–> When the dream dies.

I used to think that whenever a dream died, along with it would come despair and heartbreak. I was proved wrong tonight. I used to think that something would turn out the way I wished it would and that everything would go just as I imagined in my mind. It made sense to me. It seemed perfect. It even seemed divine. Again, I was proved wrong tonight. I thought that something would click, something would align and all of my hopeful thinking would become reality. Wrong again.

I am glad that my ways aren’t higher than Gods. Tonight He graciously reminded me that when one dream dies, it doesn’t just remain that way…it doesn’t really die. It just morphs. Butterflies are more beautiful than caterpillars anyways. This dream is morphing into another and that is invigorating. That breathes life and inspiration into the stillness and staleness that once was.

When one door closes, another one opens. Looking forward now instead of backwards.

When the dream dies, it makes room to birth another.

–> Foggy.

Turns out the love which was staggering to make notice had been a mirage. She held on through the blurry horizon, clinging to promises spoken. A familiar spirit some may say, plagued invitations to realize actuality. It is only napping, she’d argue just to justify her motives.

Mansions of space, collisions of dreams and monumental hopes. She collected her wishes in a jar alongside her worries. She set apart her fancy dress and high heel shoes for a special occasion that she knew would never come. Absentminded infatuation and smudged mascara stains speckling her cheeks, this is the end.

Everything seems foggy now but somehow she still finds something to hold onto.

–> Given.

Unfailing love, you are my constant. Among the webs of twisted and tangled up emotions, this deceit filled heart still pulses for reality.

Truth in the inmost.

I was made for this kind of fire.

Placing it all back on the alter. I love this song of surrender sung so tenderly to me. I want to give my everything for this. I want to risk my life for this. I want to hold nothing back.

–> Happy this feeling didn’t last very long.

Butter your flies where the enemy lies.

Though pounding indeed my heart does find, the deeper I search inside, the more despondence does arise. Why must this rather subtle result cause for such hidden rejection? Fused among the two, I choose still to keep such affections hushed up and tucked away for safe findings.

Besides the rusty frames, these glasses finely do see. I want you to know that this has faded not. Prevail it does, my heart. I force focus upon it, reasoning to harden what’s only seeming to get warmer with distance. Shouldn’t the frost have settled in by now? Suppose the past Indian summer and unusually balmy winter foretold what I was neglecting to believe. Some say denial, I call it refusal.

I want to believe what others say and mostly I do…then there are nights like tonight, where you are swarmed with butterflies. And as you’re all a flutter, I am as the caterpillar. I’ll still be waiting to grow, whispering hopes of being the one to cause your flutter, burned and still burning. I remain.

“Woe to him who strives…

“Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ or ‘Your work has no handles’?”

- Isaiah 45:9

–> Don’t deny the voice.

Just had a partial thought, partial prayer moment. I thought “Lord, I don’t want to be selfish in doing what I enjoy doing.” I was thinking about how I wanted to combine both art therapy and teaching as I do missions in the near future. Even thinking about if I were to remain in the US longer than I anticipate, how art is such an amazing outlet to those with an openness in observation or delving into your conceptual or abstract pieces. I love going deeper into the unknown and abstract art often does just that. With this idea having already been occasionally present in my mind in the past, (since high school) I’ve always had this self condemning thought that if I truly pursued what I loved and what I finally accepted as being ok enough to share with others, it would be selfish and Kingdom demolishing rather than Kingdom building. Lies, lies I tell you.

I’m not about building my own ladder of success and marking my progression as an artist or as a human being by any measure. The only exalting I hope to ever do is lifting up high my King Jesus. All else is but a vapor and the eternal is what I was made for. I was made for the Lord. I am His, He is mine. Within these obvious truths, the Lord spoke tenderly to my heart and said, “you are not wanting this for you, you do it for me. Why are you saying to the potter that you would rather not be as I made you. Be the clay. Let me work with you and shape you in this. Trust me, I have you here.” Well, safe to admit that I can’t really debate this issue in my own mind anymore.

What He has made obvious and what He desires of me is to obey, to seek first His Kingdom and all else will be added on. I want to be a good and faithful servant. I will follow the leader.

I pray that you have opened ears and softened hearts to hear the voice of the Bridegroom today. It’s so tangible and real. He is so alive and awakened in our hearts when we simply invite Him in. God wants to speak to us and take care of His children. We are His sheep, I pray we will allow Him to Shepherd us as He so desires to. Open your heart to Him today and quiet your soul to listen. We can hear Him loudly when we tune in. Be blessed.

–> Ellipsis…

Flirting with the idea of coping mechanisms of the past, entertaining monumental memories encased in what was once presumed to become of this amusement between the two. Shuddering to think of agreement when opposition stares you in the face.

Its remembrance, though cloaked in disfigure, is none-the-less well known. The first surrender that morphed into countless pleas, “take this away!” The laying down of the longing and the picking up of the cross. The battle between doubtful denial and hopeful affirmation. The jabbing inconsistency in phrases both giving breath to life and bringing sting to death all in one. Indifferent yet confidently assured, surrender and reluctance sway here hand in hand.

A sensitive yet scorching inferno rising up from among boiling blood filled veins, gestures to a faraway fount of comfort. The nearness is faint and the temper means to soften and harden both in the same evaporating attraction.

…

those three dots reaffirm the ambiguous resolve. Something is missing here. I thought I knew, but I’m not sure who he is.

–> Fight or flight.

Thankful #2

My present and a hope::

As the last several months unraveled, so did much revelation into the past. Bones were dug up from dirt that was delighted in being shoveled forth from the earth. I had developed an appetite to understand the reasons why things were the way there were in my life, as well as my family. With sediment brought to the surface, I began to notice that I do have this “flight” instinct about me. I don’t necessarily believe it to be a beneficial trait either. Well hello, refinement. I find myself currently in a place where I want to run, literally and figuratively. I want to run and sometimes even hide. Although what I run into is what I firmly believe to be the source of life, it still doesn’t change what I’m running from. It’s still going to be there, in one form or another and it won’t give up either.

About 5 minutes ago, I wanted to run. I thought about putting my sneakers on and taking off, despite the time that tells me it’s midnight. There have been significant moments where people have spoken confidently into my life calling me a “mighty warrior.” They have helped bring to light the fighter in me. I am clinging to that now. I am recalling how I was formed, though I’m (thankfully) still being molded. I am affirming myself in the truth that though my flesh wants to run, my spirit is fighting. Better than that, I’m being fought for.

“The LORD your God, who is going before you, will fight for you…” -Deuteronomy 1:30

I am thankful to be reminded that 1) He is my God; sovereign, mighty, unfathomable, omnipotent. 2) He goes before me, preparing the way, revealing piece by piece where I am to go/what I am to do. 3) He fights for me…and I can read how the story ends.

The battle is already won.

 

–> speiró: to sow (seed)

Thankful #1

“a piece of my past”:

He hums a tune, it’s far off key but upon mysterious intrigue, I’m hooked. The expanse of the depth within, voids which only one other knows, I try not yet to contemplate. However, I still remain standing close enough to hear the lull of the hum drift softly past my direction. I want to measure the sound by weight but it doesn’t make sense, it just doesn’t add up. Miscalculated calculations were scribbled out in a rushed absentminded fury and the crumpled up pieces of paper only make light of this heaviness.

The moment of silence was only a moment and even in that subtle stillness, motion was less of anything but still. Motionless memories are caught up here in this present affair but we both wish it weren’t so. Standing stirred I persist, recollecting how I said no to this a long time ago. The only harvest which sowing seeds to the flesh reap, is one full of thistles…and those always get burned in the end.

–> on moving…

As the options and opportunities ahead are broad and great, I am found again in my place. The place where I belong is one of settlement, one where the water streams that flow are living. The search for consistency is an interesting and often daunting venture. I’m always brought back to the One who is unchanging, always brought back to peace and rest (I almost wrote “always brought back to peace & Matthew 11:28.”) Shifting shadows surround me, try to enclose, beckon me in multi-directions, and lure me into vast unknowns. Reminding myself of the One who surrounds, beckons me to draw near, and lures me into the arms of contentment and reality.
Looking into many different colleges, in many different states this week & asking God to again search my heart, has revealed this…: Truth is what I am after and it is a lie to say that eternity isn’t my home. No matter where I am led on this earth, I’ll always be a stranger here.

Hebrews 11:13 “All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.”