To know and follow hard after You.

My God is so good.

He has been quieting and softening my heart for some time now.

He has been so faithful.

He has been so loving.

I needed community, He provided.

I needed a place to live, He provided.

I needed summer plans, He provided.

I needed to get into my major, He provided.

I needed money for school, He provided.

I needed plans for spring break, He provided.

I needed healing, He provided.

I needed strength, He provided.

I needed wisdom, He provided.

Jeremiah 29:12 says "Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you."

Even when I felt as though I was throwing my words into Heaven, that I was an insignificant part of His plan, He provided.

There is nothing He loves more than to bless His children.

The funny thing is, all this could be gone tomorrow. Plans could fall through. Money could disappear. People could betray me. My heart could break again.

But even through it all, I know He has it worked out.

You see, before that verse about prayer, He says something else. He says, "For I know the plans I have for you. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." -Jeremiah 29:11

He knows what we need. He knows before we ask. But He says, I will listen when you call upon me.

He wants to hear us say we love Him.

And in that moment of wholly surrender, we will find Him.

Verse 13 says, "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."

He is there and He is big and He is waiting for us to find Him.

Pray to Him. Pray with all of your heart and let him answer those prayers.

Seek Him.

Seek guidance.

Seek refuge.

Seek strength.

Seek joy.

Seek love.

Seek Him with all of your heart.

He longs to hear you call out His name.

And He cannot wait to pour out His blessings when you finally do.

Lead me on, and I will run after You.

This is long, but bear with me. It is so worth it.

As I was flipping through my Bible in preparation for my quiet time today, I came across the title "loneliness" in the back index.

I thought the Lord might have some words of wisdom for me, after all He does know everything. So I opened to Psalm 22.

It begins, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

As I lamented on this opening verse, I read on. About seven verses in, I realized I am nowhere near as lonely and cast apart as this Psalm described.

I flipped to Matthew 26. Let me set the scene: Jesus has been describing to his disciples how to live and love and share with others. They are gathered around and Jesus explains to them He is leaving them. One has already betrayed him and one more will soon betray his name.

So here is where things get interesting. The disciples are upset that their best friend is going to be murdered (understandably so) and they are all telling him how much they love him and would never betray him.

Jesus, being a studly man of God, wants to go to the garden and pray. He asks his disciples to keep watch.

Not one of them begs to stay with Jesus. Not that he would have at all, but if I knew my friend was about to die, I think I would like to spend as much time as possible with them. This is irrelevant, the larger matter here is that the disciples fall asleep while they are supposed to be watching for the murderers that are on the prowl. Hello? It makes no sense. Their actions are selfish. Their friend has a few hours to live so they take a catnap?

Jesus finally comes back to them and says, "Really, you're still asleep? Here come the men that want to kill me. Sorry we didn't have more time together."

That obviously is not a literal translation.

I just want to point out that if I was a disciple, at this point I would feel really dumb.

Anyway, a bunch of men come and take Jesus to the city. They try and try to find something to arrest him for and the best they can come up with is that Jesus says he can destroy their temple.

If someone wanted to kill me for all the times that I have said something that is equally as ridiculous, I would have died a long time ago.

The thing is, these men were scared because in the depths of their soul, I think they realized Jesus probably could knock out more than just the temple if he wanted to.

About this time I started getting bored. I woke up at six this morning and have had a lot going on. I thought to myself, if I cannot even read through the most interesting, graphic story in the Bible, where is my motivation going to come from? So I sat up a little and continued reading. Things get good.

Flip scenes: Peter is running around trying to follow Jesus. A bunch of people ask him if he knows Jesus. Peter denies him. The rooster crows. Peter feels about as dumb door he walked through to go outside and cry. Judas, the man that sold Jesus' whereabouts to the high priest, is so ridden with guilt that he hangs himself. Not a good day overall for the disciples.

Back to Jesus: He has informed the high priest that he is indeed the Son of God. Pilate makes a feeble attempt to try and save him, but it proves to no avail. So Jesus is ordered to be hung by the cross.

He is drug and beaten and bruised and spit upon and cursed at. The people mock him with no remorse. There is a robber hanging on crosses on either side of Jesus. Even they are yelling and mocking him.

Six hours he is up there.

Six hours.

Then darkness falls over everything.

Three hours pass.

Finally, nine hours into his crucifixion, Jesus cries out from the deepest part of his soul, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Psalm 22 suddenly became the most powerful thing I have ever read.

It is Jesus' cry from the cross, written before he was ever conceived. Read it now and feel the anguish Jesus was crying out with.

Jesus sent out one last cry, and with that his spirit left his body.

I will never in my life have cause to ask God why he has forsaken me. He will never leave me. He will never cause me pain such as the pain that Jesus bore for my sins on the cross.

The story does not end with Jesus' death. The story continued three days later when the impossible became possible. Jesus rose from the dead. He left his grave and led the disciples into the city. The story continued when the disciples were persecuted for sharing this very story. It continued when Christians were murdered and buried in stacks in catacombs.

The story continues today with you and me.

It will continue until the day of the second-coming.

He is a powerful and almighty God. We may cry out, "Why are we forsaken?" but He will never really leave us. We may go to hell and back, but we will always be brought back from death. We will sit at His feet in Heaven when our spirit is finally pulled from our bodies.

We should never again cry out to God in such a way, for we know that we are safe within His wings.

"For He has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; He has not hidden His face from him but has listened to his cry for help."

-Psalm 22:24

Our God is bigger than pain or fear or loneliness. He is a God who redeems.

Go through and read the end of Matthew. Read Psalm 22. God sent his son to endure the pain and feeling of forsakenness so that we would never have to bear it. He is good and just and loves until the end of forever.

I don't want to fall another moment into your gravity.

I awoke at 5:40 this morning to the sound of rain beating on the roof.

Waking up at random times throughout the night seems to be a common occurrence these days, but today I needed to get up. Busy Monday, busy week, busy life.

As I lay in my bed tucked underneath a soft blanket listening to the rain, I could not help my mind from wandering back to the summer.

I was back in Michigan, if only for a few moments, listening to the sound of the rain come down on our cabin. I am savoring the last moments of silence before my co-counselor nudges our campers to wake in her sing-songy English accent.

Because, as much as I wanted to back in Georgia all summer, I knew in Michigan I was safe. I had a text from the boy to wake up to almost every morning and got to show my love to sweet children all day. I clung to the way I thought my life was going, not the reality.

The reality was my campers were 12 and did not know how to be self-sufficient. They relied on me for tasks a six-year old could accomplish. And the boy, let me be so bold to say, we obviously were not clinging to the same things all summer.

So now, as I sit, still listening to the rain patter off the roof, I know I am not in Michigan anymore. My fairy-tale is not going to come true, not now anyway.

But for a moment this morning, as I pretend the blanket I was snuggling into was red and the girls across from me in bunks were not roommates, but campers, in that solitary moment, I was safe within my realm of dreaming. My heart was full and my fears were scarce.

But was I better off?

Broken, I run to You for Your arms are open wide.

No one has ever loved me

Like the way You love me

Wrap Your arms around me.

I am broken and need Your healing. Nothing and no one can ever take the space You fill. Hold me in Your warm embrace and rock me sweetly to sleep. Be my protector. Take my pain. I am surrendering myself and my fears to You.

And I want to be where You are.

I worked another Disciple Now this weekend. It was a last minute decision and an answer to prayer for the organizers. There were not enough leaders and it started snowing and everything that could possibly hinder the plans for the weekend were in motion.

But God is bigger than all our problems. If He has a plan, it will come together in the end.

My senior year of high school our basketball team was playing in the second round game of a tournament. We were up a little less than ten points with a few minutes to go. I was a good shooter, so when I got the ball at the top of the key, wide open, my natural instinct was to shoot it.

My coach, however loving he may be, did not think that was a smart decision.

Instead of letting me put my idiotic thoughts into motion, he called a time out as I was bringing the ball up to my shoulder to shoot. A good shooter shoots with smooth motion, bringing the ball from the shot pocket to the release point in fluidity. When Coach yelled time-out (or as the rest of team lovingly reenacted after the game, screamed bloody murder) in the middle of my attempt to launch a three-pointer, I was so startled I about fell on-top of myself. Our fan section got quite a laugh out of it.

After the game, he pulled me aside to explain why exactly he called the time-out. The time and score just did not require me to bomb a three-pointer from the top of the key. No matter my confidence in the shot, it was not going to earn our team an extra win. A win is a win whether it is by eight points or eleven. My selfish natural instincts were totally unnecessary in the situation.

The point is this, I think sometimes God yells time-out at us. He says, "You do not need to do that. You might make it, but if you do not, it will hurt your cause." We get so caught up sometimes in where we are going and what we are doing, we forget about why we are doing it. We think something will get us one step closer when in reality it is so unnecessary and can damage what it is we are trying to do.

I like to throw myself into a million projects and ideas and am so passionate and full of love for a billion things but God reigns me back in. He calls time-out on my busy life and asks me to give a weekend solely in service to Him.

Gosh, when we take that time-out and let Him explain to us afterwards the reasoning, it is so good. So is He calling you out? Are you tripping over yourself in eagerness for a goal that does not further the kingdom, only yourself? Let Him call time-out for you. Reevaluate the situation and re-prioritize where you are going. This life ain't about us, folks.

There's no doubt in my mind where you belong.

As I was doing my quiet time today, I was thinking about how good my God is. I am currently reading through the book of Isaiah and it is blowing my mind.

God is so good.

He took these desolate people and promised His son to solve their problems. He wanted them to become His people. He wanted to make their problems His problems.

When I finished reading, I began to journal. When my pen hit the paper the song "To Make You Feel My Love" by Bob Dylan came on. I am not entirely sure why this was on my worship playlist, but I am so glad it was.

I sat for a moment and listened to the lyrics as God's song to me. God would sacrifice anything for us to feel His love.

Just read the lyrics as His poem to your heart. It is a moving experience.

When the rain is blowin' in your face
And the whole world is on your case
I could offer you a warm embrace
To make you feel my love.

When the evening shadows and the stars appear
And there is no one there to dry your tears
I could hold you for a million years
To make you feel my love.

I know you haven't made your mind up yet
But I would never do you wrong
I've known it from the moment that we met
There's no doubt in my mind where you belong.

I'd go hungry, I'd go black and blue
I'd go crawlin' down the avenue
No, there's nothin' that I wouldn't do
To make you feel my love.

Though storms are raging on the rollin' sea
And on the highway of regrets
Though winds of change are throwing wild and free
You ain't seen nothin' like me yet.

I could make you happy, make your dreams come true
Nothing that I wouldn't do
Go to the ends of the Earth for you
To make you feel my love.

I don't want no scrubs.

Oh, how I have been neglecting this blog. You see, the problem is I have a new obsession. Here is the confession:

I've started a new blog.

The thing is, it is such an amazing outlet for all of the whimsical pictures and images and ideas that run through my head at nine-hundred miles an hour all day. I love finding myself in the creativity and artistry of it all.

However, it cannot replace what I do here on (be)loved. I have an unquenched desire to write. It liberates my soul to type out the frustrations and joys of life. It is an escape from the neediness I sometimes feel. I do not long so much for people to listen as I do just to get my thoughts out. I do not mean that in a rude way, I love getting to know people and listening to their stories and I am absolutely smitten when I am able to have good conversations with friends, but my little brain just works so hard and goes so fast that it is impossible for me to talk enough to slow that thing down.

That being said, I still need this blank space. I love the way the white page turns into a canvas of words strung together into a beautiful work of art. So even though I'm cheating on this blog just a smidge, my quirky mind has enough going on to share with both.

This is a place for dream words, remember?