i love bread

overwhelm me

at d-group last night we were talking about how we feel God here vs at home and we told story after story of God getting lost in the shuffle and i realized that i don't want to live like that. we said,
"He just gets buried under my life and homework and all the stuff i have to do" again and again and i don't want that to be my story any more.
i want the kind of intimacy with God that permeates everything that i am doing. i want to know him so well that i finish his sentences.
i don't want the separation or compartmentalization of my life. i don't want to say to God, "you have this time, and i'll take everything else"
i want to love him in a way that consumes me. i want his presence to become the backdrop for my life.
i want it to be deeper, it to go further, and it to be so full that all of me is focused and in tune with him and his love and purpose for this world.
and not that any of this is easy- getting to that place will be painful and take enormous amounts of discipline.
but i can't go back now. now that i've seen his goodness.
this needs to be everything.

beauty

we had a beauty discussion last night with all the girls on this trip.
what we think about beauty, what guys think about beauty, how beautiful we are in the eyes of God.
i like that we have those conversations, they need to happen. we need to articulate our beauty and what we like about ourselves.
but i just wish we could take it deeper then a proverbial pat on the back. i wish that we could articulate how wildly the father pursues us. how He created romantic love to show us the desperate part of His love. to show us how consuming this all is. i wish we said, i am beautiful because there is Christ in me. because i have died and He has taken residence in my life. I am beautiful because the Holy Spirit pours out of my eyes, my touch, my words, and my actions. what is beautiful is Christ, and he overwhelms me.
what is beautiful in this life is things that are laced with you, things that are covered in your fingerprints.

when they told us to write down something about beauty i knew i couldn't define it so i wrote things that i know are beautiful.
i wrote about rolling tired and sore out of tents and watching the sun blink and rise quietly. about memorizing poems and reciting them to open spaces and people we love. about silence and being alone in the hands of the creator. about old novels and all things good and noble and true.

"And i remember feeling that way back in Colorado, that i was not the center of the cosmos, that there were greater things. Larger things, massive structures forged in the muscle of earth and time, pressing up into the heavens as if to say the story is not about you, but for you, as if to remind us that we are not gods."
Donald Miller Through Painted Deserts

awake my soul

this country is gently teaching me that life is rushing forward anyways,
why push it?
there will be time, and we have hope that will see us through.

prayer request:
i know in my life and the lives of some of my close friends right now that we are facing a lot of lies from the enemy so if you guys would just rebuke that before the Lord- that He would silence these whispers and would lead us into the truth.
you guys are great and i am so thankful for our friendship. :)

joy

"the greatest hinderance to worship is not that we are a pleasure seeking people, but that we are willing to settle for such pitiful pleasures."

John Piper Desiring God

my joy rests in God. it doesn't come from shopping, or what other people think of my hair. i have experienced the depth of the joy that comes from knowing and resting in the presence of the my heavenly father, and nothing will ever measure up. not till we get to heaven or Jesus comes back.

canaan bound

"I trembled at the voice of God
A voice of love and thunder deep
With love He means to save us all
And Love has chosen you and me."

orange sky

http://www.mediafire.com/?cvthsxjs0ku

bear with me

learning how to treat each other with grace and love that esteems is rough. but we need it, like air, like water.

i'm trying to be observant

a quick ride down the streets of Pietermaritzburg or Soweto will show you that football should not be the most important part of our lives. and what brand of jeans you wear means nothing. not when there is this much.
this much raw, this much hurt, this many abortion adds on this many posts, this many children not going to school, this many women raped.
don't get me wrong, South Africa is beautiful and i have experienced nothing but warm lovely people in a warm lovely country so far, but these things are here, and you can see them in the faces of some of the people. in the adds and the trash dumped in gutters. in the squatter camps.
this country has so much potential, there should not be this much.

learning.

this semester will be about learning.
learning to listen.
learning to hug people more.
learning patience.
learning not to be a second hander.
and how to love others from a place of humility that puts them and their needs above my own.

this is finally sinking in.
i just sat through many hours of orientation and i am finally realizing that i will be leaving tonight at 1:45 to get on a plane that will take me to Africa for 4 months. and while the logistics of that doesn't scare me, the thought is a little daunting. it is easier to handle in the small pieces and questions, like where will you be staying and what will the weather be like.
the idea that i will be on a different continent for the next 4 months is scarier faced all at one time, but it is coming, and i know that it will be fundamentally good.
onward and upward.

alone

i watched the sun set tonight and as it fell i realized that that moment was precious in a certain way that was specific to only me. that it was a moment that occurred in only my heart, in only my head. that if someone else were there, the colors would seem different to them, the depth of the blue spreading across the sky might be less startling. and i realized that if i get married someday, and even if my husband and i are great at communicating with each other, i understood that there would be things we would never see the same, and things that we could never say. there will always be whispers of our hearts that will never be translatable. and that would be a tragedy if we were alone. but we are not.
we are never alone.
the things that can not be understood by people are plain as day to our creator, the one who knows our hearts because he made them. he knew exactly how i felt in that moment, because he made that sunset with me in mind. and how awesome is that?

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38-39