God Is Using Me?

"Can't you tell? You are a light to those around you! You're like a tower of strength around here."

I hear her words above the clamour of the warehouse.
"But if you only knew how weak I am though. I have my moments! My life would be such a mess if I didn't have God though, honestly. God is the light in my life, and if I in turn shine any light it is only God using me!"
All I can say.

"But surely you can see that God is using you?"

I mumble something. I'm not sure if I can see it...
I'm forever afraid my smiling and kind front might be something like the "whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." which Jesus talks about in Matthew 23. Too often I struggle to consistently pray or read my Bible. Too often my own desires become the priority in my heart. Too often I fail God... Too often to be used, surely.

But her words give me hope. Her words make me glad. To have made some difference, any difference for good?

I am so glad.

I know it is God who has given me this job, it is He who has given me the strength to do well at this job, it is He who has given me the opportunity to make so many friends of my coworkers, it is He who worked out the confusing mess of my schedules (because I wouldn't work on Sundays) and allowed me to be hired full-time now and at the location five minutes from my house.

God is good. All I can say.

Humbled. All I can be.

God Gives A Song

Christmas lights outside and all over this world sparkle, glisten, sing their own song. And I like to light my little peppermint candle sometimes to remind myself that I too have a song. I like to pause and stare at the snowflakes outside the windows here and there because I too have a song. I like to smile big and laugh and love because I too have a song.

My song is a song of a wretched turn of events and a life going far different than I wished it would and more hurt than I ever hoped to feel... But a song, yes, is what I find in all this. For my hurt, my confusion, my wretchedness is here from God and working for my benefit continually in spite of my 38,359,472+ failures. My song is a song of God. Of lessons taught me, of lessons I'm learning, and will learn.

I thank God for the light He brings, because I am finally feeling it this Christmas. I have a song. Not because everything in life is going my way. Or I will ever get exactly what I seem to want right now. But because, no matter what happens, regardless of all my petty, human wishes.... God is good, life is good. As long as He blesses, life is good. I just need to learn to recognize and bask in the blessings of God instead of focusing and looking for this world's stupid counterfeits.

I will seek God's pleasure. and from this moment forward, as long as God is pleased with me and who I am and what I do... the rest of everybody's opinions and judgments don't matter a mite. not even a tiny bit.

I know I'll be judged.... I'll always be judged. And that can hurt, and that's why I must look away and live a confident and happy life of seeking the only approval that matters at all.

My God, my Father, my Saviour loves me! 
Hang human opinions!

"Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book? When I cry unto thee, then shall mine enemies turn back: this I know; for God is for me. In God will I praise his word: in the Lord will I praise his word. In God have I put my trust: I will not be afraid what man can do unto me."
Psalm 56:8-11

"Shew me a token for good; that they which hate me may see it, and be ashamed: because thou, Lord, hast holpen me, and comforted me."
Psalm 86:17

A Poem That Doesn't Rhyme About Imperfection.

Why strive we so?
Why make we perfection our aim?

In a world of inevitable
mitigation to every joy
Perfection endlessly sacrificed
at the altar of reality

Never light
unless in it's embrace
darkness will cower

Never joy
but after the laughter
tears find cause for
realization

Never silence
but sounds clinging
to the air
from somewhere
sometime

Never love
but hate coiled
growing from the hurt
the very love produced

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.