ps:

i cleaned the inside of my car today...
step one. 
step two.
clean the inside of my heart.
good night.

all right here...

i need to start living this way again,
open more to the thoughts intents and feelings of others than my own. loving God more than loving me... this is where i've lost, it...

"Every heart has so much history
It's my favorite place to start
Sit down a while and share your narrative with me
I'm not afraid of who you are"

these 4 lines are from a song i heard this morning and it broke me to pieces...
and oh the chorus... exactly what i'm working through... time to LET GO OF THE CONTROL...

you know, the inside of my car typically correlates to the inside of my life...
-how's that for a peek into my life?

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here's the song, if you have access to it, listen to it...

It's every loss and every love
It's every blessing from above
Here I am, all added up
Oh, it's all right here

It's what I know, and what I'm guessing
Half truths, and full confessions
It's why I choose to learn my lessons
Oh, it's all right here

(Chorus)
And I'm not God, I'm a girl - I confess
That I don't have a sea of forgetfulness
No, it's all right here
It makes me stronger, it makes me wince
Makes me think twice when I pick my friends
Oh, it's all right here
It's all right here

It's caution and curiosity
And it's all the things I never see
Welling up inside of me
Oh, it's all right here

It's what is best, and what is worse
It's how I see the universe
It's in every line and every verse
Oh, it's all right here

(Chorus)

Every heart has so much history
It's my favorite place to start
Sit down a while and share your narrative with me
I'm not afraid of who you are

I'm all here, and you're all there
Some of this is unique, and some of it we share
Add it up and start from there
Well, it's all right here

(Chorus)

It's caution and curiosity
It's all the things I never see
Oh it's all right
It's what is best, and what is worse
It's how I see the universe
Oh it's all right, it's all right here
I'm all right here

i am.

i am my beloveds, and his desire is for me.

today, i picked up a book, "the furious longing of God" by brennan manning.
i haven't made it very far, but this has invaded my heart.... Here's page 22 of the book...

I am my beloved's and his desire is for me (song of Solomon 7:10)

When you take those words personally, I mean very personally a number of things come to pass:

• The drum beats of doom in your head will be replaced by a song in your heart, which could lead to a twinkle in your eye.
• You will not be dependent on the company of others to ease your loneliness, for He is Emmanuel - God with us.
• The praise of others will not send your spirit soaring, nor will their criticism plunge you into the pit.  Their rejection may make you sick, but it will not be a sickness unto death.
• In significant interior development, you will move from i should pray to i  must  pray.
• You will live with an awareness that the Father not only loves you, but likes you.
• you will stop comparing yourself with others.  in the same way, you will not trumpet your own importance, boast about your victories in the vineyard, or feel superior to anyone.
• You will read Zephaniah 3:17-18 and see God dancing for joy because of you.  (the Jerusalem Bible is accurate)
• Off and on throughout the day, you will just know that you are being seen by Jesus with a gaze of infinite tenderness.
  

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i decided to read zephaniah 3:17-18...
the jerusalem bible reads  "¹⁷ Yahweh your God is there with you, the warrior-Savior. He will  rejoice over you with happy song, he will renew you by his love, he will dance with shouts of joy for you, ¹⁸ as on a day of festival. I have taken away your misfortune, no longer need you bear the disgrace of it."

This is  enough to chew on for the evening... i am really captivated by song of solomon 7:10.  i cannot stop thinking about it.

ADVOCATE.

what a powerful word.

timing and seasons.

I wonder sometimes about the futility of life, how some people can be so content with simple life, and how others so discontent when they have everything.  and with the futility of myself flowing back and forth so easily... between the two... i always need to be entertained...sometimes i don't.  the truth of the matter is i so despreatly want to be content but don't know what that REALLY looks like.

selfishness.

a subject i've been mulling over quite a few days now...
i've come to the conclusion that i'm the most selfish person i know... now now now, i would assume you, the reader can come to the exact same conclusion.
Only i can see inside of my heart, all the selfish motives that are hidden behind layers and layers and layers of generosity.
Praise God, i see subtle levels of it fleeing but its such a deep rooted nature within me.
The old flaring up trying to overcome the new nature.
How thankful i am for the encouragement from Revelation 12:11, "they overcome by the blood of the Lamb & the word of their testimony"... there's a deeper cry if you finish the verse "and they love not their lives even unto death"
It's interesting how that second and MOST IMPORTANT part of the verse has so often been taught around...
I'm spending today just thinking about the humility found in not loving my life.
and living attempting to live in a way that does not exude selfishness, even internally, difficult as that may be... i think it'll be worth it...
it's more blessed to give than to receive...

"grief"

Sunday I spent about an hour in a cemetery. Cemeteries are really sobering places. Something perhaps I don't really have a grasp on is grief. Never REALLY having needed to grieve over something major in my life, I never really have experienced it... So, that said I've used that to consider the amount of compassion that i have as well...
Regardless, lets get onto the time at the cemetery. It was presented as an adventure in DC before i left to come home, well, it was more than i could have imagined it to be... I didn't really know what i was getting into, i mean i love cemeteries, i love the solemness and stillness, its a place to remember we are simply dust one moment closer to our eternal destination.
There's a depressing story to this statue involving affairs, suicide, and meditation... you can do a google search to discover more about the statue but here's my a bit sized piece of experience...
i kinda felt like henry nowen, in the time of his writing the return of the prodigal son (not to the extent of him) but nowen interacted with the painting, and for a moment i felt myself interacating with the statue. trying to feel the pain, the abandonment and the lonliness... feeling for the heavy breathing and the sighs, the raught contentment in the midst of all these negative emotions. . .

It's a place that i want to be, not so much focusing on the moments that tear down, but more on the times that are useful for building up. not that i think i understand a bit of what grief is, or that this is what it is... but really, for a second, i felt a compassion that i hadn't in a while, it was almsot like a realization that when people are in thier deepest despair, they don't need someone to rattle off this and that, but just to be there with them... simply to listen.