learning to breathe

"do not be anxious about anything,
but in everything, through prayer and petition,
with thanksgiving,
present your requests to God.
and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,
will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus"
philippians 4:6-7

it's the last stretch.
time to finish strong.

sink or swim

reality check.
there is no rewind button.
no matter how much you conjure up alternate scenarios,
wish you did something differently,
cry and complain, throw a fit,
or get angry about it,
it won't make even a slight difference.
what's done is done.
all you can really do is accept it and move on.
or be miserable and waste your precious time with a furrowed brow
and a frown on your face.
drown in despair or float hopefully.
there's a reason why things happen the way they do.
we may not be able to see it just then, or even in the near or distant future.
but we can take great comfort and peace in knowing and trusting that God has His reasons for absolutely every little thing in our lives.
we're in good hands.

I will end with this though:
it is better to be safe than sorry.
it's an easy one to remember,
but an even easier one to forget.

la vie en rose

"[love] keeps no record of wrongs"
the concept is a difficult one for me to practice.
it's definitely a challenge to forget certain wrongs that have been done to me, especially when I have a pretty decent capacity for long term memory.
small things or seemingly big things, it doesn't matter--they all fall under the same category of transgression.
but lately, especially after crossway's series on love, I've been reminded that to truly love the brothers and sisters that God has surrounded me with, I must forgive and, more importantly, just forget about all these "injustices."
there just isn't any point in having a separate compartment in the brain to collect all these memories.

I think we all have different definitions of how it would look like to live life through rose colored glasses.
for me, it would be to live life without constantly reminding myself of the insignificant memories of the past.
time to make the ideal a reality.

my dad sent me this in the morning:
"We are all full of weakness and errors; let us all mutually pardon each other our follies: it is the first law of nature."
-Voltaire

true that.

beautiful disaster

today I broke a zipper on one of my favorite jackets.
as the pieces fell in a cluttered mess onto the floor,
I couldn't help but point out how many parts there were.
I was astonished at the complexity of such a common item.
then I thought,
"if a zipper is this intricate,
how much more elaborate are the inner workings of man?"

mind over matter

for some time now

unknowingly
I have been dwelling so peacefully
in the eye of the storm.

the delusion is shattered.
that dream is gone.
truth hits.



in the chaos,
in confusion
I know You're sovereign still.