Beyond All Splendor

It's 2:19am.

It’s sixty degrees with just a hint of a breeze. And all I can smell is spring, and LIFE, as I sit here in my tattered tee on my fifth floor windowsill, looking out to survey my glorious view from atop this mountain.
The only things I hear are the birds chirping, and I have reasoned that they must just be as happy as me—simply ecstatic to be alive.
I am so thankful to be here. To witness such beauty and be overcome by all the rich blessings I have been given.
From the twinkling lights of the life below my city on a hill, to the splendor of this rich night sky, to the vastness of the land set before me, to the feelings that overwhelm me—I am SO small.
Oh God, let me never forget how marvelous you are. How mighty, how merciful, and how loving. You are rich beyond all splendor.

Visits to Tower Hill

Went to visit my grandma today because I’m leaving tomorrow to go back to school. Caught her just before dinner. She was already sitting in the dining room with two friends. But I went in to sit and talk with her for a few minutes before I had to go home.

Every time I see her in the dining room she always sits next to the same two women. Or at least so it seems. And this woman on her right always looks horribly sad and like something is very wrong. Like she wants to get out. Like something is deeply troubling her. I’m not sure of the reason she’s in the nursing home. But her eyes always hold this intensely deep and desperate look. It’s really concerning to me. To almost an overwhelming degree. And today she reached across the table to me and in this hoarse whisper just said “Can you help me?”
Over and over and over. Faster and faster.

And I tried to calm her down and just said, “Of course! What do you need help with?” And then she looked down and kept breathing reallly heavily and then said, with total desperation. “I…I…I don’t know. I don’t know.”

And I think what gets me the most is that everytime I’m there and I see her, she just sits and watches and listens to me interact with my grandma. And she doesn’t like to talk. Just watches.
And for some reason I get this feeling something huge has happened in her past. Something really distressing. And she sees something in my grandma that’s she’s never had. And I don’t think it’s jealousy, it’s just this sad desperation to obtain whatever it is that makes my grandma so joyful and content before her life is over.

It troubled me so tremendously. It was SO utterly sad. And it really frightened me. So much so that I honestly wondered if I’d ever have the emotional/mental stamina to work in a nursing home…

Le Bon Berger

“Lord You know I’m such a stupid sheep. 

I worry about all sorts of things;

whether I’ll find grazing land, 

still cool water, a fold at night in which I can feel safe. 

I don’t.
I only find troubles, want, loss. 

I turn aside from you to plan my rebel way.

I go astray. 

I follow other shepherds, even other stupid sheep. 

Then when I end up on some dark mountain, 

cliffs before, wild animals behind, 

I start to bleat: 

Shepherd, Shepherd, 

find me, save me, or I die. 

And You do.”  

—Joseph Bayly

Jésus dit: "Je suis le bon berger. Le bon berger donne sa vie, pour ses brebis."

—Jean 10:11

A Very Tiresome Level of Worry

It is fearlessness that I desire most.

In the situations that make my heart ache, that make my mind dizzy, and make my stomach churn with worry.
A very tiresome level of worry. And complete weariness. Moments when my mind is consumed with nothing except the terrifying thought that I might lose control. That I might fail. That I will lose something.


Like a friend I hold dear.

I am so scared of failing, so scared of losing control sometimes, that I lose sight of God. I lose sight of the only one I can wholly rely on, for He is wholly in control.

I forget not only his sovereignty, but his faithfulness and goodness. His ability to transform ashes into something beautiful. To purify and renew that which has been stained and distorted. Even filthy sinners. And I constantly forget that all he asks me to do is simply trust him. To lay my worries--the things that plague my mind, body, and soul--at His feet. To believe that the people that I hold dear are indeed very dear to him too. And that He loves us.

My heart is ridden with worry, and aching, and fear. But unless I fully trust God, unless I lay my heart before him and put my worries in his hands, I will never know fearlessness.The fearlessness I seek is only gained by fully trusting my Savior and believing he can do what I deem impossible. As I have been reminded time and time again, nothing is impossible with God (Luke 1:37).