Today I turned around and told the girl behind me in Anthropology class to stop saying Jesus's name in vain. That was hard for me. I don't like being "different." Now though, I'm sorry it took me so long, I should've said something ages ago, like at the beginning of the semester.

Today she said it once, and I thought to myself, "alright God, if she says it again, I'll say something." I didn't have to wait but 2 minutes for it to come out again, this time with Christ added on. I turned around and said, "don't say that," in a semi-quiet, not at all mean voice. She didn't hear me. She saw me talking but was too concentrated on her own convo with the people next to her to notice. So I turned back around, thinking, "well, at least I finally tried."

But God wasn't done working on my anti-conformity skills, ;) `cuz she said it again a few minutes later. So, here we go again. I turned around, and said a little louder, "don't say that." She goes, "Say what?" I said, "Jesus." She said, "I'm Jewish." And I said, "I'm Christian, and that's offensive to me." I meant to say, "I'm a Christian (there's a huge difference there)," but oh well. She and everyone else just looked at me and got quiet. But I didn't see anyone laugh, although I'm sure they were like, "what's her problem." Hopefully she'll think more before she speaks (even the guys are surprised what comes out of her mouth if that says anything).

At the time, my heart was pounding really loud, and I kept thinking, "now no one will talk to me, they won't want to be around the ultra-conservative weirdo girl," and (I'm ashamed to say), "uh oh, now everyone knows I'm a Christian and I have to be perfect from now on (not that I'm bad or anything)."

Now that I'm home, all that doesn't matter and I feel so good about finally taking a stand; however small it seems now, it was a large step for me personally. God is still working on my anti-conformity skills and not being so worried what the person next door/sitting next to me thinks. It's definitely not an easy lesson to learn...let's see, I've been working on it for HOW many years?? Seems like this has been an issue since I was 8. So 14 years...hmm. And next semester I have to take Ethics...THAT should be an interesting class . I get tired of fighting battles. No one really cares. And that class will have 150 ppl in it. I don't want to yell out what I think...at the same time, I don't think I can just sit there and be taught lies...to not say anything is to silently agree.

It seems like lately I'm having to speak up a lot. Sure, I miss my chances too. Like in my English class a few months ago, my teacher was saying that the money they used for Iraq should have gone towards U.S. sex ed (yeah, can you believe it????), and I started to say "no, what needs to happen is that they need to teach abstinence in schools," but it didn't come out. I think all I could say was that they're teaching sex ed too young...I didn't even get to the part where I didn't think they should teach it at all.

And in my other English class last week the death penalty came up because a lady was saying that prisoners over the age of 70 should just be released or put into nursing homes because "they're no threat to society" to help out with the over-crowding of jails. I brought up the death penalty by mentioning that people shouldn't serve life-terms at all and instead should be executed- at least for murder and rape, probably the only things people are sentenced for life anyhow. Can you believe that everyone in the whole class actually laughed and said "boy, I hope I'm never in your court??" Well, HELLO, maybe people will stop murdering and raping if they know the drastic consequences they'll face if caught??? And if you aren't guilty of those things, then why be worried about the penalty? As long as you never murder or rape a law like that wouldn't affect you...and I personally don't think there should be a "second chance" for things like that...maybe drugs or stealing, but not rape and murder which mess up a person's life. What I want to know too is, since when do rapists and murderers have more rights than the people they harm, even kill?!? How backwards things are becoming...

Something is really wrong with a society that allows them to get out of prison or on probation or simply serve a life-term on someone else's tax dollars, earning a paycheck and complaining about crunchy ice-cream every now and then and bad prison conditions. SHEESH.

I guess I shouldn't have been so shocked- they've done away with things like the Ten Commandments and replaced it with moral relativism, and it should be obvious to see that murderers and rapists have rights when you do away with absolutes to determine what is right and wrong.

In my Spanish class a few weeks ago I was the only person to say I didn't like the movie we had to watch because of the nudity in it- it was rated R purely because of all the sexual content/nudity. And there were at least 3 other Christian girls in the room besides me, all who actually liked the movie. Does anyone read their Bible anymore? Like Philippians 4:8 for example? I don't know, sometimes I feel like an alien. I don't even feel normal among my Christian friends. I feel so OUT there. I mean, I look like them (to an extent)- I don't dress old-fashioned or wear my hair in a bun or only listen to hymns- I like rock!; yet, I am SO different when it comes to morals and political views and movies and just about everything. People say I'm extremely conservative...but what I wonder is, would JESUS be a conservative or a liberal Christian??

Why then, do Christians put such a seemingly derogatory (and strangely worldly) label on each other when it's supposed to be a good thing to be like Jesus?