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milano157
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Location: Los Angeles, California, United States
Birthday: 4/25/1983
Gender: Female
Interests: I am one of the worship leaders at Faith Tabernacle Church and am involved in a young adult small group. I love music of all kinds, singing, dabbling in songwriting, meeting new people, learning, swimming, ballet, dancing at parties/weddings, learning Portugese and/or Italian, learning to play the piano and guitar, having meaningful conversations with my closest friends, watching movies, reading, eating out with friends, road trips, camping, traveling to foreign destinations, different cultures, lots of different cultural foods, being constantly aware of God's presence in my life, and much more...
Message: message me
Member Since:
6/5/2003
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| So much has transpired in my life since I last wrote a blog on this site. Well, here goes another one for you... The love of Christ both wounds and heals, it fascinates and frightens, it kills and makes alive, it draws and repulses. There can be nothing more terrible or wonderful than to be stricken with love for Christ so deeply that the whole being goes out in a pained adoration of His person, an adoration that disturbs and disconcerts while it purges and satisfies and relaxes the deep inner heart. - A. W. Tozer Five days ago I experience a divine touch from God. On Wednesday night I was praying and listening to a worship song that I had heard many times before, but until this night had never truly heard the words with my heart. The song was "Untame My Heart" by Jessie Rogers and I could remember a time in my life years ago when I had first fallen in love with Jesus...and now I began to feel as though Jesus was reaching out his hand of healing to touch my heart and remove all of my grief and all of the emotions it brought with it. I had prayed for two and a half years for the day that I could think about my memories of my dad and be happy instead of sorrowful. That day has finally come! That night I felt the pain in my chest melt away as I opened my heart to fully trust God again. He healed me completely and now I feel more like my old peaceful, joyful, and loving self again. I wondered to myself a few days ago if this new state of being would slowly diminish and cause me to revert back to my "grieving" self, but the moment I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had been completely and utterly healed by God was when He brought me to my friend's father's deathbed last night and gave me the peace and serenity to be in that place. As the fifteen or so of us gathered around his hospital bed and watched his heartrate slowly drop down to zero and his immediate family let out sobs mixed with their last words to him, I found myself reliving the moment I saw my father already gone to be with the Lord. However, this time it was different...as I cried quietly in empathy I also felt a peace come over me. I thank God that the "dark night" of my soul has finally passed and I am now excitedly running toward the breaking of dawn in my soul. There was nothing any person could say or do to me that could cause me to come out of this grieving experience any sooner. No, it had to be Jesus. Only he could make me whole again. I am immensely grateful that I am now able to truly look to my future without fear, but with optimistic expectancy. 1 John 4:18 and my heartsong of the moment..."Beautiful Redemption" by Joy Williams. Listen to it if you can. :) | | |
| "Are you leaning into the pain?" He asked me pointedly. His words pierced my heart like a serrated knife. I went out to coffee with one of my mentor/professors a week ago and something happened to me after I left my meeting with him. "What did he mean by 'lean into the pain'?", I kept asking myself as my heart began to feel as though someone was squeezing it and a 10 lb. bowling ball was on my chest. Apparently, he had triggered something in me that I had been shoving deep down, distracting my mind from, without wanting to face it for the fear of feeling the pain that is the most magnified I have ever had to experience in my 22 years of existence. Yes, he provoked me to open that door, the door behind which lay my grief and sorrow, waiting to be released. But still, I was perplexed by what he had fully meant. A newly found friend of mine - who's sister died on the same night my father died and who's late sister's birthday was one day before my father's (I know it's like from out of the twilight zone!) - e-mailed our professor and asked him what he meant by leaning into the pain, which he had told her to do too. Here is his response: To lean into the pain means to accept the loss as reality, to let it
hurt without denial, to face it squarely - but not to allow it to become
the full reality, nor allow it to define the rest of reality. Think of
it as leaning into a cold winter wind - you bundle up, you lean into
it, you move forward into the face and force of the wind, you let it hurt
- all without allowing the hurt to define you. You are a person who
hurts. You are not the hurt itself. You fully embrace the wound and offer
it up to God as shared suffering - He is trusting you to carry this,
with His help. To lean into the pain also means to let it not hurt when
it doesn't. To look for and accept equally moments of release, of
laughter, of joy, of beauty. You cry when that is what the moment calls for -
and laugh when that is what is called for.
It is especially important in mourning that you do this, otherwise the
person you are trying to mourn disappears and is replaced with a horror
- a charicature of sadness - which is exactly the opposite of what you
are seeking to accomplish. To put it brutally, their life has ended,
but yours has not - to let your life revolve around the ending of theirs
is to lose your own life - a double tragedy. So, we press through the
darkness - we lean into the pain and keep moving even though it hurts
like hell. We weep in the night and look forward - press toward - the joy
that comes in the morning. And so, here I go...pressing on toward a new day...I day when the world around me will change, seem different, maybe it will be the world I used to know when I was a little girl, so innocent and pure. Until then, all I can do is just allow the Lord to carry me. | | |
| Today I stumbled upon this Fwd. e-mail my dad had printed out for his keeping. Thought someone might have a good laugh and appreciate it. :)
To anyone with kids of any age, here's some advice. Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world. Love him or hate him, he sure hit the nail on the head with this!
Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!
Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till y ou get a boss.
Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping - they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.
Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
I love it! All kids young and old should read this. | | |
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