Sometimes I remember just how beautiful people can be.
For the post I think I'll focus on my female acquaintances, because I am more inclined to understand them than the alternative. Simply put, I'm a girl and we recognize things in each other.
There are some girls who absolutely brighten my life. I try to explain it and somehow it doesn't convey what I really mean. Women struggle to be pretty, spending many hours and dollars to achieve some level of attractiveness--but I know some who, regardless of how physically attractive they are when YOU look at THEM, radiate something beautiful just by the way THEY look at YOU. I feel honored to be surrounded every day of my life by strong, wise, selfless, and just beautiful women. If you wonder why we're so happy to see each other, it's because we grow and learn and feel like better people when we're together. There are times when I look at them and wonder how the majority of the known world survives without them. Frankly, I know I couldn't. Those girls each have something I am striving for, and I have the greatest amount of respect for their character and their spirit.
Culture tends to push us in one of two directions/categories: strong, overbearing, and independent, or weak, helpless, and unnoticed. There can be strength in softness, and great leadership without overemphasized personality. I have seen confidence displayed in quietness and independence brought out by sacrifice for others.
Father THANK YOU for surrounding me every day with more beauty than most people recognize in a lifetime.
1.31.2008
1.25.2008
music and lyrics...
Give me one pure and holy passion.
Give me one magnificent obsession.
Give me one glorious ambition for my life -- to know and follow hard after You.
...This world is empty, pale, and poor compared to knowing You...
God, make knowing You my single greatest passion. Let me have no greater ambition or plan than to follow in the steps laid out for me that lead me closer to You. Let me measure my choices by what you might approve. Let me live wholly in pursuit of Your heart. Let my confidence be found in hearing Your voice. Let me fall in love with everything You are that I may or may not understand. Teach me what it means to follow You, not just claim You.
Remind me that everything else is empty and colorless and meaningless if You aren't in it.
Give me one magnificent obsession.
Give me one glorious ambition for my life -- to know and follow hard after You.
...This world is empty, pale, and poor compared to knowing You...
God, make knowing You my single greatest passion. Let me have no greater ambition or plan than to follow in the steps laid out for me that lead me closer to You. Let me measure my choices by what you might approve. Let me live wholly in pursuit of Your heart. Let my confidence be found in hearing Your voice. Let me fall in love with everything You are that I may or may not understand. Teach me what it means to follow You, not just claim You.
Remind me that everything else is empty and colorless and meaningless if You aren't in it.
1.18.2008
failure
I want to write music.
So what if I've never been good at it, I feel like maybe if I do it wrong enough times in a row then my chances of getting one right increase exponentially.
I think we look at failure the wrong way. I know that unless God intervenes in my creative processes, I will never write a song I think should be recorded--and thus I have failed in my attempts at songwriting. I fail every day, owing God more with every passing hour (that's a great song by the way, LOVE that song). But the truth is, we expect so much from ourselves that we're destined to be discouraged unless we get really honest.
I have no expectations for my music, but I love the process. And the point isn't that I make mistakes...continually. The point is that there is a process going on in my life that is helping me become more like Christ. If I focus on my many failures and what I'm not, I'll never be anything else. If all my energy is expended to beat myself up for being a product of the fall, there won't be any of it left to lift up my eyes to my Creator -- who has not only created me physically, but who is still in the process of creating a follower of His name inside me.
Romans 6 has a beautiful explanation of grace and righteousness. Notice especially that "just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." WALK IN NEW LIFE. Live like you're free. When you recognize that you aren't bound to your old self any more, you realize that you now have the ability to be righteous where you didn't before -- and it becomes a joy to live righteously. And when you find joy in obedience, that's when you know you're free. You can screw up honestly, many times even, and it can (and should) bother you. But even when you do, you can enjoy the beauty of the process you're experiencing that is bringing you closer every day to what you were meant to be.
And failure really just isn't all that bad.
So what if I've never been good at it, I feel like maybe if I do it wrong enough times in a row then my chances of getting one right increase exponentially.
I think we look at failure the wrong way. I know that unless God intervenes in my creative processes, I will never write a song I think should be recorded--and thus I have failed in my attempts at songwriting. I fail every day, owing God more with every passing hour (that's a great song by the way, LOVE that song). But the truth is, we expect so much from ourselves that we're destined to be discouraged unless we get really honest.
I have no expectations for my music, but I love the process. And the point isn't that I make mistakes...continually. The point is that there is a process going on in my life that is helping me become more like Christ. If I focus on my many failures and what I'm not, I'll never be anything else. If all my energy is expended to beat myself up for being a product of the fall, there won't be any of it left to lift up my eyes to my Creator -- who has not only created me physically, but who is still in the process of creating a follower of His name inside me.
Romans 6 has a beautiful explanation of grace and righteousness. Notice especially that "just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." WALK IN NEW LIFE. Live like you're free. When you recognize that you aren't bound to your old self any more, you realize that you now have the ability to be righteous where you didn't before -- and it becomes a joy to live righteously. And when you find joy in obedience, that's when you know you're free. You can screw up honestly, many times even, and it can (and should) bother you. But even when you do, you can enjoy the beauty of the process you're experiencing that is bringing you closer every day to what you were meant to be.
And failure really just isn't all that bad.
1.02.2008
strength
I doubt I will ever think I'm strong.
I know for a fact, however, that I get so much of the strength I do have from some wonderful people. God has never left me, but he has also rarely left me without human hands to hold or arms to hold me. I have the opportunity to break down and give out and fall over and show every weakness in me knowing that I have a place to do so, but I also have help when I do get back up and get it together and make decisions and move forward. I've learned more about what God's love is from these relationships than I ever expected to: I'm not supposed to fix it. In fact, GOD isn't supposed to "fix" it. It's ok to cry. Hard. It's ok to feel lost sometimes. It's ok to feel things and think things you don't want to. Because love meets you where you are and waits until you can find a way to stand up before it pushes you forward. You will move forward, and you will be able to do what you need to and face the very problems that brought you to your knees in the first place with the confidence of not being alone.
So I've learned that I can be strong when I don't look like it, feel like it, act like it...I can be strong because I let go of it long enough to lose control for a minute. And the world didn't end. When I took my hands off of it, guess what -- nothing fell apart but me. I know it can and will happen again, because I'm just not the kind of person who can stay busy enough to always keep up my morale when I'm frustrated or scared. But tears aren't weakness, they're a release and a recognition of where I end.
So when I ended, I found people who loved me. A lot. In the right ways and in the best ways they knew how. I can write this because I have a God who has given me grace enough to stand when His strength is all I have, but who so often chooses to hold me up with people I can only hope to give to one day the way they have given to me.
I know for a fact, however, that I get so much of the strength I do have from some wonderful people. God has never left me, but he has also rarely left me without human hands to hold or arms to hold me. I have the opportunity to break down and give out and fall over and show every weakness in me knowing that I have a place to do so, but I also have help when I do get back up and get it together and make decisions and move forward. I've learned more about what God's love is from these relationships than I ever expected to: I'm not supposed to fix it. In fact, GOD isn't supposed to "fix" it. It's ok to cry. Hard. It's ok to feel lost sometimes. It's ok to feel things and think things you don't want to. Because love meets you where you are and waits until you can find a way to stand up before it pushes you forward. You will move forward, and you will be able to do what you need to and face the very problems that brought you to your knees in the first place with the confidence of not being alone.
So I've learned that I can be strong when I don't look like it, feel like it, act like it...I can be strong because I let go of it long enough to lose control for a minute. And the world didn't end. When I took my hands off of it, guess what -- nothing fell apart but me. I know it can and will happen again, because I'm just not the kind of person who can stay busy enough to always keep up my morale when I'm frustrated or scared. But tears aren't weakness, they're a release and a recognition of where I end.
So when I ended, I found people who loved me. A lot. In the right ways and in the best ways they knew how. I can write this because I have a God who has given me grace enough to stand when His strength is all I have, but who so often chooses to hold me up with people I can only hope to give to one day the way they have given to me.
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