Beautiful Things

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR7VOKQ0xJY&feature=youtube_gdata

All this pain
I wonder if I’ll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change at all
All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found
Could a garden come up from this ground at all

You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us

All around
Hope is springing up from this old ground
Out of chaos life is being found in You

You make me new, You are making me new

Brighter Day

At the start there was love
And life began in Him
Creation falls, Creator gives
The promise of a better day

We are not there yet

Let it come, let it come in
Love is here, Love is coming
Heaven is breaking open
Heaven is breaking open

Love came down and hope was found
Life began again
A brand new start
Yeah a brand new start
The promise of a brighter day

Love came down and hope was found
Now we’re waking up to a brighter day
Oh brighter day brighter day
Oh brighter day brighter day

Oh brighter day
We’ll see a brighter day

Heaven
I don't know what you've been told but
heaven is comin' down to the world

Heaven Heaven
Heaven Heaven

is comin' down

Heaven Heaven

Heaven Heaven

is all around

PSALM 27: 13-14
I would have despaired
unless I had believed
that I would see the goodness of the LORD
In the land of the living.
Wait for the LORD ;
Be strong and let your heart take courage ;
Yes, wait for the LORD.



Shadows-David Crowder Band

Life is full of light and shadow
O the joy and O the sorrow
O the sorrow

And yet will He bring
Dark to light
And yet will He bring
Day from night

When shadows fall on us
We will not fear
We will remember

When darkness falls on us
We will not fear
We will remember

When all seems lost
When we're thrown and we're tossed
We remember the cost
We rest in Him
Shadow of the cross


...I wrote a lament, maybe you heard it this night-

dear lord
you know what-i am just about done
done being forgotten, misunderstood, left behind - pretty much last
it doesn't feel like humility
it seems more like humiliation
you say
BE VULNERABLE,
LOVE UNCONDITIONALLY,
TELL THE TRUTH
So what, what then?
Be forgotten, misunderstood, left behind AND Last...again
but then
you were forgotten, misunderstood, left behind and last
you turned humiliation into humility
what now? What More?
What is that you say?
I can be done...
...because of ALL that you have done


Psalm 130

A song of ascents.
1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD;

2 O Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
to my cry for mercy.

3 If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins,
O Lord, who could stand?

4 But with you there is forgiveness;
therefore you are feared.

5 I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
and in his word I put my hope.

6 My soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.

7 O Israel, put your hope in the LORD,
for with the LORD is unfailing love
and with him is full redemption.

8 He himself will redeem Israel
from all their sins.

How long O Lord will You forget me
How long O Lord will You look the other way
How long O Lord must I wrestle with my thoughts
And every day have such sorrow in my heart

Look on me and answer, O God my Father
Bring light to my darkness before they see me fall

But I trust in Your unfailing love
Yes my heart will rejoice
Still I sing of Your unfailing love
You have been good, You will be good to me

If I had a lofthouse cookie with pink frosting every time I heard those words....well maybe if I was still running like I did then.
But those were my favorite words, and that was the greatest place to be, at the starting line, on the mark. every fiber of my being fully actively engaged, all the strength with all my might, keeping me behind that line until it was time. Every thing mattered. Each breath, That thought, Everything was still, the world was silent, in anticipation. waiting for the moment of truly pure exhiliration-but that freedom comes and the race is on, and that moment is no more. Everything changes and you win some, lose some and skin your elbows and knees much more often than the former. Back to the training room, preparing, examining, building it back up, tearing it down, and remembering. Remembering who you are when you are there & remembering to get back to the mark, to that holding place, because that is truly where it gets put down, left behind and released-because from there... you can not take it with you.

The New Story of Your Life
Say you finally invented a new story of your life. It is not the story of your defeat or of your impotence and powerlessness before the large forces of wind and accident. It is not the sad story of your mother's death or of your abandoned childhood. It is not, even, a story that will win you the deep initial sympathies of the benevolent gods or the care of the generous, but it is a story that requires of you a large thrust into the difficult life, a sense of plenitude entirely your own. Whatever the story is, it goes as it goes, and there are variations in it, gardens that need to be planted, skills sown, the long hard labors of prose and enduring love. Deep down in some long-encumbered self, it is the story you have been writing all of your life, where no Calypso holds you against your own willfulness, where you can rise from the bleak island of your old story and tread your way home.
- Michael Blumenthal

...what if

discontent is not necessarily a sign of sinFULLness

what if

discontent is more of a sign of lifeLESSness

that there is life stirring inside of us
that there is something happening in the rumblings
that comes only out of that place from our heart,from our own soul
that it comes to remind us that being content is not the place for joy
that the joy we know comes from the Lord

and that that life is more than a job, an opportunity, an end result
it is about transformation and growth

so when discontent surfaces, it is most important to pay close attention to it
for it is in this space where the body can listen to the soul, the flesh can hear the spirit

...FuLL
WHaT...is
...is SO much
...For You
...only
through...
...is ME
with you, here, in...
to listen for...
silence...
...silence

Isaiah 6:1-9