Hold On

"Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." -James 4:13-15

God has been teaching me that I need to let go of all I am trying to hold onto and hold onto Him. One of my professors told me a metaphor that I would like to share with you about holding on with open hands.

Hold your hands out in front of you, palms facing up. Now, imagine both hands are full of sand. Take your right hand and begin to close it. As you close your right hand the sand begins to fall out the sides and between your fingers, so when you open your hand again there is very little to no sand left in your hand. Now, looking at your left hand that has been openly holding the sand; although the wind may have blown some grains from your hand and a some might have fallen off the side, it is still full with sand.

This was a visual that helped me better understand the sayings like "hold on with open hands," and "hold those you love closest to you with an open palm." Lately, I have been obsessed with trying to sort out my future plans. I want to know what is in store for me after graduating from the university like where I'm going to live, what I'm going to do, who I'm going to marry, etc. etc. I have actually given myself headaches and have lost much sleep from thinking about it so much. I have begun to understand that I am doing all I can do and the best I can do to prepare myself for whatever my future may hold in store for me, and that is all I can really do.

"Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails." -Proverbs 19:21

My challenge for you is to let go of something you have been holding onto and hold on with open hands.
My prayer for you is that you may hold on to Christ and the Lord's promise.

Oh and P.S. I was llistening to this song titled Hold On by B*Witched from the Princess Diaries Soundtrack when it hit me- I guess you could say it was kind of like a revelation and I really seemed to grasp the whole concept of holding on with open hands.
Have a fabulous day!

l o v e ?

I find that Love is probably the hardest concept in life to master. Strip away every bit of artifice that you can place upon Love, and when you do, what remains is something quite simple and nearly impossible to define. We speak of Love for country, for family, for our partner, for ourselves, for innocents, even for the condemned, yet, rarely does our Love approach the un-ceasing Love that God grants us without compromise.


Ask yourself this question:

“What is Love to Me?”

If your answer includes anything conditional, then it is not Love. In therapy years ago, I mentioned that I felt unconditional love for someone. My therapist started laughing out loud, and said that such a thing does not exist with the human race 99.999pct of the time. He went on to explain that we place conditions on our love relationships, no matter how magnanimous we think we are. His question to me was, “Would you love this person the same if they murdered your whole family?” I had to pause to think about it, and that moment alone proved his point. My conditions for Love were laid bare in my hesitation.

Let us assume that, if there is a Heaven, then God accepts all sinners there, no matter what their crime. Let’s evolve that idea to God not recognizing anything but Love, so He doesn’t know what a sinner is. Let’s evolve that up to God being oblivious in His perfection to the silliness of His children. Let’s evolve that up to ‘none of this is happening and it is all a dream’. Let’s evolve that up to the idea that this whole cosmos is just a single teardrop from God’s eye. “How are any of these ideas helpful?” you might ask.

Because each thought should nominally provoke a small response in you set against what your belief system is. I say, does it matter if we know what is happening around us or within us if we cannot accept the basic principle that all life is based on Love?

Take a relationship in your life that is puzzling or difficult, and approach it strictly from the standpoint of loving that person unconditionally. Your #1 goal then should be to help in any way possible to demonstrate Love in the forms of boundaries, or support, or encouragement, or even silence. If you can find the courage to Love someone as they are and not who you wish them to be, you will find them within a whole new light. The Universe will support your thinking by allowing miracles to occur among your interactions, and you will learn to enact change properly. Love has no shortcuts, and that is why our partnerships are our great teachers. They force us to understand properly that Love cannot be manipulated. Love is a condition of Is-ness, always becoming, widening further, until you feel you just might burst from too much.

by WilliamPatrickCorgan

for more visit www.everythingfromheretothere.com

L-O-V-E

Love Lessons-
When you think of your past love, you may view it as a failure. But when you find a new love, you view the past as a teacher. In the game of love, it doesn't really matter who won or who lost. What is important is you know when to hold on and when to let go! You know you really love someone when you want him or her to be happy, even if their happiness means that you're not part of it. Everything happens for the best. If the person you love doesn't love you back, don't be afraid to love someone else again, for you'll never know unless you give it a try. You'll never love a person you Love unless you risk for love. Love strives in hurting. If you don't get hurt, you don't learn how to love. Love doesn't hurt all the time. Though the hurting is still there to test you, to help you grow. Don't find love, let love find you. That's why it's called falling in love because you don't force yourself to fall. You just fall. You cannot finish a book without closing its chapters. If you want to go on, then you have to leave the past as you turn the pages.
Love is not destroyed by a single failure or won by a single caress. It is a lifetime venture in which we are always learning, discovering and growing. The greatest irony of love is letting go when you need to hold on and holding on when you need to let go. We lose someone we love only when we are destined to find someone else who can love us even more than we can love ourselves. On falling out of love, take some time to heal and then get back on the horse. But don't ever make the same mistake of riding the same one that threw you the first time. To love is to risk rejection, to live is to risk dying, to hope is to risk failure. But risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing! To reach for another is to risk involvement, to expose your feelings is to expose true self, to love is to risk not to be loved in return.
How to define love: fall but do not stumble, be constant but not too persistent, share and never be unfair, understand and try not to demand, hurt but never keep the pain. Love is like a knife. It can stab the heart or it can carve wonderful images into the soul that always last for a lifetime. Love is supposed to be the most wonderful feeling. It should inspire you and give you joy and strength. But sometimes the things that give you joy can also hurt you in the end.
Loving people means giving them the freedom who they choose to be and where they choose to be. For all the heartaches and the tears, for gloomy days and fruitless years, you should give thanks, for you know, that there were the things that helped you grow. Loving someone means giving him the freedom to find his way, whether it leads towards you or away from you.
Love is a painful risk to take but the risk must be taken no matter how scary or painful, for only then you'll experience the fullness of humanity and that is love. Only love can hurt your heart, fill you with desire and tear you apart. Only love can make you cry and only love knows why. If you're not ready to cry, if you're not ready to take the risk, if you're not ready to feel the pain, then you're not ready to fall in love. There was a time in our lives when we became afraid to fall in love because every time we do, we get hurt, then i figured that's why it's called falling in LOVE.......

Opportunity

OPPORTUNITY  by: Walter Malone (1866-1915)


THEY do me wrong who say I come no more

When once I knock and fail to find you in;

For every day I stand outside your door

And bid you wake, and rise to fight and win.

Wail not for precious chances passed away!

Weep not for golden ages on the wane!

Each night I burn the records of the day–

At sunrise every soul is born again!

Dost thou behold thy lost youth all aghast?

Dost reel from righteous Retribution’s blow?

Then turn from blotted archives of the past

And find the future’s pages white as snow.

Art thou a mourner? Rouse thee from thy spell;

Art thou a sinner? Sins may be forgiven;

Each morning gives thee wings to flee from hell,

Each night a star to guide thy feet to heaven.

Laugh like a boy at splendors that have sped,

To vanished joys be blind and deaf and dumb;

My judgments seal the dead past with its dead,

But never bind a moment yet to come.

Though deep in mire, wring not your hands and weep;

I lend my arm to all who say “I can!”

No shame-faced outcast ever sank so deep

But yet might rise and be again a man!

Patience

"What does patience feel like?


It's a subtle unfolding with time as your ally. You feel relaxed and trust that it will all work out, even if in this very moment, there's no clear path to the end.

It feels like the subtle uneasiness of allowing all you're uncomfortable with to be exactly as it is."

Thanks Mastin Kipp :)

Seeking God's Direction

"For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.  For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." -Colossians 1:9-14

Sometimes we find ourselves at a place in our lives when we don't know what to do. For some it's not knowing what to do after college or being torn making a decision, and for some it's struggling with finances or deciding how to raise children. The best we can do in these confusing and unsure times is to seek the Lord's wisdom and direction. Depending on what we are struggling with, this can be difficult. Sometimes we don't try enough to hear that small voice, especially when we're being stubborn it's harder to hear that whisper in the wind. Even though we may think we're doing all the right things. Maybey we aren't doing them the right way or with the right heart. Some of you might have the idea that there isn't a wrong or right way to be with God and hear him when he calls. And you are right there is no right or wrong way to pray and all that jazz, but if we're not focused when we're praying and we let our minds wonder then we're not really spending time with God, focused on God and out relationship with him.

Let me back track a bit. We make ourselves available to spend time with God. In our time with the Lord we talk to him sharing everything that's on our hearts like our hopes, fears, sorrows, excitement, questions, frustrations- everything. And he talks to us sharing his love, grace, comfort, forgiveness, and wisdom- revealing his will for us, giving us one piece of the puzzle at a time. We do this via meditation, prayer, quiet time, walking/running, etc. Me for example, I go running. It's usually a time when I can clear my head and really focus on Christ. There have been times when I've gone for a run hoping to clear my head, but when I came back my head was just as scrammbled as it was when I left, if not more scrammbled. This is because even though I was doing the right thing, I wasn't doing it the right way. I wasn't willing to let some of those things running around in my head go, I was holding onto them trying to sort them out myself. I would put my ipod on when I went running and daydream about how I wished things would be, instead of talking to Jesus and listening to how he wants things to be. So when I would come back from my run, I didn't feel any progress was made in my relationship with Christ nor was any of the craziness inside of my head sorted out. You tracking?

I don't know where you are in your journey with Jesus, but my prayer for you is that you seek the Lord's direction and wisdom in all that you do. Give God all your cares and worries, and he will never fail you no matter how often we might fail him; as long as we turn to him, he will always be there to welcome you with open arms. God - Loves - You.

"If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, be must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind." -James 1:5-6

More verses to read when seeking God's direction:
1 Kings 3:1-14
Proverbs 2:1-6
Romans 12:1-3
Ephesians 5:15-17

To all who are weary...

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.


This was written by Paul in a letter to the Galatians. I know how hard it is to be good sometimes. It can be tiring and painful and sometimes it can break your heart.

But it is worth it. Or at least, it will be.

The Measure of Love

“Love is measured by what you’re willing to sacrifice for the one you love.” -James Ford

I disagree with the James Ford. Love is not measured by what we are willing to give up for the one(s) we love.
Let's say a homeless person approaches me and a friend, while walking downtown, and asks us for money. My friend gives the homeless person $10 when I only give him/her $5. This doesn't necessarily mean the measure of my friend's love is greater for the homeless person than my love for the homeless because my friend sacrificed more money than me.
OR
Hypothetically: Let's say I dream of marrying my boyfriend and living in South Carolina. Let's say my boyfriend dreams of being a music composer for christian music artists, while living in Ohio. However, he would consider maybe moving to South Carolina someday. Let's say I turn down my job offers in South Carolina to remain in Ohio and marry my boyfriend and maybe one day we could potentially move to South Carolina. This does not mean the measure in which I love my boyfriend is more than the measure of his love for me just because I was willing to sacrifice one of my dreams for one of his. And visa versa, if he were to sacrifice living in Ohio to live in South Carolina with me (after marriage, of course).

Now let's look a little deeper into the idea of measuring love. If love is measured by what one is willing to sacrifice for another, who is to say the worth of what one is sacrificing. Who will judge that sacrificing my dream for my boyfriend is of greater measure than my friend giving $10 to the homeless? Or who is even to say that my friend giving $10 is greater than me giving $5 to the homeless.?
Secondly, who would honestly be keeping track? Do a husband and wife honestly keep a document of who sacrifice what and when, and whose turn it will be to sacrifice next when they come to a fork in the road in which one will have to sacrifice something? NO!

The only judge whose verdict matters is the Lord's and he does not measure by the sacrifices we make but by our hearts when we make sacrifices for others.

Can You [God] Do What You Say You Can Do

Letting all if this go
Letting all of me show
I've got nothing left to lose

Getting tired of the fight
God I need a place to hide
I've got a broken soul tonight
and the silence is so thick
it's filling up my life
it's coming from the creveses
and spilling out the side
and I'm left reading all these lies
plaguing my mind

Can you do what you say you can do?
Take shattered dreams and make them new?
Can you be who you say you can be?
A friend for me?

Letting all of this go
letting all of me show
I've got nothing left ot lose

(as sung by Dana Masters in Song and Word The Lie)

Set free from lies. A new mind. Turth resides.

Mass Media & Society

These are just some of the reasons why I enjoy Mass Media & Society class:

Britney: "Warm fuzzies!"
Andrew: "Warm fuzzies...It's like cuddling without someone."

(minutes later)...
Andrew: "Take one genre and another genre, put 'em in bed and see what you get.
The new genre is the results of the marriage of genre 1 and genre 2 after you put 'em in bed."