I Am

I am black and I am white.
I am filthy; I am pure.
I am lost and I am found.
I am and am not breaking ground.
I am weak and I am strong.
I am depraved and I am clean.
I am nothing; I am all.
A broken, perfect song I sing.
I am war and I am peace.
I am human; I am soul.
I am wicked; I am holy.
I am frail and indestructible.
I am fickle; I am steady.
I am empty; I am full.
I am dark and I am light.
I am ambivalence in whole.
But God is simply “I Am.”

For Those of You Whom I Haven't Spoken to in Awhile

Here's a summary of my summer (oh how I love alliteration!):
In June, I babysat a WHOLE lot in attempt to earn money for my trips. Praise God, the money came in, and I was able to go to Precept Bible Boot Camp! Woohoo! We studied Matthew 1-7, the emphasis being on The Beattitudes and The Lord's Prayer. I learned a TON. The thing that really stood out to me was mercy. I feel like I finally have a good grasp on the concepts of mercy and forgiveness, how they are the same and how they are different, how to be merciful, etc.
In July I continued babysitting and earning money, and had plenty for Mexico :) Woot! Woot! This trip was ridiculously different from the last one, from going to one church instead of two, to having the whole team together the whole week, to doing VBS in the mornings AND afternoons as compared to doing door-to-door ministry in the mornings and VBS in the afternoons...I can hardly scratch the surface of differences or I'll drag this on forever, but anyway, I feel as though God did great and mighty things only HE could do with the diverse group He had to work with. It was perfect :) About a week after the trip, I joined a prayer meeting group and have attended every meeting on Thursdays. However, as the group is mainly college age students, and they are heading back to Lipscomb this weekend, I won't be able to attend, unless a kidnapping takes place (which I wouldn't doubt) at some point, until next summer.
This month, I've mainly be laying around, resting up before school starts, hanging out with friends--normal teenage stuff, I suppose. I also had a job interview and was hired on the spot :) So I will be assisting a dance teacher three hours every Saturday morning. As long as I can get a few students, I still intend to teach elementary Spanish this year, also.
Random tidbits: Loree and I will hopefully be teaching a Discover 4 Yourself (D4Y) study for elementary students at our church on Sunday nights, I'm only going to tutorials one day (Monday) a week this year (Praise the Lord!), I'm going to try to talk with Precept International about their missions board sometime soon, many of my friends are scattering abroad like the tribes mentioned in James 1 but God is my Best Friend and He's teaching me to hold fast to that lately.
So, that's my life recently, in summary. It's pretty dry facts, but this would take me a crazy amount of time to type up if I included all the details :P

How?

How?

How am I worthy of this trust?
How can you be so faithful?
How can I sit and do nothing,
When you give me Everything?
When you are my Everything?

How am I worth so much trouble?
How can You be so forgiving?
How can I hold so much in myself,
When You want me to come to You with all my burdens?

You are holy.
And I am wholly.
Wholly surrendered.
I am wholly Yours.

I Tried

I Tried

I tried to piece it all together,
Tried to read between the lines,
Tried to hypothesize, test, and solve it.
But I failed each and every time.

I tried to master all there is,
Tried to perfect each simple rhyme,
Tried to ace every subject handed me,
Make a penny be a dime.

I tried to exceed expectations,
I tried to be the best,
I tried to honor all God’s wishes,
I tried to give a hundred and ten percent.

I tried to keep myself from falling,
Tried to keep myself from failing,
Tried to never be pulled down,
And tried to lift others up.

When that failed…

I tried to pick up all the pieces,
Tried to be my only hope,
Tried to find my own redemption,
Tried to make what goes down go up.

Then I realized…

Only You can piece it all together.
Only You can be the Master.
Only You can set the limits of expectations.
Only You can keep me from falling.
Only You can pick up the pieces.
Only You can fix my brokenness.
Only You can save me from myself.

You Choose

How can one so strong to save,
Beat the weak and strike the lame?
How can one designed to shine,
Darken the void, make the children cry?

The Holy One has destined you,
To love and heal and calm, but you choose
To spit and mock, oh you deny
The Savior’s love, but Christ has come,
And He loves.

How can one so wise deny
The Way, the Truth, and yeah, the Life?
How can one designed to love,
Hate and lie and boast and grunt?

The Holy One has destined you,
To love and heal and calm, but you choose
To spit and mock, oh you deny
The Savior’s love, but Christ has come,
And He loves.

Why are we so quick to say
Lies and filth and buy cheap fame?
Why are we so apt to choose
Death over life?
Fear takes over our ways.
We need to step up,
And be bold because
God has a way out.
He’ll be our shelter,
If only we choose.

The Holy One has destined you,
To love and heal and calm, but you choose
To spit and mock, oh you deny
The Savior’s love, but Christ has come,
And He loves.

Thy Will Be Done

Through these blind eyes
It’s hard to see the light.
It’s hard to see my future,
What is coming?
What is going on?
Because…
I can’t see past clouds inside my vision.
I can’t see the light.
Where’s the light?
Where’s the light?

Show me the light, Lord.
Heal my blinded eyes.
I don’t need to see past the vision,
But help me make it through
What’s in front of me.
Take my hand.
Pull me through.
Make it right.
Thy Will Be Done.

Through these deaf ears
It’s hard to hear Your voice.
The whisper, light and beautiful.
What do You have to say?
Where are You?
Because…
I can’t find You, though I seek You.
Are You always there?
Are You always there?

Shout it to me, Lord.
Heal my deafened ears.
I can’t hear Your words.
But help me find the treasures
Hidden in Your Word.
Take my hand.
Pull me through.
Make it right.
Thy Will Be Done.

It’s hard.
I can feel.
Though I can’t see.
Though I can’t hear.
I can feel.
I can feel.
Capture me.
Embrace me.
Save me.
Help me, Savior.
Save me.

Show me.
Thy Will Be Done.

This Thing Called Love

V1
He wants to be somebody’s hero.
No one ever saved him,
No one really raised him.
What’s love?
So he sets out on a mission
Trying to gain himself some respect.
Trying to be perfect.
He doesn’t know that he can’t handle this life on his own.

Chorus
This thing called love’s a tricky thing.
We throw it up
Then it comes down.
If there’s only one thing we can learn,
Let it be that love is only true when it is pure.

V2
She wants to be somebody’s everything.
No one ever loved her.
No one tried to rescue her.
Why not?
So she tries to be an angel.
She plays the damsel in distress,
But what’s next?
She’s trying to find her hero.
She’s on the edge of breaking now.
She’s been thrown on the ground too hard.
Too much.

(Chorus)

Bridge
So the hero and the angel rendezvous,
Cause you know,
They were meant for each other, these two.
But then the hero becomes pressured to rescue someone better,
And the angel just can’t seem to stop her lies.
So they split apart.
What happened to their plans?

But what they didn’t realize,
Was that Love was always by their sides.
And the hero could have been saved,
And saved some lives a long time ago.
This faulty angel on the ground,
Her Savior wouldn’t let her down.
She’d been looking eye-level way too long.
If she’d look up she’d see a hand to hold.
A hand to hold.

(Chorus)