moves me every time. i come back to it every time i need inspiration. that song! i just love it!
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sorry to have been gone so long, friends! i'll be back soon. but my gramma's birthday is today and i just couldn't let the day pass without honoring a very special woman. this photo above ^^ with my pretty gramma is probably one of my very favorite pictures in the world. i've always held gramma especially close to my heart. i wish every single person could know her. truly a neat lady. she's so sassy and makes me laugh all the time! and she calls me lexi and makes me proud to have my quirks compared to hers (like crazy bed-head and our love for milk and learning about world war II). but those days when her and grampa visit our house to have coffee and visit are my favorite times. at christmas this year, dad worked on a little video project with our family, and took each person aside and asked them to share their highs and lows for the year 2013, as well as where they saw themselves in the next five years. this little clip below is my gramma's response to these questions. it makes me laugh so much and just miss her so darn much! (she's in arizona right now) but if every person can't know my gramma, at least they can see a little bit of her sassiness (: haha, i especially love when she says "and a refridgerator for my dip" and when she sings! oh she's my favorite! so much love in my heart for this person. xoxo gramma! i love you...
happy birthday! today was one of those flip-through-your-old-journals/ have-a-good-laugh-and-realize-how-much-you've-grown kinda days (: but one of the entries from about a year ago really grabbed my heart. i might have even shed a tiny tear.. probably because i forgot. i forgot about how thankful i am for who God is and His faithfulness to me, always. probably because i long for that knowing once again. this entry is a little cheesy, but ha welcome to the journal of alexi speich (: that's just something i've learned to expect when i look back (: oh boy... i hope it can bless you & remind you of a part of who God is (the more i live, the more i realize that i don't know & won't ever know the full picture of who He is), like it did for me. a dearly needed reminder of His nearness to me today, still. saturday, february 9, 2013 dear Father,
thank You for Your faithfulness. thank You for not leaving me in that dry place. thank You for the way You never stop pursuing me with Your love. thank You for knowing the layers of my heart. God, i don't thank You enough! i don't tell You how wonderful i think You are. i love that when i lay in bed and the whole world around me is asleep, You remind me that You are in my midst- that You dwell within me, and as i sleep, i know deep within my heart and soul that i am not, or ever will be, alone. i rest in peace and that strong security in knowing i will never be far from the hand of my Love, my beloved Father. that You have searched me and You know me. and, God, what can i say but thank You? what can i do but give my life to such peace. what can i help but to love You with every ounce of my being. You are faithful, my God. fill me with Yourself- "when i found myself, i found loneliness and despair; but when i found Christ, i found Him and everything else." with my whole heart, alexi. thank you for being my friend. as i'm growing up, i've never cherished that more.
thank you for loving God and setting your heart after Him. thank you for leading our family with your love for God and establishing our house as one that serves Him. thank you for giving me your eyebrows and your nose and your forehead (: thank you for making me laugh.. all the time! i definitely have a sweet spot in my heart for your humor! thank you for your patience and for being slow to anger. thank you for always letting me drive. thank you for putting up with me.. all of me.. even the ugly parts. thank you for leading our family towards healthy lifestyles that honor God with our bodies and food. thank you for the way you treat women and the respect you give. thank you that as long as i have known you i have seen you treat and love mom with so much faithfulness. thank you for those car rides after home depot, beating the steering wheel like a drum with paint-stiring sticks to loud music. thank you for loving music. i know you're the reason i love music as much as i do. thank you for being a person i know i can come to with my questions about God, and thank you for never shaming me for them. thank you for being baptized with me. i’ll always treasure that. thank you for introducing me to dark chocolate. thank you for those times you go out of your way to come and visit me and spend time with me. thank you for challenging my thoughts and opinions. thank you for the questions you ask. thank you that switchfoot’s song, your love is a song, will always remind me of you. thank you for those spontaneous texts that affirm and encourage me. thank you for the ways you work hard to provide for our family and support me. thank you for showing me what it looks like to follow God with your life. thank you for knowing how much i love eggs and always saving some for me on the stove when i'm home. thank you for those times you watched i love lucy with me, even though you reeeaally didn’t want to (: thank you for all of those summers you took me, paige, and nooms camping with our friends. thank you for being so so interested in my friends! thank you for being so interested in my stories even when they're about people you don't even know. thank you for not being afraid to do hard things. thank you for your humility. thank you for loving me so much, always. i've doubted many things in life, but never your love. thank you for being a father who is so much like my heavenly Father. you're not perfect, but your life has helped me understand the Lord more. you’re the best man i know, dad. happy birthday to one of the people i love most in the world. cheers to beautiful living. what if i am broken?
what if i am empty? what if i am not who i say i am? what if i fall and fail and sin? what if i am dry and thirsty and have nothing left to give? i am just feeling the weight of my own brokenness tonight and this isn't meant to make you concerned, and this isn't meant to induce sympathy- i just want this blog to be a place that's real, one that has parts of life that are hard, too.. like being a broken, messy sinner in need of a Savior. will Your grace run out if i let You down? i am a sinner and if it's not one thing, it's another. caught up in words, tangled in lies. but You are a Savior and You take brokenness aside and make it beautiful. i'm so thankful God is who He is. i have this friend. her name is holland. not helen, not the place in the netherlands... holland. she says 'zoombazoo' and is fluent in both english and spanish and she wears farm shirts and she makes everywhere she goes a home and she believes in humans and loves the rain even though she is like sun and she loves big, wide, and deep. and it just makes sense that she would be born on valentine's day, because being with her is like getting hit over the head with a valentine all the time! (: she notices and creates beauty everywhere she goes, because she herself is beautiful in a way that could only mean Jesus is inside of her.
and yesterday, i got to not only celebrate LOVE on that favorite holiday of mine (besides christmas, and probably easter... okay, it's not my very favorite holiday, but it's up there! :)) but i also got to celebrate LIFE and beautiful living with some of my very favorite people! holland turned twenty and that means we blindfolded her right up and took her on various surprises, and then to her final destination: a cozy sleepover! she is one who sure lives life beautifully, and is most special to me! so this day was JOY. & i'm trying to get my foot in the door a little more with videography, so sorry not sorry for the quality (: i'll get better, promise! but for now, hope you enjoy! p.s. a little disclaimer: that is sparkling juice at the end.. not alcohol (notice the zoom in :)) ha life is indeed worth celebrating. thanks, Jesus, for holland and for life and love to the full. today my spirit is discontent.
i am not satisfied. something missing. something deeper missing. it grips me. something words cannot articulate. i crave God. i am thirsty for Him. my life longs for more. i long to encounter Him in fresh ways. i long for something beyond the daily life. i'm standing in a wave pool when i long for the sea yet, my thirst goes unquenched. He said He would but my mouth is dry. //like the deer pants for flowing streams i am just so thirsty. i am unsettled. but i know, so deeply i know, He will come. my lover, my king, He will come because He said He would. He will fulfill// and i will rest in truth. {{this i recall to my mind, therefore I have hope.}} as surely as the sun rises, He will appear; He will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth. hosea 6:3 i've just been thinking about God & His beauty a lot today, so this is the product of those thoughts and revelations about who i am as a created being, made in the image of a Creator.
my hope is that, in some way, you might be inspired by this and find yourself creating something in whatever way it is that you create, and through your creating you might find the ultimate Creator. inspired by psalm 104 one thing that i have learned throughout living life is that the human spirit was made for adventure. it comes out from within me more and more each day, it seems... this craving for adventure. even if adventure means traveling to eau claire's neighboring town of the great altoona with family to go to altoona family restaurant because i'd never tried it (: or driving through minneapolis on a summertime night, or seeing the minnehaha waterfalls with a dear friend, or going to perkins late at night with friends for pumpkin pancakes on the weekend of homecoming, or days like today, when i had about forty-five minutes before i would meet with a group for a project and had already done quite a bit of homework, so i sat down to just do some reading and journaling, but then i had the thought that this is prime time to sneak away and do something spontaneously adventurous with this joy-filled God that my heart beats for. this thought made me visibly giddy... a spontaneous get-away adventure with this God who loves me?? i almost started skipping and jumping! why don't i do this more?? and this little half-hour adventure of singing my silly heart songs to God in the snow-filled woods in the middle of the day did more for my heart than i can tell you! and i have learned that i am not alone in this. i think this is a human condition. i think this is a God condition, too. i think He is a very adventurous God. i think that's why He made the world so big and beautiful, with so many people... for us to discover & explore & find each other, and relish in creation and ultimately find Him through & within our exploration. sometimes, you just need to take a big gulp of air to remind yourself that you are ALIVE, that God is good and life is beautiful. so may i challenge YOU, this week, and for the rest of your lives, to GO... seek and explore and venture out into this big world that God has designed to bring you closer to Himself. <i honestly believe it revives the human heart more than anything else> and it brings you closer to other people, too... i learned this summer that taking risks and being in nature builds relationship and trust more than almost anything. and here, my friends, are some of my favorite adventure pics to get inspired and GO! happy venturing! (:
"i've closed my eyes, i'm taking His hand and i hear Him say... 'oh darling, let's be adventurers'" -my dear friend, coral, an adventurous soul. sometimes i just get so cheesy with saying my heart languages but i don't even care. like what even is a "heart language?" WOW, what a great question! i'll tell ya! (; i'd say they're little things that just getcha right in the heart... certain things, like trees and music, that you just can't put words to as to how they move you or make you feel. one of mine is my name. i haven't always liked my name, but i'll tell ya, when someone says "what do you think?" compared to "what do you think, alexi?" it just really means a lot. i'm not sure why. but my favorite favorite thing is when people call me lex. and i think i've figured out it's because anyone can call me by my name, but only those who feel truly comfortable enough around me call me lex.. those who really know me, i think. cuz an acquaintance isn't just gonna come up to me and call me lex. so i feel like when people call me lex, it's like an honor. it's almost like a trustworthy thing and a deeper knowing. my family calls me lex. and lately so does my family here, at eau claire. and it just means the world, i can't even tell you. But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine." Isaiah 43:1 ^^^and here's a song that I've literally played about fifteen times straight, passed along by a person who means a lot to me.^^^
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