i'm not exactly sure where i heard this song for the first time or when i heard this song...but i kind of really like it a lot. hope you do too. this is love is a fire by courrier.

friends -- i just wanted to share a little something from what i read this morning. i had to stop and soak up the truth in these words.

only today is yours; tomorrow is the father's.

i'm always thinking about what's next instead of enjoying the day i'm currently living. and that's a little bit of a problem. he provides our manna daily. nothing more. nothing less. he provides what we need to make it through that day. i need to do a better job at accepting that truth. i feel like i know this but for some reason reading those words made a light bulb go off in my head.

it's about daily obedience. it's about daily accepting what he provides and allowing that to be enough. it's about daily abiding in him.

his presence and grace enjoyed today will remove all doubt whether you can entrust the morrow to him too.

my prayer is to be more present because today is a gift, to be more aware, to have a grateful heart for what he provides me with for the day, and to use what he gives me to be better to the people i come in contact with.

may each of us gladly accept what the lord daily gives us and allow that to be enough.


the days portion in its day.

"When doubts filled my mind, Your comfort gave me renewed hope and cheer."

yes. this is where i'm at. i've been doing a whole lot of doubting lately. i'm doubting myself. i'm doubting people. i'm doubting my situation. i've been doubting gods faithfulness to me. so much doubt has been filling my heart and mind. i remembered something i wrote a few months back about how awesome and faithful god had been to me at that specific time in my life. here it is.

perfect timing

obeying god is hard but one of the most rewarding things ever. this is what i mean -

for a few weeks i knew some things needed to change in my little life to make things easier at home. i needed to be focused on being here in virginia beach. jim elliot’s words wherever you are, be all there were constantly in the back of my head but meant nothing to me. i was putting so much focus and energy on things that had nothing to do with things at home. for some reason i could not figure out why my prayers for a job, a church, and friends were not being answered. it was because i had stopped praying for them because i didn’t care. i didn’t want to be here. i wanted to be back in college life because everything was good there and clearly things could not be as good here. i spent time focusing on something that i was comfortable with, something i knew so well. but even that was changing. i knew my life was changing and i needed to get 100% onboard with that. i needed to make changes and obey some things god had been telling me to do. i hate change because i like control. he said see ya bye control. i needed to trust and obey. after god threw so many signs to me in conversations with dear friends, articles and scripture i had been reading, prayer, and through change i knew i needed to make changes so i could be fully focused on being here. obeying god for the first time with something that needed to change was one of the hardest things i have had to do. but he proved himself to be faithful in that change. the peace and contentment i was praying for finally took control over my life. slowly my prayers were being answered - i made some great connections with my younglife girls and am looking to start a huddle group with some freshmen girls. i randomly woke up two sundays ago and decided to go to this church in virginia beach that i love. i got the job i applied for over a month ago on thursday! i will be nannying and doing some speech therapy stuff with a precious two year old. i taught my first campaigners. it wasn’t how i wanted it to go but god knew what needed to be said. if it didn’t help my students at least it got me thinking on one thing - do i love people well. and here i am now on a gloomy monday morning drinking an iced coffee rejoicing in god’s faithfulness to me in the change. and here i am - praying for restoration for certain things in my life. at church on sunday we took communion and talked about restoration. it was a beautiful service. one thing the pastor said was god’s plan all along - to bring restoration where innocence was lost. jesus did not come to make us better. he came to make us new. my prayer for restoration started a while ago. he answered that in multiple ways in my life - one is restoring hope in his faithfulness. how i got there? trusting and obeying him. my friend just tweeted obedience doesn’t merely reflect faith; obedience leads to faith.  that one phrase is how i could describe this process i am going through. i have faith that he will bring restoration when and where it needs to be. until then i will trust and obey. 

“but blessed is the man who trusts in the lord, whose confidence is in him. he will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. it does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. it has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.” the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. who can understand it? “i the lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.”  jeremiah 17:7-10

what an encouragement it is to me to be able to look back at such a chaotic time in my life and see gods faithfulness to me through my obedience to him. hello renewed hope. hello comfort.

bless the lord, o my soul, for the lord has been good to me!

music tuesday!

i am going to north carolina this weekend to stay with the oh so lovely katie. while i am there we are going to see the oh so wonderful ben rector in raleigh. in honor of what is about to be an incredible weekend of friendship and music i am going to share one of my favorite ben songs. it is called she is. and apparently he wrote this about me without realizing it...or so a lot of my friends have told me. i love it and find it fitting for my life. enjoy.

it's thursday...and i totally forgot about music tuesday! eeeeek. so here it goes.

john mayer has had my heart since 7th grade. no matter what new stuff i'm discovering or how different my taste in music is i always go back to him. maybe i just find comfort in his tunes. maybe it's the fact he's one heck of a guitarist...or maybe it's just everything his music is. i was a bit skeptical of born and raised before it was released last year. i had no idea the direction he was going but i was scared it was going to be more country. i was pleasantly surprised how much i loved it when i listened to the album in its entirety one night at camp. one of my favorite songs is queen of california. it has been a good tune this time of year. check it out!

Queen of California - John Mayer

"You cannot save people. All you can do is love them."

i saw that quote while i was browsing pinterest one night. i didn't think much about it when i read it so i started scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. but then i couldn't get that out of my head. i started thinking about it more and more and realized how fitting it is for my little life right now. i'm not called to save. i'm called to love and love well.

i worry about the people i care about a lot. that's not necessarily a bad thing either. but at times it gets really bad for me. when i see people i care about being irresponsible or making careless decisions it's easy for me to get frustrated with them more than concerned for them. i just want to shake them and say, "why are you being so stupid?!" or "stop settling for something that's harmful for you!" it's terrible, i know. when i get like that i'm not loving my family or friends well. my job is not to save them. i'm responsible to love them.

i look back at those times when i was making terrible decisions with my life from time to time. there are particular girls i can think of who didn't like my decisions and behavior (and let it be known how irresponsible i was being) but they still poured out grace and love to me. they never gave up on me. if it wouldn't have been for those girls praying for me and loving me well, who knows the amount of damage i would have done to myself or others. i'm sure they wanted to grab me up some times and rip me a new one. but they never did. they loved me well.

i'm someone who is thankful for the bad times in my life. i've learned so much coming out of some of my most irresponsible moments. i know what i want and what i don't want out of life now because of falling flat on my face numerous times. i've learned the beauty of god's grace through the crap i put myself through. i can go back and see his pursuit of me, his daughter, and be overwhelmed with gratitude for loving me enough to never stop pursuing me. and then there are the friends who taught me what loving someone well looks like. and that's the kind of friend i need to be - not one who gets frustrated with someone or gives up on someone for being stupid but one who loves them well in the difficult times life throws their way.

love is patient, love is kind. it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. it does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. it always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 

characteristics of love laid out in 1 corinthians 13. when i ask myself if i'm loving people well, god smacks me in the face with this particular passage. praying that the lord changes my attitude and my heart so that i can love the people in my life well.

a day late...but that's what happens when i leave town for a few days and try to get back into the swing of things.

the other day i was driving around virginia beach. i left my ipod at home so i had to resort to using the radio. thankfully we had a good alternative station here. when they went to a commercial break i started flipping through the stations hoping for something good. closing time by semisonic was playing on another station. i freaking love that song! when it ended it went into a song i never heard. as i sat at a red light i listened to the lyrics and thought, "yes! this is good. who is this man?" shazam saved the day and told me it was phillip phillips. great, the home guy. but oh my word i was hooked on the song. the lyrics are so good. the music has a good vibe to it. needless to say i went home that night and bought the song. time to share it with you lovely people. here's gone, gone, gone.

Gone, Gone, Gone - Phillip Phillips