Grandma's breakfast

1 banana
1/2 avacado
1 egg
vitamin pills
medicine pills

throw it all in a blender

she can't eat solids anymore, so everything is thrown in a blender--meat, eggs, vegetables, fruits, medicine, etc.--and spoon fed to her. she is ninety years old. but she can still walk, can still open her eyes, can still sing some songs, and when she's up to it, can name all her brothers and sisters and kids' names. her eyes are closed most of the time, yes when she's sleeping, but also when she's eating. it's like her eyes are too weary to be opened all the time. i like to imagine that behind those closed lids though, are memories, memories that she plays over and over in her mind and heart, even if they now go unheard.

you were made for someone, not everyone.
so be careful not to make everyone into your someone.
and not to make someone your everyone either.

i read this on someone else's blog. i think it was said for sappy, soul mate type purposes but i also saw it as a response to the things we idolize in our lives. we're so quick to give ourselves away, and to what, to whom? is it/are they worthy? if it's not God, reevaluate. is it more important than the Creator of the universe, the one who calls us by name?

yes, we were made for someone. and that Someone is Christ.

Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God?
Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men,
I would not be a servant of Christ.

-Galatians 1:10

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edit

i'm a daughter, a friend, a sister, a cousin. i haven't been doing my part in these relationships. i've been so lacking and never really realized the full...i guess seriousness of that. i know we can never fill these roles perfectly, but isn't it up to each of us to try?

life?

what does it mean Lord, to truly live?


because i got a feeling that this ain't it.

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originally i had the post at just that, but i thought that maybe i shouldn't resort to dramatic antics and instead try to sort, to shift through my feelings to maybe get to the heart of it. loneliness is something that's been with me for a while. the first time was really in middle school, in the first few weeks of 8th grade, when i just felt this emptiness well up in me and spill over. i had a good group of friends, i was doing what i usually did, but i'd go home every day crying, and i didn't understand why or how. i came to understand later that even though i was surrounded by people, i felt so alone. after another few weeks it went away, but there would be more of these moments in the future.

freshman year. a new state, a new school, a new me? i felt so out of it, and out of practice for making friends. after about a year and a half i finally felt like i had found a place at high school.

and now, now i feel it creeping up on me again. loneliness is not my friend. but i feel like it's something i've grown used to over the years, and it is no stranger. i think though, a lot of the times it's me. i take myself too seriously, and sometimes my flaws become so magnified in my head and heart that God's grace and love is squeezed out a bit. too much selfishness going on here. self pity is selfishness, and a kind of boasting too, because it's saying look at me, i'm so pitiful. pity me, feel sorry for me, and i loathe to be in that trap. i was listening to cj mahaney's sermon yesterday on troubled souls and it really struck a chord. every one has this internal conversation going on in their heads. it never ceases, even though we may be unconscious of it. and...is it a wonder we get so troubled? this internal conversation is what we hear most in our lives, and we listen to it. we're so busy listening to ourselves that we don't talk to ourselves enough. a troubled soul will tell you that you're not good enough, that God isn't powerful enough, that hope is not really there, that your friend? not really your friend. but if we talk to yourself, if we spoke truth, the Gospel into our lives, our souls would be a heckuva lot less troubled. mahaney pointed out something else that i've felt a lot too but could never really explain it. when we're praising God through song, a lot of the times it all becomes so clear in our heads. i know that after i worship, my heart is a lot less troubled, and more than once i've gone to that person that i was upset with, given them a big hug and told them that all is forgiven. why? it's because when we worship through Biblical songs, we're speaking truth into our lives as well as worshiping the Lord. praise God for that.

i know i've been rambling on and on. but the point is this...we're all going to go through loneliness, we're all going to have troubled souls at some point. but we can have the assurance that even the greatest theologians like John Edwards and Jesus' disciples had troubled souls and felt like God was far from them too. it doesn't mean that Christ doesn't love us, it doesn't mean that we have been abandoned. because He hasn't. maybe he is just pruning us, like the gardener prunes his vines. when we grow back, we'll be sweeter and be able to glorify God better, even though the pruning process can be excruciatingly painful.

so my heart is still sad, i still feel troubled and burdened and i still don't really know what to do except pray about it. but praise God anyways, for He is good.

wasting time

is so easy. i've done nothing for the past few days...reading books, listening to music, reading random people's blogs, and when i run out of things to do, i sleep. i'm trying so hard to not do my work. everyone else is studying they're butts off for finals (i think), but here i am. and i can't concentrate. it's like there's this nervous tick in my head, this restlessness, and i don't have the heart to sit and concentrate. so instead i enter into someone else's life for a day, or two. or three. through a book, or two. or three.

sigh.

you wrote a letter and you signed your name

I read every word of it page by page
You said that You'd be coming,
coming for me soon
oh my God I'll be ready for You

I want to run on greener pastures
I want to dance on higher hills
I want to drink from sweeter waters
in the misty morning chill
and my soul is getting restless
for the place where I belong
I can't wait to join the angels
and sing my heaven song

-phil wickham

i can't wait for this beautiful place where we can worship God forever.

why do you like or love someone?

i've thought about this question a good number of times. if someone were to ask this question, the answer to why you love someone should sound really special right? traits that no one else has that makes this person really different. but the answer i always answer sound so generic, so nondescript and unworthy of the person. i know they're special and i know i like them, but why? but maybe that's just it. maybe we aren't supposed to put a why behind it, to try to explain it. perhaps there's no real rhyme or reason to it. maybe it's unexplainable.

God made us, and loves us. God made us because he loves us, and that full expression of his love is made complete when we turn around and worship and glorify Him. because since we were made to love him, then loving him should give us the greatest joy and pleasure. but WHY does God love us? we're so...wretched sometimes. and we are born into this world in sin, hating Him. yet he loves, loves us. it's unexplainable.

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

1 John 4:9-10

It's falling from the clouds
A strange and lovely sound
I hear it in the thunder and rain
It's ringing in the skies
Like cannons in the night
The music of the universe plays

You are holy great and mighty
The moon and the stars declare who You are
I'm so unworthy, but still You love me
Forever my heart will sing of how great You are

Beautiful and free
Song of Galaxies
It's reaching far beyond the milky way
Lets join in with the sound
C'mon let's sing it loud
As the music of the universe plays

All glory, honor, power is Yours amen
All glory, honor, power is Yours amen
All glory, honor, power is Yours forever amen

anne spelled with an e

i've been feeling in a very bookish mood lately (my roommate sharon can vouch for me) and went to the local library to check out a whole bunch of books, just for fun. last night i stayed up until 4:30 reading Graceling, which was really quite a wonderful book, full of adventure, with that ability of a good book to suck you in and feel the characters' pain and joy. i'm 19 but i still love reading YA books...i hope that doesn't make my taste of reading sophomoric. there are some really good YA books out there! the author of the book Graceling, kristin cashore, has a blog (click here) with just life observations, funny videos and polls, and tips on how to write. i love reading blogs, they're so interesting. it's weird because for people's blogs that i read on a consistent basis, i feel like i know them, yet they don't know me. kind of creepy huh. haha oh well, blogs are put up for people to read aren't they?

on kristin cashore's blog i stumbled across a post where the opening lines were, "The other night, feeling overwhelmed by life, I crawled into bed early with Anne of Green Gables and a beer. And let me tell you, what I had there was a winning combination."

and minus the beer, i know exactly what she means. anne of green gables is my childhood book, and every time i open up, a wave of nostalgia hits me. what a great book. it reads like poetry, and the characters! they move with a quiet subtlety yet charm vibrancy which makes them so real, so human. so in light of reading so much about writing on her blog, it put the idea into my head to write a book. probably short. but a book. huh. what an interesting proposition.

i have a praise! yesterday at the last intervarsity meeting of this semester, i really fell into worship. i don't think i've had a really worshipful heart towards God for a while it feels. i just...felt this incredible need and longing for God. maybe it's because recently i've been thinking about how so many things just aren't...right. you know? like a broken piece of pottery. you see all the pieces, and you know that it would all look so beautiful if it just fit, but when you try to put them together the pieces don't line up and it's just off. and it makes me long for the way God initially made this world: perfect. but it also made me appreciate more that even though, even though our world is so broken, God restores and protects and loves.