God is Good

Hey everybody, Sage here.

I am feeling fabulous today, and I just wanted to share my joy with you! I hope you are enjoying whatever God has brought your way today. It is very, very beautiful here, and I am thanking Him for the sunshine, the green everywhere, and my family. What can you thank Him for today?

I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Sage

Welcome our new Poet to the S.J.

Hello Readers,

As of recently we have had the opportunity to post one of our good friend's poems here on the S.J.!

*Applause*

Here it is: enjoy "All I am" by Wynter Strapps.

P.S. We want feedback! Tell us what you think of Wynter's poem.

ALL I AM

All I am,
And all I’ll be,
I lay them down before your feet.
Now I pray for you to speak through me,
As I have foreseen.

All I see,
And all I hear,
To you I hold them dear.
Now I ask for you to come,
And leave a lot, not just some.

All I hope,
And all I ask,
Is for me to complete my task.
And to help me along the way,
To be complete someday.

All I want,
And all I need,
Is for you to take the lead.
To someday be made whole,
That is my dream and goal.

All that exists,
And all I live for,
Not just tales of old lore.
Make your way clear to me,
So I am all you want me to be.

All the memories,
And all the dreams,
Are not always as they seem.
They come and go,
Over which I have no control.

All my faith,
And all my beliefs,
Will never begin to cease.
Let your will be done,
By earth and by your Son.

All I persevere,
And all I feel,
Goes away with just one kneel.
And with the coming of night,
You shine through with you light.

All the hurt,
And all the pain,
Will never be in vain.
‘Cause when I pray,
It goes away for a day.

All my longing,
And all my suffering,
Never seems to have an ending.
It just goes on and on,
Sometimes I wish I were gone.

All the suffering,
And all the tears,
Fall on us through our fears.
And when all hope is lost,
Our Lord and Savior pays the cost.

All I think,
And all I’m here for,
I look to you evermore.
Someday I’ll walk those streets of gold,
But while I’m here I’ll be bold.

All I achieve,
And all I aspire,
I must strive for before I retire.
And all the world has faded to grey,
Before the dawn of another day.

All I trust,
And all I foresee,
Is unlocked with just one key.
That key is to my heart,
The Lord owns it all, not just a part.

All my life,
Is like a song,
The road is narrow and long.
But it will all be worth it,

When I am gone, and eternity is perfect.

Owen!

Hello to all my friends, it's Sage here. I'm ecstatic about this summer! I can just smell great adventures ahead of us.

It feels great to be writing here again, this is undoubtably one of my favorite things to do.

Our new mascot at the Serendipity Journal is going to be a small, but highly intelligent hedgehog. I am going to introduce this series with his first new diary entry. I hope by the end of this, you will be as much as in love with Owen as we are here at the S.J.

"The Adventures of Owen the Hedgehog."

Adventure one - told as from the diary of Owen, the hedgehog

Dear Diary,

I am most content on this rainy day in my humble dwelling. Since all of my laundry is washed, the kitchen floors are swept, the kettle is set on to boil, and my frog vault is securely sealed, I am at liberty to write in you, my new diary. I suppose I will have to start relatively from the beginning. You need an explanation of how I got to my current situation. That way, you will be up-to-date, in a sense, on my wonderful hedgehog life. First, you should know that I am partial to referring to myself as a civilized being, not a mere, mindless hedgehog. Second, I love living outdoors; although, mind you, I sincerely dislike bugs. Even though my species generally diets on those sorts of organisms, I am accustomed to my European diet of fresh vegetation. I do enjoy an occasional snail or two now and then. As for my frog vault, I assume you have been wondering about that from the start. Well, I often refer to it as my "order Anura protection agency." In return for the protection I give them with my highly technical vault [which I will explain later], the frogs catch those unruly bugs around my abode. You see diary, some hedgehogs and other predators thoroughly enjoy the taste of frogs. Personally, I detest that leathery skin and cold blood, but that's just personal opinion. For more about me, I love to read, going for long walks in the woods and parks around my house is on of my favorite thing, oh, and kittens! Now that I have got most of that nonsense out of the way, I would like to explain to you my line of work. It is somewhat classified, but I have been given permission to tell the majority of it to helpless civilians. I work for a government, but this is most definitely not any government [more on this in the next entry.] It is called the faerie, or fairy government for those of you who are not familiar with these highly intellectual words. I have a diary tendency to tone my vocabulary down for that group of you I have just finished mentioning. Most of my friends are actually not who you would expect. With the exceptions of my family, Nolan Rabbit, and Mr. and Mrs. Feline, the majority of my friends are [oh, and of course the frogs] part of the faerie district. That story will be for another time, but I do spinely promise, [that sort of promise is very, very sincere in the hedgehog species] that I will explain all of that in due time. As for the current moment, the rain has stopped and there is a rainbow in the sky. And, to keep tradition, I must leave and go wish my [faerie] friends well, at the end of the rainbow. Au revoir, diary.

Yours truly,

Owen

SUMMER

Hey, it's Carrie!

Well this might be the most disfunctional (apparently that is not a word) SJ post you have ever read in the short course of this d life.

I've got my summer all planned out:

-I'm going to try to complete the Susie Mag 30-Day Challenge (see http://www.susiemagazine.com/ in June)

-Twice a week, my friend and I will jog because she needs to get in shape for track next year. I'll go over to her house and sleep over, then we'll wake up really early and go running for a little while. Then she'll come to my house and sleep over and in the morning we'll do the same thing. (we'll see if this works)

-Every other weekend another friend from school will sleep over at my house and go to church with me

-I'm going to a wedding!

-Right after that I'm going to Student Life Conference w/ my youth group!

Then I don't know what I'll do for a month and a half till school starts!

Speaking of school... Yesterday was my last day. I go to a Christian school and we have weird rules like: If you have an A in a class with 4 or less absences, you don't have to take the final in that class. Finals were today, and I have all A's with 4 or less absences. So I don't have to take finals, which are today! Otherwise today would be my last day of school. It is for everyone else.

Which makes me sad! I hope I get to hang out with all the friends I made this year at school! I will miss them if I never get to see them for 3 months!

Hey, let me know what you're doing this summer! I'd Looove to know! Write funny stories about your summer, too, that we can post.

Guess what I learned the other day? Apparently it's an old-ish, 80s or 90s saying:

H.A.G.S. = HAVE A GREAT SUMMER!!

Epic Crash[es] By Sage Anderson

My whole story launches from a van overflowing with sleds, tubes, skis, snowboards, and too many sweaty and adrenaline-filled high schoolers. Our crazy group anticipated the run as the overloaded vehicle reached the top of the mountain. This my friends, is where I began my trip. Unfortunately, my friend Sarah and I were making this journey together on a “Microsoft Windowsish” sled. No one would have guessed what was in store for me and my daring partner. It all started when I was standing smack in the middle of a high-speed pathway. That is not too much of a bright idea, as I quickly found out. We crashed further down the slope and lost control, and the sled lurched and threw us into a clump of alders and a fellow sledder. My neck did not feel too well, and Sarah’s arm was hurt. Joel was on his hands and knees groaning about his ankle. Was it broken?

“I think it’s going to be o.k.”

“Thank God!” Sarah and I still felt terrible, and we should have stopped our attempt of the slope right then and there.

Not three minutes after our ankle-bashing failure, we started descending the hill again. Our wimpy foam board gained speed. Spinning around backwards, we careened towards yet another bank filled with trees. Extraordinary instincts in my gut told me we were headed toward something hard and painful. (Actually, the shouts of all the people closely watching us might have possibly, somewhat, maybe a lot to do with it, too.) Sorry to say, we didn’t get off the sled in time, eventually ending in another pileup with a few more sledders. Thankfully God loves us enough to have saved us from a catastrophic death. Due to our newly acclaimed fame, people came over and congratulated us on our amazing lack of skills. We officially became the most esteemed klutzes of all time.

Sarah and I decided to walk down the hill for a while to regain our broken confidence. After a while, our fear was replaced with excitement, and we tried once more to go down the hill on that horrible sled. These attempts only resulted in splats on our faces.

As we finally came close to the end of the hill, the realization hit us that we hadn’t gone through the worst. One more gnarly drop awaited us and our failure of a sled. Did I mention how this also led to a snow-covered bridge over a small creek? We heard it calling us to make a monumental attempt. After all, it was our last run, we had to try to sled down. My brave friend sat with me for the absolute perfect moment. Pushing off into the unknown and trusting the self-willed piece of plastic was the only thing we could manage. To even remotely think that we should try this was probably not a fabulous idea. Down the steep hill we went, bouncing over the jumps, and rounding the curve.

There it was; the bridge. The same feeling that I felt so strongly earlier surged over me, for we had whirled backwards for the thousandth time. I could not tell which way we were going, or what was happening. My pathetic, slow-motion groping was not enough. At that moment, thoughts were wiped out of my head from the force and shock of the fall. Whipping around and forcefully catapulting into the icy creek, I could hear the sounds of water gushing and the blurred voices of my friends. The water poured over me, washing my senses out. Stunned, I realized that worthless, evil piece of foam threw me in the water. Everyone gave me a hand to pull me, who stood soaking-wet, out of the creek.

I got out and as I peeled my drenched coat off I told them I was wasn’t hurt. Also, it was hard not to help but join them in laughing. It was such a typical episode from me, the person who gets hurt walking around her house by knocking into stationary objects. (i.e., tables, walls, door frames, creeks, etc...) Some people would call this predicament an awesome wipeout, a freshman initiation, and a gift from God that I wasn’t hurt. I am sure many would describe it as beyond hilarious. It was epic, and I won’t ever forget it!

Favorite Books Anyone?

Dear Readers,

Carrie and I were wondering if you have some titles you would like to share with us. We would love to hear from you. Tell us what books you absolutely couldn't live without, what you are reading currently, or ones that you might want to read and need a review of. Tell us anything and everything you know about books.....well, maybe not everything. We do want some suggestions, though.

I am super excited to hear your feedback!

-Sage Anderson for Carrie and the S.J.

P.S. Email us if you would like to have a job reviewing books for our readers! serendipityjournal@gmail.com

Honesty

Honesty is a highly acclaimed virtue. This virtue is established through words and actions. It is simple, yet also difficult to attain absolute honesty. According to the dictionary, honesty is truthfulness, justice, equity, genuineness, reality, sincerity, and morality. In contrast, honesty is not: deceit, dishonesty, lies, tricks, or cheating. Any of these acts do not resemble total honesty.

There are numerous causes for people to not achieve perfect honesty. The most prevalent of these is fear. Fear of embarrassment, punishment, or negative consequences. Branch Rickey once stated, “Basic honesty allows a man never to be ashamed.” This tells us we have no cause to be dishonest. Being honest has many advantages, some of which include trust from others and opportunities for the future. If youth are honest they are enabled to make wise decisions, and to become good students, adults, citizens, employees, and employers. These reasons are only a couple of examples of why youth need to regard honesty highly.

It is very sensible for youth to be honest in all situations. William Shakespeare once said, “No legacy is as rich as honesty.” And Lise Meitner also said, “Justice is inseparable from truth.” We should be careful to speak and act in the truth at all times. School, home, church, social situations, [such as purchasing supplies at a store, or attending parties and sporting events] in legal situations, [such as probation hearings or being stopped by a peace officer] entertainment, and employment are great places to show complete honesty. Demosthenes, an ancient Greek orator, declared, “What we have in us of the image of God, is the love of truth and justice.” This statement finalizes the topic of having absolute honesty in everything.