But he gives us more grace.

I was in the middle of Hebrews while we were at leader weekend... But when I went to the woods, this (James 4) is what I happened to read. The day the speaker talked about God's jealousy. This passage is far more perfect for what I'm learning right now that I can describe---God is so big--but here it is. 

         What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? ² You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. ³ When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.  
        ⁴ You adulterous people,^[a] don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. ⁵ Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us^[b]? ⁶ But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
                      “God opposes the proud
                       but shows favor to the humble.”^{[c]
        7} Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸ Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. ⁹ Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰ Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.



I screw up, but grace abounds. Beautiful

More made to kiss than to cry bitterly for pain...

I am such a girl. And more-over, I am a girl who loves almost everything written by Oscar Wilde.

I know, I know, what a contradiction: a Christain who loves the writings of a hedonist, and a gay one at that. But I can't help but hope--alot--that De Profundis (and the conversion it beautifuly describes) was sincere, and I will get to be friends with this guy in heaven. Because, as broken, broken, fallen as he was, this was a guy who longed for beauty, albeit in all the wrong places.

A C.S. Lewis quote describes what I mean well; "I believe, to be sure, that any man who reaches Heaven will find that what he abandoned (even in plucking out his right eye) has not been lost: that the kernel of what he was really seeking, even in his most depraved wishes, will be there, beyond expectation, waiting for him in 'the High Countries'."

So, regardless of Wilde's depravity, I find God's heart for me in Wind Flowers:

"La Bella Donna Della Mia Mente"

My limbs are wasted with a flame,

My feet are sore with travelling,

For, calling on my Lady's name,

My lips have now forgot to sing.

 

O Linnet in the wild-rose brake

Strain for my Love thy melody,

O Lark sing louder for love's sake,

My gentle Lady passeth by.

 

She is too fair for any man

To see or hold his heart's delight,

Fairer than Queen or courtesan

Or moonlit water in the night.

 

Her hair is bound with myrtle leaves,

(Green leaves upon her golden hair!)

Green grasses through the yellow sheaves

Of autumn corn are not more fair.

 

Her little lips, more made to kiss

Than to cry bitterly for pain,

Are tremulous as brook-water is,

Or roses after evening rain.

 

Her neck is like white melilote

Flushing for pleasure of the sun,

The throbbing of the linnet's throat

Is not so sweet to look upon.

 

As a pomegranate, cut in twain,

White-seeded, is her crimson mouth,

Her cheeks are as the fading stain

Where the peach reddens to the south.

 

O twining hands! O delicate

White body made for love and pain!

O House of love! O desolate

Pale flower beaten by the rain!

Great finds

I know. I just posted. This was just so great, I wanted to share.

Here!

"Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of God our father is this: to visit widows and orphans in their distress..."

The first week of August, I will be taking off on an adventure with some of my very favourite people in the world: my girls, most importantly and obviously, (and the boys too, I guess :), my leader team, and an assortment of my favourite high-school buddies. I am both delighted and scared for this trip. I have no doubt that after a week of crazy fun, and caring for the needs of a cabin full of girls, and seeing God move in awesome ways, I will be delighted and exhausted.

As soon as camp is over, I will be leaving for Guatemala with my 13 year old aunt, and my dad's step mom. We will be spending a week working in an orphanage for young children in the mountains. And as scared as I am for camp, I am terrified of this. I'm terrified of actually speaking Spanish, for real. There will be no "como se dice [insert English word]," but there will be heavy accents, and a blend of Indian words I won't know at all. There will be big jungle bugs. I will have to go through customs. For the first time, I will not be a citizen of the country I am in. I will be going with a woman who I haven't seen more than 5 times a year since I was12. Best and worst of all, there will be little kiddos, made in the image of God, who are heart broken, and lonely, and want nothing more than someone to call Papa.

I follow the blog of a Christan writer named Leslie Ludy, and this was the first part of it today:

Psalm 68:5 says that God is a Father to the fatherless, and He “sets the solitary in families.”   Isaiah 58 says that those who “bring the poor that are cast out into their house” will be blessed by God.  Adoption is very close to God’s heart.  In fact, adoption is an amazing picture of the Gospel.  When we receive Christ, we are adopted into the family of God, and receive the amazing, unmatched privilege of being His sons and daughters for eternity.  A “forever family” is the number one desire of every orphan child.  One orphan worker told me recently of a six-year-old girl in Guatemala who cries herself to sleep every night because she longs so desperately for a family.   Millions of children echo her cries.

The orphanage that we are going to has no religious affiliation. How do I go to these children, and see them, and love them, and not spend every moment telling them that they have a father who loves them, who died for them, who will never leave or forsake them? Regardless, I am excited because I know God will use this experience to show me his heart and how it breaks for his children.

Pretties, Pretties, Pretties!!!

So, I recently discovered pinterest... Thanks Andy Lay and Facebook.
I'm already mildly obsessed (It's 2:26 as I write this... I've been looking at pretties for hours.)

As a result of this newfound obsession, I have two pretty fabric flowers sitting my desk right now. I made them myself! I wore a yellow one in my hair today.

Anybody who knows me well would know that I really love flowers, to a ridiculous extent. The sweet williams in the coke bottle on my desk make my day. I dressed the other day to realize that, on my entire outfit there were no less than 10 flowers (on my skirt, shirt, in my hair, braclet, ring, earing, and shoes). For my birthday, I want a new orchid.

I've been virtually drooling over these shoe clips (really everything in B Poetic's store--its all flowers) on Etsy for-ev-er, but, at $30, I never really planned on getting them. Now, in light of my diy success, I'm determined to make them myself.

In addition to pretty little flowers, I'm finding a million tutorials on pinterest, so I want to learn how to sew now. Soon, I'll be able to make all these pretty things I see, like this:

or this:



And one day, I'll have my own house, then I'll make stuff like this:

and this:

I'm going to get to bed, now. I have to call my grandma tomorrow, so she can teach me how to sew :)