Let Us Shine

I have a special love for stars. They shimmer in a blue dark enough to pass for inky black, fragments of some glistening magic from afar raining down gossamer kisses. They beckon me into contemplation and enshroud me in comfort; they call me to open my eyes and dream.

They have inspired writers and other artists for ages. Shakespeare's "Sonnet 116" describes love as "the star to every wandering bark" (line 7). It doesn't really surprise me that he chose a star for his analogy. Sure, it makes sense logically, but it's also emotionally fitting. I look up into the night sky and I am awash in Abba's love. It's like He's taking my hand and pulling me into a dance, laughing.

"But when I look at the stars,
when I look at the stars,
when I look at the stars I see someone else.
When I look at the stars,
the stars, I feel like myself."

Switchfoot "Stars"

Everything has an end, right? Even stars die. The thing is, starlight continues on through time and space, continuing to affect us. Oddly enough, we're like stars in that respect. We live and we die, but there's more to us than that, to which we are often blind. Each motion, each word, is a spark, the tiniest of lights in a vast darkness. Together these sparks define us, combined to make vast stars. We are seen within our solar systems, our galaxies, our universe. Even after we die and our bodies crumble into dust, the our lights continue on through space and time. Maybe in our writing, our art, our music, or simply the memories of others.

There is a long history of using stars to navigate. This also applies to us. We use stars like the disciples, saints, writers, and musicians to help us redirect ourselves to Christ, to stay on course when we can't see the shore. All of whom will continue to inspire others long after they die, whispering Father's love into hearts that are battered and torn, for all hearts are.

"Your love will lead us through the fight
Like stars in the night"

Tenth Avenue North "Stars"

He took him outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars--if indeed you can count them." Then He said to him, "So shall your offspring be." Genesis 15:5

We are the descendents of Abraham and children of God, and we are stars. We are more than innumerable; we are lights in the darkness. We light the way long after we have gone.

"This little light of mine

I'm gonna let it shine"

Thoughts of Thoughts: Ponderings and Reflections

I absolutely love talking with my mother. She is one of my closest friends and my greatest confidant. Recently we had a discussion on thought and action. She has been reading Emerson and will occasionally look up from the pages and talk with me about what she has just read. We have had multiple little thesis statements in these discussions. One such statement is that thinkers are not natural doers. They still do, but their natural inclination is to think. This was moments later backed by a quote from Emerson's "The American Scholar": "Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential... Without it, thoughts can never ripen into truth." Any thoughts are just theory without the experience that life provides. It is living that shows theory to be truth. Action is not only food for the body; it feeds thought as well.

Allow me to now clarify that in this post thoughts are not of the "solving cancer, world hunger, and the environment" nature. An example of what I mean would be this thought that I have been turning over and over in my head for the last few weeks: clouds are in-between beings, caught between smoke and snow, rising and falling. It's the little reflections and ponderings that I mean when I use the word "thoughts," not the grand scale intellectual entities that tower in the brain, squashing all little thoughts with their enormous gravity.

My mother and I are both thinkers, ponderers and reflectors. A task that should take fifteen minutes will stretch to an hour when in our hands. This is unintentional. We simply become unwittingly lost in thought.  My father grumbles about it in occasion, but we all know he loves us (my mother, after all, controls the flow of X-Files seasons to the house). To us, thoughts are the water of a mental creek: slow, clear, and calming. Both of us journal. Writing down thoughts and occurrences tends to clear our minds, helping us to relax and stop reviewing the day over and over. "Going back though my journals, I used to have thoughts on life and human nature," Mom sighed during our conversation, "but since I started teaching it's been 'do the laundry,' 'do the dishes,' and so on."

"Teaching and alcohol," I agreed. Since Mom started teaching, the fact that Cyril Conelly once said that teaching had killed more writers than alcohol had has turned into a household saying.

"Yes. Yes! Where do I find those thoughts when I'm cleaning a dirty toilet?!" Just to clarify, she does not clean toilets as part of her teaching job, but rather, as part of her own home's upkeep.

"In the dirty toilet." I wasn't exactly sure what I meant, when I said this, but the half idea sounded good.

"How do you mean?"

 "Make the toilet the metaphor."

"Go on."

"Lots of thoughts are metaphors. Take the dirty toilet and shape it into a metaphor for life or teaching. For example, I've been viewing the cats' litter-box as a zen garden of sorts. Cleaning it out, little mountains and valleys form. The world is a little zen garden of chemicals and poo."

"Chemicals and poo," my mom laughed. "I'm looking forward to this blog post."

I hadn't been planning on blogging it, but as I scribbled up a rough draft, it seemed plausible and maybe even good. Of course, there were thoughts that Mom and I didn't discuss, but certainly there will always be things left unmentioned and unconsidered in any discussion. Including the following that caught my eye as I was rough drafting and it stepped off its train into the station of thoughts bustling about in my head.

Each of us is unique in the way our thought pattens behave. Our thoughts carry the faintest touch of ourselves, near invisible fingerprints. It is the individual touch thoughts receive as they pass from one human being to the next that allows them to grow and expand. Thoughts are influenced by people as much as people are influenced by thoughts.

A Writers' Questionnaire

I was challenged to do this over a month ago. I only just found out. I think this means that I need to get on more often. If any bloggers that read this want to, I strongly encouraged them to fill this out on their blogs as well.

1. How much writing do you do on average?
Not enough. No only have I not blogged recently, I am also somewhere over a month behind in my journaling. Hopefully, I'll get back into rhythm this summer.

2. What's the last thing you wrote?
A journal entry about rain, wet robins, and colors.

3. Is it any good?
It was all right. It wasn't something that I edited or put much effort into, but it certainly wasn't bad.

4. What's the first thing you ever wrote that you still have?
My second grade journal. It has six entries, the formatting and spelling are terrible, and it takes a bit of effort to decipher the handwriting.

5. Favorite genre of writing?
Personal anecdote, oddly enough. Until I really started blogging seriously, I was strictly a fantasy writer, but there's something about my own stories that makes the flow more real. Second to that are fairy tales.

6. How often do you get writer's block?
If I'm trying to write a book, about seventy percent of the time. Blogging is maybe forty or thirty. Journaling is almost never.

7. How do you fix it?
I leave it alone and draw. I have periods where I can draw, but I can't write, and I have periods where I can write, but I can't draw, so I bounce back and forth. I almost always have a creative outlet somewhere.

8. Do you save everything you write?
Only when it comes to my journals. Other than that, I still have some papers from high school and one from junior high, but I try not to keep everything.

9. How do you feel about revision?
"It is perfectly okay to write garbage as long as you edit brilliantly." C. J. Cherryh

10. What's your favorite thing that you've written?
Probably "Hooded," but I think that if I put my mind to it I could write something better.

11. What's everyone else's favorite thing that you've written?
I don't exactly know. Possibly "Attack of the Killer Migraine," but no one has ever told me a favorite.

12. What writing projects are you working on right now?
Catching up on blogging and journaling.

13. What's one genre you have never written, and probably never will?
Most of nonfiction. I'll write anecdotes and maybe an essay or two, but I detest writing research papers, biographies, and histories. I likely will have to write some in the future, but I seriously doubt that doing so will be my own idea.

Weekly Quote 9

"I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination." Jimmy Dean

Weekly Quote 8

"Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it's always your choice." Wayne Dyer

Weekly Quote 7

"After a storm comes a calm." Matthew Henry

I apologize for not having given you a proper post in a few weeks. I'm going to try to post something more interesting than quotes by the end of the week.

Kara, over and out.

Weekly Quote 6

"If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir. Isaac Newton

Weekly Quote 5

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart." Helen Keller

Weekly Quote 4

"...reading makes all real woods a little enchanted." C. S. Lewis

Weekly Quote 3

"Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things." -George Carlin

Weekly Quote 2

"In silence man can most readily preserve his integrity." -Meister Eckhart

Something To Keep In Mind Through The Week

I know that the start of the week can be hard, so I'm going to try and post a quote at the start of each week, just something to help us through said week. I will probably post Sunday evenings most times, as I don't get on the computer early enough most mornings to post on Mondays.

"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go." Joshua 1:9

On Prayer

I'm sitting at my desk, comfort songs playing from my speakers, as darkness tries to push its way into my room. I should, probably, log off my computer and curl up with a notebook and pencil and write something, but something tugs at the back of my mind. No. I won't get off yet. I need to write something, not anything, but something. I've read through the posts of the blogs I keep up with, and one whispered in my ear. I have no idea what it whispered, just that I must write. The blog was My Faith Journey. I need to write out some of my thoughts, and my journal isn't where this needs to be right now.

I am me. I'm not special, I'm not particularly pretty, I procrastinate far too often, and I don't have one specific talent, one specific gift, but you know what? I can make a difference. I can be the difference. I'm not talking about in the lives of others, although that is important. I mean the difference in my own life, my own world. It's not much, but it's a start.

I don't have complete control over what happens in my life. There is no way for me to completely eliminate the falls I take, but I can stand back up, with help. Every single time I fall, Christ is there to lift me up. All I have to do is turn to him and ask for help. We often forget that prayer is so needed, so important to our spiritual lives, even though much of the music we listen to (okay, that I listen to) reminds us.

"When your heart breaks, He'll hurt for you. Dreams are out of reach, He'll pull you through. When you lose hope all you gotta do is get on your knees again."
Newsboys, On Your Knees

"Oh I'm on my knees, so I'm on my knees. It's a battle that we can fight."
Manic Drive, Mountains

" 'Cause I'm on my knees, begging You to turn to me! I'm on my knees. Father, will You run to me?"
Tenth Avenue North, Hold My Heart

But it's not just in music and Christian literature that we find reminders that prayer is how we reach out and ask the Lord for help, it's all over the Bible. I really like Psalm 142.

1 I cry aloud to the Lord; 

I lift my voice to the Lord for mercy. 

2 I pour my complaint before him; 

before him I tell all my trouble. 

3 When my spirit grows faint within me, 

it is you who know my way. 

In the path where I walk 

men have hidden a snare for me. 

4 Look to my right and see; 

no one is concerned for me. 

I have no refuge; 

no one cares for my life. 

5 I cry to you, O Lord; 

I say, "You are my refuge, 

my portion in the land of the living." 

6 Listen to my cry, 

for I am in desperate need; 

rescue me from those who pursue me, 

for they are too strong for me. 

7 Set me free from my prison, 

that I may praise your name. 

Then the righteous will gather about me 

because of your goodness to me.

It really strikes a cord in me. David knew how hard it was. A lot of the time, we just read through the Bible and think that he had a perfect life, but this really shows that sometimes he felt alone and unnoticed. I have several Jr. High/High school journal entries that echo verse four, and I honestly believe that we have all had times like that, but then we have verse five. It's a surge of strength. Here David turns to God to lift him up and hold him, which is what we all need to remember is one of the wisest things we can do.

There you go. When you feel like giving up, falling down in tears, turn to the constant, to God. It actually helps to do that before the tears part too.

Remember: He has a plan, and He loves you.

A Porcelain Doll Loved By Her Maker

"There's a girl in the corner with tear stains on her eyes from the places she's wandered and the shame she can't hide. She says, 'How did I get here? I'm not who I once was...'" -- You Are More by Tenth Avenue North

I think we're all in a corner at some point in our lives. The world pushes and shoves, and we get lost and hurt. It's almost like we're porcelain dolls, played with by children. Sometimes someone says or does something, and it's like a child threw you across the room to see if you could fly and you end up fractured. The perpetrator doesn't mean to hurt you, but doesn't think to check to see if you're okay. Other times we do something and believe that we can't be forgiven or that no one will love us because of it, and that can hurt us too. I have a few words to tell you. It's why I am able to go through the world without shattering completely.

God loves us and always will. No matter what we do or say, He loves us.

God crafted us with His own hands. Each doll unique and surrounded by His love, but we're more than dolls. We make our own decisions, and even though it causes Him grief to see us turn our backs to him, He lets us, so we can learn. We are head strong and fragile, yet He loves us more than any mortal can conceive. When we fall, He picks us up and washes not only our tear stained faces, but also our aching hearts. He washes away our sins because of love. He's our Father.

I was playing around on YouTube, watching the music video for Lift Me Up by The Afters, and I found a music video for a band I had vaguely heard of. I figured it wouldn't hurt to expand my musical database a little. I nearly cried. When I showed it to my mother she had one word for it. Powerful. Yes, the music was good, but I don't think there could be better visuals for it. I recommend that you watch it. It's alright if you don't like it; I won't judge you for that, but the message is strong and true. Here's a link: You Are More by Tenth Avenue North

God has gifted these young men with the ability to spread his word and love.

Love: the Ultimate Truth

"So much of what really happens in this world can't be seen with those round balls in your eye sockets. You could pluck them out and still see bright as day. Or you could walk around with the prettiest blue eyes carved from the sky and be as blind as Black himself." -- Ted Dekker

I recently finished reading Sinner by Ted Dekker. I cried. I won't tell you at which part because that might spoil it for you. There is part of every one of Ted Dekker's books that rings true. That part is the same in each one. The most important part of Christ is love. He loves us.

He loves us. He loves us! He LOVES us!

It's true. If you look in the bible he does everything out of love for us. Even flooding the Earth was an act of love.Yes, he also punished us many many times, but parents punish their children because they love them and want them to learn. Sadly, humans tend to take a lot of time to learn.

Referring to the quote, there are a lot of blind people out there. They don't know Christ's love and power. I think all of us have the same power as Dekker's Johnny. We can all open others' eyes to the truth, though admittedly not as extravagantly. The world isn't black and white, though. Some of us can see, but it's a little hazy, blurred. Those of us need glasses. Our spectacles can be found in any book store, library, and even many many homes. The Bible. There are so many examples of His love and power .

It can be boring for some in the New Testament, when the first several books are the same story only a little different, but it's like in any learning experience. If the instructor, or book, goes over something more than once, it's probably very very important. The story of Jesus IS very very important. 

"For God so love the world that He gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." -- John 3:16

God loves us. We are all his children. He is our Father. Therefore all of creation is our family, all of mankind is our siblings. We are family in Him.

I am a daughter of Christ.