"Only the Lord Jesus knows how deeply troubled your heart is. Your friends may sympathize. A counselor may give you a few pointers. But only Jesus can make your heart a dwelling worthy of Him. Only He can finally chase the gloom, the terror, and the sin."

--Elisabeth Elliot

wounded.

It was a gaping wound

now stitched up

but you can still see the scar

tears painted on her face

and on her heart.

Real wrong done against her

injustice felt like her name

her world was filled with

vulnerabilities. Helpless.

Eyes filled with longing.

Her being wants purity.

She feels dirty, used.

a piece of paper scribbled on

then crumpled, and tossed away.  

When Jesus says to go into your closet and pray in private, what He means is that He wants to be intimate with you. Just you and Him, alone together. he wants to spend time with you. He's right there in the room with you... not you talking up to Him --- but Him... right down level with you. He wants to woo you to Himself.

don't even ask why in the goodness i started another blog. i can't even maintain the one i have! but i felt as though my new adventure deserved it's own beginning and special place. hence: http://thatsweetdesire.wordpress.com/

my life.

only six more weeks until I leave. I'm still a bit worried about my visa... but God has brought me this far, and I know if He wants me to go, my visa will be approved. I'm really getting excited about learning more about Him. Spending more time with Him. Being more disciplined in my relationship with Him. Also looking forward to being off from work for a time, so I can really focus. God has been giving me lots of grace lately. Enabling me to be gracious at work and with my family. With the knowledge I'll be gone for a short time, it's spurred me on to do some things I've wanted to for awhile, but always put off. I'm still a little short of finances, but really, it's amazing how much I've saved so far. God has given me great and consistent hours at work, provided me with a temporary auditing job and given me the most loving and supportive family... He is truly my Provider. I rather love England already.

a prayer.

Jesus...

Help me be the best
version of me that
I can possibly be.
All that you
created me for.

on desire.

///Once grant your fairy, your enchanted forest, your satyr, faun, wood-nymph and well of immortality real, and amidst all the scientific, social and practical interest which the discovery would awake, the Sweet Desire would have disappeared, would have shifted its ground, like the cuckoo's voice, or the rainbow's end and be now calling us from beyond a further hill. As for the sexual answer, that I suppose to be the most obviously false Florimel of all. On whatever plane we take it, it is not what we were looking for. Lust can be gratified. Another personality can become to us 'our America, our New-Found-Land'. A happy marriage can be achieved. But what has any of the three, or any mixture of the three, to do with that unnameable something, desire for which pierces us like a rapier at the smell of a bonfire, the sound of wild ducks flying overhead, the title of "The Well at the World's End", the opening lines of Kubla Khan, the morning cobwebs in late summer, or the noise of falling waves?///
pg. 204, The Pilgrim's Regress.

Jesus.

help me find
my
proper
place.
...

my heart is burdened lately. child sex trafficking and prostitution has been on my mind and heart. i cry for these girls who have unspeakable things done to them. my heart breaks for the hundreds that i know are right in my own city. they are so far out of my reach, they might as well be light-years away. "the prayer of a righteous person has great power." [james.5.16] so i pray for them. and as i do, i can't help but think..... why me? why am i so blessed? why do i have so much? why do i complain about little things that i don't like, when from an outsiders view, my life is one that everyone would wish for. why has God chosen me?

i find correlation in the oddest things sometimes. like this morning. went to put toner on my face. bottle says "use a cottonball". i don't want to run upstairs for a cottonball so use tissue instead. yeah. they don't work the same. I mean... the tissue works, but it just absorbs everything to the point that all the toner is in the tissue and hardly any on my face. it just struck me that that is how i usually am. always absorbing everything and never giving anything back. taking from God, from church, from friends, from co-workers, and never
pouring love and compassion back to them. i want to be someone who gives the life and power that God breathes into me and turn and breathe a little of that joy into others. it's my job from God even when i forget about it. so really. i want to be a cottonball. i want to absorb His life and power and yet be squeezed out to breathe to others.



i should call this the oddblog.

dark.and.light

odd as it may sound, i took a shower in the complete
pitch dark last night. no sound but the water. no light.
not even from under the door. there are few times when
i've felt so alone. interesting. i didn't feel at all alone until
i switched off the light. darkness has a way of making
you feel certain things more intensely. i knew it was
impossible, but it felt like someone else was in the room.
"someone", as in one of my siblings to play a joke on me.
i switched on the light a few times just to be sure, and of course.
no one was there. as i groped for the soap, i pondered. why
does darkness make you feel alone? why is it that, just because
you can't see for a time, you're scared? why does an irrational
fear come over you when you're surrounded by the dark?
it's because we're not in control, isn't it. because we're vulnerable.
because someone could be there to play a prank on me, and i
would be unaware. because i can't handle the situation because
i don't know what the situation is. unless we have eyes to see,
we're dead meat for the fears that overwhelm. they can be real,
legitimate fears, or silly fears as in "there could be a spider in the
shower and now my neck feels all tingly so i'm sure there is one"
and your arm reaches out like lightning to switch the light on.
fear of not persevering to the end. fear of not doing what you
know you should. fear of letting someone or yourself down.
when we don't turn the light on in our souls, chaos happens.
darkness is just waiting for an opportunity to run into your
mind. it feeds off of our vulnerability.

at one time. you were darkness. but now you are light
in the Lord. walk [do life] as children of light. the fruit
of light is found in all that is good and right and true.
try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. take no part
in the unfruitful works of darkness. instead, expose them.
when anything! is exposed by the light... it becomes visible.
look oh so carefully how you walk. not unwisely. but with
wisdom. redeem and make the best use of the time.
because really. the days we live in are evil. so! don't be foolish.
but understand what the will of the Lord is. eph. 5.8-17