love. grandpa. grandma. c.s. lewis. jesus.

When I was home for Christmas break I spent the day with my grandparents. I just did their daily routine with them. Went to the YMCA where my grandma Dorothy leads water aerobics. While my grandpa patiently sat outside and did crossword puzzles...

I know this scenario doesn't seem that romantic but, lately, the Lord has been slowly teaching me glimpses of true love. True love is romantic yes, so romantic, but it is also everything that my grandparents have. My grandpa daily and consistently drives my grandma to the YMCA and waits patiently outside. While my grandma makes sure that grandpa sticks to his vegan diet so his blood sugar doesn't get too high while were out at applebees. If this is not love I don't know what is. Choosing to make sure that the other person has the best they can have. Choosing to lay down selfish comforts to make sure the other person is comfortable. Choosing to passionately kiss one another after 50 years together. Choosing to take up their cross so that the other person doesn't have to...

As C.S. Lewis puts it so well:

'Love is selflessly choosing for another's highest good'

If we want to see true love we look at the cross. A mighty Man comes and sees a beautiful bride that he wants to wed to Himself, but He is too holy and good to be with such a wayward wife. So their must be a sacrifice. He lays down His own life, so that His bride can be His for eternity...

oh if we could even slightly mirror this type of passionate-selfless love in our modern marriages, how beautiful it would be...

And Your heart beats in mine
Once again You show me paradise
And all that it holds
for it is light that makes everything visible.
"Awake, O sleeper, rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you."
behold You are making all things new
You cause my heart to gaze on You
as a faith-filled child
You cause my soul to smile
In the midst of pain
You’re the Truth and Life
And the Way
Deep calls to deep at the sound
of Your waterfalls;
All Your breakers and Your waves over me have rolled
and yet You command Your lovingkindness in the daytime
And Your song is with me each night
You are the God of my very breath and life.
You daily remind me of the day
You bore my sin and pain
That I would use to spit in Your face
Yet Your eyes shine on me with grace
and You call me Your beloved
tell me I’m beautiful and lacking of nothing
Purer than the whitest snow
Righteous I know
You’re love oh God has set me free
Your Son made me what I was meant to be
now Your heart beats in mine
and once again You show me Paradise...

car accidents. God's grace.

Well this last week has been an adventure to say the least...
The past month was a hard month and I've been praying that the Lord would break me down in the midst of it and bring me closer to Him. A scary prayer I know. I asked if there was anything hindering our relationship. He very lovingly told me that facebook was taking my affections and time that would be best used worshiping Him, for my good and His glory.
So I deactivated facebook and have been fervently praying for a new job. I got an e-mail randomly from a girl saying that she needed a nanny and asked if I could meet her last week. I very willingly met her and got the job along with another family in her building. I was praising the Lord for all He was doing. It seemed everything was coming together and I'd be able to pay bills on time and get all my groceries with these new jobs. I was becoming an independant woman...


Friday night I went to my nanny job at 7 pm and then came home from the ER at 3 am. I spun out coming up the ramp about 2 miles away from my dorm. A van smashed into me and I spun and hit the bridge. I sat in the car knowing that blood was all over my best friend's scarf that she had borrowed me, and for some reason that was my biggest concern at the time haha. However, I realized my car was completely turned around and in the middle of traffic so the Lord gave me the mind to get out of the unsafe vehicle and put my flashers on. I got to the hospital and they cleaned up my cuts and said I had a minor concussion so I might be out of it for a while.
I'm feeling better but, indeed, a little out of it along with a small on-going headache. The biggest bump to the head is realizing my utter dependance on the Lord. He's is taking my self-reliant flesh and slowly stripping things away and making me cling to Him. The Giver of Life and Life more abundant. The One who is all and holds all things together. He provided these jobs. He can take them away. He allowed me to have a car to get to the jobs. He can take it away. However, He has already been so faithful to me... the girl that is discipling me is currently in Birmingham, Alabama for her job so I have been able to use her car for the week to get to and from my jobs. I'm not sure how the Lord will provide transportation for next week but I'm excited to see.


Even if He doesn't, I love Him and He is so good to me. I am not on this earth to attain wealth and have a car and become an independant woman. I'm on this earth because my heavenly Father placed me here for a little while to serve and know Him until I get to see Him face to face where there will be no more car accidents and no more tears only the greatest Joy and Love I have ever longed for...my Jesus.


He felt the deepest hurt and pain any human ever will and died on a bloody cross for me, there is no reason I should not be willing to follow Him even if it means experiencing pain or a slightly bloody car accident or unsurity of the future.
For a second I may ask is the Lord being good to me? Why would He allow such trivial trials? Then He lovingly reminds me:
"your present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed to you... I who did not spare My own Son, but gave him up for all—how will I not also, along with him, graciously give you all things?" (Romans 8)

I know that anything that is good for me, He will give me. Even if what is good for me is nothing but Him.

yearn. shane bernard. bethany dillon

c.s lewis. paul.

I was driving back to school last week to finish up classes in Minnesota. and I was stuck in slow moving traffic, but it was worth it because i saw this view



this picture was taken with a camera phone, but to see this in person made you want to stop everything you were doing and just behold it. I literally pulled over my car at the next rest stop and just stared at the sun setting. too lovely for words.

in the Magicians Nephew c.s. lewis says this:

"The earth was of many colors: they were fresh, hot and vivid. they made you feel excited; until you saw the Singer Himself, and then you forgot everything else, but Him."

in colossians Paul says: Christ...existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through Him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can't see...and He hold's all creation together. colossians 1:15-17

sometimes the Lord gives us breath-taking sights to behold in the middle of traffic jams to remind us that there is something far more important than this temporary life. Him. and if sights on earth are this beautiful and glorious how much more wonderful is He to behold...

octavius winslow. paul

how very precious it is to know that even when we don't understand our pain or what to pray before the Lord. He knows what we need and His Spirit intercedes for us.
The Lord who laid down His life for us, intercedes for us. He sympathizes with us. He's always there waiting patiently for our prayers and for us to seek Him in all circumstances. what a sweet Abba we have..


In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.
romans 8

"Believer! Jesus loves that heart of yours. He purchased it with his own heart's blood, agonies, and tears—and He loves it. It is His temple, His home, His censer, and never can it approach Him in prayer, but He is prepared to accept both the censer and incense with a complacency and delight which finds its best expression in the language of His own word, "I will accept you with your sweet savor." And what shall we say of the fragrance of this incense? Oh, how much have we yet to learn of the intrinsic sweetness of real prayer! We can but imperfectly conceive the fragrance there must be to God in the breathing of the Divine Spirit in the heart of a poor sinner. It is perhaps but a groan—a sigh—a tear—a look—but it is the utterance of the heart; and God can hear the voice of our weeping, and interpret the language of our desires, when the lips utter not a word; so fragrant to Him is the incense of prayer. "Lord, all my desire is before You, and my groaning is not hidden from You."

-octavius winslow

leslie ludy.

"the godly young men I've spoken with believe that if young women started keeping their standards high rather than settling for mediocre men, guys would be forced to make serious changes to their masculinity. And even if you are mocked, ridiculed or ignored because of your stand, you can be sure that God will honor your decision. He paid for the treasure of your heart with His own blood. You disregard His amazing sacrifice for you when you allow your feminity to be trampled in the mud. You are a daughter of the King, so hold out for a man who has royal blood coursing through his strong veins....
Leslie Ludy"