There are exceptions...

So the country music station has been playing on my hall all day long. I am not a fan of country music. Someone once described it to me as "my dog just died and my truck broke down" and I just about died laughing. Needless to say, there are a few songs that I do enjoy that fall under this genre. This is one of them. I even took the time to learn it on guitar once. Enjoy!

If I Die Young - The Band Perry

Home Again...

So I'm in Santa Barbara again for the four day weekend. It's strange to come home to such an empty house. I'm so used to having my sisters around, but now they're over 900 miles away. I don't really know what I'm expecting out of this break. Hopefully I'll get to see some friends and enjoy some time with them. But today I had a different experience than I was expecting. Today I went to my Papa and Grandma's house to help my mom and aunts clean it out. That was a strange sensation in itself, to go somewhere you've been a hundred times, but suddenly it's different. The people that filled it up are now gone, and you're going through their stuff. In a way, as I went through drawers and shelves, I felt like I began to understand them a little better. They had the most random things in the most random places. Honestly sometimes I would just start laughing. But it reminded me who my grandparents were; they were quirky, war torn, immigrants, Russian, and God fearing. They endured so much and yet kept such faith in God until the very end. My grandma wrote a book about her life that she would always try and get us to read. Sadly to say, I never read it. But now that she's gone, and I no longer have the ability to ask her about her life myself, I have the greatest desire to read her story. Who knows, maybe it will help me understand more about myself. 

{Papa and Grandma's house}

{I got some old pictures of Russia}

{Here's what I ended up collecting from their house}

                       

"But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus."

-1 Thessalonians 4:13-14            

"Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent." - Victor Hugo

I love going through my iTunes and listening to music that I haven't heard in a long time. Music is something that just speaks to you when words can't. Here are some links to my recent favorites from artists I like.


Hard Times - Eastmountainsouth

1234 - Feist

Stood Up - A Fine Frenzy

Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear

I am Still Running - Jon Foreman

Monster Hospital - Metric

So Are You To Me - Peter Bradley Adams

Set the Fire to the Third Bar - Snow Patrol



Ok....and just because I'm a little obsessed with Rilo Kiley right now here's three of my favorites from them.


Jenny You're Barely Alive

Love and War

Accidental Deth

Job 1:21

"...the LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; Blessed be the name of the LORD."

    It's only the middle of February, yet I feel as if 2011 has been a really hard year so far. If I look at the past two months or so, I can see the great losses I've had. But then I stop and take a step back. I look harder and notice all of the amazing changes and opportunities that could never have happened if I had not experienced the loss. I have never experienced such intimacy with God like I have during this year so far. It seems to me that because of the loss, I have come to grip God so tightly. I've been trying to hold onto the things that He has been taking away from me. I'll admit that at first I wasn't dealing with all of the losses very well. I was so scared of letting go of these things that I was so used to and that I trusted in. It didn't really hit me until one day when a good friend told me that she saw God trying to hold me, literally wrapping His arms around me, but I was fighting Him and struggling to let me go. I wouldn't surrender. I then came across a verse in Deuteronomy 4:24, "For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God." It finally hit. So many things were becoming more important to me than Him, and He got jealous. The Lord will not relent until He has all of you. I was unwilling to surrender anything in my possession to Him, so He started taking it away, little by little. 
    I'll be honest, at first I was bitter. But then something greater came over me. God loves me so much that He will keep fighting until I give Him my complete love back. I've really been realizing that no human love will ever be perfect, but God's love is. If I know I've experienced love and trust here on this earth, then how much more does God love me? How much more can I trust Him? What it has come down to is a daily surrender of my fears and insecurities to the God of the universe, knowing that He will protect me. I've been trying this new thing where I live my life day by day. It's based off of Matthew 6:34, where it talks about not worrying about tomorrow. I'm a big worrier, so for me having the mindset of not worrying about next month or next year is difficult. But knowing that God has it in control is good. I know that whatever I do today will effect what happens tomorrow and in the future. All I can do is live today and glorify God to the best of my ability. All this said, another good friend asked me if I was bitter or angry that all of this had happened to me in such a short amount of time. I stopped for a second before I answered. I told her no, I wasn't. If anything, I am grateful. It may have taken me some time to come to this side of it, but I thank God that I have. Now I can truly say, with all of my heart, "blessed be the name of the Lord."