oh happiness

there's grace
enough for us
and the whole human race

let the church bells ring

11 DEC 2009

Today is the eleventh of December. That means 14 days till Christmas. And 16 days till I leave for Rome! Oh dear Lord, help me!
'I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, acceptable and perfect will of God.' Romans 12v1, 2

i can love because God loves me/ i can give because God gave...watching some VeggieTales Christmas film.

elisabeth elliot

He calls us every day, "o'er the tumult of our life's wild, restless sea." He comes to us in the little things, in the ordinary duties which our place in life entails. When I was a child He called me. The duty which my place in life entailed was obedience to my father and mother. In school and Sunday School He called me through the teacher. What she said I knew I was supposed to do. In first grade (yes, in public school) we sang the hymn, "Father, We Thank Thee." The second stanza says, "Help us to do the things we should, to be to others kind and good, in all we do at work or play to grow more loving every day." God's call again.

It's alluring to think of our own situation as very complex and ourselves as deep and complicated, so that we waste a good deal of time puzzling over "the will of God." Frequently our conscience has the answer.

My friend Jim O'Donnell tells how he, a hard-headed, hard-hearted man of the world, found Christ. His conscience was awakened. The call of God was immediate: "Go home and love your wife." The change was so sudden and so radical, Lizzie could not make head or tail of what had come over him. This self-confident and self-interested man had quit living for himself. He had died. An altogether new kind of life was now his. The first difference it made was the difference that mattered most--in his private life. It was there that he began to obey.

We are not talking here about audible voices. Although people in Bible times often heard God speak, we can expect that He will usually speak today through conscience, through the written Word, through other people, and through events. Events themselves, the seemingly insignificant happenings of every day, reveal the will of God. They are the will of God for us, for while we live, move, and have our being here on earth, in this place, this family, this house, this job, we live, move, and have our being in God. He "pulls strings through circumstances," as Jim Elliot said, even the bad circumstances (see Genesis 45:8, 50:20).

Three questions may help to clarify the call of God. Have I made up my mind to do what He says, no matter what the cost? Am I faithfully reading His Word and praying? Am I obedient in what I know today of His will?

"Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul" (Psalm 143:8, NIV).

reminds me of home

My Favourite Things from kidswithcrayons on Vimeo.

wow i'm so bad at this. ok here's the latest.
third week of school, and it's going so well! french, 2-D design and meteorology. bonjour, mes amis!!! j'adore etudier le francais. except i don't know how to do the accents and cedille. hm... i have a new painting/collage in the works that i'm excited about, maybe just because it's been a while since i've had new artwork! i'm trying to get some more watercolours done and some potato printing as well. teaching sunday school, which is crazy fun! and praying about all the things i have in my heart to do--which things God has put there and timing and all that. it's exciting!

cry in my heart

lead me to the cross where Your love poured out
bring me to my knees, Lord i lay me down
rid me of myself i belong to You
lead me
lead me to the cross
...
break my heart for what breaks Yours
everything i am for Your kingdom come

Jesus loves me.

Today (I think it was today, anyways) I was thinking about the verse where God says, 'I desire mercy more than sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.' So I was thinking about mercy vs. sacrifice and why God would desire mercy more; like okay let's get basic here, what's the difference? And I think the answer is that mercy involves relationship. Here's how I broke it down: It's easy enough to determine in my heart what involves a sacrifice and do it and get it done and look back at my sacrifice. However, mercy involves me in a relationship with someone else, because it means I'm having mercy on someone, showing mercy to someone. A sacrifice is independent, whereas mercy is dependent. And a huge thing that God keeps showing me is that our relationship with God is not in a box, nor is it strictly personal between me and God--it's meant to spill out into my relationships with everything, people, events, &c... And really, if I'm pursuing mercy in relationships, I'm going to end up sacrificing myself on the altar. Does that make sense?

lookit how beautiful seattle is!
today i am...
making a quiche
going running
collaging with friends!
working.
loving Jesus!

father's day.

happy father's day.
this is meant to be a bowl of ice cream; unfortunately it doesn't strongly resemble such.
God is good.

currently

reading:
A Passage to India
Black Like Me
Miriam's Kitchen
Walking on Water

listening:
LaRue

copeland.

hi. i'm not very good at this blogging thing am i? i know right.
anyhow. school's ALMOST out. 3-ish weeks? then summer! even tho i'm taking an online class. i'm crossing my fingers/PRAYING it will go alright/be easy-ish.
and FRIENDS. kelsey/michaela in june. i keep forgetting about july. stephanie in august. jessy and bryn everyday for the rest of my life haha i wish. but sometime in there, maybe september. and lindsay! and hopefully becky. sarah. buhe.
but yeah.
need to paint the room. it's truly horrendous. i have this thesis that it's creatively stifling.

likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. for we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
romans 8:26

apparently 'groanings' is not a word.

Ask and examine your heart diligently, and you will find whether it cleaves to God alone or not. If you have a heart that can expect of Him nothing but what is good, especially in want and distress, and that, moreover, renounces and forsakes everything that is not God, then you have the only true God. If, on the contrary, it cleaves to anything else, of which it expects more good and help than of God, and does not take refuge in Him, but in adversity flees from Him, then you have an idol, another god.

Martin Luther

just got annoyed at how wide that video is.
watercoloured this week for my mummy.
made quiche with my sis for mummy's day. pretty yummy and surprisingly easy.
bought new trainers. all motivated to runrunrun.
need to make and keep budget!
longing for foreign lands.

'angels sing for you
mountains melt at the sound of your name
oceans roar for you
and all of creation gives you praise
you are God
high above the earth'

i make myself laugh

two weddings this spring for me.

not really sure why my essay is in two different fonts. fyi.

haha here's my essay

‘You must do something to make the world more beautiful,’ Alice’s grandfather told her, in Barbara Cooney’s Miss Rumphius. I practically grew up on Miss Rumphius, also known as the Lupine Lady, so I find it fitting that she has something to do with my life. After much soul-searching, turns that led me other directions, and months if not years of artist’s block, I have finally come to the conclusion that I need to do one thing, the very thing that Miss Rumphius’ grandfather wisely advised her to do. I must do something to make the world more beautiful, and the way I must do that is by being an artist.

I have three primary reasons for making the world more beautiful by being an artist. The first, and probably most basic, is simply who I am: abilities, talents, likes, disposition, and so on. The second reason concerns expression. Most people have a need to express thoughts, feelings, emotions, ideas, concepts, and abstracts, and for me the most fulfilling way to express all these and more is through artistic mediums. I love the challenge of working without words to express a thought, and I love working with the shapes, colours, layout, and design of letters to express the abstract beyond the words. The third reason I will explore involves people. This is the most difficult and complex area for me because I thought for a while that this reason would take me away from artistic pursuits. It has only been recently that I have begun to realise the importance of using art to touch people’s lives and the power that art has to speak many languages, to heal, to communicate effectively, to comfort, and more. These three reasons provide the framework for the examples that prove that art is the ideal vocation for me.

It took a while for me to realise that I am artistic. For example, I enjoyed art lessons in primary school, but once I started taking art lessons with a really good teacher I discovered that I could draw and paint and sculpt reasonably well. For example, one of the first projects I did in art class was a watercolour of a snowy evening landscape. Six years later, I still receive comments on it. Another year I sculpted a bust of a woman and entered her in a competition. Affectionately named ‘Sheila,’ she caught the eye of one of the juries, who bought her for two hundred dollars. Projects in design classes were often worked in groups, and two of the groups I was in won first place: for a Nike design project involving sports, tribal culture, and shoes, and again for a Target design competition involving a line of car accessories. Both of these projects had design professionals judging and awarding. These examples testify to the talent God has given me. Yes, they include loads of hard work and perseverance; nonetheless they show that I have some natural artistic talent.

The second reason for pursuing art as an ideal job concerns expression: art is my way of expressing things, from simply recording the day to a complex challenge of thought. As a visual person, this need to express things in a concrete way ranges from extensive note-taking to make what is said visual to hearing a song and wanting to draw it. For example, when I was a little girl I used to draw words in the air, especially when listening to someone speak. Though the words were not quite visible, I was still making them visual in my mind’s eye. Other examples of this from my art classes include processing 9/11 through watercolours and encouraging inmates with charcoal drawing. The 9/11 project gave us as student artists the opportunity to express our own emotions and reactions to the tragedy while reaching out to comfort those more directly affected. The prison project worked in much the same way: kids giving expression to shared humanity. This expression of truth and beauty makes the world a more beautiful place because our world is visual. Values are not always visual, but for humans made with eyes there is great importance in visual expression.

The third reason concerns the power of art to touch and change lives. It took years of unknowingly doing this, and then a short break from artistic pursuits in order for me to realise this truth. I had the good fortune of a wonderful art teacher who taught according to the truth that art changes lives—many of the art projects that we did involved expression to touch people’s lives, not simply art for art’s sake. Despite years of practise, I still missed the point of good art. In the years before and after I graduated from high school, this came to a crisis for me—I realised that what I really wanted to do, what I must do, is help people. For example, I sometimes had the notion that I should pursue nursing, even though I knew that I would not make a good nurse because I do not like medical things. For me, though, nursing represented a profession directly involved with helping people. I realise now that this nursing idea came from something in me that longed to help people in a tangible way, to touch people in places where they needed it the most. At the time I could not see that art has an enormous power to touch people’s lives and hearts and souls. I could see only a heartless, showy, proud future for myself in art, so I decided not to pursue that. Instead I laid down all my artistic dreams and set myself to some other vocation. While in college, I thought that perhaps God was calling me to a future in a foreign mission field with bugs and disease and all because surely that would be touching people’s lives. I can see now that instead God is calling me to a different mission field: to touch people’s lives, but to use the artistic talent that he has given me to be change in the world.

Since then I have begun to explore career opportunities in art, and truly they are amazing and adventurous. For example, till recently I never gave a second thought to art education, but considering the influence that my art teacher has had on my life, I am now giving this serious thought. Working with kids at my current job has also opened my eyes to a new love for kids, so teaching art is a wonderful option. Even watching films like ‘Step Up’ is casual proof that kids respond to art, whether fine art, theatre, or dance. Art education is not the only option for touching lives—there is also a wide field for speaking messages through art and design. This is obvious through advertising design, but the messages do not have to be material and impersonal. People respond to art, and art can speak hope, faith, and love whether it is a card, a painting, or a sculpture. Another option is art therapy. The process of artistic expression is therapeutic; I have seen its therapy in my own life and in others’. I want to be part of that subtle healing process through art in others’ lives. This healing, this response to art, makes the world more beautiful as people grow and shape and learn in community, together, making the world more beautiful together.

In conclusion, I have to admit it is still all quite rough around the edges. All the reasons that I pursue art as a vocation—personal talent and ability, means of expression, and the hope of changed lives—need hands and feet and a heart behind them. In other words, they are not much good on paper only. The task ahead is to actually make the world more beautiful. It will be a process, like all art, and it might be quite messy at the start, but it will be worth it all.

essay 2

english 101 is not terribly exciting. and i'm finding this next essay difficult, but mostly because it strikes a nerve with me. the prompt for the essay says, 'write an essay in which you describe your ideal job.' and then of course as an exemplification essay it must have examples to follow this. ugh. okay i know now that i need to be an artist. but putting all this into words is kind of painful because i don't have all the words and all the reasons. and when i think about the reasons this is the 'ideal job' (hate that) for me, i have to admit that it's because that's how God made me. and then of course the thought follows, 'well why am i not doing that right now if i know that's how God made me...' ugh. my instructor never knew that this essay would be a soul struggle, did she? and i hope she's not an atheist because i've decided to simply write with abandon and not stop to define all my terms and such. and i'm certainly not going to apologise for talking about God in my essay.

oh Lord. i keep coming back to this: 'two things You told me, that You are strong and You love me.' somehow that keeps me.

it is a gloriously beautiful day today. and i'm thankful. thank You Jesus.
day:
wake up.
get ready.
go to school.
english.
photography. fun! one more print down.
read micah 4.
lunch. not so good. i'm tired of taco salad.
random.
work. at least it's abeautifulday to be outside.

currently listening to noah and the whale five years time.

family reunion.

the blood will never lose its power.

Please read this short devotional by Elisabeth Elliot. It is so good.

Is there any Christian who does not long for some special experience, vision, or feeling of the presence of God? This morning it seemed to me that unless I could claim such I was merely going through motions of prayer, meditation, reading; that the book I am writing on discipline will prove to be nothing but vanity and a striving after wind. The Lord brought yesterday's word to mind again with this emphasis: it is not any experience, no matter how exciting, not any vision, however vivid and dazzling, not any feeling, be it ever so deep that fits me for service. It is the power of the blood of Christ. I am "made holy by the single unique offering of the body of Jesus Christ" (Heb 10:10), and by his blood "fit for the service of the living God." My spiritual numbness cannot cancel that--the blood will never lose its power.

On another, entirely different subject, EVERYONE, it seems, is getting married.

continued.

p.s. the sepia photo below is from becky hensman.

friends

...are wonderfully good things to have and I'm so thankful for mine!
when I finished Bible college I feared that I'd never see my dearest friends for ages but God has been so unexpectedly good in that department. Bryn, Becky, Tess, Kelsey, Isabeau, Jenna; and blessing me with good friends here, too, like Kaity, Jess, Joiya! And then the prospect of seeing Buhe, Jessy, Sarah, Stephanie, Jen, Maria, Jess, and even more it's amazing! Why do I freak out and not trust that God knows my needs and has abundant provision. He knows me, He knows my frailty and my weaknesses. So my dear friends, thank you!!! I love you so much. xxx

lately.

i've started this book (from the classics section at la libraire) called The Member of the Wedding. Which i of course selected because of the reference to any and all things wedding related. But unfortunately it's not terribly interesting and i've discovered typos which really set met off a book. I seem to have no luck finding a good book; either the one i select is graphically sexy (which God knows I don't need) or just plain boring, or poorly written or a combination of all three which is not to be bourne. Rubbish.
It snowed again tonight. This winter has been chock full of snow.
I remembered all over again that I am in love with hip-hop. Call me crazy, but I won't lie. I chauffered the children of the teacher I work with to her daughter's dance competition and so we sat through an hour and a half of dances and my favourite by far were the hip-hop ones. I've said I'll take tap lessons when I'm rich and have time on my hands and I think I'm adding hip-hop to that as well. haha!
God is good. I had this breaking moment one of my sick days this week and it was so good. I thought I would drown in tears and snot but God refreshed my soul in the middle of despair. Praise the Lord, who does all things well.
27 days till I return to the homeland and my two (or ten) bestest friends ever!

'always seek peace between your heart and God, but in this world, always be careful to remain ever-restless, never satisfied, and always abounding in the work of the Lord.'
-jim elliot

i need to work on the 'always abounding in the work of the Lord' bit.

happy v day?

i made this card to accompany my brother's birthday gift, a tie clip. neat, huh? i think so. card from martha stewart. i knew i had the instructions for this but they were buried with all my magazine clippings so i had to dig through them ALL to find it. but it was fun; now i want to do it again!

this weekend...

was such a good holiday. thank you Jesus. xxx

from jess

i got a new....

job!
praise the Lord. seriously i'm so excited about this. i'm going to be working in an after-school program, which is cool because it's a) regular hours, b) working with kids and c) not a restaurant!

cadbury

this is well funny.

bryn is

coming to seattle!
i'm so so so SO excited.
we're going to do everything. i don't really know what everything seattle constitutes but hopefully we'll find out, right? or maybe we'll just sit inside when it perpetually rains like seattle has a habit of doing. or i don't know. who knows?

among other things, i got a car. praise the Lord o my soul! i'm really very grateful.

'i try to be good enough but i'm nothing without Your love/ Saviour please, keep saving me.'

star trek.

my dad won these at a christmas white elephant party.
i ate a whole pack and felt ill.

it's hard learning that being content in Jesus has nothing to do with circumstances. it's wonderfully true, but hard to learn practically. oh Lord.

weddings.

i blame jen for reminding me how much i love weddings.
photos from martha stewart, i don't remember and the knot.

my sister got me these alphabet stamps. they're a bit tedious but still loads of fun.

abundant joy and exceeding generosity

you can only have these if your god is not money. so teaches mark driscoll.

it's a bit of a challenge to me, because i've been all sad because i haven't found a good job yet. but why should i be cast down if my God is alive and well and faithful in my life? betty, who do you serve? where's your home, this world or heaven?

i love good teaching. Jesus, thank You.