Love Can Make You New

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koMHJ0_VkfM

This song is totally speaking to my heart right now.

Reminders

For the summer I'm living in a lovely home with a nice family of three and I'm really loving it. Christine and Brian are very sweet and have opened up their home so generously to me. Their daughter Madison, who is 9, has been fun to get to know. The house is mellow and quiet most of the time and I quite enjoy it.

But as the hours go by and the night gets later and later, the quietness of this home is broken by the desperate cries of a terrified nine year old, no doubt jarred awake by an undeserved horrific nightmare. This I can relate to. The thought of my young years of tear stained pillows and hours of hiding under blankets shaking from fear is almost too much to bear on this cold night. I now look back on those years from a distant future and remember when I used to hope and wish that I could just grow up and all of this would go away. And it has, and I have grown up, and everything is different. I do not dare to say that I am completely fearless now but I do not allow for satan to steal my joy, steal my peace, and ESPECIALLY steal my sleep (I, an overwhelmed college student, regard my sleep to be of the highest importance.)

Tonight is a night of quiet introspection of a life transformed, a girl into a woman, and a new outlook on life. And, most significantly the understanding of who I am in Christ and who the puny little enemy is. That enemy doesn't stand a chance against the God I serve, the God who lives in me, the God who is intimately woven into every area of my life. Yeah, that God.
The God who saved me from my desperation and brought me into appreciation for His mighty works and grace, and peace, and strength, and the list goes on and on as the minutes go by faster and faster while I write this with dropping eyelids and a mind that's fading quickly. I must call it a night and go to bed and drift off to sleep in peace with a smile on my face. No fear, no anxiety, because tonight I know who I serve and I know who I am.

Father's Day

Let me tell you about my dad. My dad tells me all the time that he's proud of me which I find silly, because I'm the one that's proud of him. My dad is one of the bravest men I know. With a testimony of unbelievable faithfulness in his vows to my mom and his devotion to the family, my dad has taught me what a real man is. A real man is a man that provides for his family, sticks around when the going gets tough, and tears up when he gets a word from the Lord. My dad is a warrior poet. A man who is in touch with the Spirit and fights for integrity for the Lord everyday. My dad had a vision to see men come into wholeness and an understanding of God's grace and now he's working to see that vision fulfilled.
Daddy I love you and I'm proud of you. I couldn't ask for a better dad.
Happy Father's Day.

I crave stability.

I'm going on week 8 of living out of a suitcase, and I'm averaging 3 different beds a week since tour and I'm sick of it. I won't have a room to call my own until the end of June and I'm desperate for a place to belong. There's something about opening up a closet and seeing your clothes hanging to make you feel settled, anchored, secure. I need a place that doesn't change, that remains constant in my senseless "live one day at a time" summer. I want to belong, I don't want to feel like the rug has been pulled out from under me anymore. I'm sick of this limbo of not knowing what's going on. I have not been one to live "day by day"; I'm a planner and I love it. I enjoy having a strategy before I go into battle, but where God has me this summer I am defenseless to the bombardment of curve balls being thrown at me.
My only constant is the hand of my Father ever present through the ups and downs. The voice that tells me "come" even when I can't see the ground in front of me. "Jump" He says, and He's always there to catch me.
I may not have stability here, but I will always be secure in Him.
Secure in the knowledge that wherever He calls me, He's already there waiting for me to arrive. With me even as I contemplate worries and fears for the summer. Ever present, never changing, my anchor in times of uncertainty, my shield in times of battle, my cornerstone to lean on, and the foundation on which I stand.
I hold on to You, because You are all I have.

Expect

Lord please change my expectations.
Then exceed them.
Summer here we go.

Thoughts from a broken girl...

I've been thinking a lot recently about competition. I am competitive by human nature, but lately I've been seeing that maybe I'm not competitive enough. I give up too easy. I had a conversation with someone last year that told me that I always get what I want. Something like, "If you give an idea, everyone just goes with it without question. And your plans or ideas always end up happening." Well, friend, my ideas rarely end up happening. Sure on a small scale such as "lets go to McDonalds instead of Wendys" (that's worked a few times on this trip... unfortunately not enough. haha) But when it comes to the big stuff, the stuff the requires a fight, a bit of competition to get my way, I graciously bow out without question. Maybe I don't have the guts to see my dreams come to completion. Maybe I'm dreaming too big and I'm not a skilled enough fighter to see them happen. I dream of things and people that are out of league. I dream big. Ridiculously big. Impossibly big.
Suddenly today, I feel very small.
This picture describes my life right now. I'm in front of a big scary building, with a big scary door but for some reason I have this powerful urge and almost need to go in it. I walk up... and its locked.

Tour

It's official, I'm the worst at blogging on this trip. The reason is that God's doing so much that I have too much to say. The drives prove to be my quite introspection time and I'm thinking at high rates of speed. I couldn't possibly write it all down, so its hard to even try.
Lets just say this...
My eyes have been opened to so many things.