When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

time spent in quiet is precious to me.
the only thing i can hear is my heartbeat and the immense amount of thoughts in my head, shooting through like a massive meteor shower.
i dislike telephones because they shatter peace.
i dislike them even more because people call me or text me only when they need something.
i have many people in my life that i feel keep in contact with me only because they need something from me.
i am a selfish being.
is it selfish to wish that people called me for more than just a haircut or just because I will make them feel better?

yes.

ephesians 5.18b-21
but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

as a functioning member of the body of CHRIST i am sinning against my brothers and sisters when i seek myself above them.
i am not submitting to you.
i am not serving you.
my needs come before you.
my hurts are bigger than yours.
i am falling in love with the “servant of all” and i see that i am not serving anyone by my self-pity, my neediness and my self-focus.

pray for me?

out of focus

...and heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss/ my heart turns violently inside of my chest/ i don't have time to maintain these regrets/ when i think about the way he loves me.

-john mark mcmillon

GOD is a genius.

he designed it so that we would fall in love with him.

we would be so infatuated by HIM that all we see is him.

we would not have the time to remember our past, dwell on our future or obsess over today.

when we lose focus of HIM we see ourselves.

we see our glory,

our pride,

our shame,

our plans...

WE come into focus.

when we are in focus we lose HOPE, JOY, FAITH, PEACE, PATIENCE, and any other thing that is good.

WHY?? because these are grown out of GOD's love inside of us. we cannot attain these out of self-pity, pride, desperation or even trying. these are HIS gift to us.

are you in focus?

or is he?

today

pin-curls

nutcrackers

spray paint

buttons

coffee stained christmas cards

iranoverahomeschooler.blogspot.com

brideinspiredblog.com

unrelenting love

zoë the golden chasing bunnies

listening to my heart race

thinking of my future wrinkly face

will i be in love with HIM then?

will my heart race as an eighty year old when i talk of my ABBA?

will my kids love jesus more than santa?

or

will i forget?

will i not share the realities of YAHWEH?

will i die in silence?

"abandon me to your praise"

we sang this on sunday at church.

it is haunting me.

when i say that i want to mean it.

is the endless praise of GOD what i have been abandoned in?

or

am i abandoned in my own self-pity?

my pride?

my own glory?

oh that i would seek the praise of the ALMIGHTY above all else in my short existence.

let my words be more than just words.

let my life be the testimony he desires.

destiny, a city not forsaken

destiny.
a lot of people have asked me recently what my name means.this post is an attempt to answer that.

'Tis but thy name that is my enemy; —
Thou art thyself
though, not a Montague.
What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some
other name!
What's in a name? That which we call a rose,
By any other
word would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title: — Romeo,
doff thy name;
And for thy name, which is no part of thee,
Take all
myself.
Shakespere; Romeo and Juliet, 1594

stephanie anne
crowned with grace and prayer.
the definition of my name haunts me at times. Its meaning is more than just words. sometimes i feel like it is a part of my DNA. maybe even what i cling to as my identity.


identity.
what is it that makes you who you are? is it your family? your possessions? your wealth? your personality? your looks? your friends? your significant other? these are all such simple things. all simple things that in the blink of an eye could be gone, and one day will. now your dead. what is your identity? who are you really? i believe that i am an eternal being. (this is not a forum to debate what happens when we die. i'm just giving you a platform so you can see where i am coming from.) if at the end of my life i have ignored the fact that i am eternal, all i have done is starved one of the only things that at this point matters. my soul.


soulful living.
every culture is different. even households in america have very different ways of living life. one thing that is very different in american homes is the way we despiritualize everything. we take out the idea that there could be anything bigger than ourselves. in a sense we have made ourselves god. we make the rules. we govern those rules and we even create our own reality to believe in. one thing i am learning is this: if you say that truth is not true and you believe it with all your heart, mind and strength, you find other people who agree with you and you live this lifestyle out, creating a movement that may even conform society, WILL NOT CHANGE THE FACT THAT TRUTH CANNOT BE ALTERED! truth is truth no matter how unpopular it is.


truth spelled out.
the legacy that has been passed down in my family for generations is one of hurt. the history in my family is always a sad tale of abusive husbands, deep dark depression, women left alone with no one to fight for them while there husbands die young or try to stay young living in the moment of fast cars and faster women. how do they cope? alcohol, physical abuse and sexual perversions. the legacy i was born into is one of hopelessness. i will never be as good as i should be. if i do make it in this crazy world i will not be loved nor will i be able to take care of myself or the ones i love. these generational curses have been on my family for hundreds of years. generation after generation spilling over into the next creating a downward spiral never ending and alway producing the next strain of alcoholics, abusers and victims.


choosing life.
in my short years i have experienced much. i have seen and experienced more than i thought possible. i realize that i am blessed to be alive at this very moment. biblically when GOD intevened into the human story there is always change. sometimes it is defined by a monument, and alter or as in my case the change of a name. abraham used to be abram, sarah used to be sarai, isreal used to be issac. these are verbal monuments showing that GOD has changed even the way you address them. i love the story of hosea. GOD met this man and told him to marry a prostitute. so he did. not out of obligation but because he had been changed. GOD had changed even how he saw this woman, before she was just a whore, now she is the love of his life. in chapter 2 it exemplifies this love. GOD takes his unfaithful bride out into the wilderness and whispers softly into her ear. wooing her. helping her see that there is a better life for her.
it is here.
it is now.
it is real.

The LORD’s Mercy on Israel
"Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.
And there I will give
her her vineyards
and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
And there she shall answer as in the
days of her youth,
as at the time when she came
out of the land of Egypt.
"And in that day, declares the LORD, you will call me
'My Husband,' and no longer will you call me 'My Baal.' For I will remove the
names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more. And I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the
field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And
I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make
you lie down in safety. And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth
you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I
will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the LORD.
"And in that day I will answer, declares the LORD,
I will answer the heavens,
and they shall answer the earth,
and the earth shall answer the
grain, the wine, and the oil,
and they shall answer Jezreel,
and I will sow her for myself in the land.
And I will have mercy on No Mercy, and I
will say to Not My People, 'You are my people';
and he shall say, 'You are my God.'"

this moves me. this is me. this is the GOD i woship. this is the one who is calling me into a different future. the result is a new story. a chioce of life.

stories.
stories are how we comunicate who we are to one another. i was on a road trip to oklahoma when i found the begining to mine. my sister and i were trying to kill time on what seemed to be the endless road trough kansas. someone said something about names and then we moved into what if we had different last names. i found mine on a street sign. hope in something bigger than the heritage i was born into.

st augustine.
was a pagan by birthright. he took a concubine and followed the popular religion of the day: manechean. his conversion and teachings effected how the church functions to this day. he was against the line of thinking that you can merit your own salvation and that you can get into heaven without divine intervention. he talks about the day he was saved as such; he heard a voice speaking to him "take up and read" so he found a bible:

"I seized, opened, and in silence
read that section on which my eyes first
fell: Not in rioting and drunkenness,not in chambering and wantonness, not in
strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision
for the flesh, in concupiscence. No further would I read; nor needed I: for
instantly at the end of this sentence, by a light as it were of serenity infused
into my heart, all the darkness of doubt vanished away."
The Confessions of
Saint Augustine, Book VIII

when i first saw this my heart flickered. in the darkest part of my soul there was a longing, maybe if GOD could take a heathon like augustine he would do the same for me? there might be a chance for my life. i took on the name augustine as my own. my search for truth was born.

my augustine adventure.
it started with an idea. it became a reality. my hope was born. a chance for a future. there is a passage in isaiah that i have taken as my life verse it speaks to me. this is who i was, who i am and who i hope to be.

Isaiah 62
Zion’s Coming Salvation
For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent,
and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet,
until her righteousness goes forth as brightness,
and her salvation as a burning torch.
The nations shall see your righteousness,
and all the kings your glory,
and you shall be called by a new name
that the mouth of the LORD will give.
You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD,
and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
You shall no more be termed Forsaken,
and your land shall no more be termed Desolate,
but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her,
and your land Married; for the LORD delights in you,
and your land shall be married.
For as a young man marries a young woman,
so shall your sons marry you,
and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
so shall your God rejoice over you.
On your walls, O Jerusalem,
I have set watchmen;
all the day and all the night
they shall never be silent.
You who put the LORD in remembrance,
take no rest, and give him no rest
until he establishes Jerusalem
and makes it a praise in the earth.
The LORD has sworn by his right hand
and by his mighty arm:
"I will not again give your grain
to be food for your enemies, and
foreigners shall not drink your wine
for which you have labored;
but those who garner it shall eat it
and praise the LORD, and those who
gather it shall drink it in
the courts of my sanctuary."

Go through,
go through the gates;
prepare the way for the people;
build up, build up the highway;
clear it of stones;
lift up a signal over the peoples.
Behold,the LORD has proclaimed
to the end of the earth:
Say to the daughter of Zion,
"Behold, your salvation comes;
behold, his reward is with him,
and his recompense before him."
And they shall be called The Holy People,
The Redeemed of the LORD;
and you shall be called
Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken

joy comes after mourning

i am i fly on a wall. at a funeral for one i do not know. watching the interchange of the two daughters in front of me of the one who has passed. one leans in to the other and whispers: "she really was a good mother after all" as the daughter who knew her best reads her piece. in tears she shares true love, not a love that can be created by you or me. no, this love is one that was given to her. through her deep sorrow she shares how she was given a second chance.

a second chance.

this is something we all desire. even the small moments in life sometimes leave us with a tinge of regret. "i should have chosen the starbucks java ice cream instead of the chunky monkey that i always get!" we see a chance and don't take it because we are afraid. we should have taken that picture, we should have said hello. we shouldn't have spent that money.

i sit uncomfortably in the chair at this memorial service. i see a lot. i always see things differently but today i see what GOD is seeing. he is giving me a window into a story. the woman who we are mourning has led a lengthy life. she died in her eighties. she is survived by many family members. she has a story deeper than the one i hear being spoken on the stage.

stories.

stories take time to tell, mostly because they take time to be formed. any writer will tell you that the task at hand is always a journey. every word written is placed precariously in a semblance of order so that the reader might comprehend what the original thought was. stories are always deeper than you might think. stories always deserve the chance to be told.

i sit and remember this past week. it began almost a thousand miles away when i decided to help my friends drive out to indiana to see their dying grandmother. along our journey this woman's story begins to unfold. she was supposed to die five years ago. she was supposed to have no family at her deathbed, she was supposed to have wasted her life.

then GOD.

GOD miraculously healed her body. he also began speaking into the hearts of those who were knit into this story before the foundations of the world were formed. in five years time GOD brought a family back together. he moved the unmovable. he shook the unshakable. this is nothing short of proof in my mind that there is a GOD.

HIS timing is impeccable.

HIS story is better than we can write it.

HIS idea of a lost soul is different than mine.

as i sat and prayed over a dying woman i felt the presence of the Most High GOD in the room. as i saw sisters talk that hadn't in over twenty years i saw the craft of the Master Story Teller. as i realized that GOD will do whatever it takes to reveal his love for us even if it means keeping someone alive when they don't want to be. as i sit here and think of the amazing second chance i have been given in my own life i cannot be unchanged.

death shook me this week.

not only the physical realities of it.

this simple act: one who was complete, one who was right, one who is incapable of living my "idea of normal" gave his life as an act of love; this my friends is what its all about.

there is nothing else.

i have spoken many empty words in my life. if you only ever hear one thing may it be this:

unworthy of love i have been given life. now my life is nothing to me except to bring glory to the love of my soul. my highest aim is to please HIM and HIM alone. nothing, not even death nor a life of pleasure, will stop me from attaining this. this is selfish and i will be known for it. i will make HIM the highest in my life.

this i am willing to die for.

this i am willing to live for.

decay

DEATH
as it were, is coming for us all.
every breath in, is life.
every breath out, is one step closer to the end.
it haunts me daily.
what am i living for?
where am i going?
what does the end look like?

LIFE
is green.
is changing with every move you make.
is today.

i get to choose.
what i do today is of course how i spend my life.

choose deeply.
choose well.
choose wisely.
choose laughter.
choose mourning.
choose feeling.
choose simply.

choose living this decay in vibrance.