Love Came Down

I still have a couple post still in my drafts folder.

I wrote a bunch of posts when I 'came back'. Because the reason I came back was because I was going to EXPLODE.

But now that I've got lots of it off my chest, I need to remind myself to keep coming back. For some reason, the words come easier at 11:30pm... When I'd rather be sleeping. Why can't I write at 10:30, or something?! Oh well.

So, I have a couple posts in the works. A few of them have almost the same theme. It's something I've been thinking a lot about lately. It's been on my mind the past few weeks, and then the pastor spoke about pretty much the same thing on Monday. Hmm. I love when that happens. It's been happening a LOT lately. (Where I'll be thinking about something, or something will come up. And then it comes up 2 or 3 times in a week till I can't help but notice it. I guess that's God's way of getting my attention.)

I was going to post one of these posts last night. I really was. But then a friend of mine shared this video on facebook, and I guess it was just one of those things where it comes along and you hear it at just the right moment. A reminder, maybe?

Regardless, it was perfect. Plus, it has a cello in it. *melt*.

 

"If my heart is overwhelmed and I cannot hear Your voice
I’ll hold on to what is true though I cannot see
If the storms of life they come and the road ahead gets steep
I will lift these hands in faith
I will believe

I remind myself of all that You’ve done
And the life I have because Your Son

Love came down and rescued me
Love came down and set me free
I am Yours I am forever Yours
Mountain high or valley low
I sing out remind my soul
That I am Yours I am forever Yours

When my heart is filled with hope
and every promise comes my way
When I feel Your hands of grace rest upon me

Staying desperate for You God
Staying humbled at Your feet
I will lift these hands and praise
I will believe

I remind myself of all that You’ve done
And the life I have because Your Son

Love came down and rescued me
Love came down and set me free
I am Yours I am forever Yours
Mountain high or valley low
I sing out remind my soul
That I am Yours I am forever Yours

I am Yours
I am Yours
All my days
I am Yours

I am Yours, I'm Yours forever
I am Yours, I'm Yours forever
I am Yours, I'm Yours forever Lord

Love came down and rescued me
Love came down and set me free
I am Yours I am forever Yours
Mountain high or valley low
I sing out remind my soul
That I am Yours I am forever Yours"

Tehillah Monday

'Tehillah' means the "High Praises of God"
"It is an exuberant, spontaneous, childlike delight in the Lord. It is the word used for David dancing in the streets in his undergarments (2Sam 6:14) when he rejoiced about the arc of the Lord being brought to Jerusalem."

Tehillah Monday. Monday is now my favourite day of the week, and has been since September.
Not many highschool students can say that. (although I may know of a couple ;) So I think that's pretty special.

There's a spirit of freedom there, something that was kind of new to me when I went the first time.

I was talking to my mentor about how much I enjoyed this new worship night I was attending, and she said something along the lines of, "Its really great, as long as you're not getting caught up in the emotion of it."

And I thought, what?

Then she explained a bit, "This worship night shouldn't be THE night where you really worship. You should always be "worshipping", so when you get to Monday night, its just overflow worship from the rest of your week."

Yeah, Tehillah may have been a starting point for me, but I hope my whole life, everything I do and am, brings glory to God so that my worship there is simply 'overflow' from the rest of my week.

http://www.tehillahmonday.com/live

Blessed

Today was one of those days (or maybe I was just in the mood from Friday... Which was also one of those days) where you're just thankful for people.

My church is kinda awesome.

I love my friends there. They're great. I love that we have fun together, bug each other and laugh. A lot. But we support each other, too, and I know they are there for me when I need them. I like watching movies with them. I like just sitting on the floor of the church hanging out with them. I like sitting in their vehicle outside my house talking to them. (you know who you are ;) I like eating junk food and staying up till midnight doing nothing with them. I like playing music with them. I like singing with them. I just like them. :)

I love that there are people that I look up to in the church. Spiritually, but also in their/my talents and interests. Like music. Or whatever else. People like my mentor. Or my youth leaders. Or the pastors. Or the worship leaders. I could go on. :)

I love 'my kids' there. My Sunday school class that I get to influence.

You know, I think a lot of the time when people talk about communities, they talk about how thankful they are for the people that mentor and influence them. But I think its as important to be thankful for the people YOU get to mentor and influence. Yeah, maybe I'm not the perfect example. But I think sometimes (For me, anyway) realizing that the group of nine year old girls I teach every week look up to ME the same way I look up to my youth leaders or my mentor, it challenges me to be better more than a lot of other things.

Actually, I love all the kids. I led worship today, and ALL the kids actually sang (loudly), did the actions, were enthusiastic and had fun. It totally encourages me every time. It took a lot of effort to get that to happen.
I love that I got to lead with other people that have almost as much fun as I do. I love that my friend played piano with me, that the music pastor got to come play with the kids this week, that my brother got to play the drum, that my little team helped lead the other kids and that I asked my friends to help me teach the actions to a new song. And they did. ;)

Today, the Sunday school lesson was all about co-operation and helping each other. :)

Today was a day where everything just seemed to happen right. I needed a day like that to remind me how blessed I am.

C.S. Lewis

Are you ever moved just by listening to someone talk about something that inspires them?

Yeah, that's how I felt when I read the preface to "George Macdonald" by C.S. Lewis. Maybe you'll enjoy it, too :)


"Most myths were made in prehistoric times, and, I suppose, not consciously made by individuals at all. but every now and then there accurs in the modern world a genius - a Kafka or a Novalis - who can make such a story. MacDonald is the greatest genius of this kind whom I know. But I do not know how to classify such genius. To call it literary genius seems unsatisfactory since it can coexist with great inferiority in the art of words - nay, since its connection with words at all turns out merely external and, in a sense, accidental. Nor can it be fitted into any of the other arts. It begins to look as if there were an art, or a gift, which criticism has largely ignored. It may even be one of the greated arts; for it produces works which give us (at the first meeting) as much delight and (on prolonged accuaintance) as much wisdom and strength as the greatest poets.
It is in some ways more akin to music than poetry - or at least to most poetry. It goes beyond the expression of things we have already felt. It arrouses in us sensations we have never had before, never anticipated having, as though we had broken out of our normal mode of conciousness and "possessed joys not promised to our birth." It gets under our skin, hits us at a deeper level than our thoughts or even our passions, troubles oldest certainties till all questions are reopened, and in general shocks us more fully awake than we are for most of our lives."


Am I the only one that finds that amazing? I can't even describe why... It just kind of 'hits me'...  And makes me want to read more George Macdonald...

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 :)