You know what’s annoying? I sat in my room looking for something on which to fixate my mind, but there was absolutely nothing in there that could do the trick. I keep trying to keep myself from thinking about the fact that college is practically over, and there’s nothing in this apartment that can keep my attention for over 5 minutes. I even made phone calls hoping to spur hour-long conversations, and I LOATHE talking on the phone. I made myself turn off my TV because I keep getting headaches from it. Luckily, my baby sister came and stayed with me last week, so there was little alone time to stir the impending emotions that were bound to break out. But now, I’m alone in this empty apartment, and my contemplations are getting the best of me.
Blogging is a great way for me to screw my head on straight. Many, many times I am able to realize how ridiculous I am being from this unusual and new form of expression. It’s like writing in a diary, but for everyone to see. Now, there might not be a single person who actually reads this, but I know that plenty of people are capable of doing so. So, in order to save-face, I’m definitely not going to type anything that will make me look unreasonable or silly. Thus, I see when I am being this way as I hit the delete button… many, many times.
As I slung my remote towards my empty, dingy-white wall, I realized that I needed to pick up my Bible for some support. So, like the obedient child of God that I am, I picked up my computer and immediately logged on to facebook. Twitter. TheTennessean.com. Braves highlights. Bubble Shooter 2.0. Weather forecast. Checked 'em all. Even after the tugging and grief I could feel in me, I didn’t want anything to do with God tonight. You see, I’m a little upset with Him these days. I was pretty sure that we had a deal, and I’m pretty sure He broke it. I was going to be good, and He was going to make my life easy. I was going to put myself out there and make new friends, and he assured me that they wouldn’t let me down. Okay, okay. I know if anyone broke our (nonexistent) deals it was me, but I’m only human (see previous blog entry).
“When I kept silent, my bones grew old through my groaning all the day long.
For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me;
My vitality was turned into the drought of summer.
I acknowledged my sin to You,
And my iniquity I have not hidden.
I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’
And you will forgive the iniquity of my sin.”
Psalm 32:3-5
I can’t tell you how many times my sin has broken me. My flesh self-destructs and I’m left in pieces, expecting God to clean up the mess. And he will, in time. I can refuse him for months. He’s still going to be there when I get back. He knows my moves before I even make them (he’d make a great rook partner). He won’t force me though. Not when I’m old enough to know better.
There have been so many things that have made me doubt myself and my God this summer. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I have exponentially more self-confidence now than when I came to college. Some things just tear at it though. I guess that’s the problem with having your confidence in yourself instead of in Jesus, though. Your self is flawed, sometimes unfixable.
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
I know God wants to be my comfort. He doesn’t want my comfort to be in my friends, money, a job, a place to live, a town where I know people. It’s so unnatural for me to trust God in times of trouble. I can’t only trust God when I feel like it. If I do that, my insecurities would never let me trust Him. Right now, trusting him means waiting on him. There’s a fine line between waiting on God and being lazy. I’m currently straddling that line, but I’m really clumsy. I keep falling over :)
Oh the midnight hour.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Sunday, July 18, 2010
yada yada yada.
The flaws I see in the people I love—the pure, complete lack of perfection, the conditional love they present to me—I thank God for. If I hadn’t learned of the inadequacy of people, especially the people who mean the most to me—the ones who I want to approve of me and love me for who I am— maybe I wouldn't have appreciated BEAUTIFUL grace of the Lord as much as I did today.
It has shown me how He loves. Not like my parents. They love me more than anyone in this whole world has ever loved me. But they will never, ever come close to the perfect love of God. My friends have shown me so much love. Love that has gotten me through these past four years of searching and longing, giving me a reason to live. Not them, but Jesus. Learning how to glorify Him with my life has been rough, to say the least. Doubts have prevailed, still to this day. But still He loves.
To me, love means complete acceptance no matter what. I don’t think any human being is capable of complete love. I think those who are closest to the Lord are able to love the most. But even those people have sinned. They continue to sin, and sin is the opposite of love. Sin is pride, and love cannot be prideful. Love cannot put one’s own wellbeing over the one’s whom he loves, can it? Jesus loved. On the cross, and here still, today. His love is unmatchable, because His love is blameless and untainted. Is it our responsibility to learn how to love the best we can?
Can we love without the love of Christ? What do we call that emotion, if not love? Admiration? Endorsement? I confuse my desire to be the best that I can be with being the funniest or prettiest or most mysterious girl that just that right kind of boy has ever met. And then I blame myself (and my lack of these attributes) when his attention wanders. I shuffle my iPod and expect the next song to tell me how I should be feeling about it. That’s dumber than a magic eight ball.
The world has slowly backed away from God, turning itself towards man to bring approval. The search for Christ has left the souls and we've replaced it by seeking the drought-laden kiddie-pool of appreciation which only has room for the one-half of one percent that is deemed fit. We don’t all have the same idea of who fits this cream of the crop crowd, but we all see them the same. The ones who are perfectly who we want to be. For me, it’s a girl who, most importantly, loves the Lord. Who never doubts His existence or the way she believes in Him. She stands up for the Truth, because she knows exactly what that is. She treats every man like a brother in Christ, not as a potential mate. She completely trusts God for that. She, of course, is beautiful. And not in her own way. In everybody’s way. And she makes friends with everyone she knows. She’s not afraid of anything, and carries the humility blanket everywhere she goes. She is honest with herself, and accepts nothing but the best. She is gentle and genuine. Never, ever lies. She doesn’t play games, and never falls victim to them either. She doesn’t lose.
This girl will never exist. But I will hope continually, and will praise You yet more and more. My mouth shall tell of Your righteousness and your salvation all the day, for I do not know their limits. I will go in the strength of the Lord God; I will make mention of Your righteousness, of Yours only.
It has shown me how He loves. Not like my parents. They love me more than anyone in this whole world has ever loved me. But they will never, ever come close to the perfect love of God. My friends have shown me so much love. Love that has gotten me through these past four years of searching and longing, giving me a reason to live. Not them, but Jesus. Learning how to glorify Him with my life has been rough, to say the least. Doubts have prevailed, still to this day. But still He loves.
To me, love means complete acceptance no matter what. I don’t think any human being is capable of complete love. I think those who are closest to the Lord are able to love the most. But even those people have sinned. They continue to sin, and sin is the opposite of love. Sin is pride, and love cannot be prideful. Love cannot put one’s own wellbeing over the one’s whom he loves, can it? Jesus loved. On the cross, and here still, today. His love is unmatchable, because His love is blameless and untainted. Is it our responsibility to learn how to love the best we can?
Can we love without the love of Christ? What do we call that emotion, if not love? Admiration? Endorsement? I confuse my desire to be the best that I can be with being the funniest or prettiest or most mysterious girl that just that right kind of boy has ever met. And then I blame myself (and my lack of these attributes) when his attention wanders. I shuffle my iPod and expect the next song to tell me how I should be feeling about it. That’s dumber than a magic eight ball.
The world has slowly backed away from God, turning itself towards man to bring approval. The search for Christ has left the souls and we've replaced it by seeking the drought-laden kiddie-pool of appreciation which only has room for the one-half of one percent that is deemed fit. We don’t all have the same idea of who fits this cream of the crop crowd, but we all see them the same. The ones who are perfectly who we want to be. For me, it’s a girl who, most importantly, loves the Lord. Who never doubts His existence or the way she believes in Him. She stands up for the Truth, because she knows exactly what that is. She treats every man like a brother in Christ, not as a potential mate. She completely trusts God for that. She, of course, is beautiful. And not in her own way. In everybody’s way. And she makes friends with everyone she knows. She’s not afraid of anything, and carries the humility blanket everywhere she goes. She is honest with herself, and accepts nothing but the best. She is gentle and genuine. Never, ever lies. She doesn’t play games, and never falls victim to them either. She doesn’t lose.
This girl will never exist. But I will hope continually, and will praise You yet more and more. My mouth shall tell of Your righteousness and your salvation all the day, for I do not know their limits. I will go in the strength of the Lord God; I will make mention of Your righteousness, of Yours only.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Welcome to my blog, yo.
I can't decide why I'm doing this. I've never been one to need to get something off my chest or really even have much of an opinion on many things (other than Jesus and the fact that the Yankees are a disgrace to the major leagues), but I hope to learn something from this process. I want to bring humor, honesty, and humbleness in a way that isn't too critical or unnerving. It's easier to write how you feel than say it, for me at least, so maybe this will be a good means of expression for that.
All that to say... welcome. Welcome to (hopefully) an optimistic, positive, confident web-log. I'm new at this, so cut me some slack. Be prepared to read about many, many arbitrary subjects and maybe a couple of pensive, yet lighthearted, ones too. Fingers crossed I won't need to be too forceful with my entries, and they will just float out like a feather. But more than likely, I'll have a mess of jumbled assessments needing to be made sense of, and that's where you come in. I've been told that when people read my writing, they can hear my voice in their heads like I'm saying it out loud. So, if you don't know me very well, a lot of this won't make sense to you. I'm just asking that you can all give me the benefit of the doubt, and maybe we'll get somewhere.
My blog title is from a Tenth Avenue North song, Times. The line is "...the times that you feel like you've fallen from grace..." I used this line because it gets me every time. The whole song is great, very sound, but this line smacks me in the face. Like I could really do anything that would demote me to unforgiven. Romans chapter eight says "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." This is one of the biggest issues that I've ever struggled with, and I wanted to name my blog something that means a lot to me. So there you go.
Lylas.
All that to say... welcome. Welcome to (hopefully) an optimistic, positive, confident web-log. I'm new at this, so cut me some slack. Be prepared to read about many, many arbitrary subjects and maybe a couple of pensive, yet lighthearted, ones too. Fingers crossed I won't need to be too forceful with my entries, and they will just float out like a feather. But more than likely, I'll have a mess of jumbled assessments needing to be made sense of, and that's where you come in. I've been told that when people read my writing, they can hear my voice in their heads like I'm saying it out loud. So, if you don't know me very well, a lot of this won't make sense to you. I'm just asking that you can all give me the benefit of the doubt, and maybe we'll get somewhere.
My blog title is from a Tenth Avenue North song, Times. The line is "...the times that you feel like you've fallen from grace..." I used this line because it gets me every time. The whole song is great, very sound, but this line smacks me in the face. Like I could really do anything that would demote me to unforgiven. Romans chapter eight says "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." This is one of the biggest issues that I've ever struggled with, and I wanted to name my blog something that means a lot to me. So there you go.
Lylas.
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