Lemons.

Every morning I wake up to the chirping of birds in the lemon tree right next to my bedroom window. Although I share my room with multiple people, I get the joy in sleeping right next to the window---where the sun, shining through the lemon tree, wakes me.

I love this tree. Especially on rainy mornings. The rain drips off the leafs and the lemons, and I go outside to pick the lemons to make lemonade. Open the balcony doors to hear the rain and turn on Bon Iver's album.

I can't quite capture the significance of this tree to me just yet.

But, I enjoy the breeze that moves it, the lemons it provides me with, and the nesting of birds in harmony.

Summer has arrived.

nothing more to it than that.

A post is long overdue, but I want my words to be precious as you glaze over them.

As music flows in the background of this coffee shop through my ears, I am trying my hardest to not retreat in my exhaustion.

How beautiful it is to know that you're exhausting yourself for something you're running after, especially alongside an army of individuals. Individuals with names, smiles, laughter, heartache, tears, character, and joy.

Part of me feels entirely insane for going back on the road, but why does our comfort lie in relaxing and not stepping over our limits and our boundaries? Who am I to step down because the work is hard and exhausting? How liberating my life has become to poor out my soul into something.

I've come to realize that I do not believe in a life lived too short. It's not tragic. Painful, but not unfortunate. What an honor it would be to know that the One who supplied you with life was awaiting your arrival. Had taken you home because the love within you was used to His glory.

Sometimes this is hard for me to remember, to cherish, and to even believe.

How patient and all encompassing is His love though. I just forget to return to it sometimes.

A lot of the times, He fills me though regardless.

So. Grab my hand, and let's go.

I cannot imagine my life ever becoming a routine.

The work I have done, that I will continue to do, with Invisible Children has helped me come alive, it has taught me how to live, how to love, and how to glorify our living God in it all.

I have driven into so many sunsets and sunrises----the Lord sustains us, and the beauty that stretches through the sky is His alone.

We are all so ignorant of our surrounds, but we can at least drop our fear and run towards the compassion that is forever liberating. And you know what, we can try, we can apply ourselves. We can grab a hold of the glory, the love, the strength, and the might of our Lord. And we can jump, we can run, we can dance, we can inspire, we can grow, we can learn, we can love, we can laugh.

We can exhaust ourselves in His majesty.

How beautiful.

So. Grab my hand, and let's go. Let's exhaust ourselves in our heavenly Father's majesty. Until our breath is taken away by the One who supplied it.

We don't reap the harvest for ourselves.

God's eyes and our sunglasses

Do you know the times when you’re listening to those songs and they just seem to be causing you to float along in the car, as if you were a part of the story the song was portraying? And in all reality you truly are a part of it, because you make it your own story.

I always connect things to something. I guess I’m more sentimental than the next person that comes along.

I keep writing things in my head and never put them down, and when I finally do feel like articulating them, it’s far too late. However, I scribbled this next connection down so I would find the time to write it out.

It’s nearly fascinating how much more beautiful the world can look through a different lens. Particularly the pair of lenses that are held together as your sunglasses.

And so I’ve been throwing this realization everyone has when they put on a pair of sunglasses around in my mind; that their surroundings just look more alive. And what if this is the way God sees the world? He sees the truly beautiful creation that He intentionally orchestrated, and we get a chance to peer into that once we pick up the sunglasses.

But, the lens doesn’t always have to be a pair of sunglasses. When we embrace this reality that our own vision, our own understanding cannot do us any justice, we begin to view the world in our Father’s eyes. And it is indeed, a much more beautiful world.

However, we don’t always wear the sunglasses and we don’t always embrace His creation. Sometimes we just blindly stumble through, but in all truth, we cannot see the creation fully unless we embrace it. And that in itself involves more than our own sight and knowledge. It takes us picking up the lens, quite literally and figuratively. And peering into a world that is overflowing with His vast strength, promise, love, and beauty.

What a gift He has given us.

What if certain things were created so that we could get a glimpse of this? That we could experience more fully the way God loves us and His creation.

Till Kingdom Come.

I didn't bring my camera with me to this adventure of mine here in California, but maybe that's a good thing.

For the first time I am not capturing every waking beauty of God's creation on a camera, I think it's time for me to take the beauty as it is in it's natural state.

I cannot even articulate the incredible might and glory I have witnessed through every single sunrise and sunset here. Sunsets are so rich in indescribable glory, and my heart cannot contain the immense amount of love God has for each of us.

Sometimes, I love to think that God let's us pick what the sunset or sunrise will look like. Like every person who is welcomed into the kingdom gets to swarm together colors on a pallet and create, in the most literal sense, the only pallet of colors that ever meshed together in such a way.

It has been such a weird concept to try and grasp the fact that people have died, and people have already experienced what it is like to be face to face with the Almighty, with our Father, with our Abba. And it makes me tremble to think that some of my friends have experienced this. And it is because I cannot comprehend the Lord's glory. I cannot and will never know how much my Father loves me while I am on this earth because my mind can only process what is transitory and what is conditional.

I can only contain a glimpse of God's love, and that is more than effective. There is so much beauty and indescribable might in God's love, that it breaks my heart when people never look up to grab a hold of His constant presence. Or to acknowledge when the wind weaves through your hair, and you take a deep breath in because you know you are alive by His grace.

I think it is a blessing to not have my camera with me. It gives me a time to capture His love in a new window. Perhaps this will be healing for my heart and strengthening for my soul. To take a moment as it is and smile, breathe in, and thank God for it.

It is just so strange to think about the absence of a friend, the conversations you shared, the memories, the laughs, and the journeys you embraced together. And to face the reality that they are in the presence of the One who cared more than anyone, and who has finally taken them home.

And it is the most beautiful thing to know whole-heartedly that your friend lived for Christ because he knew that He was his source of life. And that this life was intended to embrace His living hope and to run with endurance, to not fear, but to thrive in His love. Because you are who you are by Him.

There is so much to be learned by those who surround you, it is down right bizarre.

But, we were made to refresh each other's spirits and I think that is so special.

Through life and through death there is happiness, and I am continually learning that these two are arm in arm.

To live is Christ, and to die, is gain.

We have such an outstanding ability to embrace a hope that surpasses our knowledge and just run with it. Our potential is incredible. And when we take that and run, it is the most beautiful thing I've ever known.

24. “Jesus Christ is my Savior, my world and my aspiration. His grace, mercy and provision has blessed me beyond all imaging through the most amazing group of family and friends, experiences, dreams and love. I want to extend even a small glimpse of that unending agape love to anyone I can in the hope that they will be able to know the freedom I know in Christ, to know that this place is not home, and life everlasting is only to be spent in adoration and complete awe of God and his majesty in heaven. “-Chris

We don't reap the harvest for ourselves-

our love is bound in each other.

And that is the beauty of life.