All posts by Robin

I'm a woman in my early thirties living in North Carolina, USA, and I have a lot of varied interests; I love creative writing, music composition, web design, surfing the Internet, thinking out loud, and gaming. And yes, my glasses are crooked. :)
Friday around the Web

The World Before 1000 BCE, Incredible Art, The Love of Sun and Earth, and Tone Generator

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The World Before 1000 BCE
Relive the history of the ancient world through this webpage. 🙂

Incredible Art
The intricacy hidden in a huge painting…look at the background! And the background beyond that background! :O

Even after all this time…
The love between the sun and the earth…it lights the whole sky. (Beautifully quoted from a 14th-century Persian poet as part of a mural)

Wolfram Alpha Tone Generator
Make music in a crazy and fun new way using this awesome internet tool based on mathematics. You can even make yourself a snazzy ringtone!

Thursday in the Zone

Mytheria

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If you’ve ever liked the style of Magic: the Gathering, but never felt like collecting the cards, here’s a free Flash game for you–Mytheria!

Basic Gameplay

Mytheria is basically a Flash version of Magic: the Gathering, with a few teeny-tiny rules changes. For instance, instead of being able to draw and play mana cards (resources to pay for spells) every turn, you choose at the beginning of your turn whether you want to increase your mana pool or draw a card. Also, you don’t have any “mana cards” to play at all–the mana pool is separate from your deck of cards.


A screenshot of the tutorial stage–you play with a preconstructed deck and much of the gameplay is explained to you through popup text boxes. Vital info for each player is on the right, play area is on the left.


A sample game, with an Aura (permanent spell) in play on the right side, and a creature or two in play on either side. The half-transparent creature on the opponent’s side was used to attack last turn, so it is unavailable to block with (like tapping a creature to attack in Magic).

Now, normally I would go into all the essential rules and know-how in this section, but someone else has already done it, and done it very well, I might add! Thus, I give you the following Mytheria walkthrough that covers most of the basics of gameplay.

However, there is one part that the above guide and the in-game tutorial both leave out: the philosophies and typical gameplay of each color in the game.

The Color Pie: Each Color’s Abilities

Mytheria, like Magic, works off five basic colors. To play Mytheria well, you need to be versed in how each color plays, as well as what type of gameplay you prefer so that you know how to build your own deck when the time comes. (More about building your own deck in the Game Progression section of this article.)

Each color does have combat capabilities, but each color also has its own spin on what it does besides combat (and what it does with creatures). Each color also has a bit of unblockable combat damage and penetrating combat damage (you block, but if there’s damage left over, it gets through to you).

White
Major Creature Type: Soldier

  • Gains life
  • Prevents attacking
  • Has lots of small creatures
  • Enhances creatures with Auras and Modifiers
  • Destroys creatures by paying life
  • Destroys Auras
  • Gives creatures back some Strength
  • Can draw extra cards at beginning of turn

Purple
Major Creature Types: Myrkin, Soldier, Animal

  • Destroys Auras and creatures
  • Weakens creatures
  • Manipulates opponent’s mana pool
  • Gains a tiny bit of life
  • Trades life points for mana
  • Bounces opponent’s creatures back to hand
  • Draws cards
  • Stops opponents from playing cards

Red
Major Creature Type: Soldier

  • Uses lots of little creatures for combat damage
  • Targets opponent and enemy creatures with burn spells
  • Plays very aggressively
  • Gains a teeny bit of life
  • Boosts creatures with both Auras and Modifiers
  • Destroys Modifiers

Blue
Major Creature Type: Robot

  • More focus on “unblockable” damage than other colors
  • Boosts Robots’ strength
  • Sacrifices creatures for life gain
  • Destroys Modifiers
  • Pings creatures
  • Makes opponent ditch cards from hand
  • Brings down opponent’s creature strength

Black
Major Creature Type: Shadow

  • Destroys creatures
  • Damages self in order to damage opponent
  • Effects life loss
  • Trades cards in hand for creature Strength
  • Discards cards
  • Takes away abilities of creatures
  • Trades creature Strength and opponent’s life total for self life total
  • Trades mana for life points

Game Progression

You have to beat each of the prescribed missions first, beginning with the (awesomely detailed) Tutorial and all the way through to the end, to officially “beat” the game. But that doesn’t mean you stop playing!

Deck Builder

After Mission 6 is complete, you unlock the Deck Builder option, which allows you to go in and build your own deck to use on missions. No longer do you have to suffer through playing the all-red decks of the beginning few scenarios; you can build whatever you like to stomp the opponent!

Card Limits

Keep in mind that some cards are limited to how many you can put in your self-built deck. Most have a limit of 5, but some, like Commander J’Ardan and Scythian Elite, can only have 2 or 3 in a deck. With a max of 60 cards allowed in your deck, take time to balance what you’re putting in your deck and remember these limits.

Challenges

You also unlock the Challenges section after you complete Mission 6. Challenges mainly involve defeating opponents playing super-strong mono-color decks, as well as winning a game when you only began with 10 health (or even 1 health!).

Completing challenges allow you to unlock special locked cards in the Deck Builder, which are quite epic cards…but I’ll leave that for you to discover on your own. Have fun!

Play the game: Mytheria

Wednesday in the Word

Salvation Is Not a Competition

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Matthew 18:1-4
18:1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 He called a little child and had him stand among them. 3 And he said, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

The disciples argued fairly regularly over which one of them would be “the greatest” in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus answers them in Matthew by reminding them that humility is one of the qualities God wants to see in us.

The reason Jesus uses a child as an example is because all the adults He was seeing were wrapped up in false pride and pretensions. “Think like a kid,” Jesus is saying. “Just live humbly and don’t stand there crowing about all you’ve done, and you won’t fall off the path.” As soon as you start being proud of all the Christian things you’ve done, soon enough you’ll start thinking of yourself as “so saved you can’t sin anymore” (I’ve actually heard a ‘Christian’ say that). Then, you’re really in trouble.

If we’re so puffed up and proud about all our accomplishments in the church–if we’re so wrapped up in “all we’ve done for God” and we think “surely I’m saved now”–then we just missed the whole point of salvation. Jesus didn’t save anybody because they were good enough to save, or because they did a whole lot for the church, or because they gave to charity. Salvation is not a competition; it’s a gift, one none of us deserve, but all of us can accept.

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Exercise Has Been Divorced From Reality

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Would I be completely in the wrong to say that exercise has been taken out of the context of our regular daily activity?

I don’t believe so, given the fact that most people’s exercise now takes place in gyms and home workouts rather than actual, useful activities. Exercise, far from being part of our chosen trade or part of our recreation, now is done in front of other, usually more fit people, at a gym or on a workout machine. It’s often regarded more as a status symbol than anything these days–if you have time to work out, you must be in a good job.

But what about exercise that MEANS something for your life, other than fitting into a smaller size or being healthier? Sure, those are worthy goals to have, but I would prefer to actually do something useful while exercising. Exercising just for its own sake is boring and lonely to me, and it feels useless; when in real life are we really going to lift weight in exactly the same pose for a certain number of times, or walk exactly a mile, or use just our abs to do anything besides laugh?

Modern “Exercise”: Movement without Context, without Purpose

In principle, this is the same problem I always had in math classes–being assigned 30 naked, context-less problems in a math book to “practice what we just learned” felt like a waste of time and effort. It always left me thinking, “I do all this problem-solving work, but it’s not really helping anybody. How about giving me 30 real-world problems that other people need solved right now? That way, I practice AND I help somebody out.”

Exercise, in my opinion, should be a fun activity that accomplishes a real-life goal outside of physical fitness. Yes, yes, I know, exercise for itself is great, but it bores me and makes me feel like I’m just wasting my time. I want it to multi-task.

Example of Purposeless Exercise: JUST Walking on a Track

Walking around and around in a pointless circle on a track for an hour? BORING. In fact, I’ve written a couple of times about exercise, including just how much I hate walking for no reason. Makes me want to tear my hair out. I’ve tried doing just walking as exercise several times, and I just can’t stay with it. Not only does every joint in my lower body hurt more with every step, but I’m wasting an hour just walking around when I could be getting stuff done at home, or running errands. It’s not “peaceful” or “relaxing,” as other people have told me it is for them–I find it maddening and painful.

Example of Purposeful Exercise: Walking as a Way to Get Stuff Done

Now, contrast that with activities that just involve walking: walking pets, running errands in town without using a car, or taking the kids on a nature hike. This is the kind of walking I can get behind–walking for a PURPOSE!

For instance, letting pets get out and about with you is a great way to bond with them, as well as to let them do their business outside (always good for the ol’ flooring). Parking your car and walking around in uptown saves gas, gets stuff done, AND gets you exercise. Getting the kids out of the house, away from computers, TVs, and video games, can be an important family bonding moment as well as family exercise. They can learn from you that exercise doesn’t have to be something regimented and divorced from their reality.

I Want This Kind of Exercise–the USEFUL Kind!

This is what I’m talking about–making exercise a seamless part of everyday life instead of a status symbol. Lifting weights 20-reps-at-a-time in the gym is pointless and means nothing for my everyday life; however, lifting junk down out of the attic and moving it out of my house is a weight-lifting exercise I can appreciate. I’ll be sore after doing both types of exercise, but only one type of exercise gets something done besides building up muscle.

Zumba, strangely, fulfills this “useful exercise” requirement I have in a unique way; it is based on dance moves, so I feel like I’m performing with a group of people rather than just “working out.” Not only that, being with the group of people and directly interfacing with the group leader helps me feel more accountable, like somebody actually gives a rat’s rear end that I’m doing this. It’s useful exercise because I love to perform and I love to socialize–it kills three birds with one stone, giving me new friends, a new “venue” to perform in, and a healthier body over time.

I know there are people out there who really enjoy the nitty-gritty training of exercise for its own sake. But I think if we’re ever going to be a healthier, fitter nation, we need to make exercise an integral part of life’s other activities rather than making it something we have to do outside of normal activities. Let’s make it not so lonely, boring, and horrible to try getting fit, and maybe more people will do it!

Monday in the HTMLab

Professional Web Writing

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Drawing on my experience as an English major in college as well as my short time in Language Arts education, I have written the following article about sharpening and improving your writing for a businesslike Web environment.

Writing for a Business? Make It Look and Sound Like It!

Many online writers, including myself on a fair number of occasions, write in a more conversational style, much more casual and open. This is great for a personal blog or website, and is much more relatable for an anecdotal site.

However, if you’re writing for business, writing for advertising, or anything else that involves the need for clear and quick communication, you want to be as concise and correct as possible. Users who visit a business site are there to get info as quickly as possible, and you need to make that info-gathering process easy.

The three main issues I see with many amateur business communications are that there are too many misspellings and grammar mistakes, too many texting and Internet abbreviations, and lack of attention to phrasing and sentence construction.

Misspellings and Grammar Mistakes

Reading a well-written text is a delight to the eyes and the brain–the content enters your brain easily and quickly, and you feel like you’re truly learning something and making progress.

Trying to read a horribly-misspelled text with grammar mistakes all over it, on the other hand, is a mess; every sentence, or even every word, has to be paused over to decipher its meaning. It’s as if you’re not fluent in the language anymore.

Just as no one would go to a job interview without dressing, smelling, and speaking their best, no one should present a professional communication of any sort that has misspellings and grammar errors. Every error is like a tear in your suit jacket, a stain on your pants–it detracts from the text’s meaning, and others not only won’t be able to make sense of what you’ve written, but they’ll also have a lower opinion of you for writing that way.

If you are unsure of how to spell a word, here are several ways you can get help:

  • Search online for proper spelling and word usage, using sites like Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com.
  • Craft your writing in a word processor so you can catch common spelling errors. OpenOffice.org is a good, free word processing software option, as well as Google Docs. Remember, though, these programs don’t catch everything!
  • Lastly, proofread and read your work aloud to get rid of sound-alike/spelled-different problems, like their/they’re/there and your/you’re. You wouldn’t believe how much reading your words aloud helps you find problems in your writing!

Sound-Alike/Spelled-Different Examples
Incorrect: I’m sitting over their. (you’re sitting over their what? Whoever you’re talking about might not appreciate you sitting over their possessions.)

Correct: I’m sitting over there. (“there” as opposed to “here”…a location. Remember that there and here both end in “-re”, if nothing else reminds you of which form to use.)

Incorrect: There going to the store. (There are no people mentioned in this sentence at all. “There” references a location, or perhaps a pointed-out object.)

Correct: They’re going to the store. (“They are going to the store.” Whoever “they” are, they are going as a group to the store.)

Incorrect: You’re hair looks good today. (literally translated, “You are hair looks good today.” Is that really what you meant to say?)

Correct: Your hair looks good today. (Just like the word “their”, “your” ends in an “r”–both words indicate possession of the noun following it. At last, you finally possess the complimented hair follicles in question!)

Texting Abbreviations and Emoticons

Using texting/Internet abbreviations and emoticons is fine for personal communications or blogs, but for business websites or other professional sites, these two writing features give your work an adolescent, too-casual feel.

Examples
Txtspeak: Oh, lol, this sounds so stupid, but…
Real English: I feel silly saying this, but…

Txtspeak: So I completely failed at that, too, xD
Real English: Yet another hilarious failure on my part

Txtspeak: omg, this gets on my nerves
Real English: This annoys me greatly/This bothers me too much to be silent

Txtspeak: do u undrstnd wht i’m tryin 2 tell u?
Real English: Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?

If you want your communication to be taken seriously, you have to omit the textspeak. Not only will this make your writing look and sound more mature, it will also make it clearer for all users to understand.

Bad Phrasing/Sentence Construction

If every sentence. On your blog. Is broken up into. Parts like this. With lots of unnecessary punctuation…it makes it very hard to follow what’s being said.

On the other hand if your blog contains absolutely no punctuation whatsoever and you have lots of “and”s and “but”s and “or”s everywhere you have no periods to show where one thought ends and the next begins…it’s also very hard to follow what you just said.

Good sentence/paragraph construction not only makes a better story, but it makes for a clearer read, too. And clearer reads mean that more users will read what you have written, because it’s easier.

Using punctuation like verbal pauses is the best way to remember how to use them. Commas are for small pauses, just grabbing a breath before you continue on with your thought. Periods are for big pauses, where you’re about to transition to another thought. And semicolons are great for joining two small (but complete) thoughts together into a bigger sentence; usually, the two little sentences need to be at least related for the semicolon to work, though.

Directly related to sentence structure is paragraph structure. If you build your paragraphs so that your first sentence introduces your topic, the middle sentences expound on the topic, and the last sentence sums up and transitions into the next paragraph, your audience can better understand. Not only is this a good way to write for school, but it also helps fully explain your topic for business site purposes, too.

Lastly: PLEASE don’t type everything in one huge paragraph. “Walls of text” are not attractive to users who are looking for information quickly; a huge paragraph puts them right off of reading. (Preaching to myself here…I’m infamous for unintentional walls of text!) A good rule of thumb is to break for a new paragraph when you either get to a new topic you want to discuss, or when your paragraph is at least five typed lines long on your page.

This structure is beneficial for memory, because we generally remember information in “chunks.” When you’re writing for information purposes, you group like information together in the same paragraph, and you break up large portions of information into small, “bite-size” pieces so that people can take it in better.

Summary

Making your writing as professional as possible for the Web is like dressing your writing in its best for an interview–you want to make your writing give off the most sparkling first impression it can. Watching your spelling, grammar, Internet abbreviations, and writing structure is key!

Saturday with the Spark

No Drama Queen, Just a Theater Dabbler

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This week, I thought I’d write a little creative anecdote instead of my usual “creative advice column”-style post. It’s all about drama–theater drama, not emotional drama. 😉

Acting as a Creative Impulse

Bringing a character to life is just as creative as other art forms–you have to make this character feel real, human, believable. You have to make the audience believe you ARE this person; the best actors make you love them or hate them even off-screen and out of character, just because of the character you saw them play last.

The skill with which an actor does this comes partially from knowing the lines and knowing the actions, and partially from the actor’s imagination, imagining how someone would look and sound doing these actions and saying these lines. And we instinctively know good, believable acting when we see it!

My Small Contributions to Drama

Though I’ve never been a complete theater buff, I have done some minor roles in local productions here and there, mainly during high school and early college. I’ve done enough to know that I may not be a show-stopper (my disabilities and clumsiness keep me from that), but I do seem to do comedy pretty well. (My life is full of pratfalls and epic verbal fails…maybe that’s where I got the practice. LOL)

Experiences On the Stage

I’ve played a random assortment of supporting characters (a friendly old biddy, a young schemer, a couple of motherly types), and pretty much any role is cool with me–I actually like to play supporting characters more than leading characters; less pressure, and sometimes you get funnier lines because you’re the comic relief.

I’m more easygoing about my role, mainly because I enjoy taking roles that other people don’t like to play. But it’s also because I’ve acted alongside some supreme prima donnas who wouldn’t take less than the leading lady’s role (there’s at least one in every production, it seems). People like that make the whole set tense!

I prefer to keep my out-of-character acting out to a minimum, though I will admit that long hours of rehearsal on flat, painful feet make my tongue a little sharper than usual. Physical endurance? What’s that? 😛 That’s one reason I’m not in major dramas; my body just doesn’t care for the tedious bits of rehearsal (of course, all done while standing in one place for what feels like hours).

I’ve been lucky, however, that in all of the productions I’ve been in, there has been time after rehearsals for me to rest–professional actors are not so fortunate always! I’ve also been blessed that most of the local actors I’ve worked with have been fairly sweet individuals, barring a few who thought too much of themselves. Generally, I have been part of convivial and companionate casts who truly cared about each other; a rarity, from what I’ve heard from others who are more experienced in theater.

Backstage: Character Prep Work

One of my trademarks in acting is that I flesh out my characters before I play them–I tend to go home on the first night after receiving the script, and extrapolate the character out from the dialogue and actions into a full-blown short story. It’s something like an autobiography for the character.

Once I do that, I have a much better and easier time playing the character because I “know where they’re coming from,” so to speak. (I’m not sure if this falls solidly into much-maligned “method acting” or not, but it sure works for me. I just act better when I can find something to empathize with in the character–even if she is a crazy villain. :D)

I like to flesh out characters because I want my acting to be the best it can be for the sake of the whole production. When people don’t care about their characters and are bored with the lines, it shows, and it really brings the rest of the scene down. Populating the scene with a well-acted “supportive character” can often help the other members of the scene get more excited (and deliver better performances of their own).

Onstage Helping? Yes, it’s Possible!

I also like being able to keep tabs of others’ lines as well as my own (thanks to God for the good memory I have), just in case one of them forgets a line; I am pretty good at ad-libbing in a reminder line if I have to.

I remember in high school, one very young, very frightened fellow student I worked with in one production forgot her entire semi-monologue in one scene during the performance. There was a very tense, gut-wrenching, eternity of a second, and then I prompted her with a question that rephrased the first sentence of her speech. She recovered enough to say the speech, and I was so happy for her I accidentally complimented her onstage with an emphatic “GOOD!” The audience got a huge laugh out of my reaction, and we carried on. The teacher later told me that I had done well (and even made her laugh).

This is part of the excitement of acting–being able to help out and make the production good, or react and recover from gaffes. Like the time I completely bungled my whole dance routine up because I literally got off on the wrong foot–since I was playing a granny, I waved my arms about and shouted to my dance partner, “Lordy, sonny boy, don’t drag me ’round this ole dance floor like a dead fish!” Much, MUCH LOL followed–I don’t think anybody kept a straight face! Stories like this make for great after-party anecdotes; afterwards, you can all laugh about how you made it through despite the fails.

Ever Tried Acting for Yourself?

I’d like to hear from my fellow actors out there–anybody ever done any off-off-off-Broadway stuff, or gotten write-ups in the local paper? ^_^ It’d be fun to hear from some actual famous people!

And even if you haven’t acted much before, have you ever tried your hand (or voice) at it? It’s a lot of fun, if you’ve never experienced it. 🙂

Friday around the Web

You Are Someone’s Reason, If Fire Were Water, Stranded, and Scriblink

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You Are Someone’s Reason…
Never forget this. Ever.

If Fire Were Water
AMAZING graphic manipulation–it really looks like the fire of a candle has been changed into a sparkling, leaping drop of water! This and more cool “fire-to-water” changes await beyond the link!

Stranded
The grass always looks greener…in the middle of the ocean. Confused? Click and laugh at the profound hilarity.

Scriblink
A virtual whiteboard that you can invite people to, collaborate on, and save. Makes group projects and group meetings a lot easier!

Thursday in the Zone

The Choosy Collector

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I’m not exactly like most other gamers who focus on collectible pieces. I don’t have an “extras box” or a “trades box” that’s overflowing with figures and/or cards I’m willing to let go of. In fact, I generally peruse other people’s trades boxes and buy from or trade with them. I’m what you might call a “choosy collector.”

What Is a Choosy Collector?

Choosy collectors build their gaming collections solely out of the figures or cards they play. They don’t have extensive collections at all–they may not even have a “trades” box or bin at all. They simply aren’t interested in keeping gaming items that they aren’t actively using.

Choosy Habits

Never Buy Boosters
I rarely buy booster packs, because I’m not guaranteed to get something I want in them–they’re randomized. Instead, I usually buy or trade with other gamers. Saves money and helps other gamers get rid of extras or stuff they won’t play.

Do Research on Which Cards/Figures You’d Like to Get
I also do my research beforehand and only go for the items I KNOW I would love to play. I use services like MTG.com’s Gatherer and HCRealms.com’s Units page to preview items from the newest expansion sets, so that I can figure out what might work best for the decks and teams I plan to play in the near future.

This way, I don’t waste money buying several booster packs just looking for one item in particular, and I don’t junk up my house or my gaming collection storage with items I’m never going to use.

Shop Local Gaming Stores Before Going Online
Lastly, I shop my local comics/gaming store’s singles counter–they buy single figures and/or cards from local gamers, and also open a couple of boosters to supply the counter with new material. This leaves their shelves full of the newest stuff, so I can browse it one at a time. If I’ve done my homework beforehand and know what I’m looking for, I can go right to it; if I’m just looking through their collection of new singles, sometimes I come across cards or figures I didn’t even know existed.

Shopping local means I don’t have to wait for it to be shipped, and I’m helping out my local store while I’m at it.

Why Is Being a Choosy Collector Helpful?

  • Less to carry around–easier on the arms
  • Less to store in my house–the less junk I bring in, the better
  • Less items to dig through if I’m looking for a particular card/figure
  • Generally happier gaming because I’m playing with cards/figures I enjoy

Becoming a Choosy Collector Yourself

If you’d like to become a choosier collector:

  1. Pick out the cards and/or figures you most like to game with, and set them aside.
  2. Sort the rest into boxes, keeping them in as good a condition as you can–you’re looking to trade or sell them to other gamers, after all.
  3. Sell to your fellow gamers as much as you can, or failing that, trade with them for items you’ll love just as much as your existing favorites. Don’t trade for anything you don’t absolutely love–it’ll only exacerbate the collection problem.
  4. If you can’t sell or trade some of your stuff to other gamers, sell to your local gaming shop, or list on CardShark, eBay, iOffer, Craigslist, or similar sites. If you’re really desperate to get rid of it, you can even try sites like Freecycle.
  5. Once you’ve pared down your collection to just your favorites, you can now keep your collection low by only buying the items you absolutely will use in your strategies and nothing else.

Summary

Gaming collections, just like any other collections, can get out of hand very quickly, and you can end up with a junky game closet or even a junky game house. Whittling down to what you play with and nothing else will free you up, and as a choosy collector, you don’t ever have to worry about an overstuffed “trades box” or “extras box” ever again.

Trust me, even as a mildly-OCD hoarder, it’s much easier and more fun to game like this. 🙂

Wednesday in the Word

Don’t See God Working? Where Are You Looking?

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Psalm 92:5-6
5 How great are your works, O Lord, how profound your thoughts! 6 The senseless man does not know, fools do not understand.

God is everywhere, at all times. God is with us even when we can’t feel Him near. So why do some people believe He doesn’t exist?

How can a Good God Let Bad Things Happen?

People often wonder, “if there’s a God, why does He cause bad things to happen?” They are not caused by God, because God does not do evil. But sometimes He allows things to happen to us because they are teachable moments.

Tragedy as well as gaiety shape us into the people we are supposed to become, over time. The car accident that shattered your leg may well have taken you out of a successful sports career, but if that had never happened, would you have met the lifelong friend you made in the hospital, who directed you to a new career which you found utterly more fulfilling? Being fired from that well-paying but high-stress job may leave you near poverty for several months, but if you hadn’t left it when you did, you might have died from the stress, and God still has a purpose for you elsewhere.

God Does Grand Works, Works We Can’t Even Fathom

As this verse says, God is always working, and His works are truly great in scale. He has aligned everything–and I mean EVERYTHING–in perfect sync. You might be a few minutes late to a party and be angry at the slow-moving traffic ahead of you, only to arrive on the scene of an accident, which, if you would have been on time, would have involved you. (This happened to me last winter; I’m shaking still thinking about it.) Your family members’ bickering may reach a fever pitch at your house for the holidays, only to reveal that there is some long-held bitterness and resentment, which has never been expressed…and it leads to full reconciliation within days.

No matter where we look, God is in control, in ways we don’t even imagine. The flows of traffic, just like the flows of rivers, are managed by His hand; even our own personal losses, inflicted by others, can be and are used by God to help us grow as people, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. My huge, overwhelming failure as a teacher shaped my life with its tragedy; I thought I would never recover from the severe depression that very nearly ate my whole personality. And yet, God used that to show me that there was a better place I fit in His plan–that He meant me to serve in another career.

If we choose not to see God working, how He places us in people’s lives just when they need our particular skills, and places others in our lives when we have lost our way, then we are truly “senseless,” and “fools,” as the verse says. Not to say we all aren’t fools sometimes; many is the time I have only felt God’s works after I realized how much worse off I could have been. We just have to be willing to look around and admit God’s presence–it’s not just “coincidence,” not “fate” or “destiny,” but GOD, bringing us to new positive experiences and using the trials we face to teach us how to depend on Him.

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Content, not Perfect

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I am generally happy with the course of my life thus far, though I might not seem like it in most of my Tuesday on the Soapbox posts.

Dealing with The Negatives

By most people’s standards, my life is definitely not perfect. I’m overweight, and I don’t have a lot of friends I routinely visit, nor too much nightlife going on. I don’t have a paying job, and my parents and I all suffer crippling ill health–arthritis, severe headaches, and old, unhealed injuries run rampant, forcing us all to be more bedridden than we should be. This leaves our house in a shameful state most of the time. (There are rooms in my house which I haven’t been able to walk into in literal years. Yes. OCD hoarding + family illness = housekeeping? What’s that?)

Celebrating the Positives

But I do have a lot to be thankful for. Quite a lot, in fact. I have a stable roof over my head and enough food to eat every day. I have a wonderful, loving, supportive boyfriend of several years; he and his family are awesome. Both my parents are still living–I can depend on them for advice and love, and I can also reciprocate the care for them that they lavished on me in my growing-up years. I have a great church family that accepts and loves me, and has helped me to grow more spiritually in the last 4 years than I did in the first 23. Plus, I have the free time to do a lot of creative projects, like this blog, that help others, even if I’m not getting paid for any of it. There’s a great emotional benefit to doing something that others enjoy, and while it’s not a paycheck, it fulfills a creative need in me.

Perfect Lives =/= Happiness

Many times we get wrapped up in how terrible our lives are when we start looking at the negatives of our lives, all the things that shouldn’t be happening to us but are, all the illness and emotional garbage, all the family and friend drama, not to mention workplace drama and unfairness. We get all torn up about our lives’ quality, wishing for the financial, romantic, and familial perfection we see pictured in movies and television.

I am not immune to that, any more than anybody else. I will say, personally, that it’s very easy, especially in the darkness of the wee hours of morning, to get depressed over the circumstances of my life, homebound and job-frustrated as I am.

But I am CONTENT. I am not living a perfect life, an ideal life. There are conditions I’m dealing with that I wish I didn’t have to. I wish I could walk without pain, and I wish I had a job, for instance. But I am blessed to have the talents I have, and the amount of love that pours into my life from others helps to drown these relatively small pains. There are people in the world who would covet my life as it is now; the best thing I can do is to praise God for all the blessings He’s shown me, and give others an opportunity for similar blessings through outreach work and giving as I am able.

Though there’s a lot of junk in my life, literally and figuratively, the positives of my life balance the negatives. I am not living an idealized life, but I am much better off than I could be. Realizing that I am much more blessed than I even imagine can, in itself, lift me up. Knowing that I can help others because I am blessed lifts me up, too.

A Challenge for You

I challenge my readers (all 10 of you, lol) to think of three areas of your life which are going well. For me, my church life, my relationships, and my creative life are all going very well. The areas of your life can be big or small, but think of three. Write them down so you remember them, and look back at the list when you are feeling terrible.

Trust me, it works: even when all else seems to be failing in another area (like health, for me), I can look to my successes in three other areas and think, “Well, things could be much worse for me–I am blessed to have what I have.” We all need some practice at feeling content with our imperfect lives…this is one way to do it.