Little Birdie

I will say this for them, they have a fast response time to scathing emails…

Dear CheapTickets Member,

Thank you for contacting CheapTickets®.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused.

Please note that the error 1800 means that: “Your credit card number is invalid. Please re-enter the number or try a different card. Please note that some debit cards will not work for online purchases.”

With regards to you query, please note that the $9.98 may be a soft charge, it is a temporary authorization that will automatically drop off your account within seven days, if not sooner. A soft charge is when CheapTickets asks for funds from a credit card / debit card company but
does not actually charge the card. By doing this the funds are taken out of the available credit on the card but not included in the balance that you need to pay to your credit card / debit card company.

Soft charges ‘Fall off’ or are added back to the available credit after 7 - 10 days. For further information, please call your credit card / debit card company.

For your reference, the following credit cards are acceptable on Cheaptickets Web site:
- American Express
- Carte Blanche
- Diners Club
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The credit card must:
* have a billing address in the United States, Puerto Rico or U.S.
Virgin Islands;
* be issued by a bank or company based in the United States, Puerto
Rico or U.S. Virgin Islands.

For cheap deals on flights, lodging, rental cars, vacation packages, cruises and more, visit www.cheaptickets.com today!

Thanks,

Amreen
The CheapTickets Team

Dear CheapTickets,

Your customer service representatives are unwilling or unable due to poor training and possible language barriers to resolve technical issues that are no fault of mine. I have been trying to purchase tickets on your website for 2 days without success. I receive Message Error 1800, although when I communicate with my bank they are able to verify that CheapTickets can successfully access my credit card and charge the 9.98 test fee with no problems.

When I told your customer service reps this information, they insisted that it was my bank’s fault, and when I assured them I had already talked with my bank, they said their website must be experiencing problems, but they were unwilling to book my reservation over the phone or waive the $25 phone reservation fee EVEN THOUGH I COULD NOT MAKE MY RESERVATION ONLINE DUE TO THEIR WEBSITE.

I will never purchase from CheapTickets again. Not that I had any success the first time. If I find a charge on my credit card after all this mess, I will call my lawyer. I would rather pay him than you.

Warmest EFFING regards,

LittleBirdie

I hate online bullshit, I hate outsourcing, and I HATE HATE HATE automated voice response.

And WTF is Message Error 1800?!?

I just want to say…

I MISS MY CHURCH FAMILY!!!!

I’ve been out of town every weekend for a month. I need some church lovin’.

That is all. I will see you on Sunday and I’ma hug everybody in the place.

I think I have to stop reading Dilbert. I read it almost every day, and lately it’s been making me angry. Today I figured out why…it’s because I TOTALLY RELATE to him. And instead of being a comfort, it gives me a sense of complete hopelessness that things are never going to change for me.

I need a comic that appeals to my dry and sarcastic sense of humor and still gives me hope for the future. Any suggestions?

I’ve been struggling with 1 John. It’s a tough book. John exhorts us to love, and in fact to use love as a test of salvation. If a person is truly saved, he will show love. If a person does not show love but professes to be a Christian, he may not have accepted Christ in the first place.

Another test of salvation is whether a person practices righteousness or evil. A person saved cannot keep on sinning; indeed if she does, was she ever saved?

These points in 1 John taken out of context could argue for sinless perfection. Once saved, we should not sin. Ever. Didn’t even Jesus tell the woman with the issue of blood “Go, and sin no more?” Is that even possible? It must be, if Jesus commanded it.

However, it is by grace we are saved, and I don’t know anyone professing to be a follower of Jesus that has lived a life of sinless perfection. I don’t believe that John is teaching sinless perfection, but he is boldly teaching us that our salvation must produce the character of God.

1 John chapter 1 convinces me that he is not teaching sinless perfection by twice establishing the fact that we, as believers, sin. First, he says “if anyone claims to be without sin, he deceives himself and the truth is not in him.” Again, he says “if anyone says he does not sin, he makes God a liar.” In short, if you say you are sinless, you are a liar, and that makes you a sinner. John also says “I teach these things so you will not sin, but if you do, we have the Righteous One, Jesus, to speak for us.”

The important thing is, when we accept Christ, we shed our nature of sin, even if we sometimes still fall. But if a so-called believer keeps practicing sin, or continues habitually in sin, it calls into question whether that person was ever saved.

What a conundrum.

What about spiritual strongholds? In my own life I continually deal with lust. Sometimes I give myself over to it, and sometimes for periods long enough to be considered “practicing sin.” Does it mean I have never been saved? I don’t think so. It’s easy to forget that we’re in a spiritual war, against the enemy AND against our own flesh. The word says we will always battle against the flesh. It says the heart is deceitful above all things. John encourages us that even when our own hearts condemn us, God knows us, and He is greater than our hearts.

What about the back-slider? I think Paul addresses it in 1 Corinthians 3. There are those who, when all is said and done, will themselves be saved, but will suffer loss because their works were turned to ashes in the fire of judgment. I have been in a back-sliding state before, and I have no doubt those works will not pass the test.

But I know that I know, I have the Holy Spirit dwelling in me, a deposit of Heaven. I just hope there are some works that WILL pass the test–I don’t want to drag around a bag of ashes from all the wood, hay, and stubble I used to build my foundation.

I just wanted to make a quick observation here. Singing songs to the Lord has a MUCH greater impact when you know the Bible. Maybe it doesn’t have an impact on God, but it certainly does on me.

Example. I’m reading I John for my devotional (I know, can you believe I’m having devotional time now?!? I’m pretty psyched) and it’s chock full of how Christians are different because we live a life of love. The flip side: if we don’t live a life of love, we should seriously examine the status of our salvation. But that’s for another post.

So, I was listening to Amy Grant (first time in a LOOONG time), and one of the lyrics just stopped me in my tracks: “They’ll know we are Christians by our love.”

I’ve heard this song a million times. I’ve sung along. I’ve led worship with it.

I’ve had no idea what I was talking about.

A man does not live on worship music alone, but on every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. That Jesus guy really knew what he was talking about.

Since I couldn’t quite let myself chop all my hair off and dye it magenta so I’d look like a pixie, I did the next best thing….red highlights. Yep, I’m red. Pics coming soon.

I did this once in college when I was first feeling the need to express who I felt I was inside. I got a few friends to do it with me. I went strawberry blonde, one of those 21-day rinse out jobs….and it lasted 6 months. My grandmother mistook me for my mother’s first cousin Ann. It was an interesting experience.

This time I didn’t do the full-blown job. I didn’t really want my whole head to be red. Just some streaks that I thought said “hey, I’m in here somewhere.” I wanted to take an entire chunk and dye it bright bright magenta, but deep down I didn’t want to draw that kind of attention to myself.

Part of the 4 in me always screams out for attention, but when I get it, I don’t want it. My friend hit the nail on the head tonight when she said the reason I don’t want to draw attention to myself is because I don’t like the way I look. It’s true. I’m still fat, I’m still insecure, yet I yearn for people to take notice of my unique-ness. It’s weird. Pay attention to me leave me alone.

Does that make me emo? Maybe I should have dyed my hair magenta with a big black streak in it instead…

1. I wish flowy hippie shirts looked good on me.
2. I wish I could get away with chopping all my hair off and dying it magenta.
3. I wish I could sing, write, and dance like a hip-hop artist.
4. I wish I could draw.
5. I wish I could travel through time back to when all the people I love were young, just to see what they were like.
6. I wish I could run a marathon.
7. I wish I had good taste in home decor.
8. I wish I could teleport.
9. I wish I could fly.
10. I wish my innards would quit mistaking themselves as a fart factory.

Yeah, I’m pretty selfish. No world peace or stopping global warming, hunger, and poverty or healing the sick for me. It’s not that I don’t want those things, it’s that I’m absolutely certain those things will happen on their own because God made provision through Jesus. And no, that’s not a cop-out that we shouldn’t do everything we can to improve those conditions while we’re waiting for Him. It’s called good stewardship.

Actually, I believe that Jesus could teleport too. Check it out:

John 6:19-21

When they had rowed three or three and a half miles,[a] they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water; and they were terrified. But he said to them, “It is I; don’t be afraid.” Then they were willing to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading.

See, and not just himself–the ENTIRE BOAT. Of course there was no record of the accompanying sound-effect - BAMF! - but I secretly believe it made that sound.

Hmm…if Jesus could teleport, and I’m in him, and he’s in me….

If y’all see me at church tomorrow without a car you’ll know what happened. If my head is on backwards, call 911.

After much consideration, I have decided to withdraw my membership from one of the largest weight-loss megacenters in the industry. I personally think that Weight Watchers is the best way to re-learn (or for many people, learn for the first time) proper nutrition, portion control, exercise, and developing a healthy lifestyle. I am far from perfecting the healthy lifestyle thing, and I am far from my “goal weight.” However, I feel that I have learned the basics, and I can implement them on a daily basis without paying $40 a month to go step on a scale.

I believe that we all need support. I believe the statistics that people who go to meetings lose more weight and keep it off longer. I had almost convinced myself that I would be willing to pay $40 a month for the rest of my life so I would have that community. But the truth is, that’s not really the community I need any more. I need people who believe, and can say in public, that God is sovereign, that he can and has already delivered us from our infirmities, and there is hope in Jesus. I have that community through my local church and to a much larger extent, the entire Body of Christ. I also have a great cloud of witnesses rooting me on.

I believe God cares about weight loss, because he cares for me and all his kids, and being overweight is causing lots of physical and emotional problems. Not to mention I am not treating my body the way I should, knowing that it is a temple and the Holy Spirit lives there.

I know I am not alone. It’s up to me to find the support I need. And it’s up to me to renew my mind daily and not focus on myself so much that weight loss becomes the end all and be all of my existence. The truth is, the more I obsess over it, the worse off I am. When I just focus on my daily routine, which includes eating healthy and exercising, I’m okay.

I’m learning that healthy living is hard work. You have to do pay attention to it. It’s more than eating. It’s taking care of your household. Keeping up with your finances. Developing healthy relationships. Keeping short accounts with God, and worshiping him in all things.

So even though it’s a little scary letting go of my security blanket, I think I’m ready.

Last night I spent over an hour trying to embed a YouTube video into my post. The only thing I got was mad. I was making it way too complicated, trying to upload plugins and create a YouTube account and get my API key (whatever that is)…

So my valiant brother found this nice little tutorial to teach me the easy way to embed YouTube vids. I hope this will prevent someone else’s headache down the road.