Sometimes I feel like I’ve come so far. Other times, I wonder if I’ve learned anything at all.

I was reading an old Facebook message thread that kinda broke my heart.  I sounded so arrogant and self-righteous.  UGH.  I can’t believe how prideful I have been and continue to be.

O wretched woman that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?  O thank GOD! He will! Through Jesus Christ, the Anointed One, our Lord! 

I am forever at his mercy and in need of his grace.

I went by myself to see Les Miserables tonight. It was my second time watching it and still I was moved to many many tears.  A couple days after Christmas was the first time I learned anything about the story.  I’d never read the book or seen the play. But now it has consumed me.

There are so many incredible, redemptive themes in the movie that if I were to write about all of them, this blog would be much too long for your attention span, and probably mine as well.

My two favorite characters:

1. Jean Valjean (from slavery to freedom of hate and revenge)

  

His transformation and all that he becomes. His character and his mercy. When you look at him, all you can see is love and goodness. He reminds me of Jesus, and I can’t help but love him.

2. Enjolras (who I like to call Fake Robby)

(Fake Robby)

 (Real Robby)

…I mean seriously, twins.

Anyways, back to the character.  I’m kind of obsessed with Enjolras.  Because of his courage and his resolve. I love when he calls the people together and with sobriety reminds them of the hour:

“It is time for us all
To decide who we are… 
Do we fight for the right
To a night at the opera now?
Have you asked of yourselves
What’s the price you might pay?
Is it simply a game
For rich young boys to play?”

But my favorite line is when he exhorts the lovesick Marius, saying:

“you’re no longer a child
I do not doubt you mean it well
But now there is a higher call
Who cares about your lonely soul
We strive toward a larger goal
Our little lives don’t count at all!”

What a babe.

There is a higher call.  And there is something that is worth fighting for and dying for.  There is a cry in my heart and an ache in my spirit for a people who will not be slaves again. I’m speaking more figuratively because we live in the land of the ‘free’ and yet so many live as slaves.

In schools, in churches, and in the workplace people all over the world are slaves to addictions, compulsions, money, fear, anxiety, depression, and the list goes on. I can’t settle for people to not KNOW that they can be free. I can’t sit back and watch as people continue living like slaves! When will the remnant rise up and sing the music of a people who will not be slaves again? No matter the cost and no matter the sacrifice.

When the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drums,

there is a life about to start when tomorrow comes!

Hello, those of you out there in blog land.

I’m not really sure how many people read my blog.  I’m not sure if it’s just a place that I process and the world wide web gets a peak in, or if it’s a place with much purpose.  But I was looking back on my last 5 or 6 posts and it looks a lot like my process. And being in the place that I am in now, I feel as though I can’t just pick up where I left off.

I am realizing some things:

My process is ugly. and dirty. and messy. And those are the only words that can describe what the last three months have looked like for me.

It’s quite humbling, even embarrassing, to realize that I’m a mess or that I don’t know everything. Weird, right?

I am absolutely floored by the amount of grace that people have for me.

I am so in love with the presence of God. And nothing can compare to those moments when I feel him most, when I see a little bit deeper into the great love he has for me. Everything in me has to bow so low because I don’t even know how to receive such goodness.

So to those of you who have walked with me, cried with me, and listened to ALL my processing…thank you.

And thank God that there is so much more to be written.

and just because…look at the cutest baby girl in the world, miss taryn kate