wild melody

The Lone Bellow - "Watch Over Us" Unplugged from Michael Leiato on Vimeo . ^^this band for me embodies things that i doubt they have any idea of: that beauty can be born from struggle. the truth that hard fighting doesn't leave a pretty face behind it, that some sorrows scar & forever alter our hearts. something powerful happens when they sing. it's as if the songs are crafted no longer with words & notes but instead with honesty, blood, sweat, pain. a weakness refusing to shatter; hope refusing to surrender. it bleeds into the music and creates a great exchange: what overflows onto the listeners is a beautiful courage, a fierce grace, a real and messy hope. it breathes the gospel without one bible verse ever being stated. maybe it's just what deep souls sound like when they allow themselves to spill over with the rawness of everything they have. maybe it's so rare because few people engage their sufferings and let it deepen them. or maybe so man...

how we do battle. because sometimes the best thing for the soul is skipping church to have one on one Jesus time at the ocean. sometimes my eyes need to see the expanse. my heart needs a physical vastness to truly believe how big. deep. wide. God's love. grace. mercy is. grateful i live in a state with a coastline. grateful for the sea. grateful for the best friend, the comrade in arms being home for a season from across the pond. grateful for the maturity & wisdom & deepening of her spirit that God has done. grateful He offers the same for me. grateful that all is  b e i n g  set to right. maybe not completely set to rights here. but there is constant motion in that direction. there is not a day God forgets about His promise of Kingdom Come.

"Fear of man is a horrible way to live. It’s absolute bondage. Our idols own us. They own us, they control us, they dictate the directions of our lives and the impulses of our hearts. Our idols get a grip on us and nothing will get a grip harder than this one: the fear of man. It will tell you how to think, it will tell you what to feel, it will tell you how to act, it will tell you what to wear, it will tell you when to laugh, it will tell you what to be… We will use people to make us feel right, to justify our existence, to escape our insecurities and to gain a verdict that we are desperate for [that says we are valuable]. We’re trusting in other people, using them to heal us, validate us, to restore to us our glory. To save us." — JR Vassar (via  modernhepburn ) " The former governors who were before me laid heavy burdens on the people and took from them for their daily ration  forty shekels  of silver. Even their servants lorded it over the people.  But I did not...

i just read this on my friend laura's blog . sssh. i am stealing her words. this morning i had sunrise at the atlantic. + comrade. to download a bit with somebody who is processing ukraine too in a place where God's glory is so very visually stunning we could not forget about His beauty & goodness & power. the whole drive home, i was thinking. about how God grows me, how i recognize this cycle. amazing experiance-flames-ashes-rebirth. but my attitude wasn't great. i was thinking "God, can this be enough change for the year? can i just curl up in a corner and You can get my heart where & in whatever shape it needs to be? ..." laura convicted me. EXACTLY where my heart is! i didn't know how to put it in words {emphasis mine} And so that's why I refuse to be broken forever.  That's why I refute the lies with the truth.  That's why I stay awake when I want to crawl under the covers.   That's why I welcome in the new even when so...

"To make a fighter you gotta strip them down to bare wood: you can't just tell 'em to forget everything you know if you gotta make 'em forget even their bones... make 'em so tired they only listen to you, only hear your voice, only do what you say and nothing else... show 'em how to keep their balance and take it away from the other guy... how to generate momentum off their right toe and how to flex your knees when you fire a jab... how to fight backin' up so that the other guy doesn't want to come after you. Then you gotta show 'em all over again. Over and over and over... till they think they're born that way." "If there's magic in boxing, it's the magic of fighting battles beyond endurance, beyond cracked ribs, ruptured kidneys and detached retinas. It's the magic of risking everything for a dream that nobody sees but you ." won't have time to write just why these resonate so strongly with me for awhile.....

" What do you do when the guilt doesn't cease the morning;  after a fall, asking "Lord would you send relief, relief, relief.  In Christ you will send relief Constantly feeling down. What's this really about?  I'm readmitting the sins I feel most guilty about.  I'm weak.  Fearing you'll leave my bones,  thinking now "I want holiness, but I don't have the power to live it out!  That's why i gotta preach, cause the gospel has got to hit me -  Jesus has died for my sin; there's no power without relief.  Believe it!  Oh, I'm letting go of my yesterday,  grab a hold - free in your grace I live.  There's no more guilt  Hello new mercies/ Hello every morning and every day I live, is another day I know that I've been forgiven... KB hello. theme song. "you are a child of God, hear me in this. God is not angry with you, he loves you. God is not sick of you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. God will not ...

writing is hard these days. ((honestly, everything is hard these days. not because of trial or tragedy but just mentally. life is work. "these days" being the past week & a half)) i write to be honest. if there is one thing this space is, it's the corner of my world where i don't restrain myself. i let my heart & mind breathe & exhale. i try to preach back to it some truth when it is going it's own wrong way. i hope God makes His work known & seen! yet i know there is much of sin & ugliness here. i don't say all the right things. even though i know them and fight to believe them, it doesn't seem honest to say what i am failing to live. i admit idolatry & doubting faithlessness. oh, but does that not prove how very very faithful He is? that He still loves-saves-keeps this child...i am still under construction. still putting off my nasty old self, and learning how to put on my new loving one. i'm becoming a better reflection o...

i am fragile. i am tired. i am aching. {i feel defeated} i am fragile, physically & emotionally. (i've become aware of the latter just recently) i am tired, cause i feel hard pressed on every side. (nowhere near to the extent of Paul!! but see above. i am not paul.) i am aching, b/c i am still learning Jesus' way in loving others. in being vulnerable. i hurt b/c i sin, b/c others sin, b/c healing is painful. {my feelings don't define truth. or me} but in Christ: OH Christ, how sweet the Name! in Christ, my fragility forces me to lean into His strength. in Christ, my exhaustion makes every victory HIS; not mine. in Christ, my wounds give me compassion for others. push me into His arms. & are healed!! {in Christ, i will never be ultimately defeated} kicker: i have to fight to get to Christ. i have to fight for joy. to believe in hope, light, grace. i have to battle what my eyes have seen, the warnings of my head, past experiences with their bitter taste of disappoint...

i would like to be six again. yes please? i'd crawl into my parents bed, and just being between them would be enough to fight the monsters in my head. my imagination would be stilled. by the safety of loving sleeping strength. all the vivid images i'd conjured up would die, and i'd sleep. in peace. i actually don't think i ever did that at 6. but at 23 i wish it was so simple. there aren't monsters in my head, there's an enemy who is quite a match for me. who tells me lies i cannot fight. and apparently, tonight, no amount of praying or scripture reading or worship music is fighting either. peace? i have peace in knowing my salvation is eternal. that Jesus does have my soul, that He must be with me because i have no new scars on my body. i am not carving the torment of my mind onto my skin, hallelujah! there is one small victory! i know the gospel is true. i am forgiven. i am, in reality, ok. more than ok! but peace, the feeling of peace, is anything but here. i...

"We’re not done. It’s gonna be war until we see Jesus upon his return. We will get tired...We will have war on many fronts... We will lack supplies... We will be, like Jesus, just absolutely done. When crisis and need, because of suffering people, show up providentially in front of us, and by the grace of God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we’ll follow in the example of Jesus for the glory of Jesus. We’ll share the love of Jesus with anyone and everyone until the city is changed. Because the darkness cannot win... the darkness cannot win!! People are suffering, people are dying. And if all you do is watch television, listen to your headphones, surf the Internet, and close your eyes to the suffering and damage of the people that surround us, you will lack the kind of passion that a soldier requires for a long battle." ((m.d. this is why i listen to him.))

“I really get frustrated when people say things like ‘oh I’m not into philosophy or theology, I just want practical.’ Well what you think determines how you live, what you think determines how you suffer, and what you think determines how you die..." driscoll. " “Timothy, you think too much!” He couldn’t believe he was hearing those words from his wife , words he’d heard since childhood from his mother, his teachers... What was too much? Who was to say which chalk line one should think up to and then come to a screeching halt? What if Wordsworth had never thought too much, or Shakespeare, or Milton or Crammer or Socrates? And what about Beethoven or Edison or Madame Curie? Why was thinking such a crime? "