I finished two blankets for Project Linus today...it helped keep my mind off some things! I wish that the billboard that is saying the end of the world is in eight days would be taken down. To tell the truth, I'm somewhat terrified, and I guess it goes to my low self-confidence. Feeling that I will never be good enough for  God's mercy I guess. However, the arguments that this 'minister', some evangelist from California are both logical and illogical...hearing that only 200 million will be saved...by my calculations, that's not even the population of babies and children under age five, and where is the mercy in that? I don't really know what to believe. In my heart, I believe what I've read, one, that humans will not know when the end times are there, two, that there have been plenty of people in the past that have predicted the apocalypse, three, that God is a God of great mercy and love, four that most of their arguments are based on numbers when we have really no way of knowing the dates of biblical events or even if certain events are actual events or merely allegories, etc etc. My dad is right when he says that the bible can basically be interpreted in any way that you want. It does bother me to have a sign near the underpass I go through quite frequently that states "The Bible Guarantees it!". What also bothers me is their claim that so few Christians are worthy of saving...and the way it's written, by a 'Harold Camping' I believe. Under the words "Sadly, Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Presbyterian, Mennonites, Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists (and a number of others)" are not following the true word. It just gets to me...especially because I know a fair amount through my high school bible classes about the various practices of different denominations. The beliefs are for the most part, very, very, similar. What really is different is the way that the services are approached-how worship and liturgy are presented. Yes, there are some differences such as in the beliefs on baptism, but I mostly believe that in the churches that practice any age baptism (such as my presbyterian church) the Reaffirmation of Faith serves a similar purpose as does the Believer's baptism of such churches as the Mennonite. And, likewise, whereas we practice infant baptism, many Mennonite Churches practice infant dedication. Different names, but they seem to serve the same function.

I discussed the whole idea of eight days left with my very knowledgeable (and also of evangelist denomination) friend last night on chat on Facebook. He basically set things straight in some ways by saying "I don't believe it. Jesus clearly states otherwise. End of story". And also by saying that his church does not believe what is being said. He acknowledged that this guy is pretty irritating however. With that, I cannot argue. One of the illogical bits is that the argument is that you can't talk to your pastor or priest about this, yet the one who is claiming this is some sort of minister...

I guess in some ways I should take this fear as a good sign, in that I don't want things to end. I'm looking forward to lots of things...finishing more blankets for Project Linus, taking new courses in the fall, learning new pieces both for piano and flute, maybe learning the cello someday, teaching all the levels of MYC, getting Suzuki training for flute, maybe getting married and having children of my own someday...three years ago, well, that was a different story. We're coming up to the third-year anniversary of one of the three most challenging times in my life. Three years ago, I had just come back from NYB, was highly sleep deprived, buried under school work, incredibly stressed about exams and graduation, and feeling incredibly stressed, anxious and depressed. I guess I'll leave that story for another time...like the actual day that the two weeks began. That is, as long as the evangelist is wrong.

The evangelist also claims that many will scorn and scoff the idea...I guess there's a safeguard to all his arguments. Still, they unsettle me. I guess that really, the only thing I can do is pray and believe in my own faith in God as a loving and merciful God...no matter what the plan may be.