Rivers and Roads by The Head & The Heart
Be Joyful Always. Pray Continually.
“Until you make peace with who you are, you'll never be content with what you have.” Doris Mortman
Galatians 2:20
Following
But there must be a real giving up of the self. You must throw it away
“blindly” so to speak. Christ will indeed give you a real personality: but you must not go to Him for the sake of that. As long as your own personality
is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all. The very
first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new
self (which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.
The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up your self,
and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it.
Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.
“blindly” so to speak. Christ will indeed give you a real personality: but you must not go to Him for the sake of that. As long as your own personality
is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all. The very
first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new
self (which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.
The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up your self,
and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it.
Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.
Painting the outside of a house today! I’ve never painted before and my work probably stinks, but its awesome to see the befores and afters. Definitely a blessing! :) so tired today, tonight I’m going to bed early…well I hope!
New haven trip! Paintin a house in the Hill!
I don’t think I posted yesterday so for a little update: spent the day at the church where we are going to be helping out and we also took a historic tour of new haven and yale! Today we’re going to church and then going to the beach at some point!! Tomorrow all the hard work starts!!
We stayed at a really nice hotel last night! I was surprised! I mean ya know on ministry trips you don’t usually stay in really sweet places! I guess it just kind of cemented the fact that we are going to the city! AAAAAHHHH I’m still in disbelief! I’ve been in so many new states in the past two days, its quite an adventure for this southern nontraveler! We’ll be sleeping in new haven, conn tonight after our long day in the city! Hopefully I will have some interesting purchases to tell about!
15 hour drive to new york today with a bunch of high schoolers! There is only me and one other girl leader in this van! Quote of the day “boy van..yeah” we decided that we are forming a boy band and gave each of the guys a role. Its gonna be the next big thing, look out! We just stopped for breakfast in Spartenburg, SC. The city when Stevo is from. Wish I had time to visit with his family. We’re spending the night in New Jersey then headed to the city in the morning! I’ve never been this far north in my whole life! Look out for more posts to come…hopefully!
Girls are taught a lot of stuff growing up: if a boy punches you he likes you, never try to trim your own bangs, and someday you will meet a wonderful guy and get your very own happy ending. every movie we see, every story we’re told implores us to wait for it: the third act twist, the unexpected declaration of love, the exception to the rule. but sometimes we’re so focused on finding our happy ending we don’t learn how to read the signs. how to tell the ones who want us from the ones who don’t, the ones who will stay and the ones who will leave. and maybe a happy ending doesn’t include a guy, maybe it’s you, on your own, picking up the pieces and starting over, freeing yourself up for something better in the future. maybe the happy ending is just moving on. or maybe the happy ending is this: knowing after all the unreturned phone calls and broken-hearts, through the blunders and misread signals, through all the pain and embarrassment… you never gave up hope.
sorry i havent posted in a while! Its the time of year when I’m constantly studying (finals!) I’m tryin to get myself a 4.0 this semester, so I spend most of my days studying, but I promise when all of my tests are over, I will be back!
love you all!
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Happy Birthday to my beautiful, wise, selfless, amazing sister. I look up to you in so many ways. I love you soo, soo much. Happy 20th birthday big sis!
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“It is only when we are very happy, that we can bear to gaze merrily upon the vast and limitless expanse of water, rolling on and on with such persistent, irritating...”
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Phil Wickham - Divine Romance
