A poem...If everything...

If everything returns to dust,

Why do we live as though mountains will last forever?

We seem to believe that the juice box is always full

Only to find air squirting into our dry mouths.

Vanity of vanities!

If everything returns to dust why don’t we live

As if life were a graveyard and not a parade?

Pointing out the tombstones

Instead of the clowns of our day.

If Youtube was the place where dust

Simply passed before our face, would

Million hit videos even exist?

Vanity! If it were a fair should we even go?

And if we did should we eat the popcorn

If it’s only dust packaged as an illusion

To corrupt our minds?

Dust storms are suddenly, extremely terrifying.

If everything returns to dust,

And education is just striving after the wind…

Why am I sitting in class gaining knowledge

That’s guaranteed not to last? Vain vanities.

Wind catching up to my frantic pace,

My lungs can’t catch breath and my abdominal

Cavity is in open rebellion as though it were

Splitting into a million particles. Dust. That’s me.

I’m beginning to see space mirroring my face.

Asteroids and meteorites coursing through…nothingness.

Since I’ve seen this reflection I’m wondering…

Are we The Walking Dead or is that a TV show?

I asked these question to my constant companion Sierre,

Only to find I’d left her back two hundred yards and she was gone.

Vanities! If everything returns to dust?

 It’s a great question but it isn’t true.

For I have found one thing and it only

Demanded a  molecular composition that defied

The laws of depravity. It was not nor would have been

Fine with becoming ash, dust or silt.

 To the point it chose a life

Well lived for a act so great.

He said, “ I will take dust and reconcile it with glory.”

I will redeem it from the ash it call it “Beautiful”

God said, “ I am glory.” He looked at the world

And saw my reflection, distorting that

which had been designed for perfection.

   So He sent Beauty itself to the ashes.

   He’d watched dust strive after wind long enough.

   Beauty hung Himself on a cross and as God turned His back;

   His heart began to pump filth into His very self.

Then it stopped. Beating ceased.

And the particles he had created,

Shook and revolted against this thing. It could not be.

Beauty was gone. Or so it seemed.

But three days in the grave left a gift that dust could

Never fully comprehend.

He rose so we might be made like Him.

 We’re remaining dust for a vapor,

But promised glory forever.

If Jesus had returned to dust,

Where would we be?

I can promise you

We wouldn’t be traveling on a road to Beauty.

Great Song

When darkness seems to hide His face , I rest in His unchanging grace.

In every high and stormy gale my anchor holds within the veil.

 

Christ alone, Cornerstone, weak made strong in the Savior's blood.

Through the storm He is Lord. Lord of all.

Dear Love

Dear love,
I am writing this letter because I want you.         
I desire everything that is a part of you.
Dear love become the center of my every thought
Please fill my heart with you as full as
Einstein’s head was with numbers.

I want to pray for those who abuse me,
I want to bless those who curse me,
Help me die daily, turn the other cheek,
Go the extra mile, be one who’s meek
Dear Love I just want to be you but that’s impossible.
Make me your hands and your feet,
Teach me to reveal you like black light.

I said I was looking for demonstrations of you,
But I don’t seem to. Because my eyes are shut
 and turned away from you. My friends call out
“vengeance is mine, I will repay!” but I feel like
Only you should say that. 
                               
Love I thought you were clearly red but now
You seem so gray, people are sleeping together
Because they say they you each other, and the other day,
A man said that abortion is okay because it’s youing.
If that’s true, who are you??

I thought you were Jehovah-Jirah,
Elohim, Jehovah-neesi, and I AM.
I thought you were God.
the one who spoke the world into the existence,
Saved Noah, Isaac, Joseph, Lot, Rahab,
 Ruth, David, Jeremiah, Paul, and Peter.
1 Corinthians 13 seems full of you.
Love I don’t wanna be a noisy gong
But I’m clanging away cause there
Is no way I can be you. It  is so impossible.

I tried to be you but dirt makes me shudder,
All I can think about is being a missionary
But no one on S. 85^th E. Ave. knows you,
And that doesn't move me and that missionary’s
Feet aren't beautiful. I don’t understand!

You are the God who used whole books
Of the Bible to write down laws yet
Luke 10:27 seems to sum all those up.
If that’s your water of life give me the
Whole cup!

So love I’d like to apologize for every day
That I've thought you were something different.
Now I see you are not found in the Gilbert Blythe’s
Or Justin Bieber’s of my dreamland.
So you are not satisfied when I give myself away
For the world’s view of you.

No, I have seen the true you,
On the road to Jarius’s house,
Stopping to heal and forgive that lady.
Or feeding five thousand in one day
That’s you.
You’re the radically loving Father running to
Prodigal me in my iniquities.
When you healed Bartimaus, you opened
My eyes as well. John 11:35 makes me cry;
I see how you loved Lazarus as you
Raised him back to life.
So many times I could fill the page
Like letting Mary anoint your head.

Make me the oil on your feet,
Make me the thief on the cross,
Grant me paradise with you though
I have scorned your laws.
You hold my prayers in a bowl
Yet I didn't trust you enough
To let sinners eat at my table.

God or Love, I don’t know what
To say. The only thing I know is that
Jesus is the way.
He’s the only one who’s done it right
Because all we did was wrong.
His cross was the color of my Valentine card
Cause my heart was stone, cold, gray and hard.
Send me on a hope-giving, life-giving mission.
Why? This is the only plea I can make,
You were love
and then you made me your son.
Now I’m an heir to a legacy of perfection
So just fill me up and let my red heart
Stamped by your spirit
be your greatest witness.

SUMMER '11

When I last got on my blog it was spring,
now God has spent an entire summer making me
more like His son. God did many things in my life this
summer, and now it is time to write about them and
tell how he blessed me through them.


He blessed me with Hannah's wedding, with Maggie Day's
presence in our home. He gave me a VBS i will never forget.
He gave me warts (that i pray he will take away), a chance at
summer basketball, brought Courtney Joy back to intern,
and opened the doors for a One Hope Center.

God was so good and yet He did more...
He blessed me with a AWESOME P61,
and brought the neigborhood kids to church.
God gave me the oppurtunity to watch God
break my dad's heart over the crisis in Sudan
and Somalia, to watch him melt my youth pastor's
heart for his kids he sooo desperately wants to bring
home. God gave me the courage to join the worship team.
And he brought Quinton into my life. A four year old, autistic
boy who was tall for his age and obessed with trains, that
I loved on and loved on only for God to show me how much He
loved me.

This is my summer the summer that God gave me.
Summer '11. it is summed up in the life of Josiah in
2 Chronicles 34-37 that i sum up like this. (three chapters that changed a summer
and a life.) When we seek God, He answers. When we know
God He helps us do great things, He gives us great gifts and great
joy, and He gives us the HOPE and the POWER to tell the world
that this is what love is...GOD IS LOVE AND LOVE HAS COME
FOR US ALL.

Poetry

Yellow Stars

Oh to be like them

To play in Warsaw’s streets

Playing hopscotch and sharing special sweet treats.

To chase the girls and race

All the boys sounds fun,

But I wear the yellow star

so I turn and run.

Oh to be like them

To buy some shoes for my boy

And fresh vegetables to eat,

Cream and milk for my tea.

To host a party and celebrate

And see joy in my husband’s face

But I wear the yellow star

so I turn and run.

Oh to be like them

To know how to protect my boy

Put money in the jar

And buy a nice new dress For my wife and miss.

To not go on the trains

And leave my family behind

But I wear the yellow star

so I turn and face the gun.

HOPE IN THE CITY

I can feel hope because hope is here.
Hope is surronding us through the battle for this city. And the hope is that God has
already won. I know you can feel this battle within your own heart and therefore
you feel it here, in this city.the hope is here. You can feel it. I feel it.I feel it rise up in my
chest when I read the one hope blog and when I tutor eager kids.

Tulsa is a city full of sin and sadness, grief and anger.
many have fallen into immorality and the highway through
the center of town, is the main road trafficking prostitutes in
the midwest.

But God is here. I do not doubt it.

Fifty percent of the young
girls who were expected to be trafficked into the dallas area for the super bowl

were unable because of the storm.Yes, God is here and hope as well.


So do not doubt hope's presence, but be reminded of it.

Isaiah 62:12

" 12 And they will call them, "The holy people, The redeemed of the LORD "; And you will be called, "Sought out, a city not forsaken."

well, needless to say, we have been snowed in.
however, so is much of oklahoma. we haven't had
any dull moments. these pictures show what we did
these last few days.