ipods....

so...my bday is coming...i got my first card in the mail...my mom is always the first to send one (and it always has to be 2 weeks in advance). this year they totally knew what i wanted. they gave me some $$ to buy an ipod. It was cool how they let me order it so i could get in engraved. i put my favorite verse on the back. i figured it would be good to look at while i'm in the River Run. This verse means so much to me, once i heard it, i felt for the first time God really does understand everyone, even me, even when i feel like no one ever could. it's Philippians 3 (really the whole chapter is my fav, but):12-15 which says "12 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. 13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
15 Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. 16 Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule,[b] let us be of the same mind."
i've read it in all translations, but (and i hate to say it, because the message version is the least accurate...ehh, but i like it the best "12I'm not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. 13Friends, don't get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward--to Jesus. 14I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back." HECK YEAH...come on now!
I absolutely love how Paul writes in this letter to the Philippians....so encouraging, uplifting, positive...would you have written a letter so uplifting being chained to a Roman guard in a cell? It is so encouaging to me knowing that even when i am at my worst, or have had a horrible day, i can still find peace in jesus....
so yes, that's why i love these verses, well the whole chapter...and that's why its on the back on my new ipod...pretty freakin sweet