O, for a thousand tongues to sing!

I love Phil Wickham's music. His song "Beautiful" just came on. Here are the lyrics:

I see Your face in every sunrise
The colors of the morning are inside Your eyes
The world awakens in the light of the day
I look up to the sky and say
You're beautiful

I see Your power in the moonlit night
Where planets are in motion and galaxies are bright
We are amazed in the   light of the stars
It's all proclaiming who you are
You're beautiful

I see you there hanging on a tree
You bled and then you died and then you rose again for me
Now you are sitting on Your heavenly throne
Soon we will be coming home
You're beautiful

When we arrive at eternity's shore
Where death is just a memory and tears are no more
We'll enter in as the wedding bells ring
Your bride will come together and we'll sing
You're beautiful

I see Your face, I see Your face, I see Your face
You're beautiful, You're beautiful, You're beautiful

That's all I need when I lose track of where I am and where I'm going. Right there.
That's when I know that my God is good, that He is powerful, and that He is beautiful. That's why I struggle so much when I'm not outside in places where His creation is so overwhelming. That's why I struggle when His beauty is not displayed in the faces of the people around me, even though they claim Him. 


And I'm no better than they. I am so judgmental. Just because I have the gift (sometimes it's a burden) of being able to imagine a much better world of love, peace, and beauty, and knowledge doesn't mean I have the right to be angry with (or pity) those who don't. I just wish they could see as I do. It's a beautiful sight, even when it makes my heart cry that it's not what I see when I open my eyes.


I don't want to start a fight, or an argument, or an emotional discussion. I want people to understand that every human has a soul. And every soul is a creation of the Father. And that Father hurts for those who don't know that He is their father. And these fatherless don't deserve our anger, our weapons, our hurtful glances and words, our apathy, our selfishness, our blame, or our criticism. 

Not from us, who were once them. Who were once deserving (and still are) of the total wrath of God, just as they are. How quickly we forget from whence we came. 

Such wrath they will endure if we do not reach out and pull them from danger. In order to pull someone from danger into safety, you have to go into, or at least near, the danger yourself. But what are we afraid of? No one can harm us. They can take our comfortable, opulent lifestyles; they can take our rights; they can take our Bibles; they can take our houses; they can even take our lives (but not our SOULS). But isn't it worth it!?!?! Aren't they worth it? 


I think so. Call me liberal. Call me stupid, ignorant, idealistic. I don't care.


Because if you do, you would probably call Jesus that too.

I'm free, but not dangerous

I'm a pretty scary person sometimes.
That's a lie. 
I'm never scary. 
I'm an average height-ed, blond-ish, middle-weight-ed, 20 year old Caucasian girl from a very small town in southwest Virginia. Nothing about me is threatening. I don't even like guns (I couldn't make myself shoot one when I had the opportunity a couple weeks ago). 

But sometimes people are afraid of my dreams. My hopes scare them. (Sorry Mom, I know I scare you too often. I love you.)  

Today, under the guidance of Phil Joel's deliberatePeople study, I read this: "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit."

I took it out of context, obviously, but it hit me like crazy anyway. You know I've been dealing with not wanting this:  

and instead wanting this:










Well, dear ones, please trust that wherever my heart and passions may be there also is my Father, who is the Protector of the fatherless, and a Provider to the widow. You should know which of those I am. You don't really know me until you know my story (and I don't know you until I know yours so please tell me. I LOVE STORIES!)


Am I afraid? Yes, I tell God that almost everyday, and I usually cry when I do because I know I shouldn't be but it still hurts to not KNOW. I don't understand why He trusts me with stuff, any stuff at all. I'm still afraid of being alone, really alone. Of not being understood by family (whether Jesus-blood or human-blood). Of being forgotten and left behind. 


BUT GOD....has shown Himself faithful to me and mine in the past...has given me the fire and willingness to suffer for Love as He did...has died and raised Himself back to life to give me LIFE and so I don't HAVE to be afraid. I wish I could listen to my own self sometimes, because I scare myself sometimes. And Eleanor Roosevelt told me to do something everyday that scares me. 


I rode a horse for the first time today. Thanks, Rocky, for not throwing me off.

Just throw a wrench at my heart, why doncha?

I love that kind of music that has an effect on your soul before you even hear a word. I just found a new band that does that to me...He is We. Oh so good. 
This week I realized why this semester has been so hard socially for me. My friends and I are growing in different directions. The majority of them want the American dream, they support military action to keep or engender peace, and they want a job and house of their own in a quiet safe neighborhood. I want adventure, not stress. Interdependence, not independence. I want risk and not safety so that God can show himself. I want simple, but not boring. I want love and not war. 

I know it sounds like I'm glamorizing my point of view, and some part of me is, but at the same time I know that I was not made for normal. I am quirky, unusual, and stubborn. I'm really struggling because I talk to my friends about my dreams and get some considerate replies that come wrapped in disbelieving or disapproving facial expressions. I love my friends and they love me, but they don't understand me. I hate that. Really hate it. Thank God I do have a few friends here that understand, but those friends are the very ones that I see and hang out with via planning every two weeks or so. 

I long for community and faith and love and concern and openness and whole conversations about the wonder that is our God. I want to look at nature and say "Oh God, look what You've made! You are so beautiful" and that not be unusual to hear.

Lord Jesus come soon. 

That's when all this will happen for sure and for ever. But I'd like to start living like it is already here! Is that so bad?  

SIMWs #3

While talking to one of my roommates, she told me that she had a conversation earlier with a mutual friend of ours about my extroversion, general craziness, and specifically how I enjoy mismatching my clothes. She told him how one day I had to quick change shirts before I left the dorm because I matched too much. It's a true story.

SIMWs #2

SIMWs....Sim-dubs....Smiles in my Whiles...

I like that.

While avoiding homework, I took it upon myself to look around my room. My piece of gum is still on the wall.

While doing homework, I listen to Christian gangsta rap. And dance in my seat. Because both my roommates are asleep. And neither of them dance...or seem to ever cut loose and just be free...

(that one was a smile and a 'hmph'. sorry)

While preparing to stay up very late tonight to do work (son!), I went to the Keyhole to get coffee and stay-awake snacks. The cashier girl is starting to recognize me as "the girl I always give free coffee to."

Smiles in my Whiles #1

A lot of things have happened that made me smile.

While I was packing to come back to Liberty I forgot my hairbrush. Finger-comb it is then.


While trying to drink my coffee before tiredness set in, I burnt my tongue fiercely last night. I succeeded in my venture nevertheless and was up until about 3am doing homework that wasn't done over break.

While currently sitting on my bed, I look to my right. I see the piece of gum that I stuck to the wall after it got stale. That thumb-punch to the wall happened last week.  

Hopefully more to come.

Ninth.

I saw the most beautiful thing today.

I wish I had my camera with me at the time so I could show you. But I'll tell you as best I can.

I worked at One Body In Christ Horse Ministries today, like I do every Saturday. Today, though, was different. Today was the annual Fall Festival. Yard sale, petting zoo, grillin' and chillin' in the riding ring with turkeys, miniature horses, goats, rabbits, a lamb, and a VERY pregnant donkey. Corral rides on the big horses for the short people, and trail rides on the big horses for the tall people. Kids were chasing, catching, and petting the turkeys and wishing the mini horses weren't feeling grumpy and lazy today. It was sunny, breezy, and only a few wispy cirrus clouds in the sky. Families were coming and going here and there. I was able to hang out with and talk to people I didn't know, people I do know, and people I now know. Perfection. LIFE.

As glorious and reflective of Christ as this was, it is not what I wanted to tell you. My beautiful sight was of an elderly woman. She walked using a walker. She breathed with a nebulizer at her side. She was wrinkled. She was white-haired. She was weathered. She was beautiful.

She had her daughter carry a folding chair into the riding ring for her. She sat in it for a while, but soon got on her knees on the dusty ground with her face in the seat of the chair. I wasn't sure what she was doing until I walked by her. This lady was praying fervently and nearly silently for the success of OBIC's ministry and for the souls of people. She had her eyes closed and her brow was more wrinkled than usual with intensity and earnestness. 

This was that beautiful scene I wish I could have taken a picture of. 
But then...her daughter came over and told her that it was not good for her knees or her lungs to be on the ground. She told her that people were looking at her. She made her mother get back up into the chair, but soon enough, she was right back down. This happened a few times before I was transferred to the corral rides. 

Maybe sometimes what is "good" for us is not what we need, not what is "best" for us. 
Maybe sometimes propriety should take a backseat to authenticity.
Maybe sometimes I wish I understood how to more thoroughly apply this to my own life. 

I hope to be as fervent in my faith as this beautiful daughter of the Beautiful Father was.