Category: Emily’s Writing

I can’t think before 9:00 in the morning. It doesn’t seem to matter what time I get up. Before 9:00, my brain runs about as quickly as a reptile in 30-degree weather. A teacher asks me to take notes on a 20-minute video, and I end up with three short sentences while other students have half a page. I’m not complaining; I think it’s kind of funny. (Also a great excuse not to try too hard first thing in the morning. I hate mornings.)

In the mornings? I write down in my notes the things other students, who are morning people, suggest. I respond to people’s questions, but don’t formulate many of my own. Because let’s be honest. Thinking is hard. Early in the morning (or for some of you, late at night), it’s easy to let other people do the thinking for us.

And that’s OK.

But what happens when we never pull our brain out of 30-degree reptile status? I think we all know the feeling of just accepting what the people around us say as truth, without giving it a whole lot of thought. We listen to music and don’t think about the words. We take what our friends say as absolute truth without questioning it. We read a Bible study book and assume it’s true because, honestly, it sounds pretty good.

And let’s be honest. Thinking is just hard. Other people go to school, other people learn about these things, other people have done my thinking for me. So why bother?

Today I was challenged to think. In chapel this morning, the speaker encouraged us to listen–really listen–to the lyrics of a song, and then respectfully, carefully, and biblically analyze it. Understand its worldview. Understand what themes it has that are correct…and which ones are wrong.

In other words, think. Think for yourself. Don’t just soak in the words, don’t just accept the messages the world is sending you.

Think about them.

Oddly, this is kind of a scary thing to suggest. The world around us says that they want us to think for ourselves. The truth is more like, “You can think for yourself, but only if your conclusions agree with mine.”

Why is this the case? Because thinking means asking questions. Asking questions means finding answers, maybe…maybe sometimes the wrong ones. Certainly different ones. Finding different answers means changing the way you live. Changing the way you live means going against the flow. Going against the flow means conflict. Conflict is uncomfortable.

It would be so much easier to just let other people do the thinking.

Thinking is hard.

Is it worth it? Should we take the time to think about the messages being sent to us? How far do we take this concept? Do we question everything, or only some things? What standards do we use to determine whether our new thoughts and conclusions are correct?

These are questions I find very, very difficult. Maybe you do too.

I am not going to give you an answer for those questions. I’m a college student. Currently, I have all questions, and very few answers.

Just….

Think about it.

New year, new you. Except it’s not a new me. It’s still just Normal Emily, doing the same things, over and over again. So you go to work. You go home. You go to school. You come home. You stress over things that don’t matter. You relax when you realize they don’t matter. You hang out with your friends, and it’s fun. You do something embarrassing, and it’s not fun anymore. You forget about the embarrassing thing, and life moves on.

You eat, three times a day. Why do we have to eat so often? You like some of the food. You forget it the next day. You hate some of the food. You forget that the next day too. Some nights you don’t get enough sleep. But you function anyway. Some nights you do get enough sleep. You’re tired anyway.

Life is a cycle, and nothing ever changes. Not really. You laugh, you cry, and then you laugh again. The sun comes out one day. It storms the next day. The next day the sun comes out again.

Life hurts, but not always. Life is good, but not always.

You make friends, you lose friends, you make new friends. People get married, people are born, people die, and in the grand scheme of things, does it really matter?

And yet.

And yet you can’t shake the feeling that it does matter. The beauty of the first winter snowflakes matters. That moment when you step in a puddle with socks on matters. The satisfying sigh at the end of a good book matters. The tears, the laughter, the secret smiles with friends, somehow they all matter.

It doesn’t make sense, but somehow we know that these things matter. That every little thing is changing us somehow, making us different. Because in the end, our life just consists of a bunch of random unimportant moments stacked on top of each other, but you look back and realize that somehow all those unimportant moments changed you.

The stress of a bad grade on a school assignment. The pain of watching friends move on to bigger things. Those embarrassing moments that make you want to hide in the closet. They change you, impact your view of the world, of yourself.

The victory of winning a race for the first time. The beauty of the changing seasons. That one friend you knew in elementary school that you haven’t seen in fifteen years. Those things change you. They impact your view of the world.

So maybe the circumstances never really change. But you change. Maybe life is just a cycle of goods and bads, ups and downs. Maybe the circumstances don’t matter, but your reactions do matter.

Maybe even the restlessness means something. Maybe even the restlessness is changing me for the better.

I love to read.

That probably isn’t very surprising, but nevertheless, it’s true. And during 2020, I branched out in some of the books I read and in some of the movies that I watched. So this post is devoted to some of my favorite book & movie discoveries of 2020.

So without further ado….my top 3 books:

1. Skyward, by Brandon Sanderson

I had heard a lot of good things about Brandon Sanderson and this year, I finally decided to try out one of his books. Skyward blew me away. The personalities of the different characters, the conflict in their relationships, and the way the emotions were portrayed was very gripping and well done. And the plot as a whole was really fun.

Plus, Doomslug. I mean how can you not like a book with a character named Doomslug?

2. Prophet, by Frank Peretti

This is an old book, but still excellent. The plot was complex but not quite as hard to follow as Piercing the Darkness, and the characters felt deeper and more realistic than in other books I’ve read by Frank Peretti. This is easily my favorite Christian read of the year.

3. The False Prince, by Jennifer A. Nielsen

I wasn’t expecting to love this book. I thought it would be cliche + boring + predictable and I don’t know where I got that idea, because it was none of those things. The main character had a really intriguing and funny voice, the plot was gripping and exciting, and the character relationships were so well done. This was my top Middle Grade read of the year.

Honorable Mention: Echo Island, by Jared C. Wilson

Again, I wasn’t expecting too much out of this book, but I was pleasantly surprised. The plot twist was mind-blowing, and even though the characters were a little cardboard cutout, I still enjoyed reading about them. The ending was also really well done.

I didn’t totally agree with the theology, but I did think the author’s beliefs were really well integrated into the story and explained….so I can’t really complain about that 🙂

Runners-up included Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson, Runaway King and Captive Kingdom by Jennifer A. Nielsen, The Winter King by Christine Cohen, and King’s City by Jessica Marinos.

I also watched a few new movies in 2020 (I don’t watch a lot of movies, so this list won’t be quite as extensive, but the ones I did watch were really enjoyable).

1. The Giver

I watched this movie like 5 times this year.

I still love it. It really captures the flavor of the book and left me with something to think about. Some of the scenes were heartbreaking, just like in the book, but they were vitally important to the plot. And the climax was an improvement on the book, in my opinion–the ending isn’t quite so unresolved.

Plus, the acting was really good.

2. Little Women (2019)

I loved this movie. The acting, the personalities of the characters, the additions made to the book, it was all really fun. I definitely enjoyed it more than the original (please don’t kill me). Even though I didn’t reallyyy care for Laurie this version. It was still really cool.

3. Inside Out

This was such a fun kids’ movie, and it almost made me cry. I teared up (BING BONG *sobs*). It was also a really cool idea of how emotions work together, and I liked the subtle messages and ideas communicated (like which emotions was charge in various people’s minds. Super insightful).

Honorable Mention: Christopher Robin

This movie was so. so. cute.

Highly recommend. I loved Winnie-the-Pooh as a kid, and this movie was very nostalgic and had a lot of funny lines.

No runners-up because these were easily my favorites (and tbh I barely watched any other movies this year, and didn’t really love the ones I did watch, so yeah.)

So there you have it….my top 3 (well actually 4….shhh) book & movie discoveries of 2020.

What were some of your favorite things about 2020?

If you know me, you probably know that I really enjoy Bible quizzing. I was introduced to it in sixth grade when I came to one of my best friend’s quiz-a-thons. Her team lost every round (it wasn’t a great day), but I was totally enthralled. My main thought after that quiz-a-thon was, I have to do this.

And so I started quizzing with the Manheim team in the fall of 2014. I was 12, and I quickly became obsessed with the game. The strategy. The competition.

I remember how excited I was when we first got in the playoffs that year, and how we won first place in our division at the end-of-year retreat. A star-shaped gold medal still sits in my treasure chest from that year–the only time I ever won a first place trophy.

But even that first year, it wasn’t so much the game as it was the people. As soon as I joined that group, I found myself loving their company. I connected with these people, in a way I’d rarely connected with others. Maybe it was because they were all homeschoolers. Maybe it was the diversity of opinions and denominations. But I felt accepted almost immediately.

The next years, I threw all of my effort into quizzing, sometimes at the expense of my other subjects in school. I moved into senior high and ended up on a team with two guys who were, in my mind, wayyy better than me. As an insecure 14-year-old, I was naturally terrified. Yet we ended with a third-place trophy in the top division.

But again, it wasn’t the trophy that mattered so much as the friends I made that year (turns out guys aren’t as scary as I thought :P). The team was small that year, and I built lots of friendships. Quizzing quickly became my preferred friend group.

I quizzed all of my high school years as well. We had our ups and downs (major ups and downs, and I cried way too much), but those friendships continued to develop as I found out more things I had in common with my teammates. The years my former teammates graduated were tough for me, because I didn’t want to lose those friendships.

And then, suddenly, it happened.

I was the senior.

*mindblown*

Wait, that wasn’t supposed to happen! I was supposed to keep quizzing forever, right?

So I devoted myself to quizzing more than ever that year. It’s fair to say that my life pretty much revolved around quizzing in the 2019-2020 season, and I had my best year ever.

And then it ended.

I told myself it was ready to be over. I’d put in all my effort, and I was ready to call it quits. I said goodbye, went home to insane pandemic world, and forgot about quizzing.

Till July 13, when my mom planned a surprise party for me and invited the senior high quizzers.

And I realized how much I was going to miss these people.

Tonight, we finally had our end-of-year celebratory pizza party (it should’ve been in April….thanks, COVID). I got to have a conversation about modern art and mind control, watch a slideshow of some of the year’s best moments, and play Ultimate Frisbee and Spikeball.

But even that had to end. The last people packed up their Spikeball net, said goodbye….and it ended.

On the way home, I wasn’t as happy as usual after hanging out with my friends. Because….it was over.

I thought I loved quizzing, and really, I did. I loved the game, the strategy, the competition, and the way the hard work paid off.

But it was never just the game. Sometimes I forgot, but the game wouldn’t have been the same without my team–not just my 2020 team, but every teammate and every coach I had since that first year when I was a quiet, insecure 12-year-old.

I’m going to miss quizzing with you.

So yeah. I know this got long and rambly, but I just want to say one more thing.

Thank you, members and coaches of the Manheim Bible quiz team. You’ve had a big influence on me, taught me so much, and given me a place where I feel safe and accepted.

You all are awesome <3

It’s hard to believe we’ve been doing this whole quarantine deal for a month and a half already. At the beginning of April, a month of this sounded like an eternity. . . but slowly, we’ve settled into our new normal.

But it’s always fun to shake things up a little bit, right? So yesterday our family took advantage of the nice weather and hiked the 500 steps trail.

It was a beautiful day to get outside. Spring is definitely on the way, and I’ve been missing it lately because I’ve been stuck at home, so it was great to see tiny leaves on the trees and wildflowers growing by the side of the road. Plus, it was a relief to leave the house without needing to wear a mask 🙂

After our hike, our parents surprised us by stopping at the Ice Shack for dessert. Even though we had to eat in the van, it was a special treat after being stuck at home for so long.

Then for supper, my mom decided to try making Cheesy Chowder, a dish from one of our family’s favorite book series. It was a hit . . . funny how food tastes better when it’s straight from an imaginary world 🙂

Quarantine can get depressing, but it can’t stop us from being creative, having fun or hanging out with the family 🙂

Some more pictures from our hike:

Hello, and welcome to social distancing with the Martins!

Last week, our family got to go to one of the most anticipated events of the year–Bible quizzing retreat. We arrived home to realize that, while we were gone, the state governor had closed down all of the schools due to…wait a minute….coronavirus?

Yup. And not just the schools. Churches, colleges (including LBC, where I’ve been taking a class the past few months), and basically every special event for the next few weeks had also been cancelled.

Since then, everything has gotten cancelled….although I’m sure, as fellow citizens of this lovely planet, you’re all aware of that…

This is quite a switch for me. Suddenly, I have no college class to go to, no work to get up early for, and no special events to look forward to. I have about three school subjects, and hours upon hours of free time. Cue confusion. It’s been months since I’ve had this much spare time.

But it’s not just me. Everyone in our family is dealing with the same feeling, to some degree or other.

So how have we been dealing with it? Here are some of the things we’ve done the past few days to entertain ourselves.

• I did more cooking in the past few days than I had for several months before that. It still wasn’t very much, but I was rather pleased with the results (I made pizza and brownies, both of which turned out rather well….unlike the waffle I attempted to make for breakfast this morning, but we won’t talk about that).
• Several of us took a bike ride yesterday, thanks to the warm weather. (“Several”, in this case, means seven, which, for the record, is too many.)
• Last night I got to play Memory with Gabriel and Callie. (Callie is undoubtedly the best.) Quote of the evening: Gabriel (speaking to me): “You’re bad at this game.” Callie: “Busted!” (They were right :P)
• My dad has occupied his time setting up a YouTube live stream to stream our church service on Sunday morning, since we’ll be closed for the next couple of weeks (will be streaming on our youtube channel)
• There have also been lots of Odyssey episodes to listen to and Facebook live videos to keep the little ones occupied (Cincinnati Zoo is currently their favorite).
• Lots of cleaning got done today, which is definitely a plus 🙂
• And of course, this has given me plenty of time to work on that novel I’d been ignoring lately 🙂

So….how has your family been handling social distancing? What have you been doing for fun?

Hello from the sunny South!

Our family is currently in Florida doing prison ministry, and tonight, we went to give a program for a re-entry center about an hour from our motel. I was kinda excited for our first program, and check-in and security went more smoothly than usual.

Unfortunately, the rest of the evening wasn’t as smooth. Pretty much our whole family is struggling with colds at the moment. Nothing terrible, but runny noses, scratchy voices, and bad breath support–none of which are great for singing. My ears were also closed for most of the night.

Thanks to these issues (and the amount of time we didn’t spend practicing before coming this year), basically everything went wrong during that program. At least that’s how it seemed to me, though in all honesty I’m a bit of a perfectionist in my opinion of how our programs should sound. But this one was worse than usual. We got off-key. We missed chords. We sang songs too slow. We sang songs too fast. We missed cues. The men clapped, but I cringed.

The worst happened during the second to last song, my only lead. I had pushed for us to sing that song, and I was excited for it. Maybe God needed to humble me or something, because as I got to the bridge, I realized that the rest of my music was missing. I had the first five pages, and after that … nothing.

Callie saw the problem and came over to help, but before we figured out where my music had disappeared to, I ran out of notes to play. I had no choice but to stop mid-line. My dad started talking, stalling for time as Callie flipped furiously through the pages, searching for my missing music.

The men laughed and clapped for us when we finally found the music, and I was able to finish the song, but it was discouraging. After all, the program before this point hadn’t gone particularly well, and now, on top of that, I had just wrecked my only lead.

Our last song was another piano song, Andrew Peterson’s Is He Worthy…
and the spirit of worship during that song blew me away.

As we finished the first chorus, the crowd erupted in cheers and applause at the declaration that Jesus is worthy. We kept singing, but my mood had changed with their applause. Something about hearing the whole room echoing with affirmation, especially in a place like that.

When we finished, the men gave us a standing ovation as we went to take our seats.

Isn’t it amazing, the ways God can use us? From my view, our program was a failure, especially my song. But it wasn’t me that mattered, it was God. And God decided to use our goof-ups, our mistakes, and our “failures” to deliver the most important message to a group of people who desperately needed it.

In some ways, that’s the most exciting things about serving God. God isn’t looking for perfect people to come and do his work. He just needs willing people to come and do what He asks. And when we do that, He works. Even when we’re off-key. Even when we’re sick. Even when we lose our music and it’s embarrassing.

God still uses us.

And that blows me away.

Wow, has it really been almost a month since I last blogged? Yikes. But yes, I am still alive (though I can’t say the same for my laptop, which would be one of the reasons it’s been so long :P).

The past month has been busy. Very, very busy, and now that I look back on it, not many truly noteworthy things happened. I’ve been working a lot, and unfortunately haven’t even had time for basic things like reading and working on my novel.

Which brings me to the title of this post, and the only reason I actually have time to write a blog post today: the flu.

Yup. It’s the flu, complete with constant coughing, a headache, lightheadedness, and a fever.

Like anyone, I hate being sick, especially when it cancels my plans. I was supposed to be at the bookstore today, but I woke up with the same fever I’ve been running since yesterday morning. I wanted to go to quiz practice tonight, but research informed me that the flu is highly contagious.

In spite of that, though, I have to admit that being able to take a break is kinda nice. My life has gotten pretty crazy lately, and being forced to let go of some of the pressure the last couple days definitely hasn’t been a bad thing.

Who knows, I might actually have time to work on my novel this afternoon and finish that book I got from the library.

Being sick definitely isn’t a picnic, and I do wish I could be working today and hanging out with my friends at practice. But I think God knows that sometimes, we just need a break. And when I can’t afford to take a break, He makes the decision easy.

So anyway. Hopefully I’ll be up and about again soon and doing noteworthy things to blog about 😉 To everyone reading this, stay healthy! I’ll be back with another post soon 🙂

OK, so last week I was planning to do a more “normal life” blog post, but as it turns out, time got away from me.

Not to mention that normal life is actually pretty boring. So there’s that.

But anyway. This past weekend, my family took a trip to Canada (which Sara blogged about as well). Instead of focusing on what we did over the weekend, I’m going to focus my post on the underappreciated aspect of family vacations … the car ride.

There’s just something special about road trips. Getting up while it’s still dark outside, snuggling under blankets in the cold van, the excited chattering that’s way too loud for 5:00 in the morning.

Then the peacefulness that settles over the van as we all finally go back to sleep again, and the gentle drone of my dad listening to an audiobook to keep himself awake while he drives.

Then the sunrise, followed by the growing chatter as one person after another wakes up again and starts asking for food, the search for a McDonald’s, and the ensuing chaos as everyone tries to get their order communicated to Mom first.

The little McDonald’s bathroom where I stress out about how frizzy my hair is after two hours of sleeping in the van. The strange-smelling hand soap and scratchy paper towels. Then climbing back into the van with deliciously unhealthy fried breakfast foods as we keep driving.

It’s amazing how much personality comes through when a family of ten is stuck in a small space for seven hours straight. Sara alternates between asking if we can please turn on the radio and cracking lame jokes that for some reason never fail to make me laugh. Callie sits with her earbuds in and her eyes closed, in her own little world, but tunes in to the rest of us often enough to pose for a picture or laugh at an inside joke.

Mitchell is begging to play on the tablet, and Gabriel is, of course, being his usual adorable self and trying to get attention with everything from funny comments to random loud noises. Laurie is wondering how soon we’re going to stop for lunch, and Aubrey is asking every half hour how long it will until we get there. Zachary has borrowed my phone and is jamming out to Tenth Avenue North in his headphones.

Lunch is another fast-food place, and after that, everyone is getting tired of driving. Gabriel still wants attention and is starting to get pesty as his sisters are ignoring him. Aubrey is yelling that she has to use the bathroom. Zachary has fallen asleep with his headphones still on, and I steal back my phone. He doesn’t notice.

But after awhile some of the kids start to fall asleep, and now we’re not far away from our destination. We reach the Millers’ house at around 3, and hang out with them for supper. Then at 8, it’s time to head out for the last leg of the trip–two hours to our cousins’ house.

The evening section of the trip goes well since most of the kids sleep. We reach our cousins house after ten. The cousins all stayed up to welcome us, and we climb out of the van into the cool Canada air.

Of course this is just a little picture of what our road trips look like. Every one is different, and some of them are definitely more fun than others.

But the last few times our family has traveled together, I missed it because I was doing something else. So it was a lot of fun to go on another road trip–even with the stressed-out parents, whining siblings, moments of carsickness and our rusty maxi van (which I’m still convinced is going to die for good sometime when we’re eight hours away from home).

It makes me kinda sad to think that the days when we all travel together in the van like this are numbered. But I’ll certainly enjoy them while they last, and this one added a bunch of fun new memories with my siblings.

Some funny quotes from the trip:

Me after noticing an unpleasant smell: “It [smells like] the paper mill again.” Gabriel (age 4): “No, it’s just the fog.” (Well of course. Why didn’t I think of that?)

Gabriel (singing): “Buffalo is a city! Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah!”

Sara (reading a billboard): “Antique and flea market??? Me: “Home of the Antique Fleas.”

[From the trip back]

Gabriel: “I took Buffalo and threw it in the trash can, and now Buffalo’s GONE!”

Also Gabriel: “The volcano interrupted!!”