor in China, she always saved everything in case there was ever a need for it. So she never threw away bottles, tooth paste containers, floss containers, shoes, watches, hats, string, plastic bags..well you get the point.
SO, what does a stink eye mean?
well since i couldn't find a definition in the normal dictionary, this is what i found on urban dictionary:
| stink eye | | |
| a surfer term meaning a glare or lingering dirty look ie: when that dude stole my wave I gave him total stink eye | ||
and what does it look like? something like this:
that's pretty much the way my face looked this morning when i woke up. a misquito bit me right under the eye and my whole eye swelled up, making my eye smaller then it already was, red, and puffy. i won't put a picture up..it's not very attractive.
but other than that, NY was fun! haha. there was this really interesing exhibit called "waste not" that showcases an old chinese woman's belongings that she collected over a lifetime. She never threw anything away because growing up poor in China, she always saved everything in case there was ever a need for it. So she never threw away bottles, tooth paste containers, floss containers, shoes, watches, hats, string, plastic bags..well you get the point.
Monday, August 17, 2009
what a world
included some pictures from my trip to d.c. haven't really been any where this summer so my wonderful cousin Eileen and i drove down this weekend. i don't have enough motivation to plan these trips myself so thank goodness for her. i wish i could take this initiative but...well i guess i'll just have to try harder haha.
d.c. was amazing. i've forgotten how fun it is to travel and see the sights and go on unexpected adventures. we went to "china town" only to find that china town was really just american restaurants with the chinese signs next to the english signs. ie: Chipotle, Subway, and every other american restaurant in the book. except it was china town because there are chinese words next to it. cue bewildered expressions from Eileen and i as we walked down the street desperately looking for a dirty chinese restaurant with scrumptious food. and there were no chinese people walking on the streets! haha. going to all those memorials made me feel so small, but in a good way. america's history is only like, 200 years old, which is relatively short compared to other countries, but i was still in awe of those memorials and old documents. it made me feel like a speck in history. i'm so excited for the people to come after us who get to see the documents when they're 300, 400 years old! coool i wish i could be them. i already feel like a speck in history next to those old statues...i'd feel like a microscopic fiber next to God. well..maybe more along the lines of invisible. sorry my nonscientific mind can't come up with a comparison that is super duper small. how amazing it is to be a part of history..WE'RE a part of history, if only for a blink of an eye.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
traffic lights
hello! its been a while. i kind of forgot about it and maybe i didn't have that much to say or was too lazy to say it.
while i was driving to hannah's house to pick up my lost but soon to be found cellphone, i was thinking of how many stop lights there are. so many darn stoplights. if i happen to be stuck behind a stoplight though, i always want to be first in line so that there are no cars in front of me to get in my way. yeah i know, pretty impatient, selfish, me first! mentality huh. which got me thinking...what IS the point of stoplights? well duur tiffany, it's to let other cars go too, you might say. but it also serves another purpose: to separate the long stream of cars so that the distance between each car doesn't get too short, causing traffic jams, collisions, and impatient tempers. If it was always green light then pretty soon it would be a whole line of bumper to bumper cars, honking horns, and cars shifted to park in the middle of streets. given, that already happens, but stop lights try to minimize it as much as possible.
in the same (or similar) light, if God always gave us the green light on our desires, think of how much in a jam we would really be. what comes to mind are relationships. say two people like each other a lot and start going out. months down the line however, they find that maybe they had less in common than they thought, they weren't spurring each other on towards Christ, and that connection they had or they had imagined existed between them is not quite there anymore. yet, you've spent months with this person, investing your time and energy and emotions. you don't want to let it go. but what if you keep going? this relationship that is leading no where but selfishness keeps you from giving it up. and sooner or later you're stuck in a jam--sort of like a traffic jam. but if we could listen to God more...stop when He says stop even though we so badly want to go. Wait when He says wait even though every fiber within us wants to leap forward. To listen doesn't just take discipline. It takes transformation...a transformation of hearts, which Christ does for us when we become Christians and begin our path of sanctification.
right now i'm reading Putting Amazing Back into Grace by Michael Horton, and he's tackling the much debated predestination issue.
"If the will is no more than an expression of character, it will never choose something contrary to the character of the chooser. Hence, our Lord's remark to the Pharisees, 'You are unable to hear what I say. You beling to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire' (John 8:43-44) You really want to obey the one to whom you are bound. That is the point. If God left you to yourself to decide whether you would choose or reject him, you would always refuse God as long as you 'belong to your father, the devil.'...I thank God every day that Jesus is not "a gentleman" who lets me have my own way."
I guess i had never really thought of it that way. If we had our own way we would never choose God because we were born sinners and we are bound to that. It is only by God's grace that he gave us a will to seek him instead of sin. it is only by God's grace that we are saved and nothing more. to believe in predestination is giving up any belief that humans did anything to make their way to God. it takes the power from humanity (as if we had any in the first place) and puts it into the hands of God, and rightly so.
while i was driving to hannah's house to pick up my lost but soon to be found cellphone, i was thinking of how many stop lights there are. so many darn stoplights. if i happen to be stuck behind a stoplight though, i always want to be first in line so that there are no cars in front of me to get in my way. yeah i know, pretty impatient, selfish, me first! mentality huh. which got me thinking...what IS the point of stoplights? well duur tiffany, it's to let other cars go too, you might say. but it also serves another purpose: to separate the long stream of cars so that the distance between each car doesn't get too short, causing traffic jams, collisions, and impatient tempers. If it was always green light then pretty soon it would be a whole line of bumper to bumper cars, honking horns, and cars shifted to park in the middle of streets. given, that already happens, but stop lights try to minimize it as much as possible.
in the same (or similar) light, if God always gave us the green light on our desires, think of how much in a jam we would really be. what comes to mind are relationships. say two people like each other a lot and start going out. months down the line however, they find that maybe they had less in common than they thought, they weren't spurring each other on towards Christ, and that connection they had or they had imagined existed between them is not quite there anymore. yet, you've spent months with this person, investing your time and energy and emotions. you don't want to let it go. but what if you keep going? this relationship that is leading no where but selfishness keeps you from giving it up. and sooner or later you're stuck in a jam--sort of like a traffic jam. but if we could listen to God more...stop when He says stop even though we so badly want to go. Wait when He says wait even though every fiber within us wants to leap forward. To listen doesn't just take discipline. It takes transformation...a transformation of hearts, which Christ does for us when we become Christians and begin our path of sanctification.
right now i'm reading Putting Amazing Back into Grace by Michael Horton, and he's tackling the much debated predestination issue.
"If the will is no more than an expression of character, it will never choose something contrary to the character of the chooser. Hence, our Lord's remark to the Pharisees, 'You are unable to hear what I say. You beling to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire' (John 8:43-44) You really want to obey the one to whom you are bound. That is the point. If God left you to yourself to decide whether you would choose or reject him, you would always refuse God as long as you 'belong to your father, the devil.'...I thank God every day that Jesus is not "a gentleman" who lets me have my own way."
I guess i had never really thought of it that way. If we had our own way we would never choose God because we were born sinners and we are bound to that. It is only by God's grace that he gave us a will to seek him instead of sin. it is only by God's grace that we are saved and nothing more. to believe in predestination is giving up any belief that humans did anything to make their way to God. it takes the power from humanity (as if we had any in the first place) and puts it into the hands of God, and rightly so.
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