i actually need this verse tattooed on my heart...

since, then, you have been raised with Christ,

set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. for you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.

...When Christ, who is your life, appears,

then you also will appear with him in glory...

colossians 3:1-4.

picture via: papertissue.tumblr.com.

obedient freedom.

just taking one little...scared...hopeful...trembling "yes" to Him at a time.

i live with 7 girls...

so this never happens. but i am officially

HOME ALONE.

and i shouldn't feel so silly about it.

but. i. do.

which makes me realize...scotland will be more challenging than i initially thought.

this solitude i dreamt of...will be deeper and more tangible than

any i've ever. ever. ever. known.

so i'll need so much more of Him.

to fill this void.

in me.

to be alone with you.

Sufjan Stevens - To Be Alone With You - Oct 1/09, Toronto from trendaway on Vimeo.

a silent hidden kingdom...

waiting for the dawn.

image: papertissue

Yesh. oo. ah.

"You are saying about this city, 'by the sword, famine and plague it will be handed over to the king of Babylon'; but this is what the Lord, the God of Israel says, I will surely gather them from all the lands where I banish them in my furious anger and great wrath; I will bring them back to this place and let them live in safety. They will be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me. I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul."
jeremiah 32:36-41
image: papertissue

epic faith...

is what marks this man, James Kim. For several years now, my pastor has been telling me the story of his remarkable friend and today I found him on CNN Money. He's founding Pyongyang University of Science & Technology...the first private university in the communist country, North Korea. This is remarkable. In a country that has always portrayed the outside world as dangerous and a threat, this humble man of gargantuan faith is doing what anyone else would not dare to do. You can read the CNN article that goes into great detail of the incredible story here. The crazy thing about this man is that he would typically be considered a great threat to all North Korean principles. He's a South Korean immigrant that came to the States and found success as a businessman that chased after and abided by the ideals of American Capitalism. He's also an evangelical Christian. That's why in 1998, the secret police actually imprisoned Kim. He suffered for 40 days in the prison, being told he would die there. Now, more than ten years later...he will be founding the country's first private university that will make giant strides in opening up the rest of the world to a country that's hid itself away for decades.


Here's a brief excerpt describing the greatness of this success: "The school will have an international faculty educating, eventually, around 600 graduate students. Kim dreams ultimately of hosting an industrial park around the PUST campus, drawing firms from around the world -- a North Korean version, as bizarre as it sounds, of Palo Alto or Boston's Route 128.
There will be Internet access for all, connecting the students to an outside world that they've heretofore been instructed is a hostile and dangerous place. And among the six departments will be a school of industrial management."

What strikes me even more though....is not even the success of this University, but the testimony of this man. It's crazy.

"When James was 15 years old, he tried to enlist in the army as the Korean War broke out, but a recruiter first turned him away as too young. "I cut my finger and wrote in blood, 'I love my country,'" so the recruiter changed his mind and accepted him. He joined an army unit of 800, and by 1952 only 17 remained. The rest had been killed.

Until that point, Kim had not himself been particularly religious. He had watched his grandfather "persecute" his father for his conversion to Christianity. But on the battlefield one night, Kim read from the Gospel of St. John, which had been passed out by a U.S. Army chaplain to the troops who remained. Having watched so much of his unit get wiped out, it was verse 3:16 that spoke to him: "That whosoever shall believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Then and there, says Kim, "I vowed to God to work with the Chinese and the North Koreans -- then our enemies. I would devote my life to it, if I survived the war." "

Epic faith....57 years later...Pyongyang University of Science & Technology begins. James Kim & North Korea=David & Goliath version 2009.
photos & quote from: CNN MONEY.com; article by: Bill Powell

i would live in your love.

I would live in your love as the sea-grasses live in the sea,Borne up by each wave as it passes, drawn down by each wave that recedes;

I would empty my soul of the dreams that have gathered in me,I would beat with your heart as it beats, I would follow your soul as it leads.

-sara teasdale.

cliche.

i went through a few months where i soaked up all of the books and songs that all kind of sounded and looked alike. they all told me how i should feel and what i should think. i nodded along and was comforted that others had experienced similar confusion and frustration...i was comforted that others had felt a similar pain. i told a friend that it was crazy how all those cliche phrases that i had once scoffed at, presently came spilling through my own lips. she told me that was the beauty of our common human experiences...that there was a reason why cliches became cliche.

and though i still think that there's brilliant beauty in that, there's something i've missed out on. i was recently sitting with my cello and wondering why i felt such a deep gratitude towards it. i realized that it's because my cello never tells me how i should feel. instead, i'm able to play what i'm not able to say. through my cello i'm able to express all those things that i don't have an answer for yet. i've realized that in the course of being comforted through other's stories, i've fallen into a well of commiserating, and in that well, i was surrendering the pen that writes my story. i was letting my story drown in the hundreds and thousands of other stories that were beautiful, but certainly not my own.

i recently saw lymbyc systym play live and realized that i like my music without words. my heart will always flutter for brilliant songwriting, but i like it when music, every once in a while, just tells me to feel & think rather than telling me what to feel & think. i've resolved in my heart to take back the pen and write my own story again.

so far...two words have been clearly written.

"practice resurrection."

image: papertissue

talitha koum

all i could do was sit & mourn.

but he took my hand and said, "talitha koum."

so i got up. and i lived.

image: papertissue

soren.

i'm revisiting purity of the heart is to will one thing by soren kierkegaard again. it's one of my all-time favorites and it's calling me to itself again. i forgot how gorgeous this beginning is...

"Father in heaven! What is a man without Thee! What is all that he knows, vast accumulation though it be, but a chipped fragment if he does not know Thee! What is all his striving, could it even encompass a world, but a half-finished work if he does not know Thee: Thee the One, who art one thing and who art all! So may Thou give to the intellect, wisdom to comprehend that one thing; to the heart, sincerity to receive this understanding; to the will, purity that wills only one thing. In prosperity may Thou grant perseverance to will one thing; amid distractions collectedness to will one thing; in suffering, patience to will one thing. Oh, Thou that giveth both the beginning and the completion, may Thou early, at the dawn of day, give to the young man the resolution to will one thing. As the day wanes, may Thou give to the old man a renewed remembrance of his first resolution, that the first may be like the last, the last like the first, in possession of a life that has willed only one thing. Alas, but this has indeed not come to pass. Something has come in between. The separation of sin lies in between. Each day, and day after day something is being placed in between: delay, blockage, interruption, delusion, corruption. So in this time of repentance may Thou give the courage once again to will one thing. True, it is an interruption of our ordinary tasks; we do lay down our work as though it were a day of rest, when the penitent (and it is only in a time of repentance that the heavy-laden worker may be quiet in the confession of sin) is along before Thee in self-accusation. This is indeed an interruption. But is an interruption that searches back into its very beginnings that it might bind up anew that which sin has separated, that in its grief it might atone for lost time, that in its anxiety it might bring to completion that which lies before it. Oh, Thou that givest both the beginning and the completion, give Thou victory in the day of need so that what neither a man's burning wish nor his determined resolution may attain to, may be granted unto him in the sorrowing of repentance: to will only one thing."

thank you, Jesus....for brilliant men who walked this earth so many years before, but in speaking in such vulnerability & passion....are able to speak to the raging fears inside of me.

image from kindovermatter.blogspot.com

bob.

A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom.
Bob Dylan

the chasm was far too wide. i never thought i'd reach the other side.

but your love never fails.