That part of you on the Inside

Yesterday after school I was laying in bed and thinking to myself.

Things now are not how they were two months ago. Or six months ago.

During the summer we have so much free time (even while we can be busy). We have extra time to think, breathe, and without being in school every day on a schedule and routine and in classes learning something new, we tend to find ourselves. That person on the inside that really matters and that voice on the inside that isn't getting drowned out by everyone elses' words or by the things we face every day being in high school or being around the world.
High school stops shaping us for about two months.

And we have some free time to let other things shape us.

Like friends, family, and new experiences like trips.



For a while after entering back into school, I started forgetting myself after learning so much this summer.

I joined the raider team and I have other new classes.

Everything on top of everything is very time consuming.
But I thought to myself "Is any of this even who I am? Do I enjoy this? Or am I doing it for everyone's approval?"

I even questioned myself, "Where did I go? Where did that person who likes sitting outside in the fall leaves in the cooling sun with a jacket on reading a good book go?"
I thought "Where did the person who could be perfectly content doing something they enjoy because they enjoy it even if they're alone?"
Like sitting down and writing a song or playing an instrument.
Taking pictures.
Running around in the woods.

It's as if I lost myself for a little while trying to please others.
And in the mean time while letting everyone else shape me I lost sight of that childhood that I lose bit by bit every day.

But I found it again.

We're all at that point sometime or another.

And we can all find it again, though it may be a bit dusty.
Because it lives in your heart.

Equilibrium.

This past month while it's been very fun and hectic, getting back into the swing of school and surrounding myself with new people. Other students and I have been getting together Morning Devotion and things the school can do to help spread the word. This is GREAT and has had so much progression. I'm glad this is getting done and I'm happy on the inside knowing that things that have been prayed out are happening.

However, I've taken a notice to something after praying about it and experiencing it.
At the same time, while these wonderful things are happening, I have to remind myself to do things that will keep me spiritually refreshed while I'm busy. And also the truth is this- no matter what happens, the devil will always try to find a way to attack the things you're doing for other people and for God.

When people are getting saved, hearing the word and when lives are being changed for the better, he doesn't like it.
And he tries to stop it by using the same strategies over and over again.

How do I know it? It's obvious just by the things that happen everyday.

Recently this year I've faced a lot of things that I've never faced as much before as now, and I will admit then and there it's distracted me some.

People and schedules tend to be the worst distraction when you let everything you do get out of hand. With growth in the word and in God comes responsibility, and with being busy with the temporal things we do everyday it's easy to sometimes neglect prayer, God and your heart although you prioritize it.

There will always be an equilibrium. The difficult thing can be to find it and keep it constant.

Further into my sophomore year.

This year has taken its unique twists and turns thus far!
Some of this year has seemed to have read straight out of A MidSummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare (which we're ironically reading in my English class at the moment)... (Not really straight out of the book, but it makes sense.) It's like another Shakespeare book. Interesting and nothing I've ever really experienced before until now. You'd think your Sophomore there was some love chemical released in the air. Cupid squirting his love juice on everyone's eyes so that the first person they meet they become infatuated with.
Everyone is talking about it...
Including me...
I've discovered a very awkward aspect of myself.
I think I'm more awkward this year than I was last year...
it's rather awkward.
The truth is I have no dating experience at all. Seriously. I "dated" one person in 6th grade and one person in 7th, and both of those things happened in less than a week. I've never kissed a guy. I don't even think I've held hands with one as much as I'd like to some day. I've had a couple crushes, but I guess while everyone else was into dating and who likes who I just... really wasn't. I'd love to have that special person like everyone else seems to. It looks like a lot of fun to have someone that close of a friend in general. I don't know when exactly the time will be right or anything like that. I guess I'll just let things fall into place as they may and continue doing what I'm doing as in what's right and not let it consume my thoughts too much...

I don't have any of the same people in my classes this year. A few people, but not really. I'm glad because it's giving me an opportunity to meet new people (which I have) and I like it. I love meeting new people! And I can adapt to change quickly but don't always like it... something I will have to get used to...



I've been praying about where I belong lately. As in if what I'm doing in high school is lining up with what will benefit me for my future... I realize that some of the things I decided to do this year may not impact my future and it has me concerned and sometimes has me wishing I had done something else... but maybe it can and will have a future effect. Mental determination and strength is what I'll be learning as far as I see. And that does have an effect.


Tomorrow I will be leading worship with the Word and Spirit Church Kiddies and teaching them a lesson with the other leaders. :)

Hope everyone has a great week!

A Pair of Hands Can Tell a Story [A Poem]

I look at these hands and say
they tell a story.
More so I wonder,
Do they tell my story?
Do these hands recite the story
of my heart?
Or do they recite a fiction
that really isn't mine?
Are these markings
from what I love doing?
Are these creases, occasional scars or bends
from following my calling?
I hear the melody in the air
and run my fingers across the keys,
across the sheets,
across the strings,
across the air,
a heart ready to create,
a pair of hands ready to make
something worth knowing,
something worth hearing.
Something my heart is foretelling.
His hands had cuts and a hole in each palm
yet he layed hands on, healing thousands
and was told he was wrong
for doing it, but he kept going, going without stopping
because he knew it was his job, his heart,
his calling
to known and be made known
his father's heart; voice.

I desire my hands to recite
my calling
to make music, to write of freedom,
to tell the story of the one I live for,
to lay hands on the sick and pray that they recover
to tread the journey of life, to find and discover
to use for what's good, to do what's right,
to do what I'm called to
to follow my dream,
to follow his dream.

[9/10/11]

Called To Play.

I remember times these past two years there were climaxes I had of feeling very musically discouraged. In middle school band I was so used to being the top student and the only one that cared to practice and cared to get better. I strived to play well.

When entering high school my freshman year my self esteem dropped as I tried reading and playing the music we had to play in Concert band on the first day. I felt so lost. I didn't even know half of the notes or half of what I was playing, meanwhile there were several other flute players (another thing I wasn't used to) that played so much better than me.

The beginning of high school was an exciting experience but difficult all the while. Most of the time I wasn't even at peace in my heart and I was so stressed out and worried about every little thing. I felt like a tiny spec under a microscope compared to the rest of the band who were mostly members of the marching band, and who seemed to play at their best all the time.

I practiced, but I remember thinking to myself "Why am I even doing this?" I saw how well everyone else played and it made me want to shut my flute in its case, walk away and never come back. All the flutes I ever had were school-owned since we couldn't afford one. I felt like just another "non-marcher" in the band.
In my second semester I'd achieved 2nd chair flute in concert band, which sent my hopes up for a while, but even after this, I remember thinking to myself I'll never measure up to people like first chair players no matter how hard I try.
Band just became a daily routine.
I'd go in and sit down.
I would mess up, stumbling over notes.
I felt like an idiot messing up my scales and misreading some notes or playing simple rhythms incorrectly.

Things turned rather gray at that point.

The beginning of this year I was put in Wind Ensamble, which is an assortment of some of the more advanced instrument players at our school, typically grades 10-12. I remember dancing around after reading on my schedule that I had been put in W.E and it put hope in me. I can get better- I will get better.

A few nights ago I got my flute out to practice my mid-state and chair placement music. I thought a couple times I know exactly how this will turn out. I will practice it all wrong, get scared in front of my band teacher. I won't play the rhythms right. But I knew I needed to practice.

I pulled out my flute and before I warmed up, I thought of something I liked to do.
I turned on the song "To Worship you I live" by Israel Houghton and began listening to the song, then started playing by ear. After this the song "Come and Let your Presence" by Tim Reimherr came on.

Come and let your presence fill our praise, fill our praise.
Come and let your presence fill this place...
for you are the one we want to meet
Jesus shine through all the praises that we sing...

It's all for you,
here we are, here we are...

In the moment I played this and the other song it was like I was reminded where my heart belonged.

I belong with music.
I am a musician and this is my instrument.
Maybe I can play all kinds of things by ear, but this is the flute and this was my first instrument. If I have a heart for music and don't strive to master music, including striving to master the flute and the instruments that I choose, then where will it lead me? No where. Maybe not everyone in the world is called to play, but I know in my heart that God has called me and that I'M called to play music.

I'm not called to look at other people and say "Oh, they're so much better than me! Shotuldn't I just quit now?" I'm called to strive and follow through with MY passion- he very passion God's placed on the inside of me! It's my very dream to run with this passion, my very heart to play music, to glorify him through it, and to lead others to do the same.

It was like God told me right there in my heart...

"You know what? Some guy could be first chair trumpet and he's not following the path I called him to... but you're in the back section of the flutes and you're following through with what I called you to. Who is being obedient? Why are you doing this- Why are you playing music and why do you sing? I CALLED YOU. Stop looking at everyone else and look at the gifts, talents and passion that I put inside of your heart!!! Look at what I did to your ears and when I set in front of you. Run after your passion with endurance!"


This is the truth, and
This is my identity.
Unless I do what he's called me to now,
I won't have a future.
Unless I sing now, I won't be able to do what I'm called to do at the House of Prayer in Kansas City one day.
Unless I study and play music now, I won't achieve my dream.
Most of all, I won't achieve his plan.
And I live every day to do just that.

I live to worship him. I live to worship him by writing, and I live to worship him by singing and playing.

This is my calling.
I'm called to play.
I'm called to listen.
I'm called to sing.

And I'm called to lead, glorifying his name through every note.





Lowest Place by Laura Hacket during the IHOPU student awakening.... this is an amazing song... currently working on playing the piano part of this...

Pray, Prophesy.

Today after church I went back to my sister's house and we pulled IHOP's fascinate conference up online and connected it to the T.V and listened to the worship and sermon until our prayer group met that evening... talk about encountering God in your own living room!

Jon Thurlow and a worship team was singing the music and we just sang along and let the presence of God saturate the living room, then Misty Edwards began talking about our generation prophesying through sound, and God raising up the young musicians and people who work with media/sound techs.

I had listened to this sermon the DAY I left for Kid's Camp, where I'd spend a week ministering to children and helping lead worship in the evening. Even so, hearing it again it stirred my heart and opened a lot of thinking doors for me. This evening at prayer we began reaching higher places in prayer. I'd never seen a place like this before. Our church body is ascending and the pace is picking up twice the speed in half the time, as we prayed about many months ago! This is totally awesome!


I follow Claire McClean's blog, One Passion One Devotion , and she frequently says that she's thankful for and loves her house group. I agree- I'm thankful for my prayer group too!!!! (and the many that meet at different times in the Word and Spirit Church body). Sometimes it seems like there's hardly anyone there and sometimes it seems like there's more people than usual but God always moves in miraculous ways and we leave knowing things were being shaken and moved in the spirit.



At this stand point, I believe a lot of prophecies spiritually concerning Israel are being shaken.
I can't even describe it.

It's just awesome...


"Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears.
Let the weakling say, "I am strong!"
Assemble and come, all you nations,
and gather together all around.
Cause your mighty ones to go down there, O Lord.
Let the nations be wakened and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat,
for there I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations.
Put in the sickle, for the Harvest is ripe.
Come, go down, for the winepress is full- the vats overflow, for their wickedness is great.
Multitudes- Multitudes in the valley of decision!"

--Joel 3:10-14



We read this passage the week before last at our Sunday prayer meeting and SINCE then our prayer meetings have gone sky high- higher than "usual" as we climb, as my sister Angie likes to say, Mount God. :) A week before our Wednesday night youth sessions have gone sky high.

The harvest is ripe! The harvest of souls is coming- passion for Jesus and passion of the harvest is fueling the hearts of our body!

Not only that, but these prayer groups and clubs at school are out of the sky!!! Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA), Timothy Club and the Morning Devotional group have all asked if I'd get involved and come and speak/help lead each. I'm so excited! This is what I prayed for over a year ago! God is SO raising up the students passionate for him and it's a blessing! The harvest is ripe and stuff is happening. :)

Pitter, Patter ... [edited]

...I felt my heart leap and sing,
pitter, patter
but I check in my head
and something wants to know the matter.
I keep myself
in check,
making sure
my head is clear and
things are right...
one,
two,
three,
check.

You gave me a smile today,
your eyes were bright,
and your expression captivating,
an expression I'd never seen before,
but all I could do was smile back;
pitter, patter
"He probably thinks you're a geek"
pitter, patter
Maybe, maybe not...
Oh, what's the matter?
Still, there's the constant
pitter, patter
I wonder if he'd ever feel the same way...
pitter patter
the phrase itself is so cliche.
Part of me says he wouldn't,
but the other part says maybe in some way
Does he know, should he know?
Am I the only one who's heart begins to race?
pitter, patter
No, not right now,
pitter, patter
Focus on the moment
pitter, patter
I want his friendship
above anything else.

I chase my God
with all of my heart,
loving and pursuing him,
living a lifestyle of glorifying him.
Pursuing him above all else.
Does he do the same?
Does he run and endure
eternity's race?
Is he full of perseverance
to seek his face?
I wonder if he likes to hold hands...
Wait, stop...
Check.
1,2,3,
breathe, now focus... go.

I wanna be the friend that
focuses on walking in the light of God's love,
being who I am in Christ,
being who God created me to be,
the one who seeks the kingdom first,
seek his love first,
God's love first;
It's best to always
keep in check.


I see him once again
and we stand and talk again,
pitter, patter,
while my young mind is still working
to figure out
what about this clatter...

Pitter, patter.....