Thankful Day 17 & 18

November 17: Podcasts
It is possible that I would not be a Christian today without podcasts. Well, God probably would have still gotten me since he chose me before time began, but podcasts have been the avenue by which He used to woo me to Himself - specifically Matt Chandler podcasts because God uses that man in the most powerful way. Matt speaks truth so passionately that it makes me want to be closer to, and know more fully the God that we both serve.

Not to get deep on you, but this is deserving of deep. When I was a sophomore in college, I experienced the most rock bottom low point of my life to date. I was really quite depressed and most of the time confined to my bedroom with a PB&J and a movie or an episode of One Tree Hill. I cried all the time and didn’t really know why. Well I knew why, in a big picture sense, but the littlest thing could completely set me off. Like the time I spilled my sonic drink on my carpet. I screamed bloody murder which turned to sobbing and collapsed into the arms of Becca Feagin who was there through it all. It was very upsetting to be so spectacularly sad, because up until that point I had been very happy-go-lucky with minimal encounters with the sad emotion in general. In fact, the only competing trauma that I had previously experienced was when Bethany Lanier told me I had squirrels for eyebrows in the 6th grade. Have I told y’all that story already? She was absolutely right, and it was absolutely devastating.

Anyways, I still remember the day that Alaina Mueller told me about Matt Chandler podcasts and I kind of shrugged her off and stared blankly out her window. She owned a pet snake named Max Mueller and so I kind of assumed that I could not take her advice seriously. Little did I know that this advice would drastically alter the direction of my life. Some time passed before the day came that I was laying in the fetal position in my floor (rock bottom), and decided to put on the “Heart Matters’ sermon series by MC. I listened to all 6 sermons in a row and just cried and scribbled notes in my journal as fast as I could. I had to pause the sermon multiple times so that I didn’t miss anything.

That entire rest of semester, I listened to podcasts during class, after class, before bed, and when I woke up. I would listen to 3 or 4 sermons a day, and made my way through every sermon from like 2001 to 2008. It was the only thing that got me through the days. So I listened to Matt Chandler, and cut down on the PB&J’s. I still cried like, every day, but sometimes I cried happy tears because I realized that the God of the Universe loves me and was with me. I introduced my entire family to podcasting and I like to think it has radically changed each of us. Actually God has radically changed each of us…he just so happened to use podcasts in this instance. But as it stands, here we are today, a bunch of crazy and broken wack-jobs known as the Brown-Rice family, side by side but a million miles away, praising Jesus, the worthy Son of God.

The entire thing is a series of really sweet and awfully painful moments that I pray God will seal in my memory forever. I don’t want to forget how I felt. I don’t want to forget that when EVERYTHING in my life fell to shambles, Jesus was still enough. It was a blessed time of surrender and brokenness that allowed me to experience Christ in a way that I never had before. I believe it was the most loving thing God could have done. And for that I am grateful. And I was different after that. Forever different.

So I know this is very serious and not really funny at all - I am aware, but I cannot and could not be more thankful for podcasting and its eternally weighted impact on my life.


November 18: The Twilight Saga
….To take a drastic turn towards the shallow, we move now to the Twilight Saga. And you know what? I am swallowing a lot of pride posting this post. But I am not ashamed. Today is the day that me and tweenie boppers everywhere have been waiting for for almost a year and a half. Today, Breaking Dawn, Part 1 movie comes out in theatres everywhere. Did I see the trailer on the FIRST DAY it was released? YES. Did I research the little girl who will be playing Reneseme? You mean, Mackenzie Foy? Obviously yes…and she is perfect! Will I be seeing the movie on opening day…as in tonight at 7:00PM?? HECK YES BABY!!!!

This post may or may not be a cry for help. I haven’t always been like this. In fact, when the movie Twilight came out, I scorned my littlest sister Brittney for liking it and then subsequently reading the book. She claimed that she had lost a bet, and that she HAD to read the book as punishment, which was total crap. I laughed and pointed my finger at her and called her names like “idiot” and “sell-out.” And then went on with my day. I mean how good could a movie about vampires and werewolves POSSIBLY be?! I thought she had lost her mind.

Around that time, my clone of a little broskie, Carson (READ: love. of. my. life.) and I went to see the movie. During the previews we made a pinkie promise to not be obsessed with this movie. We made a pact to not act like teenage girls about it, but we WERE curious to know what all of the hype was about.

We watched the movie and the acting was awful, and the lines were cheesy. Can we just talk about the part where Edward says “You better hold on tight, Spider Monkey.” Who the hell didn’t catch that and vocalize how ridiculous it was and OMIT it from the movie? Can I even trust these writers with a line like that?! I left the theatre thinking…what the heck is wrong with America?! Carson and I were both like, “That wasn’t even that good…right!??” And I thought that would be that. Game over.

But NO. Twilight planted a little obsession time bomb in my head that wouldn’t detonate until later that night. Edward Cullen showed up in my dreams, and I couldn’t stop thinking about Bella and Edward’s love story for like 3 days. It crept up on me like a cat, and I was in over my head before I even knew what happened. I started reading the first book with MUCH ridicule (rightfully so) from my littlest sister, and subsequently read the entire saga in less than a week. I was so caught up in the characters that I didn’t sleep, I lived on coffee and adrenaline as I read frantically. I could not put it down. Page after page I drank up the story. I locked myself in a room and read and read and read until I fell asleep and then I would wake up, make coffee, and read again.

After I closed the final book, Breaking Dawn, a part of me died a little. I didn’t really know how to move on from there. What was I supposed to do with my free time now? What happened to the characters?! I mean yes, the story was concluded, but I wanted to know what happened in their everyday lives…forever (vampires never die, so honestly the story can never end). I walked around like a zombie and just moped throughout the house. I was really lost. It was a dark time.

It took me about 2 weeks and a few more times of seeing the movie for me to really get past it. I want to read the books again, but I know that if I read even one page, it will put me out of commission for an entire week, and at age 23 I just don’t have that kind of time.

But today is a good day, and I have been counting down the hours to see part 1 of Breaking Dawn, which will inevitably piss me off as I already know it will be a cliffhanger. And then the producers or whoever the hell is in charge is making us wait ANOTHER FULL YEAR before releasing part 2. WHAT tha WHAT?!!?

So if you were wondering, I am totally Team Edward. But not team Robert Pattinson. I am definitely more of a Taylor Lautner fan…and it doesn’t hurt that he is incapable of wearing a shirt in the movies. But in the books (which are infinitely better than the movies) Edward is every girl’s dream.

Edward swoons over Bella at the faintest whiff of her hair. (This could be described as lust probably, but he is lusting over her blood so that is better right?) She is his own personal drug that he is extremely addicted to. Edward scoops her up and flies FLIES! through the treetops. Edward’s skin turns into diamonds in the sun. He runs, like, realllllly fast. He plays baseball. He can stop trucks with his hand. He constantly protects Bella who has a chronic case of clumsy and getting herself into dangerous situations. Edward has limitless self-control—he can kiss his girlfriend, get all riled up, and then hurl himself back against the wall to flagellate himself for almost losing control. Oh, and that flagellation: Edward. Is. So. Tortured. Just to speak takes a heroic effort of will. His face contorts and words issue forth slowly. Haltingly. With infinite pain. Then, of course, Edward can totally kick butt when his beloved is in danger.

So you put all of those elements together and you have an unattainable ideal that has been indelibly imprinted on the brain of every pre-adolescent and adolescent girl out there. (AND ADULT GIRLS.) Essentially it has doomed American boys everywhere. No matter how good they are, they will never be a 200-year-old adolescent pretty boy with super powers that can read your thoughts.

And so yes, I probably should be “above this” and probably should be embarrassed of my adoration of the Twilight saga, but I am not. I own it. I love it and I don’t care who knows it. So, I am very thankful for Stephanie Meyers who had a dream about vampires and wrote this exceedingly amazing book series! Bethany and I have done a marathon of all the first Twilight movies and we are pumped and ready and equipped with treats for the 7PM showing of Breaking Dawn!