"I Make War": Circle versus Path

Intro (john piper):

I hear so many christians, murmuring about their imperfections, and their failures, and their addiction, and their shortcomings. And i see so little war! Murmur, murmur, murmur. Why am i this way? Make war!

Verse 1 (tedashii):

Bang with me

Ba-bang bang, ba-bang with me

No more playing games mane

Cause this thang can get risky

So mane if you in christ

Take up!!

Your cross quickly

Stand fearless on the frontline

Time to come with it

Do the right thing

Wake up!!

And lets get it

I ain't even in the ring

They throwing bows like riddick

Persistently attacking me

They're even in the back of me

It's either fight or lose my life and i can't take this passively

So what you think i'm bout to do

I'm bout to do what i can do

Trust the one who got me through

And fight like it was after school

Never giving up

Steady, standing on the battle field

Feet firm to the ground like i stepped on Chapel Hill

Flesh feeling frisky, sin persuades and tempts me

Satan cheers me on

Guilt followed by conviction

It's the same ol' trap

And we fall like we defenseless

Work your senses

Grow in wisdom

Stand firm and be relentless

Hook:

I make war!

Cause sin never sleeps

It's got me in a trance

You can see it in my dreams

I make war!

Man i beat my flesh

To the death

Every breath

Like i beat my chest

I make war

Sun up

I make war

Sun down

I make war

Time in

I make war

Time out

I make war

Against lust

Against pride

Against me

Until i die

"But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage that I may gain Christ," Philippians 3:7-8

"For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." Philippians 1:21

So one thing I have been holding back about recently is another sin God revealed to me a little while ago. I'm not sure why I did not write a blog post about it when I thought about it. I think that maybe sometimes this blog can almost sort of feed my pride slightly. I struggle with pride a lot, course not nearly as much since I became a Christian last year PTL!, but still struggle and most of the time I do not realize when something is feeding my pride. I think that sometimes it is easy for me to write about my rejoices on this blog and then everyone, if anyone, reads it get the idea that my relationship with Jesus is so good and full of blessings, joy, and rejoicing. This is such a lie because it paints a terribly wrong picture of Christianity and what my relationship with Jesus looks like. In truth, I have struggles, I fall far from glory all of the time, my heart is sinful, but why don't I share these more often? Shout out to a friend of mine who at a community meeting for CO about two or so weeks ago pointed out that in the story of the woman at the well, the woman realized how great Jesus was and how much she needed Him when Jesus showed her her sin. Most of the time in ministry we try to show people how good God is and pray that God uses our lives as an example as we rejoice in Gods provision and faithfulness. Which is totally fine and dandy but sometimes we need to show people how desperately needy we are of Christ because we immeasurably sinful. By showing them our imperfections they see a real picture of Christianity, that we were all born sinful and yet God was so good to give us the ultimate gift of grace through His Son. Therefore, as Christians we are not perfect, we cannot hope to be as long as we are on this earth, but we strive to know more of Christ as we see how sinful we are and how big Gods grace is. So all that to say that I never show you all my imperfections. And lately, God has revealed to me that I have begun to value other things above knowing more of Him. Most of the time this shows itself in the morning when I am tired and so I tell myself that I won't spend time with Him that morning but later that day. And of course I do the same thing at other times of the day or forget about it, or other pressing things work their way into the picture. So then I think 'how do i fight this?' memorize verses, pray, fight to get up in the morning and spend time with God. So I fail at fighting and then God reveals this to me again, and it seems just like a circle. This evening, several friends of mine from this summer came to visit, a bunch of girls from Western Carolina and another guy friend who just graduated from Wofford. The Lord totally provided for me today because as me, Drew and two other girls had to wait an hour at Fatz to be seated, I was able to talk to Drew about a bunch of different things and I shared this with him. He told me that it is often a struggle for him especially now that his schedule looks a lot different being out of school. But one thing he commented was that it seems like a circle, but with the circle perspective there's no logic in fighting because its never ending. There's no hope. And as I listened to the above song just a little while ago, I realized I am much like what John Piper describes in the beginning. Murmuring about my imperfections and my failures, but not wholeheartedly stepping on the front lines to fight, to make war. I am not counting everything as a loss for the sake of knowing more of Christ, instead I am counting sleep as a gain and knowing more of Christ as a loss. This is not where I want to me at all in my mentality or my walk! And so I must fight to get up in the morning and spend time with God in whatever way, I must fight to memorize scripture, to keep His word in my heart and know that His word tells me that knowing Christ is a gain and His word is perfect. I must fight my sin and if not wholeheartedly then claim wholeheartedly and pray for God to burden my heart for my own sin. At times I can feel so burdened for others, the fact that they do not know the love of the Lord, and for their own sin, but not for my own sin that inhibits my relationship with God and blinds me from seeing so much of His grace!

The East Coast, The West Coast, and Everywhere In Between

Holy Moly!

So bloggers, I feel like I still have a long way to go in learning what biblical womanhood looks like and how that will change for me as my role changes from a single student to in a relationship, in the work force or wife. However, one thing that I have seen laid before me is the picture of marriage as detailed in the bible. An aspect of biblical womanhood as a wife is submitting to your husband as the leader in your relationship as well as in your family. The man is the head of the household, the leader of the family, he is more mature in his relationship with Christ and therefore the wife is called to humbly trust that he has sought the will of the Lord in all matters and submit to his decisions. Funny thing is that all of this was far from my mind as I was on the internet earlier today looking for a current event article on education when I stumbled upon an article on an evangelical speaker by the name of Priscilla Shirer who speaks to women about biblical womanhood and submission to the husband. I can't believe I found something like this on the New York times website! Now, how did I find an article entitled 'Housewives of God' in the education section, you ask? I didn't. This article was on the homepage of the New York Times! How legit is that? I can't help but praise God for the many women who found this article on the front page and got to see such a cool picture of the father as the leader and the wife humbly submitting not as inferior but in honoring the role God has laid out for her in his word! The article is really lengthy and there are some quotes from others who are of different sort of "denominations", I guess you could say, who don't quite believe the same thing so it gets a little confusing in the middle as the author strays from Priscilla. But nonetheless I am thanking God for the women he reached through this article! I have a lot of questions that simply cannot be answered by this article such as, what does it look like for her to honor her husbands position as the leader in the work force as she is on stage preaching while he works the background scene? How does she balance being a stay at home mom but also having a job as an speaker for women? So bloggers, read for yourself!

P.S. if you see the note at the bottom of the very last page, this same author wrote an article on the pastor Mark Driscoll, a known fave for some of my blogger friends!

White Christmas or White Spring?

I absolutely love everything about weddings! Probably what it really is is that I just love to look at wedding dresses. In the store, online, in a magazine, I love it! They are so gorgeous and all of them are different in sometimes just subtle ways and other times great ways. They are beautifully made masterpieces with buttons and lace and more gorgeousness! So of course wedding dresses lead me to think about other aspects of weddings, particularly my own. Disclaimer though: please do not think that I obsess over my own wedding or that I, at the young age of 20, am pining to get married. This is not the case at all! I just love weddings and thinking about what I might possibly want for my own wedding. I love the idea of an outside wedding in the spring time when the flowers are blooming, the birds are chirping, the sunshine is out and everything is so beautiful! However this poses many problems: rain, mosquitoes, the classic SC humidity, grass stains on my dress, where will I get dressed?, where outside would I have this wedding? I also think about having a wedding in December when the church is decorated for Christmas. However at the same time I don't know that I want Christmas decorations at my wedding or my anniversary so close to another holiday. The holidays gets expensive already without adding one more celebration to the month! Well, nevertheless, I have plenty of time before this matters will be pressing so for now I'll just ogle over these beautiful dresses I wish 

 

 

 

I love lace and open backs! I think they are so beautiful, classy and still traditional. 

However, unfortunately for me circumstances prevent me from being able to wear an open back dress. So I think that last one is also gorgeous!

   

lllooovvee this one!!

Get the Facts:

One in six American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape, and 10% of sexual assault victims are men. (2004 National Crime Victimization Survey)

Nearly 20% of women in New Hampshire say they have been raped.

Nearly three in four family violence victims are female – 73%. 

More than 50% of women in New Hampshire state they have experienced abuse. 

Domestic violence is the major cause of death and disability for European women aged 16 to 44 and accounts for more death and ill-health than cancer or traffic accidents. (reported by Amnesty International)

Over 90% of women in prison have experienced violence in their lives.

 An estimated 56% of the abused women in prison said that their abuse had included a rape, and another 13% reported an attempted rape.

An estimated 10 million prostitutes in India. Around 160,000 Nepalese women are held in India's brothels.
 At least 650,000 prostitutes in Indonesia; 30% are children.

An estimated 5,000 children are currently involved in prostitution, pornography and sex-tourism in Mexico.

These are just some of the facts I obtained from the V-Day website. V-Day is a global movement to help stop violence against women and girls. Many college campuses are involved in the program and raise awareness about it during the month of February. I am so excited to be involved with this year's V-Day committee. This year we are putting on a documentary to raise awareness about this issue, a women's self-defense class, man day where we will ask the men on campus to pledge to never hit a woman, as well as other events. It is interesting to reflect on my self from last year when I attended one of the events with a friend of mine. I had never heard of this movement before then nor of the event the committee was putting on, The Vagina Monologues. I admit I was quite shocked at the name and slightly uncomfortable attending the event. I saved the program for a little while because I had enjoyed it but eventually threw it away for fear of keeping something with that title on it. This year I am so glad we are using out of the box methods to get people's attention and give us all a reality check because this is happening around the world and in the United States right now. It is happening in our own towns, in our own backyards and it needs to be stopped. So check out the V-Day website, get informed, learn how to get involved, and learn about a new passion of mine!

A Trip Down Memory Lane

Every year, it never fails, after Thanksgiving and when December is just around the corner my mom gets excited for Christmas time. She absolutely loves Christmas music and it plays practically 24/7 in our house throughout the entire month of December. Kathy G, Kenny G, and other artists singing the classics like "Silver Bells"and "I'll Be Home for Christmas" can be heard anywhere in the house or by my mom singing along with the CD as she loads the dishwasher or does whatever else. I think I love the idea of the holiday season. I actually love the holidays: lots of good food, getting together with family that busy schedules don't always allow for much time to see, catching up with each other and just spending quality time together are things I love about celebrating holidays. I love that several generations come together under one house to celebrate traditions that have and are being passed down and I love the idea that hopefully later on in my life at some point I'll be the middle generation like my parents are now, going over to my parents house with my kids and seeing my brother and sister with their children, helping prepare the meal. And also the idea that hopefully one day I'll be the oldest generation with all of my children coming to my house as I watch my grandchildren enjoy these values. I love the idea of the holidays allowing everyone to experience happiness and enjoy with their families, and the idea that this is outwardly expressed as their everyday attitudes are lightened. I'm not quite sure how much of the ideas of happiness and joy are actually true but I love the idea of them. And so today, although November has just peeked around the corner, I decided to indulge myself in nostalgia, look forward to the holidays, and find rest in listening to Kenny G Holiday on my Pandora while studying for my biology test tomorrow. Maybe the two don't really go hand in hand but, hey, if it makes studying biology more enjoyable, I'm all for it!