and...

just a few LOOONG hours later, the paper is finished! i am going to bed tonight just 20 minutes past my normal bedtime. oh my word... what a miracle. and the singing and dancing is occurring tonight in my heart... because i am too tired to move and i need to sleep.

but thank you, Lord. you rescue me.

i don't usually post about papers or write updates on my progress with them. but tonight, i knew i was well beyond my own resources. i needed to reach out to the Lord and to my friends. so if you read this, thank you. you helped me finish my paper... yes, in a weird way, you did. =)

a blessing

I'm in the middle (well, more like the beginning!) of writing my first paper of the semester. I am incredibly distracted today and I cannot focus to save my life (or my grade on this paper!). Did I drink too much coffee today? It's quite possible. Or is there just unrest in my soul? That's more possible. My thoughts drift to this blessing. What beauty and what paradox...

May all your expectations be frustrated...

May all your plans be thwarted...

May all your desires be withered into nothingness...

That you may experience the powerlessness and poverty of a child

And sing and dance in the love of God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

~a blessing given to Brennan Manning from his friend, Larry Hine.

Lord, is this where You are taking us? May You take us there... to trust and sing and dance with You!

...and, if I may ask, could You somehow grace me with Your peace and calm tonight so that I can make some headway and not stay up all night? Then, I would TOTALLY sing and dance! =)

startled by grace

i can't sleep tonight... i'm itching to write. i've come to value setting aside time to "reflect..."and i've sat down several times to try to write about my reflections, and i've found that i just don't have the words. i'm pretty sure i still don't. ...but of course i will try! ;)

sometimes, life tricks us into thinking that we're much bigger than we really are. we can make plans--good plans--and we decide what our role is going to be in our plans, and we set our nose to that old grindstone and determine to make our plans come to pass. i know i can develop over time a good case of "tunnel vision"--where i can see life from one, sort of slanted perspective, but that one perspective, i can see VERY well.

it seems futile, actually... because tunnel vision ends up making my world a much smaller place than the bigger, open space that i really want it to be. and i can end up quite frustrated when the little world of my own making takes a course other than the one i planned for it. LIFE has a way of doing that!

but when it does... i'm learning that's when Jesus and His grace are so very startling. i'm reminded once again that no matter how hard i try or how much brain-power i muster, i cannot live this life on my own. i just can't. but i am reminded that i am not judged for my lack of strength... no, i am not. rather, i am picked up right where i am, and i am placed on my Father's big lap. and He turns me around and looks straight in my eyes... and i see no judgment there. i see love. and perfect love casts out fear.

so i learn once again the refreshing and paradoxical truth that failures--rather than driving me away from the Lord--only bring me closer to Him. that He is close to the brokenhearted... that He is attracted to weakness... that He delights in picking up His little girl and sitting her on His great big lap.

...and in those moments, the truth and power of grace wash me away in a really big stream that i just want to drown in forever.

wonderful truth

"So long as we imagine that it is we who have to look for God, we must often lose heart. But it is the other way about; He is looking for us. And so we can afford to recognize that very often we are not looking for God; far from it, we are in full flight from Him, in high rebellion against Him. And He knows that and has taken it into account. He has followed us into our own darkness; there where we thought finally to escape Him, we run straight into His arms. So we do not have to erect a false piety for ourselves, to give us the hope of salvation. Our hope is in His determination to save us, and He will not give in."

~Simon Tugwell, Prayer

how thankful i am for that...

great art

"Sometimes, you know, you try to pray, try to impress God with all the right words... and I just don't think it's all that easy to impress God Almighty. Here's the thing that I think we often forget--that we don't have to impress Him. He's already knocked out about you. He already loves you more than you can imagine.

"I remember reading a thing that Picasso once said. I like to read what famous artists have to say because I can barely look at their paintings without going into a coma, trying to figure out what it's about. But he said this one thing that I really did like... he said, 'Good taste is the enemy of great art,' which I think is very, very true. Good taste has all to do with being cultured and being refined. If art has to do with anything, it has to do with being human. And one of the reasons that I love the Bible is because the humans in the Bible are not very refined. They're pretty goofy, if you want to know the whole truth about it.

"And I remember when I was a kid, people would always say to me... because I was one of those typical, depressed, adolescent types. I wrote poetry and stuff! That's how morose I was as a kid. People would go around saying, 'Oh cheer up, man because God loves you.' And I would say, 'Big deal! God loves everybody. That don't make me special. That just proves that God ain't got no taste.'

"And I don't think He does. Thank God... because He takes the junk of our lives and He makes the greatest art in the world of it. And if He was cultured, if he was as civilized as most Christian people wish that He was, you'd be useless to Christianity. But God is a wild man, and I hope that in the course of your life, you encounter Him. But let me warn you... you need to hang on for dear life... or let go for dear life."

~Rich Mullins

mystery of mercy

i am the woman at the well, i am the harlot

i am the scattered seed that fell along the path

i am the son who ran away, i am the bitter son who stayed

my God, my God, why has Thou accepted me?

you took my sin and wrapped me in your robe and your ring

my God, my God, why has Thou accepted me?

it's a mystery of mercy and the song i sing!

i am the angry man who came to stone the lover

i am the woman there ashamed before the crowd

i am the leper who gave thanks, i am the nine who never came

my God, my God, oh why has Thou accepted me?

you took my sin and wrapped me in your robe and your ring

my God, my God, why has Thou accepted me?

it's a mystery of mercy and the song i sing!

you are the bringer of the moon and all the seasons

you are the singer of the tune that calls the stars

my God, my God, oh why has Thou accepted me

when all my love was vinegar to a thirsty king?

my God, my God, why has Thou accepted me?

it's a mystery of mercy and the song i sing!

~Andrew Peterson