Hebrews 1:14

I’m laying in bed and was “pillow-talking” with God, as I like to call it, and a thought crossed my mind-

We are told in His word that the things we bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and the things we loose on earth will be loosened in heaven. Therefore, as we speak our faith, our words begin to form those petitions we bring to God. All of our words have power because of Christ in us and our measure of faith, & Hebrews 1:14 tells us that the angels are the messengers sent from God to create that which we speak to come to pass..

So, sometimes I try to imagine the shape that is formed in the spiritual realm through my words. & tonight as a talked with my Savior, I couldn’t get passed how beautiful I think He is, and then I said to Him simply “.. I wonder what it looks like when I tell You how much I love You?..”

taken from a tree, & plucked from a vine.

There is a heart of such distress that I carry in this chest please reach out and caress in your pillowesque manner.

Front and center right here and right now I’m throwing in the towel I’ve committed too many fowls I’ve flown south.

My sprits turning sour I can’t go through another hour, me my precious pretty pink petite flower that blooms in the night and leave me in the dark by your moonlight no more fight. I never fought anywhere so I thawed and now I’m here on these knees distraught.

Crying out to you pretty please, pretty please take this disease turning these insides brown my smile turns to frown and my breathe smells like death.

Because I am dead to light and a light is something I don’t know that you would have me feel but this is for real and I need you right now, I need you right now.

So seal the deal with your stamp of regeneration and grow me up into a new creation taken from a tree and plucked from a vine, if it’s my time to shine then shine your light on me so that everyone hurting can see that there is hope, hope in the seemingly endless valley full of rotten fruit left behind from previous troops that are now in your mountains drinking directly from your fountains, save me a spot I will be there sooner than not, I’m picking up the pace and slowly starting to trot.

-bradley hathaway.

a story worth writing.

I was standing next to the window at work while i was putting on my coat to leave for lunch, and as usual, I am in a mad rush because the guy that takes lunch before me is ALWAYS late. i mean always. the man has no sense that time is of the essence apparently, and in this blog i will refer to him as “late man”. In the time that I had stood next to the window i watched an old VW bug pull into the parking lot, and a somewhat tattered, vintage older man rustle out. He had walked into the store and straight to the cameras, and was peering through the glass kind of frazzled. This man was nothing special by everyday glance, in fact, he was just there- he seemed moneyless and confused. His whole demeanor was out of sorts, but oddly genuine. As i slung my satchel over my shoulder to clock out for lunch, I watched “late man” glance at him with a condescending look without acknowledging him. So instead of clocking out, I walked over to the counter and smiled at the man as i said “hi? can i help you find anything?” (insert a smiling ashley face) 

 

He looked up at me smiling this huge smile and said “Yes, I’d like to look at a camera!” He was almost overwhelmingly joyful yet still so strange, but at that very second the verse went through my head, “you never know when you may be entertaining an angel” Now, this is not a verse that i’m overly familiar with, nor do i think of it often or at all really, but as i began talking to this man about different cameras, whenever he would speak i kept thinking “entertaining angels” and i couldn’t stop smiling. I glanced over at “late man” and he gave me a look like “that man is crazy, and he’s wasting your time”, but i continued to smile and whole-heartedly listened to every word the man said. He picked a camera that he liked, and that he could “shoot birds with” and so i rang him up. He was continuously extravagant with  his actions but quiet in appearance, as even some of the customers were stand-offish. As he handed me his signed receipt and i handed him his bag, i looked at him and said “thank you, and i hope you have a good day!” (insert an even bigger ashley smile) he responded, ” Thank you, you too!” and i watched him walk toward the door and then he stopped.

He turned back toward me and straightened his posture for the first time, and looked at me as though he was saying something worth holding onto even though his lips weren’t moving. He smiled a half-smile, not his expressive one from before. 

His smile was genuine, and said a million things and nothing all at once. It felt beautiful.

 

So i stood there curious and free, looking back at the same man that now seemed bold and sure, but all i could hear within me was “entertaining angels”. And i felt God so much that i could barely breathe.

 

Hebrews 3:12

going through envelopes.

currently listening to grey man.

I was sitting at work today and I started thinking of how some things aren’t so scary when you have someone with you. of course, it’s not always just any random someone, but the concept still stands. why is it that we find such simple security in having someone of this earth walk next to us in fragile times, when we will always have the creator of the universe not only next to us, but leading, living, and breathing His life into us?

I so often forget. Oh what I could accomplish if i never lost sight..

i only long to be changed by You

of everything i’ve written in this blog, what is most important is that im consistently aware that i have so much to learn.

haha.

okay, so i haven’t had any new entries lately, but i have a lot of things i’d like to say.

for now, though, i want to leave you a remarkable statement made by the hillary chaney at random circa 9:25am Monday, October 13th via text message:

“I’m going to pray that God supernaturally makes me a morning person..I’ll talk to Him about you too. Actually, i’ll do you first, you need it more.”

 

hilarious! i died laughing when i read that at work. hillary, is it because you’re bitter that i keep you awake by sitting in your room with a list of song requests for you to sing to me? :)

stand by me.

daily.

sometimes when im praying, i get so consumed by God’s beauty that i stray from what i was even murmuring because I get so lost in Him. Its become true that no matter what confusion or chaos is going through me, if i just sit with Him, if i am just still, i not only know but can feel that He is God. My prince of peace.

There are moments when i wish God were close enough that i could just leave little sticky notes in common places for Him saying so little yet containing every meaningful thing, or that i could surprise Him with a gift that would be infinitely wonderful upon every opening. Instead, I ache to know Him more, and forever thank Him for the things that are both good and seemingly bad, for the things that are past, present, and future yet trying not to live too fully in any of them, and for what beautifully breaks my heart everyday. At times i’ve said, “i just wish i could hug God”, but i’ve come to realize that i daily live in His arms, and the moments that i can’t quite feel His embrace, are actually the times that my face is buried just a little farther into His chest and my fists are clenched slightly tighter around His waist.

& if i can’t leave You written notes to read, i’ll carve love letters into my heart for You to feel. 

 

 

 

p.s.: i just looked like a complete creeper because i wrote this while sitting on our balcony in the dark with my hood up because its cold, & in the meantime my downstairs neighbor is unloading things from his car and staring up at me staring at him not realizing he can see me because of the light radiating in my face from my computer screen. wow. that was awkward, especially whenever he finally said “…hey?..”

sheesh.

:) just know that i love you.

what was black & blue is now washed in red.

you could call me a deep thinker, or maybe just an analyzer, both possibly.

but not in the same context, lately.

i used to consistently think on life, or lack thereof in some people, within myself, in the sitations surrounding me. i would go round-&-round with God’s word with what i supposedly deemed trusting, but still wrestling the meaning of it all, and aching to know how everything was woven together, and what the endings of circumstances in my life would be.

but from growth, i have resolved to know nothing.

i yearn for the wisdom contained neatly within His word, but i no longer pick up the letters hoping for a treasure beneathe them. I seek & find, but resolve to know nothing, for i know He knows, the one who lives within me, and that is enough. I now have the same aching i once had, but it is only to bury myself in His word & to be held captive by His grace. And because the Spirit of Truth resides here within, those answers, those words that i would once sift through to make tangible, can come freely because He knows, and His heart is beating in my chest.

therefore wisdom is mine and the questions are answered. & and i think just as deeply as i ever did, but only on this grace underserving that i am submersed within. great things are to come, and things that were left will be returned sevenfold, but i will resolve to know nothing else, yet i will thank Him now, and when it comes.

i’d rather walk with Him in the dark than alone in the light.

i haven’t been blogging much lately. this past weekend was just crazy intense, and then stepping back to overview the last few weeks, i kind of realized some things that have made the biggest difference.

having everyone visit this first service was the biggest blessing, and a much needed sense of familiarity since prior to those 3 days i was really feeling down about being away from everything i was once connected to. however, after everyone arrived, i found myself straying off every once in a while just to talk to my Father. from being away, He has become my confidente, my love, my best friend. Its true that sometimes you have to have everything taken away to find it all. I wasnt made for here, and no matter what i might have felt was missing, there is nothing that will fulfill me aside from Him. i love everyone who came (& of course also those who couldn’t) but i dont need you as it once seemed.

I miss you, but i dont need you.

I love you, but i dont need you.

You’re beautiful, but He is my source.

aaaaaand on another note, these are the lyrics that relate to the most recent painting ive been working on.

ill post a picture of it when im done :)

Walking, stumbling on these shadowfeet
toward home, a land that i’ve never seen
I am changing: less and less asleep
made of different stuff than when i began
and i have sensed it all along
fast approaching is the day 

when the world has fallen out from under me
I’ll be found in you, still standing
when the sky rolls up and mountains fall on their knees
when time and space are through
I’ll be found in youTheres distraction buzzing in my head
saying in the shadows it’s easier to stay
but I’ve heard rumours of true reality
whispers of a well-lit way

You make all things new

 

When the world has fallen out from under me
I’ll be found in you, still standing
Every fear and accusation under my feet
when time and space are through
I’ll be found in you

i am not a magician..

..a day in the life of commissioned retail sales and conversing with the public.

oh how i wish i could just let you see mental clips of some of the things i laugh at on a daily basis at my job, or as i’ve been calling it lately, my volunteer work.

you’re probably wondering why i referenced my not being a magician. i did so because of the relentless requests that are made for me to do things that are impossible. for example:

• here at camcor, i cannot, and will never be able to have your pictures developed if you did not put any film in your 35mm camera. this is what i like to call impossible.

 

• if you ask me to crop a photo so it is soley a picture of your mom, and direct me to crop out the woman on the left side in a 4×6 photo, and you get your newly edited photo back and it is not a picture of your mother, it is not my fault that you do not know your right from left, and is also impossible for me to already know what your mom looks like to be sure there was no error.

 

• if i answer the phone “Photofinishing, this is Ashley..” and you respond with “mah pictures ready yeht?” please know that we do not have specialty caller I.D. that states the name that may or may not be on the film envelope, nor does it ESP what type of pictures you had developed. It is, in fact, impossible for me to know if your “pictures ready yeht”

 

• if you walk up to the check-out desk, and just stand there staring, and you have never seen my face before, nor have i ever seen yours, and you do not respond when i ask how i can help you, please do not expect me to know what you want, or that youve been “coming here for ten years!” im going to need you to stay calm.

 

• you’re more than welcome to ask me to edit your photo so that it “looks older”. however, when the the photo is practically disinegrating in my hands as i try to scan it, i can only do so much to the photo short of setting it on fire, and putting out the flames by slamming it on the ground in order to make it look older.

 

• if you come into the store with a photo of a swan that you took with the equivalent of a 2 megapixel camera and want me to blow it up to a 16×20 photo for the 3rd time, it will eventually get to where you couldnt as much tell the difference between a melting snow-flake and the shape of that bird.