A Year to Stay the Course

Happy New Years to everyone! Hopefully you are able to celebrate with family and friends.

I want to pose a challenge to those willing for this new year. It is a beautiful example of staying the course and I thought it fitting to share here.

My church is taking the time to read through the Bible together this year. I have done this before and found the gospel so enlightened by the things I read throughout the Old Testament. As a result of that year I actually fell in love with the Old Testament and constantly use it as a defense of God's immense love instead of the wrath so often attributed to those scriptures.

I will be posting the daily readings here in hopes that 1. someone may see it who wouldn't have otherwise and 2. that i may stay on top of these readings every day. You can print yourself a pamphlet for the entire year complete with checklist, here. (Image was also taken from this link). I will continue my regular random posts of pictures and whatnots. This will be just a little extra added =) I hope everyone has a wonderful time tonight and stays safe. God bless!

Exploring Hidden Valley

I got a new zoomy lens for my camera for Christmas and drove through Hidden Valley to play with it. However... Hidden Valley is slightly disappointing in size so I spent more time at a lake. I'm so thankful for the wonderful little Christmas I had with my family. I got a Saviour wrapped in human flesh for Christmas and despite the excitement, the family, and the presents... I will never forget that. Emmanuel God is with us ♥ And I find these pictures to be good evidence of that...

I have known this man for six years now, today.

A Thought on Love

This blog is a dreary place. I have thoroughly abused it due to the abundance of life I've been fighting through lately. I had a thought I'd like to catalog here because I don't have it all figured out just yet.

People say they are in search for love. Some don't say it at all but it's written plainly all over their actions and relationships. It is perhaps the most strong desire in the world... the want for love.

But I propose that if you indeed own this way of thinking... then you really don't understand love at all. It is not in the nature of love to be self-serving. So that thing you are searching for cannot fully be understood because you've already set out about it the wrong way... I'd argue, love finds you.

I believe humans only have the capacity to love because it is indicative of a larger truth. Surely our existence and joy cannot rest on the messy type of love humans offer. Our expectations will always be higher than any human can dare dream to fulfill. However, the love shared throughout your daily life gives glimpses into a much larger purpose. You were created to be loved... but if that were true, why do so many people strive and fight and struggle to find it? Why does society prepare you for it throughout the different stages of your life? And yet even when people believe they've found it... divorce is an ever-present threat that looms in the backs of our minds. Perhaps we aren't looking in the right place people. We've sold out for something cheap and shiny that is completely hollowed-out and holds nothing.

I know I struggle to find love... because it has already found me. It already holds me and I often refuse to take notice. Because that means I'm actually worth something... that I hold the utmost value.

How alien in a culture that demands I strive for something to receive the payoff.

Times like this I wonder how someone could find a God like that offensive.

I Run in Circles Well

This is a worship song called Running in Circles. I am celebrating being able to use my almost perfectly back to normal voice after waiting three weeks or so for this cold to pass. The remnants remain but they cannot stop me from singing =) This is a beautiful song and I will post the lyrics below so that you too may hopefully see the beauty in it.

I'm so forgetful, but You always remind me

You're the only one who brings me peace

You're the only one who bring me peace

So I come, Lord I come,

I come, Lord I come

To tell You I love You, To tell You I need You.,

To tell You there's no other place for me but in Your arms

To tell You I'm sorry, for running in circles

For placing my focus on the waves, not on Your face

You're the only one who brings me peace

Yeah You're the only one who brings me peace