I'm the first to admit that I'm still pretty young.

I finally organized my desktop. I feel like a new person. My eyes are tired and I really should be attending to my application for the secretarial position to the Student Missionary Union/ Associated Students, but I am feeling fanciful. What if I want to write a tale or a poem (perhaps two in one) or attempt to draw a lilac bunch. I wonder if there is a word for a lilac-bunch. Please tell me if you know.

As we speak, my dear Britt is in the air quickly approaching that old world of fashion and style and literature. Oh.

"And I'd never love a man because love and pain go hand in hand and I could never do that again."

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Desperately reaching for nets the fishermen would throw.

This morning I woke up in a room that was meant only for sleeping and I descended stairs to a kitchen that was full of food. I drank coffee that isn't see-through and I am now curled up with a throw blanket strategizing a plan for homework. Outside the streets of San Clemente are wet and the sky is a bright grey. In the distance I can see the ocean, stretching out to meet the sky with an abrupt line that must have been drawn with a ruler. The shades of blue do not blend into each other but contrast and mark the division between the heavens and the sea. The two are different, separate, absolute - much like truth and lie. There is moisture in the air and there is a hint of truth in any lie, but one can never be the other. There is absolute truth and the heavens will never be the sea.

Emily and I went to bed late last night - we didn't even take off our makeup and I when I look in the mirror my smudged eyeliner gives me a sense that everything need not be perfect, ordered or assigned. I am enjoying just simply being in this moment, in this house, and alive. I managed to forget my Bible at school, but I am remembering a Psalm - an early one - that speaks of waiting for the Lord in the morning. It speaks of trusting God to show up, to provide, to be faithful. The vague remembrance of this Psalm does two things for me: 1. It reminds me of my desperate need to memorize more (any) scripture and 2. That mornings are special times and that it is essential that we tithe our special times in honor of the Lord.

Perhaps I am simply convicted by the book I am reading for my Acts class. The book by Charles Swindoll is a biography called "Paul: A Man of Grit and Grace". The chapter I am currently reading discusses the importance, nay the vitality, of time spent in silence, solitude and obscurity with God. Paul went to "Arabia" for three years after he met Jesus on the road to Damascus and returned to become the saint we know him as today. Paul embarked on a three-year retreat! I can't even find the time for a day or a weekend! We fill our lives with busyness, stress, events, responsibilities and, when we run out of "obligations", mindlessness. I cannot remember the last time (if ever) I took a significant amount of time to retreat and meditate on the word of God and quiet myself to His whisperings. This might be difficult at Biola: I am carless and living on campus makes being alone nearly impossible, but I feel this is extremely important to my growth and to my relationship with Christ. How am I to "renew my mind" if I don't allow the time for my mind to absorb what I read or what I learn in my magnificent classes?

Also, I miss my family and my home and "my" car. I also miss my friends.
Also, I am indescribably thankful for where God has me. I am where I belong.

Me I was holding all my secrets soft and hid.

I positively do not want to do my philosophy midterm review. I want to curl up with some tea on a soft, swallowing couch and giggle with one of the Emilys or Meg(h)ans or Cass' in my life. Have I mentioned that my midterm is in less than 24 hours? After having considered the situation at length, I've decided to put off my heart's desire and keep on keepin' on. I'll pop some popcorn and get a tall glass of water, Mama Shannon Style.

My Creator has been revealing a lot to me lately. I have been very, very blind to myself and my sin and the power I have in Christ. Now the question is how do I articulate it and how do I realize it...practically. I'll need prayer.

I just want to write a real post, but my philosophy notebook is giving me dirty looks. Isn't it odd that when you are looking to avoid something everything else is infinitely more interesting?

Good gracious.

...but sometimes it hurts instead.

Garden Music 2011 from youeni on Vimeo.

I am liberated.

I am no longer bonded by sin.
I am no longer bonded by self.
I am no longer bonded to someone to whom I'm not bonded.
I am no longer bonded by fear.
I am no longer bonded by pain.

I am free to love.
I am free to obey.
I am free to heal.
I am free to be bold.
I am free to suffer.

You're nobody, girl.

What makes me think I can start clean slated?

I'm the type of person that wants to be a better person. I wish, for example, that I wrote more. Often times, a thought or phrase will pop like a firecracker into my brain and if I don't take a mental picture of the spark it will turn to smoke and waft out of my ears. Smoke is nice because it lingers, but there really isn't any substance to it.

My clarity.

Things are a tad confusing of late but I am finding that being one with Christ and the Father gives clarity before unknown.


 ²⁰ “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, ²¹ that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

A wonderfully woven tapestry.

"We baptize the values of our culture and give them Christian names."
- Dr. Thoennes.

Tonight at Afterdark (a Wednesday night, student-run chapel), Dr. Thoennes taught out of Acts 4. Peter and John had just finished healing a man who had been crippled for life and had proceeded to share the gospel of Jesus' birth and resurrection with the crowds. The text tells us that 5,000 people came to believe just days after the city had been demanding Him crucified. The Sadducees arrested the two apostles and brought them before the council for a hearing. The apostles were then filled with the boldness of the Holy Spirit and spoke truth that the Sadducees could not deny. Yet the Sadducees denied it anyway.

Somewhere in the middle of Dr. Thoennes' sermon, he made an important point:

If the God I believe in is one that never "ticks me off", makes me feel uncomfortable, or tells me something that I don't like, then my God is no more then a projection of myself. We are fallen beings whose minds must be transformed and renewed to be like Him! When God defies my expectations of how I think He should be, I should prepare myself for a need of massive readjustment.

I think it fascinating the way that the Lord has been weaving my life together lately. So many women have been placed in my life. There is so much pain; There are so many questions. Yet the Lord is using each of them to teach me and engage with me in life-giving and edifying discussion that somehow naturally flows to fill the need of the next relationship or conversation. I'll hear a sermon or do some reading and the content will be directly relevant to a conversation I either will have or have recently been a part of. My life is looking a lot like a tapestry, my friend. A wonderfully woven tapestry.

God is good.
God is brilliant.
God provides.

February 29, 2011: Praying.

I know what it is to have dread
bubbling in the stomach,
Heart heavy, dropping inch by inch:
Weighing in the chest.
I know that we all have invisible
Arms that reach while we lay in bed, write,
Read, clean, pray. They reach
Through distances toward the ones we love,
Seeking to move, to hold, to do something more,
To shake awake, to slap, clap - to make
Some sort of noise, a statement.
I know what it is to be helpless.

I know what it is to find comfort.
Unearth truth, the Word of life
revealed in newness, wholeness,
"Oh-so-this-is-what-it-meant-ness."
Seed, His, is planted in soil,
Something soft, solid: final
Place for heavy heart to rest.
Knowledge is gained that nature,
His nature will not be changed, always
Prevails and plants will grow and weeds
Will as well and all there is to do is
Blossom.