children of war

Amazing article by Tahrier Muon that helped me understand better and hope bigger: We, the children of war in South Sudan, reject this war

sultry summer, shooting stars, sinking sand

I haven't blogged in a long time. I've probably lost all my faithful readers. There's just not a lot exciting going on in my life right now.

That's not exactly true. I've spent some beautiful (if oppressively hot) days at camp. I've been calling all my freshmen mentees and getting to know them. I've been making homemade ice cream and watching meteor showers with my little sisters. All of which has been great.

Other breaking news:
- It's hot as Hades here in Kansas. I ate ice cream for lunch today.
- I ordered all of my textbooks for this fall and only spent $68.54. Oh, the benefits of being a political science major.
- I saw thirty-five shooting stars last night. They were magnificent. Number 24 was the most incredible one I've ever seen: the fire trail in the atmosphere stayed glowing for a good fifteen seconds.
- I get to move back in with my beautiful roommate in five days.

There are a few things coming up that I'm super excited about, and a few things that I'm terrified about, but I've been reminded in recent days that "My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness." That is where I'm standing. It's the only place I can stand; everything else is pretty shaky right now: relationships, plans, achievements. Yet Christ has proven himself faithful and I cling to that once again.

My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
but wholly lean on Jesus' name.

When darkness veils his lovely face,
I rest on his unchanging grace;
in every high and stormy gale
my anchor holds within the veil.

His oath, his covenant, his blood
support me in the whelming flood;
when every earthly prop gives way,
he then is all my hope and stay.

When he shall come with trumpet sound,
oh, may I then in him be found,
dressed in his righteousness alone,
faultless to stand before the throne.

On Christ the solid rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand.

All other ground is sinking sand.

this is haarlem

I am in love with Haarlem.

Haarlem is a charming town twenty minutes from vibrant Amsterdam, and ever since I got back I've been scheming ways I could go live there for a year or two. University? Tour guide? Church plant? You only think I'm joking...

I hope this video shows you just a bit of the incredible beauty of this city, this country, and the Dutch people. They were my favorite.

yes please!

I have a video of my pictures from London that I've been trying to upload here, but I'm having trouble getting the size down enough that Blogger will accept it.

Until then, if I could live any kind of life, I think this would be the ultimate: click here.

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil— this is the gift of God." Ecclesiastes 3:11-14

cracked in a hundred places

Hey all.
What better way to explain how I feel than to echo the words of my heroine: Anne of Green Gables?

"Anne," said Marilla abruptly, "Miss Stacy was here this afternoon when you were out with Diana."
Anne came back from her other world with a start and a sigh.
"Was she? Oh, I'm so sorry I wasn't in. Why didn't you call me, Marilla? Diana and I were only over in the Haunted Wood. It's lovely in the woods now. All the little wood things- the ferns and the satin leaves and the crackerberries- have gone to sleep, just as if somebody had tucked them away until spring under a blanket of leaves. I think it was a little gray fairy with a rainbow scarf that came tiptoeing along the last moonlight night and did it. Diana wouldn't say much about that, though. Diana has never forgotten the scolding her mother gave her about imagining ghosts into the Haunted Wood. It had a very bad effect on Diana's imagination. It blighted it. Mrs. Lynde says Myrtle Bell is a blighted being. I asked Ruby Gillis why Myrtle was blighted, and Ruby said she guessed it was because her young man had gone back on her. Ruby Gillis thinks of nothing but young men, and the older she gets the worse she is. Young men are all very well in their place, but it doesn't do to drag them into everything, does it? Diana and I are thinking seriously of promising each other that we will never marry but be nice old maids and live together forever. Diana hasn't quite made up her mind though, because she thinks perhaps it would be nobler to marry some wild, dashing, wicked young man and reform him. Diana and I talk a great deal about serious subjects now, you know. We feel that we are so much older than we used to be that it isn't becoming to talk of childish matters. It's such a solemn thing to be almost fourteen, Marilla. Miss Stacy took all us girls who are in our teens down to the brook last Wednesday, and talked to us about it. She said we couldn't be too careful what habits we formed and what ideals we acquired in our teens, because by the time we were twenty our characters would be developed and the foundation laid for our whole future life. And she said if the foundation was shaky we could never build anything really worth while on it. Diana and I talked the matter over coming home from school. We felt extremely solemn, Marilla. And we decided that we would try to be very careful indeed and form respectable habits and learn all we could and be as sensible as possible, so that by the time we were twenty our characters would be properly developed. It's perfectly appalling to think of being twenty, Marilla. It sounds so fearfully old and grown up."

"To think that this is my twentieth birthday, and that I've left my teens behind me forever," said Anne, who was curled up on the hearth-rug with Rusty in her lap, to Aunt Jamesina who was reading in her pet chair. They were alone in the living room. Stella and Priscilla had gone to a committee meeting and Phil was upstairs adorning herself for a party.
"I suppose you feel kind of sorry" said Aunt Jamesina. "The teens are such a nice part of life. I'm glad I've never gone out of them myself."
Anne laughed. "You never will, Aunty. You'll be eighteen when you should be a hundred. Yes, I'm sorry, and a little dissatisfied as well. Miss Stacy told me long ago that by the time I was twenty my character would be formed, for good or evil. I don't feel that it's what it should be. It's full of flaws."
"So's everybody's," said Aunt Jamesina cheerfully. "Mine's cracked in a hundred places. Your Miss Stacy likely meant that when you are twenty your character would have got its permanent bent in one direction or 'tother, and would go on developing in that line. Don't worry over it, Anne. Do your duty by God and your neighbor and yourself, and have a good time. That's my philosophy and it's always worked pretty well."

Sigh. Yep. It is what it is.
I have to admit, I haven't really been excited about a birthday since I turned fifteen. But it's okay. I am at peace (for the moment). It's time to do some more growing up, some more changing and learning and marveling. I am not what I ought to be. I am not what I want to be. I am not what I hope to be in another world.
But by the grace of God, I am not what I was.

"From birth I was cast upon you; from my mother's womb you have been my God." Psalm 22:10

"Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live! You can make this choice by loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and committing yourself firmly to him. This is the key to your life." Deuteronomy 30:19-20a

"May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it." I Thessalonians 5:23-24

the grace of humility

I was reading Jeremy Taylor, seventeenth century bishop and author, today. He had such strong words to say about humility and pride that they almost seem harsh. But perhaps still true, a bracing icebath? He wrote:
Some people spend their time dreaming of greatness... Although there is nothing directly evil in this, it is the offspring of an inner evil and has nothing whatsoever to do with the obtaining of humility.
Where is the balance between not ignoring the gifts and abilities God has given me and seeking humility? It seems like I dream of my life going two different directions. One is the direction of achievement, success, striving, networking, climbing the ladder, seeking influence and power for the sake of helping people and doing good, impressing, shining, excelling. It is a shiny future. It can make use of some of the aptitudes God has given me. But how does it coexist with Thomas a Kempis' advice about finding peace and true liberty: "...seek the lower places in life, dying to the need to be recognized and important"?
The alternative is that I purposefully do not seek achievement. Find a way to love people in a humble way, though no less vigorously. Own fewer things instead of more. Live an "ordinary" life of great joy in more elemental, less sophisticated endeavors. But am I then ignoring some of the unique gifts God has given me? Am I hiding, doing the easier thing?
How do we strive for both excellence and humility?

"Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death- even death on a cross." Philippians 2:5-8

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men," Colossians 3:23