Matt Kearney's new album "Young Love"...

Where shall I begin? There is so much to say but I don't want to bog you guys down with a novel so I will just hit the major points. Matt Kearney has once again succeeded in writing a beautifully thought out and lush collection of songs that speak directly to a collective personal experience. His music has a way of finding a direct line to the heart. From the pop feel of "Hey Mama" to the intensely personal story woven through the streets of "Rochester" this album is a spectacular follow up to his 2009 album "City of Black and White".
 
It might be argued that Mr. Kearney took quite a chance departing from his usual fare of acoustic guitars and simple orchestrations in exchange for a more modern electronic production but he never got lost in the shuffle, so it worked! His strengths, which are melody and wonderfully written hooks, shone brilliantly in the midst of the busier sound and it proved to be a lovely marriage. It is in this humble writers opinion that "Young Love" is one of the best albums of the year so thank you Matt Kearney for an all around great experience and BRAVO! I can't wait to hear what you will bring us next!

Layla and her endless supply of highly inappropriate and random questions.

 (This one was posed to her paternal grandmother, "Grammy", during her bday dinner this week)...

"Grammy were you alive when Michael Jackson still had brown skin?"

 (This was asked in passing and out of the blue yesterday)...

"If I am supposed to get married one day then why do I hate dresses so much? I know! I'll just get married in pants!"

 (This was in reference to over hearing me talking to a friend about her cheating boyfriend)...

"If you castrate a man does that mean you broke something, like his leg or his arm, and he has to wear a cast now?"

 (This was during bedtime prayers a while back)..

."If someone goes to heaven do they wear clothes or do they get to walk around naked? I vote for being naked!"

 (This is when she was in the bathroom while I was getting her little brother out of a bath)...

"Mommy how come things on my body don't shrink up when they're cold?"

 (She asked this while walking behind a very LARGE woman in the store)...

"How does she sit down in chairs without getting stuck?"

 (Witnessing a heated argument between two neighbors)...

"Do you think one of them needs a tic tac?"

I love my unintentionally hilarious child. She makes my day:)

I am not ruined.

Why is it that when I have something important to say to someone it is the last thing I want to talk about? More specifically when I am sticking up for myself within a relationship. And I could be referring to any type of relationship in my life...(Save for my mother and sister. I can tell them anything which is actually quite nice.)...I chicken out when it comes to saying things that matter to my heart. I have this pesky lie that likes to pop up (more often than I would like to admit) and that is the lie that because of what I have been through I am a ruined woman. I/My feelings, am/are of no consequence because I blew my chance at a normal stable life with my past behavior. That line of thinking by the way is a HUGE load of crap but the thought still likes to stick to the bottom of my shoe and haunt me with it's stink. I can't tell someone what I want from them without a huge lump in my throat and tears because I am convinced that I have no right to ask for anything for myself and that I should just be grateful someone is willing to be close to me.

I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE THINKING AND YES THAT'S NUTS!

But...it's what goes on in my brain. UGH! Sometimes I wish for a way to disconnect my brain from my heart. Unfortunately I am a woman and it isn't possible so I must learn to think around the large boulder of BS sitting between me and my self-esteem. God has called me "daughter", "loved", and "beautiful". That should be enough and it is. It's just remembering that is the trick!

This is you.

Dear Friend,

You my love are a priceless piece of eternity. A temple built to house and commune with the creator of all living things in heaven and here on earth. There is worth in your existence and purpose in your path. You were summoned from a supernatural spark that rests in the hands of the one who has called you by name. A name that only he knows, a designation meant only for yourself that is written on a white stone and kept in glory until the day you meet him face to face. This is you. Please consider these things my sweet and most precious friend. You are beautiful, chosen, wanted and important.

Hammers don't work on dust.

I heard an interesting and somewhat disheartening statement today. A fellow Christ follower, whom I love dearly and hope that they reconsider their statement after reading this, called the devastation in Japan a "Judgement from God" and a "Wake up call for America and the American church". I do not mean to be argumentative but I think this line of reasoning needs to be addressed and in a loving way so I will do my best to do so.

I think Paul puts it best in Roman's 11:34.


Romans 11:34  “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” 


We do not know what the reason's were for the devastation in Japan all we know is that it happened and that we as Christians (who have been given the mind of Christ: 1 Corinthians 2:16)  should be on our knees praying and doing whatever else we can possibly do to alleviate the Japanese people's suffering. God calls us to action and compassion but never judgement. That responsibility is God's and God's alone. 


These people's lives were reduced to dust in a matter of minutes. Using a hammer to get across to them the message of salvation absolutely will not work in this situation. We were asked to be the hands and feet of Christ. We are to lift up, not beat down. 

Bad traffic and a slippery virtue.

Patience is a virtue...a slippery one...

Sometimes it seems to me that I was born an impatient person. I struggle in this area quite a bit. Always have. I am better than I used to be but this has only improved by the grace of God and hard lessons delivered through situations generally involving either, (A.) My Children, (B.) My Career, or (C.) Relationships...Well (A) is kind of a daily undertaking so I don't know if I  should even include the other two...I have a daughter with extreme ADHD and a four year old son...nuff said....I'll move on.

You don't just wake up one day after praying for patience to find that you have miraculously inherited Mother Theresa's temperament and Christ's never ending love for humanity. People still get on your nerves, kids still nag you to the point of insanity, and those last ten to twenty pounds still taunt you like the obnoxious cheerleader in high school that took special pride in making your life a living hell...Oh!... 

(Here comes a random example about impatience. I'm sorry but I have to get this one off my chest.)

And let us not forget those traffic induced fits of impatient rage. God regularly taps me on the shoulder about this one. Seriously though, there is no amount of counting to ten that helps when you are running fifteen minutes behind and the oldest person in existence decides that today, of aaaallll days, is the one that they choose to dust off their drivers license and take the Buick out for a leisurely spin....and by leisurely I mean a practice run for their funeral procession. (I know I'm not alone on this one.)

So why do we let this stuff get to us? What is it that stands between us and patience? 

Trust.

Lemme esplain...

An absence of trust manifests itself as a control issue, which in turn feeds the problem of impatience. 

When I don't trust that God will ultimately work everything out for my good I try to control the timeline and outcome of the situation myself. Then, when that feeble attempt at control is disrupted by something external (My kids aversion to early mornings, A burnt out hair dryer, The blue hair in the Buick) it causes me to become extremely impatient. 

Hopefully I said all of that well enough to understand.

At the end of the day trusting God is the only thing that will increase your ability to have more patience and a shot at some peace. So chill! God's got this! You will be fine and so will I :)

Intensity

I am not entirely sure what happens in a musician's body when they are struck by music that moves them but it feels something like a mix between a shiver and electricity. It starts at the top of the head and moves all the way down to the toes. It doesn't happen all the time but when it does it's intense. It makes you just want to come out of your skin! I am going through that at the moment. I was inspired by this guitar riff two days ago while the band I was playing with was doing a sound check and it hasn't left me. I don't know why God wired me this way but I like it! So now I am off to create something from that rumbling in my heart. Just thought I would share!

Personal Minefield

My heart has been flipped upside down and laid bare in the last couple of months. It has been rough but necessary and I'm so grateful for the growth (and all the music) that has come out of it but honestly I am ready to be out of this minefield. I'm done bleeding from the emotional bombs I had to remove one by one. I'm alive and I am fully capable of walking away from the old hurts so that is what I am doing. My God, my children, my family, my friends and one day my future husband deserves a heart that is whole and not afraid to run into relationships for fear of dying from the effort. That is no way to live and certainly no way to love. So in saying that I'm pretty sure this marks a new place in life for me. I'm ready to move out and move on. Finally, thank God!

All the kings horses...

I was sitting with my friend Lindsey tonight and we were having one of those venting talks. You know the kind... the ones you have to have every once in a while just to get stuff off your chest to prevent an emotional explosion. It was a good talk (For me anyways. I don't know, I may have talked her ear off!) and one that produced an interesting question.

Do you think brokenness is a weakness? 

My answer to that was "no".

Brokenness is beautiful. It is the revealing of truth. Brokenness happens when a person comes to the last of something. It is a catalyst for change. Now whether the person builds on that change is something else entirely and we will get to that later. For now, let's just chew on this question: Is brokenness a weakness?

I struggled with this for about a year and a half after the ending of a particularly unhealthy relationship. I believed that because my heart was in pieces I was weak and ugly and would never be attractive again until I could make everyone see that I was strong, independent and without need. I refused to ever be weak (broken) again. Well you can guess how well that went. It was a colossal waste of time that I could have spent repairing my brokenness INSTEAD OF TRYING TO CONVINCE EVERYBODY ELSE IN MY LIFE I WAS ALL RIGHT! I went out. I danced and partied. I even began to roll around the idea of pursuing new relationships. Surely a new boyfriend would make it all better. Right? Thankfully that didn't happen and let me tell you why....

 Inviting people into your brokenness purely to self-medicate is not only damaging to you but to the other person as well. You propagate pain when you do this!

 It was a temporary solution. A bandaid for a bone-deep wounding. I was stubborn (Big surprise!) but I did finally accept the fact that I was still in pieces almost two years after the ending of my marriage. 

The day I finally broke was at a retreat for our girls small groups. We were in a beautiful cabin in the north Georgia mountains and I was in a group of women talking about relationship problems. We were all taking turns until a wonderful girl, we will call Peggy, confessed that she was considering leaving her husband. Something in me panicked. I completely butted in on her time (I know, shocking!) and began begging my friend Peggy not to give up on her marriage. I sobbed as I told her that she had no idea of the ripping that would occur in her soul and how much it would break her heart. I remember just putting my head down as I continued to confess the unbelievable pain of that loss and wishing I could make the tears stop along with the searing ache in my chest. I had finally faced my shame and hurt and admitted that it had broken me. I think I cried for the rest of group time and was still weepy probably thirty minutes after we had finished. That silly wall of anger and stone that I had built up around the cracks in my heart came tumbling down and that was the beginning of my full recovery. I realized that I was not weak...I was just devastated. I was desolate but thankfully not for long. God showed me that I could rebuild what had been torn down and that only his strength and his grace could accomplish that. 

So is brokenness weakness? No.

Is it scary? Yes! 

Can God fix what's busted? Absolutely! 

We just have to ask God for help and then let him do it. It's not easy or pain free by any means but it is so worth it! I promise :)

Here comes Joy

This is what I feel like today.

Used, angry, trapped and just altogether low. Is that what I should be feeling? Nope, but it's hard to choose joy over what comes naturally in disappointing situations. People lie to you, let you down, choose what's convenient for themselves over what is important and can take the heart right out of you. It's life. It happens at least once to everyone and it is what I am feeling at this moment. I'm hurt. There I admitted it... but I know even if I can't find it today...joy is coming. God is bigger than my hurt feelings and has enough grace for the offending party that he can share some of it with me. I want to have grace for others, joy in sadness and peace in turmoil. I'm not feeling it right now but I know if I keep pressing forward it will come and so will He.

Be a Mystery

I just want to begin this post with an I LOVE YOU ALL. Seriously, I love all you girls out there no matter what circumstance or stage of life you are in at the moment. You are beautiful and a daughter of the king. A princess who is adored by God Almighty. Please understand that.

Alright....Now that I have hopefully conveyed my love and respect for everyone I would like to get on to the subject that this post is about...

I want to talk about the way ladies dress and behave... Now it isn't that I'm asking for women to walk around like nuns. I'm just asking for some decorum. In all seriousness, if you have a cute figure then by all means honey wear something that flatters it!... Now see right there.... I said "Flatters it" not "Exposes it". I promise though, I do get it. Women want to feel beautiful. We long to be desired and pursued. There is nothing wrong with those feelings. We are wired that way. We have been wired that way by God. It's okay. What women were never wired to be however, is a doormat. And when you expose your body so also you expose your soul. Leaving nothing to the imagination speaks "I would rather have your hands than your heart" and men who would take advantage of that respond and those physical exchanges end up leaving you less of who you were before and usually ashamed. Sadly sometimes it also sets up a life long precedence for a sexual need over a satisfied heart.

I'm also speaking to those who keep their bits and pieces under wraps but still struggle with this.

 Listen, even if a woman isn't throwing her body out there for the whole male population to see her heart  can still communicate "Hey, I'm over here! Look at me! Please love me!" loud enough to where a man looking for an emotionally vulnerable woman will find her. You can be as emotionally exposed through behavior as much as exposed through clothing.

Behavior such as physical communication...


Touching a man is how you get most of them jump started...Yes I just said that... We all know it! Let's be honest with each other here.

Sex effects us differently in many ways...emotionally speaking...So be careful how you physically interact with a man. My amazing sisters please remember: You are the bride of Christ before you are ever anyone else's! How it must grieve our God's heart to know that we think so little of what he has deemed precious and one of kind. Ladies we are better than this. We are better than a one night stand. We are better than subjecting ourselves to emotional, verbal or physical abuse to keep a man and we are most definitely WORTHY of everything a healthy relationship has to offer. WE ARE A DAUGHTERS OF THE KING and by that fact alone we should sit comfortably knowing that we have the right ask to be treated that way! And what's wonderful is that there are men out there who will recognize that and live up to the challenge. There is a prince for every princess.

And please, please, please just know that I speak from a place of experience. I will never, ever write about something this passionately unless I have been through it! I am only saying what has gotten me out of that specific pit.

So relish the fact that you are hard to figure out to the opposite sex. It's supposed to be that way. We are supposed to be hard to get. Literally and figuratively speaking. We are art, meant to be admired and cherished. Sisters, we are the handiwork of the creator of the universe! We were not made to be consumed and then tossed aside. Our beauty and spirit were meant to be savored. Here is an example...

The Mona Lisa.

What makes Mona so engaging? What has stumped art historians for years upon years?

It's the mystery of who she really is!...(Granted they have a pretty good idea but it isn't an absolute.)

Think about that for a moment... You done thinking?... I'll give it another second...Now ask yourself; Would the Mona Lisa be as fun to look at if there were a placard beneath it in the Lourve stating the exact time, date and background information of the year and the female model Da vinci painted? Absolutely not! It would be in some ways not as endearing or lovely. It would almost be just another portrait done by Da Vinci. But...the thing that captures the imagination is what's underneath the surface.

"Who is she really?"
"How did she know Da Vinci?"
"What on earth is that smile all about?"
"Who is the smile for?" 

We will probably never know the concrete answers to these questions and thats what makes it so wonderful. That's what makes her so wonderful.

Final thought....You want a man who is willing to work all his life to figure out the depth and beauty of a woman's heart. Sex isn't complicated. Love is. And it is the perplexities of love and a woman's heart that has helped to shape our world from the beginning. What would we be without that? We wouldn't have the works of Shakespeare, Love song's, Some of the world's most precious artwork, etc...the list goes on and on. We need to believe that we were meant to have great sonnets written about and for us. I'm quite proud to be of my specific gender :) So I say to my fellow females; Be a mystery. It's worth it.

The Perfect Man...

Haha! Gotcha! I bet you thought this was going to be a description of what I think the perfect man is...well  get over it there isn't one and NEWSFLASH there isn't a perfect woman either. Yes we are to aspire to be like Christ (The one and only perfect human being) but we need to be fully aware that we are going to miss the mark. Then after we realize that about ourselves we should then give up the entire notion that our significant others are going to have miraculously good aim. We all mess up, we all hurt people's feeling (unintentionally and intentionally), we all forget to let people know how much we care, and sometimes we break their hearts. Is it rough out there? Yes. Is it worth it though? Yes. When we get out of our own way God can make beautiful things happen. Things like love. 

So in following with that final thought here is a video that I am listening to probably once every other day right now. Train is one of my favorite bands and this is one of my favorite songs of theirs. It's called "Marry Me" and oh my gosh it makes everything girly in me melt. Enjoy!

Living Fearlessly

I am here. I am alive. I am going to behave as such.

That is my new years resolution.

While that may be easy for most everybody else in the world it isn't for me. I have had issues with anxiety my entire life and they really kicked into high gear this past year for some reason. It was like I was wrapped up in this blanket of fear which coincidentally did nothing for my self esteem (or figure) and it kept me from living life the way that God had intended me to. Well no more. I want adventures and laughter and fresh air and a few stories to bring back once I'm done!

So my first fearless act (which was right before the new year) was to go ice skating for my birthday and I had a blast! I made myself do something I was afraid of doing and it was a success! Below is my favorite picture of the evening. It's blurry and fuzzy all except for my face which is cracking up because I almost fell...almost.

It may not be much but it's what works for me... and you know what? I like myself in this picture. Living fearlessly suits me I think ;)

The Soul of Music

So I took a trip tonight through my written past and found this little nugget. It was written after a worship team meeting I attended about four years ago. I hope you enjoy it!

The Soul of Music

I was reminded tonight by my music minister (props to Cmo:) of what a privilege it is to help lead others into worship with the father. I am honored that God has gifted me in the universal tongue. We may not all speak the same language but every human heart listens and reverberates to the deep and unmistakable sound of the soul of music. Before a child can understand words of comfort, he recognizes the emotion behind his mothers lullaby. His restless condition is only temporary when he begins to hear the love of his mother through her song. When we posture our hearts towards God in worship, he sings his lullaby through us. A glimmer of that moment of love can change everything. The lonely are comforted, the broken are mended, and captive hearts are set free. How could you not love and adore a God that created such a beautiful and effective means of communicating with his children? I am a broken and misshapen vessel and yet he chose me to be a part of this divine and crucial action. I am humbled and baffled when I pause to consider that fact. That is why nothing else matters when I am before my father. There is a bliss and a sense of euphoria that is inexplicable outside of his presence. There is where I find my refuge. That is where I find my fulfillment. God placed all of those things in music so that they could be discovered, understood, and transplanted into the soul of man forever linking the father to his children and forever giving us access to the lullaby he sings over us.

Zephaniah 3:17 
"The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.