whenever i would hear reports of car bombings or iraqi violence, it always blended into to background – somewhere in between the weather report and traffic. i have friends with family over there, and my dad is a vet, but somehow it has just become something that never really stood out to me when i watched the news.

until i found out my friend nathan was in baghdad.

i’ve known nathan about half my life. he was always our waiter at IHOP on family-night fridays when my parents would take my brother and me out to eat. i really didn’t mind, and found him pretty cute. plus he would make me the best cherry cokes ever. i started my freshman year in high school and realized nathan also went to my school. we started hanging out, and after i moved to dallas my junior year, i’d go back to abilene and we’d always spend time together. about the same time i graduated, he moved to seattle, but we still kept in touch, writing letters (this was before email was as convenient as it is now)…i still have some of his letters…filled with awesome prayers and songs he’d write.

as life would have it, nathan moved to dallas and we ended up working at the same company four years later. we reconnected and hung out, but as our dot-com imploded, we lost touch again, and i moved to kansas.

occasionally i’d google his name to see whatever happened to my friend. i tried to find him to let him know i was getting married. no luck.

until just a few months ago when he found my blog online and left a comment.

i emailed him – so happy that a life-long friend was back in the picture. he had gotten married too, and although he’s not in the military, he works for the government in baghdad.

now each and every time “those” kind of reports come on the news, my pulse quickens a little bit and i get anxious wondering if my friend for the last 14 years is alright. i pray for his wife, who has got to be missing him something awful.

i just found out he gets to come back to the states for a few days in january, after two years of being gone. if you think about it, please pray for his safety there with the recent events and execution. that he’d have a safe trip home, and quality time with his wife.

i had a dream we were back in scotland a few days ago and ever since then my heart is breaking on how much i miss it. hanging out with the petticrews, the baines, rosemary, all the wonderful people we met in glasgow, and even taking roxy for a walk with mairi up the hills behind their house…climbing all the stairs in the city centre which left me out of breath the first two weeks, sleeping with the windows open, riding the buses, letting my clothes air dry, watching everyone else eat haggis, walking princes street and rose street at 1 in the morning taking it all in, praying with each step, looking in the windows of the flats lit up with life…knowing how much more life there is yet for that city…the city of dreams as geoffrey has dubbed it as we all sat up on salisbury crags, listening to james talk with such passion as he shares god’s vision for edinburgh. we must go back. soon.

so there is this girl i randomly found on myspace a week or so ago. a friend of a friend of a friend who goes to this school…click, click, click. anyway, she is just 17 and is in the hospital, has been there for over a month, with a growth on her pancreas. tomorrow, yep, the day after christmas, she is having a tricky surgery where the surgeons will go through her throat to drain the cyst and remove it.

since i dont even know her really (although she is from the dallas area) i’m not going to post her myspace, but if you could leave a comment here letting her know she is in your thoughts and prayers, i thought it’d be really cool to have her visit to see all the people who are praying for her and her recovery. i can’t imagine how crappy it is spending thanksgiving and christmas in a hospital. :( but she is really keeping a great attitude and you can tell her friends really care and miss her.

we will call her “E” – so if you’d leave a prayer below for her, that would be awesome. you guys talk about underwear and rick warren, so surely you can say you’re praying for a lovely young lady!!

And Happy New Year, too.

today, i heard a commercial for simon mall gift cards making fun of day of the week underwear. i had a pair when i was young, as most seven year olds do. the commercial was saying nobody would ever want day of the week underwear. i have to disagree. usually it is about 2:30 pm when i realize what day it is. if i had this life-changing undergarment, maybe…just maybe…i’d be a little more clued in, a little earlier in the morning.

would you wear them?

I really am not a comment whore.  I mean that by if nobody reads my blog, that’s cool.  If nobody comments on my blog, that’s cool too.  I love the community that has shaped here, and the varied opinions shared.  With that said, I was reading on ChurchMarketingSucks.com today, and they have posted their Top-10 Commented Posts.  I was totally floored that the article I wrote as a guest blogger was #1 on the list!

I realize it was written earlier in the year, so some of you may not have read it.  I thought I’d share the link, and feel free to become involved in the discussion there.  Enjoy!

The Church & Money:  Plasma TV or Feed the Poor? 

What’s your favorite Christmas tune?

If you are a close-minded, Christian conservative* person, save yourself some time and don’t even read this post. And if you do and get angry, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I left this comment on Kristiapplesauce’s blog, after she reposted something opposing Rick Warren’s latest invitation of Barack Obama speak at an AIDS conference at his church. Please note – this was not a worship service. It was hosted at Saddleback Church for business leaders, relgious leaders and AIDS advocacy groups. So when I say “This was not a ministry event” that is what I mean. If anything, Saddleback and Rick Warren ministered to people they would normally never get to speak to, or show love to. In that way, yes it was a ministry event. I digress. On to my thoughts.

maybe i am a freak.  but i love the stripes vacuum cleaners make on the carpet.  our vacuum cleaner broke the day before we left for kansas city (november 20-something) and we had to order a part for it.  it finally came in over the weekend and chris fixed it tonight so i was able to vacuum.  i swear i was going crazy with all the little things being tracked in.  and our cats decided to rip up one of their nerf balls so that was shredded everywhere.  i could seriously vacuum three times a day.  there is just something about those stripes…so cathartic.

So, first thanks for your prayers an encouragement from last Saturday’s post.  Instead of dropping back to 150mg of Wellbutrin, I stopped taking it all together. (*Note-don’t ever do that unless you’re under supervision from a doctor!)  I got switched over to Paxil, which affects a different chemical in the brain.  Some friends of mine have had success with it, but more importantly my own brother has been on it for a while and the difference it has made in him his tremendous, without very many side effects.

I haven’t started taking it yet.  Wellbutrin has the world’s longest half-life so it is still in my system for a few more days. I’ll probably start next weekend.  I know this stuff takes time to work and the side-effects diminish over time, but what Wellbutrin did to me was a little more than a side effect…I’d even say I was literally hysterical.  It was so crazy.

On to the next step…