I'd Like to Add . . .

Lately I've been pretty stunned by art all around me.  And I'm thankful because life would be pretty bland without it. Art in the trees.  My friend Kayla made these out of paper. I was flabbergasted. Art on the walls.   Art in yarn. Art in the yard.    Art in Chicago.   Art my sister made. Art on a rainy day. Art in the sunrise.  

Rest. There's something about it that my human heart constantly wants to fight. Two days ago I worked at both of my jobs and stayed an extra hour at one of them, making it a 12 hour work day.  For some people that's normal but I was real real tired at the end of that day.  I needed some rest.  That night, I was drawn to read Hebrew 4:8 right before bed.  It made some sense but not total sense. Yesterday, I didn't have to work AT ALL and it was wonderful.  Probably about 10 times throughout the day of hanging out at home though, I found myself thinking, "Oh, I could go and do _____".  And every time I stopped and fought that thought with the decision to just rest. Yesterday, I decided to read all of Hebrews 4.  And do you know, it's all about rest!   "For whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his." Hebrews 4:10 I've never understood this verse like this until now, and the fact t...

Learned about this post template from here . The brief: 1. Write for 5 minutes flat on the prompt with no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking. 2. Link back here and invite others to join in. 3. visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Today:Jump Go Jumping.  Jumping can be scary. You can jump in place or jump off a cliff.  So, it's not always scary.  But no matter what, it takes some work to jump.  But on the plus side, when you jump, you're higher than you were before you jumped.  Hope you're following my little analogy here. . .  The phrase that comes to mind at this word is "you say jump, we say, 'how high?'"  That and "you jump I jump right? (Titanic)".   Both senses of jumping are displayed in these phrases.  The thought of jumping for the sake of jumping, and jumping off of something; taking a risk.  But jumping for the sake of jumping because someone told ...

Thank you, Boyfriend. For casually pointing out the fact of how easy it is to "like" something online. It made me think... It doesn't take any personal sacrifice or investment to click that like button on Facebook, or, easier yet, to double tap that picture on Instagram.  You don't even have to really like it too much to "like" it. Through the reminder of that, I've had to check myself and in doing that, I realize that I place too much stock and self-value in what other people think.  Not to mention what value people place on me through the clicking of a button on the computer.  How many times a day do I pull down that notification tab, (but it really reminds me more of a window blind) hoping to see that somebody liked my instagram post?  And that little thrill I get when I see that someone did like a post or that my blog has such and such pageviews - should that be so important to me?  I don't think ...

Last night, I did something I don't do often.  I went up to the front at Church.  I went up because I've been wrestling with something.  And I've had it. Here's the sermon from last night. But it wasn't the sermon (though it was very good) that brought me to the front. It was His kindness through the Holy Spirit, and it lead me to repentance.  Not the repentance of being a sinner, but repentace of the sin of trying to add to His grace. If you listened to the message, you heard the analogy that being in the "sweet spot" of grace is to be in the middle of the "river".   Not on the "bank of adding to" and not on the "bank of cheapening", but in the current between the two, where you trust His grace to be enough to take you where you are to be. I can't even begin to understand, let alone describe how tightly I have let myself become bound to working to earn what Jesus has already given me freely - to "add to...

Last August I wrote a post,  half the year in review , in which I summarized January to August, 2012 in my own words and I've been thinking of how it might just be time to do that sort of thing again. I'll pick up in August for a little review of my review... August :  Here's what I said in the previous post about August: The beginning of August was sort of rough again. The last week of camp was the first week of August and the week after that is always kind of rough since you're going through withdrawals. Plus, the Lord MADE me lean on Him. I mean I could've leaned the other way and had a wrong response I guess. What I'm saying is, some things really sucked for me at the beginnnig of August (relationships-wise) and my only real option was to lean on the Lord (which is good cause that's what I'm supposed to be doing anyway). My heart was vulnerable right on down to the very depths of it, but Jesus just held it in His hands until the storm blew o...

Today, I'm having trouble reeling in to write about something I'm thankful for.  I'm pretty hyper and glad it's a friday.  My brain is sort of going wild and I want to do everything but nothing in particular all at once.  Today, I don't know what I am. Two days ago, I was feeling sad.  I was feeling condemned and pretty low about myself and my accomplishments (or lackthereof).  I prayed for joy.  That day, I was discouraged Yesterday, I prayed that my life would reflect the fact that I love Jesus more than anything else. I failed at that in some ways.  But I also succeeded at that in some ways.  Yesterday, I was hopeful. What I'm trying to say through my short reviews of the past couple of days is that I am not constant. I might wish I was and regret it when I'm not.  I might put on a front.  I might even pull off actually being constant for a while, but when it comes down to it, I am not.  And as a human, I...

Learned about this post template from here . The brief: 1. Write for 5 minutes flat on the prompt with no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking. 2. Link back here and invite others to join in. 3. visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Today: Here   Go   What can we say about 'here'?  It seems we can see to every place around besides 'here'.  I can only look up and see the horizon, never "there".  When it comes down to it, here is the only place I will ever know, but never see fully.  It is a prison and there is no excape.  Not because 'here' is bad, but because you will always be 'here' .  And there is no leaving 'here'.  A lot like tomorrow always being tomorrow and today alsways being today.  And you can't get in your car and drive away because here is always here.  But it's not a trap or a cage.  Here can be beautiful.  Because we were made to b...

Confessions Part 3 by Wierd Al Welp people, these are my confessions. Member that read-a-thon I did last week?  I umm may have pretty much completely failed to achieve my goals for that. Don't get me wrong, I did make some progress.  I've gotten to page 220 in Gilead and Chapter 22 in 2 Kings.  I had hoped to get a little more under my belt by now, but it's okay.  Anyway, here's this pretty great song to remind us that there are worse things than not completing a readathon and also forgetting a Thankful Thursday post on top of that.... I'll work on that right after this.  In the mean time, enjoy!  

As you can tell, I didn't post this on Thursday as planned.  I realized at about 1AM this morning that I had forgotten and the thought startled me out of near sleep because I had really wanted to post ON Thursday.  I was a little disappointed in myself but, I want to make the most of it. So today, I'm thankful that it's Friday.  I'm real glad for this weekend.  And I'm thankful that Fridays, in and of themselves, have this hint of weekend in them too, so I celebrate Fridays too. No, I won't type out the lyrics to the song by Rebecca Black but I do feel like celebrating.  I feel like celebrating a few more things as well actually... I opened my Etsy shop last wednesday! YAY! Although it's pretty simple at the moment (and by simple, I mean that there's only one kind of necklace for sale) I'm just happy about it!  I haven't given anyone the url until now.  YOU. ARE. THE. VERY. FIRST. you ready? Ok. It's http://www.etsy.com/shop/Al...

(I wrote this yesterday) Happy April 1st. I've not told any lies today, but if a good prank opportunity arises, I'll probably be all over it. (never did do any of those) So just a few things to let ya know..... A) I'm working on launching an Etsy shop. My thoughts on that: I'd like to be able to sell from this Etsy shop at some point, but beyond that, I would love to be an entrepreneur in the long run.  Having a family business sounds really cool to me.  I'm finding that setting up an Etsy shop, while relatively easy, is also relatively hard.  I want to do this so that I can say, "I opened up my own store" (albeit online).  And because its just fun! Also opening up the store would give me a creative outlet.  I love making things and having hobbies and I love the idea of a hobby being productive. I'd also like to sell on Etsy because I'm a very symbolic person.  The things I make, I like to attach meaning t...