Breathe Me.

Yesterday I heard a young guy from Grace church speak about the word "Yahweh". The people of their time were so focused on the presence of God and his realness in their lives. They wanted to name him something that would show how much he lives in them. They found the letters that sounded the most like breathing outwards and named him Yahweh. As if every moment that they inhaled and exhaled, the very presence of God was in their lungs and flowed from their mouths. 

It made me think about how important our words and actions work together everyday. Is every inhale and exhale of my life linked with God? Am I truly living for Christ or am I taking a couple of puffs from his inhaler?

Think about it...listen to your own breath...can you hear him? Are you being still enough to hear that gentle whisper in the simple intake of oxygen?

Yikes! (and hello summer!)

Ok! So this is me updating after being terrible at not doing so. Obviously, summer has started, but the classes have not ended! Taking another statistics class has been a nice review, but at the same time, 3 hours of class every day is a little boring. Nonetheless, I love it and the weather in Milledgeville has been, to say the least, absolutely amazing. 

As for me and my life...it has been a nice trip so far. I've been reading (for the second time) the book Sex God by Rob Bell. If you haven't read it yet, please do so. I read it last year around this time and got so much out of it. Then, I picked it up again and have found that it stills gives me so much but in a completely different package. It's always nice to know that you're learning and growing. I have found that even though I am still the same person, I have differences about me from last year. 

From reading Romans and My Utmost For His Highest, I have been understanding how important it is to focus on letting God be God in your life. We sincerely do better with our lives when we stop trying to control every action, every situation and every decision and let God be in control...we find that this is how it was supposed to be all along. 

So, for now, all I'm trying to focus on is the greatness of how God already understands the situation and let him be the one making the decisions in the relationships. 

Oh God, teach me how to trust you more!

I feel it all.

This week's theme is to the song "I Feel It All" by Feist. I love her lyrics, her creativity, style, voice...you name it. One thing that The Lord has been showing me is that it doesn't have to have the label "Christian" for it to be good. He has shown me that He likes music...all kinds. Not just music either...He loves art, movies, books, architecture, monuments...anything and everything that people create. His interest is in the creator's heart. He made each of us with talents and gifts and one thing He enjoys is that we express those talents. So...I think God dances with me when I listen to "1,2,3,4". And I wouldn't have it any other way.

One thing that has stuck in my thoughts lately is prayer. Obviously, we're supposed to "pray without ceasing". But what is prayer when we don't take the time to think about what we're praying for? More than that, how do we pray effectively for people if we don't know how to pray for them? When I lift someone up to God, I want to take the time to know what I'm asking God to do. I want to be specific and really dwell on what the Lord is doing in their life. It's so easy to just throw a prayer around for someone else out of routine. One thought that came to mind was if I took the time to pray for other people with the same intensity when I prayed for myself, how much more do you think would be done? Jesus' commandment was "Love God. Love one another". Maybe I need to be loving people not only through encouragement and smiles, but taking my personal time to love them by giving them to God in intercession.

My quest for this week is to pray for others more than I pray for myself. And...dance to beautiful, fun music like Feist more often. :)

An Introduction of sorts.

For someone who wears their heart on their sleeve it is to no surprise that I just looooove to write it all down. Emotion after emotion comes in like a steady wave and I don't reject it. Maybe that is why making a "blog" is not a random idea for me. Like basically everyone I know, we've all had a "xanga" or "livejournal" at one point in time. Now that I'm older, will this one be of more worth to me than the silly ramblings of a teenage girl in high school? Hopefully.

There is a change of scenery in my thoughts this time. A new breath of fresh air that comes from finally grasping that what I write may be from my thoughts, but it is not about me.

(Actually, as a forewarning to you and myself I realize that as hard as I try to live this life "not about me", I will, unfortunately focus on myself and my thoughts and my feelings from time to time...or more often than needed. )

Getting back to the point...I'm still young, naive, and have a lot to learn. I'm only twenty years old. I'm about to finish my sophomore year in college and life is good. The most important thing that I have learned is that God...is intimate. God is relationship. God is the beauty of a blooming flower. God isn't an old man sitting in the sky. God is restoration. God is walking by yourself but never feeling alone. God is out of my world of thinking. God is incredibly and perfectly good. Like my favorite movie, The Count of Monte Cristo says, "He is in everything"!