dry bones

keep your coins, i want change

I used to change a lot when I was little.

First the princess dress went on, then the white kid-leather cowboy boots with heels. Next minute it was my Minnie t-shirt... I never stayed in the same outfit for long. Days were an endless transformation from one dream to the next. Is it any wonder I love fashion so much?

I don't remember when it was that I started to not like change. Perhaps it was the day I had to move away from my friend next door? Was it when I was too tall to fit in the Fisher-Price Flintstone Car?

I'm not sure. I've had a million and one changes since then... thank God. And I can say that honestly... thank God for all the changes He's brought me through. 

Humans are naturally inclined to be resistant to change. I was reading a marketing blurb the other day about a couple reasons people resist change:

• When the reason for the change is unclear, ambiguity can trigger negative reactions among users.
• When the proposed users have not been consulted about the change, and it is offered to them as an accomplished fact.  People like to know what's going on, and feel informed and in a perceived state of control.
• When the change threatens to modify established patterns of working relationships between people.
• When communication about the change has not been sufficient.
• When the benefits and rewards for making the change are not seen as adequate for the trouble involved.

It makes sense; change is not pleasant. It's an ending. It's a replacement of the known with the unknown.

I'm realizing though.. change is necessary. It is what facilitates growth.

I was on a walk with a friend last week in this beautiful fall weather and I noticed the most gorgeous fiery red and orange maple tree. The leaves were slowly fluttering to the ground around us as we walked. Jesus often told his followers to look to nature-- the lilies of the fields, the birds... Proverbs tells us to look to the ant... I can't help but feel God had a special message for me.

Sometimes letting go of something you thought was good is the only way that something better can happen.

As I watched each leaf fall to the ground, it was like the tree was uncurling a clenched finger one after another until only an open palm toward heaven was left.

God, thank you for bringing about change... and help me to embrace it gracefully like the tree.

you light the spark

 in my bonfire heart. ♥

significance

good thought.

hope is the thing with feathers

street artist

found music.

this song playing on my car stereo

driving home from work tonight, this song playing on the radio, and the snow was falling horizontally on my windshield. it was honestly beautiful. i had never seen snow fall like that. i wish i would have taken a video, but i doubt it would have captured it anyway.

the singers' twangy voice sang~

"runaway train, never goin' back
wrong way on a one-way track
seems like i should be getting somewhere somehow i'm neither here nor there" 

God, i hope i'm not on the wrong track. i hope you'd turn me around or stop me if i was headed to de-rail... i hope you use me, where ever it is i'm going. my life's an open book, write your name on every page.

i keep hoping

that someday... i can do something. i hope that someday i change something, rather than just write about it.

i have gone in or to a lot of churches in my life. i know for sure over 30, very possibly a bit upwards of that. me, being, as i happily like to call it "art-inclined" i can remember way, way back staring at bulletins when i either "couldn't" or just wasn't understanding the sermon.

some people are good with names, or dates; i can remember images, how things looked.  churches were such places of beauty to my young eyes.  the gorgeous floral arrangements in the front, the women in their Sunday finery, all the men's ties, the heavenly choir robes, stain glass windows, little ones in ribbons and bows, the lush carpet, the smooth wooden pews; i drank it in with amazement. as i got older, new technologies allowed even more exuberance: glossy pictured bulletins, murals, such visually striking power-points, scrolling song backgrounds, lights, music videos, heart-wrenching Skype interviews... flyers that were made with such attention to type-set fonts they belonged in art museum. it was beautiful, just beautiful.

no, i'm not going to say this is wrong, or bad that this is the case in the modern church. i felt like it really enhanced my experience-- if i can say that, without it sounding weird. God is a God of beauty, majesty, splendor! He is the the Creator, the original Designer. is it wrong to be amazed and in a beautiful environment when worshiping Him? resoundingly no!

i get older, and the incredibly annoying thing, is i see and become aware of incredibly horrible things, ugly despicable things i wish i never knew. that tree of knowledge of good and evil? yuck! i wish they would have never taken that bite.

no longer can i be happily unaware even if i wanted to. i guess sometimes i feel guilty; i see this vast "continental divide" so to speak of wealth. i see people living like dogs slaves to sin on the street when we have the most gorgeous and perfect church service.

i guess i just want that change. i get antsy. i can't stand injustice.
and boy, does it sting when you look at in a gold-rimmed bathroom mirror.

i was watching a documentary recently called "Lost Angels: Skid Row is My Home",
( http://www.hulu.com/watch/460340 ) that i wish everyone could see. basically documents the life of people living on the streets and their incredibly wretched situation.

so i suppose what have i proved? that i can complain about a lot of stuff, that i am essentially not doing anything about.  i really am trying to not criticize "the church" for allowing these things, only perhaps a re-evaluation of needs and directives....

i guess....... i just hope that maybe someone will mistakenly read this and it will make a difference, or that God somehow..... lets me help in a way.

piano in a lone room

People destroy beauty, with their brazen laughs

Never stop, symphony.

Move around me. As I in this stillness, sleep.

As I in this swirling cosmos for a moment cease.

Tune my ear, oh beauty. I have grown deaf.

Slowly, I do not wish it, but

I fear to lose the only worthwhile sound I know~

Envelop me sweet music. Ye measurer

Of time and place, distance erased,

Travel me.

beyoncé is a person

i really like.
equal parts strong and soft.
beautiful and inspiring.

old hands and long thoughts

i ride the bus a lot. every morning to school and every evening back. i guess i've never calculated it, but probably more than an hour is spent in the function "passenger on a noisy big bus with many people."
it's really okay. not really a big deal.

i just think a lot when i'm on the bus. oh and stare off into space-- two days ago, i was riding the regular route, somehow had managed to snag an actual seat on the bus, for once. tall sweaty people were mashed right up to me, standing, arms holding onto the metal bars over head. it's really pretty awkward to be six inches away from all the generic huge farmer-boys. so anyway i tried to purge my head of disgusting, imagine the smell away, and stare out the window. in the car next to the bus was an image that really intrigued me. it was these hands.

okay not really those particular ones, but so similar.

suddenly, i was lost. they were so beautiful to me. so strange. they were all i could see driving that little beat-up volkswagen with little sunflower on the dash. just those old hands.

mine don't look like that.
i glance down at my own. the bus pulled ahead, and made a wide turn down the next street. sunlight filtered in thorough the window on me. so smooth. so young. they really were a lie. my hands don't tell my story. they don't tell my life yet.

...they say that the first place you can tell a woman's age is by her hands. centuries of hand creams and lotions haven't been able to stop times progress on little wrinkles and furrows, made as the body looses it's natural fat stores there.

it's a sign you are dying.

i mean, not that you are going to physically keel over in the next five minutes, just that that you are following the natural order of things. an external sign that we aren't here forever. it is strange to think that you start to die the minute you are born.

i love old hands, they are so textured and crinkled and carry proud stories of life in another time. age spots and veins are like growth rings on a tree to me, telling quiet reflections of life.

i guess that they just remind me of eternity.

though they remind me we aren't here forever, they remind me that there is a Forever. though there is death in me, there is life in Him.

Then saith he to the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth; and it was restored whole Matthew 12:13

sound

of rain at night. i love the way it mixes with one's dreams.

breathe. listen.

streams in the desert

“This thing is from me” (1 Kings 12:24). “Life’s disappointments are veiled love’s appointments.” –Rev. C. A. Fox My child, I have a message for you today; let me whisper it in your ear, that it may gild with glory any storm clouds which may arise, and smooth the rough places upon which you may have to tread. It is short, only five words, but let them sink into your inmost soul; use them as a pillow upon which to rest your weary head. This thing is from Me. Have you ever thought of it, that all that concerns you concerns Me too? For, “he that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of mine eye” (Zech. 2:8). You are very precious in My sight. (Isa. 43:4) Therefore, it is My special delight to educate you. I would have you learn when temptations assail you, and the “enemy comes in like a flood,” that this thing is from Me, that your weakness needs My might, and your safety lies in letting Me fight for you. Are you in difficult circumstances, surrounded by people who do not understand you, who never consult your taste, who put you in the background? This thing is from Me. I am the God of circumstances. Thou camest not to thy place by accident, it is the very place God meant for thee. Have you not asked to be made humble? See then, I have placed you in the very school where this lesson is taught; your surroundings and companions are only working out My will. Are you in money difficulties? Is it hard to make both ends meet? This thing is from Me, for I am your purse-bearer and would have you draw from and depend upon Me. My supplies are limitless (Phil.4:19). I would have you prove my promises. Let it not be said of you, “In this thing ye did not believe the Lord your God” (Deut. 1:32). Are you passing through a night of sorrow? This thing is from Me. I am the Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief. I have let earthly comforters fail you, that by turning to Me you may obtain everlasting consolation (2 Thess. 2:16, 17). Have you longed to do some great work for Me and instead have been laid aside on a bed of pain and weakness? This thing is from Me. I could not get your attention in your busy days and I want to teach you some of my deepest lessons. “They also serve who only stand and wait.” Some of My greatest workers are those shut out from active service, that they may learn to wield the weapon of all–prayer. This day I place in your hand this pot of holy oil. Make use of it free, my child. Let every circumstance that arises, every word that pains you, every interruption that would make you impatient, every revelation of your weakness be anointed with it. The sting will go as you learn to see Me in all things. –Laura A. Barter Snow “‘This is from Me,’ the Saviour said, As bending low He kissed my brow, ‘For One who loves you thus has led. Just rest in Me, be patient now, Your Father knows you have need of this, Tho’, why perchance you cannot see. Grieve not for things you’ve seemed to miss. The thing I send is best for thee.’ “Then, looking through my tears, I plead, ‘Dear Lord, forgive, I did not know, ‘Twill not be hard since Thou dost tread, Each path before me here below. And for my good this thing must be, His grace sufficient for each test. So still I’ll sing, “Whatever be God’s way for me is always best.”‘”

curly hair girls represent!

i don't care if anyone else in the world likes her hair, i love it. it's so free..... and genunine like her. beautiful.

and that song, it makes my heart roll back a bit.

it is your voice

that whispers to me late at night and wee hours of morning. i hate you and everything you stand for, yet am mesmerized by you &your sinister offer of perfection.

 

looking into God's mirror is far less cruel than society's, and much more important. sometimes i'm just reading something and feel him saying "I wouldn't change a thing about you. proof: I didn't!" :)

How amazing are your thoughts concerning me, God!
   How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
   they would outnumber the grains of sand—
   when I awake, I am still with you. Psalm 139:17-18

like a sky without stars...

i found this beautiful picture while perusing online, and i don't think i've ever seen a face nearly this pretty.

of course i thought this was beautiful and of a most singular nature and i stared at it a very long time. as i scrolled down i noticed some dumbo in the comments section below the photo thought to say "GEE I bet SHE had insecurity issues when she was younger!tehe"

why don't we accept beauty? as it really is, how it occurs without makeup, surgery, photoshop? why do we need articles like this? who is making us try to strip away everything about ourselves?
is it us?

stop.

beauty

do you see that tree?
do you like that tree?
now look at that tree, do you like it?
do you say this tree is not pretty because it does not look like this one?
do you say this one is ugly because it looks not like others?
you're a tree, i'm a tree.
love your tree.
--nairobi woman