Another Song.

I have a lot of blog posts about songs. I guess that is just because I am most touched through music. I have known this song for a long time, but I just felt the lyrics needed to be shared. My Epic has a song, Untitled, that really grabs me.

"These bones, my frame won't hold in place. They'd leave and part ways, if I was without You. This earth, my home, would be alone. There'd be no moon to share the galaxy, if it was without You. My God, I am not, but You are. What was it like when You prayed? Did the rivers calm when the raging seas obeyed? What was it like when You slept? Did the rocks come close and the trees lean in, and did the air rejoice just to be Your breath? My God, I am not, but You are. Your servant tried to ask Your name, but a million words could not contain, and the meaning could not be expressed, for the weight would be too much to take. So you cradled him, like You cradle me and whispered, 'I am.' Oh My God, I am not, but you are."

I normally explain how these songs have touched me, but with this one, I can't really say anything. I am simply astounded at this small expression of God's power. The words that are repeated say it all. My God, I am not, but You are.

Light

My favorite song by my favorite band is Light by the Rocket Summer. Lately, I have been thinking about a lot of things, one of which, being my trust and my faith in God. When good things happen, do I give him the glory? When bad things happen, do I praise him anyway? I don't want to be a good-weather Christian. I want to be all in. The bridge of the song says, "I am Yours, do what You wish. I am Yours, I am Yours, and I know this: Whatever happens next is in Your hands, in Your plans, and nothing less. Every day, there is a choice, and through the joy, through the pain, I will rejoice. I am Yours, do what You wish. I am Yours, I am Yours, and I know this." These words hit hard with me every time I hear them. Yeah, I can sing them, but can I mean them? Can I rejoice through both the joy and the pain? Can I give up my plans for my life in order to let God have control? The end of the song says this: "Save me, cause I need it, and I can't help but feel desperate. My desires, they seem to be coming to their endings. But, I will trust it's not the end, but a great beginning." Giving my life to God is not the end, but instead, the beginning.

Romans 1

I have been reading the book of Romans lately. This blog post is, I guess, just some verses that have really caught my attention.

God has really been trying to make me understand that I am not made to please this world. If I am doing what he wants me to do, I won't be comfortable. And I need to be okay with that. It isn't about happiness or comfort...it's about obeying him and experiencing the joy that obedience brings. I guess that is why Romans 1:1 stood out to me so much. "Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God...." I think that because that is the beginning of the letter to the Romans; the introduction, we tend to tune it out. But that verse finally made it hit home: I need to be set apart.

Romans 1:8 says, "First, I thank God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world." Just think about that! The church in Rome was so faithful that they were being talked about everywhere. I read that, and I realized that I want to have that kind of faith. The kind that people can't help but notice. The kind that doesn't stay hidden. What is the point of just saying you are a Christian if you don't live it and spread it every day? We are his witnesses. This verse convicts me to speak out concerning my faith. If I truly love God, surely I would want to tell others about him. Surely my love for him would spill over incessantly.

The end of that paragraph goes along with the next verse, Romans 1:16. It says, "I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes...." We cannot just sit around and hope that somehow, non-believers will magically come to know Jesus. What kind of a witness is that? We have to be purposeful in our actions, trying to reach other people with the salvation we have received.

These are kind of random verses...but like I said, they are verses that spoke to me.

Papa

Last night at ten thirty, one of the sweetest men I have ever known passed away. To give a little background, my mom's best friend also happens to be my best friend's mom. (Tricky, I know.) Anna, my best friend, is the best. Really. You say that people are always there for you, but you rarely ever mean it seriously. But when I say Anna is always there for me, it's absolutely true. I only hope I can be the same for her. Teri, my mom's best friend, is like my second mom. She has tucked me in, sang me to sleep, comforted me, punished me, and loved me for as long as I can remember. Erica, Anna's older sister, is my older sister. People have actually tried to convince me that she isn't (which I don't get), but she is. I love her just like I would love any older sister I had. And Chris, Anna's older brother, would be my older brother, if he hadn't proposed to me when I was three. (He was eight, I think.) So he's just my future husband, is all. Carl, Anna's dad, is my other dad. Ever since I was old enough to call someone on the phone, I have been calling her. (My fingers still automatically punch in her number.) Every time Carl answers the phone (and I mean every time), and I ask to speak to Anna, he pretends to not know who I am. Did I say every time? Cause I really meant every time. Since I have always been so close to them, it's only natural that their grandparents become like my grandparents. So when Papa went to heaven last night, I lost a grandparent. I loved him so much. He was always the sweetest, and he sang and played the guitar (and banjo) beautifully. He was so funny! He made us laugh all the time. And he loved his family. His grandchildren were the most amazing things ever, in his eyes. Thankfully, we are sad not because we do not know where he is. We know that now, he is no longer hurting, but has the privilege to meet the Lord face to face. We are only sad because we miss him. I don't have much else to say, only that I loved Papa like crazy. I'm going to end with a verse of a hymn that he loved.

"Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, let this blessed assurance control, that Christ has regarded my helpless estate, and has shed his own blood for my soul."

Constant

The beginning of Psalm 22 says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? Oh my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer. By night, and am not silent."

Have you ever felt like that? Like everything has gone so terribly wrong; like even the God who created you has left you. Thankfully, the psalm does not stop there.

It nears the end with these words, "He has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help."

Not sure about anyone reading this, but those words comfort me so much!

When I talk to God, I prefer to think of other ways to address him. My favorite is "Constant." Throughout everything, there is God. When everything else falls apart, when your friends leave, when family members die...only one thing never changes. That one thing is God. The Constant.

House of Heroes has a song that says my thoughts exactly. The chorus says, "All through the night I was falling, straining to hear your voice calling. You never gave out, you never gave in, you never quite gave up on me. You are my Constant."

I guess what I am trying to say with this is that no matter what you are going through, God will always be there. Just...that simple.

First Day of the End of Normal Life...and the Beginning of my Journey Toward Becoming an Author

Okay, so the title was unnecessarily long. Although it summed up exactly how today felt to me. Today marks the first day of NaNoWriMo. My word count? 1,953. I'm pretty stoked about it. The recommended goal was 1,766, so I think I am doing pretty well. I have to admit, the hardest part was starting. I sat and stared at my computer screen for a good while before I told myself that it didn't have to be perfect. I would edit it later. Which brings me back to something...I am not editing this as I go along. After all, I have only 30 days to write 50,000 words. I have no time to mess around with editing. So December is "editing month." Also, if you want to read my novel when I finish, that's fine. But here's where I get serious. I will send you a copy by e-mail. However, if I send you a copy, that means that I trust you. Which basically just means don't take advantage of that trust by plagiarizing in any way. Please. Anyway, tomorrow is a new day, and I have to write a good bit more, so it certainly isn't over. This is only the first day of the end...or the beginning, however you choose to look at it.

NaNoWriMo

Starting Monday, NaNoWriMo begins. For those of you that do not know what NaNoWriMo is...I'm not sure how to explain it. My best attempt is this: it's a writing program online that you sign up for and try to write a novel. The novel has to be 50,000 words, or 175 pages. It starts on November 1...and ends November 30. Only thirty days. Needless to say, being the girl who has never finished writing a book in her life, I am more than a little nervous. I have friends who have completed the challenge before who are going to encourage me, though. The main reason I am posting about this is this: sometime during the month of November, I will become very, very discouraged, and will wonder why I ever decided to try to write an entire novel in a month. I will then want to quit. However, if many people know that I am going to attempt this, my pride will surely be enough to keep me from giving up and so humiliating myself.

Fall

I'm not sure how to explain the feelings that fall generates in me. It is like no other season. In my mind, the seasons have thoughts and emotions. So I will explain that way.

Winter is cool and hard. He invites you in with a smile and a kiss only to continue on in his sadistic way for months. He is often cruel, and sometimes murderous. Gray and white are his colors; bleak, and still harsh. After him comes spring, and she seems lovely at first, but the warm, beautiful days of her beginning do not last. They are instead replaced with the chilling notes of winter, of which you are so everlastingly tired. Spring opens up a threshold of new hopes only to crush them. (Unknowingly, of course. Spring is never evil in intentions.) Her colors are pink and yellow: exquisite and unstable colors. However lovely she may be, her elegance is fragile, and does not last. Soon she is overtaken by the stifling summer. Summer is jealous of the glamourous spring season, and exacts her revenge by lasting longer and longer each year. Summer's colors are orange and red. Airless and oppressive. She smothers you in heat and humidity, and tries her hardest to avoid blessing you with rain. It just wouldn't be very revengeful, she justifies. So smother she does, despite the pain she inflicts. Thankfully, she is followed at last by her brother, the warm, welcoming fall. Fall is a peace-maker. He begins his days with a gradual lapse of heat, so as not to hurt poor summer's feelings. (After all, she is actually quite good at heart.) Then slowly, slowly, he turns his attentions to the cooling of the weather, and the falling of the leaves. What a gorgeous time fall charges! He is able to change the colors of the leaves (something done in no other season), create his own smells (for what else says fall but the scent of a bonfire or pumpkin pie?), and compromise gracefully. It is no wonder that this fantastic season is the season in which we give thanks.

Erratic Musings

Blake reminded me that I hadn't written in a while. And then reminded me that my posts don't have to be ridiculously long.

• Today, my family went to the SC state fair. We hadn't gone in about three years...and I had forgotten how much I missed it. I ate a corn dog, Fiske fries, mini doughnuts, a funnel cake, fried mushrooms, a cookie, and more Fiske fries. *whew* I'm thinking it will be a long time before I will be hungry again.
• I discovered that going through fun houses makes me feel like Indiana Jones. I must say that is an awesome feeling. Also, My dad and I found a cake that looked like Indiana Jones. I won't say what his whip looked like. (Hint: It did not look like a whip.)
• Apparently, a lot of exchange students work at the fair. There were tons of strange accents; including a cute French accent. I like accents. I am thinking of adopting one. Or keeping mine, and moving somewhere else where my accent is different.
• In previous years, I have always felt like we left the fair too early to do everything that I wanted to do. This year, it was not so. We did everything imaginable. That is, except seeing a dog-trick show.
• I drove to Columbia on the interstate last night...most of the way! My daddy said that I drove well. *happyhappyhappyhappy* (In case you were wondering, this is when I danced a happy dance.)
• Today is October 15th. That means that today, my friend Aaron turns 17. It also is our first friendiversary. Awesome.

I guess this is an acceptable blog post.

A Revelation (Courtesy of my Dad) and a Hard Decision

I am the kind of person who likes to control things. Whether it's my life or someone else's. That has proven to be a problem time and time again as I try to dictate the way my friends live their lives. Of course, it makes sense why they would not listen to me. Who wants to be told what to do? But whenever I see that someone is making a mistake that could be fixed or going down a path that will lead to no good whatsoever...I can't seem to stop myself from giving advice. What gets me is when very smart people do very dumb things. And then do those very dumb things...again. I'd like to say that I am a pretty logical person. If I do something and something bad happens because of it (a little thing called "cause and effect"), I try to avoid doing that something again. But I have seen my friends make a mistake and hurt themselves, and immediately pop back up and make the same mistake. It's almost like a cycle. "Be stupid; receive consequences; cry, get angry, or shut down; be stupid; receive consequences; cry, get angry, or shut down; be stupid....etc, etc." See what I mean? So to me, as a logical, common-sense kind of person, this seems pointless. And as a result, I try to run my friends' lives.

My dad and I had a conversation last night about this very subject. I was explaining to him how frustrated it makes me when I can clearly see what will happen to my friends, yet they don't believe me. Or, if they do, they simple don't care. He listened for a while and let me get it all out of my system. (Sometimes that's what you have to do with me. Hooray for my dad knowing that.) Then he pointed something out to me. Something that you would think, me being a logical person and all, I would have known. It isn't up to me to change my friends' hearts. Yes, I can try to influence them. Yes, I can tell them how I feel about the situation they are in...and what I would do. But I cannot expect them to listen to me...or to feel the same way that I feel. If they are doing something wrong, only God can change their hearts, and it is ridiculous for me to think that I could ever do so. (And if they are just being stupid, I just need to be there for them when their mistakes get them in trouble.)

What I have come up with is this: It won't happen immediately, because I still want to take control when it seems like no one is...but I am going to step back...not from my life, because I seem to be fine at letting go of that, but from my friends' lives...and let God be the one in charge. I'll just be the one to whom they know they can come when everything messes up. (Without saying "I told you so.") The best part of this is...God knows all that will happen in their lives...ever. So logically...the best person to take control of their lives isn't screwed up, sinful me...but the perfect, all-knowing God.

A Song I Would Like to Share

So, there is this song by Leeland that has been blowing my mind. As Dave from Hot Rod would say...it shattered my entire universe. The name of this song is Weak Man. The lyrics are

"Jesus, give me Your heart. Let there be a death in me. I'm making room for all
that You are; give me Your heart. Jesus, give me Your heart. Break me
down, build me up. Let who I was keep falling apart; give me Your
heart. My Creator, may I be low, low, low, low, so You're made
higher. And I'll be weak, for you are strong in the weak man. Jesus,
give me Your heart. Burn away all the dross. Come on, let the fire start;
give me your heart. I want to make you higher...Lord, it's my heart's
desire."

As I listened to these words...a few things ran through my head. The first being quite simple. "Wow." The verse where it says, "let who I was keep falling apart" really got through to me. When Christ's death paid for my sin, and I accepted His sacrifice, I was made over. I'm not who I was before I gave my life over to Him. And I am not supposed to act like that old person. The second thing was bigger, and took more thought. Am I really willing to be low so that God can get all the glory? Being weak doesn't just mean physically weak. What really hit it home to me was saying this to myself: You are good at lots of things. You are musical, and you are smart. But are those things more important to you than giving God the glory? Would you be willing to give up those things...or the praise for those things...so that God could be glorified? And the shock to me was, I wasn't sure that I was willing. The last thing that really made me think were the last few words. "It's my heart's desire." Is my heart's desire, the thing I want more than anything, to make God higher?

I just wanted to share how that song has been speaking to me. Are there any songs that continue to speak to you, over and over again?

I've Been Thinking...

Ever since I was little, I knew how I felt about dating. I didn't want a boyfriend for a long time...and that meant at least not until highschool, and maybe not even then! I knew that most of my friends didn't feel that way. That was fine with me. But, even though I didn't allow their opinions to rub off on me, I don't think I was making a dent in their perspectives, either. I started thinking about this earlier today, and decided it was time to try my hand at another blog post. (My last attempt having failed....) Why, I asked myself, have I not influenced my friends? What I came up with was simple. I didn't know what it was that I believed. And, not knowing what I believed, how was I supposed to pass it on to my friends? There was no way. So, here goes my feeble try at explaining what I believe.



Have you ever heard the term "hustle while you wait?" What it means is that while we are waiting for something to happen, we should be preparing for it. I imagine this as how my mother prepares for our family to visit the beach each year. If my mom simply stated that we were going to the beach, and it was going to be exciting, then not much would happen. In fact, we would probably end up getting in the car and driving all the way to Garden City, realizing we were not packed, didn't have a place to stay, and, to top it all off, we had no money for gas to get home! However, my mom, who is extremely organized, has everything ready before we go, so that we don't have to worry about where we will stay or how we will get home...or what we will eat. So, even though we can't leave immediately for the beach, however much we might want to, all of our family is preparing for when we will leave. Now, picture the same scenario...but a little differently. If you are a teenager, or even in your twenties, chances are, you aren't ready to get married. You probably haven't even met the right person yet. What if, instead of wishing that wonderful day will come...the day we meet our future husband/wife at the altar and become one...and spending all our time thinking how nice it will be then...we hustled while we waited? What if we spent our single years preparing to be better a better husband or wife to that person God has chosen for us? What if, instead of pining for things that shouldn't happen yet, we prepared for tomorrow?

Another thing I have noticed among people my age--boys and girls alike--is this feeling that they have to have a boyfriend or girlfriend. Is this right? Should we always be wanting someone to be a part of us...especially in such an intimate way? We mimic our broken society...always wanting something now. Inventions like microwaves (quickening the pace at which we cook our food), google (quickening the pace at which we research information), and e-mail and texts (quickening the pace at which we have conversations), show this. And while those inventions are not a bad thing in themselves, they certainly show our impatience as a society. I've seen this also demostrated through relationships. So many of my friends have boyfriends or girlfriends...when none of them are ready or old enough for marriage! It seems as though we, being influenced by the "have-it-now" attitude of our generation, have carried it so far as to want a serious relationship far too early. A good thing at the wrong time is just as wrong as a bad thing at any time. When we search for intimacy with someone of the opposite sex, whether through our physical actions or through our emotions, we are giving a part of ourselves away! We're taking a good thing (becoming one in marriage) and having it at the wrong time. Say you are a teenager or young adult and you have a boyfriend or girlfriend you are very close to. You talk to them almost every day, see them at least once a week, and pretty much depend on them for your happiness. Now, what if (just go with me), that boyfriend or girlfriend isn't the person you are going to marry? Well, that changes things a bit. What if you waste your time that you have to be single and prepare for marriage, developing a relationship that isn't even going to last? Because, be honest, what is the average lifespan of those middle-school, or even high-school relationships? I don't want to tell my husband I love him only to have him wonder to whom else I have said those words. I also don't want to have to wonder the same thing about my husband. But, how can we expect our husbands to avoid romantic relationships before he is ready if we aren't willing to do the same?

Maybe you don't agree with my idea of waiting until you are ready for marriage to date someone. That's okay; I didn't write this so everyone would agree with every word I said. I just wrote it to say some of what I was feeling. But, maybe you agree with me that most relationships tend to move too quickly. In that case, it would be wise to make a list of boundaries for yourself...and a list of things you can avoid to keep from overstepping those boundaries. For instance, I have decided to save my first kiss for my wedding day. Yes, that is extreme. Yes, I know you don't think I will be able to wait that long. Yes, I am different. I just feel that even a simple kiss can lead to much more...and can you imagine sharing your first kiss with the man with whom you are going to spend the rest of your life? Maybe for you, saving your first kiss is too much. I'm not saying it's for everyone. It's just what I want to do. But making a list of boundaries will not only help you to re-examine your relationships, but if a moment ever comes where you feel uncomfortable during a date or elsewhere, you will know exactly what you feel you should do. So, just give it some thought.