"When our depravity meets His divinity, it is a beautiful collision." -David Crowder

So, I just got the new David Crowder CD, Collision (or 3+4=7). Most of today was a bad day, but the music lifted me up. One song in particular, which has been around for a little while but here is what it says:

"From wherever spring arrives to heal the ground...from wherever searching come (the look itself a trace of what we're looking for). So be quiet now and wait. The ocean is growing. The tide is coming in. Here it is...Here is our King. Here is our love. Here is our God who's come to bring us back to Him. He is the One. He is Jesus. And what was said to the rose to make it unfold was said to me here in my chest, so be quiet now and rest. The ocean is growing. The tide is coming. Here it is...He is our King. He is our love. He is our God who's come to bring us back to Him. He is the One. He is Jesus. Majesty. Finally. Here..."

Look at those lyrics, they're amazing. Actually, the whole CD is amazing. And I'm going to the concert...it's going to be, literally, the best concert ever. I know a few men who don't like Crowder (three former Manvel dwellers who are now in various parts of the country to be exact), and to them I say: you are retarded. I can say that, because they know I sister-love them. And plus, I don't think any of them read this. But if they did, there's my disclaimer.

Anyway, I was listening to this song and I had some fairly profound thoughts, but as I was walking home from an intense two hours of Greek translation, those thoughts have since gone out the window that is my mind. So for now, I'll leave it at that.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I remembered!

So, I'm noticing that practically the only time I've felt real joy recently is when I am either in church or listening to praise music (mostly I play Shane&Shane and Crowder), and it seems to me that it's because of Him that I am making it through life. It always is, but I feel it especially now. Like with Greek-I've never not been able to do school. It's always been a breeze, for the most part. And I've never felt as stressed as I do now. And that's on top of family, feeling awkward all the time, wanting really to just be invisible and alone, and to top it all off I have seen more of my sin in the past year than I ever wanted to know, and I am dirty. But then, there again is hope: Christ made me clean once and for all when I put my faith in Him, and He is continuing to clean me up until He presents me holy and blameless to His Father, my Father, God, on His day. So, I think, were it not for God, I'd be depressed. Comparing this experience to my last experience with "depression" my junior year of high school, the difference is in this one I have Hope. Hope is Jesus. I will make it through, because I'm being pulled, carried, hugged, kissed, comforted, loved, encouraged and uplifted by the One true God. There is none like Him. Omi-stinkin'-goodness...how does that even work? God's amazing.

I don't know how many people read this or whatever, or the kind of person who reads it. But I guess I really feel like I need to acknowledge any non-believer who might come across this thing. Don't run from Jesus. Don't listen to the world, who's trying to destroy you by any means possible (whether it's hard times or things that seem fun and good at first). In Christ there is life and hope and the best joy you could ever imagine. Seek Him out, from your heart, and you'll find Him. (a good place to start is the book of John in the New Testament)

ok, I've said my peace, I've broken the fourth wall...I'm done.

goodness

How did God show His goodness to me today? I'm so glad you asked!

Well, I must admit that I started out today fairly tired, and by that I mean super exhausted, and feeling the weight of a paper over my head. I got it done, but the rest of the day was still overshadowed by tiredness. Then, I had another instance of feeling awkward with one of my friends! The conversation was going so well, and then I just started having these awkward pauses. But one relieving part was that it was a girl this time, so now at least I know the awkwardness isn't just in my interactions with males. (This too is all just perception...I don't think anyone notices but me, which is yet another comfort) Still, this led to feeling a little more down, especially since the incident was compounded by tiredness.

Then the "girl thing" set in...I was feeling left out of the dating scene, forgetting my current fear of boys because of the sudden popping up of many couples within my friendship circle. Only a girl could feel two opposite things at the same time. It was forgotten then because of a night class (History of the Holocaust, which isn't exactly something that will lift the spirits), and then a study session for a midterm on Thursday. Then a HUGE weight of tiredness. All in all, I was pretty down. So I started praying, asking God to help me glorify Him in the emptiness I was feeling, confessing a need for some lovin', and He brought to mind this passage:
10 Listen, O daughter, consider and give ear:
Forget your people and your father's house.

11 The king is enthralled by your beauty;
honor him, for he is your lord. Psalm 45:10-11

So basically, God is saying to me, "Morgan, I am enthralled by your beauty, I am your Lord."** WOW. And as if that weren't enough, right after that my mom called me. At just the right time, He provided someone for me to talk to (she even said she felt this urge in the back of her mind to call me and tell me she loved me). Man, God loves me and cares for me. He really knows how to woo a girl and make her feel special. :)

**ok, disclaimer: not that I believe myself to be beautiful, but I'm bowled over by the fact that He does. It seems impossible, but God is a God of the impossible, so you know. I just love it. :)

I'm in the middle of writing a really heavy paper on perpetrators in the Holocaust. So what do I do? Take a break and create a group on Facebook. Yup...

alright, sometimes I am just embarrassed to be myself. that's self-centered, but it's true. so, here's my own version of self-help: "deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me [Jesus]." All other self-help, (i.e. I'm good enough, I'm smart enough books, the power of me books, groups, etc) is an oxy-moron. I personally think the only One able to understand me enough to fix me is Jesus. That conclusion comes from years of experience trying to fix myself, others trying to fix me, using others to fix myself.

I should either be asleep right now, or finishing my book that I need to write a 6 page paper on by Tuesday. instead, I write. See where procrastination is coming in? At least this time I will have read the entire book that I am writing my paper on. I think that's a first...

needing a break

Ok, so, I've started receiving comments on my blog here and there, once every blue moon, sporatically, etc...and it is interesting to see the kind of comments I get. For instance, the latest one, written by someone who I think agrees with my theological views, but I really can't be sure, because their message didn't make much sense to me. Maybe it was all the big words used...and there were some doosies. Of course, my roommate recently told me that she's noticed I have an amazingly large vocabulary, to which my next comment was, "hey, are we going to that thing with the thing?"...and I swear I didn't say this on purpose, I just couldn't think of any words.

And just to add to my random and for once not so deep thoughts not by Jack Handey...I love my friends. I think of especially two right now, both women, with whom I laugh so much BUT we can still be serious. Those are the best kinds of relationships, I think. Because I trust them, they trust me, and it's just nice. (Gosh, I'm such a girl.)

heavy

So, I've had some major serious thoughts since the semester started...and before that too, due to recent family issues which have arisen and blown my world to bits. Funny, considering I saw it coming and even looked forward to it, but somehow it's so much harder now that it is. It has been commented on how it's good that it happened now, because I'm an adult so it causes less impact emotionally than if I were a child. To this I say, not even. But I digress...

So there's this quote by Pascal that a friend brought up: "We run heedlessly toward the abyss after placing blinders in our way to prevent us from seeing it." [this is a paraphrase.] And it just makes me think of how merciful God was to remove the blinders and see the horrors of where I was headed. And I find, in my recent familial suffering, as well as witnessing the suffering of the victims of Katrina and now Rita, that when we see suffering we are made acutely aware of the horrors of our sin (yes, even in the case of natural disasters), and it leads us to a knowledge that YES evil does exist and YES there must be something that counteracts it, because if there isn't there is NO POINT to living. And sorry, 80 some odd years of happiness isn't enough for me. I remember my conversion to Christianity, and the time before it. I was in despair, and it was a sinful despair because it was all about me, but God still used it to remove the blinders, to hem me in from pursuing a temporal happiness in what the world has to offer. All of the sweetest things in my life were God-produced by Him allowing me to suffer.

Maybe this is too deep for a blog. All I can say is that once again I am just feeling an intense dissatisfaction with the world and a longing for a deeper relationship with my God. Piper said that all suffering, if it leads you to the cross, is mercy, because it stops you from taking delight in the eternal destructiveness of the Enemy and shows the infinite value and treasure that is Christ. So thank goodness for pain and suffering if it leads me to Christ! Thank God for not letting me get comfortable and complacent, for taking the blinders off so I can see that a life not centered around Him is utterly meaningless.

whoah

Hmm, yeah, it's been awhile since I've written...but I have vowed not to abandon this thing, just so I can say I've persevered...

So it amazes me how so much can change in just three little months. How does that even work? I feel like a completely different person, with completely different experiences, and a hopefully more mature and less naive perspective on life, people, and romance. My family has been torn apart...my dad finally left us. Two words: anger and anguish. But hope, too. It's mercy that I can say hope. It was really rough for awhile. I definitely went through a whole month of despair, hanging on by a thread. Not that the hurt has gone away, but that light, that little small almost invisible light that God always gives is there, always was there, leading me to good places. He held on to me when I could barely get out of bed. The greatest place being His presence and His love and His promises that though my father may have left, though my own father "may forget" me HE never will (par. from Isaiah 49). My suffering is for His glory and my joy. Brokenness is for His glory and my joy. Sorrow is for His glory and my joy. See the pattern here? Yeah, me too. Everything leads back to His goodness, and His faithfulness. And His mercy. I never would have called it that before, not the actual feeling the hurt part-I would for sure have called the after the hurt good feelings mercy. But if my dad leaving brings me closer to God for God alone, not His blessings, it's mercy. Because in my sorrow I've also seen so much of my sin. And it's horrifying, it's revolting. More than just being "bad stuff", sin is an un-jumpable obstacle in your relationship with God, until Jesus steps in. After all this, I think suffering clarifies so much. Like the fact that there IS evil in the world. Maybe my issues are too small to make someone see that, but just take genocide. Masses and masses of bodies lying dead in a heap because of hatred. You can't tell me that's not evil, and if you do, well...hopefully at some point before you die you will come to that realization, and then come to the realization that you can do something about it. The world can be saved one soul at a time. And it needs to be souls first, before physical lives.

So I'm thinking out loud. I do that.