these hallelujahs be multiplied.

Your love is like radiant diamonds,

bursting inside us, we cannot contain.

Your love will surely come find us,

like blazing wild fires, singing Your name.

September, you've been a roller coaster.

Last night, my roller coaster peaked.  It hit the top (or maybe it was the bottom?).  Last night reaffirmed a lot of things for me.

Like how good my friends are, how sweet they are to me.  how loved I really am by them.  how a huge couch, a water, some tissues, and emotional threats can be so comforting.  how precious the Lord works time out.  how deliberately He weaves things together (and apart).  how He aligns things so intricately to help us and to hold us and to protect us.  how big He is, yet how small He can be when it comes to knowing me and know my heart.  how incredibly loving He is.

I'll spare you of the details, but last night, my last eight months hit an emotional wall.  My heart dropped as I felt the weight of things this summer, things in my head, things in my heart, and things forgotten collide.  I was mad and maybe hurt and maybe sad and sort of confused, but overwhelming overwhelmed.  

My wall resulted in tears, tissues, kind words, and sinful words that made me feel better (I'm human).  In the midst of my meltdown, the Lord moved.  He moved mountains in me and in my heart.  In my chaos, He spoke to me and loved me still.

I cannot adequately sum up the last year of my life.  I cannot adequately show you, like I would love to, just how great the Lord has been to me.  But know that my cup overflows.  Matthew 12:34 says that out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.  My inability to properly convey just how sweet Jesus is should scream volumes about what is happening in my heart; it cannot be explained, contained, or refrained.

He has used easy things, hard things, big things, and small things to reveal Himself to me.  Even when/though this season is hard, I love it.  I have fallen madly in love with the only One that can carry the weight of my worship.  How silly I am to think that anyone else can handle the magnitude of it.  How grateful and thankful and happy I am to know that I know the One that can.

Times are hard.  As soon as I think maybe they're not hard, I get hit and my character is tested.  I declare, proclaim, and rejoice in the fact that Jesus always always always wins.

How thankful I am to know my worth in Him.  How thankful I am to know how treasured I am.  How thankful I am to call Jesus mine and to have Him call me His.  How thankful I am for God and for His goodness.  How thankful I am that the Lord gives good gifts and that He only takes things away to give better things.  What a promise.

Lately, I have been so full of love.  The Lord has been overwhelmingly (I'm using that word a lot, but it is the only thing that gets a little close to telling how I feel) evident and real and present.

In the midst of all that and all of this, I ask that you would pray for me.  Pray for my heart because it hurts.  I know Jesus well enough that I can overcome that hurt, but your prayers would only help me more.  Pray that I would continue to see the Lord around me.  Let this season not be a season of aimless wandering, but one of consistent thankfulness.  He is good.

Thank you, Jesus. Thank you is only a start, for it doesn't say nearly enough. You will never get old, I will never ever tire of You, Your grace, or Your faithfulness.  

God of mercy, sweet love of mine, I have surrendered to Your design.

May this offering stretch across the skies.

These hallelujahs be multiplied.

I say You are a good God and I eagerly expect Your goodness today.
I'm ready for you, October.  The best is yet to come.  With my head held even higher today, onward we go.

September is BUSY.

I'm currently in class, on my second cup of coffee, trying to focus and obviously not succeeding.  I'm not convinced that this is how "to-do lists" are supposed to work (I write "blog" on my to-do list and then do it while I'm sitting in class...), but at this point, it's what has to happen.  

This semester is kicking my butt.  Currently, I'm juggling being SRA, running an Etsy shop, being a full time student [and I only have 15 hours, but 4 communication classes is A LOT], going to counseling, sending out letters to raise money for a mission trip to Seattle, trying to manage my anxiety, being a 20 year old girl in 2014, and loving Jesus as best I can.  It's taken lots of coffee, lots of praying, lots of conversations, lots of lists, a couple episodes of New Girl, and lots of broken moments when I have to come to Jesus and realize how inadequate I am and how much I need Him.

I often want to make time to come here (even if that time is when I'm supposed to be listening to a lecture) because I'm a big, big advocate in speaking words to believe words.  I have to say things to help myself know things.

Jesus has taught me a lot in the last month.  I say often that He teaches me a lot, but it never slows down, ever.  He always has many things to reveal to me.  Lately, He's teaching me that He is so tenderly loving.  I know that God loves me and I believe that very well.  But lately, in the times of my chaos and my busyness and my stress, God has reminded me that He loves me sweetly.  It's more than love as a friend or love as a Creator, but love like a Father.  A love that reminds me that I can mess up and I'll still be accepted.  A love that can calm anxieties.  A love that comes from tight squeeze hugs and notes on napkins from friends and midnight thank you texts.  A love that is sweet enough to bring tears to my eyes, a love that is sweet enough to melt my heart when it gets hard and cold because I'm set in my own agenda and in my own world.

I often say that the Lord is sweet and that He is loving, but these days, my life has looked like combining those 2.  He is sweetly loving.  He is close and He orchestrates little things to bring big joy.  I'm not sure how to adequately describe it, but today, love looks like the little things.

To be honest, I'm exhausted.  I'm exhausted with any and all things.  I'm exhausted with class and with homework and with loving people when I don't wanna and with being stressed and anxious.  In spite of my tiredness, I'm reminding myself often that Jesus is very good.  And reminding myself often that He is very sweet to me.  And reminding myself that the character of Jesus matters more and means more than the mess I feel.

I know I say this often and maybe too much, but thank you for listening to my rambling.  I'd be lying if I said that your reading my blog doesn't matter to me.  What an honor it is for you to care enough to read the words I need to speak.  I'm thankful for you, faithful readers.  You have helped my heart immensely and I cannot say thank you enough times.

With my head high, bravery in my steps, and love overflowing from my heart, onward we go.

On my darkened heart, the light of Christ has shone.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

- [ E P H E S I A N S 2 ] -

For The Cross

Today, my goal was not to goof around on the internet, but to get lots of things done.  But here I am blogging, so...

I am utterly overwhelmed today.  I didn't think my heart could get as full as it is.  

First, let me say that anxiety medicine rocks.  My doctor said I wouldn't see changes within the first week, but it's been 4 days and these last days have been amazing.  I know a lot of that has to do with Jesus and maybe the medicine is just mental, but really, I can't even explain the peace and okay-ness I feel.  Seriously, I feel like I'm seeing the Lord clearly for the first time ever.  It's been incredible to say the least.

Second, the truth that Jesus would come to save me wrecks me.  Earlier this week, I shared my testimony and it was by no accident that I would share all that the Lord has done in my life one day and then celebrate three years of freedom and grace and love and kindness and gentleness and wisdom and sweetness 3 days later.  

Three years ago, I got baptized.  If I could sum up the last 3 years in any one word, it would faithfulness.  Oh, that the Lord would seek me and come to me and pursue me and hold me and treasure me.  That He would find me and stay with me, in my wrongs and in my attempted rights, in my good days and my bad days (and believe me, the bad days have been many), in my closeness to Him and in my distance from Him.  That He would come to me and fight for me and love me more than I love myself.

I think the gospel hits me as hard and as strongly as it does because I understand that the Lord saved me from a lot and I promise I'm thankful for that, but for almost even more, I'm thankful that Jesus saved me from myself.  He saved me from my anxiety and my worthless feelings and my hopelessness and my brokenness and my sin and my screwed up thinking.  He saved me from Hell, yes, He saved me from living an empty life, but I am so dearly thankful that He saved me the train wreck that is myself.  He saved me from the self destruction that I was pursuing.

Oh, that He would put a semicolon where I had firmly placed a period.  That He would pursue me so faithfully, despite my downright rejection.  That He would love me in spite of my rejection of Him.  I will never, ever tire of thinking of these thoughts.  I'm in wonder, marveled at the depth of His faithfulness, His love, and His kindness for me.

All of these things are to say that I can't handle God.  I can't handle what's been done for me, I can't handle what's been given for me.  Hallelujah, what a savior; hallelujah, what a friend.  I can't handle it and I delight in that.  The mystery of Christ is a very real thing and my heart is overwhelmed by it.  Here's to the last three years and the forever that's to come.  Jesus, You're the delight of my heart and thank You doesn't say enough.

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;

Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.

Thou my best thought, by day or by night,

Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Be Thou my wisdom, and Thou my true Word;

I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;

Thou my great Father, I Thy true son;

Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

Be Thou my battle shield, sword for the fight;

Be Thou my dignity, Thou my delight;

Thou my soul’s Shelter, Thou my high tower:

Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,

Thou mine inheritance, now and always:

Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,

High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

High King of Heaven, my victory won,

May I reach Heaven’s joys, O bright Heaven’s Sun!

Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,

Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.