I forget what the sun feels like, Did I ever know?
I forget what my feet feel like in the sand instead of the snow.
I forget what the sun looks like shining down on the green grass fields.
But I don’t forget the love I feel, every time the last cold yields.
Cold, cold, cold winds.
Bear trees, no life to be found.
Only dry leaves on the ground.
Happiness I haven’t seen you around in awhile now.
Months go by, and it’s still so cold, I feel the aching deep in my bones.
And all I can think about, is how can this cold be beautiful?
My winter heart was once like this perpetually, the cold unending.
All had died long ago, warmth lost deep beneath the snow.
Then I was given spring, life was stronger than the dead, it bloomed in me.
He came into a winter heart, to give me a brand new season’s start.
A part from spring melting this ice in me, I’d still be a winter heart, cold and hard.
The seasons show me how I live, not on my own, but because of Him.
He brought life into this dead thing, His love brought warmth into my cold cold heart.
Winter forever remind me, of this cold thing I used to be.
Spring forever cause me to praise my king.
Summer forever teach me to grow and abide in my Christ.
And fall forever prepare my heart to die to its every wish that I may be fully His, ready to go wherever He leads.
Come winter, come, cold winds please come, I will tell you how I used to be like you, and I will fall to my knees.
Winter I will weep with you, I will remember who I used to be, and praise God for the spring!
A new beginning, life is its name; Jesus took this winter heart and by His gift of life, in my heart now He reigns.
So I will never again know the despair of snow, because the cold is there to show, the saving warmth is all I need, to get me through until the spring.
I wrote this a few months ago when it was still really cold during my first, well I suppose you could say “real” winter! I’ve never experienced anything like a winter in Kentucky. Some moments I thought I was in a winter wonderland and then others I wanted to curl into a ball and cry myself to sleep where I might feel warm for once. Pardon my dramatics; if you know me you should be used to it by now. But regardless of the fact that it may be a tad dramatic- it felt like reality. Most of winter was very hard for me; as winters always are. When I went home to San Diego for Christmas break I was so ready for the one other season I was used to and it’s moderate chill. Then at my home church’s Christmas eve service Phil Wickham spoke about the hidden beauty of winter that is rarely thought about; seasons totally point to the Gospel! For the sake of not utterly butchering what Phil said I’ll just let you get the point through the poem I wrote directly after the service that night. I know Spring is here technically but this weekend has been a great time of reflection for me and I felt it was fitting for the mass reflecting I was doing.
This whole week I’ve been learning a lot, I’ve been constantly battling the desire to fix things, especially my own mistakes. A better way of putting this I suppose is I’ve been battling too much to rely on my own strength. Thankfully God has been shattering that desire constantly and reminding me to rely on Him for strength in all areas instead. Why do I even need to get reminded of that? It frustrates me, sometimes I am just so annoyed with myself. Today my Dad e-mailed me like 50 photographs of family and myself from when I was a baby. These are all pictures I’ve never seen before because they stayed in Germany with him and we have yet to reunite since I was four. It was like I was meeting a new person or something. I never really thought too much of those times in my life because I was too young to remember them and there was no photographs to assist my recollections. I felt like I went back in a time machine. Yesterday I also experienced some intense reflection on this summer and last spring in Smiths Grove. I miss those days often! During my quiet time this morning I read Isaiah 40 which was I can remember the first time I actually sat down and read this chapter for the first time when I was a junior in highschool, as if it were yesterday! Junior year was one of my most difficult years of life and I remember reading this chapter in sobs because I realized how incomparably beautiful the steadfast love and faithfulness of the Lord is to anything in this world. I think as I reflect on any memories, good or bad, much like seasons, they all point to Christ. In good and bad times I can now see clearly that God has always been so faithful and it just leaves me in awe! I think about this and probably have mentioned this in trillions of blogs prior and will probably mention it in trillions to come; I don’t know how I ever forget the amazing works of the Lord! My entire life from the very beginning has been a beautiful journey of blessed mess leading me closer and closer to Christ. I always think I don’t understand how the Israelites constantly create all these idols and harlot themselves off to them, when God does crazy miraculous things like feed them with manna from Heaven, part the red sea, cause the wall of Jericho to fall, lead them with a pillar of fire, etc. But I struggle with the same thing constantly, we all do. God has done nothing but work so tangibly in my life that I should never be able to forget and look to something else more than I look to Him. But I do and God is still gracious and his love still unending. Praise Him. I know NO greater love. My prayer is that He strengthens me to constantly point others to Christ through my life each day. That is my purpose and although I fail constantly and always will; His grace is enough and in my weakness may He be most glorified.
ISAIAH 40
Comfort for God’s People
40:1 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that her warfare [1] is ended,
that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins.
3 A voice cries: [2]
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord;
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
5 And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all flesh shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
The Word of God Stands Forever
6 A voice says, “Cry!”
And I said, [3] “What shall I cry?”
All flesh is grass,
and all its beauty [4] is like the flower of the field.
7 The grass withers, the flower fades
when the breath of the Lord blows on it;
surely the people are grass.
8 The grass withers, the flower fades,
but the word of our God will stand forever.
The Greatness of God
9 Get you up to a high mountain,
O Zion, herald of good news; [5]
lift up your voice with strength,
O Jerusalem, herald of good news; [6]
lift it up, fear not;
say to the cities of Judah,
“Behold your God!”
10 Behold, the Lord God comes with might,
and his arm rules for him;
behold, his reward is with him,
and his recompense before him.
11 He will tend his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms;
he will carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead those that are with young.
12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand
and marked off the heavens with a span,
enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure
and weighed the mountains in scales
and the hills in a balance?
13 Who has measured [7] the Spirit of the Lord,
or what man shows him his counsel?
14 Whom did he consult,
and who made him understand?
Who taught him the path of justice,
and taught him knowledge,
and showed him the way of understanding?
15 Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,
and are accounted as the dust on the scales;
behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.
16 Lebanon would not suffice for fuel,
nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering.
17 All the nations are as nothing before him,
they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.
18 To whom then will you liken God,
or what likeness compare with him?
19 An idol! A craftsman casts it,
and a goldsmith overlays it with gold
and casts for it silver chains.
20 He who is too impoverished for an offering
chooses wood [8] that will not rot;
he seeks out a skillful craftsman
to set up an idol that will not move.
21 Do you not know? Do you not hear?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;
23 who brings princes to nothing,
and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.
24 Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
when he blows on them, and they wither,
and the tempest carries them off like stubble.
25 To whom then will you compare me,
that I should be like him? says the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes on high and see:
who created these?
He who brings out their host by number,
calling them all by name,
by the greatness of his might,
and because he is strong in power
not one is missing.
27 Why do you say, O Jacob,
and speak, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the Lord,
and my right is disregarded by my God”?
28 Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
30 Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
31 but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.
My momma is beautiful! I’ve always wanted to be just like her and somethings just cannot be stopped huh Mommas? 🙂
Pops is pretty studly too not gonna lie. I’ve got some good genes!
God’s plans are grand, it is funny all the interesting places in this world He has brought me. I think this current place is to be the utmost hilarity; Bowling Green, Kentucky about to paint my nails bright blue, throw on a UK hoodie, and head over to my friend’s house to watch UK kick some butt in the final four. If you would have told me this when I got on the plane to Kentucky for the first time to visit with Ally, I would have laughed in your face. I am so thankful for every step God has ordained and lightened the path for. I am blessed beyond what words can describe.
In conversing with close friends, we talked about how we don’t understand how people can be so unkind, unloving, and hurtful. I thought about it and realized, it’s unfortunate, you never know whom in your life will end up being one of those people, but some are really worth taking the risk for. We never know what God is doing, He is the only exception, the only one worth taking all risks for, and putting all faith and trust in. I believe in living for Him fully, loving Him more, and loving ourselves less, we begin also taking risks of utter self-less involved loving relationships with others. Crazy things happen when you stop loving the idea of loving people because of what you can gain from them, but because Christ first loved you, and He also first loved them. #ASTONISHED.
The attempt at capturing a free bird. 