He's Just....Amazing

There has been so much going on in my life as of late. Not so much externally but, rather, internally. God has been trying to teach me so many things, but the two that stand out the most can be summed up in two words:

Prayer & Spirit.

God has trying to show me that I need to pray (have a conversation) with Him more often. Not just prayer, though. It needs to be unhindered, unadulterated, complete-focused-abandonment prayer. Not a simple "Help me, Amen."

Then, concerning the Spirit, He's been trying to teach me to communicate with His Holy Spirit within me (and within each of us in covenant with Him). I ignore Him a lot times. I don't listen; I only hear what I want to. However, lately, I've been truly desiring for God to speak through His Spirit directly, specifically into my life.

I know He will and already is.

So, since I cannot even begin to explain what He's been doing, I'll just share my theme song with you guys. It's called "Holy Spirit Have Your Way" by Leeland, and has been constantly running through my head lately. My favorite line is:

"What a joy it is to give my life away to You!

All that I need, all that I seek,

Is You here with me,

Holy Spirit, have your way in me!"

That lyric is so powerful to me, right now, I can't even tell you. I can only feel it!

Pictures Because I'm Bored And Feel Like Blogging

A few photos taken while on a walk with Michael. I am so glad I still have one brother here at home with me. I seriously believe I would go insane without him.

 

100

This is my big 100th blog post. Sadly, I feel most of the things I've written on here are stupid, so it's not a very glorious achievemet. However, I guess I'll keep on keeping on, simply for the sake of history, that I might one day read back on them.

It's nice to have a place to disperse my random thoughts.

Wasted Time

Here are a few quotes that I recently received in an e-mail. The second one really hit home for me.

"First I was dying to finish high school and start college,

Then I was dying to finish college and get a job,

And then I was dying to get married and have children,

And then I was dying for my children to grow up so I could work,

But then I was dying to retire.

And now I'm dying.

And suddenly I realized I forgot to live."

"We make them cry who care for us.

We cry for those who never care for us.

And we care for those who will never cry for us.

This is the truth of life. It's strange but true.

However, once you realize this it's never too late to change."

Love(ly) Day

Happy Valentines Day! May we all dwell on His perfect love.

“But as it is written:

 'Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,

Nor have entered into the heart of man

The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.'”

~2 Cor. 2:9

Sweet Indeed

While reading some Bible verses today in Ephesians a few truly touched me. I love it when reading the Scriptures, beautiful revelations pop off the pages. Isn't the Word of God so alive?

Ephesians 4:1-3

 "I, therefore, prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."

Ephesians 4:22-24

"that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness."

Proverbs 23: 17-18

"Do not let your heart envy sinners,

But be zealous for the fear of the

LORD all the day;

For surely there is a hereafter,

And your hope will not be cut off."

That last verse from Proverbs especially spoke to me today during a difficult time. It's far too common a blunder to get distracted by things in the moment, but if we are zealous for the fear of the Lord all the day, what have we to fear but Him?

Oh, and to fear Him is sweet indeed.

Regina Spektor...?

The reason for neglecting my blog is because of scholarships. Yes, I've been meddling, stressing, and brainstorming over them constantly for the past week, so please understand.
Today, however, I suddenly had an impulse to listen to tons of youtube music videos, specifically by Regina Spektor. Though I know next to nothing about her, her songs are filled with something deeper. I doubt she's a Christian, though she may lean towards believing in a God; yet, as I said: I know not.

These are a few interesting videos by her. "Laughing With" is pretty basic. It's very true, I feel. Actually, I wanted to upload the official music video, but blogger isn't letting me. Probably some copyright block. Bo.

Well, at least the other video works. "Samson" was especially unusual. After dabbling around to find out what it exactly meant, I haven't really found out what Regina was thinking when she wrote those words. It's probable she took the story of Samson and Delilah and simply put her own story into it; I've also heard it put that this was Delilah's point of view. Weird song, I know. For myself, I don't think of her as singing about the Bible story, but rather putting her own story into it. I read this longish explination on it which says:


"It's suppose to describe the death of her friend. She compares him to Samson to show how strong he was to fight off cancer, even though he didn't make it. Wonderbread was the only thing he could eat because he was so sick. "the Bible didn't mention us" is her projecting that he was worth being famous for being a strong person and great friend, but nobody knew him...."

(I did edit the quote a bit, for grammar errors...Hehe. Couldn't resist.)

Also, I've read that the "couldn't bring the colums down" part can be describing her friend not winning the battle with cancer, and the part of his hair being cut is because of chemotheraphy.
That still doesn't explain the, "You are my sweetest downfall," lyric...?

Anyhow, the piano and tone is what I like about the song--and the beautiful music video graphics.

Let me know what you think/know about her...

P.S. No, I do not have any idea why I put so much effort into researching a senseless song called "Samson." So don't even ask ;)

Library Books

 Thank you for asking. Yes, I did have a wonderful weekend. If you guess, though, you won't believe what I did. No, you won't, because it's so utterly unbelievable. Go look in your wallet. Yes, I just said that. Okay, nevermind, don't go physically, go mentally. Scanning it, you'll find a picture or two, a few wads of one hundred dollar bills, a license, and, probably, a library card.

Well, at least if you're literate. If you're reading this I'm guessing you are.

Gee, this is a lame start to this post.

All I'm going to say is, with some extremely literate friends of mine, I've finally check out my first library books with my Hawaii library card. Yay!

No, it was not my first time I've ever checked out a library book. I've done that tons of times in elementary school. I'm just talking about my Hawaii public library card--just never got around to using it.

But look at all the books I got! Alright, only a few are from the library. I just piled a few on with them to make it look...more...bookish. But that's beside the point.

The point is that I've done it and because I said I'd made a blog post out of it, I did; and now you get to read it and ask yourself why you ever decided to. And now I get to stop.

P.S. I want to inform all people out there that I do know how to return a library book. Okay? Oh, and I must thank Laura K. for inspiring me to use the cross-random-words-out thingy.

Fingerstyle!

Yipee, this is my first post involving a video! When I finally make that long-awaited youtube video with me playing "For My Father" by Andy Mckee you will definitely see it posted on here. However, there is no knowing when I will finally learn the last part of the song, so probably not too soon.
Anyhow, while practicing guitar today, I stumbled across this youtube video by Sungha Jung, one of my favorite guitarists. His music is amazing. Certain moments took my breath away. He's done awesome arrangements of Bruno Mars, the Beatles, etc. He's awesome.