I am Yours

Here I am before You
falling in love and seeking Your truth
knowing that Your perfect grace
has brought me to this place.

Because of You I freely live,
My life to You oh, God, I give
So I stand before You, God
I lift my voice cause you set me free.

So I shout out Your name,
from the rooftops I proclaim
That I am Yours. I am Yours.


I am His.

And not in the "I go to church, so I'm a Christian!" kind of way, either.

I PERSONALLY belong to Him! He has claimed me, and made me His own.

How sweet is THAT?

At Tehillah, we sang the above song, and one line kind of struck me.

"All that I am, I place into Your loving hands, and I am Yours."

And at first, I kind of thought, "Didn't God like, create the whole world, including me? Soo, doesn't He already have 'all that I am' ? What do I have to give?"

But sometimes we (I) try to live our lives by ourselves. Do you ever feel like you're holding back from God, cause you're scared of what might happen if you let Him take over completely, even for a minute? Scared of how He might move you in ways you've never been moved before? Cause who KNOWS what might happen, then!
So we hold on for dear life, not giving up that tiny thread of control.

When really, God already has us. He's just waiting for us to WILLINGLY take everything that we are, and place it in His hands. His what hands? His loving hands.

Then what is there to be scared of?

Nothing.

So I'll shout out Your name, from the rooftops I proclaim, I AM YOURS.
And all that I am, I place into Your loving hands, and I AM YOURS.

Living Loved

Ok, before we start, let me go over something.

I'm a perfectionist. That's why I couldn't blog before. Cause then I'd mess up one post, I wouldn't have my thoughts fully formed and I'd say the wrong thing, I'd miss a day...

This is a huge stretch for me to be writing all this out right now. Like, HUGE.

So, yeah... I might post something half formed, something that I need to come back and write about again a week or two later. But that's harder for me than writing a perfect post the first time. So, in the spirit of "letting go", lets go ahead and do this anyway. Fully formed thoughts or not. Enjoy :)

---------------

"Let love explode and bring the dead to life. Love so bold to see a revolution, somehow."

So, where DOES my 'backwards depression' come from?

I believe it comes from the realization and the knowledge of how much I'm loved. Honestly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ltP0Wh3GEQ

^ this video is great. I love how simple he makes it sound.

All negative feelings can be traced to a disbelief that you are loved by God.

And that, my friends, is the root of this deep happiness, this joy, that I am experiencing. I've come to know the extent of His love.

"He loves like a hurricane, I am a tree - bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy."

I have many other thoughts running through my head, so many other things I want to expand on. And I will. Eventually. This post is the starting point for the rest. I'm writing about 5 posts simultaneously right now. ;)

But I think this is the root of it all. His love found me, and I realized how big it is. And it exploded, and brought me to life. Because, like the song I posted yesterday. This is what He does, He makes me come alive :)

Woot woot!

By the way, yes, all of my posts will include song lyrics. ;)

Did you miss me?!

I'm thinking of coming back. But different.

Why?

First of all, I'm a different person than I was in June. Something happened over the summer, and continued to happen over the fall, and now, entering November, it hasn't quit happening.

And I'm loving it.

So, how does this affect my blog? Before, it was mostly just quotes and stories about my siblings. Have they stopped being hilarious and giving me stuff to write about?
I can assure you, that is definitely not the case!

I came across this quote (C.S. Lewis), and I quite enjoy it. I think it sums up a bit of my transformation:

"There is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious. It is too good to waste on jokes.”

What what?

It's a deeper happiness, joy, than I think I've ever felt. Until now.

I told my mom the other day, when ranting about how I hate the amount of depression going on in our world, "But I feel like I'm experiencing the opposite of depression."

"And why is that?"

Well. LONG story.

I don't want to bore you, since its my first day back. So, I'll leave you with this:

Until tomorrow, my friends :)

Sloan: Albus Severus Potter. You are named after two head masters of hogwarts. One of them was a sytherin, and he was the bravest man I ever met.

Cairo: That's my favourite part! You know what? All Harry Potter aside, I think Albus is a cool name. Don't you?

Charter: Yeah! You should name your kid that! And then when he learns to talk, you can teach him to say, "Thank you, thank you very much."

Cairo: What?

Sloan: I think she said 'Albus'... Not 'Elvis'...

Charter: ....

Charter: Sloan, what were you and Cai just talking about?

Sloan: Well, I guess you should listen better!

Charter: What's 'shrimp and vader'?

Sloan: Charter, come on.

Charter: No! Seriously! Mom! What's 'shrimp and vader'?

Mom: She said, "You should listen better."

Charter: What's 'shrimpabetter'?

And he wasn't kidding.

mom: What is gluet2 ?

Me: Umm, what?

Mom: Exactly. Its on the shopping list, but I have no idea what it is!

Peyton: That's Mollen's handwriting... I did tell her to put glue on the list... Wow, she can't spell...

Mom: Yeah, coming from someone who's spelling skills are awesome! (Sarcasm!)

Sloan: Yeah! FYI: WANT is spelled W-A-N-T. WON'T is spelled W-O-T- apostrophe - T. Wait. What?

Charter: Me and my friend have a secret club. You guys will have no idea what it is... Its the A.Q.W.C.

Peyton: Hmm... I bet its the adventure quest world...

Mollen: CLUB!

Charter: Well, ok... I guess we can change the name... But you guys will NEVER guess our secret knock!

Peyton taps on the table: knock knock knockknockknock  knockknock knock!

Charter: Hey, mom? Can I go over to my friends house? We need to work on a new club name. And knock.