Last Day

Today was our last day at the orphanage, and it was a long and very interesting day! I spent the day in sections where God was seemingly doing all of these very different things that each brought their own individual emotions.

As I sit here amongst friends, I think about how most of the people around me I would not have considered friends when we left Atlanta. I did not think that I would connect with some of these people like I did, and for that I am thankful! Tonight a friend who I've met several times tonight let our small group into a part of her life that very few people have ever gotten to step into. I know it was hard, and I know it was scary, AND I know that she didn't have to do it... in fact it would have been easier to not say anything, but she did and God stirred His affection for her in her brokenness inside of all of us, and in that moment she became relieved, if only for a moment.

It has been in the last couple of years, and more so recently, that I've started to be awakened to the harsh reality that people have, but never talk about. I mean my life has been no walk through the park, but you learn to cope and deal, really until it's almost no big deal anymore. So for me, I never realized that people have screwed up lives like I did, and it's really freeing to hear someone bare their harsh reality...to hear someone just drop what people will think, say, or do and just lay it out their because they have nothing else to do with it, fore they know that it's poisonous on the inside and must be relieved, lest it rot them away from the inside out. God bless you if you read this.

Here are a couple of pics, hope you like!

Day 1 Jamaica

Well, I somehow have the luxury of internet here, which is crazy because of the intense poverty around me. God is good in the midst of all I have seen, in just the day that I've been here. I just wanted to upload a pic while I had a minute. Please comment on it, and just know that your prayers helped to get me here, JUST as much as your financial support! Thank you so much, and I'll try and keep you posted! Bless you, and lets talk when I get back about everything! Grace and Peace!

The Beginning...

Tomorrow I intend to leave on a Journey that may take me further than I anticipate. According to the dictionary on my Mac, a journey suggests that a considerable amount of time and distance will be covered. While it is true that I will more than likely be leaving for Jamaica tomorrow, my Journey does not lie in Jamaica the place. I know not where it leads or ends, but I dare say that it does not stop merely because I arrive home safely...

Mistake Of My Life - Caedmons Call

MuteMath

Ok, so for those of you who do not know this already, MuteMath is my FAVORITE band hands down! I don't really have alot of favorite anythings, so this is kinda of a big deal! They just recently came out with a new EP, and will becoming out with a whole album soon! SO i just wanted to let you have a taste of it... enjoy!

Here. Now. Already Come To Pass

Samskeyti [Live] - Sigur Ros

Here. Now. Soon to be. All ready done.
Trust... broken or redirected?
Perception is often skewed as it drips away from the painting before us.
The painting... oh the painting is far to large for us to see in its' entirety.
No... we peer through tinny droplets as they pass before us, as they wash over us, as they are absorbed by us.
Its hard to have any certainty... in fact with our sight, or lack there of, we have no certainty in this world.

But I, then do not see through this world entirely. No, I see through a far more revealing lens that only shows things come to pass. Things that I could not have ever seen had I not peered through the scope in the right way.
The scope my friend is good, and its' sight is more clear than crystal, more pure than the purest of gold.

To glimpse through this lens, one must first trust.
Trust first, and you will see more vibrantly, more extravagantly, more intrinsically than ever before.
But you must trust that these things are true of the lens, for if not, you will see nothing clearly and most certainly be lost and most certainly be confused.

Louder Now

You should play this song as you begin to read:

None But Jesus - Hillsong United

It's amazing what you'll hear when you resign yourself to quietness. As I sat with a friend last night enjoying the stillness of their company, they proposed that today they would spend the day alone. As I awoke this morning I was almost immediately inclined to the silence that I found myself. So breaking away from tradition of the morning process, I stayed away from my iTunes as I prepared myself for the day. I decided that today, apart from times that it is necessary, I would fast from speaking. It is still early in my day, but as I've resigned myself to listen today, I've already heard a great deal more than I really cared to be made aware of. The Lord brought to mind something that has been troubling me at different points throughout the last few years, and especially now. The catch is that I did not realize that I was experiencing this agitation. I realized that over the last few years, everything that I've wanted has been with held from me. I am not speaking of daily provision, because God has been more than gracious to provide me with life and comfort that I do not deserve. No what I speak of comes in the not so tangible form. My hopes, dreams, and passions, that at sometimes BURN so hard that I can't even speak, have all been put on hold. He has told me to wait on every front. I have only recently come into contact with this feeling of discontentment again. I only know that these things He desires for me WILL come to fruition, I must only wait and trust in Him and His goodness. So today, in the quiet, in the stillness, I will wait for you Lord. I only ask that you would have your way in the sowing of your goodness in this wavering heart!

The Coffee Cup

I think this song is fitting:

Worlds Apart (Live) - Jars of Clay

As I finished my coffee yesterday morning in church and began to mentally prepare for the sermon at hand, there came an opportunity to share my coffee cup with another. I had already used it to this point, so I really had no need for it. I lent my coffee cup to her and she took it and filled it up with coffee and sat back down beside me just in time for the sermon to begin. As she started to sip on her hot fresh coffee, I for some reason expected her to give me back the coffee cup. It was the oddest feeling, because I literally had a quick panic attack when she didn't give it back, and it was in this moment that I was given sight for the unseen. It occurred to me that me lending my coffee cup to another was essentially me taking something that was mine and making it hers for her enjoyment. The thing that was happening in those moments was that I saw her take ownership of something that technically was not hers. Truly Truly though it is not mine either! So in light of this significant moment, a quote is brought to mind: "He is no fool who gives up what he can not keep, to gain what he cannot lose." Today my friend, the Lord opened my eyes to his heart for us and for others. He opened them to sacrificial giving in a very small degree, but in a way that should set the tone for my life on a daily basis. Grace and peace.

The Quickest Instant

It seems to me that love can come in the most obscure forms. I like this, because it challenges my working definitions of what love is to me. I know that alot of my sight has been darkened, that alot of my heart has been muddied by the culture in which I reside. I know that it is harder for me to judge what is right to do, then inturn to do it. Beyond that, to get something that was not my hope, but as far as it stands for that moment, it is the most loving thing the creator knew to do for me. I am loved deeply. I am loved beyond my own perception of love, and it hurts, but I recieve its goodness, because my love is short sighted, not patient, always envious, always boastful, and always puts me before everything else. This love will end. The love I recieve will not only change my life in the quickest instant, but all those around me as well. The Quickest Instant and it all changes.

Cant Lose You (solo Acoustic) - Derek Webb



On a slightly different note, I've started including a song in every blog. Music that has been important to me at some point, whether now or years ago. Today I bring to you a vid from Derek Webb called "Can't lose you". I first heard this song when I was a freshman in high school. From then onward it would be stapled to my heart foreshadowing something that is only coming into view now more than 6 years later. Comment and Enjoy :-)

The Adventure yet Seen, but mine just the same...

I've determined that I'm ready. Ready to brave the world...I think. Ha I'm not real sure on that one. But I've been thinking about what my life might look like after college(1 year from now). It is my hope to start embarking on the most incredible adventure and mission that I could ever hope for or imagine. This adventure would be filled with uncertainty, heart, passion, art, music and art, and all inside of Jesus! Faith would be the language by which I live and move and breathe. Everything I embark upon will be a test, that will only strengthen my resolve to love harder, deeper, longer, and more passionately than ever before. I will love in a way that exceeds my capability. Art will be the avenue for change. Inspiration will sweep through hearts like a violent wind, and the Holy Spirit will consume a generation because of these things. I've recently invisioned over the last year having someone to do life with once I embark upon the mission, the ADVENTURE with...I cannot presume to know how that will work out, but who ever they are... I pray for your path of righteousness and faith, and art, abandonment. May God continue to lead you towards my great adventure, until it's our great adventure. Watch out world, because we cannot be stopped!!! Amen.

I think Glen has the passion in this song that mirrors how I will relentlessly pursue these idealistic dreams... enjoy.

Clarity

There seems to be, every so often, an obscure line that one is never quite sure if he has crossed. Why is this line obscure, one might ask? Is it because of things yet to come, or things all ready passed. It is the action of faith that makes clear something that cannot be seen. Yet It is quite a thing, faith is, for it itself is unseen. So faith becomes the lens by which we peer through to gain clarity on an unpredictable, unthinkable, unimaginable, unseeable situation. It is a grand thing when put in this place to use faith to see more clearly and vibrantly than in any attempt made by the most fine reason or sharp interpretation. I thank you, my God, for showing me the depths of my weakness.

Life.
Life has been something of the sort. What "Sort" , I am not completely sure of... It has been said that my place at the table is to serve, not to sit. There comes a time when one loses track of time. The things seen as important today fall quickly away while awaiting things that seem vastly important tomorrow.
Yet I lose the only real thing I have in my life, by looking and hoping for the thing yet to be. For tomorrow is no more real than the grandest fairytale. For while tomorrow can hold virtually anything the imagination can conceive and more, it has no more realistic value about it than snow white and the 7 dwarfs or Santa clause feeding the poor.
The question now becomes, what do I do with my hopes and dreams and everything in between. Well I say to you that I have no answer, but that which comes unnaturally so..."do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow has enough worries of it's own" and here I say is were I love, and Love, LOVE until the day...the day...the day is over. This might just be the beginning of a dream, whether mine or His, or Hers, or there's that no one has neither thought nor seen.