great song.

Get Higher- The Paper Tongues

pretty awesome. check it out.

thoughts of a friend

one of my friends from project posted this on her blog. i loved it and wanted to share:

Don’t discount the place in which the Lord has You. Allow Him to teach you to be content with everything or with nothing. Remember, the END goal is to know Him. May the good times, the bad times, and the ehh times all draw you closer to Him.

--Joy Helfen

:) she's so wise.

through painted deserts

so i finally finished reading east of eden and am now on a new book. i decided to read don miller's through painted deserts. i'm only half way into the first chapter and i know that i'm going to love it. i just really like don miller. i get his sense of humor and love his writing style.  blue like jazz is one of my favorite books. 

anyways, the point of this post was to share a little of his writing. small excerpt from the author's note:

"the seasons remind me that i must keep changing, and i want to change because it is God's way.  all my life i have been changing.  i changed from a baby to a child, from soft toys to play daggers.  i changed into a teenager to drive a car, into  a worker to spend some money.  i will change into a husband to love a woman, into a father to love a child, change houses so we are near water, and again so we aer near mountains, and again so we are near friends, keep changing with my wife, getting our love so it dies and gets born again and again, like a garden, fed by four seasons, cycle of change.  everybody has to change, or they expire.  everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons.

i want to keep my soul fertile for the changes, so things keep getting born in me, so things keep dying when it is time for things to die.  i want to keep walking away from the person i was a moment ago, because a mind was made to figure things out, not to read the same page recurrently.

...i sometimes look into the endless heavens, the cosmos of which we can't find the edge, and ask God what it means.  did You really do all of this to dazzle us?  do You really keep it shifting, rolling round the pinions to stave off boredom? God forbid Your glory would be our distraction.  and God forbid we would ignore Your glory."

--donald miller, through painted desserts

mmm. okay. so maybe this excerpt wasn't really all that small, and i even left out a lot of it...but isn't it great? miller has such a way with words.

i think i also really enjoy this little excerpt because it applies to my life right now. shoot. it can apply to everyone's life.  we must be willing to change. we should crave change because God created us that way. 

i've been thinking about my future a lot lately.  what am i going to be doing this time next year? where do i want to go to grad school? what do i want to go to grad school for? am i even supposed to go to grad school?  not gonna lie, all of these thoughts scare me. i do not adjust to change really well. i'm an intj. i like order. i like system. and i like routine. any wrench that gets thrown into my machine of a life stresses me out.

i've been praying about the changes in my life a lot and i've really gained some peace through it.  my fear of change goes hand in hand with my need to be in control. actually, i feel as if all of my issues stem from my need to be in control. but i can't control change, and since i can't control it, i should just embrace it. don miller says it best.  i should want to change "because it is God's way."