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EverydayMay
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Name: May
Birthday: 1/9/1982
Gender: Female
Interests: Okay, I enjoy nature, music, hanging out with people in a meaningful way, making people laugh and being made fun of, volleyball, reading deep books that are written in a way I can understand, trying to express life in words, attempting to be organized, living and learning how to glorify God in everything...
Expertise: kidding around, not knowing what to do with my life, dating advice
Message: message me
Member Since:
9/27/2005
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| As I've been reading the book "Worldliness," a collection of essays by C.J. Mahaney and others, I have been challenged to evaluate some specific areas of my life. The areas are things like media, music, stuff, clothes...all legitimate parts of life that can seduce us into thinking we need them or consume us and hinder our affections from being in God. In the chapter on music, these 2 quotes stood out to me:
"Music is a gift from God. But God never intends his gifts to replace him as the object of our desire and delight. Music may be able to calm our hurried spirits, encourage our troubled hearts, and strengthen our weary souls--but not like our Savior can. He has redeemed us by His death, sympathizes with us in our weakness, and is able to give us mercy and grace in our time of need." -Bob Kauflin
And C.S. Lewis in "The Weight of Glory" says,
"The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them..for they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited."
Just giving a little thought to music and the place it has in my life...I hesitate to put this into words because I know I may not like what comes out, but nevertheless I must.
I love music. I think it is one of the most beautiful expressions of emotion, truth, and especially what cannot be said. It touches something in me that I want to be touched. It can be a conveyor of what I need to hear. I has been my friend and comfort and joy very often! The first quote by Bob Kauflin captures it well, but when I read "but not like our Savior can," my heart wanted to stop.
Why do I cling to things that cannot be what I need them to be?
I know my Savior is everything I need. Why can't I go to Him to be my comfort?
I know why: easy gratification.
And even though many times music is a vehicle to bring me to Him, many times it is not.
Lord God, I have sought to find refuge in things, even good things, but not in You. I have clung to these things when they should have instead pointed me to You. I have been satisfied by a copy of beauty when You are more beautiful than anything.
Teach me through Your Word. Let me be changed by learning and studying the truth. Give me an appetite for holiness.
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| I just went to see the movie "Fireproof" in the theater tonight and I need to promote it because the content was so excellent. It is a movie about marriage and fighting to protect it. Of course, it is not up to par with the movie quality of the Hollywood big budget movies, but it was so so worth looking past that to see. At first, you're like, blast it Kirk Cameron, what happened to that quality acting you used to give back in the Growing Pains days? (Or perhaps I just thought it was amazing in my adolescence)But, as the movie develops, he really gets the character better and better. He ends up doing a pretty darn good job. It was a very very good movie, and if you are able to do so, you should go see it in the theater. If not, definitely when it comes out on DVD.
If you have seen it, what are your thoughts?
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| You know how sometimes we see faults in other people and it really bothers us? And we think how horrible it is to be like that. And we even look down at that person. Then...the realization comes that most often the worst faults we detest in others are deeply rooted in ourselves.
I can look at someone and see rightly that their behavior is wrong, but the moment I see myself as better for it is when I become self-righteous. Even if I don't struggle with the exact thing as someone else, there are endless other things to choose from that I could be condemned for. It is good to remember the story of the woman caught in adultery in John 8, where Jesus utters those words for her and for me, "Neither do I condemn you, Go and from now on do not sin any more." The very One who was pure & blameless, the One whom I have sinned against, the only One with every right to condemn, chooses to show grace & mercy to me. And just like the woman caught in her sin, I am caught in my sin with nothing to come between me and my deserved punishment but Christ--who has pardoned me because of His goodness and taken my punishment because of His justice and love.
I get upset sometimes because I see people having bad attitudes and doing nothing to change it. When I hear complaining about things that shouldn't be complained about. When a choice has been made and one is unhappy with the choice but must deal with the situation, wouldn't it make more sense to change and adapt to what has come, rather than be miserable and make those around you miserable as well? That is something I just don't get. But I think it bothers me so much because that is something I desperately seek to stop myself from doing. It is a fear of mine that I will let my emotions be driven by my circumstances, even circumstances I have chosen. Or that I would waste any part of my life wishing it was different rather than doing what I can to live in such a way that is joyful and brings glory to God.
May God protect me from looking condemingly at others for faults that are dangerously close to my own heart.
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| Strange that I continue to approach each new year with the same feelings yet, each year they are fresh again.
I realize that life continues and that "2008" is simply a way to keep track of time, but being in this world means my life is marked by time. It reminds me how finite I am because my time is limited and I do not have the luxury of forgetting about it, and I do not have the guarantee that this will not be my last New Year.
It reminds me that life is precious and it is a gift from God. It is not something that I am owed or something I can always fight for and win out of sheer passion and determination.
"Man knows not his time"
"It is not for you to know times or periods that the Father has set by His own authority"
"It is appointed for people to die once--and after this, judgment"
"You don't even know what tomorrow will bring--what your life will be! For you are a bit of smoke that appears for a little while, then vanishes"
Time changes my whole perspective on life. If I do not view my life through time, then I am in danger of wasting it or taking it for granted or being blindsided when I wake up one morning and realize that it has flown by. At the same time, it is important for me to view time the way God (the Creator of time) wants me to view it. God is the only one not bound by time. I am not to worry about what is going to happen--I am to trust. I cannot control every circumstance, and even things that seem like they are under my control, are really not. They can easily slip out of my grasp or my plans can have a very different outcome that I planned.
Basically, my time here is short and that places a higher price on it in some ways.
This is not where I will spend eternity, but this life does have eternal significance, not because of anything I do myself, but by how God works through me and how willing I am to be used by Him.
So, each year, I can't help but make a big deal about this marking of time, because it marks some very big questions for me like, "What am I doing with my life?" It's kind of an annoying yet, comfortably familiar question now, and I'm pretty sure I'll be asking it the rest of my life no matter where I am or what I'm doing.
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| 8 Random Facts:
*I work most efficiently under pressure (a bad habit developed by procrastination all through college), but may have a mental break-down in the process
*I can't drive by myself at night because there is NOTHING I can do to stay awake at the wheel
*I am very sensitive to smells, and even 16 years in Carroll County is not enough to get used to a freshly manured field assaulting my senses...yuck!
*I squeeze the toothpaste from the end and prefer that the toilet paper end comes over the top not from the bottom (very important, I know)
*I am extremely critical of myself, but at the same time have a big ego
*I wish I could sing in a band
*I have been compiling a book about relationships since my Freshman year of college
*I think I become more opinionated AND open minded each year!
I do not tag anyone because that's just not how I roll, but let it be known, I did this for Rebecca.
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