happy birthday elliott.

dreamless whispers

i sit here on another sleepless night, wondering and thinking again. i can't remember a time when it was not like this. at night when i am suppose to sleep the thoughts come, and they plough through my head joining with one another. i've been thinking a lot lately about letting things go and why that is so hard for me. my father is enough for me i know this, yet it is hard to let go of the things he has blessed me with. my first instinct is to close myself off and retreat, but that is not good. my second instinct is to continue with business as usual, not having the capacity to fix what has been broken, and they continue to hurt; also not good. i have come to the place where i am broken and utterly ruined by his love. i remember a song i was so fond of years ago and i recall the lyrics now as they resonate with me.
"when you have been broken
broken to pieces
and your heart begins to fade
cause you don't understand...

when there is nothing
to rake from the ashes
and you can't even walk
onto the fields of praise

but i bow down and kiss the Son
oh i, bow down and kiss the Son

when the rock falls
falls upon you
and you get ground to dust
no music for the pain...

you open the window
the windows of heaven
and then you open me
and you crush me like a rose

But i bow down and kiss the Son...
though you slay me i will trust you Lord"

since i was young i have closed things off and bottled them up. i say, "God you are my provider and my strength and my refuge" with my mouth, but my actions speak otherwise as i hold on to temporal things that i gain support from. so here i kneel, having lost my support, opening my hands before my father and offer everything i hold to him. i tend to break and mar,sometimes beyond recall, what he has given me when i wrestle it from his hands and try to take control. So where do i go from here?...i was once taught to praise my Lord in all things and i find consolation in that. No matter my circumstance i know my father loves me and that his intention is to bless me in all things, even the painful (romans 8:28- as cliche as it is). That being said, i am broken to pieces but my savior is gathering them to himself.

the boy

excerpt

i just finished A Severe Mercy. that book speaks to my heart on levels other writings never have, or at least not half as deeply. i have always been captivated by love. the last few years of my life i've studied and prayed for nothing else as consistently. i firmly believe there is nothing else more important in life as this, because God is love. everything else in life flows from that. as such, i find it coincidental how, in these past few months of the awakening, i have been introduced to the two most influential works (in my thinking) on the subject--A Severe Mercy and The Four Loves. it has been like looking at the moon for a long time and then having someone hand you a telescope. Things have come into focus a lot more and my mind is working again.

today i ran with the thought of moving to california next year when my lease is up. this all depends on the course of the next few months and my sweet lords leading, but the idea is rattling around in my head. today i was plagued with dark thoughts that saddened my heart, and perhaps this is the catalyst that brought califonia to the fore my mind. that place is peace and safe removal from all that i know of life. however, as god made my heart he has put a love for people within me, and moving would be about the most painful thing i can think of, but as i said--this is all a hypothetical. i am weary but all is well.

the boy

welcome back home coriell

An idle Saturday

Song of Two Lovers

In England over the endless sea
(I dream of my dearling, for you and me:
Tomorrow if not today)

There stands in Dorset by the sea,
In the gentle airs of the West Country,
A house that is tall and grey,

An old grey house beside the sea,
And there two lovers live merrily,
Most merrily and gay.

Two willows near and a great beech tree
Trace starlit patterns of fantasy,
And spring in the breeze by day.

These lovers go walking by the sea,
Their hair in the wind blows light and free,
And their lips are kissed by the spray,

They stroll in the lane and follow the bee,
They lie in the grass beneath a tree,
And they sing as they wander away.

At dusk they turn to their house by the sea,
Lightly and gaily come home to tea,
She carries a bright bouquet.

They stop at the church quite faithfully
And sweetly together they bend the knee--
Oh it's thanks they give as they pray!

Sometimes they dress most handsomely:
Go up to London Town to see
Some books and a friend and a play.

And twice, O Oxford town, to thee:
First for the joyful ecstacy
Of the dreaming spires and the may;

And then in soft winter dusk to be
In cold empty streets without a key
Yet never alone or astray.

Then home to the tall grey house by the sea
To sit close by the fire and read poetry
As long as the night will stay.

Just so in England right merrily
Two lovers so lightly live and, see!
Hands linked as they go their way.

One lover, oh dearling! looks like thee;
The other lover, dear one, is me--
And to dream can be to pray.

-Sheldon Vanauken

"God saved you by his special favor when you believed. And you can't take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago."
Eph 2:8-10 NLT

words we all need to hear from time to time

i have been thinking for some time now of actually utilizing this blog. i have evaded them for so long, and now that i am faced with it i ask the question, "who will read this if i did?". that aside, perhaps i will scribe my thoughts out here and see what comes of it.

these past few weeks have been a real awakening for me; indeed the whole latter part of this summer and early fall have been...i don't have the words for it, both wonderful and difficult at the same time. i remember driving home from dothan two weeks ago as my head was spinning with ideas and revelations and questions. i could not focus on a single thought because of the rampant chaos in my mind. i have been trying to make sense of the whole thing, and i have come to one conclusion-my Lord is wonderful above all i could ever imagine. this one thing i know for sure, he is sovereign and his love is perfect. that is the only ground i have to stand on at the moment, which puts me in a strange place right now. moving on.

One of the thoughts that i was pondering was the damage, and i use that word carefully, that being raised in church all of my life and knowing nothing else has done to me. you see, when one is inundated with doctrines and beliefs all of his/ her life, certain things become trivialized--things that should never be trivialized. case in point, as i was sitting in church before the aformentioned drive, there was a small video clip of the passion of the Christ playing. it reached out and grabbed me, not because i was grasping a new concept, but because it had been so ingrained into me since my childhood that it had begun to lose its reality. that is not to say that i had ceased to believe in Jesus, but that this precious act which allowed for our very ability to commune with and be reconciled to God, the foundation of my faith, had ceased to bear significance. much in the same way that "i love you" loses its value when casually used everyday as a conclusion to conversation. The value may still be there, but the emphasis and the feeling give way to familiarity. i found it to be a very dangerous and frightening place. That said, i feel as if i have begun to awaken from a long slumber. Things are moving and some of it excites me and some of it makes me sad. perhaps i will expound on that another time, because my mind is shutting down right now.

in closing, because it is late and i find myself rambling when it is late, i would just like to extend a "thank you" the the wonderful group of people that God put in my life this summer. you have all encouraged me and pushed me towards my father and i am thankful for you.

the boy

sorry if this is all a bit incoherent and not well written, it was done on impulse and i have not composed anything in quite a long time. i am still a bit rusty i'm afraid.

thank you kat for this possible future addiction.
sturat out