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Pining.

I’m pining, much like a tree, for growth. 

These days I feel a self imposed weight- 

weight of the gap between who I was a handful of years ago and now. 

Do gaps, in their nature, wish to be filled? It feels so. 

I am pining for a desire to read the word of the Lord out of joy 

and to overflow from it. 

Looking back, it seemed as though there was a clear time where I was filling and pouring out my cup in a healthy rhythm. In the midst of that season, it was just life. Now it is something worth pining over. 

It seems that I have become restless with the filling as seasons have changed. 

I stopped waiting for the fill and tipped myself over instead. I emptied every drop and then tried to rest with an empty reserve. 

How could I expect rest in a wasteland? 

I am forced to ask myself: Who is my safety in the desert? 

Oh, my soul knows it very well. Jesus is my safety. 

I often forget in my heart and mind of the safe embrace of Jesus. I remember more of how far I have wandered, of how much harder it seems to see Jesus in his pursuit of me- when did it become about my aptitude?

Jesus doesn’t need me to see him coming toward me for him to take the steps.

I think again to the season of fruit. I long and pine for it, yet simultaneously disregard my inconsistency and continue on, barren.

 Consistency is healthy. Consistency is helpful. Jesus always and utterly does the hard work of growth in our hearts and souls, but consistency in talking to, reading about and resting in Jesus is helpful to my weary heart and mind. 

Lord Jesus, I know that your spirit alone can lead me into a place where I joyfully seek you, not out of comparison or duty, but joy. 

And I want it to happen over night. I want to toil over this. But Abba Father, you wish for me to rest in you and let obedience overflow from my trust in you. You wish to knit me into your understanding of my restless heart. I can’t believe how well you know my heart! I can’t believe I get to serve an intimate God, who is joyfully bothered with what makes me restless and astray. 

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2:52 AM. THIS is the moment I start blog-posting again... Really, Emily? Yet the words flow..

…It’s actually simple in this moment. In this moment I can understand something so clearly. It’s that Jesus is good. A goodness that is irrelative to his innumerable blessings and capability to bless. Think about it. Think about one friend who you see as good in your life, yet you yourself have never directly been treated kindly or blessed in any which way by them. Why do you think they are good, then?

Is anyone not gripping onto what they bring to the table?

It is far from burdensome to label that person-the one we just thought about- as good. We just know them and see them as good.

And we mistake their (and our own) offering as generosity from a budding goodness. Where does that come from? The generosity seems too carefully calculated to be what is pure goodness.

Oh, my sweet friends. Jesus is the true and purest form of this kind of friend. He is goodness. And he does have something to bring to the table. Actually, he has everything. And it’s not because he’s trying to win our approval and compete. It’s because he is Jesus; the radically intentional and loyal king set on high to rule all of our days...clothed in the glistening majesty of total glory (twenty-four carrot glory, baby) and dripping in a blood soaked in our sin. 

[I’m still working on that subjective AND objective praise thing.]

xoxo,

em

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everything I lost in the garden I find again in the Father

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Hannah Westby

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just because you struggle with sin doesn’t mean your faith is worthless

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Bitterness.

Bitterness is one that must be approached like this: every day your soul must be reminded of a love that has seeped into the cracks of your wary, sinful heart. 

The ways in which water flows between rocks-graceful and persistent- and embraces every granule of sand, that is how this love must seep. 

That is how this love has seeped. It has entered into the courts of the un-resolved, un-attended to. The spaces we hold on to that have yet to be sealed and sealed well. This love, this love. Oh the sweet love of Jesus. 

If our own souls are not reminded, (oh please, Lord, remind me) then what shall we grasp when the knife sinks in deep, when the edge slips beneath our feet? 

This love is the reason to consider the rock-like heart my bitter soul begets. 

Being “soft” is brave. Letting go of pain is brave. Responding to your bitterness in a way that has your heart’s health in mind is brave.

.......The skyscrapers of grudges make millions of dollars, won’t you be poor with me? 

Release // Bitterness

Inhale // This love, a love of and from Jesus Christ

Wake up this day and journey with me from rocks to clay, Amen. 

{I was feeling poetic (and bitter) this morning. Thankful for a God who reminds me of the sweetness of his love and the kindness of his son when I turn away.}

xoxo, 

em

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Talking Out Loud.

(Hello!!!!! It’s been a while.)

I guess I’ve been talking to myself lately. I’ve been having a lot of heart-to-heart conversations with my heart, ironically. And with my mind. 

I’ve been talking to God too. I write this now in the mess of my room, with a single beam of sunlight stretching across my keyboard from my bedside window. I write this with peace, but also with perplex postured at the inner workings of my soul. 

Today I found myself arguing with someone. I found that neither of us were really feeling heard by one another. And those are the worst kind of arguments. I found myself saying, (to myself, of course), “but that does not disregard them letting me down. It doesn’t disregard them falling so short of the words they speak to me, for not taking their own advice.

In any regard, I am not proposing that these feelings are invalid- but perhaps that they don’t quite align with the radical truth I cherish. The truth that in Jesus, we are designed to TRADE our discontentment  and arguments for joy...to TRADE our sorrows for joy...to TRADE our own failures for joy...to TRADE our sin & death for the JOY of resurrection life because of that fact- Jesus resurrected and overcame.

[ Side note: This isn’t the same thing as pretending to be content when in reality, you have unrest and discontentment welling up inside of you. That’s not the message I’m trying to convey- of a mere sweeping under the carpet of life. I am writing this to remind us of the choice we have to choose joy. Even if we feel uncomfortable or insecure when other’s point out the flaws in us. We can choose not to point right back- but act in understanding and love. 

Jesus did not die on the cross and resurrect preceding for us to keep both. Let’s let go of our discontent and repetitive arguments and trade them for the true joy and peace that Jesus offers us!

If I truly strive for my life to retell the sweet story of Jesus’ redemption, then I’m thinkin’ maybe that my strive itself, is why these thoughts came into my mind today. And I am nothing but grateful for it. I’m grateful for the moments when God stops me in my tracks; a time when he gently says “Em, why are you holding them to a standard of perfection?”]

Isn’t it so easy to do that? To hold others, and often ourselves, to this crippling and unattainable standard of perfection? 

We must call attention to the position of our hearts when we feel like someone doesn’t have the right to tell us something, simply because they are imperfect.

Guess what? You’re not perfect either.

Playing the blame game...Pointing out flaws... We do it too, ya know? It’s not just your coworker or just your mom or just your sister or just your teacher or just your significant other. We call people out when we could be spending our time working out the same issues. In Matthew chapter 7, verse 3, Matthew writes “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” (NIV)

Let’s bring all this back to one thing: it’s about our response. Am I going to respond out of my pride and do the same to them? Resorting to the classic “Last time I checked....” comeback accompanied by an exhausted eyeroll? 

 Or

....am I going to boldly TRADE my discontentment, my pride, my pain, my trials&tribulations- for the glorious JOY of the Lord?

I choose joy. And I choose it only by the grace given freely by the resurrected one, Jesus Christ our Lord! 

xoxo,

em

I write this because today I was the one who resorted to the “Last time I checked....” and figured it may have the chance at being helpful to my fellow humans by writing it all out- play by play. 

Revelations 1:17-19

“When I saw him, I fell at his feet as if I were dead. But he laid his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid! I am the First and the Last. I am the living one. I died, but look—I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave. “Write down what you have seen—both the things that are now happening and the things that will happen.” 

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Jesus Christ went more willingly to the cross than we do to the throne of grace.

Thomas Watson  (via godmoves)

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More than anything, I need Jesus; let me never forget a single moment of that truth, because He is the only one who will calm storms and revive my soul. I need Him just as I need the air in my lungs, or the warmth of the sun. Jesus Christ is not an accessory to my life, He is my life.

T.B. LaBerge // Go Now (via tblaberge)

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The embrace of weakness, vulnerability, and gentleness is not a strategy for success. It is simply the only way to participate in the life of Christ. In the end, following Jesus isn’t separated into followers and leaders. We are all followers. Those who will humbly embody weakness and vulnerability will inherit the earth: they will see God. But we cannot expect that everyone will want to go this way. Only those with eyes to see and ears to hear will embrace Jesus’ vision for ministry.

Tim Suttle, Shrink (via contrariansoul)

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Jefferson Bethke

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“we can make our own plans, but the Lord determines our steps”. proverbs 16:9 // overfilled with so much joy in knowing that my God is ALWAYS ahead of the game, makes all things work together for the good, and is super-duper faithful in the process of it all. #saturdaynightvibes

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"Please describe the events surrounding how you have come to know and love Christ"

I grew up going to church, surrounded by a Christian-believing family. I didn't really make my faith entirely my own choice until highschool, when I realized that I craved Jesus' plan more than my own. I knew all I needed was him, even if that meant I couldn't have certain things here on this earth. The Lord has always been a cornerstone in my life admidst the loudness of life. Ever since I chose Jesus, realizing that he already chose me, I have been in awe at his fierce pursuit to rescue me from my shame. Sometimes life just feels like I'm getting washed over by the waves and not getting a chance to really breathe.... But his discernments, even, serve as fresh air to my lungs. I can't really express the freedom I feel and also the new vision I have for my life and it's purpose now that Jesus and I have each-other!

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Lauren Scotti