I needed a break from writing this study abroad proposal

This was the favorite song of a good friend of mine from high school. Brings back memories. I wish I knew more about Burma. I wish I knew more about a lot of things in the world, including Aung San Suu Kyi and the Amsterdam canal house typology.

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Yesterday Ben was talking about how God gave us only 24 hours in a day, and He gave us bodies that need about 8 of those hours for sleep. As college students in any (?) major, we're in an environment that demands more like 26 hours of productivity in a day with a maximum of 3 hours wasted on sleep. Lately, this has just been too much for me. I think a large part of my despondency (these CG topics are always so timely) from the past week came from losing faith in the idea that God wants us to be great in the world. The best at what we do, not for our name, but His.

That has been making me so angry and frustrated and sad, as I've tried to escape headache and panic through an unhealthy number of hours spent in bed. How is this possible. It's not possible. I want to give up.
I feel like I have been consistently disappointing my studio profs (don't even get me started on my other profs), no matter what lifestyle changes I've made and prayed about throughout my three years here. Maybe you laugh, but I have been so heartbroken when I earnestly try to honor God by taking care of the temple that is my body (as in sleeping, exercising, chewing my food) and spirit (fellowship with Him and the body) and I only end up disappointing my profs and peers and school and self yet again with not enough work done.

God if you want me to be healthy, I am going to be a slacker in the eyes of teachers and peers and school, but if you're fine with that, then fine. No really, THAT'S FINE. But I am offended to tears at the idea that You designed us to be the best at what we do for Your glory. My mom is a big believer in this, and I cringe every time she has her spiel about it. Because I don't see this happening. There is no example for me to look up to. This is the kind of idealism that makes people sell their houses to the first bidder one day and find themselves without food and a job the next morning.

But today, during the races, L told me that he truly believes that God wants us to be the best at what we do. The reason why it doesn't happen is perhaps because we have too tight of a hold on what we do. Our motives are still not pure. We have yet to be fully sanctified.
D and I had been saying earlier that L should bike for Brown next year. And L said he would, but not for the image or the respect or even the fun, but for the One he loves. Sometimes I kinda just "mm yes" when he says lofty things like that, but that really struck me, as an encouragement and a rebuke.

As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame."

Lord, forgive us for not believing it. Forgive us for blaming You for the lack of fruit in our doings and beings, when most (if not all) of our disappointment and shame has come from our own sin, our own wandering. Help our unbelief, according to Your love and for Your Name alone.

And I am sorry, brothers and sisters, for any ways I have been irresponsible and unwilling to own up to it these past weeks. I am so thankful for all of you who have been urging me to be faithful to the commitments I've made in His sight, even when I try to laugh or lie or kick and scream or Bambi-eye my way out of it.

this week is coming to an end.

I have strayed like a lost sheep.
Seek your servant,
for I have not forgotten your commands.

Psalm 119 ends with this verse - a confession, and a plea for mercy. How thankful I am that this is how the man after God's heart ends these one hundred and seventy-six verses.

Lord, "Let us live today that we may praise you, and may your laws sustain us" throughout headaches and fatigue, throughout accusations from others and from self, and despite our individual and collective sins. We are made to know and be known by You, to strive not to fit in with this world, but to cherish and obey Your commands.

When I thought, “My foot slips,”
your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up.
When the cares of my heart are many,
your consolations cheer my soul.
Psalm 94:18,19


You are my portion, O LORD: I have promised to obey your words.
Psalm 119:57


Accept, LORD, the willing praise of my mouth,
and teach me your laws.
Though I constantly take my life in my hands,
I will not forget your law.
The wicked have set a snare for me,
but I have not strayed from your precepts.
Your statutes are my heritage forever;
they are the joy of my heart.
My heart is set on keeping your decrees
to the very end.
Psalm 119:108-112



The unfolding of your words gives light;
it gives understanding to the simple.
I open my mouth and pant,
longing for your commands.
Psalm 119:130,131

footnote from NIV Study Bible:
unfolding. Lit. "opening," here meaning
(1) the revelation of your words,
(2) the interpretation (see "expound," 49:4) of your words, or
(3) the entering of your words into the heart.

Happy birthday Mies

...on the day I was fifteen minutes late to visualization studio


and happy charrette month. may the laser times be ever in your favor.

Holy, holy, holy! though the darkness hide thee
Though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not see;
Only thou art holy, there is none beside thee
Perfect in power, love, and purity

Never hasting, never wasting.
There is no time to slow down

to long for redemption

I have never sensed such a powerful longing for God's redemption in song as I have listening to Steven Curtis Chapman's album "Beauty Will Rise".

S.C.C. wrote these songs during the grieving process after his daughter Maria Sue's tragic death. The story is easy to find - the Chapmans were interviewed by the likes of Larry King and Good Morning America.
King David cries out to God for His redemption again and again in the psalms, and honestly sometimes when I read them in the morning I seem to long more for my oatmeal and peanut butter or more time at my studio desk than for God's redemption in my life, in our lives, as the bride is being perfected and all of creation longs.
S.C.C.'s songs make it agonizingly real for me. I know that every single word in these songs is coming from a heart that is crying out to Him with its every fiber, with every ounce of energy and faith that it is able to summon. When he sings "I trust You", he means it.

Do you long for redemption? Are you homesick for Home? Or have you become okay with the way things are here.

This world will disappoint us again and again, even if we thought we stopped expecting anything better from it a long time. The greatest despair being what comes from within the sinful self. But as far as we may feel from Him (we are never really far, He's always right there), we trust that He redeems, He restores, He renews. Omniscient, omnipotent, unchanging, holy, perfect in wisdom, compassionate, abounding in love, He makes all things complete and whole.

Life is painful. God is good. I'm writing this down for the dark days that will come in our short, yet somehow long, time on Earth.

Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.
...But as for me, it is good to be near God.
I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge;
I will tell of all your deeds.

Psalm 73.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.