BTW - BTK

By the way... now that I've caught you up on the week's news, I still need to process today. Today I learned more than I wanted to know about BTK. Bind Torture and Kill - the local serial killer from Wichita. Thankfully, he's behind bars... and he's been there for a while. JoVeta likes to tell me outrageous stories. Most of what I have to process is what we discuss. :)

Anyway, it turns out this BTK was the president on a board of another Lutheran church. (Yetta says that Lutheran churches just don't seem to be doing well). JoVeta says that it isn't Lutherans... (of course not) that churches are full of hypocrites and it could happen to any church. She mourns the fact that there seems to be no safe place. She also said that God works amazingly (because the pastor of the church where BTK was - has been able to minister greatly to the pastor of Yetta's church). Sometimes I get tired of her saying that God is so good. I am trying to figure out why. I like saying that God is good. Sometimes I think that I just hate it when people act like me because I want to go on thinking that I am unique. See what a terrible person I am? No more terrible that anyone else (I am getting better at not beating myself up) Other times, I think it's because I feel like we're talking about two different beings. She talks about God with so much confidence... and I feel like I can never get my mind around Him. He's always bigger than I think. He is good... but when I say it... I say it with a touch of awe. She says it like He's her next door neighbor. When I think about it in my head - I think it's a good thing. She is absolute in her confidence of him. And at her age... I think that's appropriate. Is it possible to be too confident in God? That seems like a ridiculous question. Maybe I'm just not used to other people talking about God so familiarly. It's what I want! I've always complained that people don't share how God is working in their life enough.

That's another thing that happened this school year. I got completely "religioused out". I was so lectured out that I couldn't stand to put one more fact in my head... not even a sermon. Everything just seems the same. I don't feel like I can learn any more head knowledge. I just need all the head knowledge to go to the heart. It's working... in the most biblical ways. I knew that when I felt the need to read James that I was in for it.

James starts out "Consider it pure joy my brothers when you face trials and temptations of every kind" Oh boy... I'm going to spoil the Thursday email... but here goes. Right before my computer crashed I read Paul's words from Corinthians (I think)

"In our hearts, we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves, but on God, who raises the dead" 2 Cor 1:9. It came back to me in my hysterics the night my computer went. The next day I wrote it out again. "In our heart's we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God who raises the dead" Even a dead computer Lord? That was my question. The main point though... is not whether God will raise my dead computer, but whether I will rely on the Lord. I realized right away how important my computer was to me... and how much I relied on it. It held communication to my friends and family, it held achievements and papers I wrote for school, it held stories and dreams and poems I wrote... it seemed to hold everything. And then I thought... I must AT LEAST rely on God more than I seem to rely on this computer. It really does feel like a sentence of death to lose what you love... physical death sentences would be more terrible - but in the end it comes down to what you love. Do you love God- or something/someone else? You cannot love both. And God raises the dead. That's like whoa! :)

OK I had more to say, but I'm exhausted and it's late. So I bid you adieu. None of the last two entries were particularly coherent. I would hone the writing, but what the heck... I said I'd give you truth and nails. It doesn't have to be perfect :)