Hey y´all.  I come home in 2 1/2 weeks.  Hollaaaaa.

        So I don´t really think very much about the names of God.  I mean, I think they´re cool and all, but I couldn´t tell you many off the top of my head and I don´t know what they all mean.  When I first got here, for some reason, the name ´Yahweh´was on my mind alot, but I didn´t know what it meant, and I kept forgetting to look it up.  When I finally did, I found out that ´Yahweh´comes from the Hebrew acronym ´yhwh.´They believed that the name of God was so sacred that they couldn´t say or write it; they just wrote ´yhwh´and read it ´The Name.´ The most accurate translation for ´Yahweh´is ´present´or ´in existence.´ Basically, it means ´the God who is.´ In my Bible (NIV), it´s translated LORD in all caps.

     So I read all that, and I was like ´eh, ok.´ Good to know, but I didn´t really get anything out of it.  I figured it was just random that it popped in my head one day and stayed there for two months.  Then.  A situation came up where I was really worried about a friend - I was scared that they were falling away from God, and I was going a little bit crazy because I couldn´t stop it.  And I was just so sick of things happening that I cannot fix, that I have no power over.  So I prayed - alot - and one day as I was praying I used the name Yahweh.  And then it just clicked.  I guess he opened my eyes, or something.   I mean, I´m just some random American kid.  I have no idea what I´m doing in life 97% of the time.  I can´t control freakin´anything.  But.  There´s Yahweh.  The God who is.  You can´t really get around that, you know?  You can´t get away from it.  He simply is.  I don´t even know why, I can´t even put it into words, but there is something so comforting in that.  He simply is.

    Here´s a semi-random but thoroughly awesome Bible verse for you - ´O Israel, put your hope in the LORD (Yahweh), for with the LORD (Yahweh) is unfailing love, and with him is full redemption.´-Ps. 130:7

So... I hope that made sense.  At least I know that my mama is happy because I blogged. 

George, I love you.  just wanted you to know.