the best thing you can do with your life is give it away

lately i've been all about bali, indonesia. i wanna go there for a year or two after i graduate. teach english. slash reading. bali. it is an 11 week class to get certified. i could do it. i can't plan anything at this point. but i hope i get to do it. i don't need to be a wedding photographer. if i don't do it someone else will. but i could change lives teaching. because if i don't do it, maybe no one will. so i'm trying to make my life less and less about me. give it all away. still a little selfish though, living in bali would be legit. obviously i change my mind about what i wanna do with my life every day so who the heck knows what i'll actually do. maybe i'll do everything. we'll see.

the greatest commandment...

easy right? love the lord. first. foremost. above all else. with all your heart soul mind and strength. everybody knows it. but how many actually do it?

this has been on my heart lately. and when i thought about it i thought man i have to love the lord more than i love jelly beans. more than i love law and order. more than i love my friends. more than i love my family. and let me tell you i loveeee my family. so for a while i wrestled with that. how could i love my family any less? i can't. not even if i tried. and why would god call me to do that? i'm sure reading this you already know the answer. but my own closed mind was kind of upset by being called to this.

ok so after praying about it everything clicked. i don't have to love anything on earth less. i just have to love the lord more. and that is a biiiig love. but it's one that i'm growing into. one that flourishes every single day as the lord reveals more of himself to me. one that becomes easier and easier as i spend time with him. i am not forced to love the lord. i am called to it yes. but how could i not love someone with everything i have when he does the same to me?

i am falling in love with the lord. madly, hopelessly, irrevocably in love with the god of the universe. and let me tell you there is no love like it. so much so that literally the only thing i pray about for myself is that i would grow closer to him. every day. i read the book crazy love by francis chan a few months ago and while there was some seriously brilliant stuff in there, one thing stuck out more than the rest. he talked about how people pray things like safety before going on a family trip. when instead we should be praying the we would grow closer to the lord at any cost. "god, kill my whole family if it will bring me closer to you." now that's way literal. and not praying that god would kill my family of course. but my family means more to me than anything on earth. but how great would it be to get to a place in my relationship with the lord that i would give them up if it meant drawing nearer to him?

i don't think i'm there yet. and trust me i loveeee my family. i'm not trying to love them any less. just love the lord more. with everything i have. more than anything on this earth. because he loved me first. because he is good. because there is no other way to truly live. and the list goes on.

i should be writing a paper right now...

but instead i'm playing the 5 people to dinner game. which is one of my FAVORITE things to know about people. basically you pick 5 people dead or alive that you'd want to have over for dinner. here are my 5:

1. richard avedon. my favorite photographer.
2. c.s. lewis. probably one of the greatest theologians. ever.
3. isaac brock. modest mouse. he would be so fun. and i think he's brilliant.
4. hitler. you know who he is. i just have a lot of questions for him.
5. chris mccandless. read into the wild if you haven't already. he's an interesting guy.

and that's it. this is boring. i should be writing my paper.

it's been over two months

time is a funny thing. and i don't seem to have much of it lately. at all. well that's no good. the lord's been teaching me SO MANY things recently. and i simply have not had the time to write it all down. which is actually incredibly untrue. i'm sure i have plenty of time and simply not enough will. i could write books replacing the time i spend on facebook with writing about what i'm learning. but i'm stubborn and stupid and human so i tend to pick the former.

i'm sitting here with half an hour between classes trying to recall this dream i had last night. before i went to bed i had started reading francis chan's forgotten god. and i only got about twenty pages in or so. but if you know me (which i'm pretty sure you do, only like 3 people know about this blog) you may know i've been struggling lately with the holy spirit. and that's what this book is all about. anyway the dream. well i'm remembering less and less. but what i remember the strongest is getting chills. like crazy body shaking chills all over my body. i think i was talking to someone about the holy spirit and how i have trouble accepting it? something like that. well mid-conversation i got these chills. and i just had this moment of wow. this is real. i'm not making this up in my head. i'm not believing this just because i'm told to. the holy spirit is real. he lives in me. i don't have to understand it. to try to wrap my head around it would be pointless. this is a hard concept for me- blind acceptance. i'm a why person. i always have to know. and i don't. and that's scary. but it doesn't make it less real. so right now, i'm learning about blind faith. faith like a child. faith without reason or explanation other than the fact that it's real.

so i'm learning. god's revealing all of himself to me and i'm doing my best to step out of my human idiocy and accept things i can't understand. the holy spirit. it's real. and it's blowing my mind.

five years

five years ago today i gave my life to christ. july 27th 2005. looking back i'm speechless. i cannot believe the complete 180 God has done in my life. it is truly astonishing. like literally i have no words. i am the most blessed person in the world and don't for a minute deserve it. God has done the craziest things in me and through me in the past five years and i rejoice in being able to witness His work. God is good. always. especially today. praise Him.

top five things that make me cry:

1. laughing too hard

2. anything any mentally challenged kid ever does or says

3. when people i love do great things

4. weddings

5. seeing other people cry

also these might be the only things that make me cry. turns out i don't cry when i'm sad i cry when i'm happy. go fig

things i know:

to know is to love, to love is to care,

to care is to give, to have, to share.

to share is to see, to see is to do,

to do is to go, to act, to move.

to move is to change, to change is to choose,

to choose is to pick, to think, to muse.

to muse is to spark, to spark is to beam,

to beam is to glow, to shine, to dream.

to dream is to live, to live is to be,

always, forever, and wholly free.

i cannot think of a decent name for this poem