Scribbles.

The past three weeks: I got a painful sunburn and peeled for the first week, had a wonderful allergic reaction that resulted in a red, swollen face for the second week, and now I’m ushering the third week with the flu that makes your body so achy and a cold that makes me cough something disgusting..

But within those three weeks, I had good, restful nights of sleep, surrounded by caring people who didn’t care that my face looked like it was going to fall off, went to SAD, saw so many talented people at Exposed, went on a picnic with some beautiful sisters from AACF, got a cute little card, and countless other things. 

Praise the Lord, for He has put so many blessings in my life, even when I feel like I’m physically dying. I pray that I can be well in time for BAD, though, I gotta love on my bros!! 

You all rock.

(via sixteenyears)

"Grace is wild. Grace unsettles everything. Grace overflows the banks. Grace messes up your hair. Grace is not tame."

Doug Wilson (via yesdarlingido)

(Source: hopefisch, via yesdarlingido)

Jeff.

I’ve been waiting to be unhinged from you for so long, and I think I’ve finally come to that point. 
I don’t frustrate myself over thoughts of you, I don’t go crazy over thinking too much, and I’m not dwelling on you anymore. You’ve taught me a valuable lesson, and I’m so thankful for that. But my infatuation with you is done. God has taught me all the lessons that I needed to learn from you, and you’ve become, to me, nothing more than a friend that I want to get to know better.
Ultimately, I know that this is a better place for me. We could go on and on with the “what if’s,” and in the end, where would we be? Nothing better than what we were, and nothing worse that what we had in our friendship.
I know that I will inevitably run into you while I’m studying in Hong Kong. And I hope and pray that nothing of this oddness returns, because I’ve been freed from that, and God carried me onward. Rather than pray for an impossible outcome, I pray for closure. I’ve taken my heart back, it’s no longer hanging around in empty space. Sure, I’ll probably wonder how you’re doing, and I might ask those “what if” questions. But trust me when I say that I don’t expect anything from you but your willingness to be friends.
Nothing on you, but it’s such a relief.

Let’s start over, not with a flash of lightning, but cautiously and rationally. So Jeff, how are you? :]

Tonight was a testament to how NOT to take responsibility. I did it again, and it’s frustrating me. 

I need to learn how to take proper responsibility of others. It’s constantly reminding myself that I am living not for the benefit of myself,  but for the service and love of others and God above myself. Take that stupid, selfish, self-pity party away and use that hour and half to love others. 

(Source: escarlatt, via o-d-i-u-m)

let’s think.

These past couple days have been so…odd. I’ve realized so many things in my mind and in my heart, but there’s also a distance, where I still struggle to come to terms with it and own those things that God has put on my heart. 

He is my emancipator. It hasn’t been more clear than now that I need Him to release me from the bars that hold me captive. Forgiveness is not simply forgetting the emotions, the situation, the people; I’ve done too much of that. I never experienced or even understood forgiveness until I found it’s partner: reconciliation. Reconciliation to God, reconciliation to others, and reconciliation to yourself. Giving yourself up, calling on God’s power and grace to cover you, lift you from the brokenness that you see in your relationships and yourself and to be painstakingly pieced back together into someone clean, whole, and freer.

I am His, and He is mine. God owns me, and I own my identity as Christ’s child. I am made perfect in His purpose, I am made whole by his grace, I am beautifully and wonderfully made because of His love. And because of this, who, what, when, where, and why should I fear anything of this world? I need my identity in Christ, and I need to know my inheritance. I need to know what God has gifted me, I need to see the vision for the future. There is affirmation in the cross.

The inheritance is what I need, and it is also what I want. God, drive away myself, this insecure, self-conscious, conflict-avoiding child. If I am found in Christ, I am found to be filled with all his goodness, and all of myself becomes a memory of a different person so far from where I am and striving to go towards. I’ve seen someone so sure of themselves because of Christ, I’ve seen someone who walks every footstep with purpose, love, and fire. 

I have seen my sin, I have received God’s cleansing and freeing power through the blood of Jesus, I have a new identity. Now I need to claim what is rightfully God’s and rightfully mine. I don’t know what it is, I don’t know where I’m going to go to find it. But God’s plan is good, His timing impeccable, and His purpose perfect for me.

Claim your inheritance, because it is yours and your’s only.

(via my-steadfast-anchor)

(Source: c-asted, via colourless-d-r-e-a-m-s)

"Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it - I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while - yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concert, what readiness to see justice done."

2 Corinthians 7:8-11

I don’t need you to “tolerate” me. I don’t want you to merely put up with my presence. All I ask, all I have ever asked, is to be treated as a human being, that bigoted jingoism is not injected into every minute facet my life, that there remains at least the illusion of decency.

 The sun is shining, Gabby is coming, I’m being super productive. Despite the fact my face is burning from an accumulation of little sunburns, it’s going to be a good day. Amen.

(via colourless-d-r-e-a-m-s)

(Source: m-orphine, via colourless-d-r-e-a-m-s)