Quote of the Day:

"Quia amasti me, fecisti me amabilem."
-Augustine

I'm looking at being dangerously optimistic today...

Psalm 31

"I will be glad and rejoice in your unfailing love,
for you have seen my troubles,
and you care about the anguish of my soul.
You have not handed me over to my enemies
but have set me in a safe place."
-Psalm 31:7-8


What religion, what god, what being, what cosmic source cares about sinners?
You are the only One who actively seeks out the least of these...the worst of the worst...You call us bastard children by name and come to our side.

As often as I have tried to escape this impossible love...ever have You remained faithful.

Rejoice...rejoice...such beauty, such grace, such love...I just want to share how much I love and appreciate everything. My words are so useless...I have nothing but feeble words of thanks and praise.

I have so many thanks for the times You have answered my prayers...the times You have dragged me kicking and screaming to a place of reflection...the times You have let me sit in darkness just so I could see the falseness within my heart...all of this...all these things...

It almost feels like I should lament over wasted years but the beauty is that You have forgiven me for all things. To beat myself over such things is sheer pointlessness because I have came here for a specific and real purpose.

Everything that is...that will be...that ever was...these things are...such beauty...

I just want to be faithful.
All of the words, thoughts and hopes...
Help me be faithful in the small and large things.
I could never do this on my own.
Thank You for carrying me.



"This morning I fell out of bed
when I woke up to what he had said.
Everything's crazy but I'm too lazy to lie

And what am I to do
Just tell me what am I suppose to say
I can't change the world
But I can change the world in me

I rejoice
Rejoice"

Dawn

Such funny little words
sit perched st the tip of my tongue
as I began this day with hope anew.

There is so much I do and do not know
and fear mixed with hope
about through my soul
as the wind swirls the rising mists.

Once more I am posed to rise,
sword in hand
book in the other
as I hope to hope for peace.

These words loose meaning
when they are divorced
from their precious context.

I will find the reason to smile today,
the joy will not be so easily stolen away.
Pain will rise and fall,
life will continue its downward spiral
but hope shall continue.
Love will overcome and win.

"But for Grace, my soul had perished,
Withered as the desert sand;
Gone to shadows, and tormented,
But for Grace's perfect plan!
But for God's unceasing Mercy,
But for Calvary 's sacrifice;
I had wandered, blind and thirsting,
Fell to Satan's grim device.
But the blessed blood of Jesus,
Shed upon that cruel tree;
Called me from the ling'ring shadows,
Saved my soul, and rescued me!
But for Grace, O Grace perfected,
But for love's undying flame;
I had never hoped in Jesus,
Ne'er had even known His name!"

The Problem of Me

Myself.
That is what my chief problem feels like.

"Do this..."
"Don't do this..."
"Go here..."
"Go there..."

All these voices, all these commands...so much of it is just in my head and all I want to do is be faithful to You. I don't care about being successful, I don't care about finding people, what people think of me...I could learn to live with being rejected and hated if I could just find...the next step.

Wherever.
However.
No matter what it looks like, no matter the cost...I don't care how much it hurts, I don't care if I have to set all of this on fire...just please...show me the way.

I feel lost.
My faith is so paradoxically stronger when I feel weakest and that I am only a breath from death's door...I'm sick of being in constant pain and doubt.

I have see You.
I have felt the intense beauty of communion in my soul...You have redeemed me, picked me up, carry me...brought me this far.

How do I be faithful when I do not know if I can hold on any longer?
It feels like...I've been here for ages.
Just waiting.
Aching.


"The Lord rules over the floodwaters.
The Lord reigns as king forever.
The Lord gives his people strength.
The Lord blesses them with peace."
-Psalm 29:10-11

Where is this strength?
Where is this peace?
You feel so far away...and God it hurts so much.
Do you ever feel the ache of having me so far apart?
You bleed and died on a cross but did you feel the ache of our distance before grace came upon me?

You feel so distant that I am afraid I might die of fright.
The cold is frigid and burns my soul, ripping apart my false notions of hope.

Just give me the strength for today.
Help me see the beauty around me, falling in the rain from the sky.
Help me to see the love of family where bonds flow deeper than blood and souls intertwine in ways only You understand.
Give me the strength to crawl forward and live this grace.
I don't want this world.
I do not need it.
Strip everything away and just leave me Your love that will never cease.
Send me into the night.
Anywhere.
Anytime.
Please.
Use me again.

"And these frail hands
They tremble as they pen perhaps their last
And these weak words
Can never say what cannot be surpassed
I need Your love
And most of all I want to feel Your peace
I need Your love
Let everything that You are not decrease

Your love
Your mercy
Your light unending
Your hope
Your peace
Your strength my heart is mending
Daylight
Save me"

Quote of the Day:

"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so."
-Douglas Adams

I feel like such an idiot for even trying...but it is better to try and have things not work...than just be all cynical and apathetic and sit here pretending to be something...someone I am not.

I hate cynicism because I want to be hopeful.
People...everyone will fail.
Everything will end.
But You oh Lord...so much love and peace...beyond my understanding.

I won't give up so easily...

Hello cynicism, miss me?

Hope.

Can't sleep...rest...or relax...stress, pain, worry, fear, self hate...this whole school thing is just screwed up.

Life...is just...is so much more than just a grade or doing something to make people happy...I just want to feel that I am not a complete failure...I need to feel loved and wanted...I don't like feeling so empty and useless.

...so that is what the sound of my dreams crashing into the ground and exploding sound like...ah...just checking...

My soul falls apart at the sound
of the decaying cries
crossing this life.

I feel so...I don't know...so out of it...such a mix.
Such a foul mix.

Quote of the Day:

"Not all those who wander are lost."
-J.R.R. Tolkien

Psalm 22

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
Why are you so far away when I groan for help?
Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer.
Every night you hear my voice, but I find no relief.

Yet you are holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel.
Our ancestors trusted in you,
and you rescued them.
They cried out to you and were saved.
They trusted in you and were never disgraced.

But I am a worm and not a man.
I am scorned and despised by all!
Everyone who sees me mocks me.
They sneer and shake their heads, saying,
“Is this the one who relies on the Lord?
Then let the Lord save him!
If the Lord loves him so much,
let the Lord rescue him!”

Yet you brought me safely from my mother’s womb
and led me to trust you at my mother’s breast.
I was thrust into your arms at my birth.
You have been my God from the moment I was born.

Do not stay so far from me,
for trouble is near,
and no one else can help me.
My enemies surround me like a herd of bulls;
fierce bulls of Bashan have hemmed me in!
Like lions they open their jaws against me,
roaring and tearing into their prey.
My life is poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart is like wax,
melting within me.
My strength has dried up like sunbaked clay.
My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.
You have laid me in the dust and left me for dead.
My enemies surround me like a pack of dogs;
an evil gang closes in on me.
They have pierced my hands and feet.
I can count all my bones.
My enemies stare at me and gloat.
They divide my garments among themselves
and throw dice for my clothing.

O Lord, do not stay far away!
You are my strength; come quickly to my aid!
Save me from the sword;
spare my precious life from these dogs.
Snatch me from the lion’s jaws
and from the horns of these wild oxen.

I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters.
I will praise you among your assembled people.
Praise the Lord, all you who fear him!
Honor him, all you descendants of Jacob!
Show him reverence, all you descendants of Israel!
For he has not ignored or belittled the suffering of the needy.
He has not turned his back on them,
but has listened to their cries for help.

I will praise you in the great assembly.
I will fulfill my vows in the presence of those who worship you.
The poor will eat and be satisfied.
All who seek the Lord will praise him.
Their hearts will rejoice with everlasting joy.
The whole earth will acknowledge the Lord and return to him.
All the families of the nations will bow down before him.
For royal power belongs to the Lord.
He rules all the nations.

Let the rich of the earth feast and worship.
Bow before him, all who are mortal,
all whose lives will end as dust.
Our children will also serve him.
Future generations will hear about the wonders of the Lord.
His righteous acts will be told to those not yet born.
They will hear about everything he has done.

"I put my face down in my hands,
water wells inside my eyes.
What do I have to give them?
Does it matter if I try?
I can’t stand to see you suffer,
I try to intellectualize,
a formula to end you pain,
it doesn’t work,
God knows I’ve tried.

I want to try and save the world,
but it never goes that way.
God I don’t know what to do,
down at Colfax and Broadway.

Sometimes my cup is overfilled.
Sometimes I’m too afraid that I’m going to spill."

I hate losing friends because of my beliefs...I hate the feeling of driving people away because of what I believe and how the Holy One...can be the only true Love in my life...

*sigh*

Beauty Beyond Beauty, Hope Beyond Hope

I can't stand how disgustingly shallow I am...I think it is going to drive me to madness one of these days.

Do I really need all these books?
These movies?
These games?
This stupid computer?
Do I need to waste even more hours of my life on games?

If things work out for Wheaton...then what?
Another place to call home?
More stuff piled in places I will never want to go back to?

I hate this middle class stupor, this apathy which begs me to stop thinking, stop caring and just settle for a mediocre Christian life which doesn't give a damn about anyone else.

The problem...the paradox, even the apathy, is all wrapped up in the ego-centric use of the first-person, singular personal pronoun "I".

That IS who and what this is all about right?
After all, who is everyone else and what do they matter?

Maybe if I was less of a contradiction things would be much more simple...or maybe it would just prove my theory that the only people content are those who refuse to see themselves for who they truly are. The struggle...to refusing to surrender to our base nature and be controlled by it is what helps make us...shape us...form us into who we are becoming for all of eternity.



** ** ** ** **



For those who stop long enough to realize Your power...how infinite, how destructive, how horrifically beyond our notion of perfection You are...there are no words. Everything ends, everything dies, everything in our grasp of the universe is decaying but You are not.

There is this growing fear...uncertainty of knowing just how to be...how to cope with...how to deal with such things.

The shallowness of my heart expose my true intentions...that I have never truly tried to love You...I have just been here sucking up all the safety and security I could find.

I just...want to be loved and to be found faithful...that is...that is all.
Everything else is dying, everything else is fading away and is dying.
There is no certainty, there is nothing in this world except open hope.

I have no songs, no poems, no words to offer or to give...just myself.
My broken, jaded and bitter love that I clutch onto until the end and reluctantly surrender to the One who has owned it all the time.

My knees are broken, my soul crushed...can You find the child of faith inside this growing web of cynicism?

Infinite, wondrous beauty, for who praise there could never be enough. We are narcissists but how You are pure and beyond our grasp...yet You lower and bring Yourself to our level...just so we might begin to grasp the infinite beauty and love You want to share and give.


"Jesus my heart is all i have to give to you, so weak and so unworthy,
this simply will not do, no alabaster jar, no diamond in the rough,
for your body that was broken, how can this be enough?
by me you were abandoned, by me you were betrayed,
yet in your arms and in your heart forever i have stayed

Your glory illuminates my life, and no darkness will descend,
for you have loved me forever, and your love will never end"

I both love and hate the reminder that I am finite and will be finished oh so soon...

Pacified Thoughts

To return gross rudeness (unintentional or otherwise) with gross rudeness is to forget the point of the cross.

IS life about me?
What I want?
What I need?
What I think?

It is our base nature which cries out for blood, a broken bone for a broken bone...the base nature of ours which demands justice. But...how can a broken and incredibly finite creature do something such as 'justice'? Our sins are so great and so many...the face we are able to pray at all is a miracle in and of itself.

Prayer.
Begging for mercy from above, for grace for those who have wronged us...for the Christian we have no other choice but to pray for those who hurt us, persecute us and who cause us pain.

Where is the line?
What is the point?
Where?
How?

I know not.
I only know that I wish to be faithful and obedient like Christ, even unto death like the savior I seek to follow.

Quote of the Day:

"A faith that can be destroyed by suffering is not faith."
-Richard Wurmbrand

Nomenclature

Bathing moon light
passing on by
carrying hope
being lifted high on lies
as the clock is ticking by.

Life, light and lies
slipping out on your tongue
like the hyperbole hypocrisy I wrote,
just acting as I am too afraid to.

I have no idea what any of this is supposed to be.

Being myself,
just bearing my cross
and unloading my soul
is never quite enough to be enough.

Irregardless, time and life
wouldn't stop for you
even if you asked them to.

Is this your love?
Is this your salvation?
Is this the faith your profess,
that flickering
and glimmering
aspect of hope
you keep throwing in the trash?

Pearls to swine
or maybe it is wine to water,
either way
you couldn't recognize the difference.

Interference riding in on crashing static waves,
hoping to bring you truth in several flavors
just so you aren't inconvenienced.

Oie.

This has become the house of the cooking fire grill rave.

Oh yes.

Ahhh!
Stuff!

I am tired...so tired in ways and awake.
Clothes are washing...

Books are being read...the evening is on its way.

I still cannot manage any sort of coherent thoughts...
Ack.

I am forgetting something...it seems...

Amazing how my mind somehow manages to never turn off...just...

So...that was an interesting take on Robin Hood.
Brain tired.
Stress from life...and decisions to make...

Choice.
Indecision.

Hope...?

So many routes and roads to traverse...why can they never be the easy ones?

I...do...not...really...know...know...know...

I am...not sure.

Hmm...

You know...there is apparently a difference between saying and doing...who knew?

*Sigh*

People are so depressingly stupid...

"The ghost of hope still strikes its brilliant lightning.
Through the dark our hearts will scream,
for a world we’ve only dreamed.
And the past, it will decay,
so sing goodbye to yesterday
and I believe."

There is nothing quite like the feeling of loosing your mind!

Hooray!

=D

Quote of the Day:

"As we come to grips with our own selfishness and stupidity, we make friends with the impostor and accept that we are impoverished and broken and realize that, if we were not, we would be God. The art of gentleness toward ourselves leads to being gentle with others -- and is a natural prerequisite for our presence to God in prayer."
— Brennan Manning

Ack...essay writing...ack.

Argh.

Blurgh.

Blergh.

Blearghurgherghs.

Yes...try saying that last one five times fast.

I just...
The wonder and helplessness I feel at times...what hope prevails and drives this heart to force my way through the surreal landscape surrounding me?

I'm not sure...how and why but people speak of Hell with authority.
The grandeur of Heaven is reduced to mere humanistic terms...the physical and what we get out of it...not what truth may be...truth beyond our understanding and desire.

So many of the issues revolve around...

The words I wish to utilize silence themselves because of the narcissism involved with it.

Features...floundering and Hell...this and that...this and that...
Why do I bother to care?
What is it I am fighting for?

At the smallest...slightest...things divide and pain...
Jesus, why?
I don't want to carry this burden...but has it ever been my choice?
What is relevant in decision when it feels like all I can do...is...is...

It is clear I haven't dealt with things ending with this semester...seeing an empty ice cream box was enough to almost make me want to cry.

I had something profound...but it's gone...now it's just a mixture of exhaustion and not knowing where exactly to look right now...but everything is...is...and will be.

Chicago...doesn't feel all that far away right now...

More than ever I am getting the distinct impression this university isn't all that concerned about my well being...

>_< Ack Athletes.

Hope.
Burning so bright.
Hope.
Christ Jesus, You have carried me so far.
From here until eternity
may this life be Yours.

Yeah...I am a lamewad...

Moving apathy!
Hooray!

I think may be looking forward to having class just so I can get back to sleeping on a normal schedule again...it has been such an insanely busy couple of weeks of spending time with friends...saying goodbye...driving miles all over the place...such bitter sweet moments...

Hope remains that this is only a new beginning.
I still do not understand the how or the why...
I have to keep asking until I die...but there is hope,
that there are no true endings.

"Can you hear the bells are ringing
far, far, away?
Can you hear the voices singing
far, far, away?
I know that one day soon a song shall rise
you'll hear it with the sleep still in your eyes"

It feels like a slap in the face but I think God has been revealing to me just how shallow I am in all my relationships...how I am so mercenary, self-serving and self-seeking...

I still view people as a means to my own end...not as being beautiful, unique and wonderful creations of Father...I am so bitter and angry when plans don't go my way...why and when did I stop seeing the twists and turns of life being so breath taking beautiful?

I want a sense of wonder again...I want to see the unexpected as good...I want to see people as You do, I want to feel for them...love them like You do...

I want to no longer be so shallow but be deep...

Quote of the Day:

"Far away from all the lights and noise we felt You there/It's my favorite memory/You're so beautiful to me/Thanks for the songs/these seven friends and eight good years/It is You that made them sweet/You're so beautiful to me."
-Five Iron Frenzy, "It Was Beautiful"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klt3BlDC1lM

Hmm...hope.

Yes...that is the name of that alien feeling in my heart...that regardless of how the dice fall that everything will be okay at the end of the day...

Missed Phone Call

Waiting
hoping
praying.

Everything is falling as it might,
connecting in the ways it only can.

Flittering
glittering
intoxicating,

Just everything you ever were
becoming everything you aren't.

Believing you are
even when you only see
the stark contrast
of a negative image
being posted up on some screen.

Everything just is,
nothing more
and
nothing less.

Be as the state of being,
hope as you may
and never let
the ground catch up to you just yet.

Quote of the Day:

"Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over."
-Gloria Naylor

I hate being in the mindset where I have to keep myself insanely busy or...I start to get lost in thoughts...feelings...emotions...recollections as it were.

I think that is what I have succeeded in doing to some degree or so the past few weeks...being so involved with friends I forgot the end is coming...I put it off and out of mind.

But now...the gripping silence of this proverbial sanitarium is a place I cannot stand much longer. To tarry here would be to court disaster and her sister insanity, the silence is its own brand of oppression...and yet...memories continue and sustain themselves.

I've been doing a lot of thinking...and keeping myself busy...thankfully I haven't gotten as lost as I am prone to being...however...this is the however which matters...the choice is coming and I have already made the decision.

The problem is understanding why I decided this way.

...can't I at least get a cookie while I mull this over?

Eh just...whatever...

You know...the fact I can't win at life...much less a fictional life in a game with utterly no consequence or worth is nothing short of damn irritating.

It's irritating to loose power...bargh...lousy Internet...

I hate feeling like everything I do to help only seems to make the problems worse and cause people more pain...

It's the kind of thing that makes one wonder if they are cursed or something.

It looks like Matt Pike will find himself on another night of no sleep and full of shenanigans...