NEW

Love...it's a funny thing and i don't understand it.

i used to be afraid of it--the craziness of being attached to one person for life and the fear of being with the wrong one...and i still wonder and feel afraid of falling in love with someone who decieves you and says he's one thing but then shows his true colors...

but that wouldn't be love, would it? and my God is good, He can keep me from those who would say one thing and mean something else...

my God knows my heart so well...sometimes I forget this fact. but He does. my life is held in hands of love, and when that time comes and I am supposed to meet him--him whom my soul loves, him who i have been waiting and praying for--God will orchestrate it so beautifully. i wouldn't be surprised if music was playing and the moment just turns magic--because my God likes to bless me that way...just because i am His own

i think i'm ready for love, but i leave that part of my story securely in His hands. He has such beauty in store, i don't want to mar it by meddling. mmmm, He is good. He has good for us, His kids.

i write all this because I just saw engagement pictures of a couple who most would say are awkward and old fashioned--but there was such love and light on their faces in these pictures--it was glorious...these two have waited and have done it right--and you just know, just from looking at their faces, that its going to be blessed. so blessed. i haven't even seen them lately--and probably won't for a while--but even just the pictures (such a crude representation) put tears in my eyes and just fill me with such joy. the look on her face...the way he beholds her...the truth they know together and the God who fills them both up and will lead them on--it was all there, it was all there and it was...beautiful, awe inspiring, lifting, new, glorious, outrageously good--where are the words?

i am so glad for them, not just for their joy that has come and continues to come--but because they put God on display in a world that seems...can seem, no actually IS broken. they show that you don't have to sleep together to see if it will work and you can find a glorious joy in honoring each other and keeping each other at arms length--remembering that you don't belong to each other yet: he is His and she is His until the day that He joins them together...

i am glad too because this is what my God does. and if He would do that for Andrew and Breanna, maybe...someday...He would do it for me.

not because i'm anything special

not because i've won His affections

not because i deserve it

but just because He loves me

and i am one of His kids

and He loves to bless His kids

You give me hope Jesus...again and again. I will wait for You and for him, for as long as it takes. keep my heart running, overflowing with Your joy and grace as i wait for that day

haiti will never be the same

heaven will never be the same

our families will never be the same

"Behold, I AM MAKING ALL THINGS NEW"

I do not like people who pick on other people, especially when the one being picked on can't do a thing in their defense.

You wouldn't think this would come up in the Simpson library--but oh, it does! I'm still shaking from an encounter with a guy who decided to bug my friend.

And its funny, because she's trying to write on a paper on inter-racial reconciliation and we just run into this tension----------------vijf 

Jesus, I don't like this world sometimes. I saw a crow with a lame foot in the parking lot today and it made me cry--something deeper is bugging me, this brokenness that goes beyond what I know--it's so deep...

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus....

I realize I haven't written anything for a long time--I think that is part of my tension and frustration--I am someone who needs to be letting it out through words on the page all the time and I haven't allowed myself that outlet lately--so here's the flood. Better in the safety of the Simpson library with a computer screen in front of me than tomorrow in the middle of junior high...right?

These last three? (has it only been three? whoa!) weeks have felt more like three years. I am, oh man, just trying to figure out where I am and how it all works as a student teacher at my new placement. Some days have been rough--so rough! I just walk away and can feel so alone and tired. The victories are small, but substantial. Jesus is walking with me.

There's such a tension in this class--I know kids can do hard work and come out with beautiful stuff--its just that they won't even try sometimes. I try and try to motivate and move them forward and most days--it can be like a brick wall. I don't know why they can't just write: sometimes they can...bleh, bleh, bleh...

I'm going to try a trick and keep them away from a sort of outline they created...maybe once I hand it back to them in a week they'll discover some inspiration.

I teach science this week too. We'll see how that goes :) haha, bleh, bleh, bleh...

What else needs to come out?

They need respect--I gotta teach it to them. No one else has. That made me cry one day--I was so overcome by how rude they could be--not the least amount of respect was shown to me...

Oh Jesus, give me great love to override the great hate, the great tension, the great laziness, the great sorrow...I know you can give me what I need.

Tired--needing You--hungry

I      fall      at      Your      feet