It's a Wonderful Life

       I was driving home from a depressing day at work, feeling low, when God flooded my mind with flashes of beautiful memories- vibrant FL sky, theme song texts from Dams, the crisp smell of winter trees, Jason dances, Ukraine, my Dad's voice, Tennyson, "Miss Abi, I'm gonna ask Santa to bring you Diamonds," Wesley-made apple and cheese omlettes with blueberries, Robin's ears, yellow, twinkle lights, despereauxing, Southern fam, Jesus..... I cried in my car for the joy of it all.  I have Jesus, and all this as well?  Our God is overwhelmingly generous.  
       I've realized this year has been especially wonderful.  It started with Passion, where God began to unravel my bound heart and allowed it to begin trusting Him truly.  Then my bosom friend got engaged... engaged!  She's getting married!  She's my shield, and I've learned more from her example in this season than I can express.  I loved most of my classes and got As both semesters.  I started working at the Bookstore, surrounded by beautiful words and women who invest in me and love me.  I spent two glorious months in Ukraine that has and will shape my life forever.  I started writing poetry again.  I met and grew closer to beautiful people.  I've seen the sun rise and set over the sea from two different coasts on the same day.  My Savior has revealed Himself ever more beautiful and good and just and loving.  He's set me aflame and given me purpose, specific purpose unraveling before my very eyes!  I know who I am now on a far deeper plane than ever before- what I'm good at, what I'm not, what I hate, where I'm weak.  Something else about this year, it was the first year I could say I'm truly content to be single.  I've been single my whole life either from pure conviction or even fear, but this year I've loved it.  I've seen how God has protected my heart and used singleness to cultivate good.  I don't worry about the future anymore, it's in God's hands.
       I don't say all this to boast, well, not in myself at least.  God has changed my life, is changing my life, my pathetic life!  He works all things together for good, and I am thankful for the ways He is working it in my own life.  Life isn't perfect; I am so far from perfect.  But.  this realization doesn't cause me to despair anymore.  Yes, I am a wretched sinner who has spent her whole life fighting against the proof that she can't make herself worthy.  But Jesus saves...

The LORD saw it, and it displeased him

that there was no justice.

He saw that there was no man,

and wondered that there was no one to intercede;

then his own arm brought him salvation,

and his righteousness upheld him.

He put on righteousness as a breastplate,

and a helmet of salvation on his head;

he put on garments of vengeance for clothing,

and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak...And a Redeemer will come to Zion,

to those in Jacob who turn from transgression,” declares the LORD.

(Isaiah 59)

Our Business

     "Oh! captive, bound and double-ironed," cried the phantom, "not to know that ages of incessant labor, by immortal creatures, for this earth, must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed!  Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness!  Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunities misused!  Yet such was I!  Oh!  Such was I!"
     "But you were always a good man of business, Jacob," faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.
     "Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing his hands again.  "Mankind was my business.  The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business.  The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"

Romans 7:14-25

For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am made out of flesh, sold into sin's power. For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree with the law that it is good. So now I am no longer the one doing it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it. For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do. Now if I do what I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but it is the sin that lives in me. So I discover this principle: when I want to do good, evil is with me. For in my inner self I joyfully agree with God's law. But I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?...

...I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

I am not a slave to sin. but sometimes it feels that way.

Tomorrow, Jesus, kindred spirits, the sea.

I saw red and yellow flowers outside 

The brightest sunrise than i seen in a long time. 

And through it all, 

I stood and stumbled, waded through my thoughts and heart 

Yeah through it all, 

I fooled and fumbled, lost to the poet's frown. 

I fought the wolves of patience just to let it lie down. 

See these waters they'll pull you up, 

Oh if you're bolder than the darkness. 

That these songs be an instrument to cut 

Spaces between the happiness and the hardness. 

Out the door, 

The touch of morning, the burning of the frost 

Out the door 

Strong hands to hold; good friends that i never lost. 

And what we found 

Down these coves of limestone and cockle shells, 

What we found 

Down these roads that wander as lost as the heart 

Is a chance to breathe again, a chance for a fresh start. 

See these waters they'll pull you up, 

Oh if you're bolder than the darkness. 

That these songs be an instrument to cut 

Spaces between the happiness and the hardness. 

Oh, spaces between the happiness and the hardness. 

Ben Howard, "These Waters"

His blessings just keep coming!

I just received a $500 check for my Ukraine trip from a completely unexpected source!! Ack!  Does God deliver, or does He deliver?!

*a day after posting the above, someone gave me a check for $1500!! 

I think it might be possible that God wants me to go to Ukraine.... :)

For Comrade.

Thanks for "freeze crackled." [^^^]

Waking up brittle

 

Oh sleepy body, up!

Out of comforter, and be sheetless.

Freeze crackled body grabs a sweater.

It is 78 degrees.

The sweater is an attempt to shelter the thinness of body skin

thinned like an egg shell in vinegar.

Thinness smells sharp like vinegar,

but really

feels dry like a socket where a tooth once thick and hardy

now evaporated to shell and sensitive nerves shivers,

but really

sounds like air slicing hollow branches which are

dead and no longer thirsty.