My "Bucket List" :D

...Well, part of it, and in no particular order. I'm not going to share all. But here's a glimpse into the list I made as a young teenager, and added to over the years. Mostly unattainable, people would say, but a girl can dream! And, it's amazing how many of these were fulfilled unintentionally.

I will cross out those I've already done. Some are ongoing, like sharing the Gospel, so the fact that I've crossed out said items doesn't mean they're no longer an aim of mine.

(Note for anyone not in the know... According to urbandictionary.com : BUCKET LIST - A list of things to do before you die. Comes from the term "kicked the bucket." There ya go. :))
> learn to play guitar
> jog across the United States
> write and publish at least one book
> Polar Plunge
> share the Gospel
> jump out of a perfectly good airplane
> read all the classics
> run the Dead Sea Marathon in Jordan
> go rappelling
> learn to juggle
> learn Greek
> write my own theory on the death of the Red Baron
> know God to the point that there is no one in the world to whom I'm closer and love more
> lead someone to Christ
> live in the actual middle of nowhere
> learn to ski, ice skate and snowboard
> work in an orphanage
> find out from which tribe my American Indian ancestry was
> compete in a triathlon
> run an extreme-trail, full marathon
> be in Times Square for New Year's Eve once
> have no unforgiven person in my life
> lose 20 pounds
> meet George W. Bush
> meet the Clintons
> think of something witty and brutal to say to the Clintons upon meeting them
> learn to paint and draw
> grow my hair past waist length
> learn to be a good listener
> do an in-depth study of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire
> finally learn how to whistle!
> train horses
> work at a military youth academy
> join the military
> make an actual, big difference in someone's life
> visit Arlington National Cemetery
> be a missionary
> do something incredibly dangerous> bike across the Sahara
> visit all states in the continental U.S.
> visit all 50 states
> live in Israel for awhile; work in Palestinian refugee camps
> climb a huge mountain
> have children
> homeschool them, without the stereotypical ill effects of homeschooling
> bungee jump
> learn to speak Arabic
> study and learn Arabic (I'm talkin' fluent!)
> cry completely unashamedly
> mount my own expedition to find Mokele Mbembe
> see "Nessie" for myself
> be the sunshine in the life of a person who desperately needs it
> be a huge blessing to my parents (only they would know! lol)
> become the Proverbs 31 woman that a real man deserves
> set foot on the Holy Land
> save a life
> fall truly, deeply in love; get married to the man for whom God made me
> find the balance between modest but frumpy and attractive but sexy
> have a near-death experience
> backpack through Europe
> witness a miracle
> inspire men to be who God intended them to be, by being fully who he intended me to be
> become an excellent help meet
> fall in love with a culture
> call women back to femininity
> write for a newspaper or magazine
> go to Iran
> study the life of Robert E. Lee
> learn swing dancing
> learn ballroom dancing
> clearly hear the voice of God
> learn Pashto and live with the Pashtun in Afghanistan for a time
> run for a political office
> walk in Central Park at night (with a bodyguard :P)
> do something people label impossible
> meet and thank a MOH recipient
> get medical certifications of some kind (EMT, RN, CNA, anything)
> decide for myself whether the death penalty is good or bad
> fully master the motherly running of a home
> get a job no one wants
> go back to and live in the wild of Ethiopia
> become an outstanding marksman
> support a political campaign
> be an accomplice to an arrest
> work as a secretary
> get a 5:30 mile time
> write a song
> write a song someone would actually buy
> publish my poems
> know for myself that my Jesus is really, truly all I'll ever actually need
> see Paris for myself
> stand on the actual "top of the world"
> learn how to throw a knife
> put together a women's Bible study
> enter in a pageant
> learn to drive stick shift
> learn to ride a motorcycle
> live in NYC for a time
> have dinner in Jerusalem
> go back to Jordan and visit the bedouins in Wadi Rum again
> learn depka dancing very well
> waitress
> climb Mount Everest
> go whitewater rafting
> go cliff jumping
> chat up and give a New Testament to every stranger I meet
> become excellent at racquetball
> do outreach with a mission in Iraq
> have really long hair when I'm old and gray
> float in the Dead Sea

More on vulnerability...

I believe there is absolutely nothing wrong with strength in women. The more the better, I say. The stronger we are, the more we can be a blessing and help meet for a future husband. The more we learn, the more we have to share with this world. The more capable we are, the more we have to contribute.

...Right? Or am I just a bit off?

Yes and no.

I've come to the conclusion that strength should be sought after, but not to the point that it defines us as women. Or perhaps a better way to say it is this: It is a different kind of strength.

Perhaps that isn't even a problem for most women. If that's the case, I'm truly happy for you. Life will be smoother and your inner struggles less prevalent because of it. But if you're like me, with a personality that drives you crazy with the maddening desire to succeed, to do your very best at everything you attempt, and go as far as you possibly can in every addictive challenge you pursue... well, you may do well to simply channel those drives somewhere other than the obvious. What's the obvious? Venues which demand said strength in an apparent way. Man's strength and woman's strength were not meant to be used in the same ways.

I long deeply to have something to offer this world by way of blessing. Something to offer myself by way of proving me to myself in a challenge (truly I am my own worst enemy... with the exception of the enemy of my soul). At times the two are at odds, and at times they coincide. (I know I'm jumping around a lot here... please bear with me, anyone who may stumble across this.)

I am many things. Many, many, hundreds of things. But above all, I am a woman. I am female. And because I was created a feminine creature, I do have something unique to offer the world... and that is my femininity. (Are you cringing yet? I know there was a time I would have. Ask yourself why.)

I must confess my life has not always reflected this. Not until God grabbed me recently, anyway. Personally, I discovered that a lot of my strength, both inner and outer, was being maintained and used as a shield by me... in order not to be, well, vulnerable. To anyone. I realized that I have always viewed it as a shame to be weak in any way; therefore, I made sure I never was. It's only recently that I realized how sad that is.

Some of it came from truly needing to be, at a young age; some of it I am sure has to do with being the oldest of a huge family and feeling responsible; some of it came from my love of pushing myself to success and my hatred of failure, especially in the kinds of work and organizations I threw myself into. But some of it, a lot of it, came from the warped, twisted, perverted messages we get from the culture these days regarding what it means to be a woman. Not to mention what it means to be a man. (It used to be that guys could be hurt by insulting their strength; girls could be hurt my insulting their beauty. Now it's equally common to see a girl feel the need to prove herself, and for a guy to obsess over his looks!)

And not until I began to desire a MANLY MAN -- raw, original, untamed, unashamed masculinity as God intended it -- did I realize the terrible hypocrisy of not being a womanly woman. Seriously! We're so unreasonable sometimes. We want to be rescued. But are we rescuable? We want to be protected. But do we insist on protecting ourselves? We want to be fought for. So why are we doing the fighting? We want strength and masculinity. Well he, the bravehearted William Wallace, wants vulnerability and femininity.

Let's go back to that whole, "The more capable we are, the more we have to contribute" thing. Is it true? What if some of the most needed, most longed-for, most beautiful things, like compassion and tenderness, were those which society has decried as weak or unnecessary? Or - Heaven forbid, but it's true - a comforting and nurturing nature we are told should be provided equally by the male of the species as by the female, if not more so?

I was again convicted by excerpts such as these from Stasi Eldredge's Captivating:

A woman who is striving invites others to strive. The message - sometimes implicit in her actions, sometimes explicit through her words - is, "Get your act together. Life is uncertain. There is no time for your heart here. Shape up. Get busy. That's what is important." She does not say, All is well. All shall be well. She is withholding the very thing her world needs.

A woman who is hiding invites others to do the same. "Don't be vulnerable. Hide yourself." A woman who is controlling cannot invite others to rest, to be known.

By contrast a woman whose heart is at rest invites others to rest. A woman who is unveiling her beauty [her femininity] is inviting others to life. She risks being vulnerable: exposing her true heart and inviting others to share theirs. She is not demanding, but she is hopeful. She entices others to the heart of God. To experience through her that God is merciful. That he is tender and kind. That God longs for us - to be known by us and to know us. She invites us to experience that God is good, deep, lovely, alluring. Captivating.

As God began to do a work in my heart, I began to realize - for the first time, and with horror - how many girls looked up to me on the basis of my strength... but not necessarily my femininity. That was a side issue, if one at all.

What they admired and tried to imitate, and in fact what had come to define me, were things like the following examples. The fact that I was in boxing for a few years. The way I ran a flight like the highspeed and ruthless Flight Commander I was, snatching Honor Flight or Honor Staff at encampments. My Top 5 placement in an extreme trail full marathon which I had not trained fully for and ran while "toughing-out" full heat exhaustion, heat cramps, and severe dehydration which caused my kidneys to shut down for awhile. Commanding and helping start a brand new military youth academy with plenty of loneliness, dangers and worries - no time to ever pause for a sigh or a just few stressed tears, insane hours and all. It was my "having it all together" all the time, my proud self-sufficiency, of which they stood in awe.

I was drawing them away from vulnerability. I was, in fact, the woman who Stasi describes as having an attitude of, "Get your act together. Life is uncertain. There is no time for your heart here. Shape up. Get busy. That's what is important." I was making young women strong, disciplined, and self-reliant (good things, if kept in their proper place). And they ate it up. But was I making them... women? I was encouraging and congratulating them on achievement, on toughness, on gutting out personal ordeals. But was I encouraging them to be honest with themselves or to let their tenderness and femininity flourish? Was I cultivating the woman each of us cry out to be; who we all are at our very core, despite the efforts of society to squash and silence it? I wasn't.

Women, I know it feels good to be so strong and independent -- for awhile. Just awhile. But when the novelty and excitement (and perhaps even rebellion, for some) wears off, and be assured it all eventually does, we are left with a heart which cries out, immutably, to be freed. To be itself. To be feminine. To be... vulnerable. And to have that vulnerability protected. It is a deep, piercing cry which far outscreams the wail for emancipation. And it is deep down inside the buried, doubtfully treasured, "I-won't-believe-in-my-fairytale-desires-because-they-can't-be-fulfilled" concealed feminine heart of each of us.

"Let me be a woman."

Ask God to show you the path up and out of society's dark pit, dear one. It's not an obvious one. It's rarely traveled, misunderstood, and can be lonely. Ask for His guidance as you navigate the minefields set by the enemy to thwart your journey to God's  best. Open yourself to the ultimate Man and give Him your heart. He knows what to do with it. He will cherish it and romance it. Most of all, He will change you. I know of a certainty that He changed me... irreversibly, impossibly, wonderfully. He wants the best for his beautiful creation of woman.

What about vulnerability?

As I was drumming my fingers on my desk this morning, I noticed that the fingers on one hand made a different sound than those on the other.

That's because of the thick callouses on the tips of my fingers of my left hand (I play my steel string acoustic guitar as often as I possibly can.) Each one of them has become incredibly resilient, like very thick leather... almost like plastic, sometimes. It's wonderful because I no longer get painful, red blisters. My fingers have become impervious to the slicing of the strings! But neither can they feel anything. They've lost all sensitivity to the point that I have to use my other fingers if I actually want to feel something. Seriously, they're about as useful in that department as fingers of stone.

Funny thing, callouses. Protectants. Barriers. They're awfully two-way. They don't let anything in, and they don't let anything out. They keep us from being hurt from the outside... and from feeling on the inside.

Lately I've found myself miserable and in strange moods, to my perplexity and dismay - an odd combination of anger and loneliness. Sometimes even a bit bitter about certain things, not entirely sure as to why, and hating deeply that I felt that way. All that mattered to me, largely in the way of relationships (family, work or otherwise) seemed to deteriorate for no reason at all, despite my best efforts. I missed the bubbly, energetic, happy, optimistic girl I've almost always been.

In this frame of mind I could not sleep one night. It was nearing 2 AM. So I tried praying, reached for my Bible, then for the book "Captivating," by John and Stasi Eldridge, which I've been reading. [I don't fully endorse this book... Has some good sections, though.] It hit me like a baseball bat to the solar plexus.

Like you, there are seasons in my life when Jesus seems very near and seasons where I can't seen to find him at all. [...] All relationships ebb and flow.

The ebbing is to draw our hearts out in deeper longing. In the times of emptiness, an open heart notices. What are you feeling? Like a lonely girl missing her daddy? Like a teenage young woman feeling completely invisible, unseen? Often God allows these feelings to surface to help us go back to times when we have felt like this before. Notice also what you want to do -- how you handle your heart. Are you shutting down in anger? Turning to food? To others?

What is crucial is that, this time, we handle our hearts differently.

We ask our Lover to come for us, and we keep our hearts open for his coming. We choose not to shut down. We let the tears come. We allow the ache to swell into a longing prayer for God. [...]

Here is how the flow goes in Hosea. First, God says he will thwart our efforts to find life apart from him.

"Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way. She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them." Hosea 2:6-7

He does this in order to wear us out, to get us to turn back to him in thirsty longing. Then he begins to woo us. He often takes us aside from every other source of comfort so he alone can have our heart's attention.

"...I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her." Hosea 2:14

This verse drew me in, for I have often described myself as having been led into a complete and utter desert right now, spiritually. I looked up the rest of the passage, and hot tears began to flow down my face at what I read:

"There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor ["trouble"] a door of hope. Then she will sing as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt. 'In that day,' declares the Lord, 'you will call me "my husband"; you will no longer call me "my master."' Hosea 2:15-16

I cannot even express how those words spoke to me, as though they were meant just for me. I am indeed in a valley of trouble right now; there is an issue of complete and utter confusion for me. In the days of my youth and the day I came home after the Egypt DTS were truly the happiest times of my life. How, indeed, there are other things of life I would gladly chase - even very good things - if the Lord had not closed doors and "walled me in so that I could not find my way."

It is then, when alone with him and myself, that I come face-to-face with inner struggles and things which need to change. How, oh how I have been longing! And all the while my Lord says, "I am here. I know you have no one to trust or confide in. Be vulnerable with me. You can be. Stop trying to be so strong and impenetrable all the time."

Dear women out there, you who may know this feeling... Are you chasing "other lovers?" They can be anything. I know it firsthand. It's different for everyone. Movies, friends, career, fashion, food, men, the internet, gossip, your own independence... even church involvement. Busyness. Anything to keep us from coming face-to-face, in the piercing silence, with ourselves and with the most important relationship we have, the only man who can perfectly satisfy every possible need and desire of our hearts - Jesus.

The Lord invites me come and weep. Come and fall apart. Come and be healed. With him, my Lover, not with others. He invites me come and drop the shields which I grip so tightly; to stop defending myself; to stop being enough for myself.

No one, and especially no woman, has one hundred percent "got it together," one hundred percent of the time. There is a lot to be said for strength and capability and bravado. But face it... it is our vulnerability that makes us women. Our being the weaker vessel. Let's not cringe at that just because society has conditioned us to do so. Ironic how in being "empowered" we have actually been stripped of the power, if you will, that was given us by God - that prize of femininity which we are so quick to try to rid ourselves of in disgust. Interesting how, despite all the strides of the feminist movement to make the male species obsolete and unnecessary for all these years, at the core of every woman there is still the burning desire to be fought for, rescued and protected. Granted, most these days pass it off as a girlish fairytale dream. But it is still there. (So yeah, instead of going on and on, I'll just highly recommend the book, "Captivating!" :))

I don't normally share such intimate details of my inner/spiritual life. But I know there are plenty of women out there struggling as I have in the past, and sometimes still do. If sharing this helps by encouraging just one other girl find her heavenly Prince, then it is well worth it. :)

How do you witness?

I recently heard a comment made by a Christian woman to an unbelieving man. She verbally knocked him over the head for his wayward beliefs, then proceeded to tell him he was going to be judged by what he did with God's offer of salvation, and going to hell if he rejected it. She left him with an open invitation to talk with her more if he had questions.

...All true, technically. But she omitted some very key points.

Namely, the love of God. We are not called to merely speak the truth - we are called to speak the truth in love. With care for the other person as the purpose for speaking it. If you guessed that this man took offense, proceeded to argue and never took the woman up on her offer, you probably guessed right.

(Let me interject for a moment here that I do not condone the "all you need is love gospel" mentality. That  version appallingly rushes past or altogether leaves out conviction of sin and repentance, and is one that has spread like an epidemic.)

The gospel means, literally, "the good news." There should be at least something positive about it. When we present it in a completely condemning, take-it-or-leave-it way, we cross over from caring about people's souls, to caring about being right and feeling good about ourselves (even "holier-than-thou").

My dad says, "The Holy Spirit is a gentleman."
"Behold, I stand at the door and knock," says Jesus. 

He doesn't crawl through a window,walk through the wall, or kick in the door - though he is perfectly capable of doing so. It is a wooing process. The unsaved are to be convicted of their own ugly sin when they see it in the light of his holiness, overcome by his unconditional love, filled with thankfulness for what he has done for rebellious and undeserving mankind. To threaten and frighten people into repentance is to bring them to salvation while they hold wrong motives, I think. It also certainly speaks nothing of a future relationship with God. And how effective is it, honestly? The Bible uses the analogy of a bride and bridegroom, a love story. Not a bride who marries because she's terrified of the consequences if she does not.

Naturally, there must be the recognition of how desperately fallen and fully depraved we are. There must be true sorrow for sins, and there must be repentance. The Holy Spirit does convict, and it is necessary that he does. There must be the fear of God - the great awe and reverence of Him - not simply the fear of hellfire.

We Christians must be very careful. We have a huge responsibility to witness. But it must be done remembering that the way a person reacts to that witness could damn them for eternity. It is possible to bludgeon a person's ear and heart to death - with the truth. If all we care about is "getting our end across," we are pitiful beings indeed who either do not truly know the love of God, or have no true, passionate desire to impart it to others (the two go hand-in-hand).

Yes, we can only tell the truth, and it is theirs to accept or reject. But we should do it in such a way that our consciences are clear if they reject it, knowing we shared the gospel of salvation out of sincere love for that person, and not so that we feel better about having shown them to be wrong.

So, share! The time is short. But share because you care about that person. Look at them through the eyes of Jesus, and share in such a way that their hopelessness and wickedness in contrast with his love will win them. It is a lost and hurting world out there, brothers and sisters. Let us have a heart for those aching souls.

From the lips of a Russian...

I may be overly passionate about things, compared to most people, but an article I just read read makes my eyes want to sting with tears of embarrassment and heartache for my country.

Why do people say they "just aren't really into politics" when I try to discuss the grave future of America with them? You're a voter. You decide which politicians end up driving this vehicle we call the American government. If you're not "into" politics, you'd better get there! Why do people laugh when it's suggested that there are actual Communist forces, hiding behind different labels but nevertheless with the same agenda, behind many of the legislative changes (among many others) in this country??

Honestly, it maddens me. Not as an individual, but as an American. As a human being, actually. As someone who believes our freedoms are far too precious to be treated with blind, ignorant apathy.

Why do we no longer care about what's happening in our own government? Why can we not look around, or skim the pages of history, and see we are spiraling down the same tragic, nauseous path to complete and utter ruin that countless other countries have traveled before us? Why can we not learn from the mistakes of other nations? Because bread and circuses have stolen our hearts, and pride occupies the place which used to be reserved for fear and trembling -- for the fear of God.

And everyone recognizes it. Everyone around us sees it. Everyone but us.

The following article is from "Pravda," a Russian newspaper/national magazine.

Pravda on America's Descent Into Marxism

It must be said that, like the breaking of a great dam, the American descent into Marxism is happening with breathtaking speed, against the backdrop of a passive, hapless sheeple. Excuse me, dear reader, I meant people.

True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past centure, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds were conducted upon our Holy Russia, and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.

Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.

First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather than the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV drama than the drama in D.C. that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonald's or Burger King burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our "democracy." Pride blinds the foolish.

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations," were for the most part little more than Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top Protestant mega-preachers were more than happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo-Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would b e on the "winning" side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been record-setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more than another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America will at best resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

These past two weeks have been the most breaktaking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more than ordinary street thugs, by comparison. Yes, the Ameicans have beat our own thieves in the sheer volumes. Should we congratulate them?

These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more than a whimper to their masters.

Then came Barack Obama's command that GM's (General Motors) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader -- in the land of "pure" free markets, the American president now has the power, the self-given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions.

So it should be no surprise that the American president has followed this up with a "bold" move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less than two months ago, warned Obama and the UK's Blair not to follow the path to Marxism -- it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western-sponsored horror show, we know nothing as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our "wise" Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.

Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper... but a "freeman" whimper.

So should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically-controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasure department the power to set "fair" maximum salaries, evaluate performance and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Franks, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, among the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not looked down upon as a life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme -- this would include any company or industry that has ever recieved a tax break or incentive.

The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing down their facilities and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.

The proud American will go down into his slavery without a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world how free he really is. The world will only snicker.


-Stanislav Mishin