Silence

Perfect I am not. I am but a broken and fragmented shell of a human being. Like the shore, waves have carried out so much of me, out to the depths of the sea. I am empty, stripped, naked, fractured, and left for dead. Where O Lord have you gone, why have you turned your face from me? I feel cold, as though I am ready to breathe my last. Why has Your voice gone silent? I stand here weeping, where have you gone? I am a soldier in a desert, a knight in the shadow of death. Turn back to your child, wrap your arms around me like you have done in my most broken times. I am a warrior without an army. Why do I feel so alone? I am in a valley and the bitter cold of night has settled in around me. All has turned to darkness around me. But Lord, there is this small fire within me that will not be extinguished. A triumphant cadence that will not be suppressed. My heart beats with the fury of the drums of every tribe from every corner of this earth. I will not go quietly and I will not back down. I pray that I might be filled by the Holy Spirit, that my armor would be strong, my blade sharp, and my spirit ready. I will dance before the King, and let my heart be known. Satan will not triumph, he is a defeated enemy, and my battles will heap burning coals in his eyes. I was made for war. I was made for battle. I am a weapon for righteousness. A vessel of redemption. Set apart by the creator of this universe. Taking back the ground that the enemy has taken for centuries. Let my voice be loud, let it ring from the very bottom of my heart. Salvation will reign in my life. I will proclaim God's song of redemption from the heights of the mountains. Let your light shine in me.

“They impose the endless fight, to always be perfect. It seems they have been chosen to be above the rest. But the contradiction stands, between these perfect lives, and the words that they misread... There was no reading.”

-Sleeping at Last “Say”

Flakes

Snow floats daintily past the cool windows, almost poetic in rhythm. A calm, slow night at Java House. Five young ladies are doing homework as the hands of the clock turn like so many soldiers through a city square. I have slowly realized something, this moment will never again be lived. Frightening in its brevity. I have grown a new sense of urgency in this time. If snow turned to death, what would it bring on its wings. This breathe becomes a fleeting, daralicit instant of great consequence. While seconds drone on I set myself to the thought of making each instant count, that this point in time would be worth remembering. My mind is overrun with guilt. I ask myself how many moments, breathes, and circumstances have been of naught. How many of God's words have I let fall to the ground, empty, with no return. And the snow turns to rain, and the moment is gone. I long to want to want Him. That my sight would be His, my hand His paintbrush, my heart His canvas, my soul His expression. One day that I might live up to what He has called me. But this is the familiar, the comfortable. This moment for me is no different than the last, I have ruined the depth of my former revelation, and I am me, again.

“It's a muggy night in Houston, and all the intersections are like full serve stations. I'm on my way to a familiar place. You can no more hear me than I can see Your face. How I wish it was just You and me. We wouldn't have to talk above the crowd, we wouldn't have to talk so loud. Lord, I give you my life and all I am, but what have I to give? So I, I hand You a candid photograph of this little boy 'cause I've nothing to my name, but I can give You that... My mind is somewhere north of here.”

-Caedmon's Call “Somewhere North”

I've told a lot of people that a lot of songs are my favorite. If it was ever any song other than this I apologize for lying to you. This song has changed my life. It shows my heart more clearly than any amount of interaction could, it paints my life in words. If you play this song, and listen to the lyrics (or just download them in their entirety) it will give you a lens into me.

Heart of Glass

Broken, a soul made of glass.
Tears flood the floor.
A tender frame lay in the shadows as an infant.
What selfless act could accomplish such regret?
What in life could bring such pain?

Fractured, a bond close and true.
Time heartlessly churns.
Yet only time can heal.
Where does one go when they are everywhere at once?
Where does a heart go when it hurts to beat?

Open, a soul to Jesus.
Waiting on His every word.
Only the voice that spoke creation can restore this open wound.
Why Lord does your face seem to turn?
Why Lord does what seems to be an eternal candle, burn?

Flying, a spirit like a dove.
Mirroring the Savior in every move.
This sunrise, while so painful, will present you whole and new.
This day will be survival, transformed by the breathe of God.
This day will be revival, restored for new beginning, new life, new breathe, new light.

“Broken I run to You, for I know You satisfy. I am empty but I know Your touch, does not run dry. And so I'll wait for You. I'm falling on my knees. Offering all of me. Jesus, You're all this heart is living for.”

-I don't know who its by but they're brilliant :)

Rain

There is something profound in the solemnity of the rain. Something deep, and inspiring in its constance. It makes me think of true good friendship, a concept that has until only recently alluded me entirely. What is is in the presence of true beauty that brings on such peace, what in truth that sheds so brilliant a light on darkness? I hear the quite drops as they cascade off the roof and paint a pictures for me. We spend our lives having a hundred million trivial friendships bounce of of us, soaking our surface, but we are like the dry soil in a pot, and people slide right away. I have heard it said that friendship is a single soul in two bodies. I don't know if that is true, but as I delve progressively deeper into this I have grown this all encompassing sense of oneness. Oneness born through shared time, unity of ministry, depth of conversation, and shedding of tears. It is as though with ever hour spent, every life changed, every word spoken, and every time I listen to a heart, that I become more whole. That somehow the creator of all things is revealing to me what He has to show me about myself through these six amazing lives. I feel so at home, right now, so blessed, and loved. And as I write I have begun to notice that my tears have melded with the rain, and a metaphorical state has all of a sudden ascertained reality. I am no longer a stone, skipping on the surface of the water. I am a child of Christ, and am made to have love, for myself and others. And in this moment I feel drenched, like peat, and it warms my spirit, and feeds my soul. And in this ground I can grow, in this spirit, His Spirit I feel as though I am ready to produce good fruit.

“You have one way, and I have another, but we're seeking shelter like sister and brother. Through the winter and through the summer, like an angel we'll fly far away... Cross the road and to the Light, until One angel we have become”

-Burlap to Cashmere “Eileen's Song”

Why?

I am nothing more than a man searching. A traveler on an open highway. Yet my life is not bound to asphalt, I exist in the ironic state between adolescence and adulthood, torn... I see massive amounts of hurt, of which I'm sure you can understand, but it is not the hurt that wears on me. My soul is so ladened by the cause of the hurt. A struggle, a jouste if you will of an egotist, and a creator. This day, this singularity in the ever greatening expanse of history, why is it for. I am exahsted by the hows of life. See they are but trivialoties in a greater story. It is something so primal, so rudementary in nature. It is as if it is the first question, “why?” I have discovered that the question of how so often gets pulled between us and God, like a curtain. My life is engulfed with imponderables. “God how is it that you let him drown? God how could you allow my mother to be on her death bed, and still say that you love me? God how could I have let my son slip into this life style? How could my best friend have died in a car crash?” These questions rip me apart. The question become the point. I have in recent days discovered that this end is empty. It causes doubt, and in the long run, questions as the end cause us to hate. I am starting to realize bloggers, that questions must be the lens we look through. We must see the world through questions... It opens our minds the the big picture, and allows us to see God for who He is, the point. Not then how, but why? This has changed my scope. I have begun to see through God's eyes. If God is the end, we have to look for why he is such. I'll be honest with you, I don't see why Andy drown, why that crazy girls mom is slipping from life, why that boy is slipping from salvation, or why one of my best friends is just now being able to patch her life after losing her best friend in a car wreck nearly a decade ago. It causes me to pray, because I just don't get it. I look at these girls in the coffee shop not as poor mislead girls with no self esteem, but as other sets of headlighs on the same highway, passersby in th