Journal 3

Hey Jesus.
Thanks for everything. Thanks for my life. Thanks for how You just work everything out for me. It's truly amazing and beautiful.
You do such amazing things that I can't even begin to comprehend. So I won't try. I'll just let it be what it is and praise You for it.
Oh, what praise my soul longs to give You! Oh, what great praise is due You! Oh, how my soul longs for You!
Better is one day in Your courts than thousands elsewhere. There's no where else I'd rather be. I love You, my Dear. My Dear.
You're so beautiful, Lord. There is none beside You and no one even remotely worthy, honestly.
I just want to rest in Your arms all the time, every day, all day. I want to be Your harmony. Give me clean hands, a pure heart, cast down my idols, O God of Jacob. I love Thee!
How precious is the Lamb that was slain so I could love the Father. Oh, how He reached out to this outcast and pulled me in, an outlier of society and brought me in to the banquet. Oh, how simple and powerful His love was and is and will forever be! I can't even understand living forever. I just know that Your Word says it will be awesome and I trust that for always.

You're moving in such cool ways on my floor, through our leadership and through people that live on this floor. It's amazing! I love how Your Gospel is going to be spread for real. I love how You love us so much and are bringing us all together. I love the community You have for us here.
It's so cool to see the girls growing together and hanging out more. I'm glad they can edify and support one another, despite their differences geographically, interest-wise, and even spiritually, experience-wise. Say it ain't so, my mind says. Oh yes it is, my soul shouts! Screaming from the rooftops, baby!

I think it's super cool the way God can move through darkness. We get so uptight about Halloween and vampires and werewolves and the "appearance of evil." Really? Man made that. Man doesn't know what evil is to begin with; they don't even know what light is. How could they know what evil looks like then? God's not offended. He loves outliers that like that stuff. I think evil appears pretty dang nice looking, we should avoid those pretty looking things. THAT'S what evil looks like. It just a twisting of that which is pure and good. Jesus probably wasn't all that pretty. And satan probably doesn't have a pitchfork or horns. He probably looks like an angel but smells like a demon. Anyways, God is awesome and isn't afraid of darkness; He freaking defeated it! We shouldn't be afraid either and I'm not anymore. The appearance that movies and people portray doesn't scare me. It may intimidate me because of the stigma attached to it, but it doesn't scare me. I digress. God is good and He loves us all.

It's raining in my room all the time (rainymood.com). I love it. It's so nice. Just plain and simply.

I miss being in a band and writing music. I really do like organizing worship and singing really isn't that big of a deal anymore to me. I just miss creating. I know God has cool doors for me to go through in the future and even now, I just hope He lets me create stuff, ya know? Like, I really want to work with super weird churches (as mainline churches call them) and help them develop fuller, more "theologically" understood worship. Not just throwing songs together and stuff. I want to learn how to pray for worship sets and the songs, but I also want to know how to think with the Holy Spirit through stuff and really encourage people through my guitar playing and stuff. I don't want to waste this deep burning passion for weirdos on normal people, if you will. I'd honestly love to know more about working in those mainline churches, but there's just this passion that always arises that draws me back to the outcasts and weirdos. I just love awkward people so much! Whether I am one or not, I don't care. I'm just sick of mainline churches casting them out and judging them and all that bologna. (see previous Halloween rant) I want people of all kinds to know the love of Jesus and to get in on the sweet banquet that's coming.
I don't know.
Just some thoughts.
I'm absolutely positive I'll return to them and keep ranting.
Maybe you'll keep reading.
Blessings.
I'm out to write my Theology of Worship paper on praise.
Sweet sauce and stuff.

Amen.

All I Wanna Do

Pretty much all I wanna do is make out with Jesus. Yeah You, LORD.

Journal 2

Lord,
You are my reason to sing. You are my reason to dance. You are my reason to speak in tongues. You are my reason to act like a fool. You are my reason to think. You are my reason to be. You are my reason always, every day, in everything.
I hate the world. But I love Jesus. I loathe what detests You, or at least I like to think I do. Perhaps I love some things that I shouldn't. Perhaps I idolize my stuff and my abilities and my own thoughts above Your stuff, abilities, and thoughts.
And You are my King, my Victor. The war is OVER. The battle's ARE being won. Martina just walks.
There's so much peace in You, Jesus. You are SUCH a good Lover. There's no human on earth that could love me nearly as much as You do. No parent, no friend, no other half that could even come close. They could capture some of it, but I'd just be looking in a mirror of Your face and not Your actual face.
HA! Oh, what a day that will be, when I can KISS YOU! Haha! Shoooooot.
It's beautiful that my soul cries out when my thoughts won't themselves. I allowed my soul to pray this morning and paused my thoughts, quit forcing myself to try voice what I couldn't voice to God. My soul is so perfectly beautiful. It longs in ways I just can't understand. No book, no quote, no theologian could ever grasp it in all its essence. Waters of living water flow from my soul and I don't understand them, I just house them. Ha! How ridiculous is that? I am a temple of living water, life, God's glory, creation in me.
I'll stop writing now. The words just aren't enough anymore.

Journal 1

So I'm doing this mentoring thing with my friend for her Discipling Minstries. She suggested I journal while listening to music. So here I am, listening to Civil Parish.
It's cool, I like it. I can calm down, chill, and gather my thoughts. AND JUST SPEND SOME TIME WITH MY LOVE!
Tonight we had Praise & Worship Ekklessia (student-led chapel) and it was awesome. I love how God's freedom and hope is rising on campus. [Sidenote, right now I can here Miss Katie laughing on my floor and it makes me smile a lot] I just love how God can move, despite all my judgments about how He can't in this environment through these people because they aren't like me and don't worship the way I do. Dumb.
I hate legalism. It strains me so! I'd say if there were any personal struggle right now it's with legalism and judgment. I have my thoughts about where it's come from and I don't like that at all. It's just...dumb.
But God's love is bigger than that!! Gosh, He loves me SO MUCH. IT'S RIDICULOUS. I forget so much all the time every day all day. He is so big and all He wants to do is date me, tell me how much of a babe I am, and glorify Himself through me as I fall in love with Him more and more all the time every day all day. Like, what?!?! What is that?! Friends, that's the GOD I serve.
Ahhhhhhhh. Just ahhhhhh.
What awe I can be in, completely and utterly. And not be ashamed for taking the time to be still and enjoy Him. Bride, do you know we're allowed to ENJOY Him? We're not meant to strive and try really hard to earn anything. We don't owe Him anything because Jesus PAID IT ALL. I'm sick of all these songs that talk about how much we suck and how much we owe Him. I really just am. He did it already, accomplished EVERYTHING. It's that simple, no grey. Just black and white. He either did or He didn't and HE DID. THAT'S THE LOVE WE KNOW. Not some halfway Gospel that says, "Well, yes Jesus died for you and He loves you very much, but you've got to do your part to get into heaven. Blah blah blah." Yes, there's a heaven and there's a hell and we do have stuff to do. But it's not out of duty. It's out of love. Starstruck love. Nothing else. If it's out of duty, it's law. And Jesus fulfilled/finished the law for us. WABAM!
God is just so good. Period.
He's so delivered me of my past and my present and my future already.
I've been under spiritual attack lately and it's sucked. I've dreaded going to sleep because I hate the dark and how dark I and everything around me feels. I hate going to the bathroom at night because I can feel darkness. I hate it. My friend said she was going through the same thing a month ago and suggested I get some water and rebuke that junk. I did last night and it was wonderful. The enemy has been defeated cause death couldn't freaking hold Him down!!! BAM!
My music keeps freezing and that really blows, but God is still good, all the time. All the time, God is good!!!!
:)

PS. I know I could just as easily journal privately, but I really feel like I should just share what's on my heart and in my head. That doesn't mean I'm going to be miss "tell the whole world about every little thing," just what I feel led to write and would like to testify about. Maybe this makes sense to you, maybe it speaks to you. I don't know. I'm just done being alone all the time and not sharing my engagement with my Husband with the world, inviting them to our sweet banquet.

Even In My Darkest

Even in my darkest You love me still.

Simple

I just want things to be simple. And passionate.

Reflections

I've been doing some real reflecting back on my life the past four years, as a sophomore in high school to now a sophomore in college.
Wow. Can I just say wow?
God has been so good to me and used me in such amazing ways.

I'll be honest, sophomore year in high school pretty much sucked for the most part. I wasn't particularly close with any of my friends, though we did hang out and got along well. I was depressed and stuck listening to depressing music and writing inappropriate fan fiction. I had all these aspirations for where I wanted to go in life with my music and things just weren't happening like I wanted them to. And then I fell in love with Jesus and He rocked my world! I quit being as depressed, though I totally struggled and didn't give up that junk music for awhile. Stuff started happening with Foscott, the acoustic jazz/alternative duo I started with my friend Katherine my freshman year. And I started losing relationship with old friends and gained new ones over the summer. Over the summer, I met Payton, pretty much my best friend and we started jamming. I mentored him and we eventually got Oh Molly, our first band, together.

The band was my focus junior year, which was by far the most rewarding time of my life. Sometimes I wish I could go back to that year and relive the fruits. Ben and Payton gave their lives over to Jesus! As the band got going, my drummer, Adam, gave his life over! My stepbrother/vocalist checked out what a life with Christ would mean. Ben invited Jon to church and he gave his life over! I had opportunity to share Jesus in my AP Language and Composition class through my writing and my teacher encouraged me in that. I played guitar in jazz band and expanded my musical abilities. I started looking at colleges (and made up my mind that Huntington was the place). At the end of the year my then best friend, Ben (bassist of Oh Molly), got caught up in some funky stuff and that sucked a whole bunch, but he came back around and stayed. I also learned a ton about overcoming fear, doing fellowship, and stepping out in leadership. Morning prayer at school was a blast and held us so accountable. Lunch was cool because we talked about Jesus. My friends grew as I helped disciple them. Things ruled.

Senior year was fun as we took our victory lap as a class and people quit hating each other as much. We worked more as a community. Oh Molly had broken up by this point and we started a new Christian band, Me Dead To Me. I learned so incredibly much about humility and being in a ministry band. We got to record with a good friend and talked about touring, though it never happened. We played ridiculously good line-ups and were insanely blessed and mentored. I began dating Ben, having never dated before. It was fun and I learned a ton about myself.

I went off to college and experienced really being away for an extended amount of time, being an adult. I didn't see family, church family, and friends from high school nearly as much as before. My relationship with Ben ended in heartbreak. I experienced depression and for the first time, felt what it was to have no will or ability to hope. I returned to crap music and old habits. For the first time, I learned to be vulnerable and began learning about true intimacy with the Father. I learned about real life and how to handle it in God. I learned time management. I learned my vices and what I had been relying on. I learned, oh I learned! Over the summer, I battled with the tail end of the depression I had been struggling with. I traveled much and spent large amounts of time with my family. I passed up opportunity to love on them, but didn't neglect them altogether. I watched the new Me Dead To Me come into fruition and develop more backbone. I learned more about intimacy.

And now here I am, a sophomore all over again. I came in, having not completely exited depression. I doubted, I feared, I had anxiety about the year. And then all that was shattered as I now see God doing something so amazing in me--developing me. What a relief, to know that God is in me, working out His gifts in me so others can enjoy their fruits! I am being made into closer relationship with Him every day and also relationship with others. I'm learning so much about community and love. I am on a sweet rad campus ministry team that's all about outreach. I have a wonderful co-CMC and beautiful RAs. The girls on my floor are so supportive, understanding, and genuinely good people. My professors blow me away with their knowledge and ability to help me apply what I learn practically in life. My school has amazing athletic teams that love Jesus. My school is so great at serving others. My surroundings are tangible and genuine. I'm continuing to learn intimacy and grace. I'm reflecting on my past and what's made me tick the way I do. I'm learning about my vices still, but also about my strengths and my uniqueness. I'm learning how to best express myself. I'm learning that I am accepted in God's Kingdom and people really do love me and care for me where I am. I'm learning that it's okay to mess up and it's okay to doubt yourself because God has my back. Everything is okay in Him who loves me. It's okay that I lost a best friend last year and that we don't talk at all and things are really awkward between us. It's okay that my friends are miles away, doing awesome stuff with my church family. It's okay that my family is struggling out of arms' reach. It's okay that I'm developing and make mistakes often. It's all okay because God knows what He's doing! Hallelujah to that!!!

You make beautiful things, You make beautiful things out of us