The Purpose

"I am just here to love and the rest will come with time"

...because I wasn't created to have a social network. I wasn't created to go to events. I wasn't created to have the latest clothes. I wasn't created to eat good meals. I wasn't created to have nice things. I wasn't created to go to church or even the mountains or the ocean. I wasn't created to go to college, get a degree and make loads of money. I wasn't created to get married and have cute kids and live in a cute house.

I was created for Jesus. To love Him and love His people and that is all. 

So next time I'm wondering why I feel empty, and why I don't I have all that I think I need, maybe it's because that's not what I was created for. I was never supposed to have or do all of that. None of those things are in any close proximity to my purpose.

Blessed to have these things, yes. 

But necessary?

essential for a full life?

no

All that I need. 

ALL that I need, 

resides in the temple that has been built in my heart. 

And that is it. and that is real. and that is where life, purpose is to be found.
Not in the gifts that God gives us, but in God Himself.

The Soul Book

people

people everywhere

big . little . young . old

happy . sad . hurt

stories

stories everywhere . from everyone

beneath the surface of the skin is the novel of the soul

if i had the eyes to see, to read yours,
then maybe I could love,
maybe i could understand, 

maybe i could shake this apathy that consumes me

if there are souls hurting then why am i not helping

why am i acting as if i know your soul story to be good

why am i not loving,
wastefully loving everyone around

sometimes i think it's not the hurting that need the most help,
it's ME

a cure for apathy,
that would fix more than a doctor ever could

Lord, cure me

give me eyes . give me ears . give me understanding

to be consumed in the novels of the souls that surround me

The Conference

breathe in|breathe out

city lights and busy streets

mmm its the urban oasis

Passion.
No, not Passion, but God.
We tend to forget the moving power behind these conferences we go to,
giving all of the glory to a conference instead of the Lord.

Anywho, I can't believe I haven't written about it yet. 

It wasn't near as emotional as I had expected it to be, instead very substantial. I can confidently say that the Lord used every single aspect of those 3 days to change my life. 

Doubt eradicated. Identity and purpose established. Friendships made stronger. 

so thankful that I was blessed with the oppurtunity to start the semester in that way.

While there however, I felt that the Lord was putting it on my heart to pursue participating in Youth With a Mission during my spring semester of 2013. Still praying and in the application process. The Lord still has alot of doors to open; I will have to get accepted into the porgram and approved by Auburn to have my scholarship put on hold so I won't lose any scholarships by taking the semester to do this. I'd be doing 3 months of training and 2 months of missions work overseas. Again, if this is where the Lord wants me, He will open those doors and if not He will shut them. Just the experience of saying yes to what I feel Him calling me to do has been fruitful in and of itself. 

Into my first semester, the Lord is teaching me how to glorify Him in the everyday environment- showing me that where I am right now is exactly where I am supposed to be. I can glorify Him just as much as I could halfway around the world. He has already blessed me with some amazing encounters with others and I know He will continue to do so.

He's on the move, no doubt and I'm so excited to see what He is going to do this semester.

The Power

I believe in the LORD

maker of Heaven and earth

YAHWEH

my God spoke creation into existence

He destroys cities by Heavenly fire

He makes walls crumble and seas divide

He brings dead to life

even the touch of His cloak brings healing

so do not doubt

my God is more than able to do anything i could possibly imagine

He is doing something in me far greater than i could ever imagine

He is doing something in you far greater than you could ever imagine

| let this doubt in my heart be dead |

The Damns Given

what do i want?
approval.

who do i need to be?

ive tried

ill be anything

| no |

not anything

me

| just me | 

| no |

not just me

me !

don't hold back

my mind may be at the top but my soul is at the center

it's time to let it speak

The ER

Sitting in the ER. 

To my left sits a lady with her face in her palm.
Her other hand clenching her side.
 She appears to be doing everything she can to hold in the pain.

To my right are sweet friends,
waiting on the results of their friend's ct scan.
She is well.
No seat belt, car totaled, walking away with a fractured arm.

Behind me are two tired women,
resting,
waiting on loved ones.

At the front desk is a daughter,
all I hear is
"8 stinnets"
 "massive heart attack"
I see her dear mother,
 barely able to support herself in the chair.

I walk in laughing at my friend's clumsy mistake,
hoping that his stitches won't hurt too bad,
planning on fixing it with ice cream afterwards.

I walk out with eyes wide open to God's grace.
Grace that I live a life that has been free of loss,
a healthy body that doesn't require much,
and an existence that has never known pain. 

It's easy to forget the world we live in.

The Little Rhyme

One thing I ask is to be found bowed at Your feet, 

that You may be pleased. 

That my heart may be fixed where true joys are to be found, 

effacing all the worries that so easily surround. 

My life is Yours, I know that to be true

but please take my heart and yield it Lord, completely to You.

The Thanks

Here I sit,
on a lovely bench under a tree with falling leaves,
with cobblestones under my feet and a sun painted all shades of orange setting behind me.
I can hear the squirrels romp through the leaves around me.

If there's one thing this semester has taught me, it is this:
I live immersed in beauty every day.

Sometimes I must do more searching to see the beauty,
but it is there all the same.

Thanksgiving is not a day.
It is not just Thursday, November 24.
If thanksgiving were that, just a day- how bland life would be.
How many blessings around us would go unnoticed if it was constrained to 24 of the 8,760 hours we are given each year?

No- Thanksgiving is a posture in which I am to live.
It is the final article I must clothe myself in daily.
It is the lens through which I am allowed to see beauty,
to see the blessings the Lord surrounds me with.
Without thanksgiving, the beauty is drawn out of our lives.
Our selfishness,
our dissatisfaction with life,
is magnified all the more with this ignorance.

Thanksgiving is the staple.
It is the acknowledgment of all that the Lord chooses to bless us with.
It softens our hearts to His love and opens our eyes to His blessings.

So, during this holiday, I am thankful.
Thankful for home cooked meals.
Thankful for the sweet friends and families that I got to spend time with this week.
Thankful for my own family

And my thanksgiving must not stop here-
in this moment,
in this day,
in this week.

It must continue-
day by day,
moment by moment,
as the Lord opens all of our eyes to the blessings surrounding.

The Years That Go By

 "The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away....so teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom"

Psalm 90

 The hands of God.
Out of the same hands that bring beautiful autumn trees comes the wild winds that rip them to shreds. Life is fragile.
Time owes us nothing.
We aren't guaranteed another minute, another hour, another day.

Ann Voskamp describes time as a river that rushes through without any regard of travelers passing through. I think if the Lord instilled the reality within all of us that our days truly are numbered,
we'd all live so differently. We'd be so much more intentional about our life. We'd treasure and nurture the relationships in our lives. As a Christian, I would feel the urgency to love on others so much more. I'd be more direct in telling everyone of all that my Lord has done for me. We really aren't promised anything. As cliche as this is, we all need to learn to live as if tomorrow wasn't there. And if we are honest, it's not. We don't know what the future holds, but we stroll through life as if we do. If I live to be 60, I don't want to wake up and realize that I've wasted 21,900 days of my life with meaningless tasks and unintentional conversations with people I never took the time to deeply care about and a relationship with the Lord that I never tried to tell others about. Even just with college. Time is fragile, and this is such a vital time to learn from the Lord. Why would I waste that by seeking out selfish desires, so I can learn the same lessons I did in high school 50 more times? Not that I have the ability to choose the higher road, because I don't. But there is a desire to live and grow close to the Lord. Teach me to number my days.