My Soul Sings.....

22

imagine. you’re 22 years old, fresh out of college, with your whole life ahead of you. you are about to start your first job at a major newspaper, you have everything going for you. you’re ready. 

imagine all of that gone, in an instant. it is all taken away from you. everything you dreamed of, everything you had worked for is gone. 

unfortunately this happens everyday. dreams left unattained. lives left unfulfilled. 

i don’t say this to depress anyone, but i say it to remind everyone reading this…which probably isn’t many, but its a reminder to us all that life here on earth is short. i got stung with that reminder again today, the reminder comes around every so often, more then i would like at times. 

my reminder came from yale university. graduation ceremony took place just last week. she was 22, a promising young journalist, playwright, she was going to “accomplish fine things”. car crash was how she died, just one week after she walked the stage to get her diploma. 

the yale daily news put an essay she wrote on their website as a tribute to her. she wrote about her fears of life after college, about how she was afraid of what was going to happen after she “left the web”. she was raw and real in her essay. she was a writer who made you think, made you feel something, brought you into her world for just a little while. 

she was so young and had so much promise…she even wrote to her graduating class, “We’re so young. We’re so young. We’re twenty-two years old. We have so much time.”

i think as much as we all would like to believe it, we don’t have all the time in the world that we would want. time isnt always our friend. this young, promising, yale writer had the world at her finger tips…literally. i didn’t know her, but i can tell from reading her writings that she didn’t take anything for granted, that she really wanted to be a change in the world. i for one, think she was.

she didn’t have all the time she had thought or hoped for, but she made the best of it. and isn’t that what we are all supposed to do? make the best of our time here on earth. we don’t know when our time is up and when our job on earth is over, but i believe that we have to use our time wisely. we don’t have a lot of it, but we have to take the opportunities given to us.

we can do anything. we live in a world where so much is available and their for the taking, that really we can make almost anything happen. 

appreciate the little things. take risks. live life. try not to hold back. face your fears. a twenty two year old died before she really got to face all her fears. i don’t want to leave this earth until i have faced all my fears. until i feel stable in my relationship with God. until i’ve really given things and people a chance. 

she lived her life where loneliness, well she felt the opposite. i want that. i want to live a life that even when i am alone…i don’t feel lonely. i am close to that. i know i am never alone, my God is with me…but there are these moments…where i feel breakdowns coming. 

it isn’t too late. there is the cliche, “time”. even when “time” has run out i think there is a little, well maybe a lot we can still do. i think we all leave behind a legacy, for lack of a better word. there are lives we inspire, lives we touch, whether we know them personally or not. the things we do matter. it isn’t too late to start. you can wake up tomorrow and choose to go out of your way and take a risk on one person. i know the feeling of thinking, er rather knowing, that you are supposed to go talk to a certain person, but you don’t do it out of fear. we are our own worst enemy. we talk ourselves in and out of things… and unfortunately we are really good at it. 

for once talk yourself into working up the courage to talk to that one person. take baby steps, but have faith that it will be good and that you will get somewhere with them. there is a rhyme and a reason to everything. it isn’t too late for anything. 

im sure that, that yale graduate never dreamed that her life, her words, would touch people like they have. just reading some of her stuff, she inspired me enough to write this. there’s something about writing, taking pen to paper, or fingers to a keyboard, i don’t know exactly what it is, but i am sure she would agree. i didn’t know her, i didn’t know about her til today…i wish i read her stuff earlier, but i am thankful for the pieces she did get to write and get published for other eyes to see. 

her writings, but more importantly her whole story, while tragic, are inspiring. 

if you want to read her essay that went out to her graduating class her you go: http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2012/may/27/keegan-opposite-loneliness/

tonight say a little prayer for marina keegan and her family. she sounded like an amazing person.

To My Future Husband:

tomyfuturespouse:

I know I’ve probably said this before, but I really do think I’ve found you. Your timing couldn’t have been more off kilter, and I wasn’t ready to have that conversation with you when I did, but it happened and I’m glad it did. I need you to be patient with me while I continue to grow closer to God and develop into a true woman of God. I hope you’ll stick around for the ride.

your story or His?

sometimes, people don’t look at the bigger picture. they don’t look at how their lives are bringing glory to Him.

we were made in Him to bring glory to Him through our actions and words. we are created to spread His love to those that we encounter. how many of us actually do that? how many of us put aside our stuff for the things of a higher power? 

do we actually look towards the greater things? 

i am guilty of buying into the “story”. 

“Well I just had to bring, rather drag this kid to the hospital. It was horrible, but he’s okay, ya know thanks to me.” —-> Really? Yeah you “had” to do this. You made it all about you. this good deed, well now its not a good deed. you could have brought Glory to Him through this act….but you chose to make it about you. 

we all do it. im guilty too. we are more worried about our stories here on earth and being wrapped in them that we forget what we are here for. we are not of this world. we really arent. we are the chosen. we were placed on earth to spread His love and joy to those that don’t know it. 

we should be more worried about His story and how we fit in that story. we waste so much time trying to fit in here on earth, when we were never meant to. we don’t fit in on earth and i think people, sometimes including myself, don’t understand that. we don’t know how to act and what to say.

we should be spreading His word and living that out. why aren’t we? i don’t know. why is it that when some people do they try to shove it down your throat? i don’t know that either. we need to live out the lives He has graciously blessed us with. He died so we could live. we need to walk out our lives as He would have. we have been saved by grace and it should not be taken lightly. 

His story is way, way, way more important then ours. we are here for a short while, when we arrive to the judgement seat what will our lives say about us? i know what i want my life to say to others…i want to be a light. i don’t want silly things to be the mark on my life. i don’t want my life to be a waste. when you arrive at the judgement seat what will your life show? are you ready? if you aren’t what are you going to do to try and be ready? you will never be fully prepared, but he gives you the tools and the skills that are necessary for every situation you are in. what have you done with your skills? are you living for things on earth or things of above? are you focused on His story or are you too wrapped up in your own? 

we should be helping “the least”. our hearts should be breaking for the broken, the lost, but are they? are we doing anything to help them? are we building up the Kingdom. and if we aren’t what do we do?

our stories, our testimonies mean nothing if we don’t live for His story. if we don’t believe in His story and find our place in it, our lives our stories are a waste. walk in His fullness. use the Word, Works, and Wonders to show people how our God has overcome. Live for His glory and your story will no longer be about you, but about Him.

wouldn’t it be something if the churches united for the greater good? what would the world look like if we all lived out His love and joy? what would happen if we really believed we have been saved by grace and acted like it? what would happen if the body really united in caring for the least? wouldn’t that be a sight? 

is our God well please with how the world looks? are we showing others the vastness of His love? live out His story, dive in, act, be rewarded.