I freely give

All to Jesus I surrender,
All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him,
In His presence daily live.

You still my heart

"However it's no use trying to measure suffering. What matters is making the right use of it, taking advantage of the sense of helplessness it brings to turn one's thoughts to God. Trust is the lesson. Jesus loves me, this I know - not because He does just what I'd like, but because the Bible tells me so. Calvary proves it. He loved me and gave Himself for me."
- Elisabeth Elliot, Passion and Purity

blast from the past

A song from some time back:



and we say yes Lord yes Lord yes yes Lord

华文好精采啊！

择日不如撞日，
撞日不如今日。

http://iask.sina.com.cn/b/16301777.html

Learning to be

quiet again.

时间

很快，已经是五月中了。

gladdened

Proverbs 12:25
Anxiety in a man's heart weighs it down,
but an encouraging word makes it glad.

Was struggling with this wave of emotions, but I am glad that God and His word is my shelter that I can run through. Because as I journal-ed my feelings down, there was no escape nor catharsis. There was, in fact, greater confusion because I was trying to express my thoughts in words while reviewing to see if these were my true feelings.

I went to a book which I've been reading on and off-Disciplines of a Godly Woman-and as I read, I am assured that it really is only in God's plans and timing that everything pulls together.

From His words, I draw strength. Truly, His word makes my heart glad.

awake, my soul

Isaiah 60:1-3 1
“Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.
2 See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you.
3 Nations will come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

rain-words

and your words fall on me
- rain
upon my heart, parched
from the hard
beating of mercilessly,
carelessly
thrown words.

i crackle at the first
entry of your words
then as they seep in
and fill the voids,
soften the soil
and collect
fractured parts together,
i surge.
there will be life again.
******************************************

The days will come when you don't have the strength
When all you hear is you're not worth anything
Wondering if you ever could be loved
And if they truly saw your heart they'd see too much

You're beautiful
You're beautiful
You are made so much more than all of this
You're beautiful
You're beautiful
You are treasured, You are sacred, You are His
You're beautiful

I'm praying that you have the heart to find
Cause you are more than what is hurting you tonight
For all the lies you've held inside so long
And they are nothing in the shadow of the cross

From Beautiful by MercyMe

Live!

Use what talents you possess; The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.
- Henry Van Dyke
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_van_Dyke

God's people

Greatly blessed by the time Li Huan, Siew Ping and Peishan spent with me today. Thank God for the church!

rain

fat droplets tik-tik-tak-ing
against the aluminium window-grilles

Delish!

All I need now is 2 trees, some shade, a hammock and a light breeze. What a wonderfully, pretty day!

hanging on to his every word

From Britt Nicole's Hanging On:

You see my anxious heart
You see what I'm feeling
And when I fall apart
You are there to hold me
How great Your love for me
Now I see what You're thinking
You say I'm beautiful
Your voice is my healing

Without You I just can't get by
So I'm

Hanging on to every word You speak
'cause it's all that I need
Hanging on to every word You say
To light up my way
Even every little whisper I'm
Hanging on as if it were my life
I'm hanging on

to the woods

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion."
- Henry David Thoreau, Walden, "Where I Lived and What I Lived For"

I remember part of this quote from Dead Poet's Society, particularly sucking the marrow out of life. It makes me think of the movie Into the Wild too, the search for meaningful life which did not arise from following the norm, the facing of one's demons alone and away from people.

I don't agree with all of Thoreau's ideas in this quote though (if I do understand them correctly). I do want to live life with a greater degree of consciousness and conscientiousness, but to drive it into a corner and demand that it showed itself either as lowly, harsh or grand and outstanding seems too simplistic a divide. Perhaps the true account of life on this side on eternity will yield both. More importantly, isn't it how we choose to react which matters?

挣扎

跟什么呢？
和欲望？真是无谓的挣扎啊！

Chasing after the wind,
I spin
out of control.

When all along,
there is One who calls me,
"Come, and follow me",
"Come, and I will fill you",
"Come, I will give you rest".

"You are My Beloved"

In his book Life of the Beloved, Henri Nouwen wrote:

There is that voice that speaks from above and from within and that whispers softly or declares loudly: "You are My Beloved, on you My favour rests." It certainly is not easy to hear that voice in a world filled with voices that shout: "You are no good, you are worthless, you are nobody - unless you can demonstrate the opposite" ... The greatest trap in our life is self-rejection ... Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the 'Beloved'. Being the Beloved expresses the core truth of our existence.