Truly Grateful

This Thanksgiving was one of my favorites! The food wasn't any different, I still ate turkey, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie.

It was celebrated at the same kitchen table it has always been. It wasn't the decorations or the music. 

What was different about this Thanksgiving was my perspective. I was truly thankful like I've never been before! It was the first time in 5 years that my family has been all together on this holiday. My parents surprised  me with a flight home for the weekend. I don't think I've ever been so overwhelmingly blessed in my life! Ever had one of those moments you wish you could just freeze and put in a jar to look at later? That is the only way I can express my time. Precious memories that will last for the rest of my life. 

Below is a poem I was reading this morning. It is a beautiful picture of family.

Thanksgiving by Edgar Albert Guest

Gettin' together to smile an' rejoice, 
An' eatin' an' laughin' with folks of your choice;
An' kissin' the girls an' declarin' that they
Are growin' more beautiful day after day;
Chattin' an' braggin' a bit with the men,
Buildin' the old family circle again;
Livin' the wholesome an' old-fashioned cheer,
Just for awhile at the end of the year.
Greetings fly fast as we crowd through the door
And under the old roof we gather once more
Just as we did when the youngsters were small;
Mother's a little bit grayer, that's all.
Father's a little bit older, but still
Ready to romp an' to laugh with a will.
Here we are back at the table again
Tellin' our stories as women an' men.

Bowed are our heads for a moment in prayer;
Oh, but we're grateful an' glad to be there.
Home from the east land an' home from the west,
Home with the folks that are dearest an' best.
Out of the sham of the cities afar
We've come for a time to be just what we are.
Here we can talk of ourselves an' be frank,
Forgettin' position an' station an' rank.

Give me the end of the year an' its fun
When most of the plannin' an' toilin' is done;
Bring all the wanderers home to the nest,
Let me sit down with the ones I love best,
Hear the old voices still ringin' with song,
See the old faces unblemished by wrong,
See the old table with all of its chairs
An' I'll put soul in my Thanksgivin' prayers.

Oh gnome you didn't!

When I look at this it makes me want to laugh, the joy on this kids face is the best! I see excitement, anticipation, freedom and bliss. You might not see that…you might just see the fact that this kid probably has an irresponsible parent throwing him 6 feet in the air. 

That’s ok too. You’re still loved.

 This picture reminds me of a old hymn. Think that’s kind of weird? Let me disambiguate that for you!  

  

I'll Fly Away

Some glad morning when this life is o'er,
I'll fly away.
To a home on God's celestial shore,
I'll fly away.

I'll fly away, O Glory, I'll fly away.
When I die, Hallelujah, bye and bye,
I'll fly away.

When the shadows of this life have flown,
I'll fly away.
Like a bird thrown, driven by the storm,
I'll fly away.

Just a few more weary days and then,
I'll fly away.
To a land where joy shall never end,
I'll fly away.

When I hear this song it brings me back to “excitement, anticipation, freedom and bliss.” That is what we should have as we look forward to the coming of our King. I’ve been thinking on eternity and it is a wonderful thing to ponder.  A place where joys shall never end. My mind can't even start to comprehend unending joy! The thought that one day I get to be in the presence of MY Jesus. Oh man, I feel like the kid in the picture! It brings freedom to my heart! It brings me to a place of no worries, no cares…only desiring the company of my Redeemer. 

“He who testifies to these things says, Yes, I am coming soon. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus." Revelation 22:20

You'll Come

This is my new favorite worship song!! I heard it in worship last week, started working on learning to play it and then one of my teachers played it in class today! It is so beautifully written.

Here are the lyrics and the youtube link....check it out.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RmZFaruXhs

You'll Come - Hillsong
(Hosea 6) 

I have decided
I have resolved
To wait upon You Lord
My rock and Redeemer
Shield and reward
I'll wait upon You Lord

As surely as the sun will rise
You'll come to us
Certain as the dawn appears

You'll come
Let Your glory fall as You respond to us
Spirit rain
Flood into our thirsty hearts again
You'll come
You'll come

We are not shaken
We are not moved
We wait upon You Lord
Mighty deliverer
Triumph and truth
We wait upon You Lord

Chains be broken
Lives be healed
Eyes be opened
Christ is revealed 

500 views!!

There have been over 500 hits on this blog! Thank ya'll so much for reading. It means a lot that these words aren't just flying out into cyberspace! Now, all you bloggers out there might not think that 500 views is much to be excited about...BUT IT IS FOR ME!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!! And for whoever that 500th viewer was...I have two words for you. Brownie. Points.

yes, this is slightly creepy.

Relearning Joy

Something the Lord has been showing me these past weeks has been His abundant Joy. Over the last year and a half there has been a lot of stuff going on in my life that just robbed me of my Joy. I didn’t even realize it either! I just went through the motions of finishing high school and pulling myself together emotionally enough to get through the weeks.

As the months went on I pushed the pain aside and got it tucked away so it wasn’t in my face every day.  I had tried to fully express my heart to the Lord.  I had cried out to Him in the hard days and had made the decision to just move on.  But, still, if I thought on the losses and the changes that had come into my life, the pain returned and the sadness resurfaced all over again.  The pain I had tucked away in the back of my heart was affecting the abundant joy I had always had in the Lord. 

But the Lord is bringing me joy again! It is incredible to experience true joy from the Lord. True joy not only my relationship with God, but my relationship with brothers and sisters in Christ! God is breaking down the walls I’ve built up to protect my heart and helping me build new, meaningful, loving relationships.  He is taking my sorrow and turning it to gladness.

“Then maidens will dance and be glad, young men and old as well. I will turn their mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow.”   Jeremiah 31:13

He is changing my heart and my way of thinking.

I want to share something with you. I wrote this sometime while in my senior year of high school.  It was a time when I was really hurting. I remember crying while typing it out. Writing helped me express how I was feeling about the loss of friendships in a season that had been so precious and fruitful ...

“Sometimes I wish we could go back to those magnificent Summer days. When being a free spirit was what our hearts hungered for. When the cold grass under our feet made us feel alive, and we would lay in it while the seeping sun melted into night. That Summer when we would dance through the darkness; the stars would dance with us and the moon would laugh and listen to us as we sang to him, smirking in his giddy way, the way moons always do.

We would cast all our problems to the wind. Good friends and music was all we needed to become who we wanted to be. When a smile changed a disposition and a hug was all that mattered. A flash of lightening took your breath away from the beauty of the authority it spoke. We laughed more then we breathed, we loved more then we ever thought we could. 

Summer spoke to us as it dissolved the walls that we built up against each other. The walls fell down and we ran, as fast as we could together. There was a fire in us, and we trusted. We trusted the person running next to us wouldn’t cause us to fall. If we did fall, that friend wouldn’t push us down again, but they would help us up. Summer said, “trust.”  Summer said, “Abide in the moment.”  Summer told us to hold each others heart strings. Summer said, “These are the best days of your life!”  And we believed. All those incredible memories spilled from our minds, and rushed through our veins. 

Those were the days before the heartache set in. The days before, you had to drown your thoughts on the shoreline just to try to remember what life was really about because nothing made sense anymore. When Summer came it felt like a dream.  It swept you off you’re feet. But a wisp of joy turned into sorrows, a happy thought turned to ruins.

When I look at that dream, the dream of Summer, it wasn’t what it appeared to be.  Summer said one thing and did another. Summer lied, and never said it was sorry. Summer left me to a cold world full of ugly truths; it left me lying on the floor with my bleeding heart. And right when I needed Summer the most, when I needed its warmth, its love, when I thought Summer would be on my side, holding my hand, saying the cold would melt away and color will come back… When I needed that, Summer spit on me and told me I was worthless.

All the sweet words it whispered in my ear, saying how, “it could be like this forever,” those weren’t true. Had all the joy been false? Was everything we thought we knew not really what was said? 

But I realized something, dreams have to end. You can’t stay asleep forever. If you live in a dream, you're not really living at all. Summer was like a deep slumber.  Sometimes when we're in a deep sleep somebody has to shake us awake so that we can be a real, living, breathing person. 

If we could go back to that Summer we knew, would we act the same knowing what we know now? In truth, we needed Summer.  We needed the Good.  Even more so, we needed the bad. Because unless we experience the bad, I don’t think we would even remember how good, Good really was. Unless the ugly, nasty, faulty part of that dream came out into the fresh air, that ugly part would have never choked on the clean, clear, simple goodness that we took for granted. And we would have never known it was hiding anything. We wouldn’t have seen under the skin, under the outer layer that was deceiving us. 

I’ve forgiven Summer for the lies it spoke, even though Summer isn’t really sorry.
I’ve come to a place were I’ve accepted it was a dream.  A dream that hurt and left scars that will never fully heal…

Would I go back and change summer? Would I have done something different? 

No. I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t change one moment, one I love you. I cherish those times and still miss them. I still miss the way things used to be…those glorious nights when we lived in our dreams. Nothing will ever be the way it used to, and the reason is because we did trust and it made us trip. But tripping up at times means growing and growing means becoming one step closer to who we were created to be.”

I haven’t shared this with many people. It’s something I’ve held onto…as I feel…in some bitterness still. As I read it now, there is a part where it says” I’ve forgiven”. But at the point that I wrote this I hadn’t forgiven. I wanted to.  I wanted to forgive as I have been forgiven…but it never truly came to pass in my heart…until now.  

And I don’t miss “the way things used to be” and I don’t desire to “go back.”  God has brought me to a new land, where there are sweeter things to taste and more of His goodness to drink in! I am being given an abounding-God-sized-heavenly- joy that only comes from being right where He wants me to be.

I am letting it all go…because I want the JOY of the Lord instead!

(If you just read this whole post… I love you. Sorry it was so long.)

This Is A Title

WOW, haven’t blogged in quite a while! Sorry!

I’ll share with ya’ll a little about what’s been going down. Classes got back into full swing after wilderness.  I tried to write a blog post about it but there was so much that happened I couldn’t even articulate it!. Maybe I’ll give a swing at some point.

Twice a week we have days when we do outreaches and service projects. On Wednesday our group (everyone who was in my wilderness family) was assigned landscaping. We served right around the corner from the school. In groups of three or four some of us cleaned windows and some picked up trash. I was with my gals, Molly and Alysha.  One of the Impact interns named Nick was leading our group. We walked along the sidewalks we picked up cigarette butts, bits of paper, trash and old cups. After a little while we met a man riding his bike. His name was Rick. We talked to him a bit and then asked if there was anything he needed prayer for. He said no, but that we should go and talk to his two homeless friends around the corner.  Nick asked us if we wanted to go and talk to them and we were totally up for that! 

Their names are J.R. & Joey. We went and talked to them and prayed for them.  I didn’t get a chance to personally talk to J.R. because Nick was speaking to him but us girls got to talk to Joey a bunch.  Joey shared with us how he became homeless.  He shared that he drinks and doesn’t know why and that he fears death. Molly really blessed me by her boldness for the Lord.  She just kept sharing with him in such a loving manner and encouraged him to draw close to God.

We found out that the next day was Joey’s birthday, so we planned to surprise him with cake and a card.  After class on Thursday me, Molly and Alysha got two dudes (Dez and Eric) to go with us and headed out to find J.R. and Joey.  We walked around for a while until we saw Rick.  We thought he might know where Joey was. He told us that they went to the library and wouldn’t be back for a while. We left the cake and card at the spot where they normally sit. Hopefully Joey saw it.   

While we were talking to Rick, Eric started sharing the Gospel.  It was super sweet to just see this brother’s love for the Lord pouring out in his speech. We prayed with Rick and he received the Lord.  I pray he actually knew and meant what he was praying.  Hopefully we will be able to check up on him and see how he is doing this week.   

These brothers and sisters have been such an amazing blessing to watch and learn from. Their confidence in the Lord and love for the lost is truly inspiring! If I had a scripture to describe this week it would be this…

 “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners. “    Isaiah 61:1

We’re gonna PROCLAIM IT! What whaaattt!!!   Well, I’ll leave it at that.  I hope this encouraged you, if I talk to those guys again, I’ll definitely write about it!

 Thank you all so much for all your love, prayers and support!

XOXO