Dorienne's Log

Something like this happens nearly every day of my life, but rarely do I step back and really thank God for the small wonders He bestows upon me. Since I’m a bit too thick to remember the proverbial small things, He takes some of them and just expands them in front of my eyes so that I remember that even though I am just an insignificant speck amongst all His creations, he is still watching and listening.

I try very hard to find the something good out of everyone I meet, but of course, there are some people I just don’t like. While I make every attempt to first examine myself to make sure what irks me about them is not something they do and that I also do or worse, is something that I am just projecting onto them unduly. Once all these conditions are met, I chalk said person up to “I just don’t like them,” but again, work diligently to remember that Christ’s teachings are to love all my “brothers” and “sisters” and pray for them even when my “humanity” just doesn’t want to pray for them. That said, I have encountered a number of people through my job that “I just don’t like,” but it is amazingly through these people that God allows me to remember my own faults and issues and also reminds me to thank Him for the small things.

A few months ago, I applied for a new position within my job and was sore to find out that I did not get the position I wanted, only to realize that that same position would have put me in direct contact with one of these few people “I just don’t like.” That little scenario in itself was happy-dance and blog-worthy because it was one of those times when I had said, “Well God. I don’t understand why you didn’t given me what I wanted, but I’m sure this is all a part of your plan.” but the real joy comes from today. When faced with another one of these people that “I just don’t like,” I cried out an arrow prayer of sorts that I didn’t even realize I was making and was provided with not only the peace I was seeking, but also the ability to save face so that I could remain on good terms with someone who I really just want to punch in the face, but don’t because…well, there are lots of reasons, but I know I just shouldn’t.

The point of today’s ramble is simply that God is always listening and knows precisely what I need, and for that, I am thoroughly thankful.

I added this video as one of my YouTube favorites recently because it really makes one consider “insignificance” in a whole new light:

I am incredibly small when compared with everything else in God’s universe…and yet He still saves me from myself and answers my prayers.

…kind of brings this little diddy to mind:

I will finish Flight this week.

I will finish Flight this week!

I’ve taken off an entire week from work and I am determined to make the best of it. Aside from cleaning the house and reading in general, I am going to finish Flight this week. My goal was initially my birthday, but I can get it done this week. By the time my birthday rolls around, I will be knee deep in school work and before I know it, the day will have come and gone and the book still won’t be done. Then will come the depression that I couldn’t achieve one of my goals and so on and so forth. I will finish Flight this week…

I’ve been writing a lot recently and thinking about other projects as well, specifically Luka. There is a part of me that wants to dive right into him, but I know I shouldn’t until (if) I’m published. I’ve heard it’s kind of taboo for a writer to begin with a series of novels, not knowing if he or she will ever get signed for a second book. Luka will be a monster five-book process and as much as I want to get to it now, I suppose I’ll just have to wait.

Something fun I’ve been doing in Flight, however, is fleshing out my original characters. That is the trouble with fan fiction. Many of your characters are already set, so if I made any real changes to their personalities, I would be betraying the character. With my own people, however, I can shape and contort them any way I see fit. One benefit of fan fiction, though, is that I can see myself reusing some of my original characters in completely original work. I’m sure I’ll use “Maya” in some other capacity and I’ve already found a use for “Deondre Meekham” and his uncle…It’s just fun to watch this little literary world I’ve created evolve almost on its own.

And speaking of evolution…This week’s Sunday School lesson was on Genesis 1:1-25. The first verse is the most profound and the best:

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Just wonderful if you really sit down and think about it. God was there before all; before everything that was or ever could be. It’s almost like if you believe in just one verse, you’re halfway “home” already. What interested me most about the lesson this week was the discussion I had with other teachers on the subject of “day” in this first chapter.

I have been raised in a pragmatic world full of scientific thinkers and although I’ll cannot say what I’ll “never” do, I do no think I will ever see “day” in Genesis as a set of 24 hours and here’s why. A day, the way we as humans see the earth, is comprised of the rising and setting of the sun, around which we revolve as our solar system spins around our galaxy in our corner of God’s universe. Simply put, a day to the earth means that the planet has made one full turn on its axis causing the sun to “rise” and “set.” In Genesis 1:3, God says “Let there be light.” and there was, however, God had not yet created the sun and stars and other entities that create light as we think of it today. Light was there, separate from the dark, because God spoke it, without needing anything to produce. Light was because God wanted it to be.

What is of most importance to understand, however, is that God exists outside of time. Thousands of year or one second could pass to God and it can have the same significance. HE is outside of time. So, God called the light “day” and the dark “night” because humans are finite, practical creature that do exist within the bounds of time and so needed something upon which to understand their world. This is where the concept of “day” comes. If “day” in this biblical sense, was created before the entities by which we measure a day, how can we honestly say that the “day” so referred in Genesis 1:5 meant 24 hours?

Unless God comes before me himself to tell me different, this is something I cannot believe. Science tells and shows me that everything that is on the earth was created over the course of millions of years, not 168 hours. What is important and should be remembered about this text however, is that Genesis is not meant to be a scientific doctrine that dictates every single step God took to create the world. Its purpose is to let us know that in the beginning, God was there and he created everything in the universe. We can argue that evolution is the mechanism used by God to get us where we are today, but God is and always will be the driving force behind everything. He is the answer to the “why” when one asks, “Why did said fish mutate in such a way that it could survive outside water?” or “Why said animal laid an egg with a hard shell that could live outside water thus giving us the first land animals?” There is always a why when it comes to evolution and where the atheists answer the question with pure dumb luck and/or fate, I will always answer it with God.

When you think about it logically, it makes a little more sense doesn’t it? Honestly, which would you believe: that everything this is or was in the world came to be because God has created it in his master plan or, that every beautifully complicated organism from the smallest microbe to the largest whales was founded out of some primordial “ooze” and evolved out of chance? When stood next to one another, one of these options holds far more credence than the other.

Phew…I hadn’t meant to carry on like that today, but when the spirit moves you…:)