Three Malibu Miracles : Spring Break 2012
Last week, I went to visit my twin sister who is currently attending law school in Malibu, California. It was an absolutely incredible trip with some cool stuff that happened while we were there. All I wanted to do was jump up and down with joy the entire time celebrating the beauty of God’s creation :D, but besides enjoying the absolute gorgeousness of the beach, we got to celebrate artificial beauty as well as experience some little miracles along the way.
1) Natural beauty.
This picture = enough said.
“You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you.” -Nehemiah 9:6-
2) The Miracle of Madame Tussaud
Meeting Justin Bieber while interning for The Dave Ryan in the Morning Show on 101.3 KDWB, summer 2009
Meeting J Biebs’ wax figure at Madame Tussaud’s in Hollywood, March 2012
Madame Tussaud’s wax museum is where we saw everyone who’s anyone, including the newest addition to the museum, Justin Bieber, which reminded me of the time I met him in while I was working for a radio station in 2009 (above). It’s pretty easy to get overwhelmed and “starstruck” in real life, but it’s easier to remember we’re all the same in God’s eyes when the celebrities in front of us are inanimate wax figurines posing for photographs and can’t talk back. I’ll spare you the details in this post, but basically, as fabulous as it is to appreciate fame and God-given talents, it’s sometimes easy to become obsessed. Bieber has millions of Twitter followers who are so enthusiastic it seems like their life depends on his re-tweeting their thoughts…a glimmer of hope comes from the fact that the Biebs is a Christian, so he won’t lead his little Beliebers astray! 🙂
I just wish Jesus had a Twitter so we could quantify our enthusasm for Him there. I wonder if people would be as excited in their Tweets about Jesus as they are about Justin Bieber…
(more of my musings on celebrities and idolatry is posted in a post on my personal blog, “Captivated”).
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive and inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” -Colossians 3:23-
3) What’s lost is found !
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” -Matthew 7:7-
On Saturday night, my three girlfriends and I went to dinner at Paradise Cove, a restaurant in Malibu where Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez apparently have been spotted recently. We sat in a booth on the beach and everything was paradisical until the waitress took our drink order and asked for our IDs. My friend Hannah realized she had lost her wallet somewhere between leaving the beach, a gas station on the highway, and the restaurant. We proceeded to frantically search the booth, the parking lot and the car, then my sister and Hannah took a desperate excursion to the gas station a half hour after we’d left. I stayed at the restaurant with my friend Jayme, and we were freaking out – what were the chances they would find her wallet? It could have been lost for up to an hour, and could be anywhere. Even if it was at the gas station, someone no doubt would have picked it up and run off with it – there were credit cards, freshly pulled cash, and IDs in there!
So, we decided to pray together that the wallet would somehow be found, and right when we wrapped up the prayer (which included a bit for my sister who was coming down with a nasty virus), my phone buzzed with a text message:
GOD IS SOOO GOOD, and that verse from Matthew has never been more real to me. And, as more than a result of this seeking/finding/praying “coincidence,” I believe in the power of prayer now more than ever. Ask, and you shall receive!
My Malibu vacation was amazing, in more ways than one.