the ramblings of a maiden waiting at the castle… May 31, 2010

~*~
well…i have not blogged since last year, i believe. life has been busy and i haven’t been writing. there is A LOT going on in my head… and it isn’t clear enough to be pretty yet (or make any sense whatsoever). so… for now i choose to finish reading over all of my old writings. some of them very immature, some very lovely…all snapshots of my heart and mind on the journey of stepping closer to where i am today.

man oh man. i remember this time in my life (as in the time that i wrote what your about to read). little did i know how pivotal that summer would be to the rest of my life. i remember that God told me i needed to live above reproach, which is something i’d never done before. my support group that i had grown up with my whole life literally fell apart all at once. and i was truly heart-broken for the first time in my life (and no, it wasn’t over a boy). it was my church, my home town, my college group, my friends… everything was falling apart.

…i was praying and seeking and seriously being as close to flawless i could muster. and i felt like i was having the rug pulled out from underneath me and the breath knocked out of my lungs with every turn. it was hard.  …and God used that horrible and vulnerable  time in my life to rock my world (in a very good way). i left UAB, decided to move to Louisville, was literally spending about 5 hours a day with God (and very little time with ANYONE else in my town)… and also in that summer He literally placed (DIRECTLY in my path) three of my very best friends, my future sister (and best friend), and my future husband in my life. …and i thought that my life was ending. His plans are so much better than ours.

i am so thankful that i can look back and laugh with Him now. that i can sit with Him in total comfort and joy…my old Friend. i value that valley, and those battles with the highest regard… knowing what Beauty and Adventure lay just beyond the tip of that Canyon.

real life updates soon. promise.
~*~

july 26, 2006
…i have tasted of a love so wide, that it stops all my time

hmmmm. i know that there has been a few of these senseless blogs lately. and not much depth. there’s some deep thought going on in my mind, but i have a lot of sorting through to do…and i need to go into deeper waters…before i can put any of it into words that surpass jumble. actually, this is going to be jumble too whatever comes to mind. if there’s a space in between paragraphs… it probably means that it has nothing to do with the previous thoughts. so i’m sorry that there will be no flow to this.

i’ll be fine just like the last time…

so, last week, was probably the worst of my life thus far. things seemed to pile on top of each other. yes, it could have been worse…but it was still hard. God gave me strength, and for the first time i truly understood the phrase ‘peace that passes understanding.’

i’ve lived the longest days, thinking my heart was so bad. too scared to look You in the face…oh if only i had. is it alright, if i stay here all night by the shoreline?

my life is just kind of hanging there (‘where is there?’ you ask…i’d like to know that myself), i haven’t heard from boyce yet. every single member of my family seems to be in the biggest fight of their lives. and almost all of the people who i need assurance from are at least an hour away. but after a long, hard week… my heart had strength that seemed unreal. this is what was going on in my head during those days:

~the battle lines have been drawn, i look around and i’m standing alone… the warm wind blows and draws the dust up from the ground…it slowly rises, almost dancing above my head. the dust grows thicker and soon i can’t even see the haunting battle line. i sink into my heart and ask God why He isn’t beside me…and at that moment i feel His Breath at my side and i start to rise, slowly. soon i’m above the valley where the battle will soon commence, but for now i’m out of the dust and i realize that He wasn’t beside me because He was holding me. there had been no ground beneath me… sometimes His hands are so big that i just don’t notice them there, guiding me, holding me when the bottom just drops out. be near me when i’ve given up, God…with that Reckless Love~

*i just found this verse and i had to come back and add it*

awake, awake, o zion, clothe yourself with strength…shake off your dust; rise up… God said that in isaiah 52.1-2

*wow… that blew me out of the proverbial water. i wrote that before i found this verse. God is so amazingly wonderful. *

the best love is the kind that awakens the soul. and makes us reach for more… that plants fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds.

some things that made my heart dance…reminded me that my soul was still alive over the past few days:

worship in the dark, with a disco light (heh heh), beside a girl that knows real passion. and that it’s found in God

laughing so hard i cried, i think i’m so funny sometimes… (thanks for laughing with me mandie)

seth in girl glasses… um and watching him get into my car. holy mess.

shawn mcdonald with the windows down and a ridiculously chipper angie beside me

a sweet old lady in the choir at angie’s church. she was wearing old lady shoes, pearl earrings, and a bracelet that dangled when she clapped, you could hear it all over the church. and she was an alto

cutting cantilope to make it look like flowers with my angielove (aka my honeybun bubble queen)

a nap on a trampoline in the shade

a man praying with blind passion and genuine faith in a dying church

thought processes

accents with angie and merdie (i love you girls to pieces. *french* ah hau)

a really really big slide

sense of community

pouring out my heart to my taraskylove without walls or reservations

cracker barrel with tara and singing her my songs that i made up when i was 5

hearing megan lee tell me about how jeff propsed

two hours in my favorite park with my favorite tara (my only tara, but still) only to result in amazing God conversation that i know He delighted in *like woah*

being serenaded by the cute guy (just one, laura. well the other guy had a mustache so it made it okay.) with becca and laura while wearing huge sombraros in the mexican resturaunt

john beck telling me that i sound like lori clayton on the phone

getting locked out of my house, which resulted in home cooked food at the mim’s and quality time with dan’s mom whom i love more than life (and who i pray that my mother-in-law will be a lot like)

putting captivating in another girls hands (well, she’s a woman…but she has the heart of a little girl)

running, under the stars, with narnia soundtrack playing and crickets chirping

pouring my heart out into words. …it’s like i just connected with someone, they caught my drift.

i’ll be looking at the moon…but i’ll be seeing you

is it alright, if i stay here all night by the shoreline?

hope in weakness December 29, 2009

oh how i have longed to put my words to something real. wood pulp pressed together into something i can hold. something i can touch. so that no matter how crazy all of this feels, it connects to something real that can neither judge nor tell me all of the answers i already know. what good does it do to know when the bit of knowledge that fills my mind won’t translate into the much needed nourishing wisdom that my heart is slowly dying away without?

i have pushed away my constant desire to disentangle these loud and insistent circles of thoughts and snarled selfish emotions simply because i still lie in defeat. i have no Triumph to finale with. no Help to sweep in and save me as i lay in this desperate state… deep into the rayless, dark night. i am deep in the canyon, so far that even the stars’ light have lost their way to my sight. my Savior rushes in, exuding Bright Love and Pure Shinning Grace, to sweep me into His arms and surround me with Light… i dumbly blink at this grand display, my arms lifeless at my side unwilling, or at least unable, to reach up.

i KNOW He is there. and i KNOW everything will turn out as it should. but that assurance just won’t translate into Faith in my heart.

who wants to read about nothing but defeat? i dream of sharing passion and joy and hope through connections made with my words strung together in just the right fashion. but what to do with words that leave sadness, shadows, and fear? Fear. Fear is a lethal noun in the wrong Hands…when i allow it to dwell in my being it transposes into a verb that steals all i have left. when i give way to fear, i offer up my peace and rest as a sacrifice to pessimism and a path, worn down by those that chose to tread where the Enemy rules (whether unsuspecting or intentional).

this is pure hopelessness if the source of strength that i need is myself. but this is not the case… just as He gave me the wisdom to know that He is always there and that all things ultimately work to Good for those who love Him, He gives me the Strength to Trust in Him in the midst of the torrent of destruction that ensues throughout this treacherous storm… amidst the ferocious winds and ravenous lightening, His Strength—poured into me—overflows into an Everlasting Provision of Peace, Understanding, and Joy. i do have strength and peace that will overcome this merciless Valley of Trouble, but it is not mine to claim. this Peace and Strength are most extravagant and powerful when my weakness and need to have control are understood and cast aside… cast aside to make way for the True Forms of Peace and Strength. and from these forms flows the Peace and Strength that will protect me in the midst of the strom, and carry me out of this valley.

Peace that passes understanding
Strength that swallows up Death with Life

praise Him…for always stepping in on Time, in Perfect Time! and for sustaining me until it is Time…His Time, His Plan, His Adventure… how silly of me to not get it by now. how silly of me forget that His Plan is always better.

God ALWAYS makes a way, even if it isn’t the path you’d planned to trod! He has ENGRAVED our names in the palms of His hands!!! He NEVER forgets us, ALWAYS remembers, CONSTANTLY pursues, OVERFLOWS with Grace, is ABUNDANT with True Love, and PLANS with more adventure, mystery, and extravagance than we can dream!

through Him, this merciless Valley of Trouble is transformed into a Door of Hope…full of Mercies far better and truer than anything i could even dream up.

 

now faith is the assurance of things hoped for,
the conviction of things not seen.
hebrews. 11.1

for when i am weak,
then i am strong.
2 corinthians. 12.10

likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness…. 
and we know that for those who love God all things
 work together for Good, for those who are called
according to His Purpose.
romans. 26,28

“can a woman forget her nursing child,
that she should have no compassion
on the son of her womb?
even these may forget,
yet I will not forget you.
behold, I have engraved you
on the Palms of My Hands;
your walls are continually before Me.
your builders make haste; your destroyers
and those who laid you waste go out from you.
isaiah. 49.15-17

“therefore, behold, I will allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her. and there l
will give her her vineyards and make the
VALLEY OF TROUBLE a DOOR OF HOPE

…and I will betroth you to Me forever. I will betroth you to
Me in Righteousness and in Justice, in Steadfast Love and
in Mercy. I will betroth you to me in Faithfulness. and you
shall know the Lord “

…and I will have Mercy on No Mercy
and I will say to Not My People, ‘you are my people’;
and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’”

hosea. 2.14-15,19,23

 

somewhere in this canyon August 25, 2009

~*~
…i was finally realizing that this hopeless and lonely search for Genuine Love and True Peace was not hopeless…and by no means lonely. God had already placed a few, and was introducing more, people into my life that sought out this Huge Life-Altering Creator…that was Real and Intimate and Full of Love, True Grace (something we can not fully fathom), and Lovely Never-ending Mercies. it was such a comfort to find that as i wondered deeper into my Maker that all around me i found True Community instead of more of the overwhelming journey in which i thought i had started out….
and it only got better. so much better.

oh, and the last excerpt from yancey. that, is why i write. oh so good.
~*~

july 8, 2006:
i’m reading soul survivor by philip yancey right now. and it’s amazing…riveting…and seriously life altering. he speaks of what my heart has been missing. real faith. faith that sets hearts on fire and leads to intimacy with God that is not normal in sunday morning worship …yancey’s words swell into my mind and dance around deeply and slowly until i can take them all in and find a place for them. and when i do, i find myself pushing away a distorted way i looked at life before like an old text book.

…as chesterton said ‘i am the man who with the utmost daring discovered what had been discovered before.’ i’ve been hiking out of this canyon…and every step seems more impossible than the last, but i look around and realize that i’m not carving out this path… others have gone before me and some go with me now, hearts that know there is more to life, and that Christianity is about coming alive in God. when yancey discovered this mystery he put it like this: although separated from me by a vast expanse of sea and culture, they kindled hope that somewhere christians existed who loosed rather than restrained their minds, who combined sophisticated taste with a humility that did not demean others, and, above all, who experienced life with God as a source of joy and not repression. i am not alone, i am no pioneer searching for something unknown. it’s there. it’s been there for thousands of years. that hunger, that revolutionary way of loving God and people has been with us since Jesus left his footprints on the waves. i just need to find it, within my heart. i must search, and fight. because something so powerful will be opposed, by people and by an enemy that knows me well.

well, i started writing this to just put an excerpt from the book that i identified with, and then i guess i just got a little excited. but it’s about why yancey decided to write…

i felt drawn to writing because for me it had opened up chinks of light that became a window to another world…i felt the power that allows one human mind to penetrate another with no intermediary but a piece of flattened wood pulp. i saw that writing could seep into crevices, bringing spiritual oxygen to people trapped in air-tight boxes. …and alone in my room, controlling every turn of the page, i met other representatives of faith-c.s. lewis, g.k. chesterton, john donne-whose calmer voices traversed time to convince me that somewhere christians lived who knew grace as well as law, love as well as judgment, reason as well as passion. i became a writer because of my own encounter with the power of words, and i gained hope that spoiled words, their original meaning wrung out, could be reclaimed

i have nothing to say that matches that… it just made my soul dance, i met a kindred spirit. like someone caught my drift, and said it way better than i could.

but go pick up the book. it’s amazing.

i’ll be seeing you…in all the old familiar places, that this heart of mine embraces August 25, 2009

~*~
um…i love my family. and my life. enough said.
oh, and my husband and i live in bemiston now.
the same neighborhood both sides of my family did a lot of growing up in
it is a special place indeed
~*~

 

june 30, 2006:

my night was beyond amazing

 

i smell like Bemiston
if you don’t know what that is…..
it’s pecans, sweet grass, california red wood, and sweet tea

it’s the place where people drop by to visit for a minute
…but they stay all night
walking away feeling like
somehow
they’re a better person because of it
and knowing that they’re loved
because they are, in the most genuine way possible

the grass felt amazing under my feet
it’s better than any mattress

and my family rocks my world
as do our strange ways and amazing stories
…about frogs and pee pee

and my proper southern bell of a grandmother and her laid back off spring
…she makes us put ketchup in little dishes with tiny spoons
because she doesn’t want the bottle on the table

she’s too cool

and when she hummed amazing grace to my niece,
blakely,
in a deep sweet voice, ‘the way Grandaddy used to’
it made my heart dance

you do something to make a baby smile…
especially if they’re the love of your life
…and you feel like you could conquer the world

  

yes, it was quite a night

God blessed me beyond belief when He put me in the south and gave me my family…

i am a better person because of them

want to know selfless love? …the kind that God wants us to give.
look into your mother’s eyes when she talks about you

love songs in the air August 25, 2009

~*~
…there is nothing terribly special about this one. it just makes me smile. remembering how He brought one of my very best friends into my life in a very unorthodox way…and looking at us now, fully amazed at how beautifully it (as in, life) all worked out. the summer has been hard, long, and confusing…and God although all much of what i held dear had slipped away, He kept pouring new people, experiences, Romance, desires, Adventure into my path. i remember some of these moments very vividly. God’s Romance was no longer a new concept to me…but He always pulls my in with something new. and i praise Him for being so big that His Mercies and Tender Pursuit are always new. *sigh* He is so good.
~*~

 

june 29, 2006:
ahhhhh. well, i had an amazing day. God…thank you so much for romancing me so elloquently. You…are…yeah well there aren’t any words.

things that made my heart soar today…

eating good lunch with messy hair

sitting in my choir director’s office and being surrounded by people i love

conversation. the lovely, selfless type that God delights in

watching tara’s eyes light up everytime she saw a picture she wanted to take

having my camera at my side in the Gorge

laying on a rock with rushing water all around, and my tara beside me…the rock was warm and the shade was cool. the water rushing around us was loud and beautiful.

looking up at the sky…as the trees stretched over us and the leaves glowed from the sun…and the shaddows danced on them.

watching…and feeling…the wind waltz through the trees

squinting my eyes as the sun twinkled thorugh the canopy of trees that surrounded us

climbing up rocks barefooted

loving on my mom… listening to her heart

the smell of railroad tracks

the coolness of the shade

the rocks under my feet

the huge railroad bridge that made us feel so small and secure…and the water below us that glistened from the sun

self portraits

tar on my khakis…well it was annoyance at first. but fun later

party hats and the fun little blowie things and good music

ice creams that melts down your hand

playgrounds…with stars….and lots of pictures. and silly boys that will do anything for fun

laughing until you hurt

fun dances to strange music

and wind….tossing my hair everywhere

God…thank you for romancing me and loving me. …for surrounding me with lovely people…that love life…and that care for me. and for nature…and smells and sounds and the things that we can’t see but feel… i praise You for personalities…and the fact that everyone has their own laughs and eats icecream different ways. and that some people are quiet and like to observe… and that others like to sing really loud and out of key…and dance, sometimes to no music at all so, i guess what i’m trying to say is… thank you so much for what a diverse God You are… and that You delight in my uniqueness….and that You are so amazingly creative. …and that You let me delight in You

i love You!

thanks for purple skies… August 5, 2009

~*~
ah….i have been waiting on this one. :]
…i was still in that dark night of the soul…but God was working in my and Romancing me and Loving me… and even though i didn’t realize it at the time…He was not just pruning away parts of me that were “grievous” was it says in the psalms…(well one psalm in particular, that i have in mind), He was pruning people, places…and my state of mind from my life. so that new things from His hand would be of abundance in my life…as opposed to the things that I had labored over. mercies, joys, and adventures from His hand…
i was hurting SO BAD…but giving Him my heart all along, practically because there was no one else around that seemed interested in sharing my pains with me (i’m referring to friends. dudes had become totally irrelevant to me.). i was hurting, heart broken, and feeling very alone… and because of that glorious Dark Night…He alone healed me, He showed me what my heart was truly made of…and for….and He was my True Comfort, Friend, and Romancer….
wow. have a mentioned before…that this Dude knows what’s up? God is so good.
~*~

 

june 21, 2006:
the vinedresser picked his last grape, climbed down the ladder, and smiled to himself. he gathered up his final net and emptied it into the last bin filling it to its rim. he laid back against the tree and let his eyes rest on the row of bins overflowing with grapes…and his heart swelled as he watched the grapes change from a deep purple to a brilliant blue as the sun slowly slipped beyond the horizon…filling the sky with an extravagant swirl of oranges, reds, and warm pinks. every second that the sun moved lower the colors became deeper, and the warm colors faded to deep, rich purples that magnificently entangled with the clouds. the day had been good. sun up to sun down. yes, he could let the hired hands do all the work and just run his business…but wine tastes better when you’ve picked the grapes yourself. if anyone knows this, he does. from experience. he took in a deep breath and the smell of a day’s hard work filled his mind and danced around…the smell of deep, sweet purple. he had put his heart, his passion, his life into the rows of trees that surrounded him. and it was all worth it, this moment had been worth it, these moments are always worth it.

i’m being pruned…so that i may bear more fruit. right now, He’s  been working sun up to sun down and now into the night. when this is over and the sun comes back, spilling light into this canyon, He’ll lay back and delight in the passionate work He’s done. but until then…i beg of You….place that faith in me that can move mountains, the kind that produces steadfastness. so that i ‘may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.’ (james 1.4). wow…really. perfect and complete, lacking nothing? You’d do that for me? You love me that much? sometimes i forget what Wild Love feels like. it scares me when You come too close and i hide my face…spill your Light into the places where darkness tries to hide. lead me into the garden. let me take in You’re rich smell, give me strength. so that when all of this is over i can look back and say ‘yes, it was worth it.’ …and thank you for the big clouds…that make me feel so small and remind me that your hand is so so big.

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser…and every branch that does bear fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit…I am the vine and you are the branches. whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. …these things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full john 15.1-11

radiance. August 4, 2009

~*~
…finally starting to see that as God was teaching my worth to me…that i had this crazy built-in passion to tell other chicks about their worth as well…
i could go on here…but no words would do. i was in Narnia. i had fallen into the wardrobe. i just needed a place to hide…a stuffy place full of fluffy coats and moth balls. a backed in further and further. as far away from the world as i could get… only to find something cold, wet, fresh, and oh so new to my late-summer-eyes. a branch! …in a wardrobe? branch turned into snow covered ground…which led to the Lamppost (if you haven’t read Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia…read them. seriously). oh, how i love the Lamppost…and from that moment on i fell into adventure after adventure…meeting new facets of God’s character…as well as who I was in Him.

…this is simply me falling more in Love with Him
…traveling deeper and deeper into my one-of-a-kind handmade adventure.
only by this point…it was by choice.
still…i had so much to learn. but then again, obvoiusly, i still do
~*~

 

may 18, 2006

your soul is precious

open yourself up and offer others to come and be…to find themselves. it deepens you

don’t judge, just love and accept

the love and acceptance may not be returned…but that’s okay

open your soul. but do not freely give your heart

 

your heart is precious.

 

invite everyone in to see. but give your heart to only the ones that are worthy. that want to be loved and love. that want acceptance and to accept. that want to talk and listen.

this is true, selfless love. the beauty of this love is most often wrapped in pain. but this is where true self is

the only one that will always accept you, never reject you, always listen and love, that will always beg of you to come and be…is the one that you reject often, hide from when you need healing, ignore when the answer is clear, and close your eyes to when He paints beauty in your life

always invite. give to the ones that earn

pour the mess that is you into God. melt into the Potter’s Hands. He will always love and never reject

beauty before the dust settles July 29, 2009

~*~
ah. see, i love analogy. i’m a visual person, so anytime i can relate a matter of the heart or mind to something i can see…i seem to grasp things better. that summer, that was so rough (see previous entry), God did SO much with my heart, mind, and my life in general. He was showing me who i am when i am in Him. i had truly let Him stake my claim…and He was simply showing me a bit more of who i was as His Daughter, His Creation, His Love. oh man. He’s so good. i was learning more of Worth at the time…not just mine…but all those around me as well.
this was the time in my life that i became infatuated with dust. …there is so much more to it, and i always find more. dust is all throughout the Bible. adam was created from dust. we have feet…always touching the ground…and constant reminder that while in these bodies, something in us is prone to cling to things that our hearts and minds were not made for. sin. hm… there’s more to this. such much more. read on. i am still so in love with this analogy even though now, it is more refined in my mind. however, you’ll see more of the dust in my writings to come. it represents much to me.
~*~

 

may 13, 2006:
i’m missing the show tonight, for a few reasons. sadness no white girl dancing with my tara or dodging frisbee with my angie. but we’ll take care of that soon enough. and they’ll both have amazing pictures for me to look at. i love their souls. they make my days brighter, way more than they realize. anyways…

i’m going to spend some serious time with Jesus instead. i’ll let you know how it goes!

 

how it went…

and all who looked to Him were radiant… psalm 34.5

my soul clings to dust… psalm 119.25

i…right now…am completely surrounded by beauty. still my soul is truly clinging to dust, the mess that this earth dishes out as satisfying or what matters. things like my self-image, the past, these relationships that you let tell you what you’re worth, the future. i’m such a mess…a human…low…so i find the dust in my life and curl up in a ball right in the middle of it…i bury my hands in it telling myself  ‘this is it brittany, it’s what you deserve, you’ll feel comfortable here.’ what a mess i’ve just put myself into. …then i look up, just for a second to find Him, just a glance…and my eyes catch the Beauty He’s been waiting for me to notice…those amazing girls He put in my life (you know who you are), my mom that through all the mess just wants to love me and for me to love her in return, that storm outside my window, how soft the grass was when i took in the sunset this afternoon. and then He reminds me that my soul wasn’t made for dust…my soul was made for beauty, romance, and adventure. when i look to Him, i’m not becoming a different person…i’m becoming more myself. who i was meant to be before the Fall. the whole time i thought i was with Him…but He was with me. i’d been asking Him to come down and hold me in my dust. but He’s inviting me up and into my Epic that i’d been dreaming of all along. how could i have missed it? been so blind? …it was the dust.

You hem me in…and hold me in Your hand July 29, 2009

~*~
…this summer, will forever be ingrained in my memory as the summer i spent in the valley. not just any valley…i was at the bottom of the friggin grand canyon (ironically enough we actually WENT to the grand canyon that summer!). to say that life was hard for me would be a major understatement. my entire college group pretty much crumbled beneath me. the people that i had grown with, laughed (many MANY hours) with….for many different reasons that are unimportant now. what i held most dear was lost. i was very alone and very frustrated. i had been seeking after God, i had given up practically my whole life in birmingham for what (i thought) God had planned for me with my church, my Community, back home. and everyone had turned away.
at the beginning of the summer God told me that i was to live above reproach that summer. now, i should always live above reproach…but i didn’t. it’s a lot of work, and i like to get distracted with things less important. but that summer, i spent more time with God than my friends (at first, not by choice). i prayed hours before Bible studies, spent my days with my Creator. looking over my heart, letting God prune away the many things i saw wrong one by one. this DOES NOT mean by any means that i was perfect. i mess up all the time, it’s my thing. however, my intentions were pure. i thought long before i spoke (which isn’t normal for me), loved as hard as i could, and spent all of my time in pursuit of only the things God told me to pursue. that summer was so hard, but so good. i look back (thanks to God, and only Him) at that horrible time and know that i did all i could. and that i said the right things, didn’t say the wrong things, had patience, and understanding (only by the grace of God). it wore me out. and at the end of the summer…after doing all He had asked…NOTHING ended like i’d hoped. our college group was forever changed, the school that was mine was something of the past, and my home would soon change too…
sound something like disaster? yes. God wreaked havoc on my plans… ripped the right out from underneath me, landing me in that valley of a hole i’d dug for myself.
but…it was a BEAUTIFUL Disaster, and i stumbled out of that valley, worn and tattered…with a fierce Love and Passion in my heart that had been refined by my Creator for many many months.
by the way…that summer was the time that God slipped the man that would eventually be my husband into my life (we later realized that i was vulnerable in a way that i had never been before, and that we probably wouldn’t have become such good friends if not for that valley in my life). let me just say it again… that Dude, He knows what’s up. that was also the summer that i realized i wanted to serve Him the rest of my life instead of myself and my checking account. i moved to Louisville shortly after. but that’s another story.
~*~

 

may 4, 2006:
God…i am tired.  a complete mess. i am lazy, and stressed because of it. i am confused, because i do too much for myself instead of following You. take my heart…and take away the heaviness. take my life, my dreams, my faults, my thoughts, my strengths….fashion them until everything is the way You want it. i plead with you not to stop your work in me until my life here is finished. i dragged myself out to this desert, and now i’m begging You to make something beautiful of it. don’t give me what i deserve…pour over me Your mercy. a fresh one, that i haven’t experienced yet. pursue me farther than You have already…more intimately than i can fathom. guard my heart from myself and the people and things in this place that i have let stake my claim…only You know my true worth.

show me where to walk, fill me up so full of Your Love that it spills onto everyone around me. be my song, my perfect rhyme…and my dancing melody. let the only things that reach my heart be of Your Joy and not the junk that this world tries to sell. you have shown me that my soul is far too lovely to be trashed by something so temporary as this world. …sing over me

my soul clings to dust; give me life according to Your Word! when i told of my ways, You answered me; teach me your statutes!…my soul melts away for sorrow; strengthen me according to Your Word. Psalm 119.25-26, 28  

O Lord, you have searched me and known me!…You hem me in, behind and before, and lay Your hand upon me…where shall i go from Your Spirit? or where shall i flee from Your presence? if i take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermeost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me. i praise You, for i am fearfully and wonderfully made. wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. my frame was not hidden from You, when i was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in Your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them…i awake, and i am still with You…see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Psalm 139.random excerpts

He calls me lovely…and i am such a mess July 29, 2009

~*~
i remember a lot of frustrations leading into writing this. i was watching dudes and chicks all around me doing really dumb stuff all for love. when i was certain that not so many idiotic things would have been taking place if they had spent more time with the True Form…our Creator….Love. with a capital ‘L.’ reading this i want to articulate my words and write SO MUCH more because my relationship with my Creator, and my Savior…has grown and matured. He’s held my heart when it was in pieces, mended me back together…He has truly hemmed me in behind and before. oh man…He’s so Real and True. even as a married woman He has my Heart…and not even Seth can make it flutter the way God does. so, if i wrote this again it would be SO different. but this is simply and archive (with some commentary). so…here you find the beginning of how Romance in its True Form was materializing in my life.   *sigh* He is so SO good.
~*~

 

april 18, 2006:
95% of all boys give me headaches (and maybe the other 5% too).  …i’m just saying.

i’m not talking about the guys you date (it’s been a year for me), just guys

girls are difficult too. of this i am aware.

there’s more to this… which i shall add later

see…it really doesn’t matter anyways because God should fulfill every part of us that girls think they need guys for (and likewise for guys).

 

you want to be pursued? God has been doing that ever since you made your first memory at the beach or playing with your dad

you want to be romanced? listen to your favorite song, watch a good (clean preferably) chick flick, talk a walk outside, read you bible

want to be told your lovely? (don’t say you don’t, you know you do) spend time with your friends that would do anything for you, read Song of Songs or Hosea (especially chapter 2, we are Israel. we’ve made such a mess of ourselves, and He’s still romancing us), look in the mirror…past that lovely face and those beautiful eyes (your face IS lovely…those eyes, they ARE captivating) to what is inside to those qualities that define you..the ones that make your friends’ days, lay outside and let Him sing over you with the breeze and the birds. He sings over you with the breeze?!? WOW! He is so madly and deeply in love with you…He just wants your time. tell Him that He is lovely…He yearns for that more deeply than you do. we were created to love Him, and with a space for invasion that can only be filled by Him wooing us…

*sigh*

a song for the broken…sing for the weak. a song for the weary. sing over me. a song of peace…and rest and joy