ooh, when the sun comes up

I’ve become an old woman. You know, one of those old women who take time to reflect on the old year before the new one begins--the comings and goings, the things that God taught me, and hesitantly project my wishes and dreams for next year; one of those old women who wants to go around the table and talk about the same things with the people I love. In my heart it feels as if, when the ball drops tonight, 2008 will in so many ways, come to a close. The confetti will fall and we will welcome 2009 joyfully. I’m ready for 2009. I’m excited for it, I’m anxiously awaiting midnight, when we’ll bang pots and pans and dance around in our party hats, celebrating the new year and all of the potential that it holds.

At this exact moment, one year ago, I was cleaning up somebody else’s vomit, and was in the midst of the very worst, the darkest, period of my struggle with anxiety. 2008 began with fear and insecurity, not just in myself, but in relationships and circumstances and life. It feels so good to know that, one year and a long journey later, I will be celebrating with my very best friends, eating Chili dogs, and that, throughout the course of the year, things have changed so dramatically that I sometimes can’t even believe it.

I learned a lot this year. I had to. I learned a lot about myself and about God and about relationships; I learned a lot about prayer and about grace; I faltered and fell many, many times, and, this year, I was reminded time and time again of my humanity, of my imperfections. I made plans, only to have them radically altered or fall apart completely; I made some great decisions, and I made some weird ones; I had things figured out, and then, it became so clear that I didn’t. I learned my strengths and I really learned my weaknesses. People came in and out of my life, like a rotating door. The people in my life twelve, nine, six, even three months ago, have come and gone, some leaving deep ruts in my heart and imprints on my life, some gone without a trace. This year was a rollercoaster, a toss-up. It feels a bit like 2008 was a year of constant change, in the strangest ways. Physical location changed multiple times, people changed, relationships changed, I changed. To be completely honest, it was an exhausting year, with very little time for rest. It was a year filled with beautiful struggle, with anxiety and heartbreak and fear that led me straight into the heart of God. And it altered my heart along the way. I wouldn’t change it one bit. I am left at the end of 2008 with the feeling that tomorrow, I am starting fresh.

I know that when I wake up tomorrow morning, things will be the same. I’ll still wake up at 11:00 and go downstairs for my usual bowl of Fruit Loops. I don’t concern myself with silly New Year’s Resolutions like “eat healthy” or “exercise more,” which I am sure to break. But I do have hope for the new things, the fun things, the wonderful things that are on the horizon. I can peer a ways into the future and tell you that 2009 absolutely, without a doubt, holds the wedding of my best friend, holds applications for graduate school, and holds an old school that feels new. Our family will have a series of very significant birthday parties, and I will have some sort of a summer adventure. Those things are marked in the calendar. But what excites me more than solidified dates are the little things, peppered here and there, that make my life, and my year truly exciting, truly blessed.

I constantly wonder what 2009 will hold. I wonder, and hold out hope for the people I will meet and the things I will do, the places I will go and the adventures that await me. I wonder if 2009 will be the year that I finally decide my major, of if it will be the year that I meet my husband (and then throw up because this is simultaneously the most exciting and scariest thing imaginable), or if this will be the year that I fall crazily in love, and I wonder how God will surprise me with Himself next year. I already feel the excitement bubbling up inside me.
If I could, I would predict a year of community and growth and laughter and wonder. I predict a year filled with wide-eyed wonder at the goodness of Jesus, and an even bigger movement for social justice. I predict a year filled with dinner parties turned into worship nights and a year filled with provision and restoration and intimacy with Jesus. I predict rest and an ever-growing sense of family and security. I predict a year where I wear my “special occasion” perfume for more than special occasions. I predict a year filled with creativity and energy, beauty and inspiration. I predict experiences and circumstances that push us further and further into God Himself, in the best way. I predict joy and praise and love. I predict that this year, God will become our reality, and that we will accept nothing less.

I predict these hopes and dreams for my life, my family, my community, my world.
Maybe this will be the year that we come awake.

on Christmas and a home that has come to life

There is something wonderful about family. There is something wonderful about the people that you share blood, experience, genes, home videos, and all that other stuff with. I’m sitting next to Gram on the couch. She’s resting, and I’m using every opportunity to cuddle. The room is being quietly lit with the bursts of color on the tree, Christmas music is playing lightly in the background, and the house is full of life, it seems for the first time. The smell of sugar cookies is lingering and I get up for “just one more cookie” a few times an hour, while my mom and grandpa laugh and work on Christmas dinner together. My brother lit a huge fire in the fireplace, while I set the dinner table—our respective “pride and joys.” Christmas.

Christmas is different this year. I keep stealing glances at the tree, standing tall, and beautifully decorated with decades worth of ornaments, poinsettia leaves and pine cones tucked inside as well. It’s just pretty. There are eight people, and lots of love, in the house today, double what I’m used to. Stories are being told, and mostly, there is laughter and ease. We’re taking pictures just to make sure that this isn’t a dream. It is a dream.

Christmas is different this year. Family is different this year. I sat in church today, the Christmas Eve Candlelight Service, and stifled my teary eyes as I sat, mom on my right and dad on my left, singing “Oh, Come Let Us Adore Him.” Yes, let’s. I’m twenty years old, and this is the first time in my life that I sat next to my mom and my dad during a church service, and it feels doubly appropriate that this message happened to be about Jesus bringing light into the darkest areas. So yes, let us adore him.

I love my family, and I love the holidays, but to put the two together has never been easy. Or, I guess, it has never been “whole.” Family holidays, to me, has always meant halves, or portions, split time, awkward negotiations, tension. Divorce tends to do that. They laughed when I talked of spending holidays together. It’s crazy, Kara—I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to accept it. We all love you, but there is too much history, too many complications. No doubt, there is history and complications and it’s messy. But for seventeen years, I have longed for togetherness and I truly truly believed in the very deepest part of me that it was not only possible, but that maybe, just maybe, God wanted to do a miracle.

Today, I was sandwiched between two people who, for years, have spoken to each other only out of necessity, about alimony and child support and health insurance for the kids, two people between whom there was so much hurt and unforgiveness that really, reconciliation seemed, understandably so, impossible. So when the worship team sang “Oh, Come Let Us Adore Him” this afternoon, I acknowledged that the God to whom I sing is capable of the impossible. Let me tell you about reconciliation, let me tell you about redemption.

Tonight, eight of us will sit around the table and pray over the meal, thanking God for His gift of Jesus, thanking God that we can all be together. I will try to hold back tears so as not to make anybody, mostly my brother, uncomfortable. They won’t see it, but in my heart, I will be singing to my Jesus because this holiday season, He has given me the one lasting desire of my heart. Christmas is about giving Him praise, and worshiping my Savior who came as a baby, and even still, His grace is astounding. We’ll squeeze onto two couches and open gifts, fewer than last year because we’ve certainly all learned a bit about money, and a bit about Christmas. We’ll all be proud of the dinner that grandpa made, and the crafty gifts that my brother welded for each person; Mom and Gram will whisper “grown up woman” things back and forth to each other, mom and dad will joke about Christmases long since forgotten, things that happened prior to my memory; grandpa will take pictures, and Tyler will sit with his wonderful girlfriend, whom he really adores. Gerald will fall asleep half way through, and hopefully dad will like his remote control airplane. Even if he doesn’t, Tyler and I will be acting like four year olds, giddily shaking boxes and ripping off wrapping paper as if the very meaning of life (or something...) is inside. Tonight, eight lives that were once separated by bitterness and fear and all things dark will weave together and bring restoration and love and peace and joy. Talk about Christmas.

All season long, we talk and talk and talk about how Jesus is the light of the world, lighting up the darkest areas, bringing light into our desperate and dampened lives. My family has become His playground. Today, I celebrate Jesus in a way that I have never celebrated. Today, I celebrate my God who conquers the impossible and explodes my family into life, together.

plenty of paper

I turned twenty this year. Twenty, I’ve decided, is an awkward birthday year--not a teenager but not quite twenty-one—and it is kind of weird to figure out how to celebrate, besides for eating inappropriate amounts of chocolate cake, which is always mandatory. Apart from turning twenty, this birthday was different than any other birthday that I’ve ever had for a whole bunch of reasons, mostly that I feel older, and I feel like I've grown. And how much I’ve grown is marked, in my life at least, by birthdays and journals.

A lot happens in twenty years. That’s two hundred and forty months. Seven thousand three hundred days. That’s enough time to make some serious headway on laugh lines and worry wrinkles, and I’m sure I’ve got both. Twenty years is a long time. And my twenty-three journals can tell you, in detail, what I was feeling and when, how it’s affected me, and how much has changed in my soul. My twenty-three journals over the past seven years are a testament that twenty years of life has been wonderful and hectic and fun and spontaneous and anxious and sad and happy and awkward and uncomfortable and challenging and exciting and all of the above, times fifty.

Some journals are more special than others. One begins in a particularly hard time and documents, over the course of seven months, a journey from paralyzing anxiety and self-doubt to noticeable joy and confidence. I love that journal. That journal has within its pages the excitement of a new relationship and my constant freak outs that accompanied it, some of my biggest fears coming to the very forefront of my mind, impossible to ignore; that journal traveled the world with me, and documents every eye-opening experience, every intimate moment spent with Jesus, every creative burst of energy. It’s amazing to look back and remember, and to look forward with hope, knowing that if that was possible, then really, anything is.

Some, many, were gifts, and anybody who has given me a journal has done me a great service, more so than I even understood when I began writing in them. Writing in journals used to just be a way to write my history as it was happening, a cool gift that I could give my children in the future, and a way to look back on how I’ve grown and transformed, and I really have. These journals, though, have become so much more because as I’ve grown up, I’ve discovered a love, a passion, for writing, with journals being my outlet, my blank canvas.

I turned twenty this year. The fourth of August. For my birthday, I was given what was, at the time, the most beautiful and thoughtful gift I’d ever been given. A journal that was so much more than a journal. A hand-made, hand-painted, hand-sewn journal with a hand-written note; truly, it was an incredible gift, and I felt that this gift meant that I, with my passions and my quirks and my daily routines, was truly known. I was nervous to write in it, hesitant that my words would destroy it. It was so special, I thought that it should be saved for something equally as beautiful, equally as inspiring. I wanted to fill its pages with the best I had to offer, just like I wanted to give the gift-giver the very best of me, too. I just wanted to read and reread that letter, over and over again, letting its words sink into my heart. I never did and never will write in that journal, regardless of the empty pages that I see staring back at me. In the short period of time where writing in this journal was acceptable, no inspiration came. And I had angst over what to do with it once that window of time closed—I couldn’t throw it away and waste the creativity and affection that went into making it, just for me. I couldn’t write in it, and I certainly couldn’t leave it on my nightstand, waiting in vain to be filled with inspiration. My hopeful and scrambled thoughts would need to find their home elsewhere. I packed it away at the bottom of my hope chest, and moved onto the next journal.

It was just a journal. I guess.

I’ve written in three since then, which, given the four short months since August, makes me wonder what else I did with my time. The answer: a lot. These months have been the most wonderful months, filled to the brim with people, laughter and spontaneity, sleepless nights and life. I wrote about it all. I especially wrote about the big changes on the horizon, where I see my life headed and what is next, constantly peering into the past, trying to learn from mistakes, gathering as much insight from my experiences as was humanly possible.

At the semester's end, when my two best friends at school drove me to the airport to say goodbye, not just for break, but in a way, for good (we’ll never cuddle in my bed until four in the morning and tell stories and take pictures on Photobooth, and we’ll never yell for each other from the room next door, and things are certainly about to change), they pulled out a journal. It wasn’t hand-made, or hand-painted, or hand-sewn. It was mass-produced and I could find hundreds, if not thousands, of people with an identical journal. The handwriting was barely legible, but when I read the words, and felt the thought behind them, I discovered that though they had hardly known me for three months, they knew me. The thoughtfulness of this gift proved it. No person, they said, should have a monopoly on giving journals with nice letters in them, regardless of who that person was. They knew how much I loved that journal, and how hard it was to put it away for good. They knew about my passions and my flaws, they saw it all--they saw me when smiles and laughter were bubbling out of me and they saw me when I couldn’t stop the tears; they saw me when I was too nervous to say how I felt, and they saw me when I spoke with boldness; they saw me at 3 in the morning, after the delirium had set in and they saw me, cranky and edgy and stressed, after writing three papers. They knew the real me. Crazy study habits, ridiculous bursts of energy, awkward interactions, talkative, quiet, and everything in between. With such knowledge of me, they gave me this journal, with two of the most beautiful letters, the most heartfelt and thoughtful things that anybody could ever say to me. I sat in the airport and cried, looking like the biggest weirdo in the Southwest Airlines waiting area, reading what they wrote me, acknowledging that this gift, this journal, was by far the best gift I’d ever been given.

I wasn’t filled with hesitation about filling its pages with my life, as messy and complicated as it sometimes is, or as hopeful and passionate as it can be, too. In fact, knowing the people who gave it to me, the only way to even do this gift justice was to fill it up with the most honest expressions of my heart, with every frustration and every passionate whim, every logistically planned out detail, every fear, every revelation about the greatness of God, every single dream about where my life is going.

When I got home, I pulled that other journal out of my trunk, and I opened it. I remembered how I felt when I looked at it for the first time, when I read the letter and hugged the gift-giver, feeling so special that this journal was for me and was created with me in mind; I remembered the value that I had once placed on this book and the words inside. I traced the cover with my finger, traced the picture that had been delicately painted on, traced the used binding, traced the words, reflecting on the creativity and, I daresay, love that went into making it. I reread the letter, wondering what kind of feelings it would evoke, because that letter once made me feel like the most beautiful, special girl in the entire world.

It paled in comparison. Because with time, I’ve changed. Things have changed. The girl who got that journal so many months ago is hardly around anymore. I’m the same, and yet, I’m incredibly different. I’m part old but mostly new. This new journal marked a new moment in my life. I didn’t celebrate it with balloons or a fancy dinner or cake, but, in my heart, and in journal world, I celebrated just how far I’ve come, and I celebrated the people and the deep love that I do have in my life, as unexpected as it was.

I’ll still keep that old journal, and remember affectionately what it used to mean to me, with no hard feelings. I’ll look at it and remember how perfect it was way back then. And when I write in my new journal, I’ll remember who I am now, a new creation, a better, more creative, inspired, laughy, joyful, passionate, confident, still anxious, still awkward, still indecisive, version of myself.

a beautiful mess

I'm supposed to be writing a paper for my Jesus class about Jairus' daughter and the hemorrhaging woman. It's my favorite story in the Bible...maybe of all time...and the fact that I get to write about it makes it so clear that I absolutely chose the best major. But I can't get past even just reading the story without weeping.

My backpack-messenger bag-purse thing is exploding with books about miracles and healing...a research paper...I don't know how I'm going to write a historical paper about an event that, 2,000 years later, changed my life....I don't know how I'm going to write it without it being infused with words that make it so clear that this story has reached into the deepest parts of my soul...that Jesus has reached into the deepest parts of my soul.

I love this story. To me, this story is Jesus. Throw away the rest of the Gospels, the letters of the epistles, get rid of Acts and Revelation...get rid of it all (though I never would...), this story is enough to show me who Jesus is. This story alone forced me into a love that I can't explain or escape. Intimacy, inclusion, grace, power, understanding, compassion. And I've been soul searching...going deeper than I ever have before, being met by a God of grace, by a great Love that leaves me restored, that leaves me in awe.

There are no words to describe it. He thought of everything. Everything. And I can't think of anything, certainly not enough to describe this...but it puts me in a state of awe, of wonder, enough to forget my beating heart and my racing thoughts and remember that God is God. And I am...not. Less than God, greater than a sparrow. His eyes are above me, surrounding me, holding my gaze; my breathing slows, and the pounding stops, and He is God.

It's a love that has been present since time itself, that wove me together with needle and thread...this love created me with all of my quirks and idiosyncrasies; it's a love that can't be ignored, that He forces me to see, that wakes me up in the morning and lulls me to sleep at night; it's a love that requires more of me than I ever thought I could give, that is not satisfied with my comfort, that expects more of me, and, in turn, leaves me craving more more more. It's a love that I don't deserve. That is the beauty of it.

And I don't always know how to let Him love me; to receive it into my soul sometimes requires vulnerability that I don't always feel comfortable with...to let down my guard and give into His heart. To love Him back sometimes feels like a journey that will never be complete. To love Him, sometimes, happens with ease; other times, He digs it out of me. To love Him sometimes means that He takes a metaphorical jackhammer to my heart and breaks through walls of distrust, walls of fear, walls built in response to humans and heartbreak. And after rereading what I just wrote, I'm not sure if I'm talking about God or about a human.

The walls do come down though. I sing and shout and praise, and they come down. Like in Jericho, they crumble. And my heart lays, tenderly beating, in His hands, my pulse getting stronger and stronger, empowered by the transfusion of Love that is constantly occurring.

And now, I'm feeling antsy. I know who I am, and I know what I want, and I'm waiting, waiting, waiting, for what feels like forever. It's taken a year to get me to this place, and I'm arriving, albeit not always gracefully. Old things are reaching their conclusion, and new things are beginning, and I'm anxiously awaiting my next adventure. I want to shout it out and tell everybody about my big plans, the dreams that keep me awake at night, hoping and praying, but, maybe by the grace of God, I hesitate. I'm afraid He'll change my mind and, once again, redirect my course, and I don't want to explain that to the masses.

And it's been quite a year. It's been a year that, had you shown it to me in advance, I would've laughed. Looking back back back, there are things that I never thought I would survive...and there are joys that I never thought I would experience. It's been transformational and difficult and fun and wonderful and, in a word, beautiful. Beautiful in its twists and turns, and in its ability to keep me guessing, keep me seeking, keep me in a state of perpetual wonder. Even now, beautiful. Always, beautiful.

grammar

if only there were a way to write that didn’t feel so insanely vulnerable
like the naked dream on replay
which i’ve never had
but i feel like it would feel somewhat like writing
like bearing your soul for the world to read and stand all over
with their response hidden from my eyes

i know that i don’t have to write
but sometimes it feels like words are all that I have to offer
and i’m not using punctuation because i don’t like the finality of periods
commas are okay
because there is still more to come

i’m not good at talking unless i really know what to say
or have it planned out
i stumble over my words and get too excited
i’m awkward and unprepared
sometimes for important conversations, i write it out first so that it’s
perfect
because i don’t want to screw it up
i usually do anyways

but when i write, my mind and my soul come together and everything is
clear
and even if you don’t, i get it
for me,
writing is cathartic
writing is worship
i love music
a lot
a lot a lot
but words
connect me with my Jesus

everything is a story
i hope that my story points to Him
i hope that my words point to Him

writing is scary
because i want to shout from the rooftops about
His goodness
but how do i do that without letting you into a part of me
that is reserved for very few
that is reserved for One
or two, someday

how do i tell you about His mercy without telling you that
i need mercy
how do i tell you about His strength without telling you that
i am weak
how do i tell you that He bound up my broken heart without telling you that
i am broken
how do i tell you that He is peace without telling you that
i know anxiety
and i don’t particularly feel comfortable having my
life on display
it felt safer when i knew that my mom was the only one reading
anything that i wrote
but if it is what He wants, then
here it is

right now, i don’t like the finality of periods
maybe it’s not just with periods
i don’t like finality
period
(haha)

except in some cases
like love
and marriage
and that a ring means forever
and ever
you can put a billion periods after my wedding day
i like that

but sometimes i don't like finality
that something is over, forever
it feels like giving up
walking away, without hope
and i have hope

maybe it isn’t giving up
maybe it’s letting something new begin with the excitement of
Capitalization
and i love that newness

still, i am an idealist
i don’t want to give up on anything that
He still has plans for

except there are somethings
i wish would just end
with 8,000 periods behind it
………………
because it just needs to be done

but life is a run-on sentence
or maybe thirty
with commas and semi-colons and parentheses
and i don't know where it will go
and i don't know where to put the periods
because i'm not writing this story

i wanna call it love

I am currently 20 years old, single, no prospects of marriage on the horizon, and, I am a hopeless romantic. I believe deeply in the power of love, in its redeeming nature; I see love in everything, I live for a good love story, weddings, love songs. I can hardly contain my excitement when the topic of love appears.

I love Love, and everybody knows it. Even though this is such a big part of me, this is such a defining characteristic, I have always thought that me being so utterly romantic was a semi-negative trait...that the idea of romance was so prevalent in my mind that it gave me false hope or lofty expectations; it was unrealistic and planted dreams in my mind that were practically unattainable. In the back of my mind came the "reminder" that this obsession with love can only bring heartache, that this love cannot be mine.

But I have a new idea, I've just had a revelation. I was made for romance. I was made to love, and I love to be loved. And I am constantly reminded that there is a Love story bigger than man and woman, bigger than stories of first kisses and falling in love. And it is my story. I was made romantic because the God of Creation chases after me with an unfailing love. This story is worthy of awe. The intricate details of our salvation, from our conception to eternity, points to the love that follows us, that we cannot escape. The Blood of Jesus has become the mark of romance in our lives.

Even in the midst of pain, it is a love story. Jesus is constantly calling us to Him, as the Bridegroom waits for his bride, so too does Jesus wait for us, He desires us, He longs for us. Even as we come out of the darkness, there He waits to renew our hearts, to give us a robe dipped in His precious blood. It's all done out of love.

Nothing has ever sounded so sweet. Nothing compares. No love letter, no flowers, no song, no vows. Nothing can compare to this love. He is the Rider on the White Horse, the bringer of justice, strong and mighty, the Ruler of Heaven and Earth. Through him we have life, through Him we overcome. His love is the purpose of salvation, the joy of eternity. It was His love that brought us into existence, that we might know and love Him in return.

I imagine that the first time I say "I love you" to somebody, and genuinely mean it with all of my heart, I'll cry. Love is that big, love is that important to me. And, in the same way, every time that I feel the love of God wash over me, my world stops, my heart swells and I cannot stop the tears that come to my eyes. I am a part of this beautiful love; this beautiful love is mine.

I don't have a clear picture of what love between a man and a woman truly looks like. I've seen glimpses, and have hope for what it will look like in my life. I dream about my wedding, and falling in love, and growing old with my husband by my side after a lifetime of adventure. For now, it stays in my imagination, as I wait for earthly love to find me. But, I know what the love of Jesus looks like in my life, now and forever. It's not just amazing--it's fantastic and dazzling. It's unbelievable. It is the reason that my heart beats, my hope for tomorrow, the goal of my life on earth.

Now I know why I love love, why I love weddings, why my heart longs for love. It has never been more clear to me that I dream about love on earth as a reflection of the love of my Jesus. I have been created as a creature who clings to a good love story so that I can learn to cling to Jesus...my obsession has a purpose, a solid and beautiful purpose. And I love it.

till kingdom come

Everything that I have read lately tells me that the message of Jesus is to bring the kingdom of heaven to earth, that we might have life to the fullest. It tells me that, above anything, life is important, that life is sacred. So sacred, in fact, that we are to intentionally, purposefully seek it out. We are to live our lives in a way that truly brings abundant life to not just ourselves, but to those around us as well. Matthew 10 tells us to heal the sick, to raise up the dead, to give freely, to keep ourselves from greed and excessive consumerism (paraphrase...)...to continually live on the narrow road that leads to Jesus, forsaking all others.

We are to seek His kingdom. We are to seek His life, life through the Spirit.

God is love. That word wholly and completely describes Him. Everything in our lives should be motivated by the love of God--the God who raises the sun each morning so that His people can carry on. The God who paints the stars in the sky, and reminds us that our lives are but a breath. The God who counts every hair on our heads and knows every quirk and tick to our beings. The God who brings the rain, and who calms to storm.

He cares about life. He cares about suffering, and brokeness. He sees families torn apart and destroyed by bombs, nations ruined by war. He sees little babies with their stomachs distended in hunger. He sees a discontented western culture seeking life at the bottom of a bottle, marriages reduced to nothing more than bitterness, life summed up by the word "struggle."

And in this, He tells us, seek the Kingdom of Heaven, and there you will find life. Seek first His name, leaving behind all others in the name of Jesus, for the sake of life. Seek His Kingdom--do what He says. Love others more than yourself. Give up your own comfort so that others may find rest. Do not destroy your soul and reduce yourselves to beings seeking pleasure in unhealthy ways.

Seek His Kingdom. Seek His life. Seek Him.

Seek Him in a way that restores your soul, that brings your laughter back, and that lets your song be heard. Seek Him in a way that brings color back into your life, and in a way that marks your story victorious. Seek Him in a way that brings out the child in you, that makes you want to dance, that brings your imagination to life and brings you to a place of adventure.

I have a confession. I have done life without Jesus, attempting by my own strength to succeed. I failed. I have done life proclaiming the name of Jesus while still substantially trusting only myself, forgetting even to pray. I have failed at that, too. And I have done life with Jesus, seeking His face, and His heart of love for six billion people created uniquely, but all intertwined, oddly similar in the desires of our heats. That is where life is found. The fulfillment of life--and the joy, love and peace that accompany it--comes by the name of Jesus.

So now, I attempt to daily seek His kingdom, and ask that others would keep me accountable to that. And I ask that He would bring His Kingdom into my life with force, that He would revolutionize my world, shock me into the reality of His power, that He would overwhelm me with His greatness and that He would blow my mind with His love for people, and His love for life.

clockwatching

i am just a person--a soul in a body.
i breathe in, i breathe out; my heart pumps blood.
i love, i think, i imagine, i dream.
i am just a person.
and this Life is
mine.

at any moment, my breathing could slow,
and my beating heart could falter.
my mind could fail me, and my organs could admit defeat.
my body could surrender to the grave.
at any moment.

life is precious. time is precious.
a billion pictures captured, they fit together
the puzzle pieces of your existence
slowly coming together, telling a story.

how does it go?

inspiration comes. it says "live."
don't waste this precious gift.
use wisdom, have compassion, seek justice
find Life.

reality, though.
do not accept a fake.
we aren't talking about street vendors in the big city selling knock-off prada bags.
a phony will not do. a phony will never do.
pass it by, just keep walking. keep walking.
keep walking.

------

the sun is shining on me, i can feel its warmth.
its rays hit me, energy and renewal within its reach.
the darkness has claimed enough--enough time.
enough wandering, enough recklessness, enough of the soul-suckers.
enough.
the light is here, that we may have life and have it to the full.

the clock is ticking.
get it back:
beautiful, precious life.

i cannot waste it.
i cannot watch it pass before my eyes.
do not follow the herd to the slaughter.
do not be the cattle that is led astray.
choose wisely.
one choice, one chance to live.
don't waste it.
choose wisely.

before the sand runs out
turn your back on the faulty substitute.
turn your back on the stupid, life-stealing, self-destructive substitute.
follow the light, it leads to Life.

"Hold your own, know your name, and go your own way and everything will be fine."

**Details in the Fabric, Jason Mraz