Inconsequential Circumstances.

"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"

Mark 8:36-37

"Problems don't hinder the will of God, they are the will of God."

I won't be able to attend college this year, and that hurts a lot.

But if I was at college right now I would loose my soul. I would loose God. I "wouldn't need Him". 

The only reason college was ever good to me was because I sought Christ there. So if He was the reason college life was good, He will be the reason home life will be good. Wherever I find Him, that is the place to be. 

Renae, if you've told yourself this once, you've told yourself a million times;

Joy is not found in circumstances! It's your heart in spite of circumstances! 

It is having God in spite of circumstances! 

If you loose this truth, you've lost your life. 

It's time to live again what you have always believed. 

Happiness.

There's a sort of happiness that just comes. A brilliant sunshine that shines and shines and stays of it's own accord. You needn't try, you needn't strive, you don't even have to think about it. Every thought is simply happy, every heart beat the rhythm of a song almost spilling out of you. (Which outbursts you only pacify by contenting yourself with smiling.)

There's a sort of happiness that is well-earned. Worked-for and well-earned. When life seems dull or it's sort of easy to fall under the spell of mediocrity and a boring disposition. This happiness is the flower that blooms in spite of such things. blossoming out of the chosen smile, the happy things you make out of life and the stars your own hands embroider above your path.

I find neither of these now. Only a fickle happiness that finds me and looses me as it will. I am at the mercy of it's whims. Laughter and fun my companions for one moment, maybe an hour. Heart ache and tears my companions the next. I cannot predict. I cannot understand. I only know when you, my friend happiness, let go a moment... I fall with no power to pick myself up. My capricious saviour from my empty life; when you leave my heart I have nothing left.

Joy is a better thing than happiness, granted. But joy cannot replace the levity which happiness brings.

Happiness, perhaps someday you will bring back your consistent sunshine.

I miss you.

Present, Past, Future. (my soul strung between)

I am at a teeter tottering place in life right now. In the present, yet with all my soul in the future. Content, yet very dissatisfied. Missing nothing in my life, missing my whole world. I am very pleased with my consistency and discipline, I am ashamed of my lazyness and lethargy.

I am constantly impatient. In a phase of life I'd rather not endure, and would gladly snap my fingers and be done with, if I could. I want the future, I want the past back. And yet, even as I grasp what now I hold in my hands it is slipping through my fingers to no where.

What I feel to be entangling and imprisoning me will very quickly vanish from my life. I know. And I will be left wishing I had done more savouring, more dwelling, more cherishing of this part of me, of who I could be, that I've neglected so long.

You forget what diamonds some people are, as distance and time makes them into a face you must struggle to recognize.

You forget the thrill of a wind, a bird, a spray of sun and cloud. The exquisiteness of solitude and facing your soul in a mirror of words. I like my own company.


So yes... Time? Fly on! I'd have it so. My future gleams brightly still on that horizon. But as you fly, forgive me if I stay the current a little when smiles and laughter and hugs and quiet and conversation and good things embrace me. I will embrace them.  Contented in this... In every snowflake every raindrop God sends splashing, dancing, greeting me on this road.

An Old Poem That Doesn't Rhyme.

Don’t forget to fall in love

If I were cupid

and sailing through the sky

I’d send an arrow through your heart

and thus, tie you

irrecoverably to all the beauties of the world

to raindrops

and birds in spring

to the smirk that turns into a smile

to long walks

and midnight talks

I’d keep you from the wolves and haters

who threaten to tare you

bit by bit

in helpless pieces. 

Never let a pair of eyes sway you

from all the hopes you hold so dear

don’t let it pass

don’t close your eyes

Look- look steadfastly

on the ugly

on the beauty

don’t let one make up for another

weigh- weigh unabashedly

let what falls short in the balance

be the determination of your choice

If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. 

Look for the gleam in 

the spirits and the hearts

look for the dash of cotton in a blue blue sky

the happy wave of branches 

in breezes that sing new melodies

New melodies

new life — too free

to fall for it anymore.

They fool you,

if they tell you people will satisfy

people will fill your heart

people break

people bash

Yes, fall in love

but not with people.