Ferris wheel love

I am officially a college student. How do I know this, you ask? Well, after a week of staying up late doing homework, watching my roommate do homework, or writing these blogs, yesterday morning I slept in until noon. I am not usually one to sleep in. In fact, for most of this month I have woken up before my alarm even goes off. I find it nearly impossible to ever sleep past 9. So yesterday was a big deal, a rite of passage, so to speak.

When I finally did awaken, my roommate, my neighbor Lis, and I all went to the LA County Fair. If you have never been to a County Fair in one of the largest counties in the country let me express its size to you: they have a ski lift just to get across the fairgrounds.

So, after much of the usual fair festivities, we made our way to the enormous Ferris wheel. After surrendering five dollars worth of tickets, being forced to give up my coffee(a true tragedy; why wouldn't coffee be allowed in an open box so high in the air?) and standing in line for quite a little while, we made it into our own little box of the Ferris wheel. It was a lovely journey, I must say. When we were nearing the top, Lis mentioned that she was afraid of heights, and, determined to show that I, unlike so much of the world, was distinctly not afraid of heights, I stuck my head out and looked straight down.

I don't think I have ever had so instantaneous a reaction. I will admit to you that it seems I very well may be subconsciously afraid of heights, because looking down like that was simply overwhelming, it was literally very dizzying. And pondering these great heights, a verse comes to mind. Romans 8:39 says "neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Now think about this for a second. The height of a Ferris wheel overwhelms me. The height from a plane is hard to comprehend. I cannot comprehend the greatest heights of creation, they overwhelm me. And even so I know that God is greater than that distance, and his love remains near to us no matter what.

Truly His,
Caroline

Questions from the Magic Lamp

For those of you who don't know, I moved to California almost a month ago for college. "Where in California?" you may ask. Why, in the very best part of California! And that best part is 15 minutes from Disneyland. Upon our arrival in California, my parents bestowed upon me the priceless gift of a premium annual passport. What does this mean? It means I can go to Disneyland any time I can find a ride. Huzzah!

Now, besides my annual passport, I have two distinct advantages:

1. My roommate has the same kind of Disney pass as I do.
2. My roommate has a car.

Last week we exercised this privilege and went to Disneyland for dinner and an evening of Disney-theme adventures.

On our way to follow Indiana Jones into a temple of doom, we stopped in a little shop to try on fedoras and make faces in the mirrors, and in this shop we found the magic lamp! This magic lamp informed us that if we only inserted two quarters into it, it would reveal our futures! We quickly complied, and it informed my roommate that she would answer the greatest mystery of the universe, namely, "Why do hot dogs come in packs of eight and hot dog buns in packs of six?"

Today, on an adventure to dinner with a hallmate, Lis, some similarly mysterious questions came up, one of those being, "Do invisible rocks have shadows?" This questions arose from an interaction that went like this:
Caroline: (trips over her own feet)
Lis: Uh, there was a rock there, right? I saw it.
Caroline: Yeah, an invisible rock.
Lis: Then how did I see it?
Caroline: You saw its shadow.
Lis: Do invisible rocks have shadows? (At this point Lis breaks out laughing at the absurdity of this conversation.)

This all somehow led me to a similarly bizarre question (which caused a similar laughing fit from Lis). There's this verse in the bible (Matthew 18:3 to be exact) where Jesus tells his disciples (who had just asked him who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven) "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."
So as I was blowing bubbles in my coffee and pondering this, I asked this question aloud, "Does blowing bubbles in my coffee make me childlike enough to get into the kingdom of heaven?"

Of course, the truth of the matter is that becoming like a child is simply having faith like a child, faith to believe the things you can't see with your eyes, just because someone you trust told you so. I know one person who was, is, and always will be worth trusting. That would be of course the one person who never did anything wrong, because wrong-doing simply makes you not completely trust-worthy. And I am still trying to dedicate everything to him. Brother Lawrence (I don't actually know who this is, evidently someone who loved Jesus) once said, "I turn my little omelet in the pan for the love of God."

If I may paraphrase: "I blow bubbles in my coffee for the love of God."
With that, my consciousness has failed, so I must sign off and head toward sleep. Good night.

Truly His,
Caroline