Altars and flowers.

Hi friends.

I recorded a song in a stairwell at my school. I think I was so sick and tired of hearing how people were talking to each other that I literally couldn’t help but go and worship. And the stairwell has a cool echo.

I didn’t bother re-recording or fixing mistakes. I sing a lot of the wrong notes and play a lot of the wrong chords. But I felt like I shouldn’t record it again to make it “perfect”. This song (Altars by Renee Schwab) is one of those songs that just makes me feel like I’m about to burst into tears or pass out or explode or something of that nature. Jesus really meets me in this song. When I’m singing it, I feel like I’m looking Him in the face.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about flowers and love and other things that are normally too full of feeling for me to talk about outwardly.

If a flower were to never bloom, but rather become a bud and die, would it still be beautiful? What about if it never even passed the seed stage? Or what if it did bloom, but was overshadowed by the flowers around it and wilted too quickly for anyone to notice that it had bloomed?

I think the thing (the truth, the revelation, the need) that’s been hitting me the hardest lately is love. (blah). Normally, I would resent a sentence like that, but when love has pounded you in your metaphorical chest and twisted your way of thinking completely, you want to talk about it.

I’m not sure how much of my life I’ve spent with the knowledge of what love is. If I have ever known, it hasn’t been a continual thing. I’ve gone through stages of thinking… love is what parents give you at “all times”, love is a best friend, love is the embrace of someone who makes you feel wanted and brings you joy, love is selflessness and sacrifice. But as sad as it is to admit, all of those types of love fall short. None of them are eternal, or even consistent at times.

Maybe my biggest problem up until now has been that I haven’t felt like I deserve love. I think it’s rare for any of us to think we deserve love. But I’m learning something important: when you think you are a certain way, you pretty much become that way. So by thinking that I’ve been unlovable, I’ve made it rather difficult for others to love me. And that reflects onto the way that I love others as well.

Now here’s this image of love:
A man has a seed that he knows will grow into something beautiful. He knows what type of flower it will bloom to be. Every shade and hue and scent- he knows exactly what it will be, and loves the image. So he spends every moment of every day nurturing this seed. He waits patiently for it to become what he knows it should be. Even though he knows this seed could fall off of its natural course, he devotes all of his time to watching it grow. And no matter what this flower becomes, he calls it beautiful. He knows it’s beautiful, because he sees a perfectly pure beauty that could only come from this flower that he watched grow.

How strange and wrong would it feel if the flower grew a sad little voice that only said to the man, “You can’t love me. I’m not lovable or beautiful, or anything you spend all of your time trying to prove to me I am.”

If you can forgive the stupid metaphor, I hope this speaks to you in some way.

I’m pretty much feeling like a flower right now.

Our God is Longsuffering.

This is a video that my church used as a testimonial about half a year ago.  I stumbled across it tonight and kind of broke down. Aside from the fact that my current stress, worry and sadness could easily be seen on my face, He really spoke to me through this.

I seem to be able to find the Lord the most through simple situations. When its cold and rainy, and a particular kind of glow comes through the windows… when I drive down a road surrounded by mountains and quaint little farmhouses… when my heart beats a little faster than normal because a few kind words were given freely to me. The most common, quiet and average times in life.

I’m thinking back over my relationship with the Lord thus far. I’m tempted to say that He found me when I was struggling, but something can’t be found if it isn’t lost. had to do the finding. He’s always held me in His perfect hands, and His heart has always broken over my struggles. So, it goes without saying that the beginning of my relationship with Jesus was a sweet one, full of hopeful butterflies and a ton of warm peace. We can all learn from the times in which our stumbling turns into a graceful fall into the Creator’s hands.

Then, of course, I struggled through some massive highs and pitiful lows. I doubted, I ran away… countless times. It’s only been three years since I met Him, and I feel like I’ve already done enough to cause God to grow tired of me. But He doesn’t. He relentlessly chases after me while I run from Him. And on top of that heavy truth, He wants to spend eternity with me?

Our God is truly longsuffering. And I’m just now realizing that I don’t need to wait around for some monumentally huge, “life changing” moment. He meets us in the little middle periods of life in such precious ways. My mind is going crazy with songs to sing to Him, but all I can think to do is be silent in amazement. My prayers and thoughts are with you, friends and family. Our God is jealous for you, and waits for you to meet Him when you feel like He’s not there.

It is well…

God has been appearing in beautiful ways through almost every situation in my life recently. Or maybe I’m just now beginning to realize the beauty of His presence.

Anyway, here’s another song to fill up time while I’m finalizing things.
My strange and accidental version of It Is Well. (Bethel)

This song is kind of my current life song.
I’ve gone through a lot of different kinds of heart break over this past year- some of which I’m still battling to be at peace with. But through every step (and stumble) I’m falling deeply in love with God. And He’s showing me things so much greater than the heartbreak that still unrightfully haunts me.

I’m feeling like I need to share this short bit of testimony with you:

A while ago, I was in a gross place of bitterness and depression, and I was becoming so tired from fighting against it all that I was borderline giving up on everything, life included. On this particular weekend, there was a festival going on in my city and everyone was either out of reach or intoxicated. I didn’t fit into either category and ended up alone for the majority of the weekend. I took the time to take a hike and reflect on things, in attempt to hear from the Lord and be at peace with things. I couldn’t hear a single word from Him. Of course- that was by my doing. But at the time, it was monumentally frustrating. I wanted to feel important to someone. If I wasn’t important to God then, who in the world would ever view me as worth their time?

So I ended up crying my eyes out, which is a rare occasion in my life, in a parking lot somewhere unfamiliar because I was afraid that if I were to drive another minute, I would do something stupid. Next thing I know, I’m being honked out of the parking lot and yet again, am left with nothing. As my thoughts started to drift into dangerous places, a new thought kept coming into my mind. “What about what I have planned?” I was mad at this at first. Why would God make me suffer through times like this over and over again, just because He is planning something down the line that I can’t even see?

I had no right to be mad at God, but for some reason, it felt like He just wanted me to yell at Him. To let it out. To find some sort of peace. And He was telling me that His heart was broken too. His heart breaks over my heart being broken. His heart breaks over me being alone in scary places. So I went home and halfway destroyed my guitar and voice while the Lord showed me that I was totally wrong by thinking I wasn’t important to Him. And through this, He filled me with more peace than I have ever felt. I felt so calm and peaceful and heavy with promise that I had to admit that through all of the heartbreak and pain, it was well with my soul.

Not just my faulty heart, not just my sad mind… but my soul.

This song means a lot to me. I hope you guys can find peace through it, as well.

:-)