Cuz I wanna know how it feels to feel passion...

It's so interesting to see everyone around me growing up. My friends are graduating and starting to pursue their callings in life, the kids from my youth group are starting college, and some friends are even getting married. It's funny when you think you've known a person, then all of a sudden you see them again in a completely different light. In what instant did things change for them? Was it an over night thing or did it take years?

Part of my Keynote application asked me to describe how I came to know Jesus personally. I went back to the Holy Cow retreat in 2002, the first time I remember accepting Jesus as my Savior. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that I really didn't know who Jesus was back then. I do believe that I accepted Him and started my long journey of learning more about Him then...but experiencing God in a retreat atmosphere isn't what living as a Christian is about.
We all have had a 'mountain top experience' at least once in our lives. A time when we felt so close to God that was almost indescribable. But as time passed and we tried to sustain ourselves on that one experience, we drifted away. We tried to hold on to that singular experience, hoping that it alone would keep us afloat until the next one came around. Whether it was a retreat, a meaningful conversation, a particular night of worship, a long hike in the woods, a concert....these moments were meaningful to us, but they were not meant to define our faith. Yes, God was very present in those moments, but He is present in EVERY moment of our lives.

I understand why that retreat back in the spring of 2002 was important now. God absolutely captivated me that weekend. I was surrounded by Him and by people who loved Him in an atmosphere so far removed from my life at school. My experiences that weekend were just a starting point for my spiritual growth. It has taken years for me to know who Jesus is on a personal level. I didn't just wake up the next morning with all the knowledge I would need to keep myself going each day. I've spent hours reading and praying to acquire just a small piece of that. And it is a fight sometimes to keep myself from becoming complacent. I'm about halfway through Leviticus in the Amazing Bible Race and that is NOT an easy read. There is so much in this world to distract me from reading scripture and praying daily. But I know what happens when I put it off and make excuses - my life goes down the tubes.

Make the commitment today to change. Complacency happens to everyone, but the only way to conquer it is to recognize it and do something about it. It's only hard because Satan hates it when Christians try to learn more to deepen their faith in God.

• Wake up 10 minutes earlier to read and pray.
• Carry the Bible, a devotional or even just a verse on a piece of paper with you everywhere you go.
• Find a friend who will hold you accountable here to read, and talk about what you both can do to apply what you've read to your lives.
• Find a mentor through your church to minister to you.

Whatever you need to do to make God the center of your life, do it!
Check out 2 Corinthians 5:13-6:2 to read Paul's perspective on our calling to be different, to become righteous in God's eyes because of His Son.

Here are some sweet lyrics from a new song by The Turning that I feel are relevant to the topic. Pursue the passion you've had in those mountain top experiences in the way you live your life each day. Read and pray. That's where the relationship comes from. Don't let the twisted world around you stop you from pursuing that relationship, no matter what the cost.

I hit play
Will today be one that matters?
To tell the truth sometimes life steals the faith I'm after
I'm tired of what I'm not

So help me God
Give me a passion, give me a fire
Give me a heart that's filled with desire
Cuz I wanna know how it feels to feel
Passion
I wanna be consumed
Passion
I'm more in love with you

Overflow, let it go
I wanna know what happens
To be revived, come alive, to feel the Spirit crash in
Down on all I'm not

So help me God
Give me a passion, give me a fire
Give me a heart that's filled with desire
Cuz I wanna know how it feels to feel
Passion
I wanna be consumed
Passion
I'm more in love with you

Today's the day, I'm not afraid
I'm ready to be changed...
- 'Passion' by The Turning

"Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare"

Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare
La donna mia quand'ella altrui saluta
Ch'ogne lingua deven tremando muta,
E li occhi no l'ardiscon di guardare.
Ella si va, sentendosi laudare,
Benignamente d'umilta' vestuta;
E par che sia una cosa venuta
Da cielo in terra a miracol mostrare.

Mostrasi si' piacente a chi la mira,
Che da' per li occhi una dolcezza al core,
Che 'ntender non la puo' chi no la prova;
E par che de la sua labbia si mova
Uno spirito soave pien d'amore,
Che va dicendo a l'anima: "Sospira."

-Dante Alighieri

And for those of us who do not read fluently in Italian, here is the English translation taken from the book Introduction to Italian Poetry by Luciano Rebay;

"So gentle and virtuous she appears"

So gentle and virtuous she appears,
My lady, when greeting other people
That every tongue tremblingly grows silent,
And eyes do not dare gaze upon her.
She passes by, hearing herself praised,
Graciously clothed with humility,
And she appears to be a creature who has come
From heaven to earth to show forth a miracle.

She shows herself so pleasing to her beholders,
That she gives through the eyes a sweetness to the heart,
Which no one can understand who does not feel it;
And it appears that from her lip moves
A tender spirit full of love,
Which says again and again to the soul: "Sigh."


I was given a copy of this poem in my ideas and cultures class last Friday, and when I read it I was struck by how well it fits into what I have been reading in Captivating. This poem, written by Dante for his love Beatrice, beautifully illustrates the essence of a woman. Captivating talks a lot about the soul of women and how God created us to reflect the beauty and glory of God. We are called to reflect this beauty from the inside out. If you own a copy of Captivating I would suggest reading through chapter 8: Beauty to Unveil.

The woman described in the poem reflects many of the qualities Godly women should possess.
Her beauty does not merely come from her outward appearance, but from "the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit (1 Peter 3:4b)."
She is 'clothed with humility' which I can only imagine means that she was not trying to show off her God-given physical qualities (I thought that was a diplomatic way to express that, haha).
"I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God."
- 1 Timothy 2:9-10
The most striking part of this poem to me is the last line. This woman has the power to calm everyone around her. Their souls are merely left to sigh in her presence. They feel at ease around her, like everything is well in the world.
As a woman I wish that I possessed this power all the time. When my world is not chaotic I think I do have the ability to calm those around me, but when I am busy, stressed or sitting in traffic I tend to reflect a very different attitude. I become tense, shrewd and angry. The only way I will ever be like the woman in that poem, or similarly the woman in Proverbs 31, is if I present all of my emotions and frustrations to God. He can and has been changing me into a more peaceful person to be around. Whenever I feel like I am going to lose my mind, I repeat the verse from 1 Peter that I cited above. It does not mean that I need to be silent, because those who know me know that I can be very VERY loud at times, HA! But my spirit needs to reflect my acceptance of God's will for me and show others that they should accept it for themselves as well.

Don't be afraid to show the world the beauty that God has instilled in you. Allow Him to quiet your chaotic mind and fill you with the peace of His love.

"Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised."
- Proverbs 31:30

Pray for my Keynote app!

I just submitted my application for the Keynote Summer Project through CRU. Before I clicked the 'Submit Application' button I prayed for a reeeeeeeeaaal long time. Haha, I know God was smiling at me. I know His will for me will be so much better than I could ever imagine, but I just really want it to involve my participation in Keynote this summer!
So if you are reading this, just pray that His will is done in my life for this summer. Pray that those who read my answers will be granted the discernment to know whether or not I am meant to serve with them this summer. I hope their answer is yes!
Also pray for the audition tape I have yet to make. Should happen sometime in early January. I'm still really REALLY excited about that part, especially singing/screaming 'I'm So Sick' by Flyleaf.

My Perfect Day

So we'll call this my first informal blog post. The past few weeks I have felt so convicted to write short devotionals instead of carrying on about what is going on in my life. In most cases those posts were directly related to a specific situation I was going through. And typing those out has been a sort of healing process for my heart. So thanks for reading and if you got something out of them as well, cool.

And now my day today...

When I think about it now today was kind of a perfect day for me. It's sort of what I want my life to look like when I finally graduate. I woke up this morning at 9 (not so great) which was remedied by a trip to Starbucks for some much needed caffeine (yessssss). Then I took the 35 minute commute to Greenville for church and such.
I was late for Sunday school, but it is a pretty laid back crowd of some college kids and a few older high schoolers. We were discussing James 1:19-27. The themes we talked about focused on living out the call of scripture and ridding ourselves of all the "pollution" thrown at us by the world.
'Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it - he will blessed in what he does.'
-James 1:23-25 NIV
That is such a great bit of imagery from James. The point of reading scripture isn't just to read it so you can feel better. We are supposed to apply everything we read to our lives. So many Christians hide behind their 'faith facade' and think that they are covered. And even if we do apply it, that does not mean that things will be perfect in our lives. But we will be "blessed." John Piper talks about the different translations of the word 'blessed' in his book God is the Gospel. He uses the words 'happy' and 'joyful' to define the Greek word for blessed. I think there is a strong distinction between those two words. In this verse in James I am leaning towards the word 'joyful' to describe this blessing. While things in our lives may not be going the way we planned, we are still blessed because God is on our side. Joy, to me, is elation from within; happy seems to be a more external emotion.
Regardless of the details, the point is to live out what God is calling us to do. One of the women leading our discussion this morning threw out a wonderful line that, I will admit, I need to apply to my life:
"Be confident in what God called you to do."

At 11 I walked over to the chapel with Noah for the contemporary service. I love this church. Everyone is so friendly and there are always different events and studies for everyone going on. For the service we sat with Brian, one of the cool college interns at Christ Church. He also plays on the music team with us, and we recently decided to start writing music together. I love sitting with people who love to sing. It makes the worship so much more intense for me. Again, the theme in the Gospel reading was to live life in the way God intended us to live, always being ready for the day Jesus returns (Matthew 24:36-44).

After church Brian and I went to Coffee Underground, a really cool little independent cafe in downtown Greenville, for lunch and to try to write some music. I let him read some of my stuff and we talked a lot about our lyrical styles, where we get our inspiration, and kind of where our lives are now. He actually wanted me to talk about the stuff I had already written. This is something I have been dying to do for a very long time: talk about lyrics and write!
It was really the first time I had been able to spend time with him to get to know him. I always love hearing people's stories and having God-centered conversations. They have been so far and few between down here. We ate and started working on a new song. By the time Nate joined us at 2, the page was kind of a mess, but I'm really excited to see what happens with it. All three of us were throwing out ideas and sharing stories. Again, just part of my perfect day.

At 2:30 we had music team practice for Amazing Bible Race that evening. In the band was me (violin/vocals), Nate (guitar/vocals), Heather (vocals), Brandon (bass) and Noah (drums). With the exception of a few tangents (which was to be expected and were actually pretty fun) practice went really well. For once in the time I have played my violin, I felt like a part of the band. Nate kept communicating with me about what key we were in and where the song was going. He even suggested a lead part for me to play instead of the guitar. This practice was an answer to quite a few prayers from the previous weeks. We were worshipping together!

From 4 to 6 we had Amazing Bible Race large group and small group meetings. We played our worship set which was really wonderful, then we all talked about the readings from Exodus in the previous week. Joel pointed out some David Crowder Band inspiration in Exodus 8:10 (one of my favorite praise songs to sing). We focused mainly on the plagues God sent to help Moses convince the Pharaoh to...all together now...LET HIS PEOPLE GO!! I can't believe how ego-centric one man could be that he could witness all of those plagues and, for fear of losing his power, continue to say no, until the plague of the Firstborn. And even after the Israelites left, Pharaoh pursued them. It's crazy how power can go to some peoples heads...
Grace and I were the only ones there from our small group. We decided to read through the next day's readings, Exodus 15-16. Chapter 16 focused on the ever re-occurring theme in my life to trust God and His Word. Moses told the Israelites to only gather what manna they needed, but they still disobeyed. And that extra manna was reduced to maggots. Eww! Then even after Moses told them to gather two portions on the 6th day because of the Sabbath the next day, the Israelites went out on the Sabbath looking for manna. And DUH, there wasn't any! This just proves that when God says something, He means it.
We also talked about how selfish this world today can be. Grace's sons had been volunteering at a local homeless shelter and were so moved by the people they met and the things they saw. They told her that they wanted to change the world for these people. Some people are too afraid to see those kinds of things for fear that they will be changed by their experience. They don't want to admit their own selfishness and possibly give up the material things they covet. It's sad.

Then at 6 after everyone prayed and departed, I got to run through 'I'm So Sick' with Noah. I recently decided to audition for the Keynote summer project through cru. It's a music ministry project that sends 5 bands out to tour for 2 months and share the Gospel. In my audition tape I have to sing a rock song. When I told Sam about it, she screamed and said that I HAD TO sing a Flyleaf screaming song. And it just so happens I that have a karaoke track for 'I'm So Sick.' Noah is going to make my tape for me, so I wanted him to hear me sing/scream it just so he knew what to expect.
All I can say after running through it twice in front of Noah and Joel is that I am SOOOO EXCITED to make this tape!! My screaming is a lot stronger than it was this summer, and a lot less painful. Yay for vocal pedagogy, haha! Joel and Noah were head banging to it and they liked the way I sang/screamed it. They just said it was funny and scary to hear me scream, considering what they are familiar with from my voice. I really hope I get picked to do Keynote!

So I left Greenville tonight at about 6:40, drove back to Spartanburg, grabbed some Jimmy Johns for dinner (yummmmm), came back to my room, ate dinner, watched the BCS selection (still bitter about losing to Pitt...but WVU is going to the Fiesta Bowl, so its all good), starting watching the Steelers game (so far we are winning).....and then Bryan Lilly imed me to make my evening complete.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=1dr0d-Rk-jo
This is quite possibly the COOLEST thing I have ever heard. This metal/classical band Judgement Day calls themselves "string metal." Their band consists of a violin, cello and drums. NO GUITAR. Seriously! I suspect that the violinist uses an effects pedal...hmm...haven't I been begging to use one in bands all year? I'm listening to their myspace and their music sounds so sweet. I would love to see these guys live and pick their brains. Speaking of which, their music video in the link above has zombies...come on, who doesn't like zombies?

So this was pretty much the coolest day I have had since coming down here. I had coffee, read scripture all day, wrote music, practiced with my band, hung out with some cool kids, performed one of my favorite Flyleaf songs, watched the Steelers, and fell in love with a string metal band.

God is so good to me.