There are no little events in life. Those we think of no consequence might be full of fate.
-Amelia Barr

The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid?

I need to start believing in that.

Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

13-16 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country-a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

10:32 Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering.

39 But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.

Dear God,
I'm sick of trying to do things my way instead of waiting for you, having some faith, and doing your will. I make a mess out of everything when it's only me because I need you. I need you and that is something that somehow I need to be constantly reminded of. I'm sorry for messing up, not listening to you, being willful instead of willing. Show me what to do, give me the strength to do what is right, instill yourself in my life once more because I can't do anything without you. Thank you so much for this great obscure church you somehow led me to. Bless this church. Bless our mission team please. Bless Pastor Che as he goes up north. Bless my family Lord. Teach me what it is to truly love unconditionally. Teach me to forgive, have patience. Grow my heart, keep me teachable. Instead of all these requests, most of all Father, I ask for patience that I might listen for once and learn and become wise in your ways. Keep me accountable so that I might not fall into the trap that the world sets for me once again. Keep me pure. Refine me through your fire. I am a vessel, fill me with your spirit...

Sometimes I feel as though I were born in a circus, come out of my mother's womb like a man from a cannon, pitched toward the ceiling of the tent, all the doctors and nurses clapping in delight from the grandstands, the band going great gun in trombones and drums. I unfold and find flight hundreds of feet above the center ring, the smell of popcorn in the air, the clowns gather below, amazed at my grace, and all the people chanting my name as my arms come out like wings and I move swan-like toward the apex, where I draw my arms in, collapse my torso to my legs, roll over in perfection, then slowly give in to gravity. My body falls back toward earth, the ground coming up quick, the center ring growing enormous beneath my falling weight.
And this is precisely when it occurs to me that there is no net. And I wonder, What is the use of a circus? and Why should a man bother to be shot out of a cannon? and Why is the crowd's applause so fleeting? and... Who is going to rescue me?

- Searching for God Knows What, Donald Miller

One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.

Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.

I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.


Perhaps I had a wicked childhood
Perhaps I had a miserable youth
But somewhere in my wicked miserable past
I must have had a moment of truth

For here you are
Standing there
Loving me
Whether or not you should

Nothing comes from nothing
Nothing ever could
So somewhere in my youth or childhood
I must have done something good
-Sound of Music

happy birthday.

Psalm 62:5-8

Find rest, O my soul, in God alone;
my hope comes from him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.
My salvation and my honor depend on God;
he is my mighty rock, my refuge.
Trust in him at all times, O People;
pour out your hearts to him,
for God is our refuge.


All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through;
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, reassurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin;
I talk of love-a scholar's parrot may talk Greek-
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

-C.S. Lewis

"I wanted to hold happiness in reserve, like a bottle of champagne. I postponed it because I was afraid, because I overvalued it, and because I didn't want to use it up, because what do you wish for then? That possibility, that I was intimidated by getting what I wanted, is the hardest one for me to consider, which might mean it is the likeliest."

"I sometimes remember driving back from the Brewers game, how I believed I would never love anyone more than I loved Henry. In a sense, I may have been right: I can't imagine ever again feeling that infatuated and free of doubt. I think Henry may have been the first and last person about whom I believed, If I can get him to love me, then everything else will be all right. That I am no longer that naive is both a loss and a gain."

- The Man of My Dreams, Curtis Sittenfield

"Remember what is important to you."

Christianity without discipleship is Christianity without Jesus Christ." -Dietrich Bonhoeffer

One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. -Eleanor Roosevelt
We are the choices we have made - Meryl Streep
In the long run, we only hit what we aim at. -Thoreau

No man can concentrate his attention upon evil, or even upon the idea of evil, and remain unaffected. To be more against the devil than for God is exceedingly dangerous. Every crusader is apt to go mad. He is daunted by the wickedness which he attributes to his enemies; it becomes in some sort a part of him.

The resolution of this dilemma is a paradox. The path of love is a dynamic balance of ooposites, a painful creative tension of courses of action. Consider the raising of a child. To reject all its misbehavior is unloving. To tolerate all its misbehavior is unloving. We must somehow be both tolerant and intolerant, accepting and demanding, strict and flexible. An almost godlike compassion is required.
One minister described such compassion of God for man by putting the following words into God's mouth:

I know you. I created you. I have loved you from your mother's womb. You have fled-as you now know-from my love, but I love you nevertheless and not-the-less however far you flee. It is I who sustains your very power of fleeing, and I will never finally let you go. I accept you as you are. You are forgiven. I know all your sufferings. I have always known them. Far beyond your understanding, when you suffer, I suffer. I also know all the little tricks by which you try to hide the ugliness you have made of your life from yourself and others. But you are beautiful. You are beautiful more deeply within than you can see. You are beautiful because you yourself, in the unique person that only you are, reflect already something of the beauty of my holiness in a way which shall never end. You are beautiful also because I, and I alone, see the beauty you shall become. Through the transforming power of my love which is made perfect in weakness you shall become perfectly beautiful. You shall become perfectly beautiful in a uniquely irreplaceable way, which neither you nor I will work out alone, for we shall work it out together.

- People of the Lie by M. Scott Peck, M.D.

Psalm 42

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, "Where is your God?" These things I remember as I pour out my soul; how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng. Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon-from Mount Mizar. Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me. By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me a prayer to the God of my life. I say to God my Rock, "Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?" MY bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, "Where is your God?' Why are youy downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.