I came across this video on several blogs this week, and knew I had to share it... It's such a lovely blessing and prayer... May you know that you're an integral part of something beautiful this weekend!
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Friday, October 14, 2011
Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 59
Today's Daily 5:
- listening to a podcast of Rob Bell preaching on my ipod on the bus to work this morning
- surprise deals that let me accomplish some Christmas shopping
- grapes
- a tasty cocktail with dinner
- Indian food with my brother and his girlfriend
- a long hot shower
- curling up to watch some favorite television
- Grey's Anatomy - seriously still loving both it and Private Practice
- that when I caught my leg on a sharp stump from a broken off sapling last night, I walked away with only a scratch, and nothing more gory
- settling in to house sit for a week for my folks again
Dear Extraordinary Girl...
This email from Brave Girls Club showed up in my inbox late Tuesday evening, containing a message I very much needed to hear this week. And so, since this is my space, I'm sharing it here as well:
Dear Extraordinary Girl,
The path to the best places for us sometimes must take a trip through the muck to get to the other side of it. Sometimes that truly is the only way.
When we are in the middle of it, it feels senseless and like such a complete waste of time (let alone not very comfortable)When we are in painful places in life, or even just annoyingly uncomfortable places, it's important to remember that we are headed somewhere else if we want to be.
We do not have to stay stuck there. Sometimes it takes a while to work our way out of it, and sometimes we don't know how we got there in the first place, but mucky yucky places on the path of life are always temporary if we are willing to work our way out of them.
We are not meant to stay stuck. We are not meant to be stagnant. We are not meant to be in pain for any longer than it is necessary to teach us. We are meant to shine, to fly and to have joy. Even when we are in a place where it's nearly impossible to do this, there is always a way out of that mucky place. It is always temporary.
Please believe this, beautiful friend.
If you are in a mucky spot, just keep going, keep going 'til you get to the other side of it. It will be SO worth it.
Don't you dare give up now.
You are so loved.
xoxo
A message from your friends at the Brave Girls Club - www.bravegirlsclub.com
Dear Extraordinary Girl,
The path to the best places for us sometimes must take a trip through the muck to get to the other side of it. Sometimes that truly is the only way.
When we are in the middle of it, it feels senseless and like such a complete waste of time (let alone not very comfortable)When we are in painful places in life, or even just annoyingly uncomfortable places, it's important to remember that we are headed somewhere else if we want to be.
We do not have to stay stuck there. Sometimes it takes a while to work our way out of it, and sometimes we don't know how we got there in the first place, but mucky yucky places on the path of life are always temporary if we are willing to work our way out of them.
We are not meant to stay stuck. We are not meant to be stagnant. We are not meant to be in pain for any longer than it is necessary to teach us. We are meant to shine, to fly and to have joy. Even when we are in a place where it's nearly impossible to do this, there is always a way out of that mucky place. It is always temporary.
Please believe this, beautiful friend.
If you are in a mucky spot, just keep going, keep going 'til you get to the other side of it. It will be SO worth it.
Don't you dare give up now.
You are so loved.
xoxo
A message from your friends at the Brave Girls Club - www.bravegirlsclub.com
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 58
Today's Daily 5:
- Red shoes and a cozy scarf
- lots of time to read blogs
- lots and lots of laughter with friends from house church
- a couple emails that made me smile
- conversations around a table over Chinese take-out
Facing Forward
It's nearly mid-October, now, and I find myself staring at the onset of the weeks that seem to be the hardest every year, and wondering what they will hold this year.
They are the hardest weeks for many reasons, these weeks that lead up the anniversary of healing and freedom that I celebrate on November 1st. This year will mark six years since that day, and even now, these weeks are hard.
Six years ago, they were weeks full of darkness, hopelessness, anger and despair. They were weeks marked by the numbness of one who has been so assaulted that the blows no longer register. In the years since, though the weeks remain hard, they are nothing in comparison to the weeks before that moment of healing in which I encountered God.
But that moment of healing is not what this post is about. I'll talk about it, as I always do, in the days and weeks to come, but not today. Today I'm facing forward, feeling the challenge presented by the coming weeks, and wondering what they will hold this year.
They are the weeks leading up to halloween. Weeks that are challenging given my particular sensitivities to the spiritual realm. Weeks where the heaviness that is invisible so much of the year seems suddenly visible, flaunted even. Graveyards and witches and monsters abound as people decorate their yards. Pumpkins leer and one house in my parent's neighborhood proudly displays bloody, severed, grasping hands reaching out of the soil of their flowerbeds. Mall windows sprout spider webs and I shudder. These are the weeks where I am tempted to hide indoors, to cocoon and avoid.
They are also the weeks full of memories of that darkness from years ago. The weeks where I feel it try to encroach, and peace becomes just a bit harder to deeply rest in.
I feel it now, just the beginnings, and I wonder what these coming weeks that lead up to the anniversary I mark with joy and relief each year will hold.
And yet, as I pondered that earlier this week, my attention was caught by lyrics that played on my ipod as I walked:
high up on a rock
looking out at the horizon
watching as the storm rolls in
wondering if my heart will survive it
as the waves crash all around me
and can't remember what it feels like to be free
i know You're making me a mountain
making me a mountain
that cannot be shaken
oh You are making me a mountain
making me a mountain
that cannot be moved
You say, I've got you my baby
I've got you
it's quite the mess you're in
but it's nothing Love can't fix
so sit here upon my shoulders
and watch as it all unwinds
You are making me a mountain
making me a mountain
that cannot be shaken
i know You're making me a mountain
making me a mountain
that cannot be moved
And in those lyrics, in the reminder of the thing that Love fixed six years ago, and in the reminder that there is nothing that Love can't fix, I find the place I will choose (most likely daily, and even hourly) to rest for these weeks. Facing forward, trusting, knowing that I am being made into a mountain that cannot be moved, even when shaken.
They are the hardest weeks for many reasons, these weeks that lead up the anniversary of healing and freedom that I celebrate on November 1st. This year will mark six years since that day, and even now, these weeks are hard.
Six years ago, they were weeks full of darkness, hopelessness, anger and despair. They were weeks marked by the numbness of one who has been so assaulted that the blows no longer register. In the years since, though the weeks remain hard, they are nothing in comparison to the weeks before that moment of healing in which I encountered God.
But that moment of healing is not what this post is about. I'll talk about it, as I always do, in the days and weeks to come, but not today. Today I'm facing forward, feeling the challenge presented by the coming weeks, and wondering what they will hold this year.
They are the weeks leading up to halloween. Weeks that are challenging given my particular sensitivities to the spiritual realm. Weeks where the heaviness that is invisible so much of the year seems suddenly visible, flaunted even. Graveyards and witches and monsters abound as people decorate their yards. Pumpkins leer and one house in my parent's neighborhood proudly displays bloody, severed, grasping hands reaching out of the soil of their flowerbeds. Mall windows sprout spider webs and I shudder. These are the weeks where I am tempted to hide indoors, to cocoon and avoid.
They are also the weeks full of memories of that darkness from years ago. The weeks where I feel it try to encroach, and peace becomes just a bit harder to deeply rest in.
I feel it now, just the beginnings, and I wonder what these coming weeks that lead up to the anniversary I mark with joy and relief each year will hold.
And yet, as I pondered that earlier this week, my attention was caught by lyrics that played on my ipod as I walked:
high up on a rock
looking out at the horizon
watching as the storm rolls in
wondering if my heart will survive it
as the waves crash all around me
and can't remember what it feels like to be free
i know You're making me a mountain
making me a mountain
that cannot be shaken
oh You are making me a mountain
making me a mountain
that cannot be moved
You say, I've got you my baby
I've got you
it's quite the mess you're in
but it's nothing Love can't fix
so sit here upon my shoulders
and watch as it all unwinds
You are making me a mountain
making me a mountain
that cannot be shaken
i know You're making me a mountain
making me a mountain
that cannot be moved
And in those lyrics, in the reminder of the thing that Love fixed six years ago, and in the reminder that there is nothing that Love can't fix, I find the place I will choose (most likely daily, and even hourly) to rest for these weeks. Facing forward, trusting, knowing that I am being made into a mountain that cannot be moved, even when shaken.
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