umbrellas in the snow

happy new year!

So far my year has been looking a bit like this:

• playing lots of piano; i love new sheet music! 
• starting the spring semester and liking my classes a lot, even if one of them is really awkward and the others are things that i'm normally not interested in; and then there's music appreciation which -- let me tell you -- i really appreciate amidst all the science classes
• dancing quite a bit, whether it be tango-ing it up at zumba or just being crazy elsewhere
• hearing God's voice through all the sounds of everyday life and really knowing and understanding what He wants for me
• running often
• frost-covered trees
• starting new and interesting books 
• not showing my ivories 

I'm looking forward to how the rest of 2010 will be! So far I love it!

N 

i don't want to build castles in the sand

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life -- your sleeping, eating, going-to-work and walking-around life -- and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to it's level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well formed maturity in you. 

                                                                     -- Romans 12:1, The Message 

see the way

With just one word from your mouth were the heavens made 

With just one breath of your lips the foundations were laid

With just one dream in your thoughts, you have wanted me

With just one pulse of your heart you are wooing me 

See the way he holds the stars in his hands

See the way he holds my heart

God is a lover, looking for a lover

So he fashioned me

God is a lover, looking for a lover

So he formed my heart

With just one pulse of your heart

I'm in love

unbelievable!

How is it possible that my favourite goalie and one of my favourite musicians have the same face?? How did I not realize this sooner?

               (Miikka Kiprusoff and Glen Hansard, Irish musician)

you are the potter, & I am the clay

right by my side

inspiration comes in from funny places. it peeks from behind the kitchen door, intertwines with falling snow, creeps though the pages of old-weathered books, and weaves through blades of grass. it comes in and, by using it's glittery appeal, seems to taunt me to capture a photo or draw a picture and keep it in my memory forever. it seems that oftentimes the uncommon is found among the common, or the beautiful is found among the plain. i think this is the way God views each of us; He has searched and sought for us, to see the deepest part of our hearts, and the best we can do is give everything to Him. He longs for us to just give it all. i am willing -- i will run towards the One who loves me and calls me by name!

N