so i was driving home last night and i was listening to this burnt cd that my friend gave me. this hymn, that i've heard probably a thousand times started playing. it just was so convicting....

1. Out of my bondage, sorrow and night,
   Jesus, I come, Jesus, I come;
   Into Thy freedom, gladness, and light,
   Jesus, I come to Thee;
   Out of my sickness, into Thy health,
   Out of my want and into Thy wealth,
   Out of my sin and into Thyself,
   Jesus, I come to Thee.
2. Out of my shameful failure and loss,
   Jesus, I come, Jesus, I come;
   Into the glorious gain of Thy cross,
   Jesus, I come to Thee;
   Out of earth’s sorrows, into Thy balm,
   Out of life’s storms and into Thy calm,
   Out of distress to jubilant psalm,
   Jesus, I come to Thee.
3. Out of unrest and arrogant pride,
   Jesus, I come, Jesus, I come;
   Into Thy blessed will to abide,
   Jesus, I come to Thee;
   Out of myself to dwell in Thy love,
   Out of despair, into raptures above,
   Upward for aye on wings like a dove,
   Jesus, I come to Thee.
4. Out of the fear and dread of the tomb,
   Jesus, I come, Jesus, I come;
   Into the joy and light of Thy home,
   Jesus, I come to Thee;
   Out of the depths of ruin untold,
   Into the peace of Thy sheltering fold,
   Ever Thy glorious face to behold,
   Jesus, I come to Thee.

Wow...it's song is has my name all over it! this broken world feeds on my soul, making me feel that i'm nothing but some useless instrument. i remember this art project that my church made awhile ago. they took broken instruments and orchestrated a beautiful masterpiece by incorporating all of pieces together into a single display. the theme was that just like the instruments, we are broken and it takes a gifted musician to come along an sees the beauty within the brokeness. this hymn just speaks that, wherever we are in our daily battle of living in this world our Father is there. that no matter how many times seem to fail, our Father's unfailing love covers our failures. lately i've been thinking about failures and how we let sin inhabit our hearts. that we let it build up within us to produce shame that weighs down our soul....

"Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Matt 11:29-30.

why cant it be that easy?? aww i love these next verses, they just pierce my heart....

"blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith-more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire-may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ." 1 Peter 1:3-9

good quote

Lately I'm realized just how some people are very hard to love and it's so easy for me to give up and let bitterness harden my heart towards them. My friend gave me this quote....

"I admit that this means loving people who have nothing lovable about them....perhaps it makes it easier if we remember that is how HE loves us. Not for any nice, attractive qualities we think we have, but just because we are things called selves. For really there is nothing else in us to love: creatures like us, who actually find hatred such a pleasure that to give it up it like giving up beer or tobacco."- C.S. Lewis

bye bye fb

So as of yesterday I've deactivated my facebook account.....for good! I just came to the conclusion that I was a slave to it. That my friendships were turning into how much we interacted via wall post and status updates. I have always had this urge to stop using facebook, but I always was like "but it's a good way to keep in touch with people." Which I guess is kind of true, but then the more I think about it, the more I realize that I really wasn't keeping in touch with people, I was stalking them! All I had to do was login my account and I could find out what was going on in anyones life without any human interaction. I just feel that this way of going about a friendship is so materialized. I mean think about it. When someone posts a picture of you that you think is unflattering what do you do???? umm de-tag, it's like you can erase the parts of your life that you don't like. Then we build up our profile using the cutest picture we can find, even if it was taken 2 years ago when you looked totally different. I mean who's going to know anyway right? Then you have the guy factor.... Whether it's an ex or some guy that you're crushing on, you want to find out as much as you can about them so of coarse you stalk their profile. You make connections that you can use to your advantage the next time you see them. Being all like "Yeah I love Coldplay..." when truly you don't have a clue of who the lead singer is. That's just one of the parts of the guy factor, the other one is to see how many girls he has writing on his wall. You read way into the wall posts and you let bitterness grow inside your heart because of some silly sentence that everyone and their brother has access to. Man I could just go on and on, but I'm pretty such that I"ve already stepped on a few peoples feet right now.

Basically I've just felt so convicted to pursue real meaningful relationships. I mean isn't that what Jesus did? He pursued people, broken messed up people like me. He didn't care if they had their life together because He was doing it out of love. He didn't do it to see how my friends we could show the world that he had, but out of His unfailing love. I don't know, I'm off my soapbox for now ha.