I'm learning American Sign Language.
I don't need language credit, I don't have a Deaf friend/close family member, and as much as I love Ashley (and I do love you my friend) it's definitely not for her benefit. BUT--I can't imagine living in a world where communication is nearly impossible with anyone besides those who make an effort to learn how to speak to you. For some reason that has absolutely captivated my attention and makes me think that this is a tangible way to show ridiculous love to a group of people who are used to being forgotten. I hope that by the time the Deaf ministry at Newspring gets underway, I'll at least be able to have a decent (even if slow) conversation with the people it attracts. If you know me at all, you could probably guess the one thing I'm having the hardest time with:
I have to use few words.
I am fascinated with the English language. I have a great appreciation for the richness of its vocabulary and the enormous variety of ways to express one single idea. Lyrics affect me just as much as music itself, and I adore poetry. I may not always be a fascinating conversationalist in real-time, but when I can sit down and write what I mean I sometimes come up with some good stuf. Clever humor makes me happy. WORDS are beautiful to me.
AND SO-- a language that (by necessity) is simple and essentially exists to get the point across is way off my radar. But it has brought me to this understanding: worship and prayer are a lot like sign language. There is a God who brought time into existence and sings over me as I sleep and has made even the darkest and most terrible things beautiful in their time and I'm supposed to tell him how great he is?? Like the beauty of a melody to a person unable to hear it, I'm trying to express to the captor of my soul how grateful I am for a love that I will never fully understand. I've never experienced anything other than a pale reflection of the glory that defines him. I've never even come close to anything that beautiful or that terrifying or that majestic. I don't know the true meaning of those words and even if I did, they wouldn't be enough. And I can say that, but I can't comprehend that.
The best I can do is this: God there aren't words. You have not given me a language that is big enough to encompass you. All of creation screams your greatness and though it falls far short, we cannot even comprehend that. So in place of words, I will exist to thank you. With your help and guidance and patience, I will pour out myself in service to you every day I am allowed to draw a breath. Father not my will, but YOURS be done.
2.03.2008
1.31.2008
beautiful
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.
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.
1.25.2008
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.
12.17.2007
how you see me
Guys, let me give you a clue about us girls: good or bad, whether we want to or not, most of us spend a good amount of time wondering what you think of us.
I wonder what my dad thinks of me. I want him to look at his little girl and be proud, to know that the daughter he raised is not just your typical average "good girl."
I wonder what my brother thinks of me. I want him to be excited that he gets to be stuck with me for the rest of his life :)
I wonder what the guys I pass every day that I don't know think of me. I want them to be able to tell there's something different in the way I present myself to the world.
I wonder what the guys in my classes (since there are so flippin many of them) think of me. I want the way I look and dress and act and speak to be respectable and representative of the person God intended me to be.
I wonder what my boyfriend thinks of me. I want him to know he can trust me and be proud of who I am.
I wonder what my friends think of me. I want them to be able to say that they respect my opinions and value my friendship.
Bottom line--I care about what you think. But only because if I try to look at myself through your eyes, I can learn a lot about who I am and what I need to change. I tend to think about how you see me because I know what I would like for you to see. And as a female who is learning how you guys see us, I am even more determined to never be anything but confident and respectable in the eyes of the men in my life. I don't want to flirt all the time or be too touchy, be overly needy or dependent, dress in a way that makes the visual battle guys fight any harder, find my worth in any relationship, be shallow or selfish, think I need to put lots of effort into how I look, or get jealous of girls who are prettier than I am. I spent a lot of time caring far too much about the world's perception of me. Now I only want to care if your experiences with me reflect the person I am striving to become.
I wonder what my dad thinks of me. I want him to look at his little girl and be proud, to know that the daughter he raised is not just your typical average "good girl."
I wonder what my brother thinks of me. I want him to be excited that he gets to be stuck with me for the rest of his life :)
I wonder what the guys I pass every day that I don't know think of me. I want them to be able to tell there's something different in the way I present myself to the world.
I wonder what the guys in my classes (since there are so flippin many of them) think of me. I want the way I look and dress and act and speak to be respectable and representative of the person God intended me to be.
I wonder what my boyfriend thinks of me. I want him to know he can trust me and be proud of who I am.
I wonder what my friends think of me. I want them to be able to say that they respect my opinions and value my friendship.
Bottom line--I care about what you think. But only because if I try to look at myself through your eyes, I can learn a lot about who I am and what I need to change. I tend to think about how you see me because I know what I would like for you to see. And as a female who is learning how you guys see us, I am even more determined to never be anything but confident and respectable in the eyes of the men in my life. I don't want to flirt all the time or be too touchy, be overly needy or dependent, dress in a way that makes the visual battle guys fight any harder, find my worth in any relationship, be shallow or selfish, think I need to put lots of effort into how I look, or get jealous of girls who are prettier than I am. I spent a lot of time caring far too much about the world's perception of me. Now I only want to care if your experiences with me reflect the person I am striving to become.
12.15.2007
break!
Normal people spend 1/3 of their lives sleeping (college doesn't count). Why? You're not conscious, nor are you getting anything valuable from it. God could've made us to recharge in an hour or two and get at least 20 good hours of productivity in.
But he didn't.
He made us to need rest, to burn out if we push it too hard, to enjoy the time we have that isn't spent doing anything. It isn't laziness, it's necessity. I'm definitely looking forward to my time in the next few weeks doing nothing but loving my family, seeing some of my favorite people, and...wait, I think there was something else...
Oh yes. SLEEPING.
:)
But he didn't.
He made us to need rest, to burn out if we push it too hard, to enjoy the time we have that isn't spent doing anything. It isn't laziness, it's necessity. I'm definitely looking forward to my time in the next few weeks doing nothing but loving my family, seeing some of my favorite people, and...wait, I think there was something else...
Oh yes. SLEEPING.
:)
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