Stronger Arms Than These

Pulled, stitched inside, thread being tugged, yanked.
Stretched . . . and no door out.
Chaos. The throbbing beat of the base.

It's student ministry and homework
And summer job and paying for school.
It's knowing what part this one plays
And what part they play
And was this all a bunch of lies?
Distractions?

And I'm not going to be strong enough this time.
I will fall . . . hands unclenched.
Falling, falling . . .
Into stronger arms than these.
Jesus.


The pros wouldn't call this poetry. I don't really either, but I write this with a lot on my heart today. Part of it's generated by tiredness and other things. I feel very torn and just tired from a lot of what's going on, but I am so grateful that I know. I can let go. Jesus has me. My strength isn't what keeps me up. No. It's JESUS, and I'm nestled in His wings!!! Safe. Alleluia!!! So are you, beautiful friends! He sees beyond us and loves us. May You dance this week "Wrapped in [His] Arms."

Catch Me

The snow, billows of cloud on earth,
The white clean.

I want to be this, Jesus.
So clean, so white.

But sometimes, I choose away from You.
I picture myself,
Running after things You've taken away,
Crying and running for those empty familiars,
When Your Father hands are behind me,
Reaching for me.

When I was young, pounding up the stairs,
My dad would chase me,
And I would laugh and squeal,
Making sure never to get caught.
The butterflies and excitement swirled
In my stomach as I ran.
Sometimes, I still feel those feelings.

I like to be chased,
To be pursued,
And maybe, . . . though I might not admit it,
I like to be caught sometimes.

And Jesus, You're running after this laughing child.
Please catch me.

But sometimes, I don't run in fun.
I run in foolishness and crooked fear.
Please still catch me.
Please don't let me get away.

I don't think I meet the expectations.
Will You still run? Please, please catch me?

Will You catch and clean a beggar child?
Your little vagabond?

((Oh danae, you make this sound beautiful,
But sometimes, it's dirty.))

Cleaning hurts.
Please still do it.
Washing sometimes means scrubbing, sometimes means
Walking away from the mud puddles.
Please still wash me.

Please run after me, Jesus.
And will You even do this?
Catch me?

Clay

Spinning, spinning, spinning.
I close my eyes to feel the motion,
Spinning, spinning, spinning.
I rock back and forth,
Rocking into it, and around.

Oh Daddy, Your hands hurt me sometimes,
You hollow me out,
But it doesn't feel like hollowing.
It feels like You're making me empty.
The void makes me feel weak,
And I want to cave in . . .
The walls thin.

Spinning, spinning, spinning.
You mold me with the tips of Your fingers,
The palm of Your hand smooths the edges,
And sometimes, Daddy,
It really hurts.
And I get so tired.
So tired and my heart sinks under
The weight of it.

But I'll try, Jesus. I'll
try to stay on this wheel . . .
Please don't stop.
Help me to go through the processes . . .
I'm learning it's okay.
Thank You for loving me along.
For peace. Silence.

I love You.

Yours.

On To Twenty!!!

I have officially lived nineteen years on planet earth, and now, each day I'm living from now until February 19, 2012 is living through my twentieth year. Woo Hoo!!!

SO, I wanted to be creative and take pictures throughout my birthday to remember the good things that happened, but that would require a happy mix between danae and a camera, and for some reason, those two aren't a very faithful pair. SO, instead of taking many pictures ON my birthday, I took a couple today to remember what I did. SO, here goes . . .




A highlight of my birthday was going with two of my dear friends, Clarissa and Brigitte, to a Matthew West concert with Josh Wilson as the special guest. I'll be honest, it wasn't exactly what I expected from Matthew West, but I definitely LOVED Josh Wilson. His song to his wife was great . . . I hope it's on youtube soon! :)I also really liked Matthew West's song "To Me." He wrote it for a middle schooler, and it's a beautiful song of God's beautiful love for His kids. He sees in us what others can't see, and I wonder if Matthew's right, if He sometimes wishes that others could see in us what He sees?

After the concert, us girls headed to YoCream with our Christian music up loud and Brigitte singing her lungs out through the open window and us chowing down on some sugar cookies one of my friends sent me for my birthday. :) It was fun to just be crazy, God-loving girls. :)


Okay, so I have this beautiful friend named Chris, and he blessed me so much by bringing me fun gifts for my birthday. One of those gifts was a pack of bottled Root Beer!! Mmmm! SO GOOD! :) So we just sat downstairs in the lower lounge at school and sipped on root beer and ate the cake he brought as well and just talked. It was so, so kind of him to go out of his way to make me feel special. Meant a lot!




Besides the root beer, he also had this BEAUTIFUL cake made!! Ah, this picture doesn't do it justice. It's a small cake that's the PERFECT size, and it's so yummy! Chocolate ERUPTION is the name. Is that not great?! :) Thank you, Chris!!! That was so fun. :) I wasn't sure I'd have cake on my birthday, but I did! :)


Among these, I got phone calls from family and my roommate, it was a beautifully sunny day, I got to spend some time in the prayer chapel, some sweet people told me "Happy Birthday," plus . . . I'm now 19, and I like that number.

Well, thank you for reading! I hope that you have a lovely week, that you can live it in Authentic Community as I heard about in church today. :) Bye for now!! :)

Nineteen

Clock is fulfilling its pattern . . . the tick. tick. tick. And soon, nineteen years will have been ticked away.

Nineteen YEARS!!!!

So this may be my last post before the eighteen year old danae goes to sleep and never wakes up, but instead, a nineteen year old may stir at the sound of a noisy alarm clock. :)

What a year. Eighteen. What good things and sad things and sunshine and snow.

And now we are on to something different. Something new. Nineteen.

I'm excited for something new.

You?

And I come into it asking one thing.

Jesus? Please help me. Let Your Spirit fill me and Your power change me. I am Yours.

Love,
danae, simply His

Open to Seeing

My the days have been lived. I feel like a child sometimes, sitting in a train and peering out the window, watching my life pass by as if I were only a bystander. But I'm not. I'm in it. Struggling through it. Rejoicing in it. As I blog though, it gives me a chance to just sit back in the train and look out the window, to try to understand it more as I distance myself and let the words run through the fingertips.

Life has been hard lately. Truth. But there have definitely been jewels hidden in my path that glint golden and cause me stop and bend to earth, only to find that I'm looking at gifts from a good Father, only to find that my eyes turn upward and into a familiarly good Face. Here's an update, a counting of these jewels . . .

801. A stranger telling me "Good Morning" here in the library.

802. Pages of Bible . . . holding the Word in my hand and being able to read His words over and over and over.

803. Birthday package from my friend, filled with yummy, sweet goodies.

804. Talking with a professor yesterday, hearing his story and how in some ways, part of it really mirrors mine.

805. Talking with my Brother T on the phone and him praying for me, encouraging me. It's so nice to have big Brothers! :)

806. The anonymous comment left for me on my blog . . . from Jehovah. Wow. Meant so much to me.

807. Snowflakes falling unexpectedly this morning.

808. God's power and our access to it through prayer.

809. Him sharing what he will tell "his kids" about relationships. Oh friend, you have grown so much, are strong.

810. Simply being able to be around people and study . . . nice thing to be surrounded by family, by Jesus in others.

811. "Busy Work" . . . getting assignments done.

812. Flowers from my dad for Valentine's day.

813. A letter and gifts from Friend for V-Day . . . words. Read and reread words.

814. Hugs from my sister when I went back home for awhile.

815. Mom's delicious birthday meal that she made for me.

816. Sweet friend from church, her sweet hug and love and the gift of the angel. Oh how God loves us through others!

817. Being able to move and exercise while I read for homework.

818. Being able to share that I struggled in College Group. Freedom in release, in honesty.

819. Being encouraged by Caleb and Joshua's story in college group . . . fear verses faith.

820. Chapel on Monday and hearing a couple's passion for Jesus, for bringing His presence with them . . . encouraging.

I'm danae. I'm the child of God. My Father Yeshua puts up with a lot when it comes to me. I struggle with Him, trying to hold on to what He has asked me to let go, yet He doesn't leave. Doesn't forsake. I am still His, and He holds me against Him. He scatters His gifts along my path to remind me I am not alone, to remind me that I am loved, that there is HOPE and BEAUTY here. Sometimes we just have to keep our eyes open to it, open to seeing. Open to the gifts . . .

Letting Love

I'm writing this post with pinkish-red fingernail polish, listening to Josh Wilson's "Before the Morning." I thought that song would maybe neatly label 2010, . . . but it's coming into this year too. As I listen to it though, I don't feel the hopelessness I felt last year. Yeah, there's definitely sadness and pain but a promise. Of morning.

As I came to sit down and type though, I wasn't planning on typing on fingernail polish or Josh Wilson songs though. I came with an intent on staining my thoughts onto a blog post, thoughts about . . . enemies.

One of the favorite sermons I remember hearing from my pastor back home was on Nehemiah, and one of his points was simple BUT SO PROFOUND.

Know Your Enemy.

I walked into a weekend confused. So confused. I tried to remember this point though.

Know Your Enemy.

My enemies . . .

anger.

bitterness.

fear.

disobedience.

Satan.

My enemies are not the ones who hurt me (whether intentionally or not). My enemy is the Evil One who wants to destroy me. My enemy is the sin in myself. It's an anger and bitterness that wants to control and kill me. It's the lies that want to destroy me.

I wonder how many arguments, how much anger could be squashed if I remembered who the real enemy is. People? No. Evil? Satan? YES!!!

2 Corinthians 10:3-6 NIV
"For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete."

Let's fight, friends! But let's fight the right enemies. Let's know who they are, and when we know, we can fight them, letting bitterness fall and crack and die. Letting love swish through and heal again . . .

It Will Be Okay

I wonder how many times it took David to write his Psalms. Or does the Word of God simply flow from God's heart, to His people's pens, to the papyrus pages? And I wonder how many times I would have to draft a psalm right now. I'm afraid that a real honest Psalm would be full of jagged pieces and raw wounds, bleeding, waiting to be healed. I've cried before plenty of times, but to truly lose someone in a certain way, this is a grief I had never experienced before. I don't know how to handle the cresting waves but to give in to the rise and fall and lean on a friend when they hit their downward undulation. I don't know how to let Jesus in, except by the sentence prayers, the few words, the wheezing, gasping breaths of "save me," "i need You," "help me," "not sure how I'm gonna do it this time, Lord." I haven't been praying these often. Sometimes I forget that the small prayers are important prayers. Resolution: Pray these prayers. Starting now.

I asked one of my good friends who has been holding me up, letting me walk straight through it, to feel it, I asked her to give me a number between 1 and 160. "57" took me to the fifty-seventh Psalm. Words.

verse 1 -3 NIV

"Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me,
for in You my soul takes refuge.
I will take refuge in the shadow of Your wings
until the disaster has passed.
I cry out to God Most High,
to God, who fulfills His purpose for me.
He sends from heaven and saves me,
rebuking those who hotly pursue me; Selah
God sends His love and His faithfulness."

And these words . . . I don't feel very steadfast. I'm trying. To be steadfast on Him.

verse 7
"My heart is steadfast, O God,
my heart is steadfast;
I will sing and make music."

I wonder if David was trying to convince himself, to make the statement and live it. This is my choice: Steadfastness. Trying to worship through it. It isn't easy.

"Do you want me to give you another number?"

"Sure"

"113"

Psalm 113 verse 3

"From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets,
the name of the LORD is to be praised."

The sun rose and peaked glorious. Now, it's time for it to set. Oh is this hard. Sheesh . . . I had no idea. This process widens my heart with a deeper understanding for those hurting. That fact doesn't make it easier. This still stinks.

But threaded through . . . "His Love endures forever."

"Help me, Jesus."

Verses 7-8

"He raises the poor from the dust
and lifts the needy from the ash heap;
He sets them with princes,
with the princes of their people."

He is a good Father. I am so grateful that He is strong, that He's been strong enough to hold my questions, strong enough that I can trust that He will love me even when I don't feel "Christian" through the pain. He is my Security. Ah, I gravitate toward security. And while I can't find it fully here on this dusty earth, I can find it in One who never leaves. A Heavenly Father.

And to you, dear friend, if you ever happen to revisit this page again, please know that I care so much, that you shouldn't be sorry for causing the pain. You didn't cause it. It's not really anyone's fault. Sometimes, pain's just the way God has to love His kids. We'll get it someday. For now, we walk through it, sometimes stumbling, sometimes crying, screaming but still walking. Through it. Not around it. Not behind it. Through it. Someday, we'll get it.

It will be okay.

Eight Hundred Gifts

I whisper the sentence a few times in most every deep prayer.

"I am unworthy, I am unworthy, I am unworthy."

It's remembering the dust from which You have called me and dreamed me. There is no sufficient reason for grace.

But I sit in Your presence and let it work in me and fill me and change me.

Let me always turn to say "Thank You." Not once, not twice, but a thousand times a thousand times. Here's a continuation of a list I started probably over a year ago. I'm on a journey to record a 1000 things of gratefulness.

786. The blue, cloudless sky on a winter day . . . to step into sunlight.

787. That I am surrounded by good friends, north stars pointing me in His direction.

788. That Jesus sent me a sweet friend to just be there when I needed someone so much to just be there Monday night.

789. Moments of stillness, opportunities to soak in His presence. To be redeemed.

790. The way that I could survive and be alert with only 4 hours of sleep on Monday (and no naps! *smile*). God gives strength.

791. For another friend being there to give me a hug, to pray for me, and to share her heart and struggles. Beauty is in the being real. Honest.

792. Chocolate milk. Mmm. :)

793. The different shades of blue as the sun set in city.

794. That I can trust the Lord because He loves me, because He sees a picture I can't see. I can fall in His arms.

795. For a full gas tank. That I have money to fill it right now.

796. Being able to go home this past weekend with good friend, being able to share a piece of me.

797. Ann Voskamp's quote

"Poor communication doesn’t disconnect souls. It’s the disconnected souls who poorly communicate. I am learning.

Words may only magnify the fractures."

798. The Living Word of God. 2nd Corinthians.

799. That God is showing me how much I need Him. That He must be King.

800. "Reign in Us" by Starfield.

Let me lie on Your palace floor, Lord. I'm not worthy to stand in Your presence, yet You let me in and love me. You change me and move me here. Alleluia! I love You. Break me to surrender.

Pearls

I am hungry.
My mind sneaks into thoughts of taco time and smells meat cooking and
Ashamed.
You are what I really want.
I don't always think to think this.
Do You know?

Sometimes, I think I want other things.
Like snap-quick fulfillments,
Desires dunked in sugar and served in seconds.

And then the pangs set in.
The emptiness playing songs in my stomach.
This is what you think you need to survive.
There is so much more.

Jesus.
You are all.
You teach me in the giving.
And as I give,
You lace a string of pearls in my palm.
Undeserved.
Not asked for.
You teach me what I really need.
Love.