Too much of a good thing

I'm one of those people who usually thinks you can't get enough of a good thing. Heck, I'm the person who has been listening to the Blessthefall Witness album at least 10 to 12 times per week since May. However, I think this week may just change my mind.

Tomorrow Shaun and I are going to see Anberlin and 30 Seconds to Mars. Friday we are going to see The Word Alive and some other bands. I may die. I usually walk around zombie-fied the day after a concert, and I have two back-to-back this week.

This was a bad choice.

In other news, I officially start working full-time at Tate on Friday. Yippee!

Best night ever? Quite possibly!

It is entirely too late at night for me to put together a coherent sentence, but I don't care! I'm too excited to sleep. Shaun and I just got home from the Blessthefall/Underoath concert. It was amazing! Both bands are so talented, and so NICE! It's great to get to see good guys getting recognition.

I got to interview Chris Dudley from Underoath and Eric Lambert from Blessthefall, and I feel so blessed to have some time to chill with them. They're a reminder to stay upbeat. They are on tour all the time, they're away from their families, they're exhausted, and they have to deal with nosy journalists such as me :), but they are still positive and have a great sense of humor. Plus, I always love meeting a fellow hugger like Eric!


Maybe there isn't much point to this blog, other than to pass on my tidbit of knowledge about the character of these two bands. I love listening to music that has great men behind it! We need more great Christians like them around.

Corners of my mind

Do you ever have something really big that you're just dying to tell someone, but you can't? I'm totally having one of those weeks. Well, one of those months really. I'm definitely not the type of person who can handle keeping anything on the down low. When Andrew plotted with me to surprise Sunny with an early return to Oklahoma, I nearly died. I successfully kept the secret, but good grief was it hard!

This time around I'm not really keeping other people's secrets, just something that affects my future. No biggie, right? Quite the opposite! Okay, okay, don't freak out and think something bad is about to happen. I'm actually really excited and I can't wait to see how the next few months go.

In other news, I'm feeling incredibly bogged down by all the stuff I need to get done. My to do list seems to continually get longer, and I'm not checking off enough tasks to balance it out. My mind is on a never-ending roller coaster. In an effort to ignore the roller coaster, I've been listening to a whole lot of A Skylit Drive and Blessthefall lately. Somehow I feel calmer when I'm blasting some crazy music. It drowns out the noise in my mind. That's funny...I drown out one kind of noise with another. That probably qualifies me as some sort of crazy. My life is never quiet.

I've also developed my own personal brand of sleeping disorder in recent times that resembles a reverse version of the insomnia I had back in the day. Instead of being unable to go to sleep, I wake up early in the morning and can't go back to sleep since my mind is racing ninety to nothing. It's quite annoying, actually.


Here's to hoping life goes back to normal soon...or as normal as life gets for a weirdy like me. In the meantime, I'll be singing random ASD lyrics.


"The city only breathes through you, and all the cracks that you've fallen through."

Further From Myself

I really don't know what to write about tonight, but I do feel the urge to write something, so here goes:

* Shaun and I came up with an idea for a short lesson series in 20something that has been on our hearts for a while, and I'm really excited about it. Seriously, I'm so excited that I find myself daydreaming about things we need to remember to put in the lesson plan instead of paying attention to rather important things. I won't tell what the idea is yet...it's a secret!


* I've been working at an amazing company for 90 days now. I'm so blessed. The people I work with are wonderful, and the opportunities I've been afforded are once-in-a-lifetime.


* I've been reminded of an old Pillar song a lot lately. It's called "Further From Myself," and whenever I'm being selfish it always seems to pop into my head. Part of the lyrics say "and I admit that when I submit to You, I can see all of the selfish things I do." I wish I could take that song and blanket the U.S. with it. We all need to hear it so much. We take part in selfish, destructive behaviors that ruin relationships and cause lives to implode, yet we can't see that the solution is to let Christ become greater in our lives and let ourselves become less. Even when we do realize that, it's easy to say and hard to do. Okay...I've run out of thoughts for now.

"Further from my future

Further from my past

Further from the starting line

Further from the last

Further from my doubts

 Further from my fears

Further from temptations that I faced

Throughout my years

Further from agitation

Further from distraction

The reaction of dissatisfaction of others' actions

Further from myself

Further from my flesh

Further from my birth

And I'm further from my death

I'm further

Further from myself

When I'm next to You

When I run to You."

Further From Myself

I'm just chatty

What? Three blogs in three days? "That's crazy!" you say. Well it's true! :-)

I suppose the reason I've blogged so much this week is simply because it helps me get all my ducks in a row (even the ducks I don't write about!) when I'm so busy that my head seems to be spinning. I'm the type of person who needs to write things out or say them aloud to keep things organized and logical. I think God made us that way on purpose. Conversation is the bread that keeps our minds alive and well, if you think about it, and the conversation that will feed us eternally is the one we have with God.

My constant need to communicate, my need to "get things out of my system" comes from my need for God. I can't remember the exact verse, but in the Old Testament it says that God puts eternity in every man's heart. In the same way, He puts urges in our hearts that He can use to draw us closer to Him. I need to talk about the good things and the bad to be able to work through them and understand their purposes, and God made me that way so I could learn to lean on Him through prayer. It's amazing how He works. :-)

We went to see The Karate Kid this evening, and I loved it! Jaden Smith is such a little picture of his father. He has a lot of the same little mannerisms that make Will Smith who he is. Those similarities are no accident. He got that way because he's around his dad all the time. In the same way, the more time one spends with God, the more one starts to act like Him and see the world through His eyes. Without constant prayer and study, that's impossible. I think that's why God made me so that I have to talk about everything. As a flawed human, I stink at praying sometimes, just like everyone else, but when I'm not busy being stubborn, God can use my habits for His glory. I'm in awe.

It's been quite a while...

I hadn't realized how long it's been since I last blogged! In the past month I've been working and keeping busy with a lot of extra projects. I am officially exhausted, but most of it has been worth it!

Shaun and I got to go see Blessthefall, Demon Hunter, and As I Lay Dying last month! BTF and DH are two of my all-time fave bands, and they definitely didn't disappoint! I wish I could see them again. I also got to meet Beau Bokan, the lead singer of Blessthefall :)

We finally got to see our friend Jose's band, Boy Wonder! They were really good! I miss Jose. A lot.

This week we got to see A Skylit Drive, which is another one of our fave bands! Normally when I go to a concert I get shoved around half the time and I rarely have a clear view of the stage, but for the last half of the ASD set I got to stand really close to the stage AND I had an uninterrupted view. It was exciting! Really, this month might have been entirely too exciting. :)

In other news, I'm working on a new magazine! It's good to be writing again. It's been kind of hard to get back in the groove though. I suppose it may take a while! It's a blessing to get to use my talents again.


Aaaaaand...I can't even remember what else I've done this month. So that's all for now!

Refined in the Fire

I'm starting to realize how twisted our view of love is, especially God's love. When something doesn't go our way we think God must not love us or we're outside His will or something like that. We want to believe that God loves us so much that He doesn't ever want to let any harm come to us. He wants to keep us safe. Cocooned.

The problem is, God loves us so much that He DOESN'T want that for us. We are precious, like gold, but gold must be refined if it is to be beautiful and useful for anything.

How is gold refined? In the fire. Gold must be heated, melted, to remove the impurities. In the same way, we have to let God melt us to remove the sin. Only then can we be molded for God's purpose.


God doesn't want us to be safe and sound, where all our impurities, our sins, will be safe with us. No, He wants us to go through the fire and come out pure and strong. To strengthen us so we can pass through the fire without facing destruction He has given us His Holy Spirit. Just like the time some of His believers were thrown in a furnace, He is there with us.

It's a hard lesson to learn, but I'm starting to realize how thankful I should be that God loves me enough to refine me in the fire.