Category Archives: Faith

Faith

Good Friday

3 Comments

Today is quite the day, isn’t it?  Am I the only one who thinks it’s perfect that Good Friday landed on March 25th this year?  One real, one imaginary anniversary, that celebrate the triumph over evil.

The day love won.

But the reality of love is the cross.  Tears–pain–darkness–blood–sweat–grime–wood splinters in your skin.  God is love, and He loved us even when it meant abandoning His son to torture and death.  To love someone is not to be made happy by them.  It means choosing to hang on and never let go, and let them drag you through things you never wanted to experience and don’t know how to handle.  Loving people is painful. —My Valentine’s Day post

We say Valentine’s Day is the day we celebrate love.  But I think that it is today.  Today, that true love was revealed to mankind.

“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command.  I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business.  Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”

-John 15:13-15

Faith, Life

Waiting

11 Comments

I was given a gift card to Sears at Christmas, and I used it today to buy myself an Easter dress!  Okay, Mama and Dad might have paid for part of it. . .

It’s obviously been a long time since I got a new dress, because it’s not the fanciest thing I’ve ever owned, but I feel like Cinderella in her ball gown! 🙂  I think it’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever touched.

And Easter’s a whole week away.

It feels like forever.

But really, isn’t that a big part of what Easter is?  Waiting for Jesus.  Waiting for redemption.  Waiting for the resurrection.

Easter is about new life, and things long hoped-for being placed in our hands as a gift, for today, and for forever.

Faith, Life, Literature

More Music Videos

7 Comments

So I found more music videos since my last post that I’ve been watching, and I thought I would share them with you all!

Once again, kids should check with their parents.  Especially with the last video, as it has several scenes from movies in it, including several fantasy creatures that are a bit creepy.  Thank you!

A friend of ours sang this song at her graduation ceremony, and I liked it so much I asked Mama to help me look up a video so I could memorize it!

I’ve sort-of known this song for years, but after hearing it again at aforementioned graduation, I decided I needed to find a version I could listen to!

Another song I’ve known for almost forever.  We sang it at church when I was younger, but I could never get the order right, and I recently decided to fix that.

Another Middle Earth song. 🙂  After memorizing “I See Fire” I realized “The Last Good-Bye” was the only Hobbit credits-song I didn’t know.  Needless to say, that was unacceptable.  Still, I didn’t expect to find something this good!  It has clips from all six movies, with video of Billy Boyd singing–and several behind-the-scenes shots!  Also, Billy Boyd acted in The Lord of the Rings, so he’s singing, but also in some of the movie scenes in costume!

So, there’s what I’ve been listening to lately.  The music videos I watch are actually a pretty good peek into what goes on in my brain! 🙂

Happy Wednesday!

Faith, Literature

All That is Gold Does Not Glitter

14 Comments

So, it turns out yesterday was Aragorn’s birthday, and I missed it.  (Not a mistake I’m planning to make next year!)  And, if my friend hadn’t posted about it, I still wouldn’t know.  Thank you, Ellen! 🙂  So I thought now was a good time to post my thoughts on him.

Warning–there are several story-spoilers below, for those of you who are haven’t read or are reading The Lord of the Rings.  Sorry, I can’t talk about Aragorn without giving things away. 🙂

Continue reading All That is Gold Does Not Glitter →

Faith

Love… Because It’s Valentine’s Day

16 Comments

Love.

What comes to mind when you hear that word?  Red roses and sparkly diamonds?  Silvery moonlight?  Hearts and glitter and flowers and hugs and kisses?

The thing that we picture when we talk about love is often something nice and pretty.  We like to imagine love as safe and canny, and enjoyable.  But it’s not.  Love isn’t safe.  What comes to mind when we picture “love” should not be touchy-feely.  We like to think that if love was visible it would be pink and lovely and comfortable.

But the reality of love is the cross.  Tears–pain–darkness–blood–sweat–grime–wood splinters in your skin.

God is love, and He loved us even when it meant abandoning His son to torture and death.  To love someone is not to be made happy by them.  It means choosing to hang on and never let go, and let them drag you through things you never wanted to experience and don’t know how to handle.  Loving people is painful.

But it’s worth it–so, so worth it.  It’s so, so beautiful.

Love is the ultimate clash of beautiful and ugly.  It is healing and life running to death and pain.  Loving is impossible on our own.  We could never be brave enough.  You can only truly love someone when you pray for God’s help, and fight to bring them closer to Him.

Faith, Life

Blessings and Stories: Eternity

22 Comments

It’s been a while since I did one of these posts, so I decided to today when I couldn’t think of anything to post.  And I found quite a few things I had forgotten about writing while I was flipping through my “Blessings and Stories” notebook, so there may be some more posts like this in the future!

10/24/2013

For a long time I have believed that I will go to heaven when I die.

(Once when I was little, I decided that heaven didn’t exist, and you just sat in the dark after you died.  I’m not sure if I would have come to that conclusion if I had really thought about it, but I didn’t think too hard.)

Anyway, for a long time I have believed that I will go to heaven when I die.

But just recently it really occurred to me: heaven is something that is real, and it’s going to happen to me.

I once had a friend ask me, “Do you get dizzy when you think about forever?”  I had never gotten dizzy when I thought about forever, and I thought it was kind-of a weird question.

But at that moment, as I began to think about what heaven really meant–of seeing Christ’s face, and of spending eternity with the One who died for me–I was dizzy!

I think of taking my last breath, and knowing that everlasting joy, peace, hope, and comfort lay ahead!

And I think of Jesus, hanging on the cross, taking His last breath, and knowing that IT WAS FINISHED.  And I thought that I had had a sense of accomplishment before!

Faith, Literature

Something More

5 Comments

When someone in your family has a birthday, it makes you want to do something nice for them.  You want to make them feel special.  It’s easy to tell someone “happy birthday!”, and it usually makes them feel good.  But would we be willing to do something more?

We can have the right mentality about Christmas, but that doesn’t feel like enough, does it?

Continue reading Something More →

Faith, Life

If Christmas Isn’t So Merry Anymore

10 Comments

The older you get, the less exciting Christmas becomes.  (My sincere apologies to all my readers who are younger than I am.)

You begin realize that it’s not necessarily the best time of year, it can be kind-of stressful, and there’s always that inevitable after-Christmas-let-down.

So when you get old enough to realize you shouldn’t center the season around presents and you’ll probably just be disappointed if you do, you were never crazy about the food or decorations, and you like the music but you can’t live off jingle bells–what next?

Well, you turn to what should have been our focus in the first place–Christ.

You don’t go to a birthday party just because you want the cake (I least I hope you don’t!), you go because you want to encourage whoever is having the birthday.

The last song on Rend Collective’s Christmas album is called “For All That You Have Done”.  Jesus has a birthday because He was born to be tortured to death.  He has done everything for us.  Given us everything.

The least we can do is celebrate His birthday for Him.