The Best Five Years

 " All to Jesus, I surrender //  All to Thee I freely give //  I will ever love and trust You //  In Your presence daily live" - Don Moen Every day in recent months my prayer to God has consistently included these words, "God, I surrender everything to you. I surrender the people I love, the relationships I have, the stress I feel about my responsibilities, the unknown future before me, negative memories from the past, my life, and all my devotion to You. Use me for your glory and purpose and take away from me what is not my best. I come before you with open hands, eager to lay it all at your feet, and trusting you to give me the things you know that I need." This process of continual surrender has helped me to always remember that every good thing is a gift from God, as it says in James 1:17, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning." When I contin...

Written January 13, 2022 Every day is beautiful, because every day is a gift from a good Father. I am so grateful for the people God has put in my life, especially refuge. And I’m grateful for the music. Specifically, the music about Him. I think that worship is such a tangible, beautiful way to connect with God, especially for me. And I’ve had conversations about Him like I’ve never had before. So inspired, so beautiful, so enriching. Heaven will be beautiful, because worshiping God is beautiful. I long to worship him forever. I’m so glad I’m not the only one who feels that way, because the community, especially among the worshiping believers is so very sweet. I feel more whole right now than I think I’ve ever felt. Every day I am called to hope and to trust God, even when He puts things in my life that are scary and hard. The pain I have felt from others that has entirely just… disappeared, and I have seen His faithfulness and goodness with the people he has put in my life every s...

October 1, 2021 There was an interesting part in Canto Six of Dante’s Inferno which talked about how being whole transforms the way a person experiences emotions.  Dante writes, “He: “Turn to your philosophy again , // which shows that when a thing at last is whole // it feels more pleasure—so it feels more pain”” (Canto 6, Ln. 105-7).  This passage stuck out to me because it spoke to the idea that as a person gets  closer to wholeness, that person has the capacity to feel things deeper. I always thought that as a person became more whole, they would feel pleasure and love better, but it never struck me that the same would be true of the other e motions, specifically pain. I think it makes sense, though, that as a person is able to  understand and process what they are feeling, they will have the capacity to feel things stronger. It is a difficult passage to read, because it highlights the fact that just because  a person is more whole, it does not mean that the...

September 23, 2021 Aquinas lays out a beautiful picture of love, and specifically of the way God loves. He writes, “To love someone is in fact to will good for them” ( 1, Q. 20, Art. 1 ).  This statement sums up the very essence of God, in that he has a divine will, and that will  is  intertwined thoroughly  with his love for us. There have been a lot of questions this week  stemming from my reading of Aquinas that confused me, specifically ho w  God predestines through his will . Some things that I came away with from that are the assurance that God is good and that his will is tied to his love.  As Aquinas says, “ We are induced to love by good which exists already... With God, it is the reverse. When God wills some good to one whom he loves, his will is the cause of this good being in him, rather than in any other”  (1, Q. 23, Art. 4).  T he key here is  understanding the difference in  the way God  loves because of  hi...

  In everything that the Christian does, they need to be approaching Evangelism with the mindset of speaking the truth to unbelievers.  In Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People,  Bede mentions a man named Aidan, saying, “Neither respect nor fear made him keep silence about the sins of the rich, but he would correct them with a stern rebuke” (Bede, III.5, pg. 117).  A Christian’s w ords and actions must align with the truth  they  are living out of in order  to convince other s .   To speak rather than remain silent is itself an action.  Non -C hristians  often accuse Christians of being hypocritical, and rightly so. It is my experience that often, Christians are trying to sell a message that they themselves don’t buy.  When Bede mentions Aidan, he writes, “ the best recommendation of his teaching to all was that he taught them no other way of life than that which he himself practiced among his fellows” (Bede, III....

Here are a few of poems that I've written this summer. A Butterfly Among the Greats The day began cold. I was out in it too early Or maybe I was there just right. Sitting in my chair They spoke of the greats But I, listening with only half an ear Was thinking about small things And the consequences of a cold day. My light sweater with its brown buttons Was certainly perfect for you then. I sat as still as I could Hoping the sun and the heat of that  Haven would save you. They talked of men and heroes The weak among the brave. They talked of the divine love And of the wings to be got. But I only thought of protecting The delicate pair that you already had. It was already so perfect This short life that you lived: The isolated transformation You, getting your wings. I think Plato would have approved. So was it really so bad that I only thought then,  Of you? To live another day:  That was my hope for you.                You...

There is a concept of desire that I keep coming back to in my walk with Christ this year. It is the promise given in scripture, “Delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4). I’m not sure exactly where I came up with this idea, what sermon it was, what book I read, what conversation I had, but wherever I heard it, it has stuck with me. What God says is that if you look to him first for your source of joy and choose to delight in him and everything that he is, he will give you the desires of your heart. I think that when you love someone and delight in them, your heart begins to align with theirs. You naturally begin to want what they want and desire what they desire as you grow to delight in them more and more. And then it clicked. That is how loving and delighting in God works. As you continue to do so, your heart will line up with his will for your life, and you will begin to desire things which are good for you. You will desire things from a pure...

"May I know you, who know me... This is my hope, and that is why I speak. In this hope I am placing my delight when my delight is in what it ought to be ( Confessions , Book X, i(1))" - St. Augustine I have questions, yet I do not know who to ask, how to ask, or what answers could suffice to solve my questions. So, I shall write them here and give them to God. It is to God that I give all the people, things, and worries in my life. God, yours is the glory, and your will be done in my life and with the people I love.  Give me the steadiness that I lack in my thoughts and my day-to-day life and fill my restless soul with your peace. Help me to listen to the words of others more mature than I, and grant that I might be able to emulate their good behavior and in so doing grow my own character. I wish to be like you, abiding in you, and loving you with all my being. I know that their perception of my life from their perspective will offer me light and understanding. Let this guide...

"How lucky I am having something that makes saying goodbye so hard." -Winnie The Pooh I had lived there so long that I no longer had an answer as to whether the river walk was drab or beautiful, because to me, it was home. It was familiar.  I walked along, kicking a pebble off the road, and looking out over the Columbia river, rushing. Always rushing. The clouds were swiftly changing and to the right of my horizon, grey skies were creeping in. And I knew, this time, that it really was the end. No more maybe's, no more unfulfilled plans. We had already arranged for a moving van, and the boxes were beginning to assemble, scattered with treasures of the last ten years of my life. The only ten years I could hold on to.  Then I thought of them. The warm nights of fellowship, the hikes, and the soft mornings with freshly brewed coffee and donuts. I thought of the memories I would cherish, and the friends I would leave. Faces animated, each with its own unique and irreplaceable ...

I think by the time I actually finish this it will have been a semester in the making. I have so many thoughts about it, I just cannot formulate them all at once.  This part: 2/21 Patterns, patterns. This past week has made me miss them. We had power outages and loss of water all over where I live, and all of my classes were cancelled. I was fortunate that things did not become too much of a tragedy for me, but it is difficult to watch as others are really struggling with how things hit this week. It was all because we had a few nights below freezing and some snow. Now, there is a lot of aftermath--mostly burst pipes and things like that. Almost all of my roommates and I decided to stay at our dorm through it and tough it out. It wasn't that bad, and it was even fun and exciting in some ways. We had a lot of good conversations, and everyone wandered around wrapped in blankets and huddled together to keep warm. I never thought I could want a shower or a hot cup of coffee, or even ju...

 "Never wanted love, just a fancy car." I have been singing the song, Cowboy Like Me , by Taylor Swift, quite a lot recently. I have found Taylor's latest album, "Evermore," to be filled with good and beautiful songs, and I really especially like Cowboy Like Me . Now the question is, "Why? Since when did I have any appreciation for Taylor's music, of all the music that there is?" I really don't know. I like the melody, I like the Western references, and I like the idea of a love that is not desired, but remains inescapable. This concept of love being a force too strong to reckon with is powerful and beautiful to me. I also like the imagery in the lyrics. I also have a lovely roommate, Abigail, who loves Taylor's music, and being able to discuss the lyrical depths in Taylor's music with her is fascinating to me.  Music is a funny thing for me. Today someone in class asked me whether I liked country music. I answered, "No, as a gener...

I think that as much as I knew the fact, I still underestimated the absolute joy of being back on campus and back into the flow of things as the semester sets in. Although there is often stress, just the joy of being able to do something and have it be something I am wholeheartedly passionate about fulfills me. There is something very sweet about life in the dorms, and I want to enjoy it to the fullest while I have the opportunity. My roommate Abigail and I were just talking about this last night how it was like that part of Anne of the Island where the young girls at college all lived together in their quirky little house. I love that aspect of this part of my life, because it is communal and sweet.  As a music major, I spend quite a bit of my time seated in front of a piano bench, staring at the black and white keys. I wish I could get in the zone of playing my instrument by just sitting down. That would make my life easier. Instead, usually the minute I sit and begin to play, my...

I think I'll just make a few observations about what I've learned recently. There is a challenge I face where I say things and then I cannot stop thinking about them, and overthinking what I should have said instead. There is virtue in moving on after saying words and not dwelling on what might have been said, but there is an even greater virtue in being oh, so careful about being intentional with your words in the first place.  I think this is the same with relationships. I want to be intentional with the people I care about. Intentional in the actions I take, the clear communication I value, and the way I treat my friends. I think there is a time and a place for joking, for being giddy, but I also think it is important to keep a firm hold on my emotions, my heart, my thoughts, and my tongue. All these can get out of hand and destroy so many things in such terrible ways. I don't know what else to write, at present, other than saying that these are things that are very impo...

 I wish I understood God's plan. I also wish that my emotions could be consistent and make sense. If only things could go as they should, if only there were not difficult impediments in the way of what would otherwise be wonderful things. I really deeply miss my long distance friends. They were, after all, the friends of my youth. I grew with them, day by day, moment by moment, conversation by conversation. I laughed with them, learned with them, deepened my faith in God with them there by my side. It is, I suppose, only natural that I should miss them. Yet why must I miss them?  A little aching part in me longs to scream out the question of "why" into an inevitable plainness. A part of me whispers, why pain? Why change? Why sorrow? Why not joy, and peace, and happiness all the time? And the realistic part, fed by the monotonous voice of the crowd, says "because, you foolish child, this is life. You cannot change life." "I do not want to listen to that voic...