2 Timothy 4

"Preach the Word;

be ready in season and out of season;

reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching,

but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves

teachers to suit their own passions,

and will turn away from listening to the truth and

wander off into myths.

As for you,

always be sober-minded,

endure suffering,

do the work of an evangelist,

fulfill your ministry."

"Anything that can be

will be

shaken

until only YOU

remain"

....and that's all i need.

dancing with my eyes closed

Stephen Curtis Chapman used his creative expertise to dedicate an entire album to his adopted daughter Maria Sue. She was tragically killed in a home accident a few years ago....and his honesty is overwhelming in this cd...he put into songs emotions that i could never put into words.

The song that the album is named after has these lyrics and they are constantly in my head lately...

"Out of these ashes,

Beauty will rise...

and I will dance among the ruins

I'll see it with my own eyes"

I can't help but consider the magnitude of what it means to "dance among the ruins".....to, regardless of circumstances, praise God for the "ruins" because you KNOW He will make something incredibly beautiful from it. Such sweet abandonment in the arms of our Saviour!

footprints

when we first moved into this house, we noticed a cat that daily rested outside our door on the second floor. nate hated this cat....it scared us as we exited.....it slept on the hood of our car.....it lurked in our backyard.....anyways, for a long time, we didn't see it....

but then, it snowed....

....and little cat footprints lead from the street to the car...to the backyard...to the steps....to our door.

stupid cat.

we are dog people.

my point is this:

if it wasn't for the snowstorm, we would have never seen the tracks...we would have never known that the cat was still alive.....it would have left no impact on us at all...if i didn't see the tracks, i would have never thought, "hmmm...i wonder what that cat is up to?" or "i wonder where that stupid cat lives" or "that cat better not be scratching the hood of the car".

and then i wonder....

if it wasn't for the storms in my life....maybe I wouldn't leave any tracks either.

"oh may all who come behind us find us faithful
may the fire of our devotion light their way
may the footprints that we leave
lead them to believe
and the lives we live, inspire them to obey"

notes to self; prayers to God

last night, i perused the pages of the Bible i was reading a little over 2 years ago....it was a brand-new Bible at the time; but now it's torn...passages are underlined....notes are written in the side column.

it brought me back to a time that i hungered to be in His Word....i needed it....i needed it to focus my mind....to give me pure material to meditate on....to keep me on the right path....to ruthlessly trust my Saviour.....to convince me that His plan is better than mine.....to remind me that He isn't finished with me yet.

it dawned on me that 2 years ago, i felt the farthest from God that i ever have before that time; but the pages of my Bible prove otherwise. the words i wrote weren't words of someone who was not close to God....or didn't know Him....they were the words of someone who was clinging to Him.

those dark days were intimidating and honestly, some days i would have rather died; but how much more i appreciate His Light and life now! Jesus came to give us life and life MORE abundantly!

today, the Bible i use has very few underlined sections...very rarely do i see a note....i'm not saying that this is a mark of a non-growing Christian...i'm just noticing that my darkest hour was the hour that Jesus shined brightest.....and although i felt that God was not near, it seems He was right there all along.

senses

taste. feel. touch. sound. sight.

it's amazing how God designed us with senses that help us take advantage of His creation...we can witness a flock of birds bursting out of a tree, aligning themselves into the perfect "v" formation....we can be brought to another country by tasting the palette of flavors in any cuisine...we can be reminded of our childhood teddy bear by brushing our skin up against a familiar texture...

i love that the smell of my lipgloss brings me back to the nicu...i obsessively applied my lipgloss while in the nicu and the smell of it now reminds me of the days that zachary was still here with us...i refuse to switch flavors and i don't know what i'll do when Bath & Body no longer makes it...

i hate the smell of purell...it reminds me of how much i had to un-contaminate myself before even seeing him...it just reminds me that i didn't get to hold him...BUT, it also reminds me of how excited i use to feel knowing that washing our hands in the scrub down room meant we were going to see him.

i love that there's a small part on nate's forehead that feels just like zachary's....it's the part right before the hair line that has that baby hair feel...

i love that i have pictures to help remind me of those days....

but i hate that staring at them can never bring him back. i can stare at the only picture i have of me kissing zachary on the forehead, but nothing can bring me back to that kind of physical closeness with him (while i'm still here on earth, of course...)

today kinda stinks. i miss my little man...

i'm thankful for my senses that bring me back to him.

i've been delurking myself all week

CALLING ALL LURKERS!!! Now is the time to come out of those dark corners of the internet and boldly pronounce that you've found some kind of interest in reading my random thoughts...Yes, you check in monthly, weekly...or maybe even daily and you read what should be just scribbles in a notebook....You've been found out! I know you are out there! You are more than welcome to peruse the pages of this site in complete privacy, but I beckon to you to disclose your identity by taking 2 seconds to leave a comment!

As always, thanks for reading my blog! I just want to get to know who's out there so I can follow you too!!!