Just figured I'd add something

   Life is tough, and otherwise there isn't much to say. 

   So maybe there will be more later. 

   Bye.  

Moving on

   I've had some unpleasent experiences recently. 

   While I am still struck with sadness at my dogs death from three months ago on occasion, I'm doing very well, and I thank you all for your prayers.  She was a good animal, though fat, and if there is any hope for animals, I hope for her. 

   I might be bringing this up too often, but I'm still amazed at how correct the makers of the Megaman X games got the stories in the comparison of those to the biblical understanding of man's sinfulness and the hopelessness of it.  Everytime I get on Youtube and watch those clips, I'm still struck with sadness at what they had to lose to find out the truth. 

   I've decided that while I am still going to call myself an Advent Christian for now, I'm in a state of searching out the truth regarding theology in general, but especially as regards the state of the dead and the final state of the wicked.  Maybe I'll work through Wayne Grudems Systematic Theology, taking it a little more regulary, but at least getting through all of it.  I could just skim over the parts that I've read before, but then my studies might be insufficient, for I have matured significantly ever since I studied them last.  I wish that those around me would value knowing the truth in a formal way as much as I do. 

   So I've identified what my biggist character problems are, though all of them are an expression of pride by my deffinition, which is taking anyones oppinion over Gods.  The first is perfectionism, an expression of that being procrastination, or the effort to not try, general lazyness, ect.  I do care too much about being completely right about things that don't matter so much, maybe one of those being the speed limit when it's clear the police don't care and other drivers don't want me to follow it.  I put too harsh standards on myself, and (I think) at least sometimes others in the ways we think about our effects on others, or expecting them to be near my physical-feeling levels when I want or don't want to do things, or just being critical when I don't know everything and don't have their mind and so don't have a right to judge them for what they seem inclined to do. 

   My second relates to the first in some ways.  I've said it before, but I'll say it again, I have a weak conscience.  It convicts me when it shouldn't, and that, in conjunction with my efforts to build it up by not defiling it (which have not been so sucessful), is rather annoying and imobalizing, like in Diplomacy games; I don't want to backstab people, but some deception could be game deciding.  I can't do things that my friends take for granted, like make prank calls, or other fun things that are sometimes a little in the gray.  I just to want to be free of it.  It's like having an unusally disgrunteled baby-sitter that won't let you do anything.  Am I living in the grey, though, and my conscience is strong?  It's hard to tell.  Somethings, maybe, but not the ones my conscience is after me for. 

   The third is one that's just unpleasent to have.  I'm rarely as honest as I should be, in some ways, one of those being with all the little things that annoy me.  It's a classical middlechild weakness, in conjuction with being easily embarised, which I also suffer from, but it's still something that could use some improvement.  We all have to learn to live with things that aren't perfect in other people, but it's wrong to let those pressures build to the point where we almost blow up at them.  I shouldn't just take pains from what people do as passively as I have before, not that not reacting to them isn't the best thing in some cases, but I should be more alive then that.   I should care more about myself, and the people who will be affected by my emotional condition, then to let people walk on me, and to all my friends who didn't know it, I'm sorry. 

   Moving on to other issues, I've been trying to convince myself and live out the fact that I don't want to wait until I'm out of college to start living my dreams, insofar as anyone ever will.  I'm gonna try, once again, to write a book, this time the first time on the computer, but it's not going so well so far.  But if I keep at it, I'll make it.  I believe that God has given me a few gifts, like a writing talent, a creating (or, more realisitically, a modifying) talent, and some faith, though I can't say how much, and I cheat Him and the world when I don't make the most of them. 

   The thing that brought some of this up is that I did really bad at school project for Heartland this semester.  I was a perfectionist; everything before now was going in a way that I could say with some honesty that I had a clean record, as if this were a video game where we'd all get points at the end of our lives based on what we did.  Now, I don't have that record, but if it makes me stronger and makes me try harder, I'll take it.  It's all for the best, and God's said that there's more hope in all of this that makes up my life then I can imagine, so I guess that's good enough. 

-Jacob

I don't think I could care about the cold tonight

   Annie died today.  

   Now, I just feel sad and relieved.  Maybe I shouldn't have held out on her for so long, instead praying that she would die quickly.  But God's done so much with my animals, so how could I know?   All of them have survived more then any animal should. 

   But Annie suffered.  She didn't die quickly, peacefully, or easily.  She hadn't slept in days, perhaps four, and she had had trouble breathing for all that time.  Some valve in her heart wasn't working right, so it was pumping her body full of some fluid.  The vet said that her condition wasn't fatal, just really uncomfortable.  But if their diagnosis had been correct, Shadrack wouldn't be alive right now, and maybe the others, too. 

   I'm glad she had the good life she had.  I knew she would die someday, and I've tried to treat her and the others as the valuable creations of God that they are that would eventually be taken away from me, and so I had to enjoy the time with them all that I could.  I let myself feel happy with them just for that.  I took her for walks, letting her smell things as the hunting dog she was half-bred to be.  I tried to get her to be at her optimal weight of thirty pounds, even though we started her on that diet when she was fourty-six pounds, and she almost made it, being about thirty-two, last I knew. 

   Shadrack hasn't been acting normal, but that's just because he's never known life without Annie, and she's been actively unexistent these last few days.  I still remember when she had her spinal stroke, jumping into the air high enough and yelping just once for me to notice that something was wrong.  I saw that she couldn't move, though she was smelling the ground near her.  So I carried her all the way back to the house, where I called mom and told her what had happened.  She made a miraculous recovery from that, though she could never run quite as fast. 

   I'm glad I was with her when she died.  It wasn't pretty.  Dad had just offered to take my shift at DP so that I could be with her for the evening, then was knocking on my door saying that she was throwing up blood and this might be the end.  I was with her as her heart stopped, though she had almost stopped breathing by the time I got to her.  We were all telling her how much we loved her, and how special she was to us.  I could feel her heart beating, and then it grew weaker, and ended. 

   She was ten years old, would have been eleven on June 25Th.  She died at about 4:45, as the sun was going down, or soon thereafter.  I loved her, as my pet.  I'll just quote one line of a song I was listening to before I knew her condition would kill her tonight, it's from Sanctus Real: "He gives and He takes, and it makes us stronger." 

   Pray for me to get it all out, folks. 

   I'll miss her.  Please come quickly, Lord Jesus, and end this suffering. 

These struck me

   I was reading my bible two nights ago and came across Ezekiel 2:1-2.  Here's why it struck me more then just any verse. 

   Ezekiel 2:1: "And he said to me, "Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak with you.""  Think for a moment on this.  Moses' face shown after talking with God, and everyone who sees an angel instantly reacts in fear.  In the two previous paragraphs, it describes the image Ezekiel is seeing as being of, to paraphrase, smooth fire above the waist and just fire below, along with an aura of the light of a rainbow (and rainbows are reminders of God's promise, though I can't say that has any significance here).  He is terrified, judging by his reaction.  And, normally, being terrified seems to be what God encourages.  Isn't that strange then, that God told a prophet to stand in front of Him, instead of having him on the ground in worship or whatever it might be?  Why tell the prophet to enter a body position which seems to be less worshipful?  Those were my original thoughts.  Thinking about it now, I can see that standing like that in God's presence would reinforce the fact that Ezekiel was responsible for giving the messages God gave him.  So it seems to me. 

   Ezekiel 2:2: "And as he spoke to me, the Spirit entered into me and set me on my feet, and I heard him speaking to me."  This one's much simpler.  Even in the OT, it was because of God's grace that anyone could do any good, and so do what God told them. 

   That's all. 

   -Jacob

Every now and then, I wonder...