Inside me and all around me I feel a wild storm’s rage,
And it’s hard when no one knows what happens offstage,
But You breathe life into my tired lungs, age after age,
And I can feel my heart, there just beneath my rib cage,
You write on it, page after page.
It’s warm to match Yours and it’s beating,
Because You heal the hurt and aching,
I will stretch my arms out, rejoicing,
In the light of Your face, I’m basking,
And to You I will always sing.
I’ve got a distance to go and the weather is bitterly cold,
But when it gets dark and I feel small I can sense the hold
Of Your hand, and forever Your love is my safe stronghold,
It is abounding and so true and capable of things untold,
And it will never, ever grow old.
I reach for You and You are always there,
No matter where,
In my brokenness and in every despair.
And when I’m in the thick of warfare,
You hear every prayer,
And when I come to You bare,
You tell me You care.
And I was bare but I won’t live another day unaware,
Because it’s Your love and this faith that I want to wear,
I want to find those like me and tell them that You care.
-t.h.
written: 05/06/17
---
Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, yes, I will help you, I will uphold You with my righteous hand. / Isaiah 41:10
A/N: Wow.I love that verse from the book of Isaiah.God satisfies. He's proved it to me in timeless ways and constant love and enduring patience. And still it's something I have to learn all over again, often. If you're like me, be encouraged. He will always be your stronghold, He is unfailing and He is forgiving.
Have you experienced something similar? Do you feel like your life is crazy or confusing at the moment, and if the answer is yes, who/what do you turn to for comfort? Because there is only One that can give you the peace you need.
The days are flying by. Yesterday, my youngest brother was officially 3 weeks old. He's growing faster than I can blink, and this is a time that none of us are going to live through again, so I'm savoring him. Cherishing the feeling of his warm, snug, tiny body in my arms and the smell of his downy head.
And, of course, photographing him, so y'all can see this piece of proof that there is an almighty Creator.
Rosebud mouth. Little knuckles. Button nose. I wonder if it's tough being so perfect.
I wouldn't be able to help loving him even if I wanted to. It's like when he was born, an invisible needle and invisible thread stitched him into my heart, into my soul. Only God could be the one to invent a feeling such as that.
All of God's grace in one tiny face.
My parents having been wearing joy since he came home.
He's deep in thought here, obviously. Hmm, isn't this a good nap.
He's a marvel, a wonder that just grows more beautiful and more priceless with each day.
Baby, you’re surely going to get your heart broke again
By the tides of pain that recede and then come again
Who’s to say why we put ourselves in these situations?
This world is filled with unnecessary complications
Darling, you’re going to cry again
People use people for their own gain
I promise it’s just something that happens
And the road is bumpy even when you strap in
Honey, you’re going to have to learn again
You will see sun shining through the rain
Sometimes the hurt is a disguised blessing
Through the doubts and through the guessing
Go, go find yourself somewhere you don’t want to leave
Move, move on from here to find another story to weave
Bitterness, it only leaves your heart in a state to grieve
Forgive, even when forgiveness isn’t what you receive
Find yourself somewhere you want to stay
Make good memories to one day replay
Don’t stress it if there’s any kind of delay
You’re going to find that somewhere someday
-t.h.
written: 22/05/2017
---
A/N: I feel as if I'm at a bit of a conflict with this poem. Your thoughts on it are appreciated, as always. Do you agree with what I've written? Feel absolutely free to disagree. I'm not even sure if I concede with myself yet, if that makes any sense. Do you ever feel this way? Like you're waiting on that place, that somewhere?
The thing is, I am a strong believer in living in the current moment, and being happy and grateful where you are in life. But to contrast that, I also think that one should not give up praying, hoping and healing, or waiting for dreams to become reality in the future. They won't always become real, of course, and it definitely matters what kind of reality you're truly desiring- whether it is pleasing to God or not. But I anticipate that hope, lessons learned and perseverance will become strength when built upon day after day.
I know what you might be thinking...something big must have happened for me to actually be posting again. The truth is that I really miss the blogging world with so much of my heart, I miss the community here, I miss sharing with you all and listening to you all and making more friends- but life refuses to be perfect (I know I've been over the whole perfect thing before, but bear with me) and I'm never going to be perfect and I think I'll just have to see where this goes. If I continue posting, or if I don't, or if I land up in the in between somewhere. I'll roll with it.
BUT. Right now, I have something I really do want to tell you all about. Or rather, someone. And this surely is big news.
His name is Moses, and he is beautiful.
My heart aches with love for this tiny being! So, yes. Something huge did happen. Look at his smile! I am proud to introduce my new baby brother to you all. Moses Bennett Joseph, born two months premature on the 8th of May (fun fact: that happened to be my twelve-year-old brother's birthday and Moses decided to gatecrash it) and weighing 2.1 kilograms with a full head of hair and ten siblings that already adore him. He came home from the hospital yesterday.
People, God is so GOOD. He has answered our prayers, continues to answer them and is taking good care of Moses and my mom.
I CANNOT explain the way I feel now, how my heart bursts with emotions that wrestle and tangle together and yet are all beautiful, but I'll try. Having a new little brother, someone so small, so innocent, so pure, so precious, so promising...it's incredible. I really am trying here, but it's hard. Hard to explain how it makes me feel and how joyful I am when I look at his face, when I kiss his head and smell the sweetness of baby. Hard to tell you just how phenomenal a thing it is for me when I hold him in my arms and slip my finger into his own mini fingers and feel them squeeze.
And I'm sorry, but there are no words that will do it justice, so I won't try. For now.
That being said...my blog name may need an update sooner or later, because there has been another (unforgettable) addition to our family. How does Fifth out of Eleven sound?
PS: Proper and professional photos of this miracle baby are coming soon.
BOOM. I’M POSTING FOR THE FIRST TIME IN WHAT FEELS LIKE
YEARS. LET’S START THIS OFF REAL AND RAW. CONFESSION TIME.
So, I sat at my desk, fingers hovering over the keyboard of
my laptop. I’ll be sixteen, I thought to myself. Tomorrow is my birthday and I’m
turning sixteen.
And then what?
Or maybe the question I was asking myself is this, instead:
what do I have to show for the sixteen years I have been alive?
I started thinking over all the things that want to be
thought about whenever a birthday comes around. The first one sucker punched me
right in the gut to guarantee that it was at the front of the line.
MY PAST. (A
DISTRACTION FROM HERE AND NOW)
It only just hit me now that I have, at times (including in the past few days), been more
concerned with my past than my future.
That’s not the way it should be. Why? Because Jesus Christ
made me new, and then told me to forget about my past. AND then he promised me
that He has a plan and that He will make a way.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have
become new. / 2 Corinthians 5:17
Do not remember the
former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing,
now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in
the wilderness and rivers in the desert. / Isaiah 43:18-19
My past has some dark chapters in it, but there’s
undoubtedly a lot of good to it as well. I have great memories. I have awful
memories. There are tons of embarrassing stories I could tell you, but perhaps
I should save them for another post. I’ve grown, I’ve learned, I’ve changed.
But the past is not what we should focus on when we turn a year
older, or at anytime, for that matter. And what should be? The answer is beautifully
simple and simply beautiful: Jesus.
Looking unto Jesus,
the author and finisher of our faith,
who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame,
and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. / Hebrews 12:2
The next thing that wouldn’t stop nagging me is an issue I’ve
been fighting for a while, not only recently. It’s absurd and something that
could never be a reality because I am a human being, and yet, I still have to stop
myself from running after it all the time.
MY IDOL. (CHASING
PERFECT)
I don’t feel perfect. I feel so far from perfect that I have
been down in the dumps lately, mulling over how many other sixteen year olds
out there ‘have their lives together’ and here I am, about to turn sixteen, and
who am I anyways? What can I do? I’m not special. I’m not extremely talented,
or super smart, or very beautiful. Sometimes it feels my life is just a tornado of
doubt, loose ends and failures.
I don't know if you noticed what is wrong with that attitude, but God brought it to my attention. I’m writing this all down because He helped me realize, in His ever patient way, how vain, how self-centred and how self-obsessed I have been being. I have
been wasting my time- adding up my triumphs,
my goals, my first impressions on other people, my appearance, my worth
and my story, and then still
deciding that I fall short in every area. I've been idolizing the idea of perfection, when perfect isn’t even a thing that
we as humans can manage anyways.
Basically, all I've been thinking about is me, and that's wrong. Me, myself, I, moi, mine, I deserve, I want, that’s mine. You get the idea. Because, reflecting on these thoughts that have recently been drifting aimlessly around in my head, I could not stand here (or sit here, if we’re being
literal) and deny their nature to be purely egocentric and inward looking. And the
bible does not agree with that kind of thinking.
Let nothing be
done through selfish ambition or conceit,
but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. /
Philippians 2:3
I have been holding up the days I’ve spent in this world in my
mind, turning them over, inspecting them, trying to extract what is good about
me so that I can feel that I am going to qualify as ‘the perfect sixteen-year-old’.
Yeah, I was gently reminded by the Lord that there’s no such thing as ‘the
perfect sixteen-year-old’. God called me out on that pretty fast, and I’m so
grateful. It took a huge weight off my chest. It’s funny how easily we let the
devil lie to us and convince us that he knows or we know who we are and what we’re
worth, and it’s amazing how Jesus comes to our rescue again and again.
Back to the point I was trying to make. I was spending my
energy on trying to put together a picture of myself that I would actually
like. I couldn’t. In fact, I failed miserably. Do you know why? It’s not only
because I’m sinner who makes many, many mistakes and also someone who has to
constantly fight their very insistent, self-seeking, self-pleasing side. I am
that, exactly that, whether I choose to ignore it or not- IF I leave God out of
the picture. You see, I was trying to be something admirable all on my own.
Counting on my fingers the good works I’ve done, the adventures I’ve had, the
people I’ve impacted.
But that ISN’T WHAT MATTERS. I am not what matters. I am not who matters. I want to let perfect go and feel the joy that comes with knowing that it's irrelevant when I look to my awesome and mighty God. Which
leads me to the next thing that He happened to talk to me about today.
MY WORTH. (WHO I AM)
I don’t want to let those letters in bold confuse you. I put
‘WHO I AM’ there so that I could tear them down. It isn’t about who I am. Bam. For me, that is a revelation that I need to awaken to over and over again. Selfish person over here, if you haven't noticed. But the good news? The good news is that, as I already mentioned, I am made NEW in Jesus.
Another major problem with the path my mindset has been
traveling down lately is something that I hadn't taken to heart as deeply as I needed to until this week. WHO AM I TO DECIDE MY OWN WORTH? JESUS decided my worth
when HE died on the cross for me. My worth is in HIM. Not in anything I can do or say.
Guys. I’m baring my soul to you…are you starting
to understand how very, very, very self-obsessed I am, naturally? It makes me
feel dirty. But I have Jesus. I have JESUS. He washes my sins away and
makes me His child. And amidst all of this, me weighing myself on some dishonest
scale that this world thrust at me, me trying to chase after my own desire to
feel like I mean something, me yearning for acknowledgement from people and the
internet instead of from a God who loves me with an insane amount of love, I
somehow forgot that.
I never want to forget that.
I am ready now. Ready for waking up as a sixteen-year-old
tomorrow. I am thankful and grateful to my Heavenly Father for showing
me that it’s not who I am, it’s not what I do. It is who He is and what He
does, and He has done so much for me in the years I've been alive and even before. HE is what I want everyone to see when
they look at my life. Not my achievements, or the way I use words, or my
physical attributes, or my followers on Instagram. I want all that to fade, to
crumble, to fall away like the weak and incongruous foundation it is when they
become aware of the glory of my God. I want it to be about Him.
As for me, as for who I am- I am His. It is more than I could ever ask for. It is
more than I deserve. It is a gift that Jesus has offered me, and whether I
accept it or not is most important. So, I do. I do accept it, and I can
tell you without a shadow of a doubt in my heart, in my mind, in my soul- it is
more fulfilling than anything else.
It is what I want to lie in my bed thinking about when the
morning greets me tomorrow. I am His, I am His, I am His. And it is a truth
that can be yours too, that is yours too. If you don’t know that, my prayer is that it will be revealed to you now. If
you already have that truth instilled inside of you, let this be a reminder of
how precious it is. Let God tell you, with that small, still voice that is so
powerful and reverberates in me even now: YOU ARE MINE.
I can’t know what it is you will choose or what it is you
have chosen. But as for me, I want to be His in return. And in being His...I can testify that it truly does fill that chasm inside that nothing and no one else can heal.
That Christ may dwell
in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may
be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height- to know the love of Christ
which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
/ Ephesians 3:17-19
