Monthly Archives: February 2012

ticket taker

29 Wednesday Feb 2012

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This song is always in my head. Not sure why. I go to sleep at night with it rolling around and I wake up in the morning humming it. There’s always a tune in my head, but this is the one that pops up most often. What song is in your head?

Tonight’s the night when the waters rise
You’re groping in the dark
The ticket takers count the men who can afford the arc
The ticket takers will not board
For the ticket takers are tied
For five and change an hour
They will count the passers by

They say the sky’s the limit
But the sky’s about to fall
Down come all them record books cradle and all
They say before he bit it
That the boxer felt no pain
But somewhere there’s a gamblin’ man
With a ticket in the rain

Mary Anne, I know I’m a long shot
But Mary Anne, what else have you got
I am a ticket taker, many tickets have I torn
And I will be your arc, we will float above the storm

Many years have passed in this river town
I’ve sailed through many traps
I keep a stock of weapons should society collapse
I keep a stock of ammo
One of oil and one of gold
I keep a place for Mary Anne
Soon she will come home
~ The Low Anthem

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What is this feeling?

25 Saturday Feb 2012

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God is greater than our feelings, and He knows everything. 1 John 3:20
I have a lot of feelings.
Surprise.
Lately I have been noticing them trying to control me. Anger, love, hurt, stress, confusion. They creep in and try to make me feel crazy. Lots of things have happened in the past few weeks to put me on an emotional rollercoaster. But I am slowly pushing through them and I keep reciting this verse to myself. God is greater than my feelings. He knows everything I am going through, and he is ALLOWING it!
No eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. Isaiah 64:4&5
Last night I was reading and journaling and thinking about what that really means. And I think I’m beginning to grasp it. I wrote down a bunch of things that I have been worrying about or feeling overly emotional about and putting it on paper helped. Then I just wrote notes to God.
God I am really worried about _____. I’d like it to work out this way, but You know what is best. Please protect my heart and since you are bigger than my feelings, I’d like to hand it over to you and not worry about it anymore. 
How freeing. But I woke up in the morning still anxious and had to hand them over to Him all over again. I think this will be a lesson that takes me a lifetime to learn, but I do have peace that since God is bigger than my feelings, trusting Him with them will NEVER let me down.

wizards in winter

23 Thursday Feb 2012

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Last night it started to snow. Huge beautiful flakes. It was like being inside a snow globe. Or walking through Narnia. It was lovely.

When I woke up this morning it was a silent sunny winter wonderland. I grabbed my camera quick before Jenny picked me up
for our trip to Ohio and captured a few pictures.

They don’t do it justice, but you at least get an idea of how beautiful it was!

To Ohio

23 Thursday Feb 2012

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I left Louisiana on the rail line, oo oo
I left Louisiana on the rail line, oo oo
I was trying to get to Ohio
Trying to get to Ohio

Lost my love before her time, oo oo
Lost my love before her time, oo oo
On the way to Ohio On the way to Ohio

Now every new love is just a shadow, oo oo
Every new love is just a shadow, oo oo

‘Cause once you’ve known love you don’t know how to find love, oo oo
Yeah once you’ve found love you don’t know how to find new love
All the way to Ohio All the way to Ohio

Heard her voice come through the pines in Ohio
I heard her voice singing in the pines in Ohio

She sang bless your soul you crossed that line to Ohio
Bless your soul you crossed that line oo oo
All the way to Ohio
All the way to Ohio
The Low Anthem 

I’m leaving in the morning to go to Ohio to visit my good friend Allie. We have been friends since around sixth grade and I love that we still get together once in a while. She used to live at Moody Bible Institute and I loved going to visit her in Chicago. Now she is married to a great guy, Joel, and they moved to Ohio. Her sister Jenny and I are headed out tomorrow. First stop Chic-Fil-A! So excited for a really fun weekend and some restful time away. We’re on our way Al! 

p.s. why would anyone write a song about ohio??

Center

21 Tuesday Feb 2012

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“You cannot love a fellow-creature fully till you love God.”
~ C.S. Lewis The Great Divorce

You’re the center of the universe
Everything was made in You Jesus
Breath of every living thing
Everyone was made for You

You hold everything together
You hold everything together

Christ be the center of our lives
Be the place we fix our eyes
Be the center of our lives

We lift our eyes to heaven
We wrap our lives around your life
We lift our eyes to heaven, to You

~ Charlie Hall ~

There is a thread that has been running through my days lately. I wonder, if you fully love God would all others fade away? Or would you begin to truly love them as God does? How would my life be different if I loved God so much more than I love anyone else? I just underlined this quote in a book I am reading, “Realizing that all your needs are truly met in Christ will keep you from expecting too much from others.”

Don’t let your happiness depend on something you may lose. ~ C.S. Lewis

How often I do this. I put all my hope in people and expect so much from them and because everyone is sinfully human, they usually let me down. And every time someone lets me down, I get so, so hurt. It’s also not fair. I am holding them to standards that are impossible for them to meet.  Mark Driscoll recently said “When your identity is rooted in Christ, you get to stop using people and start loving them”.

“There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.” ~ C.S. Lewis The Great Divorce

I know this is a rather disjointed post. My mind is all over the place right now. I have really really been trying to apply this to my life though. There are people who I love SO so so much and I always hope and pray that they will realize how much I love them and begin to treat me better in return, and it never works out quite that way. So I think God is slowly turning me around and beginning to show me that I will never love people the right way OR get the love I desire from them in return UNTIL I am fully in love with Him.

I just finished reading The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis (hence all the quotes from that book) I loved it and I especially loved the end. A woman in heaven is talking to the man she was married to on earth. He is living in hell and she is trying to explain to him why he should choose a different way of life. THE way of LIFE.

‘What needs could I have,’ she said, ‘now that I have all? I am full now, not empty. I am in Love Himself, not lonely. Strong, not weak. You shall be the same. Come and see. We shall have no need for one another now; we can begin to love truly.’ ~ C.S. Lewis The Great Divorce

I step out into a new day (since its 12:07 am) and I am PRAYING that God will show me how to love him MORE that I love others. I want to be fully in love with Him. I want Him to be the bottom of my joy and I want to begin to love truly.

One last quote from a favorite movie that I think sums it all up quite well…

Marilla Cuthbert: You set your heart too much on frivolous things and then crash down into despair when you don’t get them.
Anne Shirley: I know. I can’t help flying up on the wings of anticipation. It’s as glorious as soaring through a sunset… almost pays for the thud.
Marilla Cuthbert: Well, maybe it does. But I’d rather walk calmly along and do without flying AND thud

when a heart breaks

15 Wednesday Feb 2012

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Woke up this morning
And I heard the news
I know the pain of a heartbreak
I don’t have answers
And neither do you
I know the pain of a heartbreak

This isn’t easy
This isn’t clear
And you don’t need Jesus
Til you’re here
Then confusion and the doubts you had
Up and walk away
They walk away
When a heart breaks

I heard the doctor
But what did he say
I knew I was fine about this time yesterday
I don’t need answers
I just need some peace
I just need someone who could help me get some sleep
Who could help me get some sleep

This isn’t easy
This isn’t clear
And you don’t need Jesus
Til you’re here
Then confusion and the doubts you had
Up and walk away
They walk away
When a heart breaks

This isn’t easy
This isn’t clear
And you don’t need Jesus
Til you’re here
Then confusion and the doubts you had
Up and walk away
They walk away
When a heart breaks

~Ben Rector~

Valentine’s day

14 Tuesday Feb 2012

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Song of Solomon 8:6 
Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame.

 
That’s one of my favorite verses. Love is as strong as death. Isn’t that powerful? I love Valentine’s day. I’m not one to mope and cry because I have no valentine. Out of 30 Valentine’s days, I have had a valentine for 2 of them. Not sure I’m proud to be admitting that…
I don’t love all the mushiness and silly cards and spending tons of money for flowers, expensive dinners, and gifts no one really cares about. Sometimes I feel like Valentines day is just a day to make people feel guilty like they are forced to do something for the person they are with and it’s not done out of love, but out of necessity or obligation. But I love making fancy desserts and chocolates and showing the people close to me how much I love them. To me it’s not a day to be sad about not having someone special, it’s a day to show all the people in my life just how special they are. 
To-morrow is Saint Valentine’s day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donn’d his clothes,
And dupp’d the chamber-door;
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.
—William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 5

each day

11 Saturday Feb 2012

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Interesting that my life has become about blog posts. I think, what did I do or learn today that I can turn into a positive lesson and form into a blog post? Is that weird? Maybe. But it is also forcing me to look at each day and tear it apart and see the events that formed me. What about today made me stop and think? What was a lesson I learned or SHOULD have learned? How did I apply the sermon from Sunday or in what way did conversations at small group force me to live out today differently. I suppose blogging has forced me to live more analytically. But, I am finding that it does feel as if life has a bit more purpose when you are always looking for opportunities grow and lessons to learn. So think about it: It doesn’t have to be huge or monumental, just a trinket that you pulled out of the day that brought you closer to God or to a friend or inspired you to be a better person. What have you done today that would be worthy of a blog post?