Beloved Visitor

I still have a lot of reading to do before classes start in the morning, but I was reading a book that's required for one of my classes...and it simply threw out this "Beloved Visitor," and I couldn't stop my mind from wandering.

Therefore a blog post is due and rather than posting something that I scratched up the other night when I couldn't sleep, and rather than finishing my articles for English, I will instead marvel at this concept of "Beloved Visitor."

I've had Timshel on repeat the last 3 in a half hours, the cover that my dear from Kacie Williams made. This song has weaved around my soul this past year in a half in a very significant and deep, deep way.

How rich this past year of my life has been.

I am constantly reminded of how significant stories are by those around me, by simple things, by readings, by writings. By the lives unfolding and blossoming right in front of me.

Stories blossom connectivity. They truly do. Which, as a result produces something meaningful. Something with valued meaning. And it takes route. And it grows and grows.

What if people aren't alive to their story, to their connectivity because they haven't felt it? What was there to be connected to? What was there to effect? Community is so essential. The lack of produced the feeling of not feeling connected to something larger. To something much, much deeper. There was nothing to invest. Nothing to owe ones care to.

I think we're all supposed to be awakened to this...reality, if you will. There's this unshakable mandate within a community, you know? Something so massive. And I think it is this aspect of "Beloved Visitor." What if each of us took on this role. Believed in it and just dove right in?

Beloved Visitor.

You. Are a Beloved Visitor. Let that sink in and let that take route. And let it grow. Let it flourish. And chase it with all of your might. Don't suffocate it. Embrace it and live.

It just contains so much beauty---you are beloved. And you were crafted for something far beyond comprehension. Your life is a glimpse of it. Your life is a thread of the fabric. Your life is a fraction of time spent on this earth. But you are worthy. Deeply beloved.

Why not run after it? Why not clutch onto and never stop? We are not our owns. We're not. It's that simple.

God beats this heart of mine and yours.

We are His Beloved Visitors.

Let your Being be that.

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.