Holiday Spoils

Favorite Random gifts:

hand-crafted drawing book
Narnia X-box game
Bob Dylan t-shirt from Buckle

Favorite Recent Purchases:

Vest from Banana Republic
Molly Williams cd, Flyleaf cd (yes I did it)

Things to look forward to:

The Numbers show January 16th (Grace Mearns' bro's new band)
recording Ashes and others
going through the worship team process (haha)

Merry Christmas!

Modifications Set #2

Yo yo what up to all my fans. Hhmm I had all this random funniness to say but it all slipped away. Beware to all who cross my path in the next oh say for the rest of my life...I might tell ya what I really think of you. :) I was so proud of myself last night at work. This guy who is usually very friendly and chatty just started an argument with me. AND I hate to argue...I really do. I usually try to avoid it at all costs. But that's not the way to go either. So I said what I thought and got mad but didn't feel hurt afterwards. It was great. Today I was able to tell dad what I really wanted to get out of this song we're working on and that was good too; instead of just being like "oh cool..." In the words of Harry (from when Harry met Sally) "I feel like I am growing." ANyway...I've been changing that song around some more. Here's how it reads as of right now.

Verse1:
I’m just a kid falling in quicksand
I know it’s obvious all my sin
But You fan this eternal spark
I got into more of Your passion
On the clearest day it’s us speaking
till the joy and the rain make me clean

Pre-Chorus:

Cause when I cry out to You like a little child

Yeah You turn all my fears into something wild
(last time through: You answer me, You comfort me, You cherish and adore me)


Bridge:

I’ve been with you where ever you’ve gone

And I will not take away My unfailing love


Chorus:

How great is His faithfulness, how great it is

How great is His faithfulness, how great


Verse2:
I try to hide, me and Jesus
It’s plain I run, time and again
When I’m out of breath, feeling worthless
It’s easier to sleep and dream how
Your plans are deeper than the seas
and my best living is at Your feet

Modifications

Well I changed it up a bit to fit the music and also just what my heart wanted to say. Can't wait to get it really down and start singing it for some peops! I never meant for it to seem dismal...ie shea's response to the first time I posted it. It's more like a confession of how much we are sinners but all the more how faithful He is. The bridge was His response to me one day...it's somewhere in Isaiah I think. Anyway...need to play it with dad and get all the little bugs out.


Verse1:
I’m just a kid falling in quicksand
I know it’s obvious all my sin
But You fan this eternal spark
You fan it into Your passion

Pre-Chorus:

When I cry out to You like a little child

You turn all my fears into something wild


Bridge:

I’ve been with you where ever you’ve gone

And I will not take away My unfailing love


Chorus:

How great is His faithfulness, how great it is

How great is His faithfulness, how great


Verse2:
I try to hide, me and Jesus
It’s plain I run, time and again
But Your plans are deeper than the seas
and my best living is at Your feet

Jen and I decided that we wanted to dye our hair. I wanted red highlights and Jen wanted to dye hers darker with light brown highlights. Of course the reason that the price of professional hair care and Wal-mart bought products is about a $70 difference is this: mine turned out to be bright pink, and Jen had a sort of orangish tint. I have not laughed so hard...well I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard. So we immediately drove to Kroger, and re-dyed our hair. If my highlights had extended down to the tips I might have kept them. But instead the roots seemed to be the only thing that took the color. Anyway, it is a great story. I've been telling people all day at the expense of my pride. :) I wish I had taken a picture.

From Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ

Well I was given this book several years ago by Dustin Wauer. It is great for morning readings as the chapters are very short and read like devotionals. Something really spoke to me this morning. I love it when that little bit of warmth touches you somewhere deep inside, and you know you've been communing with the Divine. Let's have a pause.

Selah

I should say that feelings shouldn't dictate whether or not you know you've been hearing or experiencing God. Sometimes they do, sometimes there are none, yet there is still His voice. Usually the feelings are more intense in the beginning because He wants to encourage you that you can speak with Him. And then gradually they fade, or are more sparse, so as to build faith. It is impossible to please Him without faith. Do you think Noah or Abraham needed the little feelings or the faith to withstand almost a generation of ridicule and testing?

The quote:

Does abandonment end revelation? No, it does not. Quite the contrary, abandonment is the means that the Lord will use to give you revelation. The revelation you receive will come to you as reality rather than knowledge. This is made possible only by abandonment. You must remember to whom you are abandoning yourself.

As revelation comes to you, something happens; Jesus Christ actually makes an imprint of Himself upon your soul. Each time He comes to you, He leaves a new and different impression of His nature upon you.

Reflect on the last part in the contex of abandonment. He may come in many ways and forms but He is most real when we've chosen to just fall into Him. I prefer the reality of revelation as opposed to the knowledge kind. Both are legit. The reality kind is when you start to realize the Spirit is walking right beside you, or you're allowed a little glimpse into the beauty of the Father. I don't know if I've ever had an intense encounter with Jesus. I have seen Him in dreams...three times. I should make that my prayer for this season.

Oh wait, I take that back. Once in my room I was praying and there was one particular spot where I would look and I felt overwhelmed with the presence of the Lord. I kept hearing, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. I would look back down at my journal, write for a minute, and look back to that spot. I'd feel another wave and the scripture again. I did not see anything but I knew the Lord was there. I suppose it was Jesus. But I shall pray for another encounter with Him all the same.

C-hristmas

Can I just say quickly that Shea, James, and Paul I have a special surprise for you all this Sunday. I don't know if I can wait that long but I will try. It's merely a trifle however I know you three will appreciate it. I tried to incorporate something of you into it and I think, for the small amount of time put into, I have succeeded. So be excited, be be excited.

Your Faithful Friend-

Amy Elise "MadFrenchkiss" French

Who's A College Graduate?

The Problem of Pain

Well due to all our musings from today about hurts and relationships I decided to go to a pro. Here is a quote I found from Lewis and his book, The Problem of Pain. When it comes to really loving people I get fired up. We're suppose to no matter the cost to our own lives. The term has become so watered down and meaningless. I doubt if any of us knows what it truly means to love but we are all in the process of learning.

The problem of reconciling human suffering with the existence of a God who loves, is only insoluble so as we attach a trivial meaning to the word "love", and look on things as if man were the centre of them. Man is not the centre. God does not exist for the sake of man. Man does not exist for his own sake. "Thou hast created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were created." (Rev. 4:11) We were made not primarily that we may love God (though we were made for that too) but that God may love us, that we may become objects in which Divine love may rest 'well pleased.' To ask that God's love should be content with us as we are is to ask that God should cease to be God: because He is what He is, His love must, in the nature of things, be impedded and repelled, by certain stains in our present character, and because He already loves us He must labour to make us loveable...........What we would here and now call our happiness is not the end God chiefly has in view: but when we are such as He can love without impediments, we shall in fact be happy.

But God's love, far from being caused by goodness in the object, causes all the goodness which the object has, loving it first into existence and then into real, though derivative, lovability. God is goodness. He can give good, but cannot need or get it. In that sense all His love is, as it were, bottomlessly selfless by very definition; it has everything to give and nothing to receive. Hence if God sometimes speaks as though the Impassible could suffer passion and eternal fullness could be in want, and in want of those beings on whom it bestows all from their bare existence upwards, this can only mean, if it means anything intelligible by us, that God of mere miracle has made Himself able so to hunger and created in Himself that which we can satisfy. If He requires us, the requirement is of His own choosing.

Frenchie is out for the evening...

New Song, Painting, and Tea & Trumpets

Well I'm gonna post these new lyrics. Haven't got the melody pinned down for the verses yet but it's coming along. It's funny cause I don't really practice when my roomies are home. It's still such a private thing. Feels weird sometimes. I'm gonna have Noah's painting done by Christmas. Today is a painting day. I saw JJ one day at Barnes and felt inspired by a DJ pic he was drawing. Anyway, here's the latest:

Verse1:
All my falling in this quicksand it seems
I'm just a kid running blind in the dark
But it's okay cause I got an eternal spark
that won't let me go down too far

Pre-chorus:
So can I cry out to You like a little child?
Will You turn my fear into something wild?

Chorus:

How great is His faithfulness, how great it is
How great is His faithfulness, how great ( repeat)

Verse2:
All my worries can't shake this ground
that I found because You first loved me
And quieted my soul from ocean to sound
where my best living is at Your feet

Bridge:
I've been with you where ever you've gone
And I will not take away my unfailing love

It's definately a worship song to me...Was really encouraged on Sunday by some people's reactions to the video. Still pondering the worship team thing. I need to go for it...there are so many awesome places we could go (both in the Spirit and in travel). I want that free, inspired, creative release to flow through the leaders.

Aslan Comes to Town

I do not want to spoil too much of the movie for ya if you haven't seen it yet. Two of my favorite parts were however:

The scene in which Susan and Lucy are stranded in the tree by two wolves and Peter comes to their rescue. Aslan soon follows but instead of killing the wolves in one quick move he steps on one and allows the other to circle Peter. He says "Stay back...this fight is Peter's" or something like that. He knows the young king needs to know himself that he has what it takes to be a king. The wolf taunts Peter, "You don't have the courage. You're only playing..." Finally the wolf plunges and Peter slays it. Aslan allows the other wolf to go, telling his men to follow it because it will lead them to Edmund. I felt like this displayed the Lord's wisdom when most often we don't understand it but we are called to trust.

And I love the ending when Aslan is leaving and Lucy is upset. Mr. Tumnus tells her that they will see him again but you never know when. "For He is not a tame lion."

I also liked the part when the White Witch asks Aslan, "How do I know you will keep your promise?" And He just roars. She immediately sits down in her seat, looking dismayed.

I cannot say how much this movie uplifted my heart...to see King Jesus in the light of battle and His children's destinies. "Once a king or queen, always a king or queen." Long live the Lion!

After A Restless Night

Current mood: "All I really have amidst of these settings suns, city lights at best, portraits of my friends, but they don't make amends for this ridiculous mess."-JohnMark

Hold Me, Holy

So Sheamus recently made a music video of Hold Me with footage from New Orleans. It looks great. He gets to present it to a church in Ashville next Sunday. I think I'm gonna go and help represent. The chorus gets me all the time with faces of people and all the destruction of buildings. "I will not forget you..." That was a blessing, to see that song visually complimented.

In other news I've been praying about the possibility of hooking up with the worship team. I always joke about running off with Morningstar's team. But if I'm gonna really fight for anyone why wouldn't I fight for DP? As of right now that is my conclusion. I could go anywhere, do anything really but until the Lord says "go" I'm not moving. Hey was that a word I got in Serbia anyhow? Everything in me is wanting to run somewhere, be a part of something great. And He definately covers our mistakes but I heard a great definition of wisdom once. A. W. Tozer writes: "Wisdom, among other things, is the ability to devise perfect ends and to acheive those ends by the most perfect means. It sees the end from the beginning, so there can be no need to guess or conjecture. Wisdom sees everything in focus, each in proper relation to all, and is thus able to work toward predestined goals with flawless precision." He goes on to say that, "All God's acts are done in perfect wisdom, first for His own glory, and then for the highest good of the greatest number for the longest time. And all His acts are pure as they are wise, and as good as they are wise and pure." Still better, "Not only could His acts not be better done: a better way to do them could not be imagined. An infinitely wise God must work in a manner not to be improved upon by finite creatures."

Here's a good scripture concerning Don Potter's words and those of wisdom: "A person's words can be life-giving water; words of true wisdom are as refreshing as a bubbling brook." Proverbs 18:4

Is William Hurt in tha House?

The Don Potter conference was a breath of fresh air to put it in understandable cliche terms. I felt refreshed with the joy of the Spirit for the better part of the weekend. Not the rolling on the floor the whole time incapacitated kind but alive and enjoying laughing at my own jokes kind! He had a way of getting straight to the point without a whole lot of irrelevant information. I find that being deep and being real are completely different things sometimes. You can be deep without ever addressing heart issues but Don seemed to cut straight to the heart. He never left you feeling hurt or sorry that you went there but always wanting more. I think that is the way of the Spirit's true counsel. I shan't make him out to be a god or suggest that everything he said was valid Truth...however for the most part I felt the Lord speaking again and the confidence to trust that I am hearing Him. If we lack confidence then we will certainly never hear from Him. We might experience Him or see His miracles but we might miss the day to day impartation of His voice to us. Something I felt further confirmed was a word I had received several years ago at Morningstar. They said that I had the eyes of a seer...to see the church's foundation for what it ought to be and how to get there and also that I would see into my peers' lives into the things that are hindering them. So oftentimes I feel these checks to put it in charasmatic terminology...like something just isn't right. Something that might seem like wisdom when in fact it is the wisdom of man and not the wisdom of God. The wisdom of God is foolishness to those who cannot discern spiritual matters...ie the cross. But the way of the Lord is through humility for He must receive all the glory and it is through the cross for nothing lives without first being subjected to His death and resurrection, and it is a holy way...must be set apart or else the tarnishment of this world will eventually snuff it out. The way of the Lord is love or else you are nothing but a clanging gong and the way of the Lord is through His Spirit for there is the strength and the peace to endure. So the other night I had a dream about jewels. Christine Potter mentioned a specific wisdom coming, a wisdom like jewels. And in my dream there was an ocean full of these jewels. Someone was standing at the edge of the sea looking out into the water. The sky was blood red and the jewels were on fire...submerged in the water. There is this part in Jason Upton's new song "The Way of the Lord" where he goes into the sort of exchange that Jesus gave us...gives us. He took our vain ambition and turned it into friendship. How many times did He turn the other cheek when He could have hit us with our own hate? To the world that is foolishness. And it's funny to say the "world" like we're never a part of it. We might be called to be holy but so often we still mingle in its mindsets. We might be called the sons and daughters of God but we still want sh*t from the pig trough if that means we don't have to really put the effort into a better way. We can have the title but not the character of what it means to be His child. And then we only reap judgment on ourselves because His house will be like a pure bride when He returns. It's not like well if ya feel like getting cleaned up. The Lord is coming with a sword in His mouth. Anyway...I'm going on ain't I? Time fa dinna.

Here We Go

Well I'm off to the conference. Current mood...not sure. I feel like the one to whom Jesus said sell it all and follow me. I have news for ya...He means everyday. So literally I'm gonna sell my old snowboard. Spiritually I hope to get wasted on His presence this weekend. I need something very real, so in the words of John Mark..."wouldja come?"