Leave the Umbrella Behind

I just knew I was supposed to do it. I just knew it. So I did. I ran all around up and down my driveway in the storm. By myself. In the dark. For almost twenty minutes. I came in drenched from the rain, but so glad. And not the normal glad I was expecting. Not any silly feelings I expected. Harder ones. Better ones.

Tired of This Routine Passion

I think this might be the closest thing to where my heart is. Or better yet, these are the best words I can think of to explain it.

I want more. I have some. But I want more. I know it's there to have. All I know how to say about what I am feeling is that I want more. It seems that as I stand here looking for the 'more', I am slowly feeling less of what I already have. So that leaves me here in this middle, dry, tired ground. And I guess that means I am at the point where I will just look for Him to satisfy my 'more'. As I look, I will keep seeking His face and hoping not to forget too much of what I already have.

I need to be in the Word. A lot.
This is where my heart is.

Waiting to figure out where I am, while standing in the presence of Beauty

It's funny to me that I haven't written in this for so long. I have found myself looking at this page every weekend that I have been home this summer; yet no new posts seem to appear. My head has been somewhere else. I have seen God. This summer has been so full of His face. Sometimes in my life I get so caught up in thinking about how I am going to tell other people about seeing Him, that I get distracted from being in awe of the moment I have been given. I hate that. I hate that my desire to be seen as a person in love with God takes away from my love for God. This summer has been a beautiful break from that desire. I have been put in an environment where I have the freedom to take the moments as they come. My job doesn't leave much time to process my thoughts right away, but I know that once I am finally home, for good, He will provide plenty of time to do that.

My list of things to pray over and surrender to Him is long, and full of burdens. But my heart is still surrounded by the fullness of His goodness. I rejoice in the fact that He has chosen to bless me with pictures of His beauty this summer, but I am ready to be home and see what they mean for the way that I choose to love Him back. I am ready to know what imprint they have made on my image of His face.

I pray that I can never fathom His abundance of love for me. I pray that I will never know why He shows me the things that He does. I pray to be completely wrapped up in knowing Him. And I pray that I can be faithful in surrendering to Him the things I hold in my closed fist.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

He's stripping me of all that I cling to. Every time I think I am healing from what is taken away, He just takes something else so that He is all that is left standing. It's a beautiful mess. My heart hurts more with each thing taken from me; but as my idols fall my need for Him deepens. I hate being angry about it, and I'm tired of being tired about it. I want to be thrilled that He loves me enough to steal my attention and drive out the things that rob me of seeing His face. I want to rejoice every time my attention is painfully turned back to His perfection. Yeah, I just want to feel that so badly. I half-heartedly pray that He would continue to strip me of things I put before Him. And I pray that I would soon be able to pray that prayer with sincerity.

"Sometimes I pray for a slap in the face,

Then I beg to be spared cause I'm a coward..."

-Nickel Creek

It's Back

I layed in the grass.
I smelled like outside.
I played on the swings.
Spring is here.

spring

i miss the spring. for real.

for myself

i went to the C3 evening service last night. it was really cool. they changed the chairs around and Konan spoke down on the floor instead of the stage. so it was a very comfortable and close environment. there were only about thirty or forty people there and i didn't know any of them. but that was okay. Konan's sermon was ridiculously encouraging. he spoke on embracing uncertainty. his main point was that because we have certainty in Christ and the cross, we can embrace the life of uncertainty that GOD offers to us.

i left with a lot on my mind. i don't know how much that sermon really applied to my thoughts after it, but it definitely got me thinking. last night i realized that i needed to pursue Christ's love for myself. this past year i have come to love Him and need Him more than ever before. but i don't think i have ever really wanted it for myself before. in high school sometimes i just want to know Christ for the sake of being a part of Young Life (which is a hard thing for me to admit). but it's truth. and i have been realizing that if that is my only motivation, it will never be a sufficient drive to follow after Him and that i am missing out on so much. i have to realize my desperate need for the cross, remember that need every day, and make that my motivation to follow Christ.

i know that GOD has only the best for me; and i want to be disappointed with anything less than that. i am so crazy loved by Him