Thankful

This last week was my favorite time of year. Beside the breath taking beauty of the trees' new garb,

it's a time were we all can just take a step back, and look at life. Look at what God has given us, see the beauty and love that surrounds us. We list things we're thankful for, we stuff ourselves with the traditional foods and we enjoy our family's company.

This year I [along with two of my siblings and my dad] went up to northern Oregon to visit my grandparents for Thanksgiving. It was so beautiful there, [albeit freezing cold ;] I absolutely loved it. After Thanksgiving day we all drove to the coast to see the ocean [can you believe it was my first time ever seeing the ocean!?] we visited Depoe Bay and Lincoln. We trolled through the little sea-side town that bordered the shore line and ate a wonderful dinner at a place called Tidal Raves.

The wind was blowing hard that day, and it was below 30*, my jean jacket over my hoody was barely enough to keep me from becoming an icicle.

Well, to touch on the ocean..

That day there were waves crashing against the rocks and sweeping thirty feet up the shore, dousing my younger brother who decided that it was cool, and he could now say "I have been touched by the ocean!'"

His shoes are now hard and white from the salt ;)

Standing as close as we could get to the water, we often had to scamper backwards to avoid the waves rushing up in an attempt to freeze our feet with it's frigid waters.

The only thing I could think of as I gazed across that vast expanse, was the awesome power of God, it was very humbling.

After a day spent at the coast and in town we finally drove back to the house. I lay on the couch that night smiling as I rewound the memories in my mind, letting them cement themselves into my memory, for I knew they would be cherished for a long time.

What I was thankful for last week,

The time I was able to spend with family we don't often get to see, and having the chance to see something so beautiful and powerful.

And I was thankful that I had another year to enjoy my family, to see them laughing and smiling.

I was thankful for the love, kindness, joy and care that I have gotten from my family and friends this year, and for the life I have been given, 

I have been given a loving family, amazing friends, a roof over my head and food on the table and the grace of a Savior who saved me from myself.

Who could ask for more?

*photos by me

Creative Writing-Thursday

Orange, red and yellow

Trees change their faces

Lanes framed in color

Time to sing Praise

Time to give Thanks







I know, it even sounds rushed and not well thought out...
I'm leaving for vacation in the morning and didn't have time to write a better poem or Cinquain.
But I hope this is at least slightly OK, have a wonderful Thanksgiving! :)
(That's why this is early)

Cinquain-Thursday [16]

Listen,


Cold wind whistling;


Hiding inside my room


Reading The Classics: Latin Four



I like.

Creative Writing-Thursday

Sometimes I feel

I have gone as far,

As I can possibly go

One step more ,

Is one more than

I feel I can take



How is Thursday here again already? I don't understand, it seems just yesterday I was typing out a Cinquain.
And now here we are again, at Thursday.....

How Can This Be?

How can this be? How can the year 2011 be coming to a close? How can I be a month from seventeen when I have had no time to enjoy being sixteen?
This year has coasted past me in a flurry of difficulty, joys, trials and errors, choices and growing up.
So much has happened this past year.....almost too much to describe.

The difficulties, being diagnosed with multiple scoliosis.....a painful hindrance to much I want to do.
The joys, my salvation which changed my life and where it is heading in a complete 180*
The trials and errors, battling with my sinful nature, and allowing it to win on occasion, the job searching and failing.
The choices, trying to decide if college or an Institute for the Arts is a better choice, do I contemplate moving out or staying at home? Do I try and go for that scholarship or get a student loan?
And the growing up, oh, I have done so much growing up it seems!! And I know I have so much more to do, I am yet a young woman, yet to reach her full maturity in womanhood.

So many events of the past year have moved me, changed me, hurt me and made me happy. I spoke of growing up in the form of driving a few months ago.........my license arrived in the mail three days ago.

For as long as I can remember, I looked forward to school. I loved learning.
But this year has been so difficult for me school-wise. I have never felt so much despair over something, that gnawing sensation of failure.
Does this make me prideful and arrogant, the anger I feel at failing? Maybe it does, maybe I am prideful and arrogant.......maybe I am being taught a lesson....
Lord willing this is my last full year of high school, Lord willing I graduate next year after a semester of 12th grade. Then I can focus on pursuing a job, saving up some money to help with college.

Strangely enough [or maybe not so strange] the words by Lewis from Till We Have Faces, come to my mind.

I have always...had a longing for death...it was happy days I longed the most...when we were up there on the hills...with the wind and sunshine.....and because it was so beautiful it set me longing, always longing


Yes! because death means eternity with Christ! Forever in perfection singing praises to my Savior.....
How glorious that day will be, when Jesus descends from the heavens and that trumpet sounds.
"......and every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess....."


Oh yes, I will be kneeling, and I will be confessing....I am kneeling and I am confessing, I am confessing everyday for the sins of my thoughts or deeds.
How amazing and glorious it is to know your heart has been wiped clean, your soul washed in the blood of Christ.....What a beautiful day it will be.....

In last weeks message my Pastor mentioned something.....how new believers have moments where they ask, "Lord, what wilt thou have me do, Lord What Shall I Do?"
And I smiled.

It was when I was happiest that I longed most...The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing...to find the place where all the beauty came from.

Cinquain-Thursday [15]

Biting


Freezing cold wind


Rain is the norm this week


My favorite time of the year


Is here!!



Forgive the ever so late posting of this Thursday's post!!
This past week has been............eventful.

Photography

Gadsby Hymns, #195

Assist my soul, my heavenly King,
Thy everlasting love to sing;
And joyful spread thy praise abroad,
As one, through grace, that's born of God.


[No, it is not the will of man
My soul's new heavenly birth began;
Nor will nor power of flesh and blood
That turned my heart from sin to God.]


Herein let self be all abased,
And sovereign love alone confessed;
This be my song through all the road,
That born I am, and born of God.


Oh may this love my soul constrain
To make returns of love again;
That I, while earth is my abode,
May live like one that's born of God.


[May I thy praises daily show,
Who has created all things new,
and washed me in a Savior's blood
To prove I am a child of God.]


And when the appointed hour shall come,
That thou wilt call me to my home,
Joyful I'll pass the chilling flood,
And die as one that's born of God.


Then shall my soul triumphant rise
To its blest mansion in the skies;
And in that glorious, bright abode,
Sing then as one that's born of God.



Isn't this simply one of the most beautiful hymns you have ever heard?
as we sang this in church a few weeks ago I began to almost cry.
This song touched my heart, and sang the words I had been trying to express for so long.
The poems and the thoughts I shared, and here they were, written in a hymn for me to sing or to pray.
I wanted to share this with everyone who reads, or happens upon my blog, because this is a glorious hymn. And one that encourages those of us waited patiently to go 'home'.