On Praying for a Miracle

If only you knew,
If only you could sense the trembling of my soul,
If only you could feel how my spirit shivers,
You would soon realize that it's all been a front,
A Smoke and Mirror expert
Trying to make you feel that I'm more confident than I really am.
Only the LORD knows.
He can feel the breath catch in my chest.
He can see through the mask.
And perhaps only He can bring relief.
So tonight I pray for a miracle, Dear Lord.
I beg you for forgiveness and favor
Both of which I do not deserve.
I wonder what lesson you are trying to teach.
Or maybe this is a form of punishment--
A divine reckoning for active sinning?
Perhaps those I love are suffering
For sins that I've committed?
What is it Lord?
What must I do to end this?
What can I do to have your heavy hand lifted?
Father, please be our guide and our rescue.

Quotes of late--Lia

Me: Lia I love how you love God and Jesus.

Lia: Jesus is God. They're the same thing.

--------------

(I read Lia a book about Mother Teresa. This was her commentary.)
"I like people who are good and help the poor people. I don't like people who do bad things and are mean to babies. But I do want them to say they are sorry to Jesus. So they can go up to Jesus too when the Sun goes larger and larger and we need to get saved."

I feel like sharing

I feel like sharing what I'm reading.

First, there's a book called Worship Matters that my worship leader invited the band members to read with him. As a band, we are discussing the assigned chapters weekly. I'm a few chapters in and the honesty in the book is amazing. Very good read for anyone who needs to check his heart and see who/what he is truly worshipping

Then there's The City of Ember. I've just started, but it seems like an interesting young reader type book.

Also I'm reading Original Intent about the Founding Father's original intent when creating the constitution and what role they felt Christianity held for us as a nation. Did they ever intend this war on Christianity that we see now in our nation? From reading the writing of most of our founding fathers, I can definitively say NO.

Then last night I cracked open The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan. This is a spin-off of his Percy Jackson series, which I absolutely LOVED. I opened "The Lost Hero" and couldn't put it down! I have a feeling that I'm going to become totally engulfed in this series in no time.

Last and potentially least, is The Guardian by Nicholas Sparks. It's good, not great. A thriller with bits of sentimental romance. It's entertaining, but easily put down and not picked back up. (In my opinion)

Here's a list of books that I have checked out of the library and are in a neat stack on my desk:

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President

Girl in Translation-->this one's for my book club. It's due May 15th. I've gotta get reading!

Rise to Greatness:Abraham Lincoln and America's Most Perilous Year

The Aviary

If you've read any of these books and want to share how you liked them, leave a comment below :D

The Subject/Verb Disagreement rant

So there are a lot of grammatical pet peeves out there in cyber space. Most people post about the misuse of They're, There, and Their, or another common point of contention is the misuse of it's and its.

But I feel there is not enough public outcry against the subject/verb disagreement--a major grammatical error that could strip you of an entire letter grade by its mere appearance in your paper.

Listen up folks. If someone says something, he or she says it, ok!??! Not they! Someone is a single person--not a group. If anyone or no one or everyone or somebody or anybody does anything, he or she is doing it.

Does everyone have their subjects and verbs agreeing? (nope, wrong)
Everyone in this class has an A because he or she learned subject/verb agreement.

Next class we'll talk about split infinitives :) jk

Feel free to share, if you have any grammatical pet peeves or linguistic ones.

I once had a friend who...

I once had a friend in grade school who was a brilliant artist. Looking back on it now she was probably a genius. We were just children drawing stick figure people, and box homes, and animals that were just elongated ovals with stumps for legs. But not her. She would draw horses so real that you could see the wind shift the mane along their long powerful necks. She would draw faces so vivid you could see the laughter in eyes comprised of hundreds of tiny dots alone--entire worlds that she would quite literally "dot" into existence.

 We grew up and grew apart, but years later I asked her if she still drew, and she said not so much. I was just in high school at the time, but I remember the world growing grayer. It was just another beautiful thing that I had thought was eternal, which simply crumbled into the sea (Ps 46).

As I'm sitting here, I wonder what God had intended for her to do with that gift. She probably thought it of no consequence, whether she drew or didn't. When she put down her drawing pencils and pens, I can imagine her thinking to herself "what difference would it make if I ever drew again?..."

Sometimes our gifts seems so....unimportant, small, meaningless, powerless. Not everyone can swim as fast as Michael Phelps or sing as beautifully as Celine Dion. We're not all amazing speakers like Martin Luther King Jr., or funny and smart like Bill Cosby. We're not as brave as Joshua, or as faithful as Abraham, or as wise as Solomon. I can go ON and ON and ON! Sometimes I look at my own gifts and think, where in the world do I fit in? Where am I powerful? Where in my life do my gifts make a difference, and I don't mean little things here or there, but earth shattering, world changing differences? No where really.

I've always had something to say. Always some issue I felt deeply about. Always a book bringing me to new worlds. Always a song to sing. And I've always had words. Words flowing from the world around, grasped gently by my mind, and printed with care on any page I could find.

I look at this blog filled with almost a decade's worth of my life in writing and I sometimes think, why did I write all this? Who cares? What difference did it make? So I wrote yet another poem... big whoop.

Then there are other times that I look at this blog and think to myself, WOW! I can't believe I recorded so many of my thoughts. I'll read a poem and remember exactly where I was in my life when I wrote that, and I'll feel all the same feelings as I did then.

God inspires me to write, I just know it. Sometimes I can't help but to tap out another verse or poem or thought. I'm not saying that any of it is any good, but it's me.

I am reminded of David, who was a shepherd, lowly job- not glamourous or powerful by any means- but because of his work as a shepherd he had to fight bears and other wild beasts. And those battles prepared him to win the first great battle of his young life against Goliath the giant Philistine.
That humble beginning and against-the-odds victory were what propelled a young shepherd boy into a war hero, and ultimately into a KING!

I don't know what all my writing means to the world, but one can only imagine what it means to God.

It's the sound

It's the sound of
No one being awake but me.
It's the sound of
The dry, well-thumbed pages turning.
It's the sound of
The walls and floor settling themselves
That make my heart still,
My mind come alert,
My soul decompress.
There are days that I wake
Just for the world to sleep.
There are seasons
That I live among others
Desperately yearning solitude.
This is that moment.
And those are the sounds.

Ps 20

I fall short,

Always.

The mark missed

By such great margins,

As if I'm running to catch

The Sun,

Father God.

My words--

My deadliest weapon,

Skillfully honed

And expertly drawn.

My biggest strength

Is my biggest vice,

Dear Lord.

I am a warrior princess,

Daughter of the Most High King,

Who fights on both sides

Of the battlefield,

My Liege. 

I am a most unworthy subject,

One guilty of treason

One guilty of murder

Of adultery

Of greed and envy

All by using my words--

Like a sword melded with rhetoric,

Slicing and searing both friend and foe, 

My King.

Why would you ever grant me a hearing?

I who have betrayed and hurt you,

Should receive no mercy,

And yet...

My dearest Father,

I can still feel your love.