I miss You...

I was born, and the moment the dim light of this new world hit my eyes, I didn't yet know it, but I began mourning, because I missed You. When I was scared, when I was restless, when I was sad, it was because I missed You.
And now I know I will never be truly content until we are standing face to face. When my body shakes and I lose myself inside, it is because I miss You. When I forget how to breathe, when I cannot sleep, it is because I miss You.
I came into this world with tears in my eyes and a cry in my throat, with the agony of being torn away from You, and since then all I have done is try to find my way back to You. Find my way home.

Home. This place is not my home. This house is not my home. These people are not my home. And yet, i love them. I'm drawn to them, then pushed away, then drawn back again. This ebb and flow. It's draining me. They are draining me. Suffocating me. They are the ones who want me to hide everything that ever made me feel alive. They are the ones who cringe with embarrassment when they hear my "Jesus music." They are of this world. They are broken. They are crying, screaming, clawing, fighting their very hardest just to survive.... then there's me. We live in the confines of the same walls, the same floors, the same roof, the same struggles and pain and fears. I cry, too. I scream. I claw and fight, but for something different, something else, something more.

Guilt. It's consuming me. I have been handed the key to my chains. I have been given irrevocable joy. And i hold the secret so close to my heart that sometimes, if I lose myself for a minute, even I can feel as though it's still a mystery. But it's not. The answer, the beautiful Man burning with desire and pouring out grace upon grace has spoken. My heart has heard it. It echoes. Only within me, never without. At least not to them.

I know they need you. I know they miss You. Give me the strength, Father.

And keep me close, whisper into my ear that soon, soon, You will be holding me again. Soon, soon, we will be a part of one another. I will endure every bit of the death bestowed on me in this body, if only to discover that You are hidden underneath. And I will awaken to eternal life with tears in my eyes and a smile on my lips, and finally, I will miss You no longer. We will miss you no longer.

Oh Lord, it's the cry of my heart...

Recently, the Lord has placed a song on my heart that has been moving me in so many ways. The chorus says, "Ask and I'll give the nations to you..."

I've really been meditating on that line. The Lord of the universes, the maker of the Heavens and the Earth, the Ruler of it all is calling me to something great. He is calling me to reach out my hand and to ask Him to use me. ME. I am wretched and unworthy and a complete mess, but He looks past all these iniquities and desires for me to step out in faith and run to the nations with the news of his amazing love and redemption over all! How amazing is that?!?! And I am so grateful that the Lord has not let me set limits on Him in my life. He so faithfully gives me more than I know I am even willing to take, but he always uses it for good.

So as of now, I have a lot of work to do and a lot of change to pray for. I need to begin to really align my plans with the plans of God. There are so many times when I think about where I want to go, or what I want to do next, and the only thing I can think is "something beautiful." I imagine all the beautiful somethings I could do: kissing, dancing, writing, music, reading, photography…none of them are enough. I want to be beautiful in a way that radiates from me, that makes me mostly light and maybe only a little skin, maybe only a little bones and muscle and eyes. I want to be beautiful in a way that fills heaven and lights fire to the fabric of space.
it’s the only way I can describe it. It’s the same reason I want to get married, and have children, to reach young adults and dance with people. It’s the same thing that makes me breathless when I think about the future of falling in love, it’s the way my fingers feel when I’m writing, the way my lungs feel at the beach, the way my heart feels when I’m near someone I care about.

I want so much. I want to see so much life be brought into this world. I want to see the Father being glorified through it all.

But above all this, I know that I was simply made to be His. And that is enough for me. HE is my something beautiful. And he will take me to the depths and heights within my soul that i never knew existed. And He will paint upon the canvas He created until the world looks at me and sees only Him. Oh, I hunger for that!!! Until then I'm working on being content with whatever it is the Lord is trusting me with. And my heart is singing all the while.

"Ask and I'll give the nations to you..."

Lord, I'm asking...

I thank my God upon every remembrance of you...

I feel like not a lot of people are as blessed as I am when it comes to the people they have in their lives. Especially when it comes to my best friend, Corinne. I seriously love her more than I can handle sometimes. God placed her my life exactly when I needed her, and no matter what seasons our friendship has seen, He always places us back together at exactly the right moment. She knows everything about me, from the things that no one else would want to know, to the things that I don’t even like to admit to myself. If there was a best friend contest, Corinne would win, hands down. I can talk to her about anything and not feel uncomfortable even once. We have cried together, laughed together, and yelled together more times than I can count. She’s been honest with me when I needed it, and she’s let me go when I needed it, reminding me that Jesus alone can be the dweller of the throne upon my heart. What amazes me is her never-failing strength. Everyday the things of this world threaten to pull her down, but each day I see her fighting harder to transcend this world to the one her Father is calling her to. I have seen her grow so much as a person, friend, and daughter of God since I have met her. I was there when she got baptized, and I’ve seen her break chains, overcome lies, and silence the voices that label her unworthy. I've watched her as she shed the rags of a harlot and allowed her Beloved to clothe her in white. She burns with more passion and lives with more love than anyone else I have ever met. She has been the truest example of unconditional love and faith in my life, and because of her friendship, I am a stronger person, friend, and Servant. I like to believe we bring out the best in each other. She’s sometimes (most of the time) the only one who gets what I’m saying. She doesn’t judge or lie to me, even when it hurts. I see so much of God in her, and I like to think that when I get in heaven, I’ll be able to look in God’s eyes, and see a little piece of her staring back.

I Don't Have Time to Maintain These Regrets...

I've had a crazy past few weeks. God has been preparing my heart. For what? I’m not exactly sure. But He keeps pulling me forward, whispering “almost there, love…we’re almost there.”
He has truly been teaching me that I cannot make my decisions based on my feelings. Relationships, with Him and with others through Him, need to be about His will, His plan, His leading, and not about my own preference, fears, or insecurities. He knows what is going to ultimately bring me closer to Him, and that is all that has begun to matter to me as well. I went through a season where I just felt dry. I had not felt His presence, and yet, I have worshiped and loved Him more purely than ever before. He has helped me to change a lot of things for the better, and yet, there are still so many things I need His help in.
I have been realizing how often we put God in a box. We say “this is God, that is not. I will do this and stay away from that”, but that is not how it works, especially when staying away from “that” is a decision that we have made out of fear, or because we don’t want to face something inside of us. God already knows all of our junk. Hiding it from ourselves and others isn’t going to change anything, it’s just going to lengthen the process. Yes, my wounds may be ugly, but the scar tissue is a masterpiece done by an artist who knows my skin better than I know it myself. I have to face the hurt, the bitterness, the pride, the shame, the loss, the fear, in order to get past it. When I just keep it locked away because I “shouldn’t feel that way”, I use it to build up walls between myself and God. God wants us broken. Seeing our faults is what creates humility, is what shows us that we need Him. And when I see my own faults, when I accept them, give them to God, and move forward, I am more able to accept them in others and help them move forward, out of that place of darkness and pain. The truth is that we are loved, that everything around is is a symbol of that love. But if we are lost in our wounds, we will never be able to see that beauty.
All I see around me now is beauty. In people, in nature, in writing and pictures and film. All there is is beauty. There is an Andy Hull lyric that says “After all, it’s just You, my pride, and me.” We need to let go, to stop right where we are and realize that God isn’t mad at us, all of His justifiable wrath was poured out on Jesus; He doesn’t want to punish us, Jesus took the punishment for all of our sin; He just wants to love us, to tell us that we are beautiful. We need to let go of that thing we did last year, that person who hurt us a while back, that sin we committed this morning. We need to understand that the forgiveness we did not earn is full and lacking in nothing, that God’s grace is sufficient for us.
Even in my darkest times i knew that God was taking care of me, I knew it, and yet, I wouldn’t let Him. I just kept saying “nothing can stop this”, and I spoke that lie into my life, all the while, I imagine Jesus was standing over me weeping because I would not let His blood cover me. Last night, after a long talk about love and God and people and life with Corinne, I fell asleep talking with Jesus in a new way. And when I awoke this morning, He was there. I felt Him, just resting on me. We can be a “Christian” for so long and never know that God loves us. If you are broken, and we all are broken, let Him in. Let Him move in you and transform you with His love. We were not meant to be bruised, frightened, lied to, manipulated, scared, alone, or beaten down. We have left all that behind us, and we are moving forward into a great light. We just have to open our eyes.

Here Comes the Sun...

I once heard someone say that we can only appreciate the miracle of the sunrise if we have waited through the darkness...



I have learned a lot about myself this year. I was suffering so long i forgot how to breath. Every morning it was hard to come to my feet. It felt like I was stuck, trying to get up, but something was pushing me down. I forgot how to laugh and enjoy the life I live. As much as I surrounded myself with people who I care about, I still felt alone, broken or not good enough. I kept questioning God, "why do I feel this? what is wrong with me?"



The truth is that nothing was ever wrong with me, I just hadn't opened my eyes to the entire picture. What I was doing was putting up a wall that sheltered me. I guarded my heart, I became bitter and pushed people away. I felt worthless and un-pretty. Selfish and tossed. But what I couldn't do was close the doors behind me. I let the past overwhelm my present and my future. No matter what I did, I just couldn't stop dwelling. But God promises better than what I've ever known.



"Forget former things, do not dwell on the past." (Isaiah 43:18)



And what i couldn't accept was God has already conquered this.



I stayed there for so long, hoping things would get better. That certain things would just go away if I avoided them. When my world would fall apart, I'd give into temporary joy. I already became prisoner. I couldn't find my way, no matter how many paths I tried. I gave up too easily. I wouldn't let God into my heart. I kept it locked away with heavy chains no one could pull apart. Not even me.



It's been a stormy season. Unlike any I have ever known. But this is where a story begins. My testimony of truth and restoration. The colors of hope and redemption. There is a brighter side, if you just let God in. Let it all go. Completely lay it at His feet. Learn to breathe all over again.



Here's a song that's playing in my heart today; (Nichole Nordeman, "Sunrise")



"You are sunrise

You are blue skies

How would I know the morning If I knew not midnight?

You’re my horizon

You’re the light of a new dawn

So thank You, thank You

That after the long night,

You are sunrise."



There is always darkness. There is always night. But joy always follows. Sunrise always comes.