filling my room with light today.

"but the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.  peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness."

james 3:17 & 18

i really love the movie bridge to terabithia.  i think it's one of my very favorites.  i not-so-secretly want to be miss edmunds, the music teacher, and wear dresses and sing with kids all day like her.

i tried on a bridesmaid dress today. (:

the sun out the window filled my soul a ridiculous amount today

so did thinking about the people in my life.

i think God is teaching me a lot lately about how He loves.

i maybe play that song lakehouse by of monsters and men at least twice every single day. ...maybe.

i wouldn't lie to you and say that kashi crisp cinnamon crumble cereal is not my very favorite cereal in the history of cereals.

i haven't been sleeping so well these days.

i'm trying so hard to learn how to sing harmony, but oh yikes... just, thanks for still loving me, God, even though you had to hear that.. (:

one of my homework assignments is to write a story about two characters meeting.  i rarely say this, but i loved that homework.

listening to norah jones makes me miss my mom.

cassie let me borrow her hat one time when i was a freezin steven, and another time, coral gave me her gloves to wear.  that was so special!  my friends are so good at loving me.

i still don't know the difference between a mitten and a glove.

while i was walking to class in the cold winter air today, i became so aware of my every breath.  in and out with every step it came, fogging up the air in front of me, clearing as i breathed in, and the rhythm repeated.  it was all i could focus on as i walked.  it reminded me that i am ALIVE.  i love that winter does that.  and in awe, i let that fact sink in for a while.  i carry LIFE within this frame!  what a gift.  what a crazy wonderful thing to be a living being!  i am ALIVE.  but so much more than that, i am truly living on the inside, too, because Jesus is there.  i know, deep in my bones, in my soul, and in my heart, what it means to be truly alive because of Him...  life in freedom, life wrapped in love and goodness of the only One who can fill to the top. 

but i was also reminded of the stinging truth that i can't say the same about my classmate maybe, or that girl down the hall, or perhaps my professor.  friends, we have been given life, and life with purpose.  we are intentionally made, and we can't let life slip through our fingers without spreading true life!

it is my prayer today, and every day, that we would never forget that we are alive, with purpose... that we would never forget that there are people all around us who don't know this true life because they don't know Jesus.  that God would instill within us urgency and drive and perspective and deep love for the people around us.  and that out of a love that's deepest desire is to see them truly ALIVE, we would act.


this life is a beautiful gift, but it's short.  i hope that the next time you find yourself outside and you see your breath in the cold winter air, you think of what a gift life is.  let it remind you not to waste the day, the hour, the minute that has been given!  because it will be gone.  may we never forget!

your life is like the morning fog--it's here a little while, then it's gone.

james 4:14

http://simpleandsincere.weebly.com/1/post/2014/01/you-are-the-air.html

thanking God for my beautiful friend becca and her words that breathe deep love for Jesus.  touched my heart today.  oh, i love this girl dearly.

this is the part that gets me the most:

"they may seem dead, these straight white boxes
but my God has a way of loving that reaches into all depths
and pulls me out of all darkness
even if that darkness is the steady glow of artificial light on white walls

He streams through the windows, penetrating my eyes and my skin
He whispers "hope" while my education professors scream "hopeless"
He brings child after child to me to show His tender physical touch
He speaks in the voice of dr. stephens, reminding me it is all about loving people
He gives me an attitude and a confidence i know are beyond myself

even here among these suffocatingly white walls and straight chairs
you are the air that breathes life into this dusty soul"

mm.

proverbs 16:24

"God, put salt on my lips, that i might thirst for You."

saint augustine

exodus chapter 33 has always meant a lot to me and perplexed me and fascinated me and stirred up desire within me time and time again to know and speak with God like moses.  it says they spoke as friends.  and the one thing that moses asks of God is just to see His glory.  that is his request.  moses pleads that God's presence would go with the Israelites.

and then recently a teaching by jonny hughes really grabbed me & made me think.

he says: "this is our big idol: comfort.  and so we live and as we get older, we try to create these cocoons that are more and more comfortable.  but actually I don't think comfort is the place where we meet with God.  i think actually it's often desperation...
hunger is the soil in which God's presence finds growth."

luke 51:53 "He's filled the hungry with good things, but the rich He has sent away empty"


these words really pulled me and my prayer for you and for me is that we would hunger to meet with the living God and become desperate to know His presence, like moses.  jonny hughes also said, "if Jesus needs to encounter and meet with God face to face, then so do we.  i've tried to live the christian life in terms of spiritual performance, trying to impress God, and it just leads to burn-out.  what we need as christians is to be continually encountering the person of Jesus through the Spirit.

& encounter with God is the bread & butter: sitting in front of Him every day."

a prayer to know intimacy with Him.

p.s. i would love if you would listen to this teaching, too, friend.  click HERE!

Let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him.

For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean,

and our bodies have been washed with pure water.

Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm,

for God can be trusted to keep his promise.

Hebrews 10:22,23




Oh, that we might know the Lord!
Let us press on to know Him.


He will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn 
or the coming of rains in early spring.


Hosea 6:3