Laminin

This is a pretty neat story and an interesting thing that few of us know. I received this in a email and had to share it with you all. It's brief, so please read. (FROM A CHRISTIAN DOCTOR)

A couple of days ago I was running (I use that term very loosely) on my treadmill, watching a DVD sermon by Louie Giglio... And I was BLOWN AWAY! I want to share what I learned.... But I fear not being able to convey it as well as I want. I will share anyway.

He (Louie) was talking about how inconceivably BIG our God is... How He spoke the universe into being... How He breathes stars out of His mouth that are huge raging balls of fire.. . Etc. Etc. Then He went on to speak of how this star-breathing, universe creating God ALSO knitted our human bodies together with amazing detail and wonder.

At this point I am LOVING it (fascinating from a medical standpoint, you know.) ....

And I was remembering how I was constantly amazed during medical school as I learned more and more about God's handiwork. I remember so many times thinking.... 'How can ANYONE deny that a Creator did all of this???' Louie went on to talk about how we can trust that the God who created all this, also has the power to hold it all together when things seem to be falling apart...how our loving Creator is also our sustainer.

And then I lost my breath. And it wasn't because I was running my treadmill, either!!!It was because he started talking about laminin. I knew about laminin.

Here is how Wikipedia describes them: 'Laminins are a family of proteins that are an integral part of the structural scaffolding of basement membranes in almost every animal tissue.' You see.... Laminins are what hold us together.... LITERALLY.. They are cell adhesion molecules. They are what holds one cell of our bodies to the next cell.

Without them, we would literally fall apart. And I knew all this already. But what I didn't know is what they LOOKED LIKE..But now I do. And I have thought about it a thousand times since (already)....Here is what the structure of laminin looks like... AND THIS IS NOT a 'Christian portrayal' of it.... If you look up laminin in any scientific/medical piece of literature, this is what you will see....

Now tell me that our God is not the coolest!!! Amazing.The glue that holds us together.... ALL of us.... Is in the shape of the cross.

Immediately Colossians 1:15-17 comes to mind.'He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.For by him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth, visible And invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities;All things were created by him and for him.He is before all things, and in him All things HOLD TOGETHER. 'Colossians 1:15-17Call me crazy. I just think that is very, very, very cool. Thousands of years before the world knew anything about laminin, Paul penned those words. And now we see that from a very LITERAL standpoint, we are held together... One cell to another... By the cross. You would never in a quadrillion years convince me that is anything Other than the mark of a Creator who knew EXACTLY what laminin 'glue' would look like long before Adam breathed his first breath!!

That is just waaaay cool! I love it!!!!!

Butterfly

Earth Day : P

So today is Earth Day and I think it is weird. It seems very paganistic to me. See Earth Day is a day to pretty much "worship" the Earth/Mother Earth and that is what pagans and Indians did (the Mayans and Aztecs and other Indian tribes).
Also, the politicians who are trying to get us Americans to notice earth day are hypocrites.
They tell us to cut back and save energy and they are the ones with huge homes with high electric bills and flying around in expensive jets!
I have to say that I do support Gov. Sarah Palin because she has conservative values and wants to get oil from Alaska so America doesn't have to continue declining into greater debt. So what if a few caribou have to migrate! If we produce our own oil (which we should have done decades ago) then we wouldn't rely on terrorists in the middle east to supply it for us.
If John McCain had won the election, this country would be in a better condition.
Oh and here is something we should all add to our prayer lists: Hillary Clinton is trying to get President Obama to pass a law saying that no one should have the right to home school. If she and other politicians get their way, we will no longer be able to home school and by law will have to attend public schools!
It would be a good thing in the sense that the public schools would have droves of Christian kids flooding into the public schools but bad because they would be taking away mothers rights to teach her children.
Pray my friends for God hears!

<3,
Butterfly

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW deserves the love and thanks of man and woman." --Thomas Paine

Get Active

Friends, when I say get active, I don't mean work out and exercise get active. I am referring to make a difference get active.
We teens, believe it or not, are the future and we can make a difference no matter how young. Make your voice be heard!
My heart weeps for our country as our leaders make unwise decisions. My friend Katelyn and I were discussing this topic earlier today on how President Obama is setting our nation up for destruction.
The only thing I can find true comfort in is love. Not just any love like romance but God's love for His children! He loves us sooo much that He sent His ONLY son that whosoever believes in Him shall have EVERLASTING life! That is a huge promise that only God, the Alpha and Omega can give and keep.
I was excited, even thrilled when I was finally able to have a chance to let my voice be heard at the TEA party rally last week.
The one thing all of us can and should do is pray. Not just a , "Dear God help our country. Amen" prayer but a REAL prayer like, "Lord God, you are a God who hears and answers prayer. Lord preserve our countries morals. Save us from this decline that President Obama is sending us."
Pray that God will save President Obama and if that is not possible, then may Obama be impeached! I can think of a few reasons for him to be impeached and I am not even an adult!
Friends, let YOUR voice be heard. Tell me what you think of all this.
Don't just brush it off and say someone else will deal with this because, "You may be here for such a time as this" (Esther 4:14).

Blessings,
Butterfly

End of last week and what is up this week

Hey girls and guys,

So here is the download of the TEA party in my town. Obviously you know it was last Wednesday and if any of you saw the news, you know the news people (except Glenn Beck) lied by saying it was mostly housewives at the TEA parties! There were plenty of men, teen girls and guys and even some kids! It was actually my very first rally and I saw quite a few people I know from my home school group. Here are some pictures of all the people there:

It was actually a lot of fun rallying for American CHRISTIAN rights! We sang God Bless the USA and we said the Pledge Of Allegiance and we heard a couple speakers and one sounded like he was a Christian man! : )

Thursday, nothing special that I can remember.... oh well, on to Friday!

Friday was BEAUTIFUL outside! I went to babysit that morning and we were outside most of the time taking walks and playing on the kids swing set. If you could add the family I babysit for to your prayer list that would be great. They had to have Terminix treat their house for termites and when I was inside babysitting, they were all over the place. I felt so helpless with all those bugs crawling EVERYWHERE and Summer (3 years old) was scared of them so she kept calling for me with her little voice saying, "There is another one right there! Get it!" She wanted me to kill them for her and I did kill at least 50 but it was hard work with a 5 month old baby in my arms. I fixed the problem of Summer being scared by taking her to the TV room and letting the three older kids (Noah, Marina and Summer) watch a kid show while I fed the baby a bottle. I was pretty exhausted when I got home but it was so nice out that I just had to be outside. I was able to wear a short sleeve top and shorts! Yeaaaa! Well my grandma came to visit at about 2ish and she gave me a birthday card which contained birthday cash!! I saved most and spent some on a couple new belts that I really needed (the belt I was using was purchased 6 years ago... and it still fit! LOL I am not kidding! : )

Saturday, my family and I spent the whole day outside! It was sooo nice out and we had so much fun together. We went out to dinner at a place that specializes in roast beef so all of our meals contained roast beef. : P

Sunday was a gloomyish day (is gloomyish a word??) because there was no sunshine. Well we did of course go to church and the message was on Aliens.... weird, i know. Well it was actually about how women and men seem to be aliens to each other's worlds and how God created us to be different to benefit marraige and our compatability. I wouldn't know much about that though cuz I am obviously not married but I do observe a bit of how my parents deal with sticky situations so I have a bit of a clue.

Today, I have been doing lots of studying (a typical day includes 6-8 hours of schoolwork for me) and baking. Yes I baked a cranberry dessert for my mom's Lia Sophia party tonight. Lia Sophia is like Avon but instead of selling beauty products, they sell jewelry. Well I need to get going to I can finish my schoolwork (just my history and social studies) and then we need to tidy up the house for the party tonight. TTY all L! Leave a comment to support my blogging creativity! : )

Blessings and Joy,

Butterfly

P.S. For those of you who wanted to see pics of my dresses I got for my b-day, here they are!

The blue one is my fav, the green/black/white one is my second fav and I really like the last one because it flatters my figure and makes me look more sophisticated.

Three exciting and happy days

Hey girls,

I hope your Easter was superb and delightful! I am going to tell you of the three funnest days I have experienced in April.

Lets start with April 12 (Easter). I woke up about 8:30am when my mom came in my room saying, "Happy Easter! Its time to wake up." I scurried to make my bed and joined my family in our living room to begin the search for out Easter baskets. Now I know what you may be thinking, "You still look for your Easter basket? Isn't that kiddy?" Well in a way it is but its a family tradition and its actually fun. And I had some of my favorite treats in my basket like Ferero Rocher chocolates! After everyone found their baskets, we ate a quick breakfast and got ready for church. The Easter service was lovely with extra singing and a great message.
To celebrate Easter, we ate at Famous Dave's because I had a birthday coupon (from signing up for the email club) for a free meal. I had ribs and fries (i know its not healthy but it was a special treat), my mom had chicken, my dad had ribs, my brother had pulled pork, and my sister had ribs. AJ ate a mix of sides (potatoes, green beans, french fries, etc...). You will be happy to know we had salads at home later.
After our delicious meal, we came back home and relaxed. I sat out front in my lawn chair reading my book Girl Talk... God Talk by Sally Miller. Unfortunately, none of our family was able to get together so we spent the day together taking walks and playing outside.

Monday WAS MY BIRTHDAY!!! I was soooo excited when I woke up! For breakfast, my mom made chocolate muffins! I enjoyed my delicious breakfast and then my mom and dad handed me my card. At first I was wondering where the gift was but I opened the card (which was beautiful) and inside my mom had written that my birthday gift is to go on a shopping spree with her to Kohls to buy some summer dresses for me! I was soooooo excited again because that is the one thing I have been wanting to buy for a while now. See I had only 2 dresses that fit and one was actually real short so I desperately wanted to get new dresses so when I read that my mom was going to take me dress shopping I couldn't help being as happy as I was! : )
I will post pictures of the dresses once I get a chance (hopefully before Saturday).
So after shopping, my family and I went bowling! I had called my friend Katelyn and invited her to come with us to celebrate my b-day and we all had a blast bowling together! Katelyn and I collected more gutter balls than we intended but we still had a great time! After bowling, Katelyn had to go home so we said our goodbyes and we went home. It was already almost 5pm when we got home so we had dinner which was Chinese food (sesame chicken, egg rolls, and egg drop soup)! I really like Chinese, Mexican, Italian and of course American food! I went to bed with very happy dreams and a full tummy. : )

Yesterday, I had Little Women at my house and it was sooo much fun.
I had made the dough for the cookies on my b-day before I had gone to bed so all I had to do was shape the cookies and bake them. Sounds easy right... wrong! Haman Hat cookies are supposed to be shaped almost like 3-D triangles but they always come out flat for me! : P
Well that only took about an hour and a half to complete but it was worth it! The cookies were sooo good! I had to hurry because after cookie baking and cleaning the kitchen, I was still in my pjs and I had less than an hour before my LW friends arrive! I did a quick hair fix and got dressed. Thankfully my room was already tidy.
I prepped the craft and got the devotion book out.
Just as I finished, my first friend arrived at the door at 12:58 (the Little Women meeting was to start at 1pm so it was perfect timing) and it was Tiffany. She was so sweet because she brought me a birthday gift! A couple minutes after she arrived, Allie and Jackie came. Then Olivia and Michelle. Sadly Nicole couldn't come because of other plans so we did miss her.
I let the girls choose what they wanted to do first and they all said craft so I took them into the kitchen and told them we were making homemade bath salts! Tiffany and a couple of the other girls agreed that it was the best craft in Little Women history (thanks Tiff!: )
The recipe is so easy. Its just 1 cup of epsom salt, 1 cup baking soda, a few drops of either lavendar oil or sweet orange oil and any food dye color you like. All the salts smelled great!
After making our salts, we did the devotion on Esther and it was cool because we read about how Esther had 12 months of beauty treatments before seeing the king and our bath salts are like our own beauty treatment to use at home. We then did a quiz on the book of Esther and afterwards, ate the cookies! Once we finished all I had planned, we still had about an hour of time left so we played a card game called Mafia! It is sooo fun! I will have to explain how you play another time because my fingers are getting sore from so much typing. After playing Mafia, we played another game called Sardines which I explained in a post a couple months ago that you can read. I was sad when everyone had to go but we had sooo much fun! Well that is all for now!

TTYL,
Butterfly

Happy Easter

I am so sorry that its been so long since my last post! I will do my best to fill you in on the latest and greatest.


Biggest News: EASTER IS TOMORROW!



Big News: MY BIRTHDAY IS ON MONDAY!!!



Almost Big News: This upcoming Wednesday, throughout the country will be the national TEA party standing for Taxed Enough Already. My family is going to one in a city near us. You can look up more info about this and what cities near you are participating at http://www.teaparty.com/ .



Other News: Well I have had a busy but fun week.
Monday my friend Katelyn came over to visit and we watched College Road Trip together and then we chatted for almost an hour afterwards until her mom came by to pick her up.
Tuesday, I went out to eat at Mongolian Barbeque with my mom because I had a birthday coupon to get a free meal since my birthday is in a few days. The food was sooooo good!!! My mom and I went to our Beth Moore Bible study that evening and learned about the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendigo.
Wednesday, my grandma came to visit us.
Oh I almost forgot! On April 2, I got my haircut! Nothing drastic, just a couple inches off the ends, layering, face-frame and she trimmed my side-swept bangs (the bangs needed to be cut the most!) LOL
After getting my haircut, we went out to eat with my grandma, great aunt, Aunt Tina and my cousins for my Aunt Tina's birthday! We had the vegetarian pizza and it was sooo yummy! : )

Back to this week now. Thursday was crazy because we did schoolwork and we tried to get yardwork done too because we had raking and thatching to do (I hate thatching so I just had to rake : )

GOOD FRIDAY was sunny out! Yeaaaa! I babysat Friday morning and I was exhausted when I got home because I watched all 4 kids since none of them were in school. So I had Noah (age 6), Marina (age 4), Summer (age 2), and Selah (5 months) and I am so happy that the kids are obedient and well mannered. I love them like family and they are so sweet. The girls are so adorable and when I had to go, they both wanted to give me a hug. It was so cute!
When I got home, my family and I ate lunch (grilled cheese and tomatoe soup! YUM!) and then we went to the summit to go swimming.
We had a good time swimming and my siblings love the pool. Especially AJ! He thinks its a giant bathtub filled with kids his size. : )
I was bummed because just after I had changed out of my swimsuit and into my clothes to get ready to leave, my friend Shannon was just getting in the pool! I wanted to go back in but I was too tired and everyone in my family was getting ready to leave.
Once we arrived back home, everyone took turns showering and then we ate dinner. We had a breaner (breakfast dinner) of waffles and sausage. AJ and I really like waffles! : )

Today, I woke up and sat in my bed and it was 7:30am! One thing kept running through my mind, "Where is my promise ring?" (weird thought to have when you wake up... lol)
When we had gone swimming yesterday, I had taken my silver promise ring off and put it in my swim bag but when I checked my bag this morning, it wasn't there. The first thought that came to my mind was that I had dropped it at the summit.
I ran for the phone and called the summit only to discover that no one had found any rings that matched my discription. I filed a missing report just in case they do find it. After I got off the phone, I prayed to God "Lord, why is my ring missing? Why just two days before my birthday? Lord, please let me find it."
God hears our prayers girls. Even our silly petty prayers like mine this morning. I decided to search my drawers and look through the clothes I had taken out of my swim bag and sure enough, tucked in my shorts that I had been in my swim bag was my promise ring! After placing it back onto my finger, I praised the Lord for hearing my prayers. I also called the summit to let them know that I had found my ring and to cancel the missing report and you know what, the nice man I spoke to said he was so glad I had found it! I told him I was happy too! : )
Well I hope this didn't bore you. Please leave a comment and tell me what you would like to read on my blog. I want to post what you want to read! : ) Thanks and have a HAPPY EASTER!

Blessings,
Butterfly