Dreaming. Barfing. Singing.

Sometimes God makes sure that I believe what I sing

This quick blog is along the lines of my "My Ebenezer" post, except that it's more of a joke than a spiritual revelation that I had.

I try to stay true to the words that I worship the Lord with, whether it is in prayer or in the songs that I lead others in proclaiming. It's important to mean what you say! The very first time I led worship vocally was at Davis College, and God used (among other things) the words to the song I was singing to convict me to step out of my comfort zone and trust in His purpose for my gifts. So, right from the start, this has been a theme. Mean what you sing.

Last night I had a dream in which the night never ended; though I was sleeping in reality, I forgot that I had ever found my way to bed and in dreams I continued the exhausting night as circumstance after sleep-preventing circumstance kept me from getting any rest. Finally, around dream-world 6:00am, I overcame all synthetic obstacles and in my dream, I fell asleep. In reality, I woke up at 6:30.

The brief moment of confusion in which dreams and reality overlap did not treat me very well, as for a minute or so I was convinced that I had only been asleep for a half hour.
As I realized incrementally that 80% of my recollection of the previous night was a mirage, I remembered that today is Sunday, and I had to get cracking in order to be ready to lead worship at both services. Exhausted, I wandered into my kitchen.

Being the health-concious person that I am, I drank a large cup of water right away. After that I forced myself to eat some oatmeal, and poured a cup of coffee that I held firmly in front of me as I summoned the energy to drink it.

Drink. The coffee. I stared blankly ahead of me. I have to drink this coffee.
No motion.

My parents walked out the front door and called out "We'll meet you at church!"

Once left alone in my kitchen, I became very conscious of my catatonic state. Sitting rigid at a table is a bad excuse to be late to church.
I stared purposefully into my cup of hot brown energy, and got ready to send it down the hatch.
I need this coffee to get through this day.
The show must go on. I took several gulps and triumphantly placed the empty mug (still warm) in the sink. For good measure, I drank another full cup of water to keep from dehydrating. Then I left my home housing an epic battle between two liquids inside of my gut.

When I pulled into my church's parking lot, I felt that the battle was about to be taken outside. I tweeted, asking my twitter followers for their prayers against my sick-feeling stomach. No sooner had I sheathed my cellular than the need to hurl came upon me like green olives on a pregnant lady's cereal. (What?)

Jake and I were discussing only yesterday what our favorite word for "vomit" is. I like the phrase "tossing cookies". Jake likes "Blowing chunks." What I did was more like "shooting fluid." Whatever you want to call it, I felt like Squirtle.

Autocorrect really wants me to leave SQUIRTLE in all caps. As you wish, Apple.

Anyway, immediately upon supersoaking my tires in the parking lot, I felt worlds better and walked into church ready to strum some Jesus Jams.

During the service, I was playing the song "Hosanna (Praise Is Rising)" when I came to the line "When we see You, we find strength to face the day"

In the middle of singing, I flashed back to the moment that I slugged a hot cup of coffee in order to find strength to face the day. As I reflected on the fact that coffee can't equip you for a day the way that He can, I remembered casting my coffee back into the overworld only an hour earlier.

I'm not implying that God caused me to vomit up my coffee in order to recognize Him as my source of daily strength and mean what I sing, however it was a funny moment to recognize the irony and I almost laughed in the middle of the song and Kim Walker'd that jones.

A Fairy Prince, A Hairy Prince, and Berry Prints.

Once Upon A Time,
Jacob, Hannah and I decided to watch a movie on Netflix. As Hannah flipped through the options, a title came to my attention. The Swan Princess.
I made some kind of loud noise and announced to my siblings that I used to watch that movie ALL THE TIME as a small child.

Rather than just choosing that movie (which would have been a questionable choice to begin with), I asked Hannah to search for a different movie that I used to watch all the time: the infamous Thumbelina.

I literally watched Thumbelina constantly as a child. Days in a row. I knew every song. I absorbed mannerisms and quotes. However, I don't believe I had watched it since I was around 6 years old. Until last night.

Before I go any farther, I have to share this...
This video is from the beginning of Thumbelina where all the animals are singing about her, and she straight up does the punch-dance-run that I do daily. If you spend any regular amount of time with me, click and behold; the video will automatically go to the part where she does it because the internet does what I tell it to do.

Now, I logically noted that since one of my only dance moves was derived from a movie that I watched as a small child, it is possible that I have picked up other things subconsciously as well.

I really hope that's not true.

The more I watched, the more incredulous I became. Thumbelina herself is completely ridiculous, from her obnoxiously dramatic voice and terrible logic to her inexplicable habit of constantly losing her balance and falling over. Seriously, the whole movie she's stumbling around and waving her arms like she's going to fall.

I had a lot of critique for the little lady, when suddenly...

Cue love interest. Prince Cornelius.
A tiny little fairy man. With pretty sparkly wings. And tights.
After stating a few qualms I had with the romantic side of this movie, I will move on to what I'm actually here to blog about....but PAUSE.
1. Thumbelina and Cornelius meet when he breaks into her house. Then they leave, fly around on his royal bumblebee named Buzz Bee, singing and gettin rull cuddly. Then he drops her off at home and leaves. Within this first night of ever seeing eachother, they almost kiss like five times. What up boundaries?
2. Thumbelina gets kidnapped the next day and talks about him as though they've known eachother forever. Of course she drops the L bomb like it's hot. Someone even asks her if they're engaged, and she implies that it won't be long until they are. Keep in mind, they met ONCE.

I could rant about the messages being communicated to impressionable and romantically-minded little girls about love (and premature PDA), but I'm not really in it for satire right now.

Jacob made a comment along the lines of "Why is HE the fairy? Why isn't this movie about a guy who meets a fairy GIRL?"

Around then is when I realized that Thumbelina is far from the only "princess movie" that includes an effeminate male love interest. Though Cornelius is a fairy prince and thus a really extreme example, I couldn't think of any fairy tale that involved a seriously manly love interest. The men in these stories are usually royal (with the exception of like, Aladdin... who becomes a prince later) and they don't seem to have much of a life outside of waiting for a worthy princess. Sitting, waiting, wishing. Wistful lonely princes.

Obviously, by definition, somebody has to be royal in a princess movie. And for some reason, girls like to dream about being princesses. Why? I'm not sure. I don't even know what princesses legitimately do. I don't think little girls do either. Possibly, they just want to be princesses so they can walk around being gorgeous and getting whatever they want, including some handsome guy who also doesn't do anything but walk around being gorgeous getting whatever he wants. Then the can marry and create small gorgeous children that walk around being adorable and getting whatever they want. Then you have a family of three people that think the world owes them something for being gorgeous.

That, ladies and gentlemen, was called a "ramble". I don't know where I was going and I don't know where I arrived. So now, I'm going to google search "What does a princess do?" because I don't know at all.

Okay. My internet research concludes roughly this:
A princess is a housewife, that can basically have whatever she wants but has to make sure she doesn't become more popular than her husband. Also she should make sure she uses her automatic fame to support charitable causes, and she must go to fancy dinners with foreign royalty, and make (and I quote) "balcony appearances".

Cool. Now we know.

That's actually kinda cool. Being a housewife and not having to worry about making ends meet.

However, I'm now confused about single princesses.

Actually wait, that makes sense. If you are a SINGLE princess, you have nothing to do but bake for potential husbands and get kidnapped. Jeez... Mario wouldn't have to rescue her so often if he would just man up and pop the question, right?

 Wait no, what am I saying? Mario's definitely man enough. She must have rejected him because he's a plumber and can't support her. Maybe he doesn't want to marry her because he doesn't want to be a prince. He'd probably have to shave.

 

NO. NO. No. 

I can't ever focus. Where was I going with this? 

Disney Princes. Okay. Shifting away from Nintendo. 

Just take a look at this picture of Disney Princes that I found yesterday:

Do I even have to comment on this?
And yet I do... with a BuLLeTeD LiSt!1!11

• Capes are not manly unless you are one of the following:
• A superhero
• A supervillian

The obvious inclusion of flowers and sparkles shall speak for itself. 

However, last night I took it upon myself to decide which one of these princes was actually the manliest. I immediately ruled out any prince that initiated a love story with a creepy sing-off in the forest. Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, your boys are out. 

Cinderella's dude. You're wearing shoulder pads. Boom, roasted. 

Prince Eric, Aladdin, or ...THE BEAST! 

It seems obvious that the winner should be the beast, but it just isn't. I mean look at him. It's sad, because he had some real potential. Who'da thunk he'd transform from a monstrous and physically capable buffalo-bear-lion hybrid to a seriously hairless man with shoulder-length goldy locks? Belle got ripped off. Bait and switch.

Not that manliness is based on stature and hair, cuz it's not. But moving on... 

Eric or Aladdin. Aladdin, to be fair, married into royalty and wasn't always a prince. Grew up the hard way, had to fight for his life and live on the edge. 

Eric, however, is a sailor. He does something other than waiting around for a potential wife. Something pretty rugged.

Ariel's kind of a creep. She's pretty much a stalker. However, she was only sixteen. Sixteen year old girls are definitely creepy stalkers when they crush on people. Her behavior is dumb, and not excused. Regardless, I'm pretty sure Eric is a baller for

1. Legitimately being a sailor, IE being something other than just a prince
2. Spearing Ursula! Conflict resolution. Shank the evil.
3. Being a cool dad later. 

I choose Eric. 

For some reason, I'm too ADD to sit in one place and think of one thing for long enough to complete a blog entry in one night. I spent three or four nights (I can't remember precisely how many) writing this. Don't attach that fact to the quality of the blog, please. I didn't take any time to perfect it. I just kept getting distracted from finishing. 

In conclusion, Disney princes are obviously intended to be idealistic personifications of "the perfect man".

• The "bad guys" are usually manlier, but they also suck
• Emphasized traits are generally their singing voice, and their desire to pursue a girl they hardly know and immediately marry her. 
• A sensitive, romantic, good looking, singing prince is only able to protect you because he has an army (With the exception of Philip who slayed a dragon. Kudos to that guy.) and bodyguards and loyal subjects and all that. I bet Snow White could beat that nameless prince at arm wrestling.

Personal Disclaimer:

Just so you all know, I'm not dissing classic love stories on account of my jaded bitter soul or something dumb like that. I happen to be, in fact, a huge fan of realistic romance. Real life love. I think it's awesome. I celebrate it. I'm awed by it. My God invented that stuff. It rocks my world.

However, fabricated romance is just so funny sometimes. Funny and awful. Chick flicks are horrible things. Disney romance is classically corny. I'm just full of weird commentary. That is what brings this blog to you today, not some weird angst I have against romance.

OH, before I forget, here are your aforementioned Berry Prints, as promised.

....aaand CUT!

Gas Money

Blogging in spurts. Apparently, that's what I do. 


I haven't blogged in a really long time, mostly because my computer became unusable and I didn't have the energy to battle autocorrect for long enough to endure the process of completing a blog via iPod. However, my mom recently took my computer apart and re-rigged it (once again, my plug is held in with duct tape), and now I have this warm glowing screen on my stomach that keeps me from sleep while I'm lying in bed.

I would looooooooove a macbook. Did you know that? If you know me, and don't know that, you don't know me.
But now you know me, because I told you. So let us commence.

Anyway, spurt blogging. There was a period of time in which I just could not blog enough. I would get ideas in my head for things I wanted to write facebook notes about, and let time pass before acting on them just so that I wouldn't be overpopulating facebook with my posts. Then I decided that's what blogs are for, and I came back to blogspot. Then my computer died, and all my drive to blog was strangled to death. End of spurt.

I just read a few of my own posts and laughed quite a bit. It's sad, but I really do think I'm funny.

So I decided it was time to try and get back into this stuff. Since it's midnight and I have to bring Hannah to school tomorrow morning, I'll make this speedy.

Condensed Updates!


In the months that have passed since my last post, I have

• graduated college (kind of by accident)
• gotten a new car (for which I had to learn to drive stick) 
• turned 20

Lately I cannot get enough of

• driving long distances (new york, new jersey, virginia, soon maine)
• anything with curry
• Regina Spektor
• memebase

My plans for the future

• snag a waitressing job and leave starbucks, so i can make more money and have more time to spend traveling to
• Binghamton
• Maine
• New Jersey
• WHEREVER I WANNA GO.

You might notice that my plans for the future are fairly brief. This is because I never plan very far ahead. 

I've learned that when you make detailed plans in advance, God shakes them all up until you're back to going step by step, day by day. For all I know, I could be an astronaut by Thursday. Or dead, also. I could die. 

At this point in my life, a lot of the people I want to be spending time with are in New York. Still at Davis, or graduated, or at University Plaza Starbucks. My homies are 3.5 hours and somewhere around $80 in gas away from me. 

So here's how I play right now: work until I have enough time to visit NY, then come back to work. Repeat. 

I'm at a pivotal moment in life. I'm trying my best to become as awesome as possible. Actually, that's a lie. I guess I'm not really trying my best. But that's what I want to be doing right now. Pursuing God, understanding scripture, learning how to make good food consistently, cleaning things because they're supposed to be clean instead of leaving them undone because they're only going to be undone again... just growing up I suppose. 

I'm 20. I crave God. I crave adventure. I crave sleep, for it is late. I crave cucumbers, for they are good. 

So that's my current life situation, in a long-story-short kind of way. The reason that I feel like I'm on the verge of some serious changes is because life has become a series of closing chapters lately. When you turn the pages, the story progresses. So here, we, go. 

It Isn't 2010 Anymore?

Good Evening Friends. 
[hangs up sweater]

This blog comes to you in three parts, and I cannot decide which to talk about first because all three are awesome. I suppose we will start from the least life-impacting to the most life-impacting, and thats a difficult way for me to narrow this jones down.

• ITEM ONE: it has come to my attention that a lot of my blogs contain bulleted lists. Therefore this one will contain, rather, a unicorned list. [To keep things interesting.]

UNICORN ONE!

So the other day I was spending quality time on the internet's greatest sand trap, Stumble Upon. I'm not sure what that means. See also: internet's greatest ball pit. 

It seems that somehow after stumbling for a calendar page or so, I had not yet come across the greatest thing ever seen on the internet. This is objective of course, however now that I have found the greatest thing that I have ever seen on the internet, I feel moderately obligated to tell you all about it. Why the heck wouldn't I?

In case anyone didn't know this about me, I love Nintendo. Mario games, Zelda games, I just love that stuff. Super Mario Brothers for the NES is one of the finest pieces of my childhood, and I regret to admit that after my entire life to date, I have not beaten it yet...

 The last bowser pukes hammers okay? That's big league stuff. Very intimidating. 

Recently, Stumble Upon granted unto me this fine gift: Super Mario Brothers Crossover

Have you ever played Super Mario Brothers and thought, "Wow, if only I had a gun, I would rock that goomba's world,"? 

WELL THEN DREAM UNTIL YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE, YA LITTLE WEIRDO! 

Samus in the mushroom kingdom, dealing the pain. <3

Yeah. That's right. This game allows you to play the original Super Mario Brothers as other original nintendo characters. They all bring their original abilities to the game.

Can't reach that coin block? Don't worry, I'll get it with my SWORD.

This was my favorite I think. Just stabbing the coin blocks from above until they can line my bottomless pockets no more.

You can be Mega Man. And other people. It's the bomb.

 Speaking of bombs, Samus has always got the bomba.

 And missiles.

 I lied, this was my favorite way to finish off a coin block. Gun. It. Down. Or up.

ANYWAYS,

That was one of the awesomest discoveries of my week. [see also, "life"]

Now to more important things. 

Unicorn Two!

Someday I hope to understand why Blogspot does the things it does. Why did it let me write next to the last unicorn but not next to this one? Estupit unicorns. 

Unicorn Two is this: 

Davis College had been planning a trip to New York City for...like a really long time. 

It was scheduled for a Saturday, which is a day that I regularly work. 

Last Friday night (the night before the trip to New York City), I realized that I did not, in fact, work the following day. I decided to see if it wasn't too late to go on the trip to NYC, a place I'm generally disinterested in but had never been. 

It wasn't too late. 

So today, I went to New York City for the very first time. 

The first place we really saw was Times Square. The giant buildings and signs made me feel like I was some kind of  "Honey, I Shrunk The Tourist". 

The ads were massive. Lights and sounds everywhere. Also smells. 

Every single breath I took, different scents and air consistency took over my world.

So many humans all over the place. Everyone's talking. Everyone's moving.

I'm an easily overloaded person, mentally...

All of this coupled with the fact that I hadn't yet eaten breakfast or had any coffee added up to a very disoriented first couple of hours in the big apple. I just walked and stared. Listened and smelled. Followed Liz around cuz she had a map and common sense. 

After we ate lunch and hit up a Starbucks, I was just so overwhelmed with the place [in a good way], and every hour we spent there I grew to like it more. As a generally private person with disdain for large crowds of people, I cannot really understand what about that city I loved so much. I was just so happy to be there. 

 At the end of the trip, a guy in a cart sold Liz and I a pretzel for 4 bucks that tasted like burnt lamb. Then he sold one to Deb and Kyle for 3 bucks. I then felt like I had truly experienced the city.

I went to a NYC Starbucks, predictably. It was weird. Bar-guy tried to take drinks while cashier-girl was hard to communicate with and not paying attention, and then after there was solidified confusion in the air, a line of people came behind us. Luckily, my drink was uncomplicated and flawlessly ordered, created, purchased, and consumed.

The subway thought I was a piece of carnal gum and tried to chew me up. Apparently being the last person in a glob of friends boarding the subway leaves you at a higher risk for being squished by the doors.

I'm really, really happy that I was able to go, super glad that I went, and definitely looking forward to going back sometime.

UNICORN THREE IS GONNA BLOW YO MIND UP.






Are you ready for this?

Okay.





Remember that time my 16 gig iPod touch got stolen back in November?
If not, be informed that my 16 gig iPod touch was stolen back in November.

So within this past week, I was in the Broadway Cafe at Davis with some friends, and my friend Andrew casually said, "Hey Crystal. You want an iPod?"
 I casually said, "Yeah."

I didn't honestly think he was being serious, but not only did he actually give me his 32 gig iPod touch [because he had just gotten an iPhone, and didn't need two things that were essentially the same], he had been intending to pass it on to me for awhile.
BEST. DAY. EVER.

It's been so incredibly awesome having an iPod in my life again. Perfect.
I'm trying to figure out its name. I had settled on Lucy, but that's not feeling right. I don't even really think it's a girl. When I named Joel [my current ukulele] and Cooper [my first ukulele], I had a strong certainty about their names. This guy, not so much.
I'll figure it out.

But yes, those were the three unicorns I wanted to blog about today.

Extemporaneously, on the bus to New York City we watched the movie Tangled. I had heard a whole lot about the movie and hadn't seen it until then. It was pretty good. I don't know if it's quite worth all the hype it gets, but it was definitely better than I expected it to be.
However, on the way BACK from New York City, they showed some dumb chick flick. I don't know whose call that was, but I realized something.

In like any chick flick, or any movie really, in which someone gets married, they always have the groom randomly showing up while the bride is getting ready [or having some kind of life crisis on their big day], and she'll always gasp and say, "What are you doing!? Don't you know it's bad luck to see the bride before the wedding?"

Come on.

Every movie.

In conclusion, I have forgotten what year it is twice this week. Have a great day my friends.

Surprise, It's An Iguana

Ten Things That Surprise People About Me

1. I love winter, and generally being cold. (most people know this)
2. I hate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
3. I have never seen Star Wars.
4. I watched Aladdin for the first time in my life, this year.
5. I don't really like concerts.
6. I am not looking forward to having a wedding. Marriage yes, wedding no.
7. I know how to read braille. Only by sight. 
8. I'm allergic to nothing.
9. I hate lobster. I always have. I was thought to be allergic to it for far longer than I actually was. I played it up a little.
10. As long as we're on food aversions, I don't like caramel, cheesecake, or donuts. I do however like anchovies. A lot. 

If anyone recognizes the title of this blog and tells me where it's from, I will probably become excited and flail my arms. 

Or fluffy ducky.

Ideas

This post probably contains no significance to anything. I just need a place to throw down some ideas.

I think someday when I have a baby, I will write "ANDY" on the bottom of its foot.

 Also I was thinking today that if I ever need a prosthetic arm, I want a Buzz Lightyear arm.

Complete with sticker under the plastic flap. STAR COMMAND, DO YOU READ ME? 

I don't think I had any ideas today that weren't Toy Story related. 

My Ebenezer

A few months ago I led worship at my church.

That in itself is a heavy statement. Yeah, I know I've been doing that for something over a year now, but it still astounds me that worship was a gift God chose to give me.

I'll never forget the weeks following the time that God chose to give me the gift of worship. I would sit in my room and just sing to Him. It was so clear to me, this is something He gave me to give back. Without His help, I'd have nothing worth giving. I was an overflowing fountain of gratitude, and I prayed that I'd never keep this gift to myself, but rather that I'd remember that it was never something I could have claimed if not for God's benevolent choice to bless me with it.

People had always told me that I had a gift for public speaking. I had been told I had a gift for teaching. I had been repeatedly told that I was a natural leader.
Leading worship didn't seem to be what that all added up to.

I had been learning increasingly that "worship" was not literally singing written songs for the introduction to a church service, but it is a way of life. It's an outpouring of gratitude. It's obedience and love. It's huge and important.

For the sake of "Christianese", however, "worship" comes to mean a few rounds of "Blessed Be Your Name" before the 11am service, or a call-and-response with some claps that we're all too stoic to handle.

My first year at Davis College taught me a lot about how to worship God with my life. My thoughts, my actions, my words, my prayers... and finally, He challenged me to lay down my pride and do something I had sworn I could not do. In five years of playing the guitar, I had never been able to sing and play at the same time, much less did I ever want anyone to hear my voice. In two or three days, God showed me over and over that He was giving me something that I could give back to Him. Nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to hide away. It wasn't for me. It wasn't for anyone but Him. He knew as well as I did that I couldn't give Him anything worth having of my own accord. I accepted this holy re-gift and I really hope that I never forget the reason that it was given.

With that said...let's go back to the beginning.

A few months ago, I led worship at my church.

I was singing the song "Come Thou Fount", and came across this line:

Here I raise my Ebenezer; 
 hither by thy help I'm come; 
 and I hope, by thy good pleasure, 
 safely to arrive at home.

 I didn't really understand what that meant, but I didn't think much of it.

Much to my disdain, someone in the congregation actually called me out on it. Bob Herring, nonetheless. If you know him, this won't surprise you.

After the service, he approached me and asked me what that line meant. I told him I wasn't sure but I planned on figuring it out. He laughed and told me not to sing it if I don't know what I'm talking about. 

I asked him if he knew.

He didn't. That's why he asked me. 

Come to find out, that's often how questions work. 

In between the first and second service, I did a little bit of research and came upon 1 Samuel 7.

...in which the Israelites have repetitively had their butts kicked and Samuel tells them to turn from their idols and return to the Lord with all of their hearts; to truly promise to serve ONLY GOD. They all got together and repented before God, Samuel prayed on their behalf, and they all promised to be faithful. While they were doing this, the Philistines approached to kick some more butt. 

1 Samuel 7:10 Now as Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel. But the LORD thundered with a loud thunder upon the Philistines that day, and so confused them that they were overcome before Israel.

God protected them. They knew that if it wasn't for His help, they would have been done for. 


12Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen, and called its name Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far the LORD has helped us.” 


"Ebenezer" literally means "stone of help". 

Suddenly the song made sense. 

Here I raise my Ebenezer; 
 hither by thy help I'm come; 

As I sang the song for the next service, I knew what I was saying. Right this very second, I recognize that this far, God has helped me. The only way I've gotten this far is by His hand. I wanted to cry when I realized how closely this related to the very gift I was using to sing it. 
 and I hope, by thy good pleasure, 
 safely to arrive at home.

The only way I'll get any farther is the same way that I got to where I am today; the will and help of Jesus Christ.
I proudly presented my research to Bob before singing for the next service, and shared what I had learned with the church after singing the song, so that they could truthfully sing those words as well.
Fast forward to the present, NREEAAAAAOWWWWWW!!! (racecar sound?)
I'm doing this weird project for my Life Science class... it involves cockroaches. 
Believe it or not, I am actually about to tie this blog together. 
Anyhow, one of the things involved in this project was a quick study on the origin of "Roach" as a last name. 
(Roach is my last name. For those in the dark on that one.)
I looked at this research inquisitively, as it may only pertain lightly to the project at hand but is still a piece of who I am. 
Apparently, the Roach family used to live in a rocky area. The name actually comes from the French word roche, which means "rock". The family motto is "Mon Dieu est ma roche."
This translates to My God is my rock. 
I had found so much significance to my life in the words of Come Thou Fount, professing that God was my help, and that here I raise my Ebenezer- declaring publicly that He has helped me. 
And today, I learned that my name means my God is my rock!
Mind. Blown. 
[I have no idea what is going on with the fonts in this post. I tried to fix it. Oh well.]