Thursday, December 9, 2010

"i can see there ain't no magic words to set you free"

when i want to hide, find me.

when i feel like running, obstruct my path.

when i find myself searching for a connection, may i seek your face.

when i feel lonely, may only your touch satisfy.

when my sails are waving ready to sail away, be my horizon.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

take me as i am.

6 am was early today
didn't even say hello or good morning
just put on my shoes and got on my way in the nick of time

i'm supposed to be in love with you
why do i fail you all the time?
i'm supposed to be in love with you
but i'm afraid that its a lie.

but you take me as i am
and wrap me in majesty
you take the sin i am
and purify me
O Jesus, how can you do this for me?

Now that the day is over
i sit here alone on my bed
i want to hear your whisper
pierce through the voices in my head

i'm supposed to be in love with you
why do i fail you all the time?
i'm supposed to be in love with you
but i'm afraid that its a lie

but you take me as i am
and wrap me in majesty
you take the sin i am
and purify me
O Jesus, how can you do this for me?

Cause you found me
you want me
you saved me
you washed me
your blood has taken me in

you found me
you want me
you saved me
you washed me
your blood has taken me in

you take me as i am
you take me as i am
and wrap me in majesty
you take the sin i am
and purify me
O Jesus, how can you do this for me?

--Holly Starr

Monday, November 29, 2010

daydreams.

And the chorus stops
The melody is silenced.
And its just you
And me.
Creek creek back and forth
The swing attached to the tree sways with the wind as I gently rest upon it.
My white skirt flows every which way as the wind churns.
My toes tickle the green grass as they brush the tips of the blades with every back-and-forth of the swing.
The sunlight paints the scene around me so everything shines gold.
Just before me the river trickles by.
The water sparkles in the sunlight, and the quiet sound of the moving water calms every creature around me.
My hair dances around my cheek bones, across my eyelids, rests gently upon my lips.
And I just sit and sway back and forth, back and forth.
And you do not move.
Rested gently against the trunk of the tree
The rough bark penetrates your robe against your shoulder.
But you remain still.
Arms softly folded across your chest,
You watch.
And I am enough.
Back and forth, back and forth.
The slight smile carves its way through my lips.
And we do not move.
You are the wind that tossles my hair.
The sunlight that warms my skin.
The grass that tickles my toes.
You are the constant stream that forever flows.
You are everything.
You are mine.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

bulletin board post-its.

Here are some post-it notes that have accumulated on my bulletin board in my room over the past year. I stood reading them this morning and they stopped me in my tracks. Thank you for reminders of truth, bulletin board:

"Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." 1 Corinthians 13:7

"The bottom line is, even if you see them coming, the big moments, no one is really ready for them. No one asks for their life to change, not really, but it does." -Buffy

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not boast, it does not envy, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always trusts, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

"Confession- of the fact that we do not understand the place He has put us in His heart."

"I am not my own, for I have been made new. Please don't let me go, I desperately need You."

"This is my one and only life- and its a great and terrible and short and endless thing- and none of us come out of it alive."

"In your love, my salvation lies in your love... my salvation lies in your love.."

"You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in You." -St. Augustine

and my favorite today.. a note from my mother from a couple months ago..
"Much of our forgetting will do us relatively little harm. but if we forget to whom we belong, if we forget that our deepest longing is belonging to God, our compulsion for completion drives us into unhealthy relationships. "Love of God is pure when joy and suffering inspire an equal degree of gratitude." Love is not something we can conjure up through our own efforts, positive thinking, or prayer- Love is a response to being loved! Love is not a duty, rather a response." -my mama

Monday, November 22, 2010

remember me.

and in the end... theres just You. because, I'll fade away too. Who do i want my name to be remembered by?

... the only one that won't fade away..

i want to be apart of eternity.

i want to matter. i don't want to be somebody.. because everyday i am learning more and more that, truly, and all self-pity aside... i am nothing. i can't change that, i can't run away from that.. its apart of what makes me human. i am tired of trying to make my life matter, i am tired of trying to prove to myself, to the world, that i am something that matters. so no, i don't want to be somebody, i'm done fooling myself.. no.. i want to be somebody's.

i want you to remember me. when the days have faded and nobody's left. i want my face to be recognizable. don't forget me. i may not be enough to turn heads, and my life will be forgotten by the rest of the world... but i want you to pick me out of a crowd and say "yes... she is mine. today, yesterday, and forever. yes, she belongs to me." i want to be Yours and Yours alone.

dear Jesus, i am weak and my heart is easily tempted to sin. my mind is easily swayed and my heart deceived. i need your grace and mercy and forgiveness. i need your grace to lay my heart down at your feet. i can't do it, i'm not humble. i need you, i need you to take my heart and captivate it. take it from me because i only lead it astray.

I don't need to be better, or completed... i just want to be remembered.


by You, Jesus. remember me.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

reminiscing.

I don’t know what to say.
I am sad.
I don’t like reminiscing.
Were you evil? Was it wrong?
Or did I have to make it all up in my head to justify what I willingly chose to give to you.
Could it be possible that everything that I saved, everything I wanted to be, I gave to you?
Willingly.
I wanted you. What happened and where did you go?
I don’t think I want you.
Edge of desire. It just doesn’t do the same thing to me like it used to.
I wanted to escape. Clearly.
What am I trying to escape from?
Being okay?
Blue skies are coming. But I know that its hard.
Okay, is that what I should be taking from all of this?
For some reason, I keep lugging you around with me.
The good, the bad, my fault or yours, I carry it. Deep within me and as an integral part of me.
Like, you can’t know me if you don’t know us, that, whatever it was.
And, I can’t truly know myself if I don’t admit and f ace the fact that, I loved you.
But, is that truth?
Why don’t I let it go. My sin. My mistakes. My messups.
Its like, those are my excuses not be great.
Well, I can’t go and do that or be that because if you only really knew me and what I carry around in these filthy hands, you too would know that I have no place there, doing that.
Doing what? Loving people? I have no place loving people? Well… do I know I am loved?
I believe I do know that. So why don’t I live that? If I accept that, then I have to come to terms with the fact that there is nothing I can do- its not me, the fact that I am okay. I can’t do it on my own. And I think I hate that. In fact I think I resent it. I don’t know why.
I am very prideful.
I want to save myself. I want to do it on my own and be able to present to him a clean and whole and good heart and be like, yes, well of course He loves me, I worked my ass off and have sacrificed a lot to be where I am at.
But, that’s not how it works.
He loves me. He loves my heart. He told me, when he forgives, he forgets, as if none of that is apart of us, yet we walk around here like our sin in carved into our hearts permanently. So much so that it even affects the way our heart beats.
My past, my sin, is not who I am. It is all apart of writing our story, but, this isn’t my story to tell. I am one part of Jesus’s story. And the only part of this life that matters in that story.. is my heart.
Create in me a heart that’s clean. I can’t have relationship with God without him. I need his grace to even be in relationship with Him. Surely you desire truth in the inner parts, you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean.
Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
I have to give it all to Him. I can’t save myself. I have to let go of the pain and the hurt and the mistakes. They aren’t mine to carry. I don’t have to have those to be me.
Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.
O Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. O God, you will not despise.
I must come to you broken and contrite. All of my heart, not just the parts of me that I can stand to see go. But all of me. I can’t even come to you… without you. I need you. I want you. My soul needs you. My soul was made to love you and know you and be in true relationship with you. That’s why the world doesn’t work when it is not in your hands.
Dear Lord, I pray You would take my soul in your hands and lift my hands to sing your praise. So that my heart may know you and my knees may kneel before you. For it is you that this life was created for and I pray you may take this life in your hands and hold it forever with you. Because I am yours and I want to be captivated by You. Captivate my heart, O Lord, and lead me forever to You. For my soul wants to awaken, and my heart to arise… for it has met its maker, and longs only for Your touch.
Be with me and give my feet the joy to dance in Your presence.
Forever Yours.
I forever will be and always have been, your girl.
That’s all I am.
Yours.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

tune my heart to sing thy grace...


In Christ alone, my hope is found

He is my light, my strength, my song

This cornerstone, this solid ground

Firm through the fiercest drought and storm

What heights of love, what depths of peace

When fears are stilled, when strivings cease

My comforter, my all-in-all

Here in the love of Christ I stand

There in the ground His body lay

Light of the world by darkness slain

Then bursting forth in glorious day

Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory

Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me
For I am His and He is mine

Bought with the precious blood of Christ

No guilt in life, no fear in death
This is the power of Christ in me

From life’s first cry to final breath

Jesus commands my destiny

No power of hell, no scheme of man

Can ever pluck me from His hand
Till He returns or calls me home

Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand