I love where I am

I am currently in Valencia, Venezuela for some time. It is the place where God has led me to do ministry for now. It is my hope that He continues to grow my desire to write and cultivates it here. So, here's some musings that have dripped from my fingers. A narrative of sorts...

I love my room. I get to hang out of it and gaze perpetually at mountains top with whipped cream, or at least it looks like that. I’m high up and watch the people walk to their destinations. The cars go by, slower than they’d like due to the speed bumps everywhere on our street. 

I love my room because I’m on the fifth floor. This means I’m high up enough that people can’t know I’m watching them. And sometimes if I’m lucky I get a peek at my housemates at their desk in their own room since their window hangs out two feet farther than mine. But it’s the mountains that constantly draw me back. They are ever protecting this city where I live now. Like watchful parents towering over their playful children. 

I love my room. It suites me more than any other room I’ve had. Though the sun pours in at a crack of dawn that is earlier than the dawn I’m used to, it’s warm and full of life. I can imagine a cat loving my room because she can curl up on my bed in the sun all day. I’ve been told I’m cat-like. I can’t disagree. 

I love the color of my walls. They’re a light sky blue though most the time they’re lighter than the sky itself. It’s a simple room, meant to only be lived in for a year’s time. I’ve always wanted to live like a monk without anything but a mattress and some clothes and maybe some books. I think I finally got my wish. It’s normally loud outside. That’s okay with me. It reminds me there’s a world outside my room I shouldn't miss out on. 

I love the paintings up on my walls which God has given me over the years. I love the single mattress standing up against one of those walls. I love the photos of my favorite people tacked up to my other wall. Then there are the notes. The notes that people wrote from a deep place in their hearts to encourage me as I am far from them. 

And the window, the window that engulfs the majority of one large wall. I love it the most. Mainly because I get to hang out of it and stare at the mountains and the people. It is a window to another world for me. In my room it’s like a little US of A. Out of my window is this city called Valencia that God has brought me to. A crazy loud city in the continent of South America where the people really do great you with a kiss on the check. It makes me think of Paul and his greetings of a Holy kiss. 

This is my window. The mountains beckon me and the sun draws me. This is my room. I love it and yet my very being longs to be outside of my beloved room.

Freedom Reigns

Freedom reigns above the clouds

What is above the sky?

The dancing ones cry out

Holy Holy Holy

Almighty is this King of Glory

we hear the call from below

we who are human

grounded for a time

when will we be free?

The thirst for control must die

The hunger for rule must starve

but this is not enough, never enough

We walk the grass and dirt, shuffle along

The edge of a cliff, drops with rocks below

a no fly zone

I wonder – what would it take to reach the sky

Where joyful bells and laughter swells

Freedom for us lost slaves on the ground

It came, it comes, will come still

Through the only way it can

My lover speaks strong words, powerful

of the only way

through which freedom can come

The Holy Holy Holy, one of humanity’s own

Love in the flesh

Do you hear His cry?

Set the captives free

For they are the ones whom I love

The shimmering one’s wings concur with claps

Thunder rolls back the sky

Gold drops of royal blood flood the earth

His life blood poured out on a chained dead race

An army rises in its place

Marked with grace and peaceful feet leading

The Word powerful on their lips, in their hands

He leads them

He walks among them

He cuts off the chains that bind their feet and hands

scarred and bloody from metal clasps and iron bolts

no longer locked down to the dead ground

skipping through the streams of life in woods and valleys

they help him find those still enslaved and depraved

His joy over the loved ones found twirls in the air

we thought we had to reach the sky to be free

But He, Oh but He

He came into our prisoned land

and set us free

Now we grasp his hand and soar the skies

Freedom reigns above the clouds

and on the no longer barren ground

The King brought the kingdom

down

True Pursuit

If you knew completely and without a doubt that someone would never choose to love you, would you pursue them their whole lives for the sake of gaining their love?

...







That's what God does all the time.




(If you knew someone would never accept Jesus as their savior, would you still actively pursue them for the sake of them accepting Christ? Just a thought of what our feeble love looks like against His magnificent, jealous, redeeming, all-consuming love.)

Dance by the Fire's Light

Dance by the fire’s light

Teeter from side to side

Step and sway with the flicker

Orange hue covers the darkness

A man moves in and around

Towards the edge, back towards the light

He does not move

But it is I who moves

Dancing by the fire’s light

Its glow leads me as if by a will unknown

My arms flow above, reaching above

Skirt twirls and hair twirls as my body spins

Feet swimming in the dew covered grass

His face it lit, a smile bright

Coming forth in the fire light

Hands hold tight in his familiar grasp

Arms above, linked with his, reaching above

Circles circles slowly turn

Round a bout we turn, he turns

He leads me as our feet turn

His eyes of blue, brown, green, always changing

They dance in the fire’s light

My heart thumps, keeps time

Here we have no drum to find the beat

He leads, I follow

His beat fills our ears

Our moves, we moves in and around

Each other in smiles and tears

Surrounded by wilderness darkness so far away

Dancing by the fire’s light

the Story of You and Me

There’s this line running through my head

Us, its us

Not me, not you

But you and me, together
A truth non can undo

Interwoven, tightly wound

Inseparable, forever bound

It bounces and moves and sometimes forgets

But never does that change

The us in my head

I started out as just me

You have always been you

You pursed and wooed

I ran away, and sometimes still do

The life you have

And the death you gave

Sealed my fate

Forever, your blood to save

It sounds strange, blood and body

Cover my nasty sin soaked life

And yet its true, hosea in the godly flesh

Pursing his bride to make her his wife

A prostitute I have been,

A whore that gives to all

I hid in the darkness

Covered only by the fall

You found me, oh king

I was shrouded in the dark

Your radiance destroyed the night

Wiped away my death mark

Your beauty and your love

Your strength and your grace

Became all that I knew

As I looked upon your face

Sometimes I forget

That I’m your bride

And you, oh pursuer of hearts

Are with whom I reside

You have covered me in your cloak

Pure white that I can’t create

Your purity is my portion

Shame no longer my fate

This is your song from the place

Above the sky to my heart

This has been your everlasting plan

That you set in motion from the start

You who dwell within me

There is always us

I am not by myself

Never single, always one plus

A mystery I may never know

An understanding I can’t seize

But this place of mystery with you

Is better than my own half answers of ease

All of this so I could know you, love you

And I do, lover of my soul

Sin was just the obstacle

That I would be with you was the goal

There’s this line running through my head

Us, it’s us

Not just me, not just you

But you and me, together
A truth non can undo

Us

It's About You

I’m starring at the wall pretending

                my face says I’m listening

                my eyes giving that lie away

I think about my day tomorrow and

                what to say on Friday

                maybe even what shirt would go with

                my favorite pair of jeans

Wishing I could be sleeping and therefore

                dreaming

Instead I speak

                I say good words I love

                riddled with meaning I created

                trying to invoke my passion

But this isn’t about me, It’s about You

You say to listen

even though I backtalk about how I’ve been trying

the lie is realized before its been finished

shut the trap, okay

You reach out

                fingers grasp this hard heart

                squeezing, squeeze after squeeze

                jolts of electricity and laughter

                squeezing

Closer now you cradle this

                faintly beating heart

                lathering it with kisses

                love feels good

                warmth always has hated the cold

You speak fire

                heat blazing in your hands

                seems like feeling for the first time

                all over again

Sizzles crackle

                steam mists over heart

                from God sized tears

                falling

                upon it

Pain grasps, spasms, twitching

                seeing the world from your eyes

                love mixed with pain

                joy accompanied by loss

                so many hearts frozen and dead

You just want to start them all

                tears from this heart

                as yours bleeds for them

                and for this one

                covers and seeps into bloodless ones

                they can only beat with blood pumping

                their blood is dried

                only your blood

                this heart agrees

                feels, cries, sees

Only one beat now

                our hearts beat as one

Your fingerprints remain from the squeezes

                marked

Pumping love and life

This isn’t about me

                can’t be

There is only we

Before I was, He Loved

I was a baby once. Many preferred to call me a fetus but we both know I was a baby, a little human person in someone's tummy. I wasn’t born yet when my mother choose to not keep me. It’s okay though, mainly because of Him.

He knew about me before she did. When she was with that man who some might label as my dad, He was the one putting me together. I felt His hands putting my cells where they needed to be and shifting them into my parts.

What He formed the most though was my heart. Sometimes it would tickle and giggles would have come out if I had been able to make noise. Other times it wouldn’t feel too good, the rearranging, and I didn’t like it but He told me “Don’t worry, this won’t last long. It’s for your good my love.”

He said that a lot, my love, beloved. He whispered it to me and held me in His hands. He protected me. When my mother was debating about whether to stop my life, my heartbeat, before I even had a chance to breath, He stepped in. He whispered His love for me into her ear; He whispered His love for her too. She listened and decided His to just give me up instead.

I think I should have been more scarred but He didn’t let a lot of her words or lack of love ever find me. All I knew was His love. He promised that He had chosen me, knew one day we would walk outside together. He promised His love for me was forever and it might be awhile before I knew His love fully but it would always be there.

So, I was born. I was given up and He guided me into a family. I grew up and one day, just as He promised, I knew His love. His hands were once again forming my heart. The pain that had happened because I thought I had been alone, He healed it. He showed me how He had always been with me.

I passed through the waters during birth and He was with me. I walked through the fires of this painful life but they did not burn me. He formed me and I was delivered right into His waiting arms because, as he says, “You are mine.”

These days we walk together, talk together, we even live together, He in me and I in Him! He shows me His love more and more all the time. He protects me and cares for me like no one else can. And He whispers to my heart that He loved me before I can remember, before I was even born. Because, you see, I’m an adult now but I was once a baby.

The Playfulness of God

God sometimes gives me things to share with people but he gives much more to others. Here is a short part from a sermon that I think is relevant for the body on the revelation of playing with God and having fun with Him. This has changed some of my attitude towards God and helped me open my heart up more to what He has for me... so good!

the pictures in this video are so weird and irrelevant, but the message, oh goodness and truth... soak in this tidbit and if you find that it moves your heart find all 4 full sermons on the playfulness of God by Allen Hood!

Staring into the Light

To stare blindingly into a bright light hurts the eyes. But to be enraptured with the light makes the turning away from it impossible. So captured that you can only stare at its source, not the ring around it or darkness beyond. This is a lamp on the hill.

To stare at the Sun damages the eyes but you can’t turn away from the light. When you do turn away, due to the intelligent and knowing thoughts that come from without, the circle is burned into the eye. Whenever one turns, you still see the Sun. You view the whole world through a light stained lens that refuses to fade to the darkness of the flesh that cover’s one’s eyes, there is still that circle of light. Inescapable. All because you stare at what creates light for longer than the smart ones tell you. The glory of the created Sun proves its own existence with its light which no human can escape, especially when stared at in marvel.

How much more will this be with God! He who is light, created what currently gives light to our world and will one day replace it as our source, He shines. The Son’s Glory glares into our hearts, into our souls and the light will never recede, will never fade. To stare at the Son transforms the eyes and one does not, cannot look away for His Glory and brightness captivates and cultivates. Though thoughts tell you to turn, though the intelligence of the world claims it will be too painful and pointless and untrue, the eyes of the inner-man that is again born knows the light and will know to keep looking. May we go blind so we can truly see! The eyes will then see through the blood stained lens of the God-man, of the Son.

May my eyes be burned with His image that I cannot escape, even when I try to shut Him out. May my eyes be damaged and destroyed so they can be made new by His hands. May the wickedness, corruption and death be burned out and replaced with life, truth and the light of the way. Yes, I will stare unwaveringly at God, letting the effects come unabashed and unashamed of the mark it leaves, only caring to continue looking at the Son. It’s all about Him, His light, His Glory. And He, I will look to all of my days so my eyes only ever see His light, even if I look away.

Luke 11:33-36

Jesus said he is the light of the world. He is the light.