Depend

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Praying today that the words of Paul -- a man happy to recognize his weakness as an invitation of Christ's strength -- would be my daily bread.

I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 1 Co. 2:9-10

Dress Up

This is my new valentines-day slash party frock, and I feel like a million bucks wearing it. Yeah for new clothes and the confidence boost they sometimes bring. But in donning new duds I also face this challenge to become a new wearer of clothes.

A new dress doesn't get you anywhere. It's the life you are leading in the dress, and the sort of life that you lived before and what you did later. - Diana Vreeland

Cold Tangerines

"I want a life that sizzles and pops and makes me laugh out loud. And I don't want to get to the end, or to tomorrow, even, and realize that my life is a collection of meetings and pop cans and errands and receipts and dirty dishes. I want to eat cold tangerines and sing loud in the car with the windows open and wear pink shoes and stay up all night laughing and paint my walls the exact color of the sky right now." -- Cold Tangerines by Shauna Niequest

I am hungry for this fruit. It may be a while before I taste it. I'm currently in the thick of grieving loss, and it's not pretty. And while I cry out and feel forsaken, I know that I am not to grieve like the rest of men. Because I have a God who helps to turn the corner in my heart when I can't. I have a hope -- what right now, feels like a tiny candle's flame of hope. I want to plant myself next to the water that is Truth, establish roots in His Word, become a flourishing tree that bears much fruit. And I want to be able to eat cold tangerines, and giggle, and see redemption in the routine of life.

Lord, turn the corner in my heart

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When I write here, I often feel as though I need to have come to some great revelation; that the Lord needs to have already done some work in my heart that gives me the authority to speak. When you put your words into print, there's just something that feels a bit more been there, learned this. But, today, I am writing as one broken. Today, I write as a heap who needs help being picked up. Today, it feels like my heart is paper-thin and tattered. I am sad, and struggling to put hope in my God. Though I know nothing of the physical and emotional suffering of Job, I find myself in the pain of his accusatory words. Have you forgotten me, O God?

I pray the Lord to turn a corner in my heart, that I can hope in the words of Job's friend:

But if you will seek God earnestly and plead with the Almighty, if you are pure and upright, even now he will rouse himself on your behalf and restore you to your prosperous state. Your beginnings will seem humble, so prosperous will your future be.

Job 8:5-7

The List

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Just a list of things I just can't seem to get enough of right now.

These songs:
Merry Happy, by Kate Nash (see below)
The Weight of Us, by Sanders Bohlke
Emmylou, by First Aid Kit (and their whole album on First Listen this week)
Alabama Pines, by Jason Isbell
Ghosts, by Laura Marling

These pressers:

Old Try

The Happy Envelope

Concrete Lace

Ink Meets Paper

Fifteen/Eleven

These tastes:

This salad

Oiled, salted marcona almonds from V.Richards

Bannoffee Pie

These shows (I know, I know, I'm behind the times):

The Kennedys

Downtown Abbey

Portlandia

These e-reads:

That Kind of Woman

Matchbook

Rue

These words (Maybe, just maybe, you'll see some letterpressness from their inspiration)

• The time has come/let us be brave/shake off all of your sins, the time has come, let us be brave Sanders Bohlke, The Weight of Us

• So much I know, that things don't grow/If you don't bless them with your patience First Aid Kit

• Everything in Cold Tangerines, Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist

We Can Grow Flowers From Where Dirt Used to Be

A Good Read

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It was four years ago that I was just about eight months out of college. I was beginning my “career,” if that’s what we want to call it. With my internship about to expire, I was anxious and searching for NEXT. I was worried that I wouldn’t find the adventure I sought, the beautiful colored version of life from my dreams.

I distinctly remember writing in my journal that if my life was to be a recorded as a storybook, observed by someone else, that I sure as hell wanted it to be a good read. I wanted each chapter to represent something new, something lovely, something profound.

I wanted a heroine to emerge from the pages, a kind and brave soul – someone readers would admire for her grace and faith-filled easy trust.

If I flip through the pages of my recent times, I’m honest to say that I’m not her. I’ve been deflated, easily intimidated, pessimistic and scared. I am not the protagonist I set out to be.

I spend a lot of time these days reading blogs of gorgeous people living beautiful lives, and remembering the girl with blank pages. Maybe these story-writers have indeed found the secret of living always in a bubble of happiness and glitter. Or, maybe –more realistically- they, too have been let down. Maybe, they, too, have to choose to celebrate life with bright balloons and colored crepe.

Maybe what makes the story sing are the plot twists and the struggles that lead to the turning points.