...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.