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This is a lengthy quote, yet I found relevant to life. I’m still thinking through the theological conclusions of C.S. Lewis’ reasons for pain. However, how I identify with the cycle he draws of reaction toward ‘broken toys’!

I am progressing along the path of life in my ordinary contentedly fallen and godless condition, absorbed in a merry meeting with my friends for the morrow or a bit of work that tickles my vanity today, a holiday or a new book, when suddenly a stab of abdominal pain that threatens serious disease, or a headline in the newspapers that threatens us all with destruction, sends this whole pack of cards tumbling down. At first I am overwhelmed, and all my little happinesses look like broken toys. Then, slowly and reluctantly, bit by bit, I try to bring myself into the frame of mind that I should be in at all times. I remind myself that all these toys were never intended to possess my heart, that my true good is in another world and my only real treasure is Christ. And perhaps, by God’s grace, I succeed, and for a day or two become a creature consciously dependent on God and drawing its strength from the right sources. But the moment the threat is withdrawn, my whole nature leaps back to the toys: I am even anxious, God forgive me, to banish from my mind the only thing that supported me under the threat because it is now associated with the misery of those few days. Thus the terrible necessity of tribulation is only too clear. God has had me for but forty-eight hours and then only by dint of taking everything else away from me. Let Him but sheathe that sword for a moment and I behave like a puppy when the hated bath is over–I shake myself dry as I can and race off to reacquire my comfortable dirtiness, if not in the nearest manure heap, at least in the nearest flower bed. And that is why tribulations cannot cease until God either sees us remade or sees that our remaking is now hopeless.

C.S.Lewis, The Problem of Pain, (1940)

…I’m seeing light again.

:)

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth, great is Thy faithfulness, Lord unto me

I’m in school now. The summer is gone, life is moving on. In the hurry and flurry of classes and intellectual rigor, I find something missing. I remember the long walks alone with the presence of God, the afternoons of journalling my heart to Him, the challenge of His face, the strength of the awesomness of His holiness.  The pricking of grasping just a bit of WHO He is and my heart understanding that being like Him and knowing Him was all I ever ever wanted. The joy that abounded because of Him, even when I was confused. Those where good times.

Now I’m swamped with this and that. There hasn’t been any walks. Just a passing nod here and there. And finding myself steadily unsatisfied. A part of me feels dead. Since I am attending a Christian college, I am required to attend weekly chapel with the student body. I thought maybe this would liven me up. Shouldn’t a worship service liven me up?

Afterwards, I found myself wishing I could be satisfied with a once a week, praise service. “Maybe something is wrong with me. Everyone else seems fine with this.”

No.

I don’t need a snack size Jesus, just to get me through to joy. I don’t need a once a week “fill me up.”

I need Jesus. To know Him myself. Heaven forbid I should ever be satisified with an “on the go” Jesus. Heaven forbid I should ever be satisifed with anything less than living passionately to *know* Him and to make *Him* known.

I want to see His face again.

this summer, many long car drives have been spent with the worship music of Fernando Ortega’s In the Shadow of Your Wings spinning quietly through my thoughts . i love the earnest cries to God that the lyrics in this album embrace .  “Oh God, You are My God” is a particular favourite of mine… simple truths, simple truths that go down to the depths of our being and identify with every individual’s cry to know and worship their Creator

“Oh, God, You are my God”

Oh, God, you are my God. Earnestly, I seek you.
My soul thirsts for you. My flesh yearns for you.
In a dry and weary land, where there is no water.

I remember you at night, through the watches of the midnight,
in the shadow of your wings, I sing because you help me.
My soul clings to you, and your hand upholds me.

You alone. You alone. You alone. You alone.

Katie Marie (me!)  and Kristin

remember being young and wiggly, always being told to sit still in Sunday School class?

–

I’m still trying to sit still…only this time the class is life.

:)

Psalm 62:5
My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him.

Psalm 46:10
“Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.”

Psalm 37:7
Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.

Psalm 52:9
I will praise thee for ever, because thou hast done it: and I will wait on thy name; for it is good before thy saints.

[KJV]

you know? when you’ve known something for a long time, you’ve even grasped it, but you grasp it again?

I love it when that happens.

God’s love is steadfast. He is faithful. Forever.

I’ve known that. It’s true. I could say it until I was blue in the face. But today, I’ve grasped it again.

Don’t you love it when you get a glimpse of glory, of God’s face, and you see the depths of God’s character with your heart, instead of just your mind?

“Each separate experience of individual stripping we may learn to accept as a fragment of the suffering Christ bore when He took it all. “Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.” This grief, this sorrow, this total loss that empties my hands and breaks my heart, I may, if I will, accept, and by accepting it, I find in my hands something to offer. And so I give it back to Him, who in mysterious exchange gives Himself to me.” -Elisabeth Elliot, These Strange Ashes

“Sound doctrine is important, and something every Christian should strive after. However, the importance of sound doctrine pales when compared to the importance of a heart turned towards Christ by the power of the Gospel. Any man can have the former, while only a man who has been born again of the Spirit, and is clothed in Christ’s righteousness, can have the latter.-stolen from Isaac’s status, which is stolen from Matt Hammer

journal entry, May 26th, 2007

Thoughts on Change:

1. If you’re going to change tomorrow, that tomorrow will never come.

2. God can use trials in two ways: to change us, or to make us realize we need to change.

3. There’s aways room for a greater change that you’ve already had.

4. Every change is the most important change of your life.

5. God changes things. Embrace it; He knows best.

6. The basis for my changes should be from the redemption of my heart….changed from darkness to light, everyday being molded and changed to be more like Christ.

7. We can’t change the world without God changing our world first.