Summertime!!

Hey friends! I'm pretty excited about this summer, and my latest post on the CollegePlus blog has tons of ways you can make a difference this summer! Check it out here!

Blogging for CollegePlus!

Some of you may know that I'm doing this crazy program called CollegePlus. I've been testing out of college credits and taking online classes through CollegePlus, and am hoping to have a BA in English in less than two years! CollegePlus is what is making this possible for me. 

Anyway, I was asked to write a post for their blog! Of course I was thrilled... lots of grins and happy dances ensued in the process of writing this post! Go check it out!

Because I Forget

I've been learning to remind myself lately. To remind myself of God's goodness, of my reliance on Him, and to remind myself that this life is just a passing breath - my one chance to let Christ change eternity through me.

I've realized that I don't have time to forget. 

I don't have time to learn and relearn - then relearn again - every lesson God teaches. 

So. 

I need to remember them. I need to remember the truths that help my heart to beat in tune with the Spirit.

I'm stumbling through this, guys. So far I've tripped and fell upon two ways to remember. 

I write myself notes on my hand some mornings, notes from scripture - life words inked dark on my hand. It reminds me twofold: because sometimes I need to forget what others think. I need to forget fitting in and remember that Christ didn't go with the flow. To me, that scripture-scrawl is worth a curious glance or two. Those words from the Jesus book can change my day because living words on my hand spread to my mind and heart. 

The second thing I do to remind myself is to make signs to put up on my bedroom walls. These signs are quotes, Bible verses, and thought provoking messages. This way I am literally surrounded with encouraging and challenging messages. Here are a few of my favorites:

Reminding me who He is and who that makes me:

Reminding me to surrender everything I am to Christ:

On my mirror to remind me that true beauty isn't what's on the outside:

How do you remind yourself of God's truth?

Confessions of a Writer who hasn't been Writing

I've been lazy.

Telling myself I have no words to write

But really I've just failed to dig them up out of my heart.

For me, writers block is a frame of mind

That comes in the summer.

Lazy days and

No deadlines.

I think I sometimes cheat myself out of deep words spilled out on the page

Because I fear the currents

Tugging beneath the glittering surface.

I see the sun reflecting off the shining water 

Mesmerizing 

Pretty shallow thoughts

And Pinterest-perfect quotes.

I sit on the bank ignoring parched lips

And dirty hands,

Content somehow.

I need to force myself to step into the water

Break the smooth shining surface 

And 

I need to drink deep,

Dip in

And find strong currents.

Dangerous waters.

Because there 

In the scary place

In the dark mystery

I find Him.

And when I find Him

I find words.

I'm gonna try to write more, guys. 

Dream Come True

Guys. I am so excited. So so excited!!!!! One of my dreams has officially come true! See, there's this blog called therebelution.com and I love it. It encourages young people to soar above the low expectations our culture has loaded on us. If you haven't visited it before, I'd strongly encourage you to check it out! 

But yes. Back to my news. I wrote a blog post and submitted it to therebelution.com.... and they published it on the blog!!!!! Like, there are actually a LOT of people reading this crazy post I typed up! I am so honored. But really, God gets the glory because he kinda dumped the words into my head. So yeah. Hop on over to Therebelution and check it out! 

Hurts and a Masterpiece

    I just saw a quote on Pinterest from Ernest Hemingway. Write hard and clear about what hurts. All right then; I'll write about something that hurts. It hurts 'cause I've sat here on the couch for a long long time, thinking I should be writing, I should be running, I should be doing school. 

    The slow motion falling I feel when I eat too much chocolate, when mom said she wishes she could iron out the worry-wrinkles, furrows covering the "should be's" and "what if's" and "why me's" of my brain. 

    It hurts to spend my days chasing a perfection that was never meant to be; holding up a shimmering mirage of beauty-perfection beside the clunky realism of 1,440 minutes each day. 

    What hurts is having a growing, unraveling to-do list and a sniffly nose all at once. 

If perfection is so perfect, then why does it hurt to look into its depths? 

    But I've been aching to say this, to heal the hurt: God is sovereign. If something should have happened, it would have. God knows I could have been running today while I poked and proded my heart on the couch to find life-words to bleed onto this blog. But in God's perfect plan, I didn't run. 

    To heal this huting holding-up comparison I need to rewire my brain. To remember that God's perfection doesn't look like world-perfection and skin-beauty and crossed off to-do lists. God's perfection is happening, unfurling, growing in me. Each moment is beautiful, a gift from God. But unless I see the moments for what they are, I will continue to seek a hurting perfection I've conjured up.

    A masterpiece. That is what my life is becoming. And all those little bumps and the strange dabs of color?

That's where the beauty comes in.

Because God's perfection is not a world-perfection. 

God's perfection is a masterpiece.

Mr. Hemingway, I'll write about what hurts; I'll write hard and clear. But I'll also write about the masterpiece that's blooming from the big-ness of my God in the soil of my hurts.

Here.

He is here. 

Blank screen, pulsing line. Cursor.

He is here.

Not scolding in the past, or waiting in the future, but here.

Now. 

And more loving than the world and bigger than life and more real than the ground under my feet.

Unimaginable. 

Do you comprehend that word? Unable to be imagined. 

Let that sink in a second.

Because the ground under my feet is only holding me up with the attraction of minuscule molecules, one to another, keeping wood particles whole.

He holds those molecules together.

And He is here. 

Can you imagine someone more real than reality, a fifth dimension, ten thousand new colors and bigger than the biggest universe? 

And He holds those molecules together, under my feet.

And He is here.

"I am," He said. 

He is. 

He is not "I was," nor "the great I will be" 

"I am who I am."

Because the only thing that's real right now is something that is here. In this moment. 

He is. Here. Now. Holding together the molecules under your feet and loving you more than you could ever comprehend. 

Let that sink in a second.

And if the Great I Am is here, holding together wooden floors and loving and being Himself - ginormous and brilliant and stronger than strong and infinitely, wondrously, good - then who are we to fret and question and worry and complain? 

He is here. 

And that is enough. 

**************

If you want more info on the subject and/or the story behind God calling Himself "I Am", you can look it up in Exodus  3:1-14. :)

To smile and slow and breathe and grow

On my to-do list for 2014:

Smile at more strangers (because who knows if they have anyone else to love them?)

Climb more trees (and smile and breathe deep and press into rough tree-skin and feel the unseen wind bending the strong holding me up)

Always watch the sunset and the sunrise when I can (because God is an artist and breathed into me a dimension of his own beauty-love)

Read my Bible more than once a day (remembering that it is meant to be my constant food, not an occasional dessert)

Run faster (and feel the strength God placed in my body and the perseverance He's working in my heart)

Crack open my mask and be who God made me to be (because that's when I'll feel truly alive)

Sweat more (hard work, playing, laughing and sunshine)

Eat slower (because God made food taste good for a reason)

Go on more adventures (life is not boring, nor should it be)

Allow others and circumstances - and ultimately God - to stretch me beyond my comfy zone (because God designed me to grow, but who can grow without stretching taller?) 

Gossamer Trails

    This is honestly the third blog post I've started today. Just not feeling the creative word juices flowing, but that's okay. I've done plenty of writing in this past week... like a seven page "personal plan for leadership" for a college class. Three thousand, four hundred and forty-one painstaking words. So glad it's over with, yet I loved writing it. One of those things that stretch a person in a good way, I guess. :P

    Now I'm studying for a College Composition CLEP test, and will be writing 2-4 essays each day for the next few weeks for practice... so, yeah. Pray for me!!!

Do you know what that is? 

Yup. Spiderwebs! Believe it or not, that was what out backyard looked like one morning a week or so ago. It was one of those "wow" mornings. 

Can you imagine? That was either a huge shindig of an Arachnid-party, or hours and hours and hours of crawling. 

    It's beautiful, but also a poignant image to roll around in our heads: what if all the words we spoke trailed out behind us as we lived our lives? Would the world behind us be beautiful or shamefully ugly, decked out in words never to be erased? In a way, we actually do leave a record - in the lives of those who hear us. The Bible commands followers of Jesus to not let any unwholesome talk come out of our mouths. We are to only speak words, to only leave trails to build up and benefit those who listen. (Ephesians 4:29) Were the the lives of the last five people you spoke to made more beautiful because of the web of words you wove around them? 

    I know I'm feeling convicted right now, as I write. I may never see spider webs the same way again! They are a fantastical reminder to only leave shimmering gorgeousness behind me as I speak my way through life. Because, truly, our words stick around. 

    Friends, make someone's life beautiful today because of the words you weave.