I stand at my window with dread welling up in me. It's a mild, sunny day, yet I can't help but feel the weight of my opposition. I've heard it said that when you taste defeat, Almighty God weeps with you. I've heard it said that God restores the years that the locusts have eaten; He brings beauty out of ashes. I've heard it said that what the devil means for harm, God uses for good. I have heard it said that there are powerful lessons to be...
Yes, this is a blog post about spring break. Honestly, I wasn't going to write about anything I've been doing, but then I saw all of my blogging friends posting about their breaks and I got a little jealous. (Silly, right? I thought so too.) Nevertheless, here I am. (Ta-da!) Usually, when I post something here, it's about something that I've been thinking about or wrestling with and pertains to mental/emotional/spiritual growth. Today, I just...
I would venture to say that most people in America have lost a proper concept of holiness because everything in life has become the same. There is nothing set apart, but we constantly seek out gratification of some sort. We are surrounded by music and talking and all sorts of things that in the end are tantamount to pure noise. None of these things may be individually bad—it's just that we have not given place for the absence of them. We've...
I had a thought this morning: what if everywhere I went held a special meaning to me because I had memories of God's presence there? What if I made it a point to acknowledge Jesus' presence with me in every place that I set foot? What if I could look back on my activities throughout the day and remember each moment fondly because I experienced God everywhere I went? The fullness of His presence is the ultimate gift, and memories are the ultimate...
Ever have a moment of sudden revelation? I've been having many of these lately: simply going to and from activities, day to day, when all of a sudden, the smallest thing will strike me. The way the clouds have formed, the way a friend speaks, the stillness of the air, the way a stranger walks across the room... I find myself constantly stopping in my tracks and reeling from the weight of the realizations from these simple things, and often I...
"Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling." — Psalm 91:9-10 I want to make the Lord my habitation. I hunger for it. I desire it. I want to be open to all the fullness of His presence.
So this is perhaps one of the coolest things I've come across in the last year! But this isn't just any pocket-sized notebook... open it up and you find... Five-line staff paper!!!!! This is a musical notation heaven! A friend at school had this notebook and offered it to me knowing that I might appreciate it as a music major. I do, in fact, appreciate it. Actually, I adore it. Now, whenever inspiration strikes me with an awesome melody, I can...
Bitterness
Supplant the plant of bitterness,
Secured in all its stubbornness,
The rally cry: "Uproot! Uproot!"
Incinerate the bitter fruit.
This mighty root we now assail,
Against the dust we will prevail,
The battle cry: "Return! Return!"
Drink water from your own cistern.
Direct your introspective gaze,
Reflect upon your numbered days,
The primal cry: "Renew! Renew!"
No longer do I bow to you!
Let now the victory unfold,
We all, as jars of...
How limited is my view of God! As of late, I've been wrestling with questions about direction in life and letting go of my conceptions of what God's blessing on my life should look like, and it's only now that I'm realizing that I have such little experience of God's power or His glory or His love. I'm only now realizing that I struggle to trust Him with every part of me because I haven't come into the knowledge of His love for every part of me....
It all started with waking up. The threads of consciousness, woven and spun into the glory fall, worked their way into me, seeping into the dreams lingering in my mind yet being steadily dispelled by the constancy of activity in the physical domain. Stillness. I had a thought upon waking up, profound and personally meaningful. Yet the wording and phrasing of the thought escaped the frail grasp of my groggy brain leaving nothing but the...
