Secrets and Tumblr

I made a tumblr account.

I had one reason for this: I was looking for someone.

Usually, when people want you to find them online, they'll tell you their username. Their email address. Their webpage title.

I had none of that. Just. "I made a blog on tumblr. You have to find it. Good luck."

It was like treasure hunting, or virtual hide-and-go-seek.

But it got me thinking.

If I had a secret blog, what would I do with it?

First of all, it's appealing because it would be new and clean. No old posts that are no longer "me". I could really recreate myself, couldn't I? Into whatever I wanted to be.

But it's also place to 'publicly' write my thoughts out where no one that knew me would read it. A place just for strangers to read me.

To be honest, there are things I would post there that I wouldn't post other places where I know who follows me.
I have a lot to say that I sometimes hesitate over.

I considered it. I had my account open. A username that wasn't my real name.

Just an empty tumblr profile. Ready for me to write to my hearts content.

But then I closed the window and opened up my google blogger blog and began to write.

It's still tempting. Tempting enough that I might do it.

Or maybe I won't, and I'll keep writing here.

Instead of recreating, I'll show my transformations.

Instead of bravely writing to strangers (or no one), maybe I'll slowly become braver and let those who know me read and think and judge.

Failing (You are good)

Funny how Monday was the biggest joy boost I've gotten in awhile, and yet I'm writing a post about failing.

Lately, I've been feeling a little bit like I'm failing.

Failing at what?

Failing at listening. Failing at doing. Failing at taking opportunities. Failing at being bold enough.

Failing at being the little light in the world that I want to be.

Someone told me the other day (after an incident that shook me) that I was good.

All I wanted was to be better.

Monday night, I got the reminder that... My goodness? Has nothing to do with Gods goodness. I mean in the way that His goodness is not affected by my own. No matter how much I fail at listening, doing, taking opportunities and being the good in the world, He's still the same.

As if my wrong or right doings could change the goodness of the God of the universe.

No good that I do is out of my own goodness. It's all because of Him. Because *He* is good.

He prayed for boldness and obedience. And I held my hands out in receiving. Cause I could use a little bit of that.
Couldn't we all?

Opportunity

I want to be remembered.

I want to leave a mark on the world.

Except... I don't want to leave *my* mark.



I used to have fear about dying... About death.

I don't anymore.

Except for the question that if I died tomorrow, did I accomplish what I should have?

When I think what I want with my life, what I want to be remembered for... My prayer is the same one that my pastor prayed before and after his sermon the other Sunday... "Let anything that is *me* fall to the wayside and be forgotten and all that is of You be remembered."

I never want to miss an opportunity to be Jesus in flesh.

Maybe I'm missing an opportunity now.

He knows me

Drafts folder post again! Edited with a conversation I had this week. :)

I'm going to be a nerd and post about Narnia again. Not because I recenltly read or listened to it, but just because.

When Eustace is changed back into a human after being a dragon, Edmund tells him that he has seen Aslan. Eustace then asks Edmund, "Aslan... Do you know him?"

Edmund, who, if you've read the other books, we know as someone who was a traitor to Aslan, yet was bought back with Aslan's own blood. Edmund represents us. His answer to Eustace's question is, "Well, He knows me."

Something about that is lovely to me. Something about that excites me.

Edmund *could* have told Eustace many things about Aslan - who He is and what He's done... But when asked, he is unable to describe Him well enough. He doesn't even pretend to be able to comprehend Aslan. Yet somehow, the answer he gives does convey how powerful Aslan is.

"Do you know him?"
"He knows me."

He knows me. Everything about me.

Do I know him? 

I'd like to. I'd like to always be learning - getting to know Him. Getting to know Him better. Trying to grasp His full power and understand Him completely...

But even if I can't fully comprehend His love and mercy, I know that it's there.

My mentor and I went out the other day, and while walking on the grass trying to find shade in the hot sun, she said, "You know, sometimes we're the best at hiding ourselves... from ourselves."

Her challenge to me was to ask God to reveal more of myself to me.

Interesting thought, isn't it?

Lately, I've been going through a season of learning about love, and it's been wonderful. She said I can't learn more about myself until I've grasped how much I am loved.

And to get to know myself better, who do I go to?

I go to the One who loves me. The One who knows me.

Beauty

I think God must enjoy looking at beautiful things. And hearing beautiful things.
I mean, if you've ever sat on a beach looking out over miles of water, or up at a mountain... Or heard the waves crash or a bird sing... How could He have created it if He didn't love beauty?

I think God created us to love beauty. I think He created us to love beauty so that we would want to create our own. Beauty in all its many forms. I think the longing in us to create beauty is, at the core, a hunger for God. We love beauty because He loves beauty.

Music is beauty. It's one of those things that I do when I'm in a good mood. I swear, my fingers move faster and my left hand shifts in tune better and my right hand balances the weight of my bow better when I'm happy. And that just makes me happier.

Music is one of those thing I go to when I'm in a bad mood. Sometimes lyrics are woven so artfully with the melody that it is the most breathtakingly beautiful thing in the world and it feels like a hug. Sometimes lyrics aren't even needed and the notes explain themselves. Sometimes a simple cheery ukulele song lasting no longer than 33 seconds can work wonders on a bad day.

(This post was originally going to go from "beauty" to "music" into "worship"... But maybe it won't.)

Music is genius. Like a complex secret language.

Recently I went to Wintergrass, a bluegrass festival down in Seattle. It was incredible. Watching the performers (and there were a LOT of them!) you could just tell they all absolutely loved what they were doing.

I saw this interview of some people who were there, and talking about one bands they said, "everyone in the audience *got it*."

I loved that. "Everyone *got it*." Because, sometimes, people don't get it. Sometimes I don't get it.

Sometimes, I want to take something that stirs something up in me and shove it at other people and just be like, "DOESN'T THIS MOVE YOU THE WAY IT MOVES ME?!" Wordless tunes, songs with words that you can't understand... Songs with beautiful lyrics.

Some people might think I'm crazy. But some people would "get it" - get the beauty I see in a mandolin/banjo duet. (seriously? Yes. Beauty.)

Or in a violin solo recorded with less than amazing technology - that I have to hold my breath through. Because I honestly can't breath. Or in music that is more poetry than anything else.

I'm attracted to it because it's beautiful. Or maybe I'm attracted to it because God loves it, too.

I just bought some new artwork for my room - painted by one of the most passionate artists I have ever met. (Eric Samuel Timm) I bought it because I think it's beautiful. But I also bought it because you can see the longing for beauty and the hunger for God in every brush stroke. I love that.

A post about undies...

This is dinner conversation at the Beselts, for those of you wondering...

Peyton: Sloan, 'member when you did that underwear dance in front of Dad?

Sloan: I did not... I was going to the bathroom, and Mollen walked in on me and said, 'hey, those are pretty underwear', so, to humor her, I said, 'why, yes Mollen, they are' Then all of a sudden Dad is standing right behind me...

Dad: She was doing this (Stands up from his chair and starts wiggling his hips)

Laughter ensues.

Sloan: That's not what I was doing...

Peyton: Yes it was.

Mom: So, she was doing this in her underwear and then Dad came downstairs?

Sloan: He's like a ninja!

Dad: I was like sneeeeeeeking so softly...

Me: I CALL THIS!!!

Sloan: You know what the best part is, Dad? You were in your underwear too...

Written on the back of an offering envelope

I was restless during Tehillah this week. My hands itched to write. So I wrote. I scrawled notes and crammed as many words onto a little offering envelope as I could. I was planning on turning my notes into maybe a couple blogposts... but I decided to just type them out and post them as they were written in the moment. I included the songs that were being sung while I wrote, too... just to help make a little sense of myself. haha


Your Love Never Fails - Jesus Culture.

 

I am struck by beauty and drawn deeper into worship by watching someone else worship. There is something powerful abut watching someone lead by example when you know a little bit about their circumstances and certain things that have happened in their life. Sometimes, knowing a piece of a persons story makes watching them declare simple truths with such confidence a little more beautiful. And maybe it makes it easier for me to do the same. When they can claim the lyrics of this song with abandon and hold nothing back when it would be so easy... And maybe almost viewed as "acceptable" to do so... Why can't I, too?

 

 

Forever Reign - Hillsong.

 

 

This is the second time in two days I've heard a worship leader lead this song. Maybe that's not a coincidence? I think my favourite line is, "You are God, You are God, of all else I'm letting go." The whole song is great, but this line is special. For me, anyways.

 

During the chorus, "Oh, I run into Your arms, I run into Your arms... The riches of Your love, will always be enough..." I felt a hesitation... Not personally, necessarily. But the whole atmosphere in the room... The music kind of died away... And the worship leader started singing, "What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow that makes me white as snow. No other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus..." And then went back into "Oh, I run into Your arms, I run into Your arms..."

And the hesitation was gone. It's like this picture anyone who grew up in church probably saw a lot:

 

 

It's like people didn't know they *could* run into His arms. And maybe the worship leader noticed this too, and that's why he added the hymn. Chills.

 

Death In Its Grave - John Mark Mcmillan.

 

 

Its the "Your Love Never Fails" thing again. Watching others.

 

 But I also think there are other forms of "death" besides literal death. Like... Depression, maybe, is a form of death. A Sunday School teacher once told me that to "perish" meant to be separated from God. Isn't depression like that? Something that holds us back from God and life? A form of death?

"He has cheated hell and seated us above the fall... In desperate places He paid our wages one time once and for all..."

"The man Jesus Christ laid death in its grave."